Chapter XI: Introduction: Cicero’s Letters (8)

In general, the fidelity of people who are bought does not last much longer than the money they receive; now, in their hands, money does not last long, and the day one tires of providing for their prodigality, one is obliged to begin to distrust them. There was besides, in the case of all these political friends of Caesar, a special reason why, one day or other, they should become discontented. They had grown up amidst the storms of the republic; they had thrown themselves early into that active and bustling life, and they had acquired the taste for it. No men more than they, had used and abused liberty of speech; to it they owed their influence, their power, and their renown. By a strange inconsistency, these men, who worked with all their might to establish an absolute government, were those who could least do without the struggles of public life, the turmoil of business, and the excitement of the rostrum, that is to say just those things which exist only under free governments. There were no men who would sooner find despotic power burdensome than those who had not been able to support even the light and equitable yoke of the law. Accordingly they were not long in perceiving the error they had committed. They soon found out that in aiding a master to destroy the liberty of others, they had delivered up their own. At the same time it was easy for them to see that the new government that they had established with their own hands could not give them what the old one had given them. What, in fact, were those dignities and those honours with which it was pretended to reward them, when one man alone possessed real power? There were, no doubt, still praetors and consuls; but what comparison could be made between these magistrates, dependent on one man, subject to his caprices, dominated by his authority, overshadowed, and, as it were, obliterated by his glory, and those of the old republic? So then must inevitably arise mistakes, regrets, and often also treasons. This is why those allies whom Caesar had recruited in the different political parties, after having been very useful to him, all finished by causing him great trouble. None of those restless and intractable minds, undisciplined by nature and habit, had willingly consented to submit to discipline, or heartily resigned himself to obey. As soon as they were no longer under the eye of the master and restrained by his powerful hand, the old instincts in them gained the upper hand; they became again, on the first opportunity, seditious as before, and though Rome had been pacified by absolute power, troubles recommenced every time Caesar was absent. It is thus that Caelius, Dolabella, and Antony compromised the public tranquillity they had been charged to maintain. Curio, the head of that youth that rallied round the new government, died too soon to have had the time to be discontented; but we may conjecture, from the light and flippant manner in which he already spoke of Caesar in his private conversation, from the small degree of illusion he seemed to have about him, that he would have acted like the rest.[229]

It is easy now to understand what reasons Caelius had to complain, and how that ambition which the dignities of the old republic had not satisfied at last found itself ill at ease under the new government. The strange letter that he wrote to Cicero, and that declaration of war which he made to Caesar and his party are now explained. He had early become discontented. From the very beginning of the civil war, when he was congratulated on the success of his party, he answered gloomily: “What do I care about that glory which never reaches to me?”[230] The truth is that he was beginning to understand that there was only room for one man in the new government, and that he alone for the future would have glory as well as power. Caesar took him on his expedition to Spain without giving him, it appears, an opportunity of distinguishing himself. On his return to Rome he was appointed praetor, but he did not have the urban praetorship which was the most honourable, and Trebonius was preferred to him. This preference, which he regarded as an insult, caused him great vexation. He resolved to revenge himself, and only waited for an opportunity. He thought it had come when he saw Caesar set out with all his troops for Thessaly, in pursuit of Pompey. He thought that in the absence of the dictator and his soldiers, in the midst of the excitement of Italy, where a thousand contradictory rumours on the result of the struggle were circulating, he might attempt a decisive stroke. The moment was well chosen; but what was still better chosen was the question on which Caelius resolved to begin the fight. Nothing does more credit to his political ability than to have so clearly discerned the weak sides of the victorious party, and to have seen at a glance the best position he could take up for a successful attack upon it.

