Caesar: A Sketch Part 10

Then, speaking perhaps more privately, he told Caesar that he knew something of Rome and of the Roman Senate, and had learnt how the great people there stood affected toward the Governor of Gaul. Certain members of the Roman aristocracy had sent him messages to say that if he killed Caesar they would hold it a good service done,[4] and would hold him their friend forever. He did not wish, he said, to bind himself to these n.o.ble persons. He would prefer Caesar rather; and would fight Caesar's battles for him anywhere in the world if Caesar would but retire and leave him. Ariovistus was misled, not unnaturally, by these strange communications from the sovereign rulers of the Empire. He did not know, he could not know, that the genius of Rome and the true chief of Rome were not in the treacherous Senate, but were before him there on the field in the persons of Caesar and his legions.

More might have pa.s.sed between them; but Ariovistus thought to end the conference by a stroke of treachery. His German guard had stolen round to where the Romans stood, and, supposing that they had Gauls to deal with, were trying to surround and disarm them. The men of the 10th legion stood firm; Caesar fell back and joined them, and, contenting themselves with simply driving off the enemy, they rode back to the camp.

[Sidenote: B.C. 57.]

The army was now pa.s.sionate for an engagement. Ariovistus affected a desire for further communication, and two officers were despatched to hear what he had to say; but they were immediately seized and put in chains, and the Germans advanced to within a few miles of the Roman outposts. The Romans lay entrenched near Cernay. The Germans were at Colmar. Caesar offered battle, which Ariovistus declined. Cavalry fights happened daily which led to nothing. Caesar then formed a second camp, smaller but strongly fortified, within sight of the enemy, and threw two legions into it. Ariovistus attacked them, but he was beaten back with loss. The "wise women" advised him to try no more till the new moon. But Caesar would not wait for the moon, and forced an engagement. The wives and daughters of the Germans rushed about their camp, with streaming hair, adjuring their countrymen to save them from slavery. The Germans fought like heroes; but they could not stand against the short sword and hand-to-hand grapple of the legionaries. Better arms and better discipline again a.s.serted the superiority; and in a few hours the invaders were flying wildly to the Rhine. Young Publius Cra.s.sus, the son of the millionaire, pursued with the cavalry. A few swam the river; a few, Ariovistus among them, escaped in boats; all the rest, men and women alike, were cut down and killed. The Suevi, who were already on the Rhine, preparing to cross, turned back into their forests; and the two immediate perils which threatened the peace of Gaul had been encountered and trampled out in a single summer. The first campaign was thus ended. The legions were distributed in winter quarters among the Sequani, the contrivers of the mischief; and Labienus was left in charge of them. Caesar went back over the Alps to the Cisalpine division of the Province to look into the administration and to communicate with his friends in Rome.

In Gaul there was outward quiet; but the news of the Roman victories penetrated the farthest tribes and agitated the most distant households on the sh.o.r.es of the North Sea. The wintering of the legions beyond the province was taken to indicate an intention of permanent conquest. The Gauls proper were divided and overawed; but the Belgians of the north were not prepared to part so easily with their liberty. The Belgians considered that they too were menaced, and that now or never was the time to strike for their independence. They had not been infected with Roman manners.

They had kept the merchants from their borders with their foreign luxuries. The Nervii, the fiercest of them, as the abstemious Caesar marks with approbation, were water-drinkers, and forbade wine to be brought among them, as injurious to their sinews and their courage. Caesar learnt while in Italy from Labienus that the Belgae were mustering and combining.

A second vast horde of Germans were in Flanders and Artois; men of the same race with the Belgae and in active confederacy with them. They might have been left in peace, far off as they were, had they sat still; but the notes of their preparations were sounding through the country and feeding the restless spirit which was stunned but not subdued.

Caesar, on his own responsibility, raised two more legions and sent them across the Alps in the spring. When the gra.s.s began to grow he followed himself. Suddenly, before any one looked for him, he was on the Marne with his army. The Remi (people of Rheims), startled by his unexpected appearance, sent envoys with their submission and offers of hostages. The other Belgian tribes, they said, were determined upon war, and were calling all their warriors under arms. Their united forces were reported to amount to 300,000. The Bellovaci from the mouth of the Seine had sent 60,000; the Suessiones from Soissons 50,000; the Nervii, between the Sambre and the Scheldt, 50,000; Arras and Amiens, 25,000; the coast tribes, 36,000; and the tribes between the Ardennes and the Rhine, called collectively Germani, 40,000 more. This irregular host was gathered in the forests between Laon and Soissons.

