History of Roman Literature from its Earliest Period to the Augustan Age. Vol. II

by John Colin Dunlop

Pro Fonteio. It is much to be regretted, that the oration for Fonteius, the next which Cicero delivered, has descended to us incomplete. It was the defence of an unpopular governor, accused of oppression by the province intrusted to his administration; and, as such, would have formed an interesting contrast to the accusation of Verres.

Pro Cæcina. This was a mere question of civil right, turning on the effect of a Prætorian edict.

Pro Lege Manilia. Hitherto Cicero had only addressed the judges in the Forum in civil suits or criminal prosecutions. The oration for the Manilian law, which is accounted one of the most splendid of his productions, was the first in which he spoke to the whole people from the rostrum. It was pronounced in favour of a law proposed by Manilius, a tribune of the people, for constituting Pompey sole general, with extraordinary powers, in the war against Mithridates and Tigranes, in which Lucullus at that time commanded. The chiefs of the Senate regarded this law as a dangerous precedent in the republic; and all the authority of Catulus, and eloquence of Hortensius, were directed against it. It has been conjectured, that in supporting pretensions which endangered the public liberty, Cicero was guided merely by interest, since an opposition to Pompey might have prevented his own election to the consulship, which was now the great object of his ambition. His life, however, and writings, will warrant us in ascribing to him a different, though perhaps less obvious motive. With the love of virtue and the republic, which glowed so intensely in the breast of this illustrious Roman, that less noble passion, the immoderate desire of popular fame, was unfortunately mingled. “Fame,” says a modern historian, “was the prize at which he aimed; his weakness of bodily constitution sought it through the most strenuous labours—his natural timidity of mind pursued it through the greatest dangers. Pompey, who had fortunately attained it, he contemplated as the happiest of men, and was led, from this illusion of fancy, not only to speak of him, but really to think of him,” (till he became unfortunate,) “with a fondness of respect bordering on enthusiasm. The glare of glory that surrounded Pompey, concealed from Cicero his many and great imperfections, and seduced an honest citizen, and finest genius in Rome, a man of unparalleled industry, and that generally applied to the noblest purposes, into the prostitution of his abilities and virtues, for exalting an ambitious chief, and investing him with such exorbitant and unconstitutional powers, as virtually subverted the commonwealth[320].”

In defending this pernicious measure, Cicero divided his discourse into two parts—showing, first, that the importance and imminent dangers of the contest in which the state was engaged, required the unusual remedy proposed—and, secondly, that Pompey was the fittest person to be intrusted with the conduct [pg 163]of the war. This leads to a splendid panegyric on that renowned commander, in which, while he does justice to the merits of his predecessor, Lucullus, he enlarges on the military skill, valour, authority, and good fortune of this present idol of his luxuriant imagination, with all the force and beauty which language can afford. He fills the imagination with the immensity of the object, kindles in the breast an ardour of affection and gratitude, and, by an accumulation of circumstances and proofs, so aggrandizes his hero, that he exalts him to something more than mortal in the minds of his auditory; while, at the same time, every word inspires the most perfect veneration for his character, and the most unbounded confidence in his integrity and judgment. The whole world is exhibited as an inadequate theatre for the actions of such a superior genius; while all the nations, and potentates of the earth, are in a manner called as witnesses of his valour and his truth. By enlarging on these topics, by the most solemn protestations of his own sincerity, and by adducing examples from antiquity, of the state having been benefited or saved, by intrusting unlimited power to a single person, he allayed all fears of the dangers which it was apprehended might result to the constitution, from such extensive authority being vested in one individual—and thus struck the first blow towards the subversion of the republic!

Pro Cluentio. This is a pleading for Cluentius, who, at his mother’s instigation, was accused of having poisoned his stepfather, Oppianicus. Great part of the harangue appears to be but collaterally connected with the direct subject of the prosecution. Oppianicus, it seems, had been formerly accused by Cluentius, and found guilty of a similar attempt against his life; but after his condemnation, a report became current that Cluentius had prevailed in the cause by corrupting the judges, and, to remove the unfavourable impression thus created against his client, Cicero recurs to the circumstances of that case. In the second part of the oration, which refers to the accusation of poisoning Oppianicus, he finds it necessary to clear his client from two previous charges of attempts to poison. In treating of the proper subject of the criminal proceedings, which does not occupy above a sixth part of the whole oration, he shows that Cluentius could have had no access or opportunity to administer poison to his father, who was in exile; that there was nothing unusual or suspicious in the circumstances of his death; and that the charge originated in the machinations of Cluentius’ unnatural mother, against whom he inveighs with much force, as one hurried along blindfold by guilt—who acts with such folly that no one can ac[pg 164]count her a rational creature—with such violence that none can imagine her to be a woman—with such cruelty, that none can call her a mother. The whole oration discloses such a scene of enormous villainy—of murders, by poison and assassination—of incest, and subornation of witnesses, that the family history of Cluentius may be regarded as the counterpart in domestic society, of what the government of Verres was in public life. Though very long, and complicated too, in the subject, it is one of the most correct and forcible of all Cicero’s judicial orations; and, under the impression that it comes nearer to the strain of a modern pleading than any of the others, it has been selected by Dr Blair as the subject of a minute analysis and criticism[321].