Although Caesar was master of Rome and of Italy, and it was seen that the republican army would not check him, he still had great difficulties to surmount. Caelius knew this well; he knew well that in political struggles success is often an ordeal full of danger. After the enemy has been vanquished one’s own friends have to be provided for, a task which is often troublesome. That greed must be resisted which has hitherto been tolerated, or even encouraged, when the time to satisfy it seemed distant; it is necessary above all to defend oneself against the exaggerated hopes that victory produces in those who have gained it, and which yet cannot be realized. Usually, when one belongs to the weaker party and wishes to gain adherents, promises are not spared; but when one reaches power it is very difficult to keep all the engagements that have been made, and those fine programmes that have been accepted and scattered abroad become then a source of great embarrassment. Caesar was the recognized chief of the democratic party; thence came his strength. We remember that he had said, on entering Italy, that he came to restore liberty to the republic which was enslaved by a handful of aristocrats. Now, the democratic party of which he thus proclaimed himself the representative had its programme ready prepared. It was not exactly that of the Gracchi. After a century of often bloody struggles, hatred had become envenomed, and the senseless resistance of the aristocracy had made the people more exacting. Each of the chiefs who, since Caius Gracchus, had come forward to lead them, had formulated for them some fresh demand the more surely to draw them after him. Clodius had aimed at establishing the unlimited right of association and of governing the republic by secret societies. Catiline promised confiscation and pillage; accordingly his memory had remained very popular. Cicero speaks of the funeral banquets which were celebrated in his honour, and of the flowers that his tomb was covered with.[231] Caesar, who presented himself as their successor, could not altogether repudiate their heritage; he must promise that he would finish their work and satisfy the wishes of the democracy. At this moment the democracy did not appear to care much about political reforms; what it wanted was a social revolution. To be fed in idleness at the expense of the state, by means of gratuitous distributions very frequently repeated; to appropriate the best lands of the allies by sending colonies into the richest Italian cities; to arrive at a sort of division of property, under pretext of recovering from the aristocracy the public domain which it had appropriated, such was the ordinary idea of the plebeians; but what they most urgently demanded, what had become the watchword of all this party, was the abolition of debts, or, as they said, the destruction of the registers of the creditors (_tabulae novae_), that is to say, the authorized violation of public faith, and a general bankruptcy decreed by the law. This programme, violent as it was, Caesar had prepared to accept in proclaiming himself the head of the democracy. As long as the struggle was doubtful, he took care to make no reservations, for fear of weakening his party by divisions. Therefore it was thought that as soon as he was victorious he would set himself to work to realize it.

But Caesar had not only come to destroy a government, he wished to found another, and he knew very well that nothing solid can be established on spoliation and bankruptcy. After having used, without compunction, the programme of the democracy to overturn the republic, he understood that he would have to take up a new part. On the day that he became master of Rome, his statesman’s instinct, and his interest as a sovereign made him a conservative. While he extended his hand to the moderate men of the old parties, he had no scruple in often returning to the traditions of the old government.

It is certain that the work of Caesar, taking it altogether, is far from being that of a revolutionary; some of his laws were praised by Cicero after the Ides of March; which is as much as to say that they were not conformable to the wishes and hopes of the democracy. He sent eighty thousand poor citizens into the colonies, but over sea, to Africa and to Greece. He could not think of altogether abolishing the donations made by the State to the citizens of Rome, but he diminished them. In the place of the three hundred and twenty thousand citizens who shared in these under the republic, he only admitted a hundred and fifty thousand; he ordered that this number should not be exceeded, and that every year the praetor should fill up the place of those persons, thus privileged by poverty, who had died within the year. Far from changing anything in the prohibitive regulations that were in force under the republic, he established import duties on foreign merchandise. He promulgated a sumptuary law, much more severe than the preceding, which regulated in detail the manner in which people should dress and live, and had it executed with tyrannical rigour. The markets were guarded by soldiers lest anything should be sold that the law forbade, and the soldiers were authorized to enter houses and seize prohibited food even on the tables. Caesar had taken these measures, which hampered commerce and industry, and consequently were hurtful to the interests of the people, from the traditions of the aristocratic governments. They could not therefore be popular; but the restriction he put upon the right of meeting was still less so. This right, to which the democracy clung more than to any other, had been respected even to the last days of the republic, and the tribune Clodius had skilfully used it to frighten the senate and to terrorize the Forum. Under pretext of honouring the tutelar deities of each cross-way, associations of the districts (_collegia compitalicia_), comprising the poor citizens and the slaves, had been formed. Beginning by being religious, these societies soon became political. In the time of Clodius they formed a sort of regular army of the democracy, and played the same part in the riots of Rome as the “sections” in ’93 did among us. By the side of these permanent associations, and on the same model, temporary associations were formed, every time a great election took place. The people were enrolled by districts, they were divided into decuries and centuries; chiefs, who led them to vote in military order, were appointed; and as in general the people did not give their votes for nothing, an important person named _sequester_ was appointed beforehand, in whose hands the sum promised by the candidate was deposited, and distributors (_divisores_) charged, after the voting, to divide it among each tribe. This is how universal suffrage was exercised in Rome towards the close of the republic, and thus this race, naturally inclined to discipline, had succeeded in giving an organization to disorder. Caesar, who had often made use of these secret associations, who by them had managed elections and dominated the deliberations of the Forum, would no longer suffer them when he had no longer need of them. He thought that a regular government would not last long if he allowed this underground government to work by its side. He did not shrink then from severe measures to rid himself of this organized disorder. To the great scandal of his friends, he suppressed, at a single stroke, all the political societies, only allowing the most ancient, which presented no danger, to continue in existence.