Caesar did not wait for them to move. He advanced at once to Rheims, where he called the Senate together and encouraged them to be constant to the Roman alliance. He sent a party of Aedui down the Seine to hara.s.s the territory of the Bellovaci and recall them to their own defence; and he went on himself to the Aisne, which he crossed by a bridge already existing at Berry-au-Bac. There, with the bridge and river at his back, he formed an entrenched camp of extraordinary strength, with a wall 12 feet high and a fosse 22 feet deep. Against an attack with modern artillery such defences would, of course, be idle. As the art of war then stood, they were impregnable. In this position Caesar waited, leaving six cohorts on the left bank to guard the other end of the bridge. The Belgae came forward and encamped in his front. Their watch-fires at night were seen stretching along a line eight miles wide. Caesar, after feeling his way with his cavalry, found a rounded ridge projecting like a promontory into the plain where the Belgian host was lying. On this he advanced his legions, protecting his flanks with continuous trenches and earthworks, on which were placed heavy cross-bows, the ancient predecessors of cannon.

Between these lines, if he attacked the enemy and failed, he had a secure retreat. A marsh lay between the armies; and each waited for the other to cross. The Belgians, impatient of delay, flung themselves suddenly on one side and began to pour across the river, intending to destroy the cohorts on the other bank, to cut the bridge, and burn and plunder among the Remi.

Caesar calmly sent back his cavalry and his archers and slingers. They caught the enemy in the water or struggling out of it in confusion; all who had got over were killed; mult.i.tudes were slaughtered in the river; others, trying to cross on the bodies of their comrades, were driven back.

The confederates, shattered at a single defeat, broke up like an exploded sh.e.l.l. Their provisions had run short. They melted away and dispersed to their homes, Labienus pursuing and cutting down all that he could overtake.

The Roman loss was insignificant in this battle. The most remarkable feature in Caesar's campaigns, and that which indicates most clearly his greatness as a commander, was the smallness of the number of men that he ever lost, either by the sword or by wear and tear. No general was ever so careful of his soldiers' lives.

Soissons, a fortified Belgian town, surrendered the next day. From Soissons Caesar marched on Breteuil and thence on Amiens, which surrendered also. The Bellovaci sent in their submission, the leaders of the war party having fled to Britain. Caesar treated them all with scrupulous forbearance, demanding nothing but hostages for their future good behavior. His intention at this time was apparently not to annex any of these tribes to Rome, but to settle the country in a quasi-independence under an Aeduan hegemony.

But the strongest member of the confederacy was still unsubdued. The hardy, brave, and water-drinking Nervii remained defiant. The Nervii would send no envoys; they would listen to no terms of peace.[5] Caesar learnt that they were expecting to be joined by the Aduatuci, a tribe of pure Germans, who had been left behind near Liege at the time of the invasion of the Teutons. Preferring to engage them separately, he marched from Amiens through Cambray, and sent forward some officers and pioneers to choose a spot for a camp on the Sambre. Certain Gauls, who had observed his habits on march, deserted to the Nervii, and informed them that usually a single legion went in advance, the baggage-wagons followed, and the rest of the army came in the rear. By a sudden attack in front they could overwhelm the advanced troops, plunder the carts, and escape before they could be overtaken. It happened that on this occasion the order was reversed. The country was enclosed with thick fences, which required to be cut through. Six legions marched in front, clearing a road; the carts came next, and two legions behind. The site selected by the officers was on the left bank of the Sambre at Maubeuge, fifty miles above Namur. The ground sloped easily down to the river, which was there about a yard in depth.

There was a corresponding rise on the other side, which was densely covered with wood. In this wood the whole force of the Nervii lay concealed, a few only showing themselves on the water side. Caesar's light horse which had gone forward, seeing a mere handful of stragglers, rode through the stream and skirmished with them; but the enemy retired under cover; the horse did not pursue; the six legions came up, and, not dreaming of the nearness of the enemy, laid aside their arms and went to work intrenching with spade and mattock. The baggage-wagons began presently to appear at the crest of the hill, the signal for which the Nervii had waited; and in a moment all along the river sixty thousand of them rushed out of the forest, sent the cavalry flying, and came on so impetuously that, as Caesar said, they seemed to be in the wood, in the water, and up the opposite bank at sword's point with the legions at the same moment. The surprise was complete: the Roman army was in confusion.

