"In all debates, Conscript Fathers, when the matter under deliberation is in its nature doubtful, it is the duty of every senator to bring to the question a mind free from animosity and friendship, from anger and compassion. When those emotions prevail, the understanding is clouded, and truth is scarcely perceived. To be passionate and just at the same time is not in the power of man. Reason, when unbiased, and left to act with freedom, answers all our purposes; when passion gains the ascendant, reason is fatigued, and judgment lends no assistance.
"In the case now before us, let it be our wisdom, Conscript Fathers, not to suffer the crimes of Lentulus and his accomplices to hurry you beyond the bounds of moderation. Indignation may operate on your minds, but a due sense of your own dignity, I trust, will preponderate. My opinion is this; if you know of any pains and penalties adequate to the guilt of the conspirators, pronounce your judgment; I have no objection. If you think death a sufficient punishment, I concur with Silanus; but if the guilt of the prisoners exceeds all forms of vindictive justice, we should rest contented with the laws known to the constitution.
"The senators who have gone before me have exhausted the colors of rhetoric, and in a pathetic style have painted forth the miseries of their country. They have displayed the horrors of war, and the wretched condition of the vanquished; the young of both sexes suffering violation; children torn from the mother's arms; virtuous matrons exposed to the brutal passions of the conqueror; the houses of citizens, and the temples of the gods, pillaged without distinction; the city made a theater of blood and horror; in a word, desolation and massacre in every quarter.
"But why, immortal gods! why all that waste of eloquence? Was it to inflame our passions? to kindle indignation? to excite a detestation of rebellion? If the guilt of these men is not of itself sufficient to fire us with resentment, is it in power of words to do it? I answer, No; resentment is implanted in our hearts by the hand of nature; every man is sensible of injury and oppression; many are apt to feel too intensely. But we know, Conscript Fathers, that resentment does not operate alike in all the ranks of life: he who dwells in obscurity may commit an act of violence, but the consequence is confined to a small circle. The fame of the offender, like his fortune, makes no noise in the world. It is otherwise with those who figure in exalted stations; the eyes of mankind are upon them; and the wrong they do is considered an abuse of power. Moderation is the virtue of superior rank. In that preëminence, no apology is allowed for the injustice that proceeds from partiality, from anger, aversion, or animosity. The injury committed in the lower classes of life is called the impulse of sudden passion; in the higher stations, it takes the name of pride and cruelty....
"With regard to capital punishment, it is a truth well known that to the man who lives in distress and anguish of heart, death is not an evil; it is a release from pain and misery; it puts an end to the calamities of life; and after the dissolution of the body, all is peace; neither care nor joy can then intrude....
"It may be said, who will object to a decree against the enemies of their country? The answer is obvious; time may engender discontent; a future day may condemn the proceeding; unforeseen events and even chance, that with wild caprice perplexes human affairs, may give us reason to repent. The punishment of traitors, however severe, cannot be more than their flagitious deeds deserve; but it behooves us, Conscript Fathers, to weigh well the consequences before we proceed to judgment. Acts of state, that sprung from policy, and were perhaps expedient on the spur of the occasion, have grown into precedents often found to be of evil tendency. The administration may fall into the hands of ignorance and incapacity; and in that case, the measure, which at first was just and proper, becomes by misapplication to other men and other times the rule of bad policy and injustice.
"It must be admitted that, in times like the present, when Marcus Tullius Cicero conducts the administration, scenes of that tragic nature are not to be apprehended. But in a large populous city, when the minds of men are ever in agitation, a variety of jarring opinions must prevail. At a future day and under another consul, who may have an army at his back, falsehood may appear in the garb of truth, and gain universal credit. In such a juncture, should the consul, encouraged by our example, and armed with the power by the decree of the Senate, think proper to unsheath the sword, who shall stop him in his career? who will be able to appease his vengeance?...
"But you will say, What is the scope of this long argument? Shall the conspirators be discharged, and suffered to strengthen Catiline's army? Far from it; my advice is this; let their estate and effects be confiscated; detain their persons in separate prisons, and for that purpose choose the strongest of the municipal towns; declare, by a positive law, that no motion in their favor shall be brought forward in the Senate, and that no appeal shall be made to the people. Add to your decree, that whoever shall presume to espouse the cause of the guilty shall be deemed an enemy to the Commonwealth."
The year following the conspiracy of Catiline Cæsar secured the office of prætor. By this time Cæsar had secured such a hold upon the popular mind as to excite both the fear and hatred of the senatorial party. This fear and hatred were manifested during Cæsar's year of office as prætor by the Senate passing a decree depriving Cæsar and one of the tribunes (Cæcilius Metellus Cepos) of their offices. Fear of popular violence, however, soon induced the Senate to repeal this decree.
In December, 62 B.C., there occurred at Rome one of the best remembered of historical scandals; but one whose exact nature we are unable to determine on account of lack of knowledge of the character of the mysteries which were violated.