These were vigorous measures, and such as must have offended many people; accordingly he did not venture to take them till late, after Munda and Thapsus, when his authority was no longer disputed and he felt himself strong enough to resist the democracy, his ancient ally. When he set out for Pharsalia he had still to observe much caution; prudence commanded him not to displease his friends, while so many enemies remained. Moreover, there were certain questions which could not be deferred, so important were they in the eyes of the democracy which demanded their immediate settlement. One of the chief of these was the abolition of debts. Caesar turned his attention to it immediately on his return from Spain; but here again, notwithstanding the difficulties of his position, he was not so radical as he was expected to be. Placed between his conservative instincts and the demands of his friends, he adopted a middle course: instead of abolishing the debts completely, he contented himself with reducing them. Firstly, he ordered that all sums paid up to that time as interest should be deducted from the capital sums; then, to make payment of the amount thus reduced easier, he ruled that the property of the debtors should be valued by arbitrators; that they should assess it, not at its present value, but at that which it had before the civil war, and that the creditors should be obliged to take it at that rate. Suetonius says that, in this manner, debts were reduced by more than one-fourth. These measures certainly still appear to us sufficiently revolutionary. We cannot approve this intervention of authority, to despoil without reason private persons of a part of their wealth, and nothing can seem to us more unjust than that the law itself should annul contracts which have been placed under its protection; but at that time the effect produced on men’s minds was very different. The creditors, who had feared that nothing would be left them, thought themselves very fortunate not to lose all, and the debtors, who had reckoned upon being altogether freed, bitterly complained because they were still required to pay part. Hence disappointment and murmuring. “At this moment,” wrote Caelius, “with the exception of a few usurers, everybody herd is Pompeian.”[232]

This was a good opportunity for a secret enemy like Caelius. He hastened to seize it, and to take advantage of the disaffection which he clearly perceived. His tactics were bold. The plan which he devised was to take upon himself this character of advanced democrat, or, as we should say now, of socialist, which Caesar rejected, to form a more radical party of all these malcontents, and to declare himself their head. While the arbitrators appointed to value the property of the debtors performed their delicate functions to the best of their ability, and the praetor of the city, Trebonius, settled the disputes which arose upon their decisions, Caelius had his curule chair placed beside the tribunal of Trebonius, and setting himself up, by his own authority, as judge of the sentences of his colleague, he declared that he would support the demands of those who had any complaints; but whether it was that Trebonius satisfied everybody, or rather, that they were afraid of Caesar, no one dared to come forward. This first check did not discourage Caelius: he thought, on the contrary, that the more difficult his position became, the more necessary it was to put a bold face on the matter, and therefore, notwithstanding the opposition of the consul Servilius, and of all the other magistrates, he published two very daring laws, one remitting a year’s rent to all tenants, the other abolishing entirely all debts. This time the people seemed disposed to come to the aid of him who took their part so resolutely; disturbances took place; blood was shed as in former times in the Forum; Trebonius, attacked by a furious multitude, was thrown down from his tribunal and only escaped by a miracle. Caelius triumphed, and no doubt thought that a new revolution was about to commence; but, by a singular coincidence, he soon found himself the victim of the same error that later ruined Brutus. In causes quite opposed, these two men so unlike each other deceived themselves in the same manner: both had reckoned too much on the people of Rome. One restored them liberty, and thought them capable of desiring and defending it, the other called them to arms, promising to share among them the wealth of the rich; but the people listened neither to the one nor the other, for they were no more powerfully stirred by evil passions than by noble sentiments; they had played their part and they were aware of it. On the day that they had surrendered themselves to absolute power they seem to have lost entirely all memory of the past. From that time we see that they have renounced all political activity, and nothing can rouse them from their apathy. Those rights, which they had desired with such ardour, and gained with so much trouble, that greed so carefully encouraged by the popular leaders, even the tribunate and the agrarian laws, all become indifferent to them. They are already that populace of the empire which is so admirably painted by Tacitus, the most worthless of all peoples, cringing to the successful, cruel to the defeated, welcoming all who triumph with the same applause, whose sole part in all revolutions consists in joining the train of the conqueror, when the struggle is over.

