wTION BURNLEY MECHANICS INSTk^d^^, Si2e. i Vlowed ^^^ Ko Member shall be allowed more than < aiv vamiue at a i. uuloss ■""^^xcn connected with others, and tluu not mC.^ than three, whu jre not t longer than tl;e time allowed for one. in bo renewed unless presented in the.Libriii-y for the •' =■ '■^'>v beyond . time allowerl is One Penny t of hi use or lodging-, Sixpence. "nadc good by paying the full value of ;ent of fines to be a disquiilirieation f^r enjoying the 'I'.V- ■ • . ectors particularly (j-e(iuc~t tliat Members will point out fii any n-niarks wliicli they n..iy find written in tlie books, oi- ments, so as to aid in the detection of the offenders. JZl 1- I I t ♦— T" :2 u o re LIFE OF CICERO VOLUME I THE LIFE OF CICERO liV ANTHONY TROLLOPE '// IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I CHAPMAN AND HALL, Limited, 193, Piccadilly 1880 [All Bights Beserved.] LONDO^' : E. Clay, Sons, and Taylor, BREAD STREET HILL. CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. CHAPTER I. PACK Introductiox 1 CHAPTER II. Cicero's Education 41 CHAPTER III. The Condition of Rome .68 CHAPTER IV. His Early Pleadings, — Sextus Roscius Amerinus, — His Income . 90 CHAPTER V. Cicero as Qu^^stor 123 CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. CHAPTER VI. PAGE Verres 145 CHAPTER VII. Cicero as ^dile and Pr.etor 192 CHAPTER VIII. Cicero as Consul 219 CHAPTER IX. Catiline . . . . • 246 CHAPTER X. Cicero aitku his Consulship 289 CHAPTER XI. 'J'm: TuiUMViRATK 318 CHAPTER XII. lliH I'^vii,). 359 CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. APPENDICES. Appendix A. Appendix B. Appendix C. Appendix D. Appendix E. PAOK 405 410 412 414 417 i THE LIFE OF CICEEO CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. I AM conscious of a certain audacity in thus attempting to give a further life of Cicero which I feel I may probably fail in justifying by any new information ; and on this account the enterprise, though it has been long considered, has been postponed, so that it may be left for those who come after me to burn or publish as they may think proper ; — or should it appear during my life I may have become callous through age to criticism. The project of my work was anterior to the life by Mr, Forsyth, and was first suggested to me as I was reviewing the earlier volumes of Dean Merivale's History of the Eomans under the Empire. In an article on the Dean's work, pre- pared for one of the magazines of the day, I inserted an apology for the character of Cicero which was found to be VOL. I. B 2 LIFE OF CICERO. too long as an episode, and was discarded by me, not without regret. From that time the subject has grown in my estimation till it has reached its present dimensions, 1 may say with truth that my book has sprung from love of the man, and from a heartfelt admiration of his virtues and his conduct as well as of his gifts. I must acknowledge that in discussing his character with men of letters, as I have been prone to do, I have found none quite to agree with me. His intellect they have admitted and his industry ; but his patriotism they have doubted, his sincerity they have dis- puted, and his courage they have denied. It might have become me to have been silenced by their verdict, but I have rather been instigated to appeal to the public and to ask them to agree with me against my friends. It is not, only, that Cicero has touched all matters of interest to men and has given a new grace to all that he has touched, that as an orator, a rhetorician, an essayist, and a correspondent he was supreme, that as a statesman he w^as honest, as an advocate fearless, and as a governor pure, — that he was a man whose intellec- tual part always dominated that of the body, that in taste he ■was excellent, in thought both correct and enterprising, and that in language he was perfect. All this has been already so said of him by other biographers. Plutarch, who is as familiar to us as though he had been Englisli, and Middle- ton, wlio thoroughly loved his subject, and latterly Mr. Forsytli, who has struggled to be honest to him, anight have sufhcod as telling us so mucli as that. But there was a liiinianity in Cicero, a something almost of Christianity, a stepi>ing I'urward out of the dead intellectualities of Eoman INTRODUCTION. 3 life into moral perceptions, into natural affections, into domesticity, philanthropy and conscious discharge of duty, which do not seem to have been as yet fully appreciated. To have loved his neighbour as himself before the teaching of Christ was much for a man to achieve ; and that he did tliis is what I claim for Cicero and hope to bring home to the minds of those who can find time for reading yet another added to the constantly increasing volumes about Eoman times. It has been the habit of some latter writers, who have left to Cicero his literary honours, to rob him of those which had been accorded to him as a politician. Macaulay, expressing his surprise at the fecundity of Cicero, and then passing on to the praise of the Philippics as senatorial speeches, says of him that he seems to have been at the head of the " minds of the second order." We cannot judge of the classification without knowing how many of the great men of the world are to be included in the first rank. But Macaulay probably intended to express an opinion that Cicero was inferior be- cause he himself had never dominated others as Marius had done, and Sylla, and Pompey, and Csesar, and Augustus. P>ut what if Cicero was ambitious for the good of others while these men had desired power only for themselves ! Dean Merivale says that Cicero was " discreet and de- corous," — as with a similar sneer another clergyman, Sydney Smith, ridiculed a Tory prime minister because he was true to his wife. There is nothing so open to the bitterness of a little joke as those humble virtues by which no glitter can be gained but only the happiness of many preserved. And the Dean declares that Cicero himself was not, except once or B 2 4 LIFE OF CICERO. twice, and for a " moment only, a real power in the state." Men who usurped authority, such as those I have named, were the "real powers," and it was in opposition to such usurpation that Cicero was always urgent. Mr. Forsyth who, as I have said, strives to be impartial, tells us that " the chief fault of Cicero's moral character was a want of sincerity." Absence of sincerity there was not. Deficiency of sincerity there was. Who among men has been free from such blame since history and the lives of men were first written ? It wall be my object to show that though less than godlike in that gift, by comparison with other men around him he was sincere; — as he was also self-denying, which, if the two virtues be well examined, will indicate the same phase of character. But of all modern writers Mr. Froude has been the hardest to Cicero, His sketch of the life of Csesar is one prolonged censure on that of Cicero, Our historian, with all that glory of language for which he is so remarkable, has covered the poor orator with obloquy. There is no period in Cicero's life so touching, I think, as that during which he was hesi- tating whether, in the service of the Bepublic, it did or did not behove him to join Pompey before the battle of Pharsalia. At this time he wrote to his friend Atticus various letters full of agonising doubts, — as to what was demanded from him by his duty to his couiitiy, by his friendship for Pompey, by loyalty to his party, and by his own dignity. As to a passage in one of these Mr. Froude says " that Cicero had lately spoken of Caisur's continuance in life as a disgrace to the State." " It has been seen also that he had lon<:r thought of assas- introduction: 5 sination as the readiest means of ending it," ^ says Mr. Fronde. The " It has been seen " refers to a statement made a few pages earlier, in which he translates certain words written by Cicero to Atticns.- " He considered it a disgrace to them that Caesar was alive." That is his translation ; and in his indignation he puts other words as it were into the mouth of his literary brother of two thousand years before. " Why did not somebody kill him ? " The Latin words themselves are added in a note, ■' Cum vivere ipsum turpe sit nobis." ^ Hot indignation has so carried the translator away that he has missed the very sense of Cicero's language. " When even to draw the breath of life at such a time is a disgrace to us ! " That is what Cicero meant. Mr. Froude in a preceding pas- sage gives us another passage from a letter to Atticus,^ " Caesar was mortal. " ^ So much is an intended translation. Then Mr. Froude tells us how Cicero had " hailed Caesar's eventual murder with rapture ; " and goes on to say ; — " We read the words with sorrow and yet with pity." But Cicero had never dreamed of Caesar's murder. The words of the passage are as follows ; " Hunc primum mortalem esse, delude etiam multis modis extingui posse cogitabam." " I bethought myself in the first place that this man was mortal, and then that there were a hundred ways in which he might be put on one side." All the latter authorities have, I believe, supposed the " hunc " or " this man " to be Pompey. I should say that this was proved by the gist of the whole letter, — one of the most interesting ^ Froude's Ct^sar, p. 444. 2 i^id^ p_ 428. 3 Ad Att. lib. xiii. 28. * Ad Att. ix. 10. 5 Fronde, p. 365. 6 LIFE OF CICERO. tliat was ever written, as telling tlie workings of a great man's mind at a peculiar crisis of his life, — did I not know that former learned editors have supposed Cffisar to have been meant. But whether C?esar or Pompey, there is nothing in it to do with murder. It is a question, — Cicero is saying to his friend, — of the stability of the Republic. When a matter so great is considered, how is a man to trouble himself as to an individual who may die any day, or cease from any accident to be of weight? Cicero was speaking of the effect of this or that step on his own part. Am I, he says, for the sake of Pompey to bring down hordes of bar- barians on my own country, sacrificing the Ptepublic for the sake of a friend who is here to-day and may be gone to- morrow ? Or for the sake of an enemy, if the reader thinks that the " liunc " refers to Cresar. The argument is the same. Am I to consider an individual when the Eepublic is at stake ? Mr. Froude tells us that he reads " the words with sorrow and yet with pity." So would every one, I think, sympathising with the patriot's doubts as to his leader, and to his party, and as to liis country. Mr. Froude does so because he gathers from them that Cicero is premeditating the murder of Caesar ! It is natural tliat a man should be judged out of his own mouth. A man wlio speaks much and so speaks that his words shall be listened to and read, will be so judged. But it is not too much to demand that when a man's character is at stake liis own words sliall be thoroughly sifted before they are used against liim. The writer of tlu; lji(»gra])]iiciil notice in the Encyclopaedia r.rilaiinica on Cicero, sends down to posterity a statement INTRODUCTION. 7 that ill the time of the first triumvirate, when our hero was withstanding the machinations of Caesar and Ponipey against the liberties of Eome, he was open to be bought. The augur- ship would have bought him. " So pitiful," says the bio- grapher, " was the bribe to which he would have sacrificed his honour, his opinions, and the commonwealth ! " With no more sententious language was the character of a great man ever offered up to public scorn. And on what evidence ? We should have known nothing of the bribe and the cor- ruption but for a few playful words in a letter from Cicero himself to Atticus. He is writing from one of his villas to his friend in Eome and asks for the news of the day. Who are to be the new consuls ? Who is to have the vacant au"ur- ship ? Ah, says he, they might have caught even me with that bait ; ^ — as he said on another occasion that he was so much in debt as to be fit for a rebel ; and again, as I shall have to explain just now, that he w^as like to be called in question under the Cincian law because of a present of books ! This was just at the point of his life when he was declining all offers of public service, — of public service for which his soul longed, — because they were made to him by Caijsar. It was then that the " Vigintiviratus " was refused which Quintilliau mentions to his honour. It was then that he refused to be Caesar's lieutenant. It was then that he might have been fourth with Cffisar, and Pompey, and Crassus, — had he not felt himself bound not to serve against the Eepublic. And yet the biographer does not hesitate to load him with infamy ^ Ad Att. lib. ii. 5, " Quo quidem uno ego ab istis capi possum." 8 LIFE OF CICERO. because of a playful word in a letter half jocose and half pathetic to his friend. If a man's deeds be always honest, surely he should not be accused of dishonesty on the strength of some light word spoken in the confidence of familiar in- tercourse. The light words are taken to be grave because they meet the modern critic's eye clothed in the majesty of a dead language ; and thus it comes to pass that their very meaning is misunderstood. My friend Mr. Collins speaks in his charming little volume on Cicero, of " quiet evasions " of the Cincian law,^ and tells us that we are taught by Cicero's letters not to trust Cicero's words when he was in a boasting vein. What has the one thing to do with the other ? He names no quiet evasions. Mr. Collins makes a surmise, by which the character of Cicero for honesty is impugned — without evidence. The anonymous biographer altogether misinterprets Cicero, Mr. Froude charges Cicero with anticipation of murder, grounding his charge on words which he has not taken the trouble to under- stand. Cicero is accused on the strength of his own private letters. It is because we have not the private letters of other persons that they are not so accused. The courtesies of the ^ The Cincian law, of whicli I shall have to speak again, forbade Roman advocates to take any payment for their services. Cicero expressly declares that he has always ol)eyed that law. He accused others of disobeying it, as, for instance, Hortensius. But no contemporary has accused him. Mr. Collins refers to some books which had been given to Cicero by his friend IVutus. Tliey are jnentioncd in a letter to Atticus, lib. i. 20 ; and Cicero, joking, says that lie has consulted Cincius, — perhaps some descendant of him who made the law 145 years before, — as to the legality of accepting the present. But wo have no reason for supposing that he had ever acted as an advocate for IVetus. INTRODUCTION. 9 world exact, I will not say demand, certain deviations from straightforward expression ; and these are made most often in private conversations and in private correspondence. Cicero complies with the ways of the world ; but his epistles are no longer private, and he is therefore subjected to charges of falsehood. It is because Cicero's letters, written altogether for privacy, have been found worthy to be made public that such accusations have been made. When the injustice of these critics strikes me, I almost wish that Cicero's letters had not been preserved. As 1 have referred to the evidence of those who have, in these latter days, spoken against Cicero, I will endeavour to place before the reader the testimony of his character which was given by writers, chiefly of his own nation, who dealt with his name for tlie hundred and fifty years after his death, from the time of Augustus down to that of Adrian, a period much given to literature, in which the name of a politician and a man of literature would assuredly be much discussed. Eeaders will see in what language he was spoken of by those who came after him. I trust they will believe that if I knew of testimony on the other side, of records adverse to the man, I would give them. The first passage, to which I will allude does not bear Cicero's name ; and it may be that I am wrong in assuming honour to Cicero from a passage in poetry, itself so famous, in which no direct allusion is made to himself. But the idea that Virgil in the following lines refers to the manner in which Cicero soothed the multitude who rose to destroy the theatre when the knights took their front seats in accordance with Otho's law, 10- LIFE OF CICERO. does not originate with me. I give the lines as translated by Dryden, with the original in a note.^ " As when in tumults rise the ignoble crowd, Mad are their motions, and their tongues are loud ; And stones and brands in rattling volleys fly, And all the rustic arms that fury can supply ; If then some grave and pious man appear, They hush their noise, and lend a listening ear ; He soothes with sober words their angry mood, And quenches their innate desire of blood." This, if it be not intended for a portrait of Cicero on that occasion, exactly describes his position and his success. We have a fragment of Cornelius Nepos, the biographer of the Augustan age, declaring that at Cicero's death men had to doubt whether literature or the Eepublic had lost the most.^ Livy declared of him only, that he would be the best writer of Latin prose who was most like to Cicero.^ Velleius Pater- culus, who wrote in the time of Tiberius, speaks of Cicero's achievements with the highest honour. " At this period," he says, "lived Marcus Cicero, who owed everything to himself, a man of altogether a new family, as distinguished for ability as he was for the purity of his life."* Valerius Maximus ^ Virgil, ^Enoid, i. IfiO— " Ac, vcluti niagiio in populo (luuni sa'pc coorta est Scditio, sievitque aiiiniis ignobilc. vulgus ; JaiiKjue faces, et saxa volant; furor arma ministrat : 'ruin, pietato gravcm ac nieritis si forte viruni queni (/Oiispcxere, silent, arrectisquo auribus adstant ; Iste regit dictis aninios, et pectora mulcct." - Thr autlior is saying that a history from Cicero would liave been invaluable, and tlie words are " intcriUi ejus utiuni ics|iulilii;i an historia niagis doleat." •' <^,>nin1illian blls us this, li]>. ii. c. .'). 'I'lu! passage of Livy is not extant, 'I'lif c'/innK litatDis .sn]ipii.sc it lo liavi' been taken from a letter to his son. * N'cilrius I'aterculus, lib. ii. c. 34. IN TROD UCTION. 1 1 quotes him as an example of a forgiving character.^ Perliaps the warmest praise ever given to him came from the pen of Pliny the Elder, from whose address to the memory of Cicero I will quote only a few words, as I shall refer to it more at length when speaking of his consulship. " Hail thou, " says Pliny, " who first among men was called the father of your country." 2 Martial, in one of his distichs, tells the traveller that if he have but a book of Cicero's writing he may fancy that he is travelling with Cicero himself.^ Lucan, in his bombastic verse, declares how Cicero dared to speak of peace in the camp of Pharsalia. The reader may think that Cicero should have said nothing of the kind, but Lucan mentions him with all honour.'^ Not Tacitus, as I think, but some author whose essay De Oratoribus was written about the time of Tacitus, and whose work has come to us with the name of Tacitus, has told us of Cicero that he was a master of logic, of ethics, and of physical science.^ Everybody remembers the passage in Juvenal, — " Sed Roma parentem Roma patrem patriie Ciceronera libera dixit." " Eome, even when she was free, declared him to be the ^ Valerius Maxinius, lib. iv. c. '2 ; 4, '^ Pliny, Hist. Nat. lib. vii. xxxi. 30. 3 Martial, lib. xiv. 188. * Lucan, lib. vii. 62 — " Cunctorum voces Eomani maximus auctor Tullius elo((uii, cujus sub jure togaque Pacificas sa'vus tremuit Catilina secures, Pertulit, iratus bellis, cum rostra forumque Optaret passus tam longa silentia miles. Addidit iuvalid;^ robur tacundia causos." 5 Tacitus, De Oratoribus, xxx. 12 LIFE OF CICERO. father of his country." ^ Even Plutarch, who generally seems to have a touch of jealousy when speaking of Cicero, declares that he verified the prediction of Plato ; " That every State would be delivered from its calamities whenever power should fortunately unite with wisdom and justice in one person." ^ The praises of QuintilHan as to the man are so mixed with the admiration of the critic for the hero of letters, that I would have omitted to mention them here were it not that they will help to declare what was the general opinion as to Cicero at the time in which it was written. He has been speaking of Demosthenes,'^ and then goes on ; " Nor in regard to Cicero do I see that he ever failed in the duty of a good citizen. There is in evidence of this, the splendour of his consulship, the rare integrity of his provincial administration, his refusal of office under Csesar,"* the firmness of his mind on the civil wars, giving way neither to hope nor fear, though these sorrows came heavily on him in liis old age. On all these occasions he did the best he could for the Republic." Florus, who wrote after the twelve Caesars, in the time of Trajan and of Adrian, whose rapid summary of Ptoman events can hardly be called a history, tells us, in a few words, how Catiline's conspiracy was crushed l)y the autliority of Cicero and Cato in opposition to that of Caesar.^ Then, when he has passed in a I ' .Juvenal, viii. 243. " Dciiiostliencs itiul Cicero compared, •' Ouiiitilliaii, xii. 1. ■• " IJciiiuliiittis vigintivir.atus." He refused a position of olficiul value rendered vacant by the deatli of one Cosconius. See Letters to Atticus, 2, 19. '' Florus, lil), iv. 1. In a letter from Essex to Foulke Oreville, the writing of which has been altriliutcd to Bucon by Mr. Sjicddiiig, Florus is said simply INTRODUCTION. 13 few sliort chapters over all the intervening history of the Eoman empire, he relates, in pathetic words, the death of Cicero. " It was the custom in Eome to put up on the rostra the heads of those who had been slain. But now the city- was not able to restrain its tears when the head of Cicero was seen there upon the spot from which the citizens had so often listened to his words." ^ Such is the testimony given to this man by the writers who may be supposed to have known most of him as having been nearest to his time. They all wrote after him. Sallust, who was certainly his enemy, wrote of him in his lifetime, but never wrote in his dispraise. It is evident that public opinion forbade him to do so. Sallust is never warm in Cicero's praise as were those subsequent authors whose words I have quoted, and has been made subject to reproach for envy, for having passed too lightly over Cicero's doings and words in his account of Catiline's conspiracy ; but what he did say was to Cicero's credit. Men had heard of the danger, and therefore, says Sallust,2 " They conceived the idea of entrusting the consulship to Cicero. For before that the nobles were envious, and thought that the consulship would be polluted if it were conferred on a novus homo, however distinguished. But when danger came envy and pride had to give way." He afterwards declares that Cicero made a speech against Catiline most brilliant, and at the same time useful to the Eepublic. This was lukewarm praise ; but coming from to have epitomised Livy (Life, vol. ii. p. 23. ) lu this, I think, that Bacon has shorn him of liis honours. ^ Floras, lib, iv. 6. - Sallust, Catilinaria, xxiii. 14 LIFE OF CICERO. Sallust, who would have censured if he could, it is as eloquent as any eulogy. There is extant a passage attri- buted to Sallust, full of virulent abuse of Cicero, but no one now imagines that Sallust wrote it. It is called the Decla- mation of Sallust against Cicero, and bears intrinsic evidence that it was written in after years. It suited some one to forge pretended invectives between Sallust and Cicero, and is chiefly noteworthy here because it gives to Dio Cassius a foundation for the hardest of hard words he said against the orator.^ Dio Cassius was a Greek who wrote in the reign of Alex- ander Severus, more than two centuries and a half after the death of Cicero, and he no doubt sjDeaks evil enough of our hero. What w^as the special cause of jealousy on his part cannot probably be now known, but the nature of his hatred may be gathered from the passage in the note, — which is so foul-mouthed that it can be only inserted under the veil of his own language.