[16] Beloch, Röm. Geschichte, 89, 629.

CHAPTER VII
CICERO’S RESPONSE TO EXPERIENCE

A shelf of books has been written upon the Greek sources of Cicero’s ideas, and if one were to discuss the manner in which Cicero’s own experiences modified those ideas before he accepted them for his own use one would ask for a second shelf of at least equal length. Cicero’s political works, like the De Republica and the De Legibus were written after an extensive perusal of Greek political masterpieces, but they are not, like many of the philosophical essays, paraphrases. The author betrays the fact that he has been in politics for a long time, that he has in fact been a party leader and has held the highest offices of state. He does deference abundantly to Plato, Polybius, and Panaetius for good suggestions, but it is an experienced Roman statesman who has the last word on every issue at stake.

Cicero’s various political works are not all in agreement with each other nor with the utterances upon the same themes found in his letters and orations, nor do his political acts follow an unbending course. He lived in fact through a long period of revolutionary changes in politics, when consistency through a life-time would have betokened either inability to learn or stubborn intransigence. Drumann set him down as a turncoat, a judgment which Mommsen reiterated in a great variety of phrases. Heinze, in a mistaken attempt to rescue Cicero’s reputation, tried to prove that he had been a fairly consistent conservative through life. Zielinski, on the other hand, endeavored to show that Cicero’s theories could be traced to his reading, and that a search in these sources would explain Cicero’s somewhat wavering course.

All these views seem to me to emerge from cloisters that are very far removed from the kind of democratic politics that Cicero lived through, a kind of politics not entirely unfamiliar to some of us from daily observation. Drumann and Mommsen wrote in an atmosphere where firm and consistent loyalty to the existing régime was expected of all gentlemen and where firm independence and detachment were taken as marks of vacillation; and even Heinze’s apology breathes some of the same spirit.[1] As for Cicero’s dependence upon the theories of his predecessors, it must be admitted that no Roman knew them better or received more from them. But professors who delve in books all their lives are apt to over-estimate the effect of written theory and of tralatician ideas, and to under-estimate the momentum of facts that compel practical men to take quick and unpremeditated action. Very often Cicero saw the value of an idea in Plato or Panaetius only after an experience of his own had thrown him pell-mell upon the realities that disclosed the meaning of their abstract ideas. I wish here very briefly to outline his changes in political thought against the background of his experience and his reading.

In speaking here of Cicero’s party affiliations we must recall that political parties remained rather amorphous at Rome, since all citizens could cast their votes directly in the legislative assemblies without using representatives elected by means of well-organized party machinery; since labor, confined largely to slaves, had no voice in politics, and finally since commerce and industry, which are usually very powerful factors in legislation, never became strong enough at Rome to formulate an effective program. In the fourth century B.C. the plebeians had struggled to win political equality with the patricians; in the second century an era of good feeling reigned in which Polybius was aware only of a well-balanced coordination of functions between the executive, senate, and popular assembly acting in self-restrained rivalry; after the Gracchi the party issues, when at any time they became acute, could usually be formulated in terms of the question whether the assembly was sovereign or whether the aristocratic senate had the right to direct or check its operations. The special questions that arose during the period and that invited a frequent shifting of party loyalties were numerous, as for instance, the disposal of public lands, the constitution of the law-courts, the enfranchisement of the allies, the special ambitions of men like Marius, Sulla, Caesar, and Pompey, the power of the tribunate, and the legality of the senatus consultum ultimum. During this period the knights, the propertied middle-class, were usually found to be aligned on the democratic side because they could more readily secure what they desired by such a coalition; but whenever the populace showed an inclination to threaten the rights of property they quickly shifted toward the senate.

Cicero’s father was a knight from the municipality of Arpinum, and a neighbor and distant relative of Marius. The old gentleman had marked leanings away from the theories of pure democracy; nevertheless in practice his relationship with Marius, his residence in a municipality where sympathies with the Italian allies begging for the franchise were strong, and his status as a knight were factors that at times drew him toward democracy. It is not surprising therefore that the young Cicero was placed in tutelage under Scaevola the augur, one of the liberal senators who presently showed his courage by refusing to vote Marius a traitor at Sulla’s orders. We can also comprehend why the young student eagerly followed the speeches of Sulpicius, the tribune who tried to secure a practical franchise for the Italians, and in order to do so placed Marius in command of the army by removing Sulla. In the years 88-7 it is clear that Cicero lived in a very liberal atmosphere where optimate politics were not in favor. During the domination of Cinna, Cicero, who was then diligently studying philosophy, took no active part in politics, but it is apparent from his later judgments that he bore no love for this brutal leader of the democracy,[2] though the knights in general continued to support him. On the other hand, when Sulla returned, seized the dictatorship and executed sixteen hundred knights, Cicero acquired for this aristocratic leader an aversion that left its mark throughout all his later writings. Through these years of revolution, therefore, Cicero’s sympathies were determined chiefly by antipathy to the respective leaders of both extremes rather than by any party allegiance.

But when the courts were finally revived in the year 80, Cicero soon appeared in the defense of Roscius, whom no speaker of distinction had dared defend because a creature of Sulla had suborned the attack upon him. We may freely admit that Cicero did not take this case in order to reveal the venality of Sulla’s régime. He would have betrayed his client if he had used this opportunity to attack Sulla, for he spoke before a jury of senators. It is of course quite apparent that if up to this time Cicero had been an outspoken opponent of the aristocracy, the friends of Roscius would not have risked employing him in the presence of that jury. But it is equally certain that Cicero would not have taken a case that was sure to lead to the exposure of Sulla’s favorite, Chrysogonus, if he had been a confirmed follower of Sulla. In the speech he made one definite statement of his political sympathies: “Those who know me, know ... that, after the peaceful settlement, which I especially desired, could not be consummated, I favored the victory of the side that has conquered.” This admission, that Sulla was not his first choice, made before a jury of senators at a time when few men dared speak against Sulla, can hardly be used to prove Cicero a supporter of Sulla. It is in fact clear evidence that his disapproval of Sulla’s use of military force was so well known that it had to be admitted in court and, for the sake of his client, excused so far as possible by an emphasis upon a later course of acquiescence. The peroration of the speech, a very courageous exposure of the brutalities of the Sullan régime, which gives evidence of a keen insight into social psychology, proves that Cicero fully understood the evils of the dictatorship.