Such a people could not be a real support to anybody, and Caelius was wrong to reckon upon them. If, by force of habit, they appeared one day to be moved by those great promises which had stirred them so often, when they were free, the feeling was but a passing one, and a small body of cavalry which chanced to be marching through Rome was sufficient to reduce them to order. The consul Servilius was armed by the senate with the famous formula which suspended all legal powers, and concentrated authority in a single hand. Aided by these passing troops, he forbade Caelius to exercise the functions of his office, and when Caelius resisted, he had his curule chair broken,[233] and dragged him from the tribune from which he would not descend. This time the people remained quiet, not a voice answered when he tried to awaken the old passions in these dead souls. Caelius went home with rage in his heart. After such a public disgrace it was not possible to remain longer in Rome. Accordingly he hastened to quit it, telling everybody that he was going to have an explanation with Caesar; but he had quite other projects. Since Rome abandoned him, Caelius was going to attempt to rouse Italy and recommence the social war. It was a bold enterprise, and yet with the help of an intrepid man whose support he had procured he did not despair of success. There was at that time in Italy an old conspirator, Milo, who had made himself dreaded by his violence during the anarchy which followed Cicero’s consulship, and when condemned later for assassination, he had taken refuge at Marseilles. Caesar, in recalling all the exiles, had excepted this man whose incorrigible audacity he feared; but, on the invitation of Caelius, he had secretly returned and awaited the turn of events. Caelius went to see him, and both wrote pressing letters to the free towns of Italy, making them great promises, and exciting them to take up arms. The free towns remained quiet. Caelius and Milo were forced to make use of the last resource that remained to them. Abandoned by the free citizens of Rome, and of Italy, they appealed to the servile population, opening the prisons of the slaves, and calling upon the shepherds of Apulia and the gladiators of the public games. When they had by these means got together some partisans, they parted to tempt fortune separately, but neither succeeded. Milo, who had dared to attack an important town defended by a praetor with a legion, was killed by a stone. Caelius, after having vainly essayed to induce Naples and Campania to declare in his favour, was obliged to retreat to Thurium. There he met some Spanish and Gallic cavalry who had been sent from Rome, and as he advanced to speak with them and promised them money if they would follow him, they killed him.

Thus perished at the age of thirty-four years this intrepid young man who had hoped to equal the fortunes of Caesar. Never had such vast designs so miserable an end. After having shown an incredible audacity, and formed projects which grew more and more bold as the first attempts failed; after having in a few months successively tried to raise the people of Rome, Italy, and the slaves, he died obscurely by the hand of some barbarians whom he wished to induce to betray their duty; and his death, happening at the moment when all eyes were fixed on Pharsalia, passed almost unobserved. Who would dare to say, however, that this end, sad as it may be, was not deserved? Was it not just, after all, that a man who had lived by adventures should perish as an adventurer? He was not a consummate politician, whatever Cicero may assert; he failed to be that, because he lacked conviction and a genuine devotion. The instability of his feelings, the inconsistency of his conduct, that sort of scepticism that he affected for all convictions were not less hurtful to his talents than to his character. If he had known how to put greater unity into his life, if he had early attached himself to some honourable party, his capacities, finding employment worthy of them, would have attained their perfection. He might have no doubt failed, but to die at Pharsalia or Philippi is still considered an honour by posterity. On the contrary, as he changed his opinions as often as his interests or caprices, as he served by turns the most opposite parties without belief in the justice of any, he was never anything but an immature orator and a hap-hazard politician, and he died on the high-road like a common malefactor. However, notwithstanding his faults, history has some difficulty in judging him harshly. The ancient writers never speak of him without a secret liking. The brilliancy that surrounded his youth, the charms of his mind, the elegance which he knew how to preserve in his worst disorders, a sort of daring frankness which prevented him seeking honourable pretexts for dishonourable actions, his clear judgment of political situations, his knowledge of men, his fertility of resource, his strength of resolution, his boldness in daring all and in constantly risking his life; these many brilliant qualities though mingled with so many great defects have disarmed the most severe judges. The sage Quintilian himself, little fitted as he was to understand that passionate nature, dared not be severe upon him. After having praised the graces of his mind and his incisive eloquence, he contented himself with saying, by way of moral: “He was a man who deserved to have had a juster sense of conduct and a longer life, _dignus vir cui mens melior et vita longior contigisset!_”[234]

At the time that Caelius died, that elegant youth of which he was the model, and which the verses of Catullus and the letters of Cicero have helped us to know, had already partly disappeared. There remained scarcely any of those young men who had shone in the _fêtes_ of Baiae and who had been applauded in the Forum. Catullus died first, at the very moment when his talents were being ripened by age, and were becoming more serious and more elevated. His friend Calvus was soon to follow him, carried off at thirty-five, no doubt by the fatigues of public life. Curio had been killed by Pompey’s soldiers, as Caelius was by Caesar’s. Dolabella survived, but only for a short time, and he also was to perish in a tragic manner. It was a revolutionary generation which the revolution mowed down, for it is true, according to the celebrated saying, that in all times as in all countries revolution devours her own children.

CAESAR AND CICERO

I
CICERO AND THE CAMP OF CAESAR IN GAUL

Cicero was not wrong when he said one day to Caesar: “After our time, there will be great debates about you, as there have been among ourselves.”[235] It is certain that he is that historical personage whom men still discuss with most heat. None has excited more sympathy or roused more animosity, and it must be admitted that there seems to be something in him to justify both the one and the other. He cannot be admired or blamed without some reservations, and he always attracts on some side those whom he repels on another. The very people who hate him the most, and who cannot pardon him the political revolution that he accomplished, are forced into a secret admiration for him when they think of his victories, or read his writings.