Many of the soldiers were scattered at a distance, cutting turf. None were in their ranks, and none were armed. Never in all his campaigns was Caesar in greater danger. He could himself give no general orders which there was time to observe. Two points only, he said, were in his favor. The men themselves were intelligent and experienced, and knew what they had to do; and the officers were all present, because he had directed that none of them should leave their companies till the camp was completed. The troops were spread loosely in their legions along the brow of the ridge. Caesar joined the 10th on his right wing, and had but time to tell the men to be cool and not to agitate themselves, when the enemy were upon them. So sudden was the onslaught that they could neither put their helmets on, nor strip the coverings from their shields, nor find their places in the ranks. They fought where they stood among thick hedges which obstructed the sight of what was pa.s.sing elsewhere. Though the Aduatuci had not come up, the Nervii had allies with them from Arras and the Somme. The allies encountered the 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th legions, and were driven rapidly back down the hill through the river. The Romans, led by Labienus, crossed in pursuit, followed them into the forest, and took their camp. The Nervii meanwhile flung themselves with all their force on the two legions on the left, the 12th and 7th, enveloped them with their numbers, penetrated behind them, and fell upon the baggage-wagons. The light troops and the camp-followers fled in all directions. The legionaries, crowded together in confusion, were fighting at disadvantage, and were falling thick and fast. A party of horse from Treves, who had come to treat with Caesar, thought that all was lost, and rode off to tell their countrymen that the Romans were destroyed.

Caesar, who was in the other wing, learning late what was going on, hurried to the scene. He found the standards huddled together, the men packed so close that they could not use their swords, almost all the officers killed or wounded, and one of the best of them, s.e.xtius Baculus (Caesar always paused in his narrative to note any one who specially distinguished himself), scarce able to stand. Caesar had come up unarmed.

He s.n.a.t.c.hed a shield from a soldier, and, bareheaded, flew to the front.

He was known; he addressed the centurions by their names. He bade them open their ranks and give the men room to strike. His presence and his calmness gave them back their confidence. In the worst extremities he observes that soldiers will fight well under their commander's eye. The cohorts formed into order. The enemy was checked. The two legions from the rear, who had learnt the danger from the flying camp-followers, came up.

Labienus, from the opposite hill, saw what had happened, and sent the 10th legion back. All was now changed. The fugitives, ashamed of their cowardice, rallied, and were eager to atone for it. The Nervii fought with a courage which filled Caesar with admiration--men of greater spirit he said that he had never seen. As their first ranks fell, they piled the bodies of their comrades into heaps, and from the top of them hurled back the Roman javelins. They would not fly; they dropped where they stood; and the battle ended only with their extermination. Out of 600 senators there survived but three; out of 60,000 men able to bear arms, only 500. The aged of the tribe, and the women and children, who had been left in the mora.s.ses for security, sent in their surrender, their warriors being all dead. They professed to fear lest they might be destroyed by neighboring clans who were on bad terms with them. Caesar received them and protected them, and gave severe injunctions that they should suffer no injury.

By the victory over the Nervii the Belgian confederacy was almost extinguished. The German Aduatuci remained only to be brought to submission. They had been on their way to join their countrymen; they were too late for the battle, and returned and shut themselves up in Namur, the strongest position in the Low Countries. Caesar, after a short rest, pushed on and came under their walls. The Aduatuci were a race of giants, and were at first defiant. When they saw the Romans' siege-towers in preparation, they could not believe that men so small could move such vast machines. When the towers began to approach, they lost heart and sued for terms. Caesar promised to spare their lives and properties if they surrendered immediately, but he refused to grant conditions. They had prayed to be allowed to keep their arms; affecting to believe, like the Nervii, that they would be in danger from the Gauls if they were unable to defend themselves. Caesar undertook that they should have no hurt, but he insisted that their arms must be given up. They affected obedience. They flung their swords and lances over the walls till the ditch was filled with them. They opened their gates; the Romans occupied them, but were forbidden to enter, that there might be no plundering. It seems that there was a desperate faction among the Aduatuci who had been for fighting to extremity. A third part of the arms had been secretly reserved, and after midnight the tribe sallied with all their force, hoping to catch the Romans sleeping. Caesar was not to be surprised a second time. Expecting that some such attempt might be made, he had prepared piles of f.a.gots in convenient places. These bonfires were set blazing in an instant. By their red light the legions formed; and, after a desperate but unequal combat, the Germans were driven into the town again, leaving 4,000 dead. In the morning the gates were broken down, and Namur was taken without more resistance. Caesar's usual practice was gentleness. He honored brave men, and never punished bold and open opposition. Of treachery he made a severe example. Namur was condemned. The Aduatuci within its walls were sold into slavery, and the contractors who followed the army returned the number of prisoners whom they had purchased at 53,000. Such captives were the most valuable form of spoil.