The historian Merivale thus describes this scandal:
"P. Clodius, the corrupt accuser of Catiline, a turbulent intriguer like so many members of his house, had ingratiated himself with the people by his popular manners. This beardless youth, already alike notorious for his debts and gallantries, had introduced himself into Cæsar's house in female attire during the celebration of the rites of the Bona Dea, which should have been studiously guarded from male intrusion. A servant maid discovered him and uttered a cry of alarm; the mysteries were hastily veiled, and the intruder expelled; but the assembled matrons rushing hastily home revealed each to her husband the scandal and the sin. The nobles affected grave alarm; the pontiffs were summoned and consulted, and the people duly informed of the insult offered to the deity. As chief of the sacred college, Cæsar could not refrain from lending himself to the general clamour; but his position was delicate. On the one hand, the presumed delinquent was an instrument of his own policy, while on the other his own honour and that of his wife Pompeia were compromised by the offence. He disappointed everybody. He divorced his wife, not because she was guilty, but because 'the wife of Cæsar,' as he said, 'should be above suspicion.' But he refused to countenance the measures which the consuls took, by direction of the senate, for the conviction of the reputed culprit; and it may be suspected that the money with which Clodius bribed his judges was a loan negotiated with Crassus by Cæsar himself. Cicero for his part had been lukewarm in an affair, the barefaced hypocrisy of which he was perhaps too honourable to countenance; but, urged by his wife Terentia, a violent woman who meddled much in his affairs, and was jealous at the moment of a sister of the culprit, he clearly disproved his allegation of absence from the city, and thus embroiled himself, to no purpose, with an able and unscrupulous enemy. The senate believed their cause gained; the proofs indeed were decisive, and they had assigned at their own request a military guard to the judges to protect them from the anticipated violence of a Clodian mob; but to their consternation, on opening the urns, the votes for an acquittal were found to be thirty-one opposed to twenty-five. 'You only demanded a guard,' then exclaimed Catulus with bitter irony, 'to secure the money you were to receive.' Cicero attributed to Crassus the scandal of this perversion of justice; the nobles sneered at the corruption of the knights, and the gulf which separated the two orders yawned more widely than ever."
In 60 B.C. Cæsar was given the command of the province of Farther Spain; and it was here that his great military abilities were for the first time displayed to the world. It had only been by the means of a large loan (about one million dollars) received from Crassus that Cæsar was enabled to pay off his most pressing creditors, and to make preparations for his journey to Spain; into such a financial state had Cæsar been reduced by his personal extravagances, his political campaign expenses, and his lavish expenditures to win the popular favor.
Upon Cæsar's return from Rome the young general found Pompey still further alienated from the senatorial party. A comparison of the character of these two Roman leaders, now for a while about to become close associates and later (mainly through the limitless ambition and unprincipled conduct of Cæsar) rivals in a bitter contest for supremacy, is perhaps proper at this time. The briefest comparison which can be made perhaps consists in saying that Pompey represented the best type of an aristocrat—Cæsar the worst type of the hypocritical popular demagogue. Neither man consistently stood for those things which he was supposed to represent at the outset of his career; neither man, it is probable, ever really believed in them. The training and antecedents of Pompey were of the extreme oligarchical character; his natural leanings were toward humanity and justice. Cæsar, shouting his championship of the people from the housetops, was in practice regardless of everything but his own selfish ambitions. The populace which he flattered, deceived, and betrayed were to him merely the tools by which his success was to be won and occupied about the same position in his philosophy of life as the dice with which he won large sums of money in gambling.
Pompey was imbued with a strong sense of the sanctity of the law; Cæsar never regarded any law which stood between him and his goal. Pompey dismissed his victorious troops before he approached Rome on his return from his Eastern campaigns; Cæsar did not hesitate to lead his legions across the Rubicon. Neither possessed any great degree of constructive political ability. Pompey's life was one devoted to an attempt to preserve, Cæsar's was devoted to an attempt to destroy. Cæsar's ability was far greater than that of Pompey in every field of human activity.
Cæsar's Spanish campaign had been so short in duration that he was enabled to return to Rome in time to run for the consulship in 60 B.C. In order to begin his canvass without delay, Cæsar asked leave to enter the city before receiving his triumph. This permission being refused, mainly through the influence of Cato and Cicero, Cæsar gave up his claim to a triumph and, entering Rome immediately, began his political campaign. Being again hard up for money, Cæsar made an agreement with a very wealthy candidate for consul, named L. Lucceius, by the terms of which Lucceius was to provide the campaign funds for both candidates, while Cæsar was to furnish the reputation and popularity. This combination resulted better for Cæsar than for Lucceius; Cæsar received his share of the benefit from the campaign fund, but the benefit of his popularity did not seem to extend to his running mate. The election resulted in the choice of Cæsar and M. Calpurnius Bibulus, the candidate of the Cato-Cicero faction.
At this time Cæsar persuaded Pompey and Crassus to form the first triumvirate with him. This triumvirate was nothing more nor less than a Roman political machine, by means of which these three men expected to be able to make themselves the political bosses of the city. To cement this political union, Pompey married Julia, the daughter of Cæsar.