The more complex and disputable his character, the more necessary it is, in order to form a just idea of him, to interrogate those who were in a position to know him. Although Cicero was almost all his life separated from Caesar by grave disagreements, twice he had occasion to maintain a close intercourse with him: during the Gallic war he was his political ally and his assiduous correspondent; after Pharsalia he became his friend again, and acted as intermediary between the conqueror and those he had condemned to exile. Let us inquire what he says of him at these two periods of his life when he saw him most closely, and let us collect from his correspondence, through which we become so well acquainted with the eminent men of that time, the information it contains about him who was the greatest of all.

I.

I must first recall the events which led Cicero to desert the aristocratic party to which he had been attached since his consulship, in order to serve the triumvirs, and how the courageous friend of Hortensius and of Cato became so subservient to Pompey and Caesar. It is not an honourable period in his life, and his most convinced admirers say as little about it as possible. However, there is some interest, perhaps even some profit, in pausing upon it for a moment.

Cicero’s return from the exile to which he had been condemned after his consulship by the efforts of Clodius, was a veritable triumph. Brundusium, where he disembarked, celebrated his arrival by public rejoicings. All the citizens of the free towns that bordered the Appian Way, waited for him on the road, and the heads of families with their wives and children came from all the neighbouring farms to see him pass. At Rome, he was received by an immense multitude crowded on the public squares, or ranged on the steps of the temples. “It seemed,” said he, “that all the city was drawn from its foundations to come and salute its liberator.”[236] At his brother’s house, where he was going to live, he found the most eminent members of the senate awaiting him, and at the same time congratulatory addresses from all the popular societies of the city. It is probable that some who had signed these, had voted with the same eagerness the preceding year for the law that exiled him, and that many clapped their hands on his return who had applauded his departure; but the people have occasionally these strange and generous impulses. It sometimes happens that they break away by a sudden bound from the malice, distrust, and narrowness of party spirit, and, at the very moment when passions seem most inflamed and divisions most clearly marked, they unite all at once to render homage to some great genius or to some great character, which, we know not how, has compelled their recognition. Usually, this gratitude and admiration last but a short time; but, should they endure only a day, they do eternal honour to him who has been their object, and the glory they leave behind is sufficient to illumine a whole life. Therefore we must pardon Cicero for having spoken so often and with so much effusiveness of this glorious day. A little pride was here both legitimate and natural. How could a soul so sensitive to popular applause have resisted the intoxication of a triumphal return? “I do not feel as though I were simply returning from exile,” said he, “I appear to myself to be mounting to heaven.”[237]

But he was not long in descending again to earth. Whatever he may have thought at first, he soon recognized that this city which welcomed him with so much rejoicing was not changed, and that he found it much the same as when he left it. Anarchy had reigned there for three years, an anarchy such as we have difficulty in imagining, notwithstanding all the examples that our own revolutions have given us. Since the triumvirs had let loose the rabble in order to seize upon the government of the republic, it had become entirely master. A daring tribune, a deserter from the aristocracy, and one who bore the most illustrious name in Rome, Clodius, had taken upon himself to lead it, and as far as possible, to discipline it. He had displayed in this difficult work many talents and much audacity, and had succeeded well enough to deserve to become the terror of honest people. When we speak of the Roman mob, we must not forget that it was much more frightful than our own, and was recruited from more formidable elements. Whatever just dismay the populace that emerges all at once from the lowest quarters of our manufacturing cities, on a day of riot, may cause us, let us remember that at Rome, this inferior social stratum descended still lower. Below the vagabond strangers and the starving workmen, the ordinary tools of revolutions, there was all that crowd of freedmen demoralized by slavery, to whom liberty had given but one more means for evil-doing; there were those gladiators, trained to fight beast or man, who made light of the death of others or themselves; there were, still lower, those fugitive slaves, who were indeed the worst of all classes, who, after having robbed or murdered at home, and lived by pillage on the road, came from all Italy to take refuge and disappear in the obscurity of the slums of Rome, an unclean and terrible multitude of men without family, without country, who, outlawed by the general sentiment of society, had nothing to respect as they had nothing to lose. It was among these that Clodius recruited his bands. Enlistments were made in open day, in one of the most frequented spots in Rome, near the Aurelian steps. The new soldiers were then organized in decuries and centuries, under energetic leaders. They assembled by districts in secret societies, where they went to receive the password, and had their centre and arsenal at the temple of Castor. When the day arrived, and a popular manifestation was wanted, the tribunes ordered the shops to be closed; then, the artisans were thrown on the public streets, and all the army of the secret societies marched together towards the Forum. There they met, not the honest folks, who, feeling themselves the weaker party, stayed at home, but the gladiators and herdsmen whom the senate had fetched to defend them from the wilds of Picenum or Gaul, and then the battle commenced. “Imagine London,” says M. Mommsen, “with the slave population of New Orleans, the police of Constantinople, and the industrial condition of modern Rome, and think of the political state of Paris in 1848: you will have some idea of republican Rome in its last days.”