The Belgae were thus crushed as completely as the Gauls had been crushed in the previous year. Publius Cra.s.sus had meanwhile made a circuit of Brittany, and had received the surrender of the maritime tribes. So great was the impression made by these two campaigns, that the Germans beyond the Rhine sent envoys with offers of submission. The second season was over. Caesar left the legions in quarters about Chartres, Orleans, and Blois. He himself returned to Italy again, where his presence was imperatively required. The Senate, on the news of his successes, had been compelled, by public sentiment, to order an extraordinary thanksgiving; but there were men who were anxious to prevent Caesar from achieving any further victories since Ariovistus had failed to destroy him.

[1] Perhaps in consequence of the Catiline conspiracy.

[2] "In Gallia non solum in omnibus civitatibus atque in omnibus pagis partibusque sed paene etiam in singulis domibus factiones sunt, earumque factionum principes sunt qui summam auctoritatem eorum judicio habere existimantur.... Haec est ratio in summa totius Galliae, namque omnes civitates in partes divisae sunt duas. c.u.m Caesar in Galliam venit, alterius factionis principes erant Haedui, alterius Sequani."--_De Bello Gallico_, lib. vi. capp. 11, 12.

[3] Even Dion Ca.s.sius speaks of the Germans as _Keltoi_.

[4] "Id se ab ipsis per eorum nuntios compertum habere, quorum omnium gratiam atque amicitiam ejus morte redimere posset."--_De Bell.

Gall_., i. 44.

[5] Caesar thus records his admiration of the Nervian character: "Quorum de natura moribusque Caesar c.u.m quaereret sic reperiebat, nullum aditum esse ad eos mercatoribus; nihil pati vini reliquarumque rerum ad luxuriam pertinentium inferri, quod iis rebus relanguescere animos eorum et remitti virtutem existimarent: esse homines feros magnaeque virtutis; increpitare atque incusare reliquos Belgas qui se populo Romano dedidissent patriamque virtutem projecissent; confirmare sese neque legatos missuros neque ullam conditionem pacis accepturos."--_De Bell. Gall_., ii. 15.

CHAPTER XV.

[Sidenote B.C.58]

Before his own catastrophe, and before he could believe that he was in danger, Cicero had discerned clearly the perils which threatened the State. The Empire was growing more extensive. The "Tritons of the fish- ponds" still held the reins; and believed their own supreme duty was to divide the spoils among themselves. The pyramid was standing on its point.

The ma.s.s which rested on it was becoming more portentous and unwieldy. The Senate was the official power; the armies were the real power; and the imagination of the Senate was that after each conquest the soldiers would be dismissed back into humble life unrewarded, while the n.o.ble lords took possession of the new acquisitions, and added new millions to their fortunes. All this Cicero knew, and yet he had persuaded himself that it could continue without bringing on a catastrophe. He saw his fellow- senators openly bribed; he saw the elections become a mere matter of money. He saw adventurers pushing themselves into office by steeping themselves in debt, and paying their debts by robbing the provincials. He saw these high-born scoundrels coming home loaded with treasure, buying lands and building palaces, and, when brought to trial, purchasing the consciences of their judges. Yet he had considered such phenomena as the temporary accidents of a const.i.tution which was still the best that could be conceived, and every one that doubted the excellence of it he had come to regard as an enemy of mankind. So long as there was free speech in Senate and platform for orators like himself, all would soon be well again. Had not he, a mere country gentleman's son, risen under it to wealth and consideration? and was not his own rise a sufficient evidence that there was no real injustice? Party struggles were over, or had no excuse for continuance. Sylla's const.i.tution had been too narrowly aristocratic. But Sylla's invidious laws had been softened by compromise.

The tribunes had recovered their old privileges. The highest offices of State were open to the meanest citizen who was qualified for them.

Individuals of merit might have been kept back for a time by jealousy; the Senate had too long objected to the promotion of Pompey; but their opposition had been overcome by purely const.i.tutional means. The great general had obtained his command by land and sea; he, Cicero, having by eloquent speech proved to the people that he ought to be nominated. What could any one wish for more? And yet Senate and Forum were still filled with faction, quarrel, and discontent! One interpretation only Cicero had been able to place on such a phenomenon. In Rome, as in all great communities, there were mult.i.tudes of dissolute, ruined wretches, the natural enemies of property and order. Bankrupt members of the aristocracy had lent themselves to these people as their leaders, and had been the cause of all the trouble of the past years. If such renegades to their order could be properly discouraged or extinguished, Cicero had thought that there would be nothing more to desire. Catiline he had himself made an end of to his own immortal glory, but now Catiline had revived in Clodius; and Clodius, so far from being discouraged, was petted and encouraged by responsible statesmen who ought to have known better. Caesar had employed him; Cra.s.sus had employed him; even Pompey had stooped to connect himself with the scandalous young incendiary, and had threatened to call in the army if the Senate attempted to repeal Caesar's iniquitous laws.[1] Still more inexplicable was the ingrat.i.tude of the aristocracy and their friends, the "boni" or good--the "Conservatives of the State,"

[2] as Cicero still continued to call Caesar's opponents. He respected them; he loved them; he had done more for their cause than any single man in the Empire; and yet they had never recognized his services by word or deed. He had felt tempted to throw up public life in disgust, and retire to privacy and philosophy.