^ Among other absurdities Dio Cassius says ' I will add the concluding p.'issage from the pseudo-declamation in order that the read(!r may see the nature of the words which were put into Sallust's mouth ; — " Quos tyrannos appellabas, eorum nunc potentice fiives ; qui tibi ante optumatcs videbantur, eosdcm nunc denientes ac furlosos vocas ; Vatinii caussam agis, do Scxtio male existumas ; Bibulum pctulantissuTnis verbis hedis, laudas Ciesarem ; queni maxume odisti, ei maxume olisequeris. Aliud stans, aliud sedens, do republica seutis ; his malodicis, illos odisti ; levissume traiisfuga, nequc in hac, iieque ilia parte lidem habis." Hence Uio Cassius de- clared that Cicero had been called a turncoat. " Koi uvTd/xaKos uvo/JLd^eTO." - Dio Cassius, lib. xlvi. 18 — " 7rp?js ^1/ /fa) aiiT-fiv Tuiavras ivKTroAas ypa(j>c\s o'las hr yputpiieii afi'p (TK(iivr6\7\s aOvpi'iyhwppos . . . icai TrpotrtT) ical ih (Tr/tfxa avTov 5iafia\Afiu iT:t)(^iip7)(Ti ruaavrrj a(T(\ytia Koi d,Ka9apa(a ■aapd iravra rhv Piuf xp^f^^""^ uiirre yUTjSe roov crvyyefea- TciToov uirfXiffOat, d.Wd r-lji' tc yvvoAiia Ttponywydnv icaL ttjv OvyaTtpa fiuix^vft^." INTRODUCTION. \:^ of Cicero, that in his latter days he put away a gay young wife, forty years younger than himself, in order that he might enjoy, without disturbance, the company of another lady who was nearly as much older than himself as his wife was younger ! Now I ask, having brought forward so strong a testimony, not, I will say, as to the character of the man, but of the estimation in which he was held by those who came shortly after him in his own country ; having shown, as I profess that I have shown, that his name was always treated with singular dignity and respect not only by the lovers of the old Republic but by the minions of the Empire ; having found that no charge was ever made against him either for insin- cerity or cowardice or dishonesty by those who dealt com- monly with his name, am I not justified in saying that they who have in later days accused him should have shown their authority ? Their authority they have always found in his own words. It is on his own evidence against himself that they have depended ; — on his own evidence, or occasionally on their own surmises. When we are told of his cowardice, — because those human vacillations of his, humane as well as human, have been laid bare to us as they came quivering out of his bosom on to his fingers ! He is a coward to the critics because they have written without giving them- selves time to feel the true meaning of his own words. If we had only known his acts and not his words, — how he stood up against the judges at the trial of Verres, with what courage he encountered the responsibility of his doings at the time of Catiline, how he joined Pompey in Macedonia 16 LIFE OF CICERO. from" a sense of sheer duty, liow lie defied Antony when to defy Antony was probable death, — then we should not call him a coward ! It is out of his own mouth that he is con- demned. Then surely his words should be understood ! Queen Christina says of him, in one of her maxims, that " Cicero was the only coward that was capable of great actions." The Queen of Sweden, whose sentences are never worth very much, has known her history well enough to have learned that Cicero's acts were noble, but has not understood the meaning of words sufficiently to extract from Cicero's own expressions their true bearing. The bravest of us all if he is in high place, lias to doubt much, before he can know what true courage will demand of him ; and these doubts the man of words will express, if there be given to him an alter ego such as Cicero had in Atticus. Tn reference to the biography of INIr. Forsyth I must in justice both to him and to Cicero, quote one passage from the work ; " Let those who like De Quincey,^ Mommsen, and others, speak disparagingly of Cicero, and are so lavish in praise of Cscsar, recollect that Caesar never was troubled by a conscience." Here it is that we find that advance almost to Christianity of which I have Sf)oken, and that superiority of inward being which makes Cicero the most fit to be loved of all the Romans. ^ As it happens De Quincoy specially calls Cicero a man of conscience. " Cicero is one of the very few I'af^an statesmen who can he described as a thoroughly conscientious uiuii," he .s;iys. 'I'lic luirpdrt of his illogical essay on (Jicero is no douht tliorou^^lily hostile to the man. It is chiefly worth reading on account of the amusing virulence with whicli MiiUUcton^ the biogi'aphcr, is attacked. \ IN TROD UCTION. 1 7 It is hard for a man, even in regard to his own private purposes, to analyse the meaning of a conscience, if he put out of question all belief in a future life. Why should a man do right if it be not for a reward here or hereafter ? Why should anything be right — or wrong ? The Stoics tried to get over the difficulty by declaring that if a man could conquer all his personal desires he would become, by doing so, happy, and would therefore have achieved the only end at which a man can rationally aim. The school had many scholars, but probably never a believer. The normal Greek or Eoman might be deterred by the law, which means fear of punishment, or by the opinion of his neighbours, W'hich means ignominy. He might recognise the fact, that comfort would combine itself with innocence, or disease and want with lust and greed. In this there was little need of a conscience ; — liardly perhaps room for it. But when ambition came, with all the opportunities that chance, audacity, and intellect would give, — as it did to Sylla to Caesar and to Augustus, — then there was nothing to restrain the men. There was to such a man no right but his power^ no wrong but opposition to it. His cruelty or his clemency might be more or less as his conviction of the utility of this or that other weapon for dominating men might be strong with him. Or there might be some variation in the flowing of the blood about his heart ^^•hich might make a massacre of citizens a pleasing diversion or a painful process to him. But there was no conscience. With the man of whom we are about to speak conscience was strong. In his some- times doubtful wanderings after political wisdom, — in those VOL. I. c 18 LIFE OF CICERO. mental mazes which have been called insincerity, — we shall see him, if we look well into his doings, struggling to find whether in searching for what was his duty he should go to this side or tothat. Might he best hope a return to that state of things which he thought good for his country by adhering to Caesar or to Pompey ? We see the workings of his con- science, and, as we remember that Scipio's dream of his, we feel sure that he had, in truth within him, a recognition of a future life. In discussing the character of a man, there is no course of error so fertile as the drawing of a hard and fast line. AVe are attracted by salient points and seeing them clearly we jump to conclusions, as though there were a lighthouse on every point by wliich the nature of the coast would certainly be show^n to us. And so it will, if we accept the light only for so much of the shore as it illumines. But to say that a man is insincere because he has vacillated in this or the other difficulty, that he is a coward because he has feared certain dangers, that he is dishonest because he has swerved, that lie is a liar because an untrue word has been traced to liim, is to suppose that you know all the coast because one jutting headland has been defined to you. He who so expresses himself on a man's character is eitlier ignorant of human nature, — or is in searcli of stones with which to pelt his enemy. "He has lied! He has lied!" How often in our own j)olitical contests do we hear the cry ■with a iioti! of tiiuiii]ib ! And if lie have, — how often has he told till! ti'ulh ? And if he have, — how many are entitled by I'urc innocence in that matter to throw a stone at him ? INTRODUCTION. 19 And if he have — do we not know how lies will come to the tongue of a man without thought of lying ? In his stoutest efforts after the truth a man may so express himself that when afterwards he is driven to compare his recent and his former words, he shall hardly be able to say even to himself that he has not lied. It is by the tenor of a man's whole life that we must judge him, whether he be a liar or no. To expect a man to be the same at sixty as he was at thirty, is to suppose that the sun at noon shall be graced with the colours which adorn its setting. And there are men whose intellects are set on so fine a pivot that a variation in the breeze of the moment, which coarser minds shall not feel, will carry them round with a rapidity wdiich baffles the common eye. Tlie man who saw his duty clearly on this side in the morning shall, before the evening come, recognise it on the other ; and then again, and again, and yet again the vane shall go round. It may be that an instrument shall be too fine for our daily uses. We do not want a clock to strike the minutes, or a glass to tell the momentary changes in the atmosphere. It may be found that for the work of tlie world, the coarse work, — and no work is so coarse, though none is so important, as that which falls com- monly into the hands of statesmen, — instruments strong in texture, and by reason of their rudeness not liable to sudden impressions, may be the best. That it is which we mean when we declare that a scrupulous man is impractical in politics. But the same man may, at various periods of his life, and on various days at the same period, be scrupulous and un- scrupulous, impractical and practical, as the circumstances c 2 20 LIFE OF CICERO. of the occasion may affect liim. At one moment the rule of simple honesty will prevail with him. " Fiat justitia, rnat coelum." " Si fractus illabatur orbis Impavidum ferient ruinte." At another he will see the necessity of a compromise for the good of the many. He will tell himself that if the best cannot be done, he must content himself with the next best. He must shake hands with the imperfect, as the best way of lifting himself up from a bad w^ay towards a better. In obedience to his very conscience he will tem- porise, and, finding no other way of achieving good, will do even evil that good may come of it. " Eem si possis recte ; si non, quocunque modo rem." In judging of such a character as this a hard and fast line will certainly lead us astray. In judging of Cicero such a hard and fast line has too generally been used. He was a man singularly sensitive to all influences. It must be admitted that he was a vane, turning on a pivot finer than those on which statesmen have generally been made to work. He had none of the fixed purpose of Ceesar, or the unflinching principle of Cato. They were men cased in brass, whose feelings nothing could hurt. They suffered from none of tliose inward flutterings of the heart, doubtful aspirations, human longings, sharp sympathies, dreams of something better tlian this world, fears of something worse, which make Cicero so like a well-bred polished gentleman of the present day. It is becnuse he was so little like a Eonian that he is of all llio lionians tlu; most attractive. Htill thci-e may be doubt whether with all the intricacies of his character liis career was such as to justify a further INTRODUGTIOX. 21 biography at tliis distance of time. " What's Hecuba to liim or he to Hecuba ? " asks Hamlet, when he finds himself stirred by the passion thrown into the bare recital of an old story by an itinerant player. What is Cicero to us of the nineteenth century that we should care so much for him as to read yet another book ? Nevertheless Hamlet was moved because the tale was well told. There is matter in the earnestness, the pleasantness, the patriotism, and the tragedy of the man's life to move a reader still, — if the story could only be written of him as it is felt ! The difficulty lies in that and not in the nature of the story. The period of Cicero's life was the very turning-point of civilisation and government in the history of the world. At that period of time the world, as we know it, was Rome. Greece had sunk. The Macedonian Empire had been de- stro}'ed. The kingdoms of the East whether conquered, — or even when conquering as was Parthia for a whUe, — were barbaric, outside the circle of cultivation, and to be brought into it only by the arms and influence of Eome. During Cyesar's career Gaul was conquered ; and Britain, with what was known of Germany, supposed to be partly conquered. The subjugation of Africa and Spain was all but completed. Letters too had been, or were being, introduced, Cicero's use of language was so perfect that it seems to us to have been almost necessarily the result of a long established art of Latin literature. But in truth he is the earliest of the prose writers of his country with whose works we are familiar. Excepting Yarro, who was born but ten years before him, no earlier Latin prose writer has left more than 22 LIFE OF CICERO. a name to us ; and the one work by whicli Varro is at all known, the De Ee Eustica, was written after Cicero's death. Lucretius, whose language we regard as almost archaic, so unlike is it to that of A^irgil or Horace, was born eight years after Cicero. In a great degree Cicero formed the Latin language, — or produced that manipulation of it which has made it so graceful in prose, and so powerful a vehicle of thought. That which he took from any Latin writer he took from Terence. And it was then, just then, that there arose in Eome that unpremeditated change in its form of government which resulted in the self-assumed dictatorship of Caesar, and the usurpation of the Empire by Augustus. The old Eome had had kings. Then the name and the power became odious ; — the name to all the citizens no doubt, but the power simply to the nobility who grudged the supremacy of one man. The kings were abolished, and an oligarchy was established under the name of a Eepublic, with its annual magistrates, — at first its two Consuls, then its Praetors and others, and occa- sionally a Dictator as some current event demanded a con- centration of temporary power in a single hand for a certain purpose. The Eepublic was no Eepublic as we understand the word. Nor did it ever become so, tliough there was always going on a perpetual struggle to transfer the power from the nobles to the people in which something was always being giv^ere attended by Quaestors. The Governors of the provinces, Pro-Consuls or Pro-Praetors, with proconsular authority, always combined military with civil authority. The art of war was therefore a necessary part of the education of a man intended to rise in the service of the State. Cicero, though, in his endeavour to follow his own tastes he made a strong effort to keep himself free from such work, and to remain at Eome instead of being sent abroad as a Governor, had, at last, to go where fighting was in some degree necessary, and, in the saddest phase of his life, appeared in Italy with his lictors, demanding the honours of a triumph. In anticipation of such a career, no doubt under the advice of his friends, he now went out to see, if not a battle, something at any rate of war. It has already been said how the citizenship of Eome was conferred on some of the small Italian states around, and not on others. ] fence of course arose jealousy, which was increased by the feeling on the part of those excluded that they were called to furnish soldiers to Eome, as well as those who were included. Then there was formed a combination of Italian cities sworn to remedy the injury thus inflicted on them. Their purpose was to fight Eome in order that they might achieve Eoman citizensliip, and hence arose the first civil war which distracted HIS EDUCATION. 53 the empire. Pompeius Strabo, father of Pompey the Great, was then Consul (B. C. 89), and Cicero was sent out to see the campaign under him. Marius and Sulla, the two Romans who were destined soon to bathe Rome in blood, had not yet quarrelled, though they had been brought to hate each other, Marius by jealousy, and Sulla by rivalry. In this war they both served under the Consuls, and Cicero served with Sulla. We know nothing of his doings in that campaign. There are no tidings even of a misfortune such as that which happened to Horace when he went out to fight, and came home from the battle-field " relicta non bene parmula." Rome trampled on the rebellious cities, and in the end admitted them to citizenship. But probably the most im- portant, certainly the most notorious result of the Italian war, was the deep antagonism of Marius and Sulla. Sulla had made himself conspicuous by his fortune on the occasion, whereas Marius who had become the great soldier of the Republic, and had been six times Consul, failed to gather fresh laurels. Rome was falling into that state of anarchy which was the cause of all the glory and all the disgrace of Cicero's life, and was open to the dominion of any soldier whose grasp might be the least scrupulous and the strongest, Marius after a series of romantic adventures with which we must not connect ourselves here, was triumphant, — only just before his death, — while Sulla went off with liis army, pillaged Athens, plundered Asia Minor generally, and made terms with Mithridates though he did not conquer him. With the purport, no doubt, of conquering Mithridates, but perhaps with the stronger object of getting him out of Rome, — the 54 LIFE OF CICERO. army had been intrusted to Inm with the consent of the Marian faction. Then came those three years, when Sulla was in the East and Marius dead, of which Cicero speaks as a period of peace in which a student was able to study in Eome. " Trieunium fere fuit urbs sine armis." ^ These must have been the years 86, 85 and 84 before Christ, when Cicero was twenty-one, twenty-two and twenty-three years old, and it was this period, in truth, of which he speaks, and not of earlier years, when he tells us of his studies with Philo, and Molo, and Diodatus. Precocious as he was in literature, writing one poem, — or translatiug it, — when he was fourteen, and another when he w^as eighteen, he was by no means in a hurry to commence tlie work of his life. He is said also to have written a treatise on military tactics when he was nineteen, whicli again, no doubt, means that he had exercised himself by translating such an essay from the Greek. This happily does not remain. But we have four books " Ehetoricorum ad C. Herennium," and two books " De Inventione," attri- buted to his twentieth and twenty-first year, which are published with his works and commence tlie series. Of all that we liave from him, they are perhaps the least worth reading, but as they are, or were, among his recognised writings a word shall be said of them in their proper place. The success of the education of Cicero probably became a (•f)i]mi()ii]iiac(; among Latin schtiolmasters and Latin writers. In llic dialogue. Dc Oratoribus attributed to Tacit:us the story ' Brutus, cii. xc. HIS EDUCATION. 55 of it is given by Messala, when he is praising tlie orators of the earlier age. " We know well," says Messala, " that book of Cicero which is called Brutus in the latter part of which he describes to us the beginning and the progress of his own eloquence, and as it were, the bringing up on which it was founded. He tells us that he had learned civil law under Q. Mutius Scffivola; that he had exhausted the realm" of philo- sophy, learning that of the Academy under Philo and that of the Stoics under Diodatus ; that not content with these treatises, he had travelled through Greece and Asia, so as to embrace the whole world of art. And thus it had come about that in the works of Cicero no knowledge is wanting, neither of music, nor of grammar, nor any other liberal accomplish- ment. He understood the subtilty of logic, the purpose of ethics, the effects and causes of things." Then the speaker goes on to explain what may be expected from study such as that. " Thus it is, my good friends, — thus, that from the acquirement of many arts and from a general knowledge of all things, eloquence that is truly admirable is created in its full force ; for the power and capacity of an orator need not be hemmed in, as are those other callings, by certain narrow bounds ; — but that man is the true orator who is able to speak on all subjects, with dignity and grace, so as to persuade those who listen and to delight them, in a manner suited to the nature of the subject in hand and the con- venience of the time." ^ We might fancy that we were reading words from Cicero ' Tacitus, De Oratoiibus, xxx. 56 LIFE OF CICERO. himself! Then the speaker in this imaginary conversation goes on to tell us how far matters had derogated in his time, — pointing out at the same time, that the evils which he deplores had shown themselves even before Cicero, but had been put down, as far as the law could put them down by its interference. He is speaking of those schools of rhetoric, in which Greek professors of the art gave lessons for money, which were evil in their nature, and not, as it appears, efficacious even for the purpose in hand. " But now," continues Messala, "our very boys are brought into the schools of those lecturers who are called 'rhetores/ who had sprung up before Cicero,-^to the displeasure of our ancestors, as is evident from the fact that when Crassus and Domitius were Censors they were ordered to shut up their school of impudence, as Cicero calls it. Our boys as I was going to say, are taken to these lecture rooms in which it is hard to say whether the atmosphere of the place, or the lads they are thrown among, or the nature of the lessons taught, are the most injurious. In the place itself, there is neither discipline nor respect. All who go there are equally ignorant. The boys among the boys, the lads among the lads, utter and listen to just what words they please. Tlieir very exercises are for the most part useless. Two kinds are in vogue with these 'rlietores,' called 'suasoriaj' and ' controversia3,"' — tending, we may perhaps say to persuade or to refute. " Of these the ' suo.soriai ' as being the lighter, and re(piiring less of experience, are given to the little boys, — the ' controversioe ' to the bigger lads. ]>ut, — oh heavens, what they are, what niisei-able compositions ! " Then he tells us the subjects HIS EDUCATIOX. 57 selected. Rape, incest and other horrors are subjected to the lads for their declamation in order that they may learn to be orators. Messala then explains that in those latter days, — his days that is, — imder the rule of despotic princes, truly large sub- jects are not allowed to be discussed in public, confessing however that those large subjects, though they afford fine opportunities to orators, are not beneficial to the State at large. But it was thus he says, that Cicero became what he was, who would not have grown into favour, had he defended only P. Quintius and Archias and had had nothing to do with Catiline, or Milo, or Verres, or Antony, — showing by the way, how great was the reputation of that speech. Pro Miloue, with which we shall have to deal further on. The treatise becomes somewhat confused, a portion of it having probably been lost. From whose mouth the last words are supposed to come is not apparent. It ends with a rhapsody in favour of imperial government, suitable indeed to the time of Domitian, but very unlike Tacitus. While however it praises despotism, it declares that only by the evils which despotism had quelled could eloquence be main- tained. " Our country, indeed, while it was astray in its government, while it tore itself to pieces by parties and quarrels and discord, while there was no peace in the Porum, no agreement in the Senate, no moderation on the judgment seat, no reverence for letters, no control among the magistrates, boasted, no doubt, a stronger eloquence." From what we are thus told of Cicero, not what we hear from himself, we are able to form an idea of the nature of his 58 LIFE OF CICERO. education. With his mind fixed from his early days on the ambition of doing something noble with himself he gave himself up to all kinds of learning. It was Macaulay, I think, who said of him that the idea of conquering the " omne scibile," — the understanding of all things within the reach of human intellect, — was before his eyes as it was before those of Bacon, The special preparation which was in Cicero's time employed for students at the bar is also described in the treatise from which I have quoted, — the preparation which is supposed to have been the very opposite of that afforded by the " rhetores." " Among ourselves the youth who was intended to achieve eloquence in the Forum when already trained at home and exercised in classical knowledge, was brought by his father or his friends to that orator who might then be considered to be the leading man in the city. It became his daily work to follow that man, to accompany him, to be conversant with all his speeches whether in the courts of law, or at public meetings, — so that he might learn, if I might say so, to fight in the very thick of the throng." It was thus tliat Cicero studied his art. A few lines further down tlie pseudo-Tacitus tells us that Crassus in his nineteenth year held a brief against Carbo, that Caesar did so in his twenty-first against Dolabella, and Pollio, in his twenty-second year against Cato/ In this precocity Cicero ' QuiiitilliMii, lil). xii. c. vi., who wrote al)out the same time as this Essayist, tells us of those three instances of early oratory, not however spocdfying the exact ivfii', in eitlior case. lie also reminds us that Demosthenes pleaded when he was a hoj% and that Auffustus at the age of twelve made a puljlic harangue in honour of his grandmother. HIS EDUCATION. 59 did not imitate Crassiis, or show au example to the Eomans who followed him. He was twenty-six when he pleaded his first cause. Sulla had then succeeded in crushing the Marian faction, and the SuUan proscriptions had taken place and were nominally over. Sulla had been declared Dictator, and had proclaimed that there should be no more selections ■ for death. The Eepublic was supposed to be restored. " Recuperata republica * * * * turn prinium nos ad causas et privatas et publicas adire coepimus." ^ *' The Eepublic having been restored, I then first applied myself to pleadings, both private and public." Of Cicero's politics at that time we are enabled to form a fair judgment. Marius had been his townsman. Sulla had been his captain. But the one thing dear to him was the Eepublic, — what he thought to be the Eepublic. He was neither Marian nor Sullan. The turbulence in which so much noble blood had flowed, the " Crudelis interitus oratorum," the crushing out of the old legalized form of government was abominable to him. It was his hope, no doubt his expec- tation, that these old forms should be restored in all their power. There seemed to be more probability of this, — there was more probability of it, — on the side of Sulla than the other. On Sulla's side was Pompey, the then rising man, who being of the same age with Cicero, had already pushed himself into prominence, who was siirnamed the Great, and who " triumphed " during these very two years in which Cicero began his career, — wdio through Cicero's whole life was his 1 Brutus, ca. xc. 60 LIFE OF CICERO. bugbear, his stumbling-block, and his mistake. But on that side were the " optimates," the men wlio, if they did not lead, ought to lead the Kepublic, those who, if they were not respectable ought to be so, those who, if they did not love their country, ought to love it. If there was a hope, it was with them. The old state of things, — that oligarchy which has been called a Republic, — had made Eome what it was, had produced power, civilization, art and literature. It had enabled such a one as Cicero was himself to aspire to lead, though he had been humbly born, and had come to Eome from an untried provincial family. To him the Eepublic, — as he fancied that it had been, as he fancied that it might be, — was all that was good, all that was gracious, all that was beneficent. On Sulla's side lay what chance there was of returning to the old ways. When Sulla was declared Dictator, it was presumed that the Eepublic was restored. But not on this account should it be supposed tliat Cicero regarded the proscriptions of Sulla with favour, or that he was otherwise than shocked by the wholesale robberies for which tlie proscription paved the way. This is a matter with which it will be necessary to deal more fully, when we come in our next chapter to the first speeches made by Cicero, in the very first of which, as I place them, he attacks the SuUane roljberies with an audacity which, when we remember that Sulla was still in power, rescues, at any rate, in regard to this period of liis life, the character of the orator from that charge of cowardice wlii(;h has been im[)uted to him. It is necessary here, in this chapter devoted to the edu- cation of Cicero, to allude to his two first speeches, because HIS EDUCATION. 