No law was any longer respected, no citizen, no magistrate was secure from violence. One day the fasces of a consul were broken, the next a tribune was left for dead. The senate itself, led away by these examples, had at last lost that quality which Romans lost the last, its dignity. In that assembly of kings, as a Greek had called it, they debated with revolting coarseness. Cicero surprised no one when he gave his adversaries the names of swine, filth, rotten flesh. Sometimes the discussions became so heated that the noise reached that excited crowd that filled the porticoes near the curia, which then took part in them, with so much violence that the terrified senators hastened to fly.[238] We can easily understand that it was much worse in the Forum. Cicero relates that, when they were tired of insulting, they spat in each other’s faces.[239] When a man wished to address the people, he had to take the rostrum by storm, and he risked his life in trying to keep his place there. The tribunes had found a new way of obtaining unanimity of votes for the laws that they proposed: namely, to beat and drive away all who took it into their heads not to agree with them. But contests were nowhere more violent than on the Campus Martius on election days. Men were driven to regret the time when they trafficked publicly in the votes of the electors. Now, they did not even take the trouble to buy public offices; they found it more convenient to seize them by force. Each party went before daylight to the Campus Martius. Collisions took place on the roads leading to it. Each party hastened to arrive before its adversaries, or, if these were already established there, attacked them in order to dislodge them: naturally the appointments belonged to those who remained masters of the place. In the midst of all these armed bands there was no security for any one. Men were obliged to fortify themselves in their houses for fear of being surprised. They could only go out with a train of gladiators and slaves. To go from one quarter of the city to another, they took as many precautions as if they had to traverse a desert country, and they met at the turning of a street with the same fear they would have had at the corner of a wood. In the midst of Rome there were real battles and regular sieges. It was an ordinary manœuvre to set fire to the houses of their enemies at the risk of burning down a whole quarter, and, towards the end, no election or popular assembly took place without bloodshed. “The Tiber,” says Cicero, speaking of one of these combats, “was full of the corpses of the citizens, the public sewers were choked with them, and they were obliged to mop up with sponges the blood that streamed from the Forum.”[240]

Such were the obscure convulsions in which the Roman republic perished, and the shameful disorders that sapped its remaining strength. Cicero well knew that bloody anarchy and the dangers he was about to run, and had therefore resolved, before re-entering Rome, to be prudent, so as not to run the risk of having to leave it again. His was not one of those minds that misfortune strengthens, and that feel a kind of pleasure in struggling against ill-fortune. Exile had discouraged him. During the long weariness of his sojourn in Thessaly, he had made a sad review of the past. He had reproached himself for his occasional courage and independence, for his boldness in combating the powerful, and for the mistake he had made in joining himself too closely to the party which he had judged the best, but which was evidently the weakest, as though to act thus had been a crime. He came back thoroughly resolved to entangle himself as little as possible with any one, to disarm his enemies by concession, and to keep on good terms with everybody. This was the course he followed on his arrival, and his first speeches are masterpieces of policy. It is plain that he still leans towards the aristocracy which had taken an active part in his restoration, and to praise it he has noble expressions of patriotism and gratitude; but already he commences to flatter Caesar, and he calls Pompey “the most virtuous, the wisest, the greatest of the men of his age or of any age.”[241] At the same time, he tells us himself, he took good heed not to appear in the senate when irritating questions were to be discussed, and was very careful to escape from the Forum as soon as the debate became too heated. “No more violent remedies,” he replied to those who tried to urge him to some brilliant action; “I must put myself on diet.”[242]

However, he soon perceived that this adroit reserve was not sufficient to ward off all danger. While he was rebuilding his house on the Palatine, which had been destroyed after his departure, the bands of Clodius threw themselves on the workmen and dispersed them, and, emboldened by this success, set fire to the house of his brother Quintus, which was close by. A few days later, as he was walking on the Via Sacra, he heard all at once a great noise, and on turning round saw sticks raised and naked swords. It was the same men who came to attack him. He had great difficulty in escaping into the vestibule of a friendly house while his slaves fought bravely before the door to give him time to escape. Cato would not have been moved by this violence; Cicero must have been very much frightened; above all it taught him that his system of prudent reserve did not sufficiently assure his safety. It was, in fact, probable that no party would expose itself to defend him as long as he had only compliments to give it, and as he could not stand alone and without support in the midst of all these armed factions, it was really necessary that, in order to find the support he needed, he should consent to attach himself more closely to one of them.