So Cicero had construed the situation before his exile, and he had construed it ill. If he had wished to retire he could not. He had been called to account for the part of his conduct for which he most admired himself. The ungracious Senate, as guilty as he, if guilt there had been, had left him to bear the blame of it, and he saw himself driven into banishment by an insolent reprobate, a patrician turned Radical and demagogue, Publius Clodius. Indignity could be carried no farther.

Clodius is the most extraordinary figure in this extraordinary period. He had no character. He had no distinguished talent save for speech; he had no policy; he was ready to adopt any cause or person which for the moment was convenient to him; and yet for five years this man was the omnipotent leader of the Roman mob. He could defy justice, insult the consuls, beat the tribunes, parade the streets with a gang of armed slaves, killing persons disagreeable to him; and in the Senate itself he had his high friends and connections who threw a shield over him when his audacity had gone beyond endurance. We know Clodius only from Cicero; and a picture of him from a second hand might have made his position more intelligible, if not more reputable. Even in Rome it is scarcely credible that the Clodius of Cicero could have played such a part, or that the death of such a man should have been regarded as a national calamity. Cicero says that Clodius revived Catiline's faction; but what was Catiline's faction? or how came Catiline to have a faction which survived him?

Be this as it may, Clodius had banished Cicero, and had driven him away over the seas to Greece, there, for sixteen months, to weary Heaven and his friends with his lamentations. Cicero had refused Caesar's offered friendship; Caesar had not cared to leave so powerful a person free to support the intended attacks on his legislation, and had permitted, perhaps had encouraged, the prosecution. Cicero out of the way, the second person whose presence in Rome Caesar thought might be inconvenient, Marcus Cato, had been got rid of by a process still more ingenious. The aristocracy pretended that the acts of Caesar's consulship had been invalid through disregard of the interdictions of Bibulus; and one of those acts had been the reduction of Clodius to the order of plebeians. If none of them were valid, Clodius was not legally tribune, and no commission which Clodius might confer through the people would have validity. A service was discovered by which Cato was tempted, and which he was induced to accept at Clodius's hands. Thus he was at once removed from the city, and it was no longer open to him to deny that Caesar's laws had been properly pa.s.sed. The work on which he was sent deserves a few words.

The kingdom of Cyprus had long been attached to the crown of Egypt.

Ptolemy Alexander, dying in the year 80, had bequeathed both Egypt and Cyprus to Rome; but the Senate had delayed to enter on their bequest, preferring to share the fines which Ptolemy's natural heirs were required to pay for being spared. One of these heirs, Ptolemy Auletes, or "the Piper," father of the famous Cleopatra, was now reigning in Egypt, and was on the point of being expelled by his subjects. He had been driven to extortion to raise a subsidy for the senators, and he had made himself universally abhorred. Ptolemy of Cyprus had been a better sovereign, but a less prudent client. He had not overtaxed his people; he had kept his money. Clodius, if Cicero's story is true, had a private grudge against him. Clodius had fallen among Cyprian pirates. Ptolemy had not exerted himself for his release, and he had suffered unmentionable indignities. At all events, the unfortunate king was rich, and was unwilling to give what was expected of him. Clodius, on the plea that the King of Cyprus protected pirates, persuaded the a.s.sembly to vote the annexation of the island; and Cato, of all men, was prevailed on by the mocking tribune to carry out the resolution. He was well pleased with his mission, though he wished it to appear to be forced upon him. Ptolemy poisoned himself; Cato earned the glory of adding a new province to the Empire, and did not return for two years, when he brought 7,000 talents--a million and a half of English money--to the Roman treasury.

Cicero and Cato being thus put out of the way--Caesar being absent in Gaul, and Pompey looking on without interfering--Clodius had amused himself with legislation. He gratified his corrupt friends in the Senate by again abolishing the censor's power to expel them. He restored cheap corn establishments in the city--the most demoralizing of all the measures which the democracy had introduced to swell their numbers. He re- established the political clubs, which were hot-beds of distinctive radicalism. He took away the right of separate magistrates to lay their vetoes on the votes of the sovereign people, and he took from the Senate such power as they still possessed of regulating the government of the provinces, and pa.s.sed it over to the a.s.sembly. These resolutions, which reduced the administration to a chaos, he induced the people to decree by irresistible majorities. One measure only he pa.s.sed which deserved commendation, though Clodius deserved none for introducing it. He put an end to the impious pretence of "observing the heavens," of which conservative officials had availed themselves to obstruct unwelcome motions. Some means were, no doubt, necessary to check the precipitate pa.s.sions of the mob; but not means which turned into mockery the slight surviving remnants of ancient Roman reverence.

