The Comic History of Rome

by Gilbert Abbott À Beckett

Republic without republicans may be an exceptional state of things; but ancient as well as modern history furnishes proof that the existence of a republic is not incompatible with the absence of anything for which such a form of government is usually desired. It is now an ascertained fact, that the people have no greater enemies to liberty than themselves; and that universal suffrage is the surest instrument to effect the objects of a despot. Equality, in a republican sense, seems to imply a condition in which all are equally debased; and a nation appears to be never so thoroughly slavish as when it is free to choose its own ruler.

The Romans had for some time been in the habit of placing themselves in the hands of a succession of tyrants and knaves, who obtained popularity by the display of the worst attributes. One would win the public voice by his boldness as a thief; another would render himself the elect of the people by his sanguinary successes as a wholesale murderer. It is unfortunate for what is termed the liberal cause, that the vulgarest qualities often attract the largest share of applause; and that those who are entrusted most freely with the confidence of the people are almost always the most unscrupulous in betraying it.

Rome had now sunk to the lowest condition; and society, under the republic, had become so dissolute, that its dissolution might be looked for as a natural consequence. Among the nobles of the period was a certain mass of cruelty and corruption, under the name of Sergius Catiline. He boasted of a long line in connection with his family tree; but a much shorter line, in connection with any ordinary tree, would have been more appropriate to his merits. Having spent all his own money, he spent as much as he could of other people's, by running into debt as deeply as possible. In order to meet some of his old engagements sufficiently to enable him to contract new, he murdered his brother, with a few more of his family connections, and, in fact, justified the opinion formed of him on account of his antecedents, by killing his relatives. Having obtained a Proprætorship in Africa, he followed up his career of private swindling, by the wholesale practice of public robbery. He used his office for the purposes of extortion; and the only proof he gave of exactness was in the exactions to which he submitted all who were under his authority.

On his return to Rome he hoped to have a wider scope for his dishonesty in the office of Consul, to which he aspired; and he formed a party of ruined spendthrifts, whose only chance of supporting themselves was by supporting him as a candidate for power. These desperadoes had nothing to lose, and everything to gain,—all that they had to lose being their own, and all that they had to gain being the property of others. Catiline had attracted the sympathies of these adventurers by promising to divide among them all the official salaries; and he had rallied round him a considerable number of adherents by offering to the "million" an opportunity of helping themselves to that which did not belong to them. He professed to be able to relieve all classes at once, by relieving the poor of their burdens, and the rich of their property. The dregs of the populace were easily stirred up, and even some of the nominal nobles were base enough to join in a conspiracy against their own order. The object of the conspiracy was to murder the whole of the senate by a massacre en masse; but the scheme was frustrated by that treachery which is almost sure to be found among a set of men who are banded together for a bad purpose. One Curius was induced to gratify the curiosity of a woman, named Fulvia, with whom he was in love; and the secret having reached female ears, flew to the tip of a female tongue, when the secret oozed out as naturally as water finding its level.

Cicero, who had been the competitor of Catiline for the Consulship, soon became aware of the facts; and the former resolved to try and talk the conspiracy down, by making it the subject of several bursts of indignant eloquence.

On the entrance of so illustrious a person as Cicero on the historical scene, it is fit that we should act the part of cicerone, for the purpose of introducing him. This celebrated character was born on the 3rd of January, in the year of the City 647, at Arpinum, where his father had a seat before the future orator was capable of standing. His grandfather was a man of some consideration, pecuniary as well as moral; for he was possessed of some property, and looked up to as an authority in questions of local politics. He had two sons, the eldest of whom, Marcus, was the father of the celebrated Marcus Tullius, from whom the family has derived that indelible mark which time is not likely to obliterate. After receiving the rudiments of his education at his native place, he was sent to Rome, where he studied Greek; and the flame of oratory was first kindled in his mind by contact with the Greek poetic fire. As soon as he had assumed the toga, he became wrapped up in manly pursuits, and was placed under the care of Mucius Scævola, the augur, who augured extremely well of his pupil. The young Cicero soon evinced a turn for poetry, which caused his head to be constantly running upon poetical feet; and he came out rather strong in numbers at a very early period. At the appointed age he joined the army; for the laws of his country required that on his entrance into life he should incur the risk of being sent out of it. He was present in the Marsic War, at the taking of the Samnite camp; but being in-tent on another part of the field, he saw little of the battle. At the end of the war he devoted himself to literary pursuits, and wrote his work De Inventione, which, in accordance with the maxim that necessity is the mother of invention, no doubt derived its existence from the author's necessities.

Fulvia.

He next studied the art of reasoning, under Diodorus, who came to live under Cicero's roof, so that the latter probably found, or rather provided, lodging, while the Stoic "stood" the logic, which was undoubtedly a reasonable consideration for the accommodation afforded him. In his twenty-sixth year Cicero came out regularly as a professed orator; and the public voice soon accorded to his own a reputation of the highest character.

After talking incessantly for nearly two years, he found it necessary to take breath in retirement; and proceeded to Athens and to Rhodes, where he cultivated a more subdued style of oratory, getting rid of a disagreeable redundancy of action, and avoiding that motion, of course, of the arms, which is the common defect of the youthful advocate.