61 that education was not completed till afterwards, — so that they may be regarded as experiments, or trials as it were of his force and sufficiency. " Not content with these teachers," — teachers who had come to Eome from Greece and Asia, — " he had travelled through Greece and Asia, so as to embrace the whole world of art," These words, quoted a few pages back from the treatise attributed to Tacitus, refer to a passage, in the Brutus, in which Cicero makes a statement to that effect. " When I reached Athens,^ I passed six months with Antiochus, by far the best known and most erudite of the teachers of the Old Academy, and with him, as my great authority and master I renewed that study of philosophy which I had never abandoned, — which from my boyhood I had followed with always increasing success. At the same time I practised oratory laboriously wath Demetrius Syrus also at Athens, a well known and by no means incapable master of the art of spealdng. After that I wandered over all Asia, and came across the best orators there, with whom I practised, enjoying their willing assistance." There is more of it which need not be repeated verbatim, giving the names of those who aided him in Asia, Menippus of Stratonice — who, he says was sweet enough to have belonged himself to Athens, — with Dionysius of Magnesia, with (Eschilus of Cnidos, and with Xenocles of Adramyttium. Then at Rhodes he came across his old friend Molo, and applied him- self again to the teaching of his former master. Quintillian explains to us how this was done with a purpose, so that the ^ Brutus, xci. 62 LIFE OF CICERO. young orator when be had made a first attempt with his half-fledsjed win^s in the courts misrht to back to his masters for a Avhile.^ He was twenty-eight when he started on this tour. It has been suggested that he did so in fear of the resentment of Sulla, with whose favourites and with whose practices he had dealt very plainly. There is no reason for alleging this, except that Sulla was powerful, that Sulla was bloodthirsty, and that Sulla must have been offended. The kind of argument is often used. It is supposed to be natural, or at least probable, tliat in a certain position, a man should have been a coward, or a knave, ungrateful or cruel, — and in the presumiDtion thus raised the accusation is brought against him. " Fearing Sulla's resentment," Plutarch says, " he travelled into Greece and gave out that the recovery of his health was the motive." There is no evidence that such was his reason for travelling, and, as Middleton says in his behalf, it is certain that he " continued for a year after this in Eome without any apprehension of danger." It is best to take a man's own account of his own doings and their causes, unless there be ground for doubting the statement made. It is thus that Cicero himself speaks of his journey. " Now," he says, — still ill liis r.rntus,^ " as you wish to know what I am, — not simply what mark I may have on my body, from my birth, or with • Quintillian, lib. xii. vi. " Qunm jam clarum meruisset inter patronos, r|ui turn erant, noinen, in Asiam navigavit, seque et aliis sine dubio eloqiientite ac Hapientifi! magistriH, hcmI jn-n'cipuf! taiiion AjMjllonio Moloiii, (luein Rom;? (jiKxiue aiidiorat, Uliodi rur.sus forniaiidum ac velut recogneiidum dedit." - UrutuH, xci. \ HIS EDUCATION. 63 what surroundings of childhood I was brought up, — I will include some details which might perhaps seem hardly necessary. At this time I was thin and w^eak, — my neck being long and narrow, — a habit and form of body which is supposed to be adverse to long life. And those who loved me thought the more of this, because I had taken to speaking without relaxation, without recreation, with all the powers of my voice, and with much muscular action. When my friends and the doctors desired me to give up speaking, I resolved that rather than abandon my career as an orator, 1 would face any danger. But when it occurred to me that by lowering my voice, by changing my method of speaking, I might avoid the danger, and, at the same time, learn to speak with more elegance, I accepted that as a reason for going into Asia, so that I might study how to change my mode of elocution. Thus when I had been two years at work upon causes, and when my name was already well known in the Forum, I took my departure and left Eome." During the six months that he was at Athens he renewed an early acquaintance with one who was destined to become the most faithful, and certainly the best known of his friends. This was Titus Pomponius, known to the world as that Atticus to whom were addressed something more than half the large body of letters which were written by Cicero, and which have remained for our use.^ He seems to have lived much with Atticus, who was occupied with similar studies though 1 The total correspoudence contains 817 letters, of which 52 were written to Cicero, 396 were written by Cicero to Atticus, and 369 by Cicero to his friends in general. We have no letters from Atticus to Cicero. 64 LIFE OF CICERO. with altogether different results. Atticus applied himself to the practices of the Epicurean school and did in truth become " Epicuri de grege porcus." To enjoy life, to amass a fortune, to keep himself free from all turmoils of war or state, to make the best of the times whether they were bad or good with- out any attempt on his part to mend them, — this was the philosophy of Titus Pomponius, who was called Atticus because Athens, full of art and literature, easy, unenergetic and luxurious, was dear to him. To this philosophy, or rather, to this theory of life, Cicero was altogether opposed. He studied in all the schools, among the Platonists, the Stoics, even with the Epicureans enough to know their dogmas so that he might criticise them, — proclaiming himself to belong to the new academy or younger school of Platonists ; but in truth drawing no system of morals or rule of life from any of them. To him, and also to Atticus, no doubt, these pursuits afforded an intellectual pastime. Atticus found himself able to justify to himself the bent of his disposition by the name of a philosopher, and therefore became an Epicurean. Cicero could in no way justify to himself any deviation from the energy of public life, from its utility, from its ambition, from its loves or from its hatred, — and from the Greek philosophers whom he named of this or the other school, received only some assistance in that handling of so-called pliilosophy which became the chief amusement of his future life. This was well understood by the Latin autliors wlio wnjtc of Cicero after his own time. Quintillian speaking of Cicero and Ihutus as writers of philosophy says of the latter, " iSuffecit ])r)ii(leii renun ; scias enim seutire quai HIS EDUCATION-. 65 dicit."^ "He was equal to the weight of the subject, for you feel that he believes what he writes." He leaves tlie inference of course that Cicero wrote on such matters only for the exercise of his ingenuity, — as a school-boy writes. When at Athens Cicero was initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries, as to which Mr. Collins in his little volume on Cicero, in " The Ancient Classics for English Eeaders," says that they "contained under this veil whatever faith in the Invisible and Eternal rested in the mind of an enlightened pagan." In this Mr. Collins is fully justified by what Cicero himself has said, although the character thus given to these mysteries is very different from that which was attributed to them by early Christian writers. They were to those pious but somewhat prejudiced theologists mysterious and pagan, and therefore horrible.^ But Cicero declares in his dialogue with Atticus " De Legibus," written when he was fifty-five years old, in the prime of his intellect, that " of all the glories and divine gifts which your Athens has produced for the improvement of men, nothing surpasses these mysteries by which the harshness of our uncivilized life has been softened, and we have been lifted up to humanity ; and as they are called 'initia,'" — by which aspirants were initiated, — " so have we in truth found in them the seeds of a new life. Nor have we received from them only the means ^ (^)aintilian, lib. x. ca. 1. - Clemens of Alexandria, in his exhortation to the GentilfS, is very severe upon the iniquities of these rites. "All evil be to him," he says, "who brought them into fashion, whether it was Dardanus, or Eetion the Thracian, VOL. I. r 66 LIFE OF CICERO. of living with satisfaction, but also of dying with a better bope as to the future." ' Of what took place with Cicero and Atticus at their introduction to the Eleusinian mysteries we know nothing. But it can hardly be that, with such memories running in his mind after thirty years, expressed in such language to the very friend who had then been his companion, they should not have been accepted by him as indicating the commence- ment of some great line of tliought. The two doctrines which seem to mark most clearly the difference between the men whom we regard, the one as a pagan and the other as a Christian, are the belief in a future life and the duty of doing well by our neighbours. Here they are both indicated, the former in plain language and the latter in that assurance of the softening of the barbarity of uncivilized life, — " quibus ex agresti immanique vita exculti ad humanitatem et mitigati sum us." Of the inner life of Cicero at this moment, how he ate, how he drank, with what accompaniment of slaves he lived, how he was dressed and how lodged Ave know very little. But we are told enouQ-h to be aware that he could not have travelled and studied as he did in Greece and Asia, without great expense. His brother Quintus was with him, so that cost, if not double, was greatly increased. Antiochus, Demetrius Syrus, Molo, Menippus and the others did not or Mi.las the Phrygiiin." The old story which he repeats as to Ceres ami ProHerpiiie may have been true, hut he was altogether ignorant of the changes which the common sense of centuries had produced. ' Du Lcgihus, lib. ii. (;. xiv. HIS education: 67 give him tlieir services for nothing. These were gentlemen of whom we know that they were anxions to carry their wares to the best market. And then he seems to have been welcomed wherever he went, as though travelling in some sort "ea prince." No doubt he had brought with him the best introductions which Eome could afford ; but even with them a generous allowance must have been necessary, and this must have come from his father's pocket. As we go on, a question will arise as to Cicero's income and the sources whence it came. He asserts of himself that he was never paid for his services at the bar. To receive such payment was illegal, but was usual. He claims to have kept himself exempt from whatever meanness there may have been in so receiving such fees, — exempt at any rate from the fault of having broken the law. He has not been believed. There is no evidence to convict him of falsehood, but he has not been believed because there have not been found palpable sources of income sufficient for an expenditure so great as that which we know to have been incident to the life he led. But we do not know what were his father's means. Seeing the nature of the education given to the lad, of the manner in which his future life was prepared for him from his earliest days, of the promise made to him from* his boyhood of a career in the metropolis if he could make himself fit for it» of the advantages which costly travel afforded him, I think we have reason to suppose that the old Cicero was an opulent man, and that the house at Arpinum was no humble farm, or fuller's poor establishment. F 2 CHAPTEE III. THE CONDITION OF KOME. It is far from my intention to write a history of Eome during the Ciceronian period. Were I to attempt such a work, I should have to include the doings of Sertorius in Spain, of Lucullus and Pompey in the East, Csesar's ten years in Gaul, and the civil wars from the taking of Marseilles to the final battles of Thapsus and Munda. With very many of the great events which the period includes Cicero took but slight concern, — so slight that we can hardly fail to be astonished when we find how little he had to say of them, he who ran through all the offices of the State, who was the chosen guardian of certain allied cities, who has left to us so large a mass of correspondence on public subjects, and who was essen- tially a public man for thirty-four years. But he was a public iiiuu who concerned himself personally with Rome rather tlian with the Eoman Empire. Home affairs and not foreign affairs were dear to him. To Ca3sar's great deeds in Gaul, we should have had from him almost no allusion, had not his brother Quintus been among Cfcsar's officers and his young i'rieiid Tr('bnliu.s Ixfcn coulidcd liy himself to Ca3sar's care. Of I'harsalia we only h'aiii iV(tm him that in utter despair (jf h(;iirt he allowed hiiu.self to 1)0 curried to the war. Of the THE CONDITION OF ROME. 69 proconsular governments llirougliout the Eoman empire we should not learn much from Cicero were it not that it has been shown to us by the trial of Verres how atrocious miglit be the conduct of a Eoman Governor, and by the narratives of Cicero's own rule in Cilicia, how excellent. The history of the time has been written for modern readers by Merivale and Mommsen, with great research and truth as to facts, — but, as I think, with some strong feeling. Now Mr. Froude has followed with his " Caesar," — which might well have been called Anti-Cicero. All these in lauding, and the two latter in deifying the successful soldier, have I think dealt hardly with Cicero, attributing to his utterances more than they mean, doubting his sincerity, but seeing clearly the failure of his political efforts. With the great facts of the Eoman Empire as they gradually formed themselves from the fall of Carthage when the Empire began^ to the establish- ment of Augustus when it was consummated, I do not pretend to deal, although by far the most momentous of them were crowded into the life of Cicero. But in order that I may, if possible, show the condition of his mind towards the Eepublic, — that I may explain what it was that he hoped and why he hoped it, — I must go back and relate in a few words what it was that Marius and Sulla had done for Eome. Of both these men all the doings with wdiich history is greatly concerned were comprised within the early years of Cicero's life. Marius indeed was nearly fifty years of age ^ B.C. 144. It was then that the foreign empire commenced, in ruling which the simplicity and truth of purpose and patriotism of the Republic were lost. 70 LIFE OF CICERO. when his fellow townsiiiHii was born, and had become a distinguished soldier, and though born of humble parents had pushed himself to the Consulate. His quarrel with Sulla had probably commenced, springing from jealousy as to deeds done in the Jugurthine war. But it is not matter of much moment now that Marius had proved himself to be a good and hardy soldier, excepting in this, — that by making himself a soldier in early life he enabled himself in his latter years to become the master of Rome. Sulla too was born thirty-two years before Cicero, — a patrician of the bluest blood, — and having gone, as we say, into public life, and having been elected Quaestor, became a soldier by dint of office, — as a man with us may become head of the Admiralty. As Quaestor he was sent to join Marius in Africa, a few montlis before Cicero was born. Into his hands as it liappened, not into those of Marius, Jugurtha was sur- rendered by his father-in-law, Bocchus, who thought thus to curry Javour with the Romans. Thence came those inter- necine I'euds in which some twenty-five years later all Rome was lying butchered. The cause of quarrelling between these two men, the jealousies which grew in the heart of the elder IVoin the renewed successes of the younger, are not much to us now ; but the C(»ndition to which Rome had lK?en brought, wh(;n two such men could scramble for the city and each cut the throats of the relatives, friends and presumed allies of the othei', has to be incpiired into by those who would understand wliaL iluiiic, had Inum, what it was, and what it was necessarily to l)rcoillO. W'ln-ii ('iceio was of an age to l)egin to think of these THE CONDITION OF nOME. 71 tlnDgs, and had put on the " toga vh-ilis," and girt himself with a sword to fight under the father of Pompey for the power of Rome against the Italian allies who were demanding citizenship, — the quarrel was in truth rising to its bitterness. Marius and Sulla were on the same side in that war. But Marius had then not only been Consul, but had been six times Consul. And he had beaten the Teutons and the Cimbrians by whom Eomans had feared that all Italy would be occupied. What was not within the power of such a leader of soldiers ? And what else but a leader of soldiers could prevail when Italy and Rome, but for such a General, had been at the mercy of barbaric hordes, and when they had been compelled to make that General six times Consul ? Marius seems to have been no politician. He became a soldier and then a General, and because he was great as a soldier and General, the affairs of the State fell into his hands with very little effort. In the old days of Rome military power had been needed for defence, and successful defence had of course produced aggressive masterhood, and increased territory. When Hannibal, while he was still lingering in Italy, had been circumvented by the appearance of Scipio in Africa, and the Romans had tasted the increased magnificence of external conquest, the desire for foreign domination became stronger than that of native rule. From that time arms were in the ascendant rather than policy. Up to that time a Consul had to become a General because it was his business to look after the welfare of the State. After that time a man became a Consul in order that he might be a General. The toga was made to give way to the sword, and the noise of the Forum 72 • LIFE OF CICERO. to the trumpets. We, looking back now, can see that it must have been so, and Ave are prone to fancy that a wise man looking forward then might have read the future. In the days of ]\Iarius there was probably no man so wise. Csesar Avas the first to see it. Cicero would have seen it but that the idea was so odious to him, that he could not acknowledge to himself that it need be so. His life was one stru^crle acrainst the coming evil, — ag;ainst the time in which brute force was to be made to dominate intellect and civilization. His " cedant arma togse " was a scream, an impotent scream, against all that Sulla had done or Caesar was about to do. The mischief had been effected years before his time, and had gone too far ahead to be arrested even by his tongue. Only in considering these things let us confess that Cicero saw what was good and what was evil, thougli he was mistaken in believing that the good was still within reach. Marius in his way was a Cresar, — as a soldier undoubtedly a very ef&cient Csesar, — having that great gift of ruling his own appetites which enables those who possess it to conquer the appetites of others. It may be doubted whether his quickness in stopping and overcoming the two great hordes from the north, the Teutons and the Cimbrians, was not equal in strategy to anything that Ca3sar accomplished in Gaul. It is probable that Ca;sar learned much of his tactics from studying the manreuvres of Marius. But Marius was only a General. Tliough he became liot in lloman politics, audacious and confident, knowing liow to use and how to disregard various weapons of political power as they hud been handed THE CONDITION OF B02IE. 73 down by tradition and law, the "vetoes" and the auguries, and the official dignities, he used them, — or disregarded them, — in quest only of power for himself. He was able to perceive how vain was law in such a period as that in which he lived ; — and that having risen by force of arms, he must by force of arms keep his place or lose his life. With him, at least, there was no idea of Eoman liberty, — little probably of Eoman glory except so far as military glory and military power go together. Sulla was a man endowed with a much keener insight into the political condition of the world around him. To make a dash for power, as a dog might do, and keep it in his clutch as a dog would, was enough for INIarius. Sulla could see something of future events. He could understand that by reducing men around him to a low level he could make fast his own power over them, — and that he could best do this by cutting off the heads of all wdio stood a little higher than their neighbours. He might thus produce tranquillity, and security to himself, — and others. Some glimmer of an idea of an Augustan rule was present to him, and with the view of producing it he reestablished many of the usages of the Eepublic, not reproducing the liberty but the forms of liberty. It seems to have been his idea that a SuUan party might rule the Empire by adherence to these forms. I doubt if Marius had any fixed idea of government. To get the better of his enemies and then to grind them into powder under his feet, to seize rank and power and riches, and then to enjoy them, to sate his lust with blood and money and women, at last even with wine, and to feed his revenge by remembering the hard things which he was made to endure during the 74 LIFE OF CICERO. period of liis overtlirow, — this seems to have been enough for ]\Iarius.^ With Sulla there was understanding that the Empire must he ruled, and that the old ways would be best if they could be made compatible with the newly concentrated power. The immediate effect upon Eome either from one or from the other, was nearly the same. In the year 87 B.C. Marius occupied himself in slaughtering the Sullan jparty, — during which however Sulla escaped from Eome to the army of which he was selected as general and proceeded to Athens and the East with the object of conquering Mithridates. Eor, during these personal contests, the command of this expedition had been the chief bone of contention among them. Marius, who was by age unfitted, desired to obtain it in order that Sulla might not have it. In the next year, 8G B.C., Marius died, being then Consul for the seventh time. Sulla was away in the East, and did not return till 83 B.C. In the interval was that period of peace, fit for study of which Cicero afterwards spoke. " Triennium fere ^ The reverses of fortune to which Marius was subjected, how he was buried up to liis neck in the mud hiding in the marshes of Minturnse, how he would have been killed by the traitorous magistrates of that city but that he •iuelled the executioners by the lire of his eyes ; how he sat and glowered, a houseless exile, among the ruins of Carthage, — all which tilings happened to liiin while he was running from the partisans of Sulla, — are among the picturesf|ue episodes of history. There is a tragedy called the Wounds of Civil War, written by Lodge, who was born some eight years before Shake- speare, in which the story of Marius is told with some exquisite poetry, but also with some ludicrous additions. The (!aul who is hired to kill Marius, but is frightened by his eyes, talks bad French mingled with bad English, and calls on Jesus in hi.s honor ! THE COXDITION OF HOME. 75 fuit urbs sine arinis." ^ Cicero was then tweuty-twu or twenty-three years old, and must well have understood from his remembrance of the Marian massacres what it was to have the city embroiled by arms. It was not tliat men were fighting, but that they were simply being killed at the plea- sure of the slaughterer. Then Sulla came back 83 B.C., when Cicero was twenty-four, and if Marius had scourged the city with rods he scourged it with scorpions. It was the city in truth that was scourged, and not simply the hostile faction. Sulla began by proscribing 520 citizens, declaring that he had included in his list all that he remembered, and that those forgotten should be added on another day. The numbers were gradually raised to 4,700 ! Nor did this merely mean that those named should be caught and killed, by some miscalled oiUcers of justice.'' All the public was armed against the wretched, and any who should protect them were also doomed to death. This, however, might have been comparatively inetficacious to inflict the amount of punishment intended by Sulla, Men generally do not specially desire to imbrue their hands in the blood of other men. Unless strong hatred be at w^ork the ordinary man, even the ordinary Eoman, will hardly rise up and slaugiiter another for the sake of the employment. But if lucre be added to blood, then blood can be made to flow copiously. This was what Sulla did, Not only was the victim's life proscribed, but his property was proscribed also. And the ^ Brutus, ca. xc, ^ Florus tells us that there were 2,000 senators and kniglits, but that any- one was allowed to kill just whom he would. " Qnis autem illos potest coui- putare quos in erhe passim (|nis(|nis volnit ncciilit, " lib. iii., ca. 21. 