In general politics the young tribune had no definite predilections. He had threatened at one time to repeal Caesar's laws himself. He attacked alternately the chiefs of the army and of the Senate, and the people let him do what he pleased without withdrawing their confidence from him. He went everywhere spreading terror with his body-guard of slaves. He quarrelled with the consuls, beat their lictors, and wounded Gabinius himself. Pompey professed to be in alarm for his life, and to be unable to appear in the streets. The state of Rome at this time has been well described by a modern historian as a "Walpurgis dance of political witches." [3]

Clodius was a licensed libertine; but license has its limits. He had been useful so far; but a rein was wanted for him, and Pompey decided at last that Cicero might now be recalled. Clodius's term of office ran out. The tribunes for the new year were well disposed to Cicero. The new consuls were Lentulus, a moderate aristocrat, and Cicero's personal friend, and Metellus Nepos, who would do what Pompey told him. Caesar had been consulted by letter and had given his a.s.sent. Cicero, it might be thought, had learnt his lesson, and there was no desire of protracting his penance.

There were still difficulties, however. Cicero, smarting from wrath and mortification, was more angry with the aristocrats, who had deserted him, than with his open enemies. His most intimate companions, he bitterly said, had been false to him. He was looking regretfully on Caesar's offers,[4] and cursing his folly for having rejected them. The people, too, would not sacrifice their convictions at the first bidding for the convenience of their leaders; and had neither forgotten nor forgiven the killing of the Catiline conspirators; while Cicero, aware of the efforts which were being made, had looked for new allies in an imprudent quarter.

His chosen friend on the conservative side was now Annius Milo, one of the new tribunes, a man as disreputable as Clodius himself; deep in debt and looking for a province to indemnify himself--famous. .h.i.therto in the schools of gladiators, in whose arts he was a proficient, and whose services were at his disposal for any lawless purpose.

[Sidenote: B.C. 57.]

A decree of banishment could only be recalled by the people who had p.r.o.nounced it. Clodius, though no longer in office, was still the idol of the mob; and two of the tribunes, who were at first well inclined to Cicero, had been gained over by him. As early as possible, on the first day of the new year, Lentulus Spinther brought Cicero's case before the Senate. A tribune reminded him of a clause, attached to the sentence of exile, that no citizen should in future move for its repeal. The Senate hesitated, perhaps catching at the excuse; but at length, after repeated adjournments, they voted that the question should be proposed to the a.s.sembly. The day fixed was the 25th of January. In antic.i.p.ation of a riot the temples on the Forum were occupied with guards. The Forum itself and the senate-house were in possession of Clodius and his gang. Clodius maintained that the proposal to be submitted to the people was itself illegal, and ought to be resisted by force. Fabricius, one of the tribunes, had been selected to introduce it. When Fabricius presented himself on the Rostra, there was a general rush to throw him down. The Forum was in theory still a sacred spot, where the carrying of arms was forbidden; but the new age had forgotten such obsolete superst.i.tions. The guards issued out of the temples with drawn swords. The people were desperate and determined. Hundreds were killed on both sides; Quintus Cicero, who was present for his brother, narrowly escaping with life. The Tiber, Cicero says--perhaps with some exaggeration--was covered with floating bodies; the sewers were choked; the b.l.o.o.d.y area of the Forum had to be washed with sponges. Such a day had not been seen in Rome since the fight between Cinna and Octavius.[5] The mob remained masters of the field, and Cicero's cause had to wait for better times. Milo had been active in the combat, and Clodius led his victorious bands to Milo's house to destroy it. Milo brought an action against him for violence; but Clodius was charmed even against forms of law. There was no censor as yet chosen, and without a censor the praetors pretended that they could not entertain the prosecution. Finding law powerless, Milo imitated his antagonist. He, too, had his band of gladiators about him; and the streets of the Capital were entertained daily by fights between the factions of Clodius and Milo. The Commonwealth of the Scipios, the laws and inst.i.tutions of the mistress of the civilized world, had become the football of ruffians. Time and reflection brought some repentance at last.

