The Life of Cicero Volume I Part 17

[183] Florus, lib. iv.

[184] Mommsen's History of Rome, book v., chap v.

[185] I feel myself constrained here to allude to the treatment given to Catiline by Dean Merivale in his little work on the two Roman Triumvirates. The Dean's sympathies are very near akin to those of Mr. Beesly, but he values too highly his own historical judgment to allow it to run on all fours with Mr. Beesly's sympathies. "The real designs," he says, "of the infamous Catiline and his a.s.sociates must indeed always remain shrouded in mystery. * * * Nevertheless, it is impossible to deny, and on the whole it would be unreasonable to doubt, that such a conspiracy there really was, and that the very existence of the commonwealth was for a moment seriously imperilled." It would certainly be unreasonable to doubt it. But the Dean, though he calls Catiline infamous, and acknowledges the conspiracy, nevertheless give us ample proof of his sympathy with the conspirators, or rather of his strong feeling against Cicero. Speaking of Catiline at a certain moment, he says that he "was not yet hunted down." He speaks of the "upstart Cicero," and plainly shows us that his heart is with the side which had been Caesar's. Whether conspiracy or no conspiracy, whether with or without wholesale murder and rapine, a single master with a strong hand was the one remedy needed for Rome! The reader must understand that Cicero's one object in public life was to resist that lesson.

[186] Asconius, "In toga candida," reports that Fenestella, a writer of the time of Augustus, had declared that Cicero had defended Catiline; but Asconius gives his reasons for disbelieving the story.

[187] Cicero, however, declares that he has made a difference between traitors to their country and other criminals. Pro P. Sulla, ca. iii.: "Verum etiam quaedam contagio sceleris, si defendas eum, quem obstrictum esse patriae parricidio suspicere." Further on in the same oration, ca. vi., he explains that he had refused to defend Autronius because he had known Autronius to be a conspirator against his country. I cannot admit the truth of the argument in which Mr. Forsyth defends the practice of the English bar in this respect, and in doing so presses hard upon Cicero. "At Rome," he says, "it was different. The advocate there was conceived to have a much wider discretion than we allow." Neither in Rome nor in England has the advocate been held to be disgraced by undertaking the defence of bad men who have been notoriously guilty. What an English barrister may do, there was no reason that a Roman advocate should not do, in regard to simple criminality. Cicero himself has explained in the pa.s.sage I have quoted how the Roman practice did differ from ours in regard to treason. He has stated also that he knew nothing of the first conspiracy when he offered to defend Catiline on the score of provincial peculations. No writer has been heavy on Hortensius for defending Verres, but only because he took bribes from Verres.

[188] Publius Cornelius Sulla, and Publius Autronius P[oe]tus.

[189] Pro P. Sulla, iv. He declares that he had known nothing of the first conspiracy and gives the reason: "Quod nondum penitus in republica versabar, quod nondum ad propositum mihi finem honoris perveneram, quod mea me ambitio et forensis labor ab omni illa cogitatione abstrahebat."

[190] Sall.u.s.t, Catilinaria, xviii.

[191] Livy, Epitome, lib. ci.

[192] Suetonius, J. Caesar, ix.

[193] Mommsen, book v., ca. v., says of Caesar and Cra.s.sus as to this period, "that this notorious action corresponds with striking exactness to the secret action which this report ascribes to them." By which he means to imply that they probably were concerned in the plot.

[194] Sall.u.s.t tells us, Catilinaria, xlix., that Cicero was instigated by special enemies of Caesar to include Caesar in the accusation, but refused to mix himself up in so great a crime. Cra.s.sus also was accused, but probably wrongfully. Sall.u.s.t declares that an attempt was made to murder Caesar as he left the Senate. There was probably some quarrel and hustling, but no more.

[195] Sall.u.s.t, Catilinaria, x.x.xvii.: "Omnino cuncta plebes, novarum rerum studio, Catilinae incepta probabat." By the words "novarum rerum studio"--by a love of revolution--we can understand the kind of popularity which Sall.u.s.t intended to express.

[196] Pro Murena, xxv.

[197] "Darent operam consules ne quid detrimenti respublica capiat."

[198] Catilinaria, x.x.xi.

[199] Quintilian, lib. xii., 10: "Quem tamen et suorum homines temporum incessere audebant, ut tumidiorem, et asianum, et redundantem."

[200] Orator., x.x.xvii.: "A n.o.bis h.o.m.o audacissimus Catilina in senatu accusatus obmutuit."

[201] 2 Catilinaria, x.x.xi.

[202] In the first of them to the Senate, chap. ix., he declares this to Catiline himself: "Si mea voce perterritus ire in exsilium animum induxeris, quanta tempestas invidiae n.o.bis, si minus in praesens tempus, 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; dummodo ista privata sit calamitas, et a reipublicae periculis sejungatur."

[203] Sall.u.s.t, Catilinaria, xli.: "Itaque Q. Fabio Sangae cujus patrocinio civitas plurimum utebatur rem omnem uti cognoverant aperiunt."

[204] Horace, Epo. xvi., 6: "Novisque rebus infidelis Allobrox." The unhappy Savoyard has from this line been known through ages as a conspirator, false even to his fellow-conspirators.