76 LIFE OF CICERO. man who busied himself in carrying out the great butcher's business assiduously, ardently, and unintermittingly, was rewarded by the property so obtained. Two talents ^ was to be the fee for mere assassination ; but the man who kuew how to carry on well the work of an informer could earn many talents. It was thus that fortunes were made in the last days of Sulla. It was not only those 520 who were named for killing. They were but the firstlings of the flock, — the few victims selected before the real workmen understood how valuable a trade proscription and confiscation might be made. Plutarch tells us how a quiet gentleman walking, as was his custom, in the Forum, one who took no part in politics, saw bis own name one day on the list. He had an Alban villa, and at once knew that his villa had been his ruin. He had hardly read the list and had made his exclamation before he was slaughtered. Such was the massacre nf Sulla, coming with an interval of two or three years after those of Marius, between which was the blessed time in which Rome was without arms. In the time of Marius Cicero was too young, and of no sufficient importance on account of his birth or parentage, to fear anything. Nor is it probal)le that Marius W(Hild liave turned against his townsmen. Wlien Sulla's turn came Cicero, though not absolutely connected with the Dictator, was, so to say, on his side in politics. In going back even to tliis period we may use the terms Liberals and Conservatives for describing the two ])arties. Marius was ' About 487Z. 10s. In Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Koman Antiquities tlif! Attic talent is given as being worth 243Z. 155. Moramsen quotes the price as 12, tlie language of which is perhaps as perfect as that of any oration which has reached us from ancient or THE LA W CO URTS. 109 modern days, were only spoken in part, so that that which we read bears but small relation to that which was heard. All were probably retouched for publication.^ That words so perfect in their construction should have flowed from a man's mouth, often with but little preparation, we cannot conceive. But we know from the evidence of the day and from the character which remained of him through after Roman ages, how great was the immediate effect of his oratory. We can imagine him, in this case of Sextus Eoscius, standing out in the open air in the Forum, with the movable furniture of the court around him, the seats on which the judges sat with the Prsetor in the midst of them, — all Senators in their white robes with broad purple borders. There too, were seated, we may suppose on lower benches, the friends of the accused and the supporters of the accusation, and around, at the back of the orator, was such a crowd as he by the character of his eloquence may have drawn to the spot. Cicero was still a young man, but his name had made itself known, and we can imagine that some tidings had got abroad as to the bold words which would be spoken in reference to Sulla and Chrysogonus. Tlie scene must have been very different from that of one of our dingy courts in which the ermine is made splendid only by the purity and learning of the man who wears it. In Eome all exterior gifts were there. Cicero knew how to use them so that the judges who made so large ^ Quiutilian tells us, lib. x. ca. vii., — that Cicero's speeches as they had come to his day had been abridged, — l)y -which he probably means only arranged, — by Tiro his slave and secretary and friend. "Nam Ciceronis ad prffisens modo tempus aptatos libertus Tiro contraxit." 110 LIFE OF CICERO. a part in tlie pageant should not dare to disgrace tliemselves, because of its publicity. Quintilian gives bis pupils much advice as to tlie way in which they should dress themselves ^ and hold their togas, — changing the folds of the garment so as to suit the different parts of the speech, — how they should move their arms and hold their heads, and turn their necks ; even how they should comb their hair, when they came to stand in public and plead at the bar. All these arts, with many changes no doubt as years rolled on, had come down to him from days before Cicero; but he always refers to Cicero as though, his were the palmy days of Eoman eloquence. We can well believe that Cicero had studied many of these arts by his twenty -seventh year, that he knew how to hold his toga and how to drop it, how to make the proper angle with his elbow, how to comb his hair and yet not be a fop, and to add to the glory of his voice all the personal graces which were at his command. Sextus Ptoscius Amerinus, with all his misfortunes, injustices, and miseries, is now to us no more than the name of a fable ; but to those who know it, the fable is, I thin]-:, more attractive than most novels. ^ (Juiiitilian, lib. xi. ca. iii. "Nam et toga, et calceus, et capillus, tarn iiiiiiia cura, (|uain iiopligciitia, sunt reprehendenda." .... "Sinistruin livacliiurn eo iiscnu; allcvainluiii est, \\i (ptasi iHirnialcui ilium aiit^nluui faciat." C^Miiiit. Ill), xii. ca. x., " iic hii'ta toj^a sit ; " don't let tli(! toya be rumpled ; " non serica ; " the silk here interdicted was the silk of eii'eminacy, not that silk of aulhoi'ity of which our barristers are proud. "Ne intonsnm caput ; non in gradus atipH! annulos coTn))luiii." It wouhl take too much space were I to give liere all llie lessons taught l)y this jirolr-sor of deportment as to tlie wealing of the toga. CICERO AS A PHILOSOPHER. 1 1 1 We know that Cicero pleaded otlier causes before he went to Greece in the year 79, B.C. — especially those for Publius Quintius of which we have his speech, and that far a lady of Arretium in which he defended her right to be regarded as a free w^oman of that city. In this speech he again attacked Sulla, the rights of the lady in question having been placed in jeopardy by an enactment made by the Dictator. And again Cicero was successfuL This is not extant. Then he started on his travels, as to which I have already spoken. While he was absent Sulla died, and the condition of the Republic during his absence was anything but hopeful. Lepidus was Consul during these two years, than whom no weaker officer ever held rule in Eoine, — or rebelled against liome ; and Sertorius, who was in truth a great man, was in arms against Eome, in Spain, as a rebel, though he was in truth struggling to create a new IJoman power, which should be purer than that existing in Italy. What Cicero thought of the condition of his country at this time we have no means of knowing. If he then wrote letters they have not been preserved. His spoken words speak plainly enough of the condition of the courts of law, and let us know how resolved he was to oppose himself to their iniquities. A young man may devote himself to politics with as much ardour as a senior, but he cannot do so if he be intent on a profession. It is only when his business is so well grasped by him as to sit easily on him, that he is able to undertake the second occupation. There is a rumour that Cicero, when he returned home from Greece, thought for a while of giving himself up to philosophy, — so that he was called Greek and Sophist, in 112 LIFE OF CICERO. ridicule. It is not however to be believed that he ever for a moment abandoned the purpose he had formed for his own career. It will become evident, as we go on with his life, that this so-called philosophy of the Greeks was never to him a matter of more than interesting inquiry. A full active human life, in which he might achieve for himself all the charms of high rank, gilded by intelligence, erudition, and refined luxury, in which also he might serve his country, his order, and his friends, — ^just such a life as our leading men propose to themselves here, to-day, in our own country,— this is what Cicero had determined to achieve from his earliest years, and it was not likely that he should be turned from it by the pseudo-logic of Greek philosophers. That the logic even of the Academy was false to him we have ample evidence not only in his life but in his writings. There is a story that during his travels he consulted the oracle at Delphi as to his future career, and that on being told that he must look to his own genius and not to the opinion of the world at large he determined to abandon the honours of the Eepublic. That he should have talked among the young men of the day of his philosophic investigations till they laughed at him and gave him a nickname, may be probable, but it cannot have been that he ever thought of giving up the bar. In the year of his return to Eome, when he was thirty, he married Terentia, a noble lady, of whom we are informed that she had a good hu-tune and that her sister was one of tlie Vestal A'ii^itis.^ Ilc.r nobility is inferred I'rom the fact that 1 A iloiilit has been rai.sed whether he was not married when he went to Greece, as otherwise liis duif^liter wouhl seem to have become a wife earlier than is probulile. The date, liowever, lias been generally given as it is stated here. HIS INCOME. 113 the virgins were as a rule chosen from the noble families, though the law required only that they should he the daughters of free parents and of persons engaged in no mean pursuits. As to the more important question of Terentia's fortune there has never been a doubt. Plutarch, however, does not make it out to have been very great, assuming a sum which was equal to about 4,200/. of our money. He tells us at the same time that Cicero's own fortune was less than 4,000/. But in both of these statements Plutarch, who was forced to take his facts when he could get them and was not very particular in his authority, probably erred. The early education of Cicero, and the care taken to provide him with all that money could purchase, is, I think, conclusive of his father's wealth, and the mode of life adopted by Cicero shows that at no period did he think it necessary to live as men do live with small incomes. We shall find as we go on that he spent his money freely, as men did at Eome who had the command of large means. We are aware that he was often in debt. AVe hud that from his letters. But he owed money not as a needy man does, but as one who is speculative, sanguine, and quite confident of his own resources. The management of incomes was not so fixed a thing then as it is with us now. Specu- lation was even more rampant, and rising men were willing, — and were able, — to become indebted for enormous sums, having no security to offer but the promise of their future career. Csesar's debts during various times of his life were proverbial. He is said to have owed over £300,000 before he reached his first step in the public employment. Cicero VOL. I. I 114 LIFE OF CICERO. rushed into no such danger as this. We know, indeed, that when the time came to him for public expenditure on a great scale, — as for instance when he was filling the office of ^dile, — he kept within bounds and would not lavish money which he did not possess. We know also that he refrained, — altogether refrained, — from the iniquitous modes of making large fortunes which were open to the great politicians of the Eepublic. To be Qua3stor that he might be ^dile, -^dile that he might be Praetor and Consul, and Praetor and Consul that he might rob a Province, — pillage Sicily, Spain, or Asia, and then at last come back a rich man, rich enough to settle with all his creditors, and to bribe the judges should he be accused for his misdeeds, — these were the usual steps taken by enterprising Eomans towards power, wealth, and enjoyment. But it will be observed, in this sequence of circumstances, the robbery of the Province was essential to success. This was sometimes done after so magnificent a fashion as to have become an immortal fact in history. The instance of A^erres will be narrated in the next chapter but one. Something of moderation was more general, so that the fleeced provincial might still live and prefer sufferance to the doubtful chances of recovery. A Proconsul might rob a great deal and still return with hands apparently clean, bringing with him a score of provincial Deputies to laud his goodness before the citizens at home. But Cicero robbed not at all. Even they who have been most hard upon his name, accusing him of insincerity and sometimes of want of patriotism because; his Eoman mode of declaring himself without reserve in his letters has been perpetuated for us Ills INCOME. 115 by the excellence of their language, — even they have acknowledged that he kept his hands studiously clean in the service of his country, when to have clean hands was so peculiar as to be regarded as absurd. There were other means in which a noble Roman misht make money, and might do so without leaving the city. An orator might be paid for his services as an advocate. Cicero, had such a trade been opened to him, might have made almost any sum to which his imagination could have stretched itself. Such a trade was carried on to a very great extent. It was illegal, — such payment having been forbidden by the " Lex Cincia De Muneribus " passed more than a century before Cicero began his pleadings.^ But the law had become a dead letter in the majority of cases. There can be no doubt that Hortensius the predecessor and great rival of Cicero took presents if not absolute payment. Indeed the myth of honorary work, which is in itself absurd, was no more practicable in Eome than it has been found to be in England, where every barrister is theoretically pre- sumed to work for nothing. That the " Lex Cincia," as far as the payment of advocates went, was absurd may be allowed by us all. Services for which no regular payment can be exacted will always cost more than those which have a defined price. But Cicero would not break the law. It has been hinted rather than stated that he, like other orators of the day, hadHiis price. He himself tells us that he took ^ Tacitus, Annal. xi. 5, says, "Qua cavetur autiquitus, ne quis, ob causam oraudam, pecuniam donumve accipiat." I 2 116 LIFE OF CICERO. nothing ; and no instance has been adduced that he had ever done so. He is free enough in accusing Hortensius of having accepted a beautiful statuette, an ivory sphinx of great value. What he knew of Hortensius, Hortensius would have known of him, had it been there to know. And what Hortensius, or others, had heard would certainly have been told. As far as we can learn there is no ground for accusing Cicero of taking fees or presents beyond the probability that he would do so. I think we are justified in believing that he did not do so, because those who watched his conduct closely found no opportunity of exposing him. That he was paid by different allied States for undertaking their protection in the Senate is probable, such having been a custom not illegal. We know that he was specially charged with the affairs of Dyrrachium, and had probably amicable relations with other allied communities. This, however, must have been later in life, when his name was sufficiently high to ensure the value of his services, and when he was a Senator. Noble Romans also, noble as they were and infinitely superior to the little cares of trade, were accustomed to traffic very largely in usury. We shall have a terrible example of sucli baseness on the part of Brutus, — that Brutus whom we liave been taught to regard as almost on a par with Cato in purity. To lend money to citizens, or more profitably to allied states and cities, at enormous rates of interest, was the ordinary resource of a Boman nobleman in quest of revenue. The allied city, wiieu absolutely eaten 1o Ihe lioiic by one nolile Koman wlio had ])lundered it as Troconsul or (jtnciiioi', would escape from its immediate ins INCOME. 1 1 7 embarrassment by borrowing money from another noble Eoman, wlio would then grind its very bones in exacting his interest and his principal. Cicero in the most perfect of his works, the treatise De Officiis, an essay in which he instructs his son as to the way in which a man should endeavour to live so as to be a gentleman, — inveighs both against trade and usury. When he tells us that they are to be accounted mean who buy in order that they may sell, we, with our later lights, do not quite agree with him, — although he founds his assertion on an idea which is too often supported by the world's practice, namely, that men cannot do a retail business profitably without lying.^ The doctrine, however, has always been common that retail trade is not compatible with noble bearing, and was practised by all liomans who aspired to be considered among the upj)er classes. That other and certainly baser means of making money by usury was, however, only too common. Crassus, the noted rich man of Eome in Caesar's day, who was one of the first Trium- virate, and who perished ignominiously in Parthia, was known to have gathered much of his w^ealth by such means. But against this Cicero is as staunchly severe as against shop- keeping. "First of all," he says, "these profits are des- picable, which incur the hatred of men, such as those of gatherers of custom and lenders of money on usury."^ • ^ De Off. lib. i. ca. xlii. "Sordidi etiam putandi, qui mercantur a merca- toribus, quod statim vendant. Nihil euim proficiunt, nisi admodum ineu- tiantur." ^ De Off. lib. i. ca. xlii. " Piimum improbantur ii qua'stus, qui in odia hcminum incurrunt : ut portitorum ut foineratorum." The Portitores were 118 LIFE OF CICERO. Again we are entitled to say that Cicero did not con- descend to enrich himself by the means which he himself condemns because had he done so the accusations made against him by his contemporaries would have reached our ears. Nor is it probable that a man in addressing his son as to rules of life would have spoken against a method of gathering riches which, had he practised it himself, must have been known to his son. His rules were severe as compared with the habits of the time. His dear friend Atticus did not so govern his conduct, or Brutus, who when he wrote the De Of&ciis was only less dear to him than Atticus. But Cicero himself seems to have done so faithfully. We learn from his letters that he owned house-property in Rome to a considerable extent, having probably thus invested his own money or that of his wife. He inherited also the family-house at Arpinum. He makes it a matter for boasting that he had received in the course of his life by legacies nearly £200,000 (twenty-million sesterces), in itself a source of great income, and one common with Eomans of high position.^ Of the extent of his income it is impossible to speak, or even make a guess. But we do know that he lived always as a rich man, — as one who regards such a condition of life as essentially proper to liim ; and that though lie was often in debt, as was customary inferior collectors of ccrtiiiii clues, stiitioued at seajiort-s, wlio are supposed to liavo been extremely vexatious in their dealings wilii tlic public. ' riiilipp. IMG. HIS INCOME. 119 with noLle Eomans, he coukl always write about his dobts in a vein of pleasantry, showing that they were not a heavy burden to liim; and we know that he could at all times command for himself villas, books, statues, ornaments, columns, galleries, charming shades and all the delicious appendages of mingled wealth and intelligence. He was as might be some English Marquis who, though up to his eyes in mortgages, is quite sure that he will never want any of the luxuries befitting a Marquis. Though we have no authority to tell us how his condition of life became what it was, it is necessary that we should understand that condition if we are to get a clear insight into his life. Of that condition we have ample evidence. He commenced his career as a youth upon whose behalf nothing was spared, and when he settled himself in Rome with the purport of winning for himself the highest honours of the Republic he did so with the means of living like a nobleman. But the point on which it is most necessary to insist is this ; — that while so many, I may almost say all around him in his own order, were unscrupulous as to tlieir means of getting money, he kept his hands clean. The practice then was much as it is now. A gentleman in our days is supposed to have his hands clean ; but there has got abroad among us a feeling that, only let a man rise high enough, soil will not stick to him. To rob is base; — but if you rob enough robbery will become heroism, or at any rate magnificence. With Cajsar his debts have been accounted happy audacity, his pillage of Gaul and Spain, — 120 LIFE OF CICERO. aucl of Rome also, — have indicated only the success of the great General; his cruelty, which in cold-blooded efficiency has equalled if not exceeded the blood-thirstiness of any other tyrant, has been called clemency.^ I do not mean to draw a parallel between Csesar and Cicero. No two men could have been more different in their natures or in their career. But the one has been lauded because he was unscrupulous, and the other has incurred reproach because at every turn and twist in his life, scruples dominated him. I do not say that he always did what he thought to be rislit. A man who doubts much can never do, that. The thing that was right to him in the thinking became wrong to him in the doing. That, from which he has shrunk as evil, when it was within his grasp, takes the colour of good when it has been beyond his reach. Cicero had not the stuff in him to rule the Rome and the Romans of his period. But he was a man whose hands were free from all stain, either of blood or money ; and for so much let him at any rate have the credit. Between the return of Cicero to Rome, in 77 B. C. aiul his election as Quai-stor in 75, — in which period he married Terentia, he made various speeches in different causes, of which only one remains to us, or rather a small part of one. This is notable as having been spoken ^ lict any wlio (l(iiiljl lliis stntcint'iit rcfur to the fate of tlic inhabitants of Alesia and Uxclli/iliinnin. (Vsaidid not slay or torture for the sake of cruelty, hut waa never drti rnil liy luimanity \vli(!n expediency seemed to him to require victimH. Miii and women, old and young, many or few, they were Kucrificcd without luinoise, if lii.s pui'[io.sc ivcjuircd it. ROSCIUS, THE ACTOR. 121 in behalf of that Pioscius, the great comic actor, whose name has become familiar to us on account of his excellence, almost as have those of Garrick, of Siddons, and of Talma. It was a pleading as to the value of a slave, and the amount of pecuniary responsibility attaching to Koscius on account of the slave, who had been murdered when in his charge. As to the murder no question is made. The slave was valuable, and the injury done to his master was a matter of importance. He, having been a slave, could have no stronger a claim for an injury done to himself than would a dog or a horse. The slave whose name was Panurge, — a name which has since been made famous as having been borrowed by Eabelais, probably from this occurrence, and given to his demon of mischief, — showed aptitude for acting and was therefore valuable. Then one Flavins killed liim, why or how, we do not know, — and having killed him settled with Eoscius for the injviry by giving him a small farm. But Eoscius had only borrowed or hired the man from one Chairea, — or was in partnership with Chterea as to the man, — and on that account paid something out of the value of the farm for the loss incurred. But the owner was not satisfied and after a lapse of time made a further claim. Hence arose the action, in pleading which Cicero was successful. In the fragment we have of the speech, there is nothing remarkable except the studied clearness of the language ; but it reminds us of the opinion which Cicero had expressed of this actor in the oration which he made for Publius Quintius, who was the brother-in-law of Eoscius. "He is such an actor,' 122 LIFE OF CICERO. says Cicero, " tliat there is none other on the stage worthy to be seen ; and such a man that among men he is the last that should have become an actor." ^ The orator's praise of the actor is not of much importance. Had not Eoscius been great in his profession his name would not have come down to later ages. Nor is it now matter of great interest that the actor should have been highly praised as a man by his advocate. But it is something for us to know that the stage was generally held in such low repute as to make it seem to be a pity that a good man should have taken himself to such a calling. In the year 76 B.C. Cicero became father of a daughter whom we shall know as Tullia, — who as she grew up became the one person whom he loved best in all the world, — and was elected Quaestor. Cicero tells us of himself that in tlie preceding year he had solicited the Qusestorship, when Cotta was candidate for the Consulship and Hortentius for the Pra3torship. There are in the dialogue De Claris Oratoribus, — which has had the name of Brutus always given to it, — some passages in which tlie orator tells us more of himself than in any other of Ills works. I will annex a translation of a small portion because of its intrinsic interest, but I will relegate it to an appendix because it is too long either for insertion in the text or for a note.