The Comic History of Rome

by Gilbert Abbott À Beckett

On his return to Rome, after an absence of two years, he appeared in the courts of law with distinguished success, and had the next best business to those popular leaders, Cotta and Hortensius. The three learned brethren were all of them successful candidates for the offices of Consul and Quæstor, in the last of which capacity Cicero was sent to Sicily. There his chief employment was to keep up a good supply of wheat for the capital, and, by the production of large crops of corn, he cultivated his growing popularity. During his Quæstorship he visited Syracuse, and discovered the tomb of Archimedes, which was thoroughly overgrown with briers, presenting an apt monument to one who had trodden, during life, the thorny paths of science. Cicero left the island with the pleasing idea that all Rome had been resounding with the praises of his administration; but, on landing at Puteoli, he was not a little disgusted at meeting a friend who asked him "where he had been, and what was the latest news in the city?" Cicero, at once perceiving that out of sight and out of mind were the same thing, determined to keep himself henceforth in the public eye to prevent its being shut to his merits.

It was not long after this period of his history that he came into collision with the conspirator, Catiline, whom he denounced before the assembled Senate, in an oration which has been preserved to this day, by the pungency of its sarcastic reasoning. Every sentence smacked of Attic salt, and every word was so much pepper to the guilty Catiline. The latter attempted a reply; but the senators were seized simultaneously with one of those coughs which spread like an influenza over an unwilling audience. The mask was now fairly torn off; and Catiline stood revealed in all his naturally atrocious features. He fled from Rome; but Cicero continued to show that though his hostility was all talk, it was of the most effective kind; for he sent forth speech after speech, and every sentence involved a sentence of "guilty" against Catiline. All those conspirators who had remained in Rome were seized, and strangled by the executioner, who, when they cried for pity, abruptly choked their utterance.

Cicero denouncing Catiline.

The conspiracy, though in great part stifled, was not wholly extinguished; for Catiline did his utmost to keep it alive, by assembling an army in Etruria. There he was to have been opposed by the Consul, C. Antonius; but that individual pleaded illness, and declared that a severe headache would preclude him from encountering the din of war, while a hoarseness, which he said had seized him by the throat, incapacitated him, as he alleged, for giving the word of command on the field of battle. His troops were, however, so determined on action, that they no sooner heard of their general being an invalid, than they insisted that his appointment was invalidated, and they proceeded to business under the command of his legate, M. Petreius. A fierce battle ensued, at Pistoria, and both sides fought like lions; though, to say he fought like a tiger would have been more appropriate to one of the race of Cati-line. Nobody fled, if the accounts are to be believed; but 3000 conspirators fell with their swords in their hands, causing a perfect mountain of slain; and, to crown the whole, their leader is alleged to have formed the summit of this cadaverous pyramid. Those of the conspirators who were not killed by the sword were suffocated under the heaps of their companions; and the conspiracy itself was effectually smothered.

Cicero having saved his country, went out of office,—a course exactly opposite to that followed by modern statesmen, who sometimes quit the service of their country when they have placed it in danger. He received the thanks of the Senate; was hailed as Pater Patriæ, the father of his country, and was invested with a civic crown,—a head-dress of oak-leaves; the material being a fitting type of that popularity which falls away and is scattered to the winds with such fatal facility.

The fickleness of public favour was speedily shown in the case of Cicero; for it was proposed that Pompey should be recalled from Asia, to restore the Constitution; it being one of the inconveniences of a republic, that though the constitution is said to be always the best in the world, it is always in need of a succession of restoratives. Pompey landed at Brundusium, where he disbanded all his army, in order to show his attachment to republican simplicity,—a term which is often misapplied; for the simplicity of republicans consists chiefly in their aptitude for being imposed upon.

Though Pompey arrived at Rome without his soldiers, he took care to show his grateful sense of services to come, by causing every man of them to receive a sum equal to about forty-five pounds sterling from the public treasury. He devoted a portion of his gains to building a temple, ostensibly to Minerva, but, in reality, dedicated to himself; for it was inscribed with an account of his victories.

Having sought in vain the support of the Senate, he abandoned the aristocratic party, and threw himself upon the people, who received him with open arms; but the arms that are open to admit a candidate for popularity are often equally open to let him fall from his position.

As Pompey is destined to lose his life before the end of the chapter, it may be as well to give some account of his birth, that the reader may be able to estimate the loss at its true value.