IV.
Pharsalia was not the end of Cicero’s political career, as he had thought. Events were to lead him back once more to power and replace him at the head of the republic. His retired life, his silence during the early days of Caesar’s dictatorship, far from injuring his reputation, on the contrary enhanced it. Statesmen do not lose so much as they think by remaining for a time outside of affairs. Retirement, supported with dignity, increases their importance. That they are no longer in power suffices for people to find some inclination to regret them. There are fewer reasons to be severe towards them when their place is not coveted, and as people no longer suffer from their faults the memory of them is easily lost, and their good qualities only are remembered. This is what happened to Cicero. His disgrace disarmed all the enemies that his power had made him, and his popularity was never so great as when he kept himself voluntarily from the public eye. A little later, when he thought he ought to draw nearer to Caesar, he conducted himself with so much tact, he adjusted so cleverly submission and independence, he knew so well how to preserve an appearance of opposition even in his eulogies and flatteries, that public opinion did not cease to favour him. Besides, the most illustrious defenders of the vanquished cause, Pompey, Cato, Scipio, Bibulus, were dead. Of all those who had occupied with honour the highest posts under the old government, he alone remained; consequently it was usual to regard him as the last representative of the republic. We know that on the Ides of March, Brutus and his friends, after having struck down Caesar, while brandishing their bloody swords, called for Cicero. They seemed to recognize him as the head of their party, and to give him the credit of the bloodshed that they had just committed.
It was, then, circumstances rather than his own will that caused him to play so great a part in the events which followed the death of Caesar.
I shall narrate later[[60]] how he was led to engage in that struggle with Antony, in which he was to perish. I shall show that it was not of himself and voluntarily that he began it. He had quitted Rome and did not wish to return. He thought that the time for resistance under legal forms had passed, that it was necessary to oppose to Antony’s veterans good soldiers rather than good reasons, and he was not wrong. Convinced that his part was finished, and that that of the men of war was about to begin, he set out for Greece, when a gale cast him on the coast of Rhegium. Thence he repaired to the port of Velia, where he found Brutus, who was also preparing to leave Italy, and it was he who, always scrupulous, always the enemy of violence, asked him to make once again an effort to rouse the people, and once more to attempt the struggle on the basis of law. Cicero yielded to the request of his friend, and although he had little hope of success, he hastened to return to Rome there to offer this last battle. This was the second time that he came, like Amphiaraüs, “to throw himself alive into the gulf.”
Brutus did him a good service that day. The desperate enterprise in which he engaged him, almost in spite of himself, could not be useful to the republic, but was serviceable to Cicero’s glory. This was perhaps the grandest moment in his political life. In the first place, we have the pleasure and almost the surprise of finding him firm and decided. He seems to have freed himself from all that hesitation that usually troubled his conduct; and besides, it was scarcely possible to hesitate then, for the question had never been so clearly stated. At each new development of events, the parties stood out more clearly. For the first time, the ambition of Caesar, of which everybody knew, by rallying round the Roman aristocracy all those who wished, like it, to preserve the ancient institutions, had enlarged the limits of this party and modified its programme. By taking into itself new elements it changed in name as in character; it became the party of order, the party of honest men, of the “optimates.” It is thus that Cicero loves to name it. The meaning of this name was at first rather vague, after Pharsalia it became more precise. As at this moment there was no longer any doubt of the intentions of the conqueror, as he was seen to openly substitute his authority for that of the senate and people, the party that resisted him took the name proper to it, and which nobody could any longer refuse it; it became the republican party. The struggle was fairly begun between the republic and despotism. And, that doubt might be still less possible, despotism after Caesar’s death showed itself to the Romans under its least disguised and, so to say, most brutal form. A soldier without political genius, without distinction of manners, without greatness of soul, at once coarse, debauched and cruel, asserted by force his right to the inheritance of the great dictator. He did not take the trouble to hide his designs, and neither Cicero nor anybody else could be deceived any longer. It must have been a great relief to that mind usually so undecided and uncertain to see the truth so clearly, to be no longer perplexed by shadows, to have such a complete confidence in the justice of his cause, and after so much doubt and obscurity at last to fight in clear daylight. We feel that his mind is at ease! how much freer and more lively he is! what ardour there is in this old man, and what eagerness for the fight! None of the young men about him show so much decision as he, and he himself is assuredly younger than when he strove against Catiline or Clodius. Not only does he begin the struggle resolutely, but, what is more unusual with him, he pursues it to the end without giving way. By a strange contrast, the most dangerous enterprise that he had ever undertaken, and which was to cost him his life, was precisely that in which he best resisted his usual fits of discouragement and weakness.