But which should he choose? This was a grave question in which his interests were at variance with his sympathies. All his inclinations were evidently for the aristocracy. He had closely attached himself to it about the time of his consulship, and since that time he had professed to serve it, and it was for it that he had just braved the anger of the people and exposed himself to exile. But this very exile had taught him how the most honourable course was also the least safe. At the last moment, the senate had not found better means of saving him than to make useless decrees, to put on mourning, and go and throw themselves at the feet of the consuls. Cicero thought that this was not enough. Seeing himself so ill-defended, he had suspected that people who did not take his interests in hand more resolutely were not very sorry for his misfortunes; and perhaps he was not wrong. The Roman aristocracy, whatever he had done for it, could not forget he was a “new” man. The Claudii, the Cornelii, the Manlii, always looked with a certain displeasure on this insignificant townsman of Arpinum, whom the popular vote had made their equal. Still they might have pardoned his good fortune if he had borne it with more modesty; but we know his vanity; though it was only ridiculous, the aristocracy, whom it offended, thought it criminal. They could not tolerate the legitimate pride with which he constantly recalled that he was only a _parvenu_. They thought it strange that, when attacked by insolence, he dared to reply by raillery; and quite recently they had shown themselves scandalized that he had forgotten himself so far as to buy the villa of Catulus at Tusculum, and to go and live on the Palatine in the house of Crassus. Cicero, with his usual shrewdness, very clearly discerned all these sentiments of the aristocracy, and even exaggerated them. Since his return from exile he had yet other grievances against them. They had taken much trouble to get him recalled; but had not foreseen the splendour of his return, and it did not seem that they were very well pleased with it. “Those who have clipped my wings,” said Cicero, “are sorry to see them grow again.”[243] From this moment his good friends in the senate would do nothing more for him. He had found his finances much embarrassed, his house on the Palatine burnt, his villas at Tusculum and Formiae plundered and destroyed, and they decided with reluctance to indemnify him for these losses. What irritated him still more, was that he saw clearly that they did not share in his anger against Clodius. They showed themselves cool or remained silent during his violent fits of anger. A few even, the most adroit, affected to speak only with esteem of this factious tribune, and did not blush to give him their hand in public. Whence came their regard for a man who had so little for them? It was that they hoped to make use of him, and that they secretly nourished the thought of calling in the mob to the help of the endangered aristocracy. This alliance, although less usual than that of the mob with despotism, was not impossible, and the bands of Clodius, if they could be enlisted, would have permitted the senate to hold the triumvirs in check. Cicero, who perceived this policy, feared to become its victim; he bitterly regretted then the services he had tried to render to the senate, and which had cost him so dear. In recalling the dangers to which he had exposed himself in order to defend it, the obstinate and unsuccessful struggles that he had maintained for four years, the ruin of his political position and the disasters of his private fortune, he said with sorrow: “I see clearly now that I have been only a fool (_scio me asinum germanum fuisse_”).[244]

It only remained for him then to turn to the triumvirs. This was the advice given to him by his friend the prudent Atticus, and his brother Quintus, whom the burning of his house had rendered cautious contrary to his habit; this was the resolution he was himself tempted to take every time he ran some fresh danger. Nevertheless, he had some trouble in making up his mind. The triumvirs had been heretofore his most cruel enemies. Without speaking of Crassus, in whom he detected an accomplice of Catiline, he well knew that it was Caesar who had let Clodius loose against him, and he could not forget that Pompey, who had sworn to defend him, had lately abandoned him to the vengeance of his two friends; but he had no choice of alliances, and since he dared no longer trust the aristocratic party, he was forced to put himself under the protection of others. He had then to resign himself to his fate. He authorized his brother to pledge him to Caesar and Pompey, and prepared himself to serve their ambition. His first act, after his return, had been to demand for Pompey one of those extraordinary powers of which he was so greedy: by his exertions Pompey had been entrusted for six years with the victualling of Rome, and on this occasion he had been invested with an almost unlimited authority. A short time after, although the public treasury was exhausted, he had a sum of money granted to Caesar for the payment of his legions, and permission to have ten lieutenants under his orders. When the aristocracy, who understood with what design Caesar was carrying out the conquest of Gaul, wished to prevent him continuing it, it was again Cicero who demanded and obtained for him permission to finish his work. It was thus that the old enemy of the triumvirs became their usual defender before the senate. The support that he consented to give was not useless to them. His great name and his eloquence drew towards him the moderate men of all parties, those whose opinion was wavering and their convictions undecided; those, above all, who, wearied with a too tempestuous liberty, sought everywhere a firm hand that might give them repose; and these, joined to the personal friends of Caesar and Pompey, to the tools that the rich Crassus had made by bribery, and to the ambitious men of all sorts who foresaw the advent of the monarchy and wished to be the first to salute it, formed in the senate a majority of which Cicero was the head and the orator, and which rendered to the triumvirs the important service of giving a legal sanction to that power which they had gained by violence and exercised illegally.