^ ' I'ro I'lib. (^iiinLiu, ca. x.w. ^ See Appendix B,, Brutus, ca. xcii. xciii. CHAPTEE V. CICEEO AS QU^STOK. Cicero was elected Quaestor in his thirtieth year, — B.C. 76. He was then nearly thirty-one. His predecessors and rivals at the bar, Cotta and Hortensius were elected Consul and Prsetor respectively in the same year. To become Quaestor at the earliest age allowed by the law, at thirty-one namely, was the ambition of the Eoman advocate who purposed to make his fortune by serving the State. To act as Quaestor in his thirty-second year, ^dile in his thirty-seventh, Praetor in his forty-first, and Consul in his forty-fourth year, was to achieve, in the earliest succession allowed by law, all the great offices of trust, power, and future emolument. The great reward of proconsular rapine did not generally come till after the last step, though there were notable instances in which a Pro-Praetor with proconsular authority could make a large fortune, as we shall learn when we come to deal with Verres, and though ^diles and even Quaestors could find pickings. It was therefore a great thing for a man to begin as early as the law would permit, and to lose as few years as possible in reaching the summit. Cicero lost none. As he himself tells us in the passage to which I have referred in the last chapter, and which is to be found in the appendix 124 LIFE OF CICERO. lie gained the good will of men, — that is, of free Eomans who had the suffrage, and who could therefore vote either for him or against him, — by the assiduity of his attention to the cases which he undertook, and by a certain brilliance of speech which was new to them.^ Putting his hand strenuously to the plough, allowing himself to be diverted by none of those luxuries to which Eomans of his day were so wont to give way, he carried his purpose by a resolution to do his very best. He was " Novus Homo," a man that is, belonging to a family of which no member had as yet filled high office in the State. Against such there was a strong prejudice with the aristocracy, who did not like to see the good things of the Eepublic dispersed among an increased number of hands. The power of voting was common to all Eoman male citizens ; but the power of influencing the electors had passed very much into the hands of the rich. The admiration which Cicero had determined to elicit would not go very far unless it could be produced in a very high degree. A Verres could get himself made Prsetor, — a Lepidus some years since could receive the Consulship ; or now an Antony or almost a Catiline. The candidate would borrow money, on the security of his own audacity, and would thus succeed, — perhaps with some minor gifts of eloquence, if he could achieve them. With all this, the borrowing and the spend- ing of money, tliat is, witli direct bribery, Cicero would liuvc nothing to do; — Ijut of tlie art of canvassing, that art by which he could at the moniout niala> himself beloved ' JirutuH, c. xi'iii. " Aiiiiiioa hoiiiiiiuiii aut these words, spoken by Cicero, seem almost to ring in our ears as having come to us direct from a man's lips. We 1 Diviiuilio, ca. xii. VERRES. 161 see the anger galliering on the bvow of Hortenr-ius, followed by a look of acknowledged defeat. We see the startled attention of the judges as they began to feel that in this case they must depart from their intended purpose. We can understand how CcEcilius cowered and found consolation in being relieved from his task. We can fancy how Verres suffered, — Verres whom no shame could have touched, — when all his bribes were becoming inefficient under the hands of the orator. Cicero was chosen for the task and then the real Avork began. The work as he did it was certainly beyond the strength of any ordinary advocate. It was necessary that he should proceed to Sicily to obtain the evidence which was to be collected over the whole island. He must rake up, too, all the previous details of the life of this robber. He must be thoroughly prepared to meet the schemers on every point. He asked for a hundred and ten days for the purpose of getting up his case, but he took only fifty. We must imagine that as he became more thoroughly versed in the intrigues of liis adversaries, new lights came upon him. Were he to use the whole time allotted to him, or even half the time, and then make such an exposition of the criminal as he would delight to do were he to indulge himself with that "perpetua oratio " of which we hear, then the trial would be protracted till the coming of certain public games during which the courts would not sit. There seem to havo been three sets of games in his way, — a special set for this year to be given by Pompey which were to last fifteen days. Then theLudi Romani, which were continued for nine days. VOL. I. M 162 LIFE OF CICERO. Soon after that would come the games in honour of Victor}^, — so soon that an adjournment over them Avould be obtained as a matter of course. In this ^Yay the trial would be thrown over into the next year when Hortensius and one Metellus would he Consuls, and another Metellus would be the Prretor, controlling the judgment seats. Glabrio was the Prsetor for this present year. In Glabrio Cicero could put some trust. AVith Hortensius and the two Metelluses in power, Verres would be as good as acquitted. Cicero therefore had to be on the alert so that in this unexpected way, by sacrificing his own grand opportunity for a speech, lie might conquer the schemers. AVe hear how he went to Sicily in a little boat, from an unknown port, so as to escape the dangers contrived for him by the friends of Yerres. ^ If it could be arranged that the clever advocate should be kidnapped by a pirate what a pleasant way would that be of putting an end to these abominable reforms ! Let them get rid of Cicero, if only for a time, and the plunder might still be divided. Against all this he had to provide. When in Sicily he travelled sometimes on foot, for the sake of caution ; never with the retinue to which he was entitled as a Eoman Senator. As a Eoman Senator he might have demanded free entertainment at any town he entered, to the great cost of the ^ Actio Secunda, lili. ii. xl. IIo is speaking of Sthenios, and the ille- gality of certain ]irooee(li7igs on the part of Verres against him. "If an accused man could he condemned in the absence of the accuser do you think that I would liavc gone in a little boat from Vibo to A^'elia among all the dangers prepared for me by your fugitive slaves and pirates, — when I had to hurry at the jiei'il of my life, knowing that you would escape if I were not present to the (l;iy ? " VERRES. 163 town. I'ut from all tins he abstained, and hurried back to Ivome with his evidence so quickly that he was enabled to produce it before the judges so as to save the adjournments whicli he feared. A^erres retired from the trial, pleading guilty, after hearing the evidence. Of the witnesses and of the manner in which they told the story we have no account. The second speech which we have, — the Divinatio or speech against Csecilius bavins: been the first, — is called the "Actio Prima Contra Verrera," — "the first process against Verres." This is almost entirely confined to an exhortation to the judges. Cicero had made up his mind to make no speech about Verres till after the trial should be over. There would not be the requisite time. The evidence he must bring forward. And he would so appal these corrupt judges that they should not dare to acquit the accused. This " Actio Prima " contains tlie Avords in which he did appal the judges. As we read them we pity the judges. There were fourteen whose names we know. That there may have been many more is probable. There was the Praetor Urbanus of the day, Glabrio. With him were Metellus, one of the Prretors for the next year, and Cffisonius who with Cicero liimself was iEdile designate. There were three Tribunes of the people, and two military Tribunes. There was a Servilius, a Catulus, a Marcellus. AVhom among these he suspected we can hardly say. Certainly he suspected Metellus. To Servilius ^ he paid an ornate compliment in one of the written orations published ^ Actio Sccimda, 1. xxi. Ji 2 164 LIFE OF CICERO. after the trial was over, from whence we may suppose tliat he was well inclined towards him. Of Glabrio he spoke well. The body, as a body, was of such a nature that ho found it necessary to appal them. It is thus that he begins. "Not by human wisdom, oh ye judges, but by chance, and by the aid as it were of the gods themselves, an event has come to pass by which the hatred now felt for your order, and the infamy attached to the judgment seat, may be appeased. For an opinion has gone abroad, disgraceful to the Eepublic, full of danger to yourselves, — which is in the mouth of all men, not only here in Eome but through all nations, — that by these courts as they are now consti- tuted a man if he be only rich enough, will never be condemned, — though he be ever so guilty." "What an exordium with which to begin a forensic pleading before a bench of Judges composed of Prretors, iEdiles, and coming Consuls ! And this at a time too when men's minds were still full of Sulla's power ; — when some were thinking that they too might be Sullas ; — while the idea was still strong that a few nobles ought to rule the Eoman Empire for their own advantage and their own luxury ! What words to address to a Mctellus, a Catulus, and a Marcellus ! I have brought before you such a wretch, he goes on to say, that by a just judgment upon him you can recover your favour with the people of Eome, and your credit with otlici' nations. "This is a trial in which you, indeed, will ha\(' to judge this man who is accused, — but ill wJiirli also the IJoiiiau pcoph", will have to judge you. V>y what is dotic to him \\ill be determined whether a man VERRES. 105 •vvlio is guilty and at tlie same time rich, can possibly Le condemned in liome.^ If tliC matter goes amiss liere, all men will declare, not tliat Letter men should ])e selected out of your order which would be impossible, but that another order of citizens must be named from which to select the judges."- This short speech was made. The witnesses were examined during nine days. Then Hor- tensius, with hardly a struggle at a rej^ly, gave way, and A'erres stood condemned by his own verdict. AVlien the trial was over and Yerres had consented to go into exile and to pay whatever fine was demanded, the "perpetua oratio " which Cicero thought good to make on the matter was published to the world. It is written as though it was to have been spoken, with counterfeit tricks of oratory, — with some tricks so well done in the first part of it as to have made me think that when these special words were prepared, he must have intended to speak them. It has been agreed, however, that such was not the case. It consists of a narration of the villanies of Verres, and is divided into what have been called five different speeches, to which the following appellations are given. " De Praitura urbana," in wliich w^e are told wdiat Yerres did when he was city Praetor, — and very many things also which he did before he came to that ofiice. " De Jurisdictione Siciliensi," in which is described his conduct as a Pioman magistrate in the island. " De Ee Frumentaria," setting forth the abomination of his exactions in regard to the corn tax. " De Signis," detailing 1 In Ventin, Actio Piinia, xvi. * Ibid. 166 LIFE OF CICERO. the robberies lie perpetrated in regard to statues and other ornaments ; — and '•' De Suppliciis " giving an account of the murders he committed and the tortures he inflicted. A question is sometimes mooted in conversation whether or no the general happiness of the world has been improved by increasing civilisation. When the reader finds from these stories as told by a leading Eoman of the day, how men were treated under the Eoman oligarchy, — not only Greek allies but Eomans also, — I think he will be inclined to answ^er the question in favour of civilisation, I can only give a few of the many little histories which have been preserved for us in this "Actio Secunda;" but perhaps these few may suffice to show how a great Eoman officer could demean himself in his government, Of the doings of Verres before he went to Sicily I will select two. It became his duty on one occasion,- — a job which he seems to have sought for purpose of rapine, — to go to Lampsacus, a town in Asia, as lieutenant, or legate, for Dolabella, who tlien had command in Asia. Lampsacus was on the Helles- pjni, an allied town of specially good re})ute. Here he is put up as a guest, with all the honours of a Eoman officer, at the house of a citizen named Janitor. But he heard that another citizen, one Philodamus, had a beautiful daughter, — an article with which we must suppose that Janitor was not equally well suj)]»!ie(l. Verres, determined to get at the lady, orders that his creature Eubrius shall be quartered at the house of i'hiludamus. l'hil(;daiiius, who iVom his rank was entitled to be burdened only with the presence of leading Eomans, grurnljles at this; but having grumbled consents, and having VERRES. 167 consented, does tlic best to make his Louse comfortable. He gives a great supper at wliich the Eonians eat and drink and purposely create a tumult. Verres, we understand, was not there. The intention is that the girl shall be carried away and brought to him. In the middle of their cups the father is desired to produce his daughter. But this he refuses to do. Eubrius then orders the doors to be closed, and proceeds to ransack the house. Philodamus, who will not stand this, fetches his son, and calls his fellow citizens around him. liubrius succeeds in pouring boiling water over his host, but in the row the Romans get the worst of it. At last one of Verres's lictors, — absolutely a Eoraan lictor, — is killed, and the woman is not carried off. The man at least bore the outward signs of a lictor, but according to Cicero, was in the pay of Verres as his pimp. So far Verres fails, and the reader rejoicing at the courage of the fiither who could protect his own house even against Eomans, begins to feel some surprise that this case should have been selected. So far the lieutenant had not done the mischief he had intended. But he soon avenges his failure. He induces Dolabella his chief to liave Philodamus and his son carried off to Laodicea and there tried before Nero, the then Proconsul, for killing the sham lictor. They are tried at Laodicea before Nero, Verres himself sitting as one of the judges, — and are condemned. Then in the market-place of the town, in the presence of each other, the father and son are be- headed, a thing, as Cicero says, very sad for all Asia to behold. All this had been done some years ago, and 16S LIFE OF CICERO. nevertlieiess Yerres luicl Leen chosen rixetor and sent to tSicily to govern the Sicilians. AVhen Yerres was Piaitor at Eome, — the year before he was sent to Sicily, — it became his duty, or rather privilege as he found it, to see that a certain temple of Castor in the city was given up in proper condition by the executors of a defunct citizen who had taken a contract for keeping it in repair. This man, whose name had been Junius, left u son who was a Junius also, under age, with a large fortune in charge of various trustees, — or tutors as they were called, — whose duty it was to protect the lad's interests. Yerres knowing of old that no property was so easily preyed on as that of a minor, sees at once that something may be done with the temple of Castor. The heir was rich, and to the extent of his property he was bound to leave the edifice in good repair. But Yerres, when he made the inspection, finds everything to be in more than usually good order. There is not a scratch on the roof of which he can make use. Xothing has been allowed to go astray. Then " one of his dogs," — for he had boasted to his friend Ligur that he always went about with dogs to search out his game for him, — suggested that some of the colunnis were out of the per- pendicular. Yerres docs not know what this means; but the dog exijlains. All colunnis arc in fact, by strict measure- ment, more or less out of the perpendicular, as we are told that all eyes scjuint a little tliougli we do not see that they fcquint. ]Iut as colunnis ought to be perj)endicular here was a mutlcr on which he might go to work. He does go to work. The trustees knowing their man, — knowing also YE RUES. ir,9 that in the present condition of Home, it was impossible to escape from an nnjust Praetor without paying largely, — M'ent to his mistress and endeavoured to settle the matter with her. Here we have an amusing picture of the way in which the affairs of the city were carried on in that lady's establishment ; — how she had her levee, took her bribes, and drove a lucrative trade. Doing, however, no good with her, the trustees settled with an agent to pay A''erres two hundred thousand sesterces to drop the affair. This was something under £2000. But Verres repudiated the arrangement with scorn. He could do much better than that with such a temple and such a minor. He puts the repairs up to auction, and refusing a bid from the trustees themselves, — the very persons who are the most interested in (^ettino- the work done if there were Avork to do, — has it knocked down to himself for five hundred aiid sixty thousand sesterces, or about £5000.^ Then we are told how he had the pretended work done by the putting up of a rough crane. ISTo real work is done; no new stones are brought ; iio money is spent. That is the way in which Verres filled his ofiice as Praetor urbanus ; but it does not seem that any public notice is taken of his iniquities as long as he confined himself to little jobs such as this. Then we come to the affairs of Sicily, — and the long list of robberies is commenced by which that province was made desolate. It seems that nothincj rave so ^rand ^ We are to understand that the purchaser at the auction having named the sum for which lie would do the work, the estate of the minor who was responsible for the condition of the temple, was saddled with that amount. 170 LIFE OF CICERO. a scope to tlie greed of a public functionary who was at tlie same time governor and judge as disputed wills. It was not necessary tliat any of tlie persons concerned should dispute the will among them. Given the facts that a man had died and left property behind him, then Verres would hnd means to drag the heir into Court and either frighten him into payment of a bribe or else rob him of his inherit- ance. Before he left Rome for the province he heard that a large fortune had been left to one Dio on condition that he should put up certain statues in the market-place.^ It was not uncommon for a man to desire the reputation of adorning his own city, but to choose that the expense should be borne by his heir rather than by himself. Failing to put up the statues the heir w^as required to pay a fine to Venus Erycina, — to enrich, that is, the worship of that goddess who had a favourite temple under Mount Eryx. The statues had been duly erected. But, nevertheless, here there was an opening. So Verres goes to work and in the name of Venus brings an action against I)io. The verdict is given, not in favour of A''enus but in i'avour of Verres. This manner of paying honour to the gods, and especially to Venus, was common in Sicily. Two sons ^ received a fortune from their father with a condition that if some special thing were not done a fine should be paid to Venus. 'J'lic nmu had been dead twenty years ago. But "the dogs" wliich tlie I'lirlor ke])t were very sharp and, 1 In Verrein, Actio .ScciiikIm, lib. ii. vii. ^ jjjij. jx. VEERES. 171 distant as was the time, found out the chmse. Action is taken against the two sons, who, indeed gain their case ; hut they gain it by a bribe so enormous that they are ruined men. There was one Heraclius ^ tlie son of Hiero, a nobleman of Syracuse, who received a legacy amounting to 3,000,000 sesterces — we will say £24,000, — from a relative, also an Heraclius. He had, too, a house full of handsome silver plate, silk and hangings, and valuable slaves. A man, " Dives equom, dives pictai vestis at auri." Verres heard of course. He had by this time taken some Sicilian dogs into his service, men of Syracuse, and had learned from them that there was a clause in the will of the elder Heraclius that certain statues should be put up in the gymnasium of the city. They undertake to bring forward servants of the gymnasium who should say that the statues were never properly erected, Cicero tells us how Verres went to work, now in this court, now in that, breaking all the laws as to Sicilian jurisdiction, but still proceeding under the pretence of law till he got everything out of the wretch, — not only all the legacies from Heraclius, but every shilling and every article left to the man by his father. There is a pretence of giving some of the money to the town of Syracuse, but for himself he takes all the valuables, the Corinthian vases, the purple hangings, — what slaves he chooses. Then everything else is sold by auction. How he divided the spoil with the Syracusans, and then quarrelled with them, and how he ^ In Verrem, Actio Socuuda, lib. ii. xiv. 172 LIFE OF C ICE no. lied as to the share taken by himself, will all he found in Cicero's narrative. Heraclius "was of course ruined. Tor the stories of Epicrates and Sopater I must refer the reader to the oration. In that of Sopater there is the peculiarity that Verres managed to get paid hy every- body all round. The story of Sthenius is so interesting that I cannot pass it by. Sthenius Avas a man of wealth and high standing living at Therma in Sicily, with whom Yerres often took up his abode. For as governor he travelled much about the island, always in pursuit of plunder. Sthenius had had his house full of beautiful things. Of all these Verres possessed himself, some by begging, some by demanding, and some by absolute robbery. Sthenius, grieved as he was to find himself pillaged, bore all this. The man was Eoman Praetor and injuries such as these had to be endured. At Therma, however in the ]jublic place of the city, there were some beautiful statues. I'or these Verres longed and desired his host to get them ibr him. Sthenius declared that this was impossible. The statues had under peculiar circumstances been recovered by Scipio Africanus from Carthage, and been restored by the Roman General to the Sicilians from whom they liad been taken, and had been erected at Therma. There was a peculiarly beautiful figure of Stesichorus the poet, as an liicli Ills brother Qaintus is said to have drav/n out, and A\ liicli 1 have quoted ; but it proves also the trust wliich was felt ill liim by the people. The candidates for the most jiart were the candidates for the aristocracy. They were imt forward with the idea that thus might the aristocratic CICERO AS jEDILE AXD EILETOR. 193 rule of liorae be best maintained. Their elections were carried on by bribery and the people were for the most part indifferent to the proceeding. Whether it miglit be a Yerres, or an Antony, or an Hortensius, they took the money that was going. They allowed themselves to be delighted with the games, and they did as they were bid. But every now and then there came up a name which stirred them, and they went to the voting pens, — ovilia — with a purpose of their own. When such a candidate came forward he was sure to be first. Such had been Marius, and such had been the great Pompey, and such was Cicero. The two former were men successful in war, who gained the voices of the people by their victories. Cicero gained them by what he did inside the city. He could afford not to run into debt and ruin himself during liis zEdiieship, — -as had been common with ^diles,— because he was able to achieve his popularity in another way. It was the chief duty of the .^diles to look after the town generally, to see to the temples of the gods, to take care that houses did not tumble down, to look to the cleansing of the streets and to the supply of water. The markets were under them, and the police, and the recurrent festivals. An active man, with common sense, such as was Cicero, no doubt did his duty as ^dile well. He kept up his practice as an advocate -during his years of office. We have left to us the part of one speech and the whole of another spoken during this period. The former was in favour of Fonteius whom the Gauls prosecuted for plundering them as Proprietor, and the latter is a VOL. I. 194 LIFE OF CICERO. civil case on behalf of Csecina, addressed to the " recii- peratores " as had been that for Marcus Tullius. The speech for Fonteius is remarkable as being as hard against the provincial Grauls, as his speech against Verres had been favourable to the Sicilians. But the Gauls were barbarians, whereas the Sicilians were Greeks. And it should be always remembered that Cicero spoke as an advocate and that the praise and censure of an advocate require to be taken with many grains of salt. Nothing that these wretched Gauls could say against a Koman citizen ought to be accepted in evidence ! All the Romans, he says, who have been in the Province wish well to Fonteius. " "Would you rather believe these Gauls ? Led by what feeling ? By the opinion of men ! Is the opinion then of your enemies of greater weight than that of your fellow citizens ? Or is it the greater credibility of the witnesses 1 Would you prefer then unknown men to known, dishonest men to honest, foreigners to your own countrymen, greedy men to those who come before you for nothing, men of no religion to those who fear the gods, those who hate the empire and the name of Rome to allies and citizens wlio are good and faithful?"^ In every word of this he begs the question so as to convince us that his own case was weak; and when he makes a final appeal to the pity of the judges "vwe are sure that Fonteius was guilty. He tells the judges that the poor mother of the accused man has no other support than this sou, and that there is a ' I'ro l''oiitcio, xiii. CICERO AS ^DILE AND PRyETOR. 