De Lege Agraria contra Rullum. In his discourse Pro Lege Manilia, the first of the deliberative kind addressed to the assembly of the people, Cicero had the advantage of speaking for a favourite of the multitude, and against the chiefs of the Senate; but he was placed in a very different situation when he came to oppose the Agrarian law. This had been for 300 years the darling object of the Roman tribes—the daily attraction and rallying word of the populace—the signal of discord, and most powerful engine of the seditious tribunate. The first of the series of orations against the Agrarian law, now proposed by Rullus, was delivered by Cicero in the Senate-house, shortly after his election to the consulship: The second and third were addressed to the people from the rostrum. The scope of the present Agrarian law was, to appoint Decemvirs for the purpose of selling the public domains in the provinces, and to recover from the generals the spoils acquired in foreign wars, by which a fund might be formed for the purchase of lands in Italy, particularly Campania—to be equally divided among the people. Cicero, in his first oration, of which the commencement is now wanting, quieted the alarms of the Senate, by assuring them of his resolution to oppose the law with his utmost power. When the question came before the people, he did not fear to encounter the Tribunes on their own territory, and most popular subject; he did not hesitate to make the rabble judges in their own cause, though one in which their passions, interests, and prejudices, and those of their fathers, had been engaged for so many centuries. Conscious of his superiority, he invited the Tribunes to ascend the rostrum, and argue the point with him before the assembled multitude; but the field was left clear to his argument and eloquence, and by alternately flat[pg 165]tering the people, and ridiculing the proposer of the law, he gave such a turn to their inclinations, that they rejected the proposition as eagerly as they had before received it.

But although the Tribunes were unable to cope with Cicero in the Forum, they subsequently contrived to instil suspicions into the minds of the populace, with regard to his motives in opposing the Agrarian law. These imputations made such an impression on the city, that he found it necessary to defend himself against them, in a short speech to the people. It has been disputed, whether this third oration was the last which Cicero pronounced on occasion of this Agrarian law. In the letters to Atticus, while speaking of his consular orations, he says, “that among those sent, was that pronounced in the Senate, and that addressed to the people, on the Agrarian law[322].” These are the first and second of the speeches, which we now have against Rullus; but he also mentions, that there were two apospasmatia, as he calls them, concerning the Agrarian law. Now, what is at present called the third, was probably the first of these two, and the last must have perished.

Pro Rabirio. About the year 654, Saturninus, a seditious Tribune, had been slain by a party attached to the interests of the Senate. Thirty-six years afterwards, Rabirius was accused of accession to this murder, by Labienus, subsequently well known as Cæsar’s lieutenant in Gaul. Hortensius had pleaded the cause before the Duumvirs, Caius and Lucius Cæsar, by whom Rabirius being condemned, appealed to the people, and was defended by Cicero in the Comitia. The Tribune, it seems, had been slain in a tumult during a season of such danger, that a decree had been passed by the Senate, requiring the Consuls to be careful that the republic received no detriment. This was supposed to sanction every proceeding which followed in consequence; and the design of the popular party, in the impeachment of Rabirius, was to attack this prerogative of the Senate. Cicero’s oration on this contention between the Senatorial and Tribunitial power, gives us more the impression of prompt and unstudied eloquence than most of his other harangues. It is, however, a little obscure, partly from the circumstance that the accuser would not permit him to exceed half an hour in the defence. The argument seems to have been, that Rabirius did not kill Saturninus; but that even if he had slain him, the action was not merely legal, but praiseworthy, since all citizens had been required to arm in aid of the Consuls.

It was believed, that in spite of the exertions of Cicero, Rabirius would have been condemned, had not the Prætor Metellus devised an expedient for dissolving the Comitia, before sentence could be passed. The cause was neither farther prosecuted at this time, nor subsequently revived; the public attention being now completely engrossed by the imminent dangers of the Catilinarian Conspiracy, which was discovered during the Consulship of Cicero.

Contra Catilinam. The detection and suppression of that nefarious plot, form the most glorious part of the political life of Cicero; and the orations he pronounced against the chief conspirator, are still regarded as the most splendid monuments of his eloquence. It was no longer to defend the rights and prerogatives of a municipal town or province, nor to move and persuade a judge in favour of an unfortunate client, but to save his country and the republic, that Cicero ascended the Rostrum. The conspiracy of Catiline tended to the utter extinction of the city and government. Cicero, having discovered his design, (which was to leave Rome and join his army, assembled in different parts of Italy, while the other conspirators remained within the walls, to butcher the Senators and fire the capital,) summoned the Senate to meet in the Temple of Jupiter Stator, with the intention of laying before it the whole circumstances of the plot. But Catiline having unexpectedly appeared in the midst of the assembly, his audacity impelled the consular orator into an abrupt invective, which is directly addressed to the traitor, and commences without the preamble by which most of his other harangues are introduced. In point of effect, this oration must have been perfectly electric. The disclosure to the criminal himself of his most secret purposes—their flagitious nature, threatening the life of every one present—the whole course of his villainies and treasons, blazoned forth with the fire of incensed eloquence—and the adjuration to him, by flying from Rome, to free his country from such a pestilence, were all wonderfully calculated to excite astonishment, admiration, and horror. The great object of the whole oration, was to drive Catiline into banishment; and it appears somewhat singular, that so dangerous a personage, and who might have been so easily convicted, should thus have been forced, or even allowed, to withdraw to his army, instead of being seized and punished. Catiline having escaped unmolested to his camp, the conduct of the Consul in not apprehending, but sending away this formidable enemy, had probably excited some censure and discontent; and the second Catilinarian oration was in consequence delivered by Cicero, in an assembly of the people, in [pg 167]order to justify his driving the chief conspirator from Rome. A capital punishment, he admits, ought long since to have overtaken Catiline, but such was the spirit of the times, that the existence of the conspiracy would not have been believed, and he had therefore resolved to place his guilt in a point of view so conspicuous, that vigorous measures might without hesitation be adopted, both against Catiline and his accomplices. He also takes this opportunity to warn his audience against those bands of conspirators who still lurked within the city, and whom he divides into various classes, describing, in the strongest language, the different degrees of guilt and profligacy by which they were severally characterized.