Immediately on his return to Rome, while he was still inspired by the ardour that he had acquired at Velia from his conversations with Brutus, he went to the senate and ventured to speak there. The first Philippic, compared with the others, appears timid and colourless; what courage, however, did it not need to pronounce it in that unconcerned city, before those frightened senators, at a few paces from the furious and threatening Antony, who by his spies heard all that was said against him! Cicero ended then as he had begun. Twice, at an interval of thirty-five years, he raised his voice alone, in the midst of a general silence, against a dreaded power which would not tolerate resistance. Courage, like fear, is contagious. The courage that Cicero showed in his speech awakened that of others. This freedom of speech surprised at first, then shamed those who kept silence. Cicero took advantage of this first revival, which was still rather hesitating, to assemble a few persons round him and find some defenders of the almost forgotten republic. Here was the difficulty. There were scarcely any republicans left, and the most determined had gone to join Brutus in Greece. All that could be done was to appeal to the moderates of all parties, to all those whom Antony’s excesses had shocked. Cicero adjured them to forget their old enmities and to reunite. “Now,” said he, “there is only one vessel for all honest men.”[[61]] Here we recognize his usual policy. It is again a coalition that he tries to form as at the time of his consulship. This part is clearly that for which he has most taste and which suits him best. By the pliability of his character and his principles he was fitter than anybody to reconcile opinions, and the habit he had of approaching all parties made him not a stranger to any, and he had friends everywhere. Thus his undertaking appeared at first to succeed very well. Several of Caesar’s generals readily listened to him, those especially who thought that, in the main, they lost less by remaining citizens of a free state, than by becoming subjects of Antony; and ambitious subalterns, like Hirtius and Pansa, who, after the master’s death, did not feel themselves strong enough to aim at the first place, and who would not be contented with the second. Unfortunately it was still but a collection of chiefs without soldiers, and never had there been more need of soldiers than at that moment. Antony was at Brundusium, where he was waiting for the legions he had sent for to Macedonia. Enraged by the unexpected resistance that he had met with, he proclaimed that he would avenge himself by pillage and slaughter, and he was known to be the man to do so. Every one thought that already he saw his house sacked, his estate parcelled out, his family proscribed. Fear reigned everywhere, men trembled, hid themselves and fled. The most courageous sought on all sides for some one who might be called upon to defend the republic. No aid was to be hoped for but from Decimus Brutus, who occupied Cisalpine Gaul with some legions, or from Sextus Pompey, who was reorganizing his troops in Sicily, but this aid was distant and doubtful, and ruin was near and sure. In the midst of this general panic, the nephew of Caesar, the young Octavius, whom the jealousy of Antony, and the distrust of the republicans had up till then kept away, and who impatiently awaited the opportunity of making himself known, thought that this opportunity had come. He went through the environs of Rome calling to arms his uncle’s veterans who were settled there. His name, his liberality, the promises he lavished soon brought him soldiers. At Calatia, at Casilinum, he found three thousand in a few days. Then he addressed the leaders of the senate, offered them the support of his veterans, demanding for sole recompense that they would acknowledge him in the efforts he was about to make to save them. In such distress there was no means of refusing this help without which they would perish, and Cicero himself, who had at first shown some distrust, let himself be seduced at last by this young man who consulted him, flattered him, and called him father. When, thanks to him, they had been saved, when they saw Antony, abandoned by some of his legions, obliged to leave Rome where Octavius held him in check, the gratitude of the senate was as lavish as their fear had been great. The liberator was loaded with dignities and honours. Cicero, in his eulogies, raised him much above his uncle; he called him a divine young man raised up by heaven for the defence of his country: he stood surety for his patriotism and fidelity; imprudent words for which Brutus reproached him severely, and which the event was not long in falsifying!