195 sister one of the virgins devoted to the service of Vesta who being a vestal virgin cannot have sons of her own, and is therefore entitled to have her brother preserved for lier. When we read such arguments as these we are sure that Fonteius had misused the Gauls. We believe that he was acquitted because we are told that he bought a house in Eome soon afterwards, but we feel that he escaped by the too great influence of his advocate. We are driven to doubt whether the power over words which may be achieved by a man by means of natural gifts, practice, and erudition, may not do evil instead of good. A man with such a tongue as that of Cicero will make the listener believe almost whatever he will. And the advocate is restrained by no horror of falsehood. In his profession alone it is considered honourable to be a bulwark to deception and to make the worse appear the better cause. Cicero did so when the occasion seemed to him to require it and has been accused of hypocrisy in consequence. There is a passage in one of the dialogues, De Oratore, which has been continually quoted against him because the word " tibs " has been used with approval. The orator is tokl how it may become him to garnish his good story with little white lies, — • " mendaciunculis " ^ The advice does not indeed refer to facts, or to evidence, or to arguments. ^ De Oratore, lib. ii. lix. " Perspicitis, hoc genus quam sit facetiim, qnam elegaiis, qnam oratoriiim, sive habeas vere, quod narrare possis, quod tamen, est mendaciunculis aspergendum, sive fingas." Either invent a story, or if you have an old one add on something so as to make it really funny. Is there a parson, a bishop, an archbishop, who if he have any sense of humour about him does not do the same ? 2 ■ 196 LIFE OF CICERO. It goes no further than to suggest that amount of exag- geration which is used by every teller of a good story in order that the story raory be good. Such "mendaciun- cuLa " are in the mouth of every diner-out in London and •we may pity the dinner parties at which they are not used. Eeference is made to them now because the use of the word by Cicero, having been misunderstood by some who have treated Iiis name with severity, has been brought forward in proof of his falsehood. You shall tell a story about a very little man and say that he is only thirty-six inches. You know very well that he is more than four feet high. That will be a " mendaciunculum " according to Cicero. The phrase has been passed on from one enemy to another till the little fibs of Cicero's recommending have been supposed to be direct lies suggested by him to all advocates, and therefore continually used by him as an advocate. They have been only the garnishing of his drolleries. As an advocate he was about as false, and about as true as an advocate of our own day.^ That ho was not paid, and that our English barristers are paid for tlic work they do, makes I thinlc, no difference either in the innocency or the falseness of the practice. I cannot but believe that, liereafter, an improved tone of general feeling will forbid a man of lionour to use arguments which he thinks to be ' Cicero, Pro Cluontio, ]., cxjilaiiis very clearly his own idea as to his OA\'n speeches as an advocate, and may be accepted pcrhnjis, ns explaining the ideas of barristers of to-day. "He errs," ho says, "who thinks that he gets my own opinions in speeclies made in law courts ; sncli speeches are what the B{)ecial cases rerjuire, and are not to be taken as corning from an advocate as his own." CICERO AS JEBILE AND PRJETOR. 197 untrue, or to make others believe that which he does not believe himself. Such is not the state of things now in London, — nor was it at Eome in Cicero's time. There are touches of eloquence in the plea for I'onteius, but the reader will probably agree with me that the orator was well aware that the late governor who was on his trial had misused those unfortunate Gauls. In the year following that of Cicero's ^dileship w'ere written the first of his epistles which have come to us. He was then not yet thirty-nine years old, B.C. ^'^, and during that year and the next seven, were written eleven letters, — all to Atticus. Tliose to his otlier friends, — " Ad Familiares " as we have been accustomed to call them ; " Ad Diversos " they are commonly called now, — began only with the close of his consular year. How it has come to pass that there have been preserved only those which were written after a period of life at which most men cease to be free correspondents cannot be said with certainty. It has probably been occasioned by the fact that he caused his letters to be preserved as soon as he himself perceived how great would be their value. Of the nature of their value it is hardly possible to speak too highly. I am not prepared indeed to agree with the often quoted assertion of Cornelius Nepos that he who has read his letters to Atticus will not lack much of the history of those days.'^ ^ AVhen the question is discussed we are forced rather to wonder how many of the great historical doings of the time are not mentioned, or are mentioned very slightly, in Cicero's letters. Of Pompey's treatment of the pirates, and of his batlliug in the East little or nothing is said ;— nothing of 198 LIFE OF CICERO. A man wlio sliould have read them and nothing else, even in the days of Augustus, would not have learned much of the preceding age. But if not for the purpose of history the letters generally have, if read aright, been all but enough for the purpose of biography. With a view to the understanding of the man's character they have, I think, been enough. From them such a flood of light has been turned upon the writer, that all his nobility and all his defects, all his aspirations and all his vacillations have been made visible. We know how human he was, — and how, too, he was only human ; how he sighed for great events, and allowed himself to think sometimes that they could be accomplished by small manceuvres ; how like a man, he could be proud of his work and boast, — how hke a man, he could despair and almost die. But I wish it to be acknowledged by those who read his letters in order that they may also read his character, that they were, when written, private letters, intended to tell the truth, and that if they are to be believed in reference to his weaknesses, they are also to be believed in reference to his strength. If they are singularly transparent as to the Caisar's doings in Spain. Mention is nuule of Cscsar's great operations in Gaul only in reference to the lieutenancy of Cicero's brother Quintus, and to tlie employment of his young friend Trebatius. Nothing is said of the manner of Caesar's coming into Rome after passing the Rubicon ; — nothing of the manner of fighting at Dyrrachium and Pharsalia ; very little of the death of Pompey ; nothing of Cscsar's delay in Egypt. The letters deal with Cicero's personal doings and thoughts, and with the politics of Rome as a city. The passage; to whicli allusion is made occurs in the life of Atticus, (;a. xvi., " (,>u;i' (^ui Icgiit nun inulluiu dcsidurct historiani coutextam illorum temporuni." CICERO AS jBBILE AND FE.ETOR. 199 man, opening, especially to Atticus, the secrets of his soul more completely than would even any girl in the nineteenth century when writing to her bosom friend, so must they be taken as being more honestly true. To regard the higher aspirations as hypocritical, and only the meaner effluxions of his mind as emblematic of the true man, is both unreasonable and uncharitable. Nor, I think, will that reader be in the way to see the truth who cannot teach himself what has in Cicero's case been the effect of daring to tell to his friend an unvarnished tale. "When with us some poor thought does makes its way across our minds w^e do not sit down and write it to another, —nor if we did, would an immortality be accorded to the letter. If one of us were to lose his all, — as Cicero lost his all when he was sent into exile, — I think it might well be that he should for a time be unmanned. But he would either not write, or in writing would hide much of his feelings. On losing his TuUia some father of to-day would keep it all in his heart, — would not maunder out his sorrows. Even with our truest love for our friends some fear is mingled w^hich forbids the use of open words. Whether this be for good or for evil I will not say ; — but it is so. Cicero, whether he did or did not know that his letters would live, was impeded by no such fear. He said everything that there w^as within him; — being in this I should say quite as unlike to other Eomans of the day as he was to ourselves. In the collection as it has come to us there are about fifty letters not from Cicero, — written to Cicero by his brother, by Decimus Brutus, by 200 LIFE OF CICERO. Planciis and others. It -will I think be admitted that their tone is quite different from that used by himself. There are none indeed from Atticus, none written under terms of such easy friendship as prevailed when many were written by Cicero himself. It will probably be ac- knowledged that Jiis manner of throwing himself open to his correspondent was peculiar to him. If this be so, he should surely have the advantage as well as the dis- advantage of his own mode of utterance. The reader who allows himself to think that the true character of the man is to be read in the little sly things he said to Atticus, but that the nobler ideas were merely put forth to cajole the public, is as unfair to himself as he is to Cicero. In reading the entire correspondence, — the letters from Cicero either to Atticus or to others, — it has to be remembered that in the ordinary arrangement of them made by Groevius ^ they are often incorrectly placed in regard to chronology. In subsequent times efforts have been made to restore them to their proper position, and so they should be read. The letters to Atticus and those " Ad Diversos" have generally been published separately. Yov the ordinary purpose of literary pleasure they may perhaps be best read in that way. The tone of them is different. The great bulk of the corre- sijondence is political, or quasi-political. The manner is much more huniliar, much less severe, — though not on that uccoiuit indicating less seriousness, — in those written to I ' Jean George Greefe was a German, who spput his life as a professor at Li;y(h'n, and, among oth(T classical luliours, ainuigud and edited the letters of Cicero. lie died in 1703, CICERO AS .EDILE AND PRjETOR. 201 Atticus than in tlie others. With one or two signal ex- ceptions those to Atticus are better worth reading. Tlie character of the writer may perhaps be best gathered from divided perusal. But for a general understanding of the facts of Cicero's life the whole correspondence should be taken as it was written. It has been published in this shape as well as in the other, and "will be used in this shape in my effort to portray the life of him who wrote them.^ We have three letters written when he was thirty-eight, in _ - gg the year after his ^dileship. In the first he tells secat 39- j^jg friend of the death of his cousin Lucius Cicero, who had travelled with him into Sicily, and alludes to the disagreements which had taken place between Pomponia, the sister of Atticus, and her husband Quintus Cicero, — our Cicero's brother. Marcus in all that he says of his brother makes the best of him. That Quintus was a scholar and a man of parts there can be no doubt ; one, too, who rose to high ofBce in the Eepublic. But he was arrogant, of harsh temper, cruel ^ It must be explained, however, tliat continued research and increased knowledge have caused the order of the letters and the dates assigned to them to be altered from time to time. And, — though much has been done to achieve accuracy, — more remains to be done. In my references to the letters I at first gave them, both to the arrangement made by Grievius and to the numbers assigned in the edition I am using. But I have found that the num- b(.rs would only mislead, as no numbering has been yet adopted as fixeil. Arbitrary and even fantastic as is the arrangement of Gravius it is better to confine myself to that because it has been acknowledged, and will enable my readers to find the letters if they wish to do so. Should Mr. Tyrrell' continue and complete his edition of the correspondence he will go far to achieve the desired accuracy. A second volume has appeared since this work of mine has been in the press. 202 LIFE OF CICERO. to those dependent on him, and altogether unimbued with the humanity which was the peculiar characteristic of his brother. " When I found him to be in the wrong," says Cicero in his first letter, " I wrote to him as to a brother whom I loved, — but as to one younger than myself, and whom I was bound to tell of his fault." As is usual with correspondents half the letter is taken up with excuses for not writin" sooner. Then he crives commissions for the purchase of statues for his Tusculan villa, of which we now hear for the first time, ' and tells his friend how his wife Terentia sends her love though she is suffering from the gout. Tullia also, the dear little Tullia, — " delicite nostra," -^ — sends lier love. In the next, he says how a certain house which Atticus had intended to purchase had been secured by Fonteius for 130,000 sesterces, something over £1,000, taking the sesterce at 2cl. This no doubt was part of the plunder which Fonteius had taken from the Gauls. Quintus is getting on better with his wife. Then he tells his friend very abruptly that his father died that year on the eighth day before the kalends of December, — on the 2-ith November. Some question as to the date of the old man's death had probably been asked. He gives further commissions as to statues, and declares of his Tusculan villa that he is happy only when he is there. In the third letter he promises that he will be ready to pay one Cincius £170 on a certain day, — ' 'J'lu; i)<;c,uli.iriti(;s of Cicero's character arc nowhere so clearly legible as in his dealiiigH with and words about his dauf^hter. There is au cll'iisiou of love, and then of sorrow^vhcu she dies, — which is un-hoiu;ui, almost feminine, — bnt very touching. ) I CICERO AS JEDILE AND PRJiTOIi. 203 the price probably of more statues, and gives orders to Lis friend as to the buying of boolvs, " All my prospect of en- joying myself at my ease depends on your goodness," These were the letters he wrote when he had just ceased to be iEdile. From the next two years five letters remain to us, chiefly noticeable from the continued commissions given by Cicero to Atticus for statues. Statues and more statues are wanted as ornaments for his Tusculanum. Should there be more than are needed for that villa he will begin to decorate another that] he has, — the rormianum, near Caieta. He wants whatever Atticus may think proper for his " palaestra " and " gymnasium." Atticus has a library or collection of maps for sale, and Cicero engages to buy them ; though it seems that he has not at present quite got the money. He reserves, he says, all his little comings-in, — " vindemiolas," — what he might make by selling his grapes, as a lady in the country might get a little income from her spare butter, — in order that he may have books as a resource for his old age. Again, he bids Atticus not to be afraid but what he, Cicero, will be able to buy them some day, — which if he can do he will be richer than Crassus, and will envy no one his mansions or his lawns. He also declares that he has betrothed Tullia, then ten years old, to Caius Piso, son of Lucius Piso Pru^i. The proposed marriage, which after three years of betrothal was duly solemnised, was considered to be in all respects desirable. Cicero thought very highly of his son-in-law, who M'as related to Calpurnius Piso, one of the Con- suls of that year. So far everything was going well with our orator. 204 LIFE OF CICERO. He was then caudidate for the Pra^torship, — and was jp g- elected first, as has been already said. It was sEtat 40. ^^ ^Yiox year too, that a law was passed in Eonie at the instance of one Gabinius, a tribune, authorising Pompey to exterminate the pirates in the Mediterranean and giving him almost unlimited power for this object. Pompey was not indeed named in this law. A single general, one who had been Consul, was to be approved by the Senate, with exclusive command by sea and for fifty miles on shore. He was to select as his own officers a hitherto unheard of number, all of senatorial rank. It was well understood when the law was worded that Pompey alone could fill the place. The Senate opposed the scheme with all its power, although, seven years before, it had acknowledged the necessity of some measure for extirpating the pirates. But jealousies prevailed, and the Senate was afraid of Pompey. Gabinius however carried his law by the votes of the people, and Pompey was api)ointed. Nothing t(dls us more clearly the wretched condition of things in Rome at this time than this infliction of pirates under which their commerce was almost destroyed. Sulla had reestablished the outside show of a strong government, —a government which was strong enough to enable rich men to live securely in Pome ; but lie had done nothing to consolidate the Empire. Even Eucullus in the East had oidy ])artially succeeded, leaving Mithridates still to be dealt witli 1)y Pompey. Of wliat nature was the government (jf the provinces under >'ulla's aristocracy we CICERO AS jEDILE AXD ER.ETOn. 205 learn from the trials of Verres and of Fonteius and of Catiline. The Mediterranean swarmed with pirates who tanght themselves to think that they had nothing to fear from the hands of the Eomans. Plutarch declares to us, no doubt with fair accuracy, because the description has been admitted by subsequent writers, — how great was the horror of these depredations.^ It is marvellous to us now that this should have been allowed, — marvellous that pirates should reach such a pitch of importance that Verres had found it worth his while to sacrifice Eoman citizens in their place. Pompey went forth with his officers, his fleets and his money and cleared the Mediterraneati, — in forty days as Plutarch sa3^s. Plorus tells us that not a ' I annex a passage from our well-known English translation. " The power of the pirates had its foundation in Cilicia. Their progress was the more dangerous, because at first it had been but little noticed. In the Mithridatic war they assumed new confidence and courage, on account of some services which they had rendered the king. After this, the Romans being engaged in civil war at the very gates of their capital, the sea was left unguarded, and the pirates by degrees attempted higher things ; not only attacking ships, but islands and maritime towns. ]\rany persons distinguished for their wealth, birth, and capacity embarked with them, and assisted in their depre- dations, as if their employment had been worthy the ambition of men of honour. They had in various places arsenals, ports, and watch-towers, all strongly fortified. Their fleets were not only extremely well manned, sup- plied with skilful pilots, and fitted for their business by their lightness and celerity ; but there was a parade of vanity about them, more mortifying than their strength, in gilded sterns, purple canopies, and plated oars : as if tliey took a pride and triumphed in their villainy. Music resounded, and drunken revels were exhibited on every coast. Here generals were made prisoners ; and there the cities, which the pirates had seized upon, were paying their ransom, to the great disgrace of the Roman power. The number of their galleys amounted to a thousand, and the cities taken to four hundred." The passage is taken from the life of Pompey. 206 LIFE OF CICERO. ship was lost, by the Eomans and not a pirate left on the seas.^ In the history of Eome at this time we find men of mark whose characters as we read, become clear to us, or appear to become clear. Of Marius and of Sulla we have a defined idea. Csesar with his imperturbable courage, absence of scruples, and assurance of success, comes home to us. Cicero, I think, we certainly may understand. Catiline, Cato, Antony and Brutus have left their portraits with us. Of Pompey I must acknowledge for myself that I have but a vague conception. His wonderful successes seem to have been produced by so very little power of his own ! He was not determined and venomous as was Marius, not cold-blooded and ruthless as was Sulla, certainly not confident as was Ccesar, not humane as was Cicero, not passionate as Catiline, not stoic as was Cato, not reckless as was Antony, nor wedded to the idea of an oligarchy as was Brutus. Success came in his way, and he found it ; — found it again and again till fortune seemed to have adopted him. Success lifted him higher and higher till at last it seemed to 1dm that he must be a Sulla whether he would or 110.2 p,^{^ ]^q could not endure the idea of '•■ Flonis, lib. iii. C>. " An felicitatem, quod ne una cuidam navis aniissa est ; an vpro perpetuctatem, quod ampluis piratai non fucrunt.'" '^ Of the singular trust placed in Pompey theri; arc very many proofs in tln^ liistorj' of Rome at this period, l)ut none perhaps clearer than the exce])tion made in his favour in the wording of laws. In the agrarian law proposed hy the tribune Rullua and opposed by Cicero when he was consul, there is a clause commanding all generals under the Republic to account for the spoils CICERO AS jEDILE AND PR.ETOR. 207 a rival Sulla. I doubt whether ambition would have prompted him to fight for the empire of the Eepublic, liad he not perceived that that empire would fall into Caesar's hands did he not grasp it himself. It would have satisfied him to let things go, while the citizens called him 'Magnus' and regarded him as the man who could do a great thing if he would, — if only no rivalship had been forced upon him. Ca?sar did force it on him, and then as a matter of course he fell. He must have understood warfare from his youth upwards, knowing well the pur- poses of a Roman legion and of Eoman auxiliaries. He had destroyed Sertorius in Spain, a man certainly greater than himself, and had achieved the honour of putting an end to the Servile war when Spartacus the leader of tlie slaves and gladiators had already been killed. He must have appreciated at its utmost the meaning of those words " Gives Eomanus." He was a handsome man, w^ith sood health, patient of labour, not given to luxury, reticent, 1 should say ungenerous, and with a strong touch of vanity; a man able to express but unable to feel friend- ship ; with none of the highest attributes of manhood, but with all the second-rate attributes at their best. A capable brave man, — but one certain to fall crushed beneatii the heel of such a man as Cffisar, and as certain to leave such a one as Cicero in the lurch. It is necessary that the reader should attempt to realise to taken by them in war. But there is a special exemption in fiivour of Pom- pey. "Pompeins exceptus esto." It is as though no tribune dared to propose a law affecting Pompey. 208 LIFE OF CICERO. himself tlie personal characteristics of Pompey as from this time forward Cicero's political life, — and his life now became altogether political, — was governed by that of Pompey. That this was the case to a great extent is certain, — to a sad extent, I think. The two men were of the same age ; but Pompey had become a general among soldiers before Cicero liad ceased to be a pupil among advocates. As Cicero was making his way towards tlie front, Pompey was already the first among Eomans. He had been Consul seven years before his proper time, and had lately as we have seen, been in- vested with extraordinary powers in that matter of putting down the pirates. In some sort the mantle of Sulla had fallen upon him. He was the leader of what we may call the conservative party. If, which I doubt, the political gover- nance of men was a matter of interest to him, he would have had them governed by oligarchical forms. Such had been the forms in Pome, — in wliicli, though the votes of the people were the source of all power, the votes liardly went further than the selection of this or that oligarch. Pompey no doubt felt the expediency of maintaining the old order of things, — in the midst of which he had been l)orn to high rank, and had achieved the topmost place eitlier by fortime or by merit. For any heartfelt conviction as to what might be best for liis country or his countrymen, in what way he nii,i-'lit most surely use his power for the good of the citizens generally, we must, I thiidc, look in vain to that Pompey wlioiri history has handed down to us. lUit, of all matters wliicli interested Cicero, the governance of men interested liim the most. How should the great Home of his day rise I CICERO AS jEDILE AKD PRjETOR. 