Toward the summer "the cause of order" rallied. The consuls and Pompey exerted themselves to reconcile the more respectable citizens to Cicero's return; and, with the ground better prepared, the attempt was renewed with more success. In July the recall was again proposed in the Senate, and Clodius was alone in opposing it. When it was laid before the a.s.sembly, Clodius made another effort; but voters had been brought up from other parts of Italy who outnumbered the city rabble; Milo and his gladiators were in force to prevent another burst of violence; and the great orator and statesman was given back to his country. Sixteen months he had been lamenting himself in Greece, bewailing his personal ill-treatment. He was the single object of his own reflections. In his own most sincere convictions he was the centre on which the destinies of Rome revolved. He landed at Brindisi on the 5th of August. His pardon had not yet been decreed, though he knew that it was coming. The happy news arrived in a day or two, and he set out in triumph for Rome. The citizens of Brindisi paid him their compliments; deputations came to congratulate from all parts of Italy. Outside the city every man of note of all the orders, save a few of his declared enemies, were waiting to receive him. The roofs and steps of the temples were thronged with spectators. Crowds attended him to the Capitol, where he went to pour out his grat.i.tude to the G.o.ds, and welcomed him home with shouts of applause.

Had he been wise he would have seen that the rejoicing was from the lips outward; that fine words were not gold; that Rome and its factions were just where he had left them, or had descended one step lower. But Cicero was credulous of flattery when it echoed his own opinions about himself.

The citizens, he persuaded himself, were penitent for their ingrat.i.tude to the most ill.u.s.trious of their countrymen. The acclamations filled him with the delighted belief that he was to resume his place at the head of the State; and, as he could not forgive his disgrace, his first object in the midst of his triumph was to revenge himself on those who had caused it.

Speeches of acknowledgment he had naturally to make both to the Senate and the a.s.sembly. In addressing the people he was moderately prudent; he glanced at the treachery of his friends, but he did not make too much of it. He praised his own good qualities, but not extravagantly. He described Pompey as "the wisest, best, and greatest of all men that had been, were, or ever would be." Himself he compared to Marius returning also from undeserved exile, and he delicately spoke in honor of a name most dear to the Roman plebs, But he, he said, unlike Marius, had no enemies but the enemies of his country. He had no retaliation to demand for his own wrongs. If he punished bad citizens, it would be by doing well himself; if he punished false friends, it would be by never again trusting them. His first and his last object would be to show his grat.i.tude to his fellow- citizens.[6]

Such language was rational and moderate. He understood his audience, and he kept his tongue under a bridle. But his heart was burning in him; and what he could not say in the Forum he thought he might venture on with impunity in the Senate, which might be called his own dunghill. His chief wrath was at the late consuls. They were both powerful men. Gabinius was Pompey's chief supporter. Calpurnius Piso was Caesar's father-in-law. Both had been named to the government of important provinces; and, if authority was not to be brought into contempt, they deserved at least a show of outward respect. Cicero lived to desire their friendship, to affect a value for them, and to regret his violence; but they had consented to his exile; and careless of decency, and oblivious of the chances of the future, he used his opportunity to burst out upon them in language in which the foulest ruffian in the streets would have scarcely spoken of the first magistrates of the Republic. Piso and Gabinius, he said, were thieves, not consuls. They had been friends of Catiline, and had been enemies to himself, because he had baffled the conspiracy. Piso could not pardon the death of Cethegus. Gabinius regretted in Catiline himself the loss of his lover.[7] Gabinius, he said, had been licentious in his youth; he had ruined his fortune; he had supplied his extravagance by pimping; and had escaped his creditors only by becoming tribune. "Behold him," Cicero said, "as he appeared when consul at a meeting called by the arch-thief Clodius, full of wine, and sleep, and fornication, his hair moist, his eyes heavy, his cheeks flaccid, and declaring, with a voice thick with drink, that he disapproved of putting citizens to death without trial." [8] As to Piso, his best recommendation was a cunning gravity of demeanor, concealing mere vacuity. Piso knew nothing--neither law, nor rhetoric, nor war, nor his fellow-men. "His face was the face of some half-human brute." "He was like a negro, a thing [_negotium_] without sense or savor, a Cappadocian picked out of a drove in the slave-market." [9]

Cicero was not taking the best means to regain his influence in the Senate by stooping to vulgar brutality. He cannot be excused by the manners of the age; his violence was the violence of a fluent orator whose temper ran away with him, and who never resisted the temptation to insult an opponent. It did not answer with him; he thought he was to be chief of the Senate, and the most honored person in the State again; he found that he had been allowed to return only to be surrounded by mosquitoes whose delight was to sting him, while the Senate listened with indifference or secret amus.e.m.e.nt. He had been promised the restoration of his property; but he had a suit to prosecute before he could get it. Clodius had thought to make sure of his Roman palace by dedicating it to "Liberty." Cicero challenged the consecration. It was referred to the College of Priests, and the College returned a judgment in Cicero's favor. The Senate voted for the restoration. They voted sums for the rebuilding both of the palace on the Palatine Hill and of the other villas, at the public expense. But the grant in Cicero's opinion was a stingy one. He saw too painfully that those "who had clipped his wings did not mean them to grow again." [10]

Milo and his gladiators were not sufficient support, and if he meant to recover his old power he found that he must look for stronger allies.