The events that followed are too well known for me to have need of repeating them. Never had Cicero played a greater political part than at this moment; never had he better deserved that name of statesman that his enemies denied him. For six months he was the soul of the republican party, which was re-constituted at his call. “It was I, said he proudly, who gave the signal for this awakening,”[[62]] and he was right in saying so. His voice seemed to restore some patriotism and some energy to this unconcerned people. He made them once more applaud those grand names of country and liberty that the Forum would soon hear no more. From Rome, the ardour gained the neighbouring townships, and gradually all Italy was roused. This, however, was not enough for him, he went still further to raise up enemies for Antony and defenders for the republic. He wrote to the proconsuls of the provinces and to the generals of the armies. From one end of the world to the other he chid the lukewarm, flattered the ambitious, and congratulated the energetic. He it was who incited Brutus, always undecided, to seize Greece. He applauded the bold stroke of Cassius, which made him master of Asia; he urged Cornificius to drive Antony’s soldiers from Africa; he encouraged Decimus Brutus to resist in Modena. The promises of support that he invited with so much earnestness arrived from all sides. Even enemies and traitors dared not openly refuse him their co-operation. Lepidus and Plancus made emphatic protestations of fidelity. Pollio wrote to him in a solemn tone “that he swears to be the enemy of all tyrants.”[[63]] On all sides his friendship is demanded, his support solicited, men put themselves under his protection. His Philippics, which, happily, he had not time to revise, are scattered through the whole world, very nearly as he spoke them, and with the vivacity of the first sketch, preserve traces of the interruptions and applause of the people. These passionate harangues carry everywhere the passion of these grand popular scenes. They are read in the provinces, they are devoured in the armies, and from the most distant countries evidence of the admiration they excite arrives to Cicero! “Your robe is even more fortunate than our arms,” says a victorious general to him, and adds, “In you the consular has conquered the consul.”[[64]] “My soldiers are yours,” wrote another to him.[[65]] The credit of all the good fortune of the republic was attributed to him. It was he who was congratulated and thanked for all the successes that were obtained. On the evening that the victory of Modena was known at Rome, the whole people went to his house to seek him, conducted him in triumph to the Capitol, and wished to hear from his own mouth an account of the battle. “This day,” he wrote to Brutus, “has repaid me for all my trouble.”[[66]]
This was the last triumph of Cicero and the republic. Success is sometimes more fatal to coalitions than reverses. When the common enemy, hatred of whom has united them, has been conquered, private dissensions break out. Octavius wished to weaken Antony in order to obtain from him what he wanted; he did not wish to destroy him. When he saw him flying towards the Alps, he made overtures to him, and both together marched on Rome. From that time nothing remained for Cicero but “to imitate brave gladiators, and seek like them to die honourably.”[[67]] His death was courageous, whatever Pollio, who, having betrayed him, had an interest in calumniating him, may have asserted. I would rather believe the testimony of Livy, who was not one of his friends, and who lived at the court of Augustus: “Of all his misfortunes,” says he, “death is the only one that he bore like a man.”[[68]] This, it must be confessed, was something. He might have fled, and at one moment he tried to do so. He wished to set out for Greece, where he would have found Brutus; but after some days’ sailing with contrary winds, suffering from the sea, tormented above all by regrets and sadness, he lost heart for life, and was landed at Gaeta, and went back to his house at Formiae to die there. He had often thanked the gale that took him back to Velia, the first time that he wished to flee to Greece. This it was that gave him the opportunity to deliver his Philippics. The storm which drove him ashore at Gaeta has not been less serviceable to his fame. His death seems to me to redeem the weaknesses of his life. It is much for a man like him, who did not boast of being a Cato, to have been so firm at this terrible moment; the more timid he was by temperament the more I am touched at finding him so resolute in dying. Thus, when, in studying his history, I am tempted to reproach him with his irresolution and weakness, I think of his end, I see him as Plutarch has so well depicted him, “his beard and hair dirty, his countenance worn, taking his chin in his left hand as his manner was, and looking steadily at his murderers,”[[69]] and I no longer dare to be severe. Notwithstanding his defects he was an honest man, “who loved his country well,” as Augustus himself said on a day of sincerity and remorse. If he was sometimes too hesitating and feeble, he always ended by defending what he regarded as the cause of justice and right, and when that cause had been for ever conquered, he rendered it the last service it could claim from its defenders, he honoured it by his death.