Cicero had at length obtained repose. His enemies feared him, Clodius dared no longer risk attacking him, his familiarity with the new masters was envied, and yet this skilful conduct, which gained for him the thanks of the triumvirs and the congratulations of Atticus, did not fail at times to disturb him. It was in vain for him to say to himself that “his life had regained its splendour,” he did not feel less remorse in serving men whose ambition he knew, and whom he knew to be dangerous to the liberty of his country. In the midst of the efforts that he made to satisfy them, he had sudden awakenings of patriotism which made him blush. His private correspondence bears everywhere the trace of the alternations of mood through which he passed. One day he wrote to Atticus in a light and resolute tone: “Let us give up honour, justice, and fine sentiments.... Since those who can do nothing will not love me, let us try to make ourselves loved by those who can do everything.”[245] But shame seized him the next day, and he could not avoid saying to his friend: “Is anything sadder than our life, mine above all? If I speak according to my convictions I pass for a madman; if I listen to my interests, I am accused of being a slave; if I am silent, they say I am afraid.”[246] Even in his public speeches, notwithstanding the restraint he puts on himself, we can feel his secret dissatisfaction. It seems to me that we discover it above all in that extraordinary tone of bitterness and violence which was then habitual to him. Never, perhaps, did he pronounce more passionate invectives. Now this excess of violence towards others often comes from a mind ill at ease. What made his eloquence so bitter at this time was that uneasy feeling which a man has who is in the wrong path and has not the courage to leave it. He did not forgive his old friends their raillery and his new ones their demands; he reproached himself secretly for his base concessions; he had a spite against others and against himself, and Vatinius or Piso suffered for all the rest. In this condition of mind he could not be a safe friend for anybody. It happened sometimes that he suddenly turned on his new friends, and gave blows so much the more disagreeable that they were not expected. Sometimes he diverted himself by attacking their best friends, to show others and prove to himself that he had not entirely lost his liberty. People had been very much surprised to hear him, in a speech in which he defended Caesar’s interests, praise to excess Bibulus, whom Caesar detested. One day even he seemed quite ready to return to those whom he had called honest men before he abandoned them. It seemed to him a good opportunity to break with his new party in a formal manner. The friendship of the triumvirs had become very cool. Pompey was not pleased with the success of that Gallic war which threatened to make his own victories forgotten. Cicero, who heard him speak without restraint against his rival, thought he might without danger give some satisfaction to his irritated conscience, and wished by a brilliant stroke to deserve the pardon of his old friends. Taking advantage of some difficulty that was raised in regard to the carrying out of Caesar’s agrarian law, he formally announced that on the Ides of May he would speak on the sale of the Campanian lands which by this law were distributed among the people. The effect of his declaration was very great. The allies of the triumvirs were as much offended as they were surprised, and the aristocratic party hastened to welcome with transports of joy the return of the eloquent deserter, but in a few days everything turned against him. At the very moment when he decided on this brilliant stroke, the alliance between the triumvirs that was thought to be broken, was renewed at Lucca, and, amid a concourse of their flatterers, they once more divided the world between them. Cicero, then, was about to find himself again alone and without support in the presence of an angry and all-powerful enemy who threatened to deliver him up again to the vengeance of Clodius. Atticus scolded; Quintus, who had pledged himself for his brother, complained roughly that his promises were being broken. Pompey, although he had secretly encouraged the defection, affected to be more angry than anybody. The unhappy Cicero, attacked on all sides, and trembling at the passions which he had raised, hastened to submit, and promised everything that was required. Thus this attempt at independence only made his slavery heavier.

From this moment he seems to have resolutely accepted his new position, from a feeling that he could not change it. He resigned himself to heap more and more exaggerated praises on the vain Pompey, who never had enough. He consented to become the agent of Caesar with Oppius and Balbus, and to supervise the public buildings he was constructing. He went further, and was willing at the request of his powerful protectors to give his hand to men whom he regarded as his greatest enemies. This was not a small sacrifice for a man who had such strong aversions; but from the time that he joined their party so decidedly, he was obliged to accept their friendship as he defended their plans. They began to take steps to reconcile him to Crassus. This was a great matter which was not done in a day, for when it was thought that their old enmity was appeased, it broke out all at once in a discussion in the senate, and Cicero abused his new ally with a violence that surprised himself. “I thought my hatred exhausted,” said he naïvely, “and did not imagine any remained in my heart.”[247] He was then asked to undertake the defence of Vatinius; he consented with a pretty good grace, although he had pronounced a furious invective against him the year before. The advocates in Rome were accustomed to these sudden changes, and Cicero had done the same thing more than once. When Gabinius returned from Egypt, after having restored King Ptolemy against the formal command of the senate, Cicero, who could not abide him, thinking it a good opportunity to ruin him, prepared to attack him; but Pompey came to beg him urgently to defend him. He dared not refuse, changed his part, and submitted to speak in favour of a man whom he detested and a cause which he considered bad. He had at least the consolation of losing his case, and although he was always anxious for success, it is probable that this failure did not give him much pain.