Pompey had not used him well; Pompey had promised to defend him from Clodius, and Pompey had left him to his fate. But by going with Pompey he could at least gall the Senate. An opportunity offered, and he caught at it. There was a corn famine in Rome. Clodius had promised the people cheap bread, but there was no bread to be had. The hungry mob howled about the senate-house, threatening fire and ma.s.sacre. The great capitalists and contractors were believed to be at their old work. There was a cry, as in the "pirate" days, for some strong man to see to them and their misdoings.

Pompey was needed again. He had been too much forgotten, and with Cicero's help a decree was carried which gave Pompey control over the whole corn trade of the Empire for five years.

This was something, and Pompey was gratified; but without an army Pompey could do little against the roughs in the streets, and Cicero's house became the next battle-ground. The Senate had voted it to its owner again, and the masons and carpenters were set to work; but the sovereign people had not been consulted. Clodius was now but a private citizen; but private citizens might resist sacrilege if the magistrates forgot their duty. He marched to the Palatine with his gang. He drove out the workmen, broke down the walls, and wrecked the adjoining house, which belonged to Cicero's brother Quintus. The next day he set on Cicero himself in the Via Sacra, and nearly murdered him, and he afterward tried to burn the house of Milo. Consuls and tribunes did not interfere. They were, perhaps, frightened. The Senate professed regret, and it was proposed to prosecute Clodius; but his friends were too strong, and it could not be done. Could Cicero have wrung his neck, as he had wrung the necks of Lentulus and Cethegus, Rome and he would have had a good deliverance. Failing this, he might wisely have waited for the law, which in time must have helped him.

But he let himself down to Clodius's level. He railed at him in the Curia as he had railed at Gabinius and Piso. He ran over his history; he taunted him with incest with his sister, and with filthy relations with vulgar millionaires. He accused him of having sold himself to Catiline, of having forged wills, murdered the heirs of estates and stolen their property, of having murdered officers of the treasury and seized the public money, of having outraged G.o.ds and men, decency, equity, and law; of having suffered every abomination and committed every crime of which human nature was capable. So Cicero spoke in Clodius's own hearing and in the hearing of his friends. It never occurred to him that if half these crimes could be proved, a commonwealth in which such a monster could rise to consequence was not a commonwealth at all, but a frightful mockery which he and every honest man were called on to abhor. Instead of scolding and flinging impotent filth, he should have withdrawn out of public life when he could only remain in it among such companions, or should have attached himself with all his soul to those who had will and power to mend it.

Clodius was at this moment the popular candidate for the aedileship, the second step on the road to the consulship. He was the favorite of the mob.

He was supported by his brother Appius Claudius, the praetor, and the _clientele_ of the great Claudian family; and Cicero's denunciations of him had not affected in the least his chances of success. If Clodius was to be defeated, other means were needed than a statement in the Senate that the aspirant to public honors was a wretch unfit to live. The election was fixed for the 18th of November, and was to be held in the Campus Martius. Milo and his gladiators took possession of the polling- place in the night, and the votes could not be taken. The a.s.sembly met the next day in the Forum, but was broken up by violence, and Clodius had still to wait. The political witch-dance was at its height and Cicero was in his glory. "The elections," he wrote to Atticus, "will not, I think, be held; and Clodius will be prosecuted by Milo unless he is first killed.

Milo will kill him if he falls in with him. He is not afraid to do it, and he says openly that he will do it. He is not frightened at the misfortune which fell on me. He is not the man to listen to traitorous friends or to trust indolent patricians." [11]

With recovered spirits the Senate began again to attack the laws of Caesar and Clodius as irregular; but they were met with the difficulty which Clodius had provided. Cato had come back from Cyprus, delighted with his exploit and with himself, and bringing a ship-load of money with him for the public treasury. If the laws were invalidated by the disregard of Bibulus and the signs of the sky, then the Cyprus mission had been invalid also, and Cato's fine performance void. Caesar's grand victories, the news of which was now coming in, made it inopportune to press the matter farther; and just then another subject rose, on which the optimates ran off like hounds upon a fresh scent.