209 to greater power than ever, and yet be as pure as in the days of her comparative insignificance ? How should Eome be ruled, so that Eomans might be the masters of the world, in mental gifts as well as bodily strength, in arts as well as in arms, — as by valour, so by virtue ? He, too, was an oligarch by strongest conviction. His mind could conceive nothing better than Consuls, Praetors, Censors, Tribunes, and the rest of it, — with, however, the stipulation that the Consuls, and the Prfetors should be honest men. The condition was no doubt an impossible one ; but this he did not or would not see. Pompey himself was fairly honest. Up to this time he had shown no egregious lust for personal power. His hands were clean in the midst of so much public plunder. He was the leader of the conservative party. The " Optimates," or " Boni " as Cicero indifferently calls them, — meaning as we should say the upper classes who were minded to stand by their order, — believed in him, though they did not just at that time wish to confide to him the power which the people gave him. The Senate did not want another Sulla ; — and yet it was Sulla who had reinstated the Senate. The Senate would have hindered Pompey, if it could, from his command against the pirates, and again from his command against Mithridates. But he, nevertheless, was naturally their head, — as came to be seen plainly when seventeen years after- wards Cffisar passed the Eubicon, and Cicero in his heart acknowledged Pompey as his political leader while Pompey lived. This, I think, was the case to a sad extent, as Pompey was incapable of that patriotic enthusiasm which Cicero demanded. As we go on we shall find that the worst VOL. I. P 210 LIFE OF CICERO. episodes in Cicero's political career were created by his doubting adherence to a leader whom he bitterly felt to be untrue to himself, and in whom his trust became weaker and weaker to the end. Then came Cicero's Prsetorship. In the time of Cicero there were eight Prastors, two of whom were employed in the city, and the six others in the provinces. The ' Prsetor Urbanus ' was confined to the city, and was regarded as the first in authority. This was the office filled by Cicero. His duty was to preside among the judges, and to name a judge or judges for special causes. Cicero at this time, when he and Pompey were forty or ^ - gg forty- one, believed thoroughly in Pompey. When 8etat4i. ^i^g great General was still away, winding up the affairs of his maritime war against the pirates, there came up the continually pressing question of the continuation of the Mithridatic war. Lucullus had been absent on that business nearly seven years, and though he had been at first grandly victorious, had failed at last. His own soldiers, tired of their protracted absence, mutinied against him, and Glabrio, a later Consul who had been sent to take the command out of his hands, had feared to en- counter the difficulty. It was essential that something should be done, and one Manilius, a Tribune, a man of no repute himself, but whose name has descended to all pos- tcrily in IIkj oral ion "Pro Lege Manilia," proposed to the people that Pompey should have the command. Then Cicero first entered, as we may say, on political life. Though he liad been Qiiujstor and Tlildile, and was now Praetor, he had CICERO AS MDILE AND PRJETOR. 211 taken a part only in executive administration. He liad had his political ideas, — and had expressed them very strongly in that matter of the judges which, in the condition of Rome, vi^as certainly a political question of great moment. But tliis he had done as an advocate, and had interfered only as a barrister of to-day might do, who in arguing a case before the judges should make an attack on some alleged misuse of patronage. Now, for the first time, he made a political harangue, addressing the people in a public meeting from the rostra. This speech is the oratio "■ Pro Lege Manilla." This he explains in his first words. Hitherto his addresses had been to the judges, — Judices ; now it is to the people, — Quirites. " Although, Quirites, no sight has ever been so pleasant to me as that of seeing you gathered in crowds, although this spot has always seemed to me the fittest in the world for action and the noblest for speech, nevertheless, not my own will indeed, but the duties of the profession which I have followed from my earliest years, have hitherto hin- dered me from entering upon this, the best path to glory which is open to any good man." It is only necessary for our purpose to say in reference to the matter in question that this command was given to Pompey in opposition to the Senate. As to the speech itself it requires our attention on two points. It is one of those choice morsels of polished latinity which has given to Cicero the highest rank among literary men, and has, perhaps, made him the greatest writer of prose which the world has produced. I have sometimes attempted to make a short list of his clicfs d'oiuvrc, — of p 2 212 LIFE OF CICERO. his tit-bits as I must say if I am bound to express myself in Enalisb, The list would never allow itself to be short, and so has become almost impossible. But whenever the attempt has been made this short oration in its integrity has always been included in it. My space hardly permits me to insert specimens of the author's style, but I will give in an appen- dix,^ — two brief extracts as specimens of the beauty of Avords in Latin. I almost fancy that if properly read they would have a srace about them even to the ears of those to whom Latin is unknown. I venture to attach to them in parallel columns my own translation, acknowledging in de- spair how impossible I have found it to catch anything of the rhythm of the author. As to the beauty of the language 1 shall probably find no opponent. But a serious attack has been made on Cicero's character because it has been supposed that his excessive praise was lavished on Pompey with a view of securing the great General's assistance in his candidature for the consulship. Even Middleton repeats this accusation, and only faintly repels it. ]\L Du Eozoir, the French critic, declares that " in the whole oration there is not a word which was not dictated to Cicero the Prsetor by his desire to become Consul, and that his own elevation was in his thoughts all through, and not that of Pompey." The matter would be one to us but of little moment were it not that Cicero's character for honesty as a politician depends on the truth or falsehood of bis belief in Pompey. Pompey had been almost miraculously fortunate up to this period of liis life's career. * See Appendix D. CICERO AS jEDILE AND PRJETOR. 213 He had done infinitely valuable service to tlie State. He had already crushed the pirates. There was good ground for believing that in his hands the Roman arms would be more efficacious against Mithridates than in those of any other general. All that Cicero says on this head, whatever might have been his motive for saying it, was at any rate true. A man desirous of rising in the service of his country of course adheres to his party. That Cicero was wrong in supposing that the liepublic, w^hich had in fact already fallen, could be re-established by the strength of any one man, could be bolstered up by any leader, has to be admitted. That in trusting to Pompey as a politician he leaned on a frail reed I admit. But I will not admit that in praising the man he was hypocritical or unduly self-seeking. In our own political contests when a sub- ordinate member of the Cabinet is zealously serviceable to his chief, we do not accuse him of falsehood because by that zeal he has also strengthened his own hands. How shall a patriot do the work of his country unless he be in high place ; and how shall he achieve that place except by co-operation with those whom he trusts? They who have blamed Cicero for speaking on behalf of Pompey on this occasion seem to me to ignore not only the necessities, but the very virtues of political life. One other remarkable oration Cicero made during his Praetorship, that namely in defence of Aulus Cluentius Habitus. As it is the longest, so is it the most intricate, and on account of various legal points the most diflicult to follow of all his speeches. But there are none perhaps 214 LIFE OF CICERO. which tell us more of the condition, or perhaps I should say the possibilities of life among the Eomans of that day. The accusation against Eoscius Amerinus was ac- companied by horrible circumstances. The iniquities of Verres as a public officer who had the power of blessing, — or of cursing, — a whole people, were very terrible. But they do not shock so much as the story here told of private life. That any man should have lived as did Oppianicus, or any woman as did Sassia, seems to prove a state of things worse than anything described by Juvenal a hundred and fifty years later. Cicero was no doubt unscrupulous as an advocate, but he could have gained nothing here by departing from verisimilitude. We must take the picture as given us as true, and acknowledge that though law processes were common, crimes such as those of this man and of this woman were not only possible, but might be perpetrated with impunity. The story is too long and complicated to be even abridged ; but it should be read by those who wish to know the condition of life in Italy during the latter days of the Eepublic. in the year after he was PriBtor, — in the first of the two ^„ g. years between his Preetorship and his Consulship, ffitat 42. — j> Q gg^ — Y\Q, made a speech in defence of one Caius Cornelius, as to which we hear that the pleadings in the case occupied four days. This, witli our interminable " causes ciilibres," does not seem much to us, but Cicero's own spcecli was so h»iig tliat in ])ublisliing it he divided it into two pni-ts. 'J'his Cornelius liad been Tribune in tlio year but one; before, and was accused of having CICERO AS jEDILE AND PRyETOR. 215 misused his power when in office. He had incurred the enmity of the aristocracy by attempts made on the popular side to restrain the Senate ; especially by the stringency of a law proposed for stopping bribery at elections. Cicero's speeches are not extant. We have only some hardly intelligible fragments of them, which were pre- served by Asconius/ a commentator on certain of Cicero's orations ; but there is ground for supposing that these Cornelian orations were at the time matter of as great moment as those spoken against Verres, or almost as those spoken against Catiline. Cicero defended Cornelius who was attacked by the Senate, — by the rich men who desired office and the government of provinces. The law proposed for the restriction of bribery at elections no doubt attempted to do more by the severity of its punishment than can be achieved by such means. It was mitigated, but was still admitted by Cicero to be too rigorous. The rancour of the Senate against Cornelius seems to have been due to this attempt ; but the illegality with which he was charged and for which he was tried had reference to another law suggested by him, — for restoring to the people the right of pardon which had been usurped by the Senate. Cains ^ Asconius Pedianus was a grammarian who lived in the reign of Tiberius, and whose commentaries on Cicero's speeches as far as tliey go, are very useful in explaining to us the meaning of the orator. We have his notes on these two Cornelian orations and some others, — especially on that of Pro Milone. There ai'e also commentaries on some of the Verrine orations ; — not by Asconius, — but from the pen of sonue writer now called Pseudo- Asconius, having been long supposed to have come from Asconius. They, too, go far to elucidate much which would otherwise be dark to us. 216 LIFE OF CICERO. Cornelius seems to have been a man honest and eager in his purpose to save the Republic from the greed of the oligarchs; — but, as had been the Gracchi, ready in his eagerness to push his own authority too far in his attempt to restrain that of the Senate. A second Tribune, in the interest of the Senate, attempted to exercise an authority which undoubtedly belonged to him, by inhibiting the publication or reading of the proposed law. The person whose duty it was to read it was stopped. Then Cornelius pushed aside the inferior officer, and read it himself. There was much violence and the men who brought the accusation a"-ainst Cornelius, two brothers named Cominii, had to liide themselves, and saved their lives by escaping over the roofs of the houses. This took place when Cicero was standing for the Prsetorship, and the confusion consequent upon it was so great that it was for a while impossible to carry on the election. In the year after his Prsetorship Cornelius was put upon his trial, and the two speeches were made. The matter seems to have been one of vital interest in Eome. The contest on the part of the Senate was for all that made public life dear to such a body. Not to bribe, — not to bo able to lay out money in order that money miglit be returned ten-fold, a hundred-fold, would be to them to cease to be aristocrats. The struggles made by the Gracchi, by Livius Drusus, by others whose names would only eucuiuber us here, by this Cornelius, were the expiring efforts of tliose who really desired an honest Jiepublic. Such were the struggles made by Cicero himself, CICERO AS jEDILE AND PRJETOR. 217 — though there was present always to him an idea, with which in truth neither the demagogues nor the aristocrats sympathised, that the reform could be effected, not by depriving the Senate of its power, but by teaching the Senate to use it honestly. We can sympathise with the idea, but we are driven to acknowledge that it was futile. Though we know that this was so, the fragments of the speeches, though they have been made intelligible to us by the " argument " or story of them prefixed by Asconius in his notes, cannot be of interest to readers. They were extant in the time of Quintilian who speaks of them with the highest praise.' Cicero himself selects certain passages out of these speeches as examples of eloquence or rhythm,^ thus showing the labour with which he com- posed them, polishing them by the exercise of his ear as well as by that of his intellect. We know from Asconius that this trial was regarded at the time as one of vital interest. We have two letters from Cicero written in the year 1 Quint, lib. viii. 3. The critic is explaining the effect of ornament in oratory ; — of that beauty of language which with the people has more etiect than argument, and he breaks forth himself into perhaps the most eloquent passage in the whole Institute. " Cicero in pleading for Cornelius fought with arms which were as splendid as they were strong. It was not simply by putting the facts before the judges, by talking usefully, in good language and clearly, that he succeeded in forcing the Koman people to acknowledge by their voices and by their hands their admiration. It was the grandeur of his words, their magnificence, their beauty, their dignity, which produced that outburst." ' Orator. Ixvii. and Ixs. 218 LIFE OF CICERO. after liis Prsetorship, both to Atticus, the first of which tells us of his probable competition for the Consulship, The second informs his friend that a son is born to him, — he being then forty-two years old, — and that he is thinking to undertake the defence of Catiline who was to be accused of peculation as Propraetor in Africa. " Should he be acquitted," says Cicero, " I should hope to have him on my side in the matter of my canvass. If he should be convicted I shall be able to bear that too." There were to be six or seven candidates, of whom two of course would be chosen. It would be much to Cicero " to run," as our phrase goes, with the one w^ho among his competitors would be the most likely to succeed. Catiline, in spite of his then notorious character, — in the teeth of the evils of his government in Africa, — was from his birth, his connections, and from his ability supposed to have the best chance. It was open to Cicero to defend Catiline as he had defended Fonteius, and we know from his own words that he thought of doing so. But he did not; nor did Cicero join himself with Catiline in the canvassing. It is probable that the nature of Catiline's character and intentions were now becoming clearer from day to day. Catiline was tried and acquitted, — Laving it is said bribed the judges. CHAPTEE VIII. CICERO AS CONSUL, Hitherto everything had succeeded with Cicero. His fortune and his fame had gone hand in hand. The good will of the citizens had been accorded to him on all possible occasions. He had risen surely if not quickly to the top of his profession, and had so placed himself there as to have torn the wreath from the brow of his predecessor and rival Hortensius, On no memorable occasion had he been beaten. If now and then he had failed to win a cause in which he was interested it was as to some matter in which, as he had said to Atticus in speaking of his contemplated defence of Catiline, he was not called on to break his heart if he were beaten. We may imagine that his life had been as happy up to this point as a man's life may be. He had married well. Children had been born to him, who were the source of infinite delight. He had provided himself with houses, marbles, books and all the intellectual luxuries which well-used wealth could produce. Triends were thick around him. His industry, his ability and his honesty were acknowledged. The citizens had given him all that it was in their power to give. Now at the earliest possible day, with circumstances of much more 220 LIFE OF CICERO. than usual honour, he was i3ut in the highest place which his country had to offer, and knew himself to be the one man in whom his country at this moment trusted. Then came the one twelvemonth, the apex of his fortunes ; and after that for the twenty years that followed, there fell upon him one misery after another, one trouble on the head of another trouble, so cruelly that the reader knowing the manner of Komans almost wonders that he condescended to live. He was chosen Consul we are told not by the votes but B c G4 ^y ^^^ unanimous acclamation of the citizens. What aetat 43- ^^,^^ ^Y\q exact manner of doing this we can hardly now understand. The Consuls were elected by ballot, wooden tickets having been distributed to the people for the purpose ; but Cicero tells us that no voting tickets were used in his case, but that he was elected by the combined voice of the whole people.^ He had stood with six competitors. Of these it is only necessary to mention two, — as by them only was Cicero's life affected, and as, out of the six, only they seem to have come prominently forward during the canvassing. These were Catiline the conspirator as we shall have to call Iiiiu in dealing with his name in the next chapter, and Caius Antonius one of the sons of Marc Antony, the great orator of the preceding age, and uncle of the Marc Antony with whom we are all so well acquainted, and ' 1J(! Lcg(! Agraiiii, ii. 2. " Mcis coiiiitiis noii t:il)(,'l];ini, viiulicciii tacitoe liljiaiiitis, sed vocem vivam priu vobis, iiidiconi vcstnuum crga nu; volniitatuni ac Htudioriiiii tulistis. Ita(Hie me . . , , una voce univcrsus populus Komanus coii.suIliii dcclaravit." CICERO AS CONSUL. 221 with whom we shall have so much to do, before we get to the end of this work. Cicero was so easily the first that it may be said of him that he walked over the course. Whether this was achieved by the Machiavellian arts which his brother Quintus taught in his treatise " De Tetitione Consulatus," or was attributable to his general popularity, may be a matter of doubt. As far as we can judge from the signs which remain to us of the public feeling of the period it seems that he was at this time regarded with singular aflfection by his countrymen. He had robbed none, and had been cruel to no one. He had already abandoned the profit of provincial government, — to which he was by custom entitled after the lapse of his year's duty as Prsetor, — in order that he might remain in Rome among the people. Though one of the Senate himself, — and full of the glory of the Senate, as he had declared plainly enough in that passage from one of the Verrine orations which I have quoted, — he had generally pleaded on the popular side. Such was his cleverness, that even when on the unpopular side, — as he may be supposed to have been when defending Fonteius, — he had given a popular aspect to the cause in hand. We cannot doubt, judging from the loud expression of the people's joy at his election, that he had made himself beloved. But nevertheless he omitted none of those cares whicli it was expected that a candidate should take. He made his electioneering speech " in toga Candida," — in a white robe, as candidates did, and were thence so called. It has not come down to us, — nor do we regret it, judging from 222 LIFE OF CICERO. the extracts which have been collected from the notes which Asconius wrote upon it. It was full of personal abuse of Antony and Catiline his competitors. Such was the practice of Eome at this time, — as it was also with us not very long since. We shall have more than enough of such eloquence before w^e have done our task. "When we come to the language in which Cicero spoke of Clodius his enemy, of Piso and Gabinius the Consuls who allowed him to be banished, and of Marc Antony, his last great opponent, the nephew of the man who was now his colleague, we shall have very much of it. It must again be pleaded that the foul abuse which fell from other lips has not been preserved ; and that Cicero there- fore must not be supposed to have been more foul-mouthed than his rivals. We can easily imagine that he was more bitter than others, because he had more power to throw into his words the meaning which he intended them to convey. Antony was chosen as Cicero's colleague. It seems from such evidence as we are able to get on the subject that Cicero trusted Antony no better than he did Catiline, but appreciating the wisdom of the maxim, " divide et impera," — separate your enemies and you will get the better of them, wliich was no doubt known as well then as now, — he soon determined to use Antony as his ally against Catiline who was presumed to reckon Anthony among his ielluw conspirators. Sallust j)uts into the mouth of Catiline a declaration to tliis effect,' and Cicero did use ' Sail. Conj. Catilinaria, xxi, " Petere consulatum C. Antonium, quern aiV)i collegam fore speraret, liomiiu in ct faiiiiliarem, ct oimiibus necessitudi- iiibuH circuiiiv(!iitinii." Sallusl. would no dciwM have put aiiytbing into CICERO AS CONSUL. 093 Antony for the purpose. The story of Catiline's conspiracy is so essentially the story of Cicero's Consulship, that I may be justified in hurrying over the other events of his year's rule ; — hut still there is something that must be told. Tliough Catiline's conduct was under his eye during the whole year it was not till October that the affairs in which we shall have to interest ourselves commenced. Of what may have been the nature of the administrative work done by the great Koman officers of state we know very little. Perhaps I might better say that we know nothing. Men, in their own diaries, when they keep them, or even in their private letters, are seldom apt to say much of those daily doings which are matter of routine to themselves and are by them supposed to be as little interesting to others. A Prime Minister with us, were he as prone to reveal himself in correspondence as was Cicero with his friend Atticus, would hardly say when he went to the Treasury Chambers or what he did when he got there. We may imagine that to a Cabinet Minister even a Cabinet Council would after many sittings become a matter of course. A leading barrister would hardly leave behind him a record of his work in chambers. It has thus come to pass tliat though we can picture to ourselves a Cicero before the judges, or addressing the people from the rostra, or uttering his opinion in the Senate, we know nothing of him as he sat in his office and did his Catiline's mouth whicli would suit his own purpose ; but it was necessary for his purpose that he should confine himself to credibilities. 224 LIFE OF CICERO. consular work. We cannot but suppose that there must have been an ofifice with many clerks. There must have been heavy daily work. The whole operation of govern- ment was under the Consul's charge, and to Cicero, with a Catiline on his hands, this must have been more than usually heavy. How he did it, with what assistance, sitting at M'hat writing-table, dressed in what robes, with what surroundings of archives and red tape, I cannot make manifest to myself. I can imagine that there must have been much of dignity, — as there was with all leading Romans, but beyond that I cannot advance even in fancying what was the official life of a Consul, In the old days the Consul used as a matter of course to go out and do the fighting. When there was an enemy here, or an enemy there, the Consul was bound to hurry ofi' with his army, north or south, to different parts of Italy. But gradually this system became impracticable. Distances became too great, as the empire extended itself beyond the bounds of Italy, to admit of the absence of tlie Consuls. \Vars prolonged themselves through many cam- paigns, — as notably did that which was soon to take place in Gaul under Csesar. The Consuls remained at home, and Generals were sent out with proconsular authority. This had become so certainly the case that Cicero on becoming Consul had no fear of being called on to fight the enemies of liis country. There was much fighting then in course of being done by Pompey in the East. But this would give liut litth) trouble to the gi'cat oflicers at home, unless it might be in sending out necessary supplies. CICERO AS CONSUL. 225 The Cousul's work however, was severe enough. We find from his own words in a letter to Atticus written in the year but one after his Consulship, 61 B.C., that as Consul he made twelve public addresses. Each of them nmst have been a work of labour, requiring a full mastery over the subject in hand, and an arrangement of words very different in their polished perfection from the generality of parliamentary speeches to which we are accustomed. The getting up of his cases must have taken great time. Letters went slowly and at a heavy cost. Writing must have been tedious when that most common was done wuth a metal point on soft wax. An advocate who was earnest in a case had to do much for himself. We have heard how Cicero made his way over to Sicily, creeping in a little boat through the dangers prepared for him, in order that he might get up the evidence against Verres. In defending Aulus Cluentius,. when he was Praetor, Cicero must have found the work to have been immense. In preparing the attack upon Catiline it seems that every ^\'itness was brought to himself. There w^ere four Catiline speeches made in the year of his Consulship, but in the same year many others were delivered by him. He mentions, as we shall see just now, twelve various speeches made in the year of his Consulship. I imagine that the words spoken can in no case have been identical Avith those which have come to us, — which were, as we may say, prepared for the press by Tiro his slave and secretary. We have evidence as to some of tliem, — especially as to the second Catiline oration, that VOL. I. y 226 LIFE OF CICEBO. time did not admit of its being written and learned by heart after the occurrence of the circumstances to which it alludes. It needs must have been extemporary, with such mental preparation as one night may have sufficed to give him. How the words may have been taken down in such a case we do not quite know, but we are aware that shorthand writers were employed though there can hardly have been a science of stenography perfected as is that with us.^ The words which we read were probably much polished before they were published, but how far this was done we do not know. What we do know is that the w^ords which he spoke, moved, convinced and charmed those who heard them, as do the words we read, move, convince and charm us. Of these twelve consular speeches Cicero gives a special account to his friend. " I will send you," he says, " the speechlings ^ which you require as well as some others, — seeing that those which I have written out at the request of a few young men, please you ^ Cicero himself tells us that many shortliaiul [writers were sent by him, — " Plures librarii," as he calls them, — to take down the words of the Agi'ari.m law which Kulhis proposed. Do Lege Agra. ii. 5, Pliny, Quintiliun and Martial speak of these men as Notarii. Martial explains the nature of tlicir liiisinc^ss — " Currant verba licet, manus est velocior illis ; Nondum lingua suum, dc.xtra pcrogit opus." — xiv. 208. 2 Ad Att. ii. 1. " Oratiunculas," he calls them. It would seem here that he pretends to liavo preserved these speeclies only at the request iof some admiring young rri(.'nd3. Demosthenes of course was the "fellow citizen," uo called in badinage, because Atticus, deserting Kome, lived much at Athens, CICERO AS CONSUL. 227 also. It was an advantage to me here to follow the example of that fellow citizen of yours in those orations whicli he called his Philippics. In these he brightened himself np, and discarded his ' nisi prius ' way of speaking, so that he might achieve something more dignified, something more statesmanlike. So I have done with these speeches, of mine which may be called ' consulares,' " — as having been made not only in his consular year but also with something of consular dignity. " Of these one, on the new land laws proposed, was spoken in the Senate on the Calends of January, the second on the same subject to the people. The third was respecting Otho's law.^ Tiie fourth was in defence of Eabirius.^ The fifth was in reference to the cliildren of those who had lost their property and their rank under Sulla's proscription.^ The sixth was an address to the people and explained why I renounced my provincial government.* The seventh drove Catiline ■' This speech, which has been lost, was addressed to the people with the view of reconciling them to a law in accordance with which the Equites were entitled to special seats in the theatre. It was altogether successful. - This, which is extant, was spoken in defence of an old man who was accused of a political homicide thirty-seven years before, — of having killed, that is, Saturni-nus the Tribune. Cicero was unsuccessful, but Eabirius was saved by the common subterfuge of an interposition of omens. There are some very fine passages in this oration. ^ This has been lost. Cicero, though he acknowledged the iniquity of Sulla's proscriptions, showed that their effects could not now be reversed without further revolutions. He gained his point on this occasion. * This has been lost. Cicero, in accordance with the practice of the time, was entitled to the government of a province when ceasing to be Consul. The rich province of Macedonia fell to him by lot, but he made it over to his colleague Antony, thus purchasing if uot Autouy's co-operation, at any rate Q 2 228 ^' LIFE OF CICERO. out of the city. The eighth was addressed to the people tlie day after Catiline fled. The ninth was again spoken to the people, on the day on which the AUobroges gave their evidence. Then again the tenth was addressed to tlie Senate on the fifth of December," — also respecting Catiline. " There are also two short supplementary speeches on the Agrarian war. You shall have the whole body of them. As what I write and what I do are equally in- teresting to you you will gather from the same documents all my doings and all my sayings." It is not to be supposed that in this list are contained all the speeches which he made in his consular year, but those only which he made as Consul, — those to which he was desirous of adding something of the dignity of states- manship, something beyond the weight attached to his pleadings as a law^yer. As an advocate, Consul though he was, he continued to perform his work, — from whence we learn that no state dignity was so high as to exempt au established pleader from the duty of defending his friends. Hortensius, when Consul elect, had undertaken to defend Verres. Cicero defended Murena when he was Consul. He defended C. Calpurnius Piso also, who was accused, as were so many, of proconsular extortion; — but whether in this year or in the preceding is not I tliink known.^ Of liis his quiescenco, in rpffanl to Catiline. lie also mivde over the province of Gail, whicli Hirh IVll to his lot, to Motellus, not wishing to leave the city. All this had to he ex])laincd to th(! ])eo]ile. ' It will he seen that ho also dofen' liiiu.^ ' Flonis, lib. iv. * Momrnsen's History of ]{oiiie, Book v. chap. v. ' I ("eel myself coiistniined here to allnde to tlie trfatiiiout j^iveii to Catiline by Dean Merivale in his little work on the two I'oinan triumvirates. The Dean's sympathies are very near akin to thosi^ of Mr. Htie.sly, but he values too highly hisown historiy a love of revolution, — wo can und'.nstaiid the kind of popularity w'liich Salluat intended to express. CATILINE. 267 conspiracy, and called upon Catiline for his answer. It was then that Catiline made his famous reply ; — " That the Republic had two bodies, of which one was weak and had a bad head," — meaning the aristocracy, with Cicero as its chief, — " and the other strong, but without any head ; " mean- ing the people ; — " but that as for himself, so well had the people deserved of him tliat as long as he lived a head should be forthcoming." ^ Then, at that sitting, the Senate decreed, in the usual formula, " That the Consuls were to take care that the Eepublic did not suffer.^ On the 22nd October the new consuls Silauus and Murena were elected. On the 23rd Catiline was regularly accused of conspiracy by Paulus Lepidus, a young nobleman, in conformity with a law which had been enacted fifty-five years earlier, " de vi publica," as to violence applied to the State. Two days afterwards it was officially reported that Manlius, — or Mallius, as he seems to have been generally called, — Catiline's lieutenant, had openly taken up arms in Etruria. The 27th had been fixed by the conspirators for the murder of Cicero and the other senators. That all this was to be and was so arranged by Catiline, had been declared in the Senate by Cicero himself, on that day when Catiline told them of the two bodies and the two heads. Cicero, with his intelligence, ingenuity, and industry had learned every detail. There was one Curius among the conspirators, — a fair specimen of the young Roman nobleman of the day, — Avho told it all to his mistress Fulvia, and she carried the information to the Consul. It ^ Pro Murena, xxv. Darent operani consules ne quid detrimenti respublica capiat." 268 LIFE OF CICERO. is . all narrated with fair dramatic accuracy in Ben Jonson's dull jDlay ; — though he has attributed to Ceesar a share in the plot for doing which he had no authority. Cicero, on that sitting in the Senate, had been specially anxious to make Catihne understand that he knew privately every circumstance of the plot. Throughout the whole conspiracy his object was, not to take Catiline, but to drive him out of Rome. If the people could be stirred up to kill him in their wrath, that might be well. In that way there might be an end of all the trouble. But if that did not come to pass, theu it would be best to make the city unbearable to the conspirators. If they could be driven out they must either take themselves to foreign parts and be dispersed, — or must else fight and assuredly be conquered. Cicero him- self was never bloodthirsty, but the necessity was strong upon him of ridding the Eepublic from these bloodthirsty men. The scheme for destroying Cicero and the senators on the 27th October had proved abortive. On the 6th of the next month a meeting was held in the house of one Marcus l^orcius Lseca, at which a plot was arranged for the killing of Cicero the next day, — for the killing of Cicero alone, he having been by this time found to be the one great obstacle in their path. Two knights were told off for the service, named Vargunteius and Cornelius. These, after the Eoman fashion, were to make their way early on the following morning into tlie Consul's bedroom for the ostensible purpose of paying him their morning compliments, — but, when there, they were to slay him. All tliis however was told to Cigero, and the two kniglits, when they came, were refused CATILINE. 269 admittance. If Cicero had been a man given to fear, — as has been said of him, — he must have passed a wretched life at this period. As far as I can judge of his words and doings throughout his life he was not harassed by constitutional timidity. He feared to disgrace his name, to lower his authority, to become small in the eyes of men, to make poli- tical mistakes, to do that which might turn against him. In much of this there was a falling off from that dignity, which, if we do not often find it in a man, we can all of us imagine. But of personal dread as to his own skin, as to his own life, there was very little. At this time, when, as he knew well, many men with many weapons in their hands, — men who were altogether unscrupulous, — were in search for his blood, he never seems to have trembled. But all Eome trembled, — -even according to Sallust. I have already shown how he declares in one part of his narrative that the common people as a body were with Catiline, and have attempted to explain what was meant by that expression. In another — in an earlier chapter — he says, " that the State," meaning the city, " was dis- turbed by all this and its appearance changed.^ Instead of the joy and ease which had lately prevailed, the effect of the long peace, a sudden sadness fell upon every one." I quote the passage because that other passage has been taken as proving the popularity of Catiline. There can, I think, be no doubt that the population of Piome was as a body afraid of Catiline. The city was to be burned down, ^ Catilinaria, xxxi. 270 LIFE OF CICERO. the Consuls and the Senate were to be murdered, debts were to be wiped out, slaves were probably to be encouraged against their masters. The " permota civitas " ^ and 'the " cuncta plebes " of which Sallust speaks mean that all the " householders " were disturbed, and that all the " roughs " WTre eager with revolutionary hopes. On the 8th of November, the day after that on which the Consul was to have been murdered in his own house, he called a special meeting of the Senate in the teraple of Jupiter Stator. The Senate in Cicero's time was convened according to expedience, or perhaps as to the dignity of the occasion, in various temples. Of these none had a higher reputation than that of the special Jupiter who is held to have befriended Eomulus in his fight with the Sabines. Here was launched that thunderbolt of eloquence which all English schoolboys have known for its " Quousque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra." Whether it be from the awe which has come down to me from my earliest years, mixed perhaps with something of dread for the great pedagogue who iirst made tlie words to sound grandly in my ears, or whether true critical judgment has since approved to me llie real weight of the words, they certainly do contain I'ur my intelligence an expression of almost divine indig- nation. Then there follows a string of (|uestions, which to translate would be vain, whicli to quote, for those who read tli(; language, is surely unnecessary. It is said to have been a fault with (/icero that in his speeches he runs too mucli into that vein of wrathful interrogation which undoubtedly ])alls upon us in English orat-jry when frcqnent resort is CATILINE. 271 made to it. It seems to be too easy and to contain too little of argument. It was this, probably, of which his contempo- raries complained when they declared him to be florid, redundant and Asiatic in his style.^ This questioning runs through nearly the whole speech, but the reader cannot fail to acknowledge its efficacy in reference to the matter in hand. Catiline was sitting there himself in the Senate, and the questions were for the most j^art addressed to him. We can see him now, a man of laro;e frame, with bold frlarino; eyes, looking in his wrath as though he were hardly able to keep his hands from the Consul's throat, even there in the Senate. Though he knew that this attack was to be made on him he had stalked into the temple and seated himself in a place of honour, among the benches intended for those who had been Consuls. When there no one spoke to him, no one saluted him. The consular senators shrank away, leaving their places of privilege. Even his brother con- spirators, of whom many were present, did not dare to recognise him. Lentulus M^as no doubt there, and Cethegus, and two of the Sullan family, and Cassius Longinus, and Autronius, and Lseca, and Curius. All of them were or had been conspirators in the same cause. Csesar was there too and Crassus. A fellow-conspirator with Catiline would probably be a senator. Cicero knew tliem all. We cannot say that in this matter Csesar was guilty, but Cicero, no doubt felt that Caesar's heart was with Catiline. It was his present task so to thunder with his eloquence, that he should 1 Quintilian, lib. xii. 10, " Quern tamen et suorum homiues tenipoium incessere audebaiit, ut timiidiorcm, et asianum, et redimdanteiii." 272 ' LIFE OF CICERO. turn these bitter enemies into seeming friends, — to drive Catiline from out of the midst of them, so that it should seem that he had been expelled by those who were in truth his brother conspirators. And this it was that he did. He declared the nature of the plot, and boldly said that such being the facts, Catiline deserved death. " If," he says, " I should order you to be taken and killed, believe me, I should be blamed rather for my delay in doing so than for my cruelty." He spoke throughout as though all the power were in his own hands, — either to strike or to forbear. But it was his object to drive him out and not to kill him. " Go," he said. " That camp of yours and Mallius, your lieutenant, are too long without you. Take your friends with you. Take them all. Cleanse the city of your presence. When its walls are between you and me then I shall feel myself secure. Among us here you may no longer stir yourself. I will not have it. I will not endure it. If I were to suffer you to be killed, your followers in the conspiracy would remain here ; but if you go out, as I desire you, this cesspool of filth will drain itself off from out the city. Do you hesitate to do at my command that which you would fain do yourself? The Consul re(|uires an enemy to depart from the city. Do you ask me whetlier you arc to go into exile ? I do not order it; but if you ask my counsel, I advise it." Exile was the severest punishment known by the IJoman law, as applicable to a citizen, and such a punishment it was in tlio pf)Wf'r of no Consul or other officer of state to inflict. Tliougli liu had taken upon himself the duty of protecting CATILINE. 273 the Eepublic, still lie could not condemn a citizen. It was to the moral effect of his words that he must trust ; " Non jubeo, sed si me consulis, suadeo." Catiline heard him to the end, and then muttering a curse, left the Senate, and went out of the city. Sallust tells us that he threatened to extinguish, in the midst of the general ruin he would create, the flames prepared for liis own destruction. Sallust however was not present on the occasion, and the threat probably had been uttered at an earlier period of Catiline's career. Cicero tells us expressly in one of his subsequent works that Catiline was struck dumb.^ Of this first Catiline oration Sallust says, that " Marcus Tullius the Consul, either fearing the presence of the man, or stirred to anger, made a brilliant speech, very useful to the Republic.^ " This coming from an enemy is stronger testimony to the truth of the story told by Cicero, than would have been any vehement praise from the pen of a friend. Catiline met some of his colleagues the same night. They were the very men who as senators had been present at his confusion, — and to them he declared his purj^ose of going. There was nothing to be done in the city by him. Tiie Consul was not to be reached. Catiline himself was too closely watched for personal action. He would join the army at Fsesulse and then return and burn the city. His friends, Lentulus, Cethegus, and the others, were to remain and be ready for fire and slaughter as soon as Catiline with ^ Orator, xxxvii. "A nobis homo audacissimus Catilina in senatu accusatus obmutuit." ^ Catiliuaiia xxxi. VOL. I. T 274 LIFE OF CICERO. liis army sliould appear before the walls. He went, and Cicero had been so far successful. But these men, Lentulus, Cethegus, and the other senators, though they had not dared to sit near Catiline in the Senate or to speak a word to him, went about their work zealously when evening had come. A report was spread among the people that the Consul had taken upon himself to drive a citizen into exile. Catiline, tlie ill-used Catiline, Catiline the friend of the people, had, they said, gone to Marseilles in order that he might escape the fury of the tyrant Consul. In this we see the jealousy of Eomans as to the infliction of any punishment by an individual officer on a citizen. It was with a full knowledge of what was likely to come that Cicero had ironically declared that he only advised the conspirator to go. The feeling was so strong that on the next morning he found himself compelled to address the people on the subject. Then was uttered the second Catiline oration, which was spoken in the oi)en air to the citizens at large. Here too there are words, anioncj those with which he began his speech, almost as familiar to us as the " Quousque tandem," " Al)iit ; excessit ; evasit ; erupit ! " This Catiline, says Cicero, this pest of his country, raging in his madness, I have turned out of tlie city. If you like it better I have expelled him by my very words. " He has departed. He has lied. He has gone out from among us. He has broken away ! " "1 have made this conspiracy plain to you all, as I said I would, — unless indeed there may be some one here who does not believe that the friends of Catiline will do the same as Catiline would have done. But there is no time CATILINE. 275 now for soft measures. We hiive to be strong-lianded. There is one thing I will do for these men. Let tliem too go out ; — so that Catiline shall not pine for them. I will show them the road. He has gone by the Via Aurelia. If they will hurry they may catch him before night." He implies by tliis that the story about Marseilles was false. Then he speaks with irony of himself as that violent Consul who could drive citizens into exile by the very breath of his mouth. "Ego vehemens ille consul qui verbo cives in exsilium ejicio." So he goes on, in truth, defending himself, but leading them with him to take part in the accusation which he intends to bring against the chief conspirators who remain in tlie city. If they too will go, they may go, unscathed. If they choose to remain let them look to themselves. Through it all we can see there is but one thing that he fears ; — that he shall be driven by the exigencies of the occasion to take some steps which shall afterwards be judged not to have been strictly legal, and which shall put him into the power of his enemies when the day of his ascendency shall have passed away. It crops out repeatedly in these speeches.^ He seems to be aware that some over-strong measure will be forced upon him for which he alone will be 1 In the first of them, to the Senate, chap, ix., he declares this to Catiline hiiuself, " si mea voce perterritus ire in exsilium animum induxeris, quanta tempestas invidijE nobis, si minus in prjesens tempns, recenti memoria scelerum tuorum, at in posteritatem impendeat." He goes on to declare that he will endure all that, if by so doing he can save the Republic. "Sed est mihi tanti ; \lummodo ista privala sit calamitas, et a reipublic;c periculis scjungatur." T 2 276 LIFE OF CICERO. held responsible. If he can only avoid that, he will fear nothing else. If he cannot avoid it, he will encounter even that danger. His foresight was wonderfully accurate. The strong hand was used, and the punishment came upon him, not from his enemies but from his friends, almost to the bursting of his heart. Though the Senate had decreed that the Consuls were to see that the Eepublic should take no harm, and though it was presumed that extraordinary power was thereby conferred, it is evident that no power was conferred of inflicting punish- ment. Antony, as Cicero's colleague, was nothing. The authority, tlie responsibility, tlie action were, and were in- tended to remain with Cicero. He could not legally banish any one. It was only too evident that there must be much slaughter. There was the army of rebels with which it would be necessary to fight. Let them go, these rebels within the city and either join the army and get themselves killed, or else disappear, whither they would, among the provinces. The object of this second Catiline oration, spoken to the people, was to convince the remaining conspirators that they had better go, and to teach the citizens generally that in giving such counsel he was " banishing " no one. As far as the citizens were concerned he was successful. But he did not induce the friends of Catiline to follow their chief. This took place on the 0th of November. After the oration the Senate met again, and declared Catiline and INIallius to be public enemies. Twenty-four days elapsed before the third speech was spoken, — twenty-four days during which Kome must have CATILINE. 277 been in. a state of very great fever. Cicero was actively engaged in unravelling the plots the details of which were still being carried on within the city ; but nevertheless he made that speech for Murena before the judicial bench of which I gave an account in the last chapter, and also pro- bably another for Piso of which we have nothing left. We cannot but marvel that he should have been able at such a time to devote his mind to such subjects and carefully to study all the details of legal cases. It was only on October 21st that Murena had been elected Consul ; and yet on the 20th November, Cicero defended him with great skill on a charge of bribery. There is an ease, a playfulness, a softness, a drollery about this speech which appears to be almost incompatible with the stern absorbing realities and great personal dangers in the midst of which he was placed. But the agility of his mind was such that there appears to have been no difficulty to him in these rapid changes. On the same day, the 20th November, when Cicero was defending Murena, the plot was being carried on at the house of a certain Roman lady named Sempronia. It was she of whom Sallust said, that she danced better than became an honest woman. If we can believe Sallust she was steeped in luxury and vice. At her house a most vile project was hatched for introducing into Eome Home's bitterest foreign foes. There were in the city at this time certain delegates from a people called the AUobroges who inhabited the lower part of Savoy. The AUobroges were of Gaulish race. They were warlike, angry, and at the present mument peculiarly discontented with Eome. There had been certain injuries 278 LIFE OF CICERO. either real or presumed, respecting which these delegates had been sent to the city. There they had been delayed, and fobbed off with official replies which gave no satisfaction, and were supposed to be ready to do any evil possible to the Eepublic. What if they could be got to go back suddenly to their homes, and bring a legion of red-haired Gauls to assist the conspirators in burning down Rome ? A deputation from the delegates came to Sempronia's house and there met the conspirators, — Lentulus and others. They entered freely into the project ; — but, having, as was usual with foreign embassies at Rome, a patron, or peculiar friend of their own among the aristocracy, one Fabius Sanga by name, they thought it well to consult him.i Sanga as a matter of course told everything to our astute Consul. Then the matter was arranged with more than all the craft of a modern Inspector of Police. The Allobroges were in- structed to lend themselves to the device, — stipulating however that they should have a written signed authority which they could show to their rulers at home. The written signed documents were given to them. With certain con- sjjirators to help them out of the city they were sent upon their way. At a bridge over the Tiber they were stopped by Cicero's emissaries. There was a feigned fight, but no blood was shed ; and the ambassadors with their letters were brought home to the Consul. We arc astonislied at tlie marvellous folly of these ^ Sallust, ('.■iti!iii:iri:i, x!i. " l(a