Juvenal, vii., 214: "Rufum qui toties Ciceronem Allobroga dixit." Some Rufus, acting as advocate, had thought to put down Cicero by calling him an Allobrogian.

[205] The words in which this honor was conferred he himself repeats: "Quod urbem incendiis, caede cives, Italiam bello libera.s.sem"--"because I had rescued the city from fire, the citizens from slaughter, and Italy from war."

[206] It is necessary in all oratory to read something between the lines. It is allowed to the speaker to produce effect by diminishing and exaggerating. I think we should detract something from the praises bestowed on Catiline's military virtues. The bigger Catiline could be made to appear, the greater would be the honor of having driven him out of the city.

[207] In Catilinam, iii., xi.

[208] In Catilinam, ibid., xii.: "Ne mihi noceant vestrum est providere."

[209] "Prince of the Senate" was an honorary t.i.tle, conferred on some man of mark as a dignity--at this period on some ex-Consul; it conferred no power. Cicero, the Consul who had convened the Senate, called on the speakers as he thought fit.

[210] Caesar, according to Sall.u.s.t, had referred to the Lex Porcia. Cicero alludes, and makes Caesar allude, to the Lex Semp.r.o.nia. The Porcian law, as we are told by Livy, was pa.s.sed B.C. 299, and forbade that a Roman should be scourged or put to death. The Lex Semp.r.o.nia was introduced by C. Gracchus, and enacted that the life of a citizen should not be taken without the voice of the citizens.

[211] Velleius Paterculus, x.x.xvi.: "Consulatui Ciceronis non mediocre adjecit decus natus eo anno Divus Augustus."

[212] In Pisonem, iii.: "Sine ulla dubitatione juravi rempublicam atque hanc urbem mea unius opera esse salvam."

[213] Dio Ca.s.sius tells the same story, lib. x.x.xvii., ca. 38, but he adds that Cicero was more hated than ever because of the oath he took: [Greek: kai ho men kai ek toutou poly mallon emisethe.]

[214] It is the only letter given in the collection as having been addressed direct to Pompey. In two letters written some years later to Atticus, B.C. 49, lib.

viii., 11, and lib. viii., 12, he sends copies of a correspondence between himself and Pompey and two of the Pompeian generals.

[215] Lib. v., 7. It is hardly necessary to explain that the younger Scipio and Laelius were as famous for their friendship as Pylades and Orestes. The "Virtus Scipiadae et mitis sapientia Laeli" have been made famous to us all by Horace.

[216] These two brothers, neither of whom was remarkable for great qualities, though they were both to be Consuls, were the last known of the great family of the Metelli, a branch of the "Gens Caecilia." Among them had been many who had achieved great names for themselves in Roman history, on account of the territories added to the springing Roman Empire by their victories. There had been a Macedonicus, a Numidicus, a Balearicus, and a Creticus. It is of the first that Velleius Paterculus sings the glory--lib. i., ca. xi., and the elder Pliny repeats the story, Hist. Nat., vii., 44--that of his having been carried to the grave by four sons, of whom at the time of his death three had been Consuls, one had been a Praetor, two had enjoyed triumphal honors, and one had been Censor. In looking through the consular list of Cicero's lifetime, I find that there were no less than seven taken from the family of the Metelli.

These two brothers, Metellus Nepos and Celer, again became friends to Cicero; Nepos, who had stopped his speech and a.s.sisted in forcing him into exile, having a.s.sisted as Consul in obtaining his recall from exile.

It is very difficult to follow the twistings and turnings of Roman friendships at this period.

[217] Velleius Paterculus, lib. ii., ca. xiv. Paterculus tells us how, when the architect offered to build the house so as to hide its interior from the gaze of the world, Drusus desired the man so to construct it that all the world might see what he was doing.

[218] It may be worth while to give a translation of the anecdote as told by Aulus Gellius, and to point out that the authors intention was to show what a clever fellow Cicero was. Cicero did defend P. Sulla this year; but whence came the story of the money borrowed from Sulla we do not know. "It is a trick of rhetoric craftily to confess charges made, so as not to come within the reach of the law. So that, if anything base be alleged which cannot be denied, you may turn it aside with a joke, and make it a matter of laughter rather than of disgrace, as it is written that Cicero did when, with a drolling word, he made little of a charge which he could not deny. For when he was anxious to buy a house on the Palatine Hill, and had not the ready money, he quietly borrowed from P. Sulla--who was then about to stand his trial, 'sestertium viciens'--twenty million sesterces.

When that became known, before the purchase was made, and it was objected to him that he had borrowed the money from a client, then Cicero, instigated by the unexpected charge, denied the loan, and denied also that he was going to buy the house. But when he had bought it and the fib was thrown in his teeth, he laughed heartily, and asked whether men had so lost their senses as not to be aware that a prudent father of a family would deny an intended purchase rather than raise the price of the article against himself."--Noctes Atticae, xii., 12. Aulus Gellius though he tells us that the story was written, does not tell us where he read it.

[219] I must say this, "pace" Mr. Tyrrell, who, in his note on the letter to Atticus, lib. i., 12, attempts to show that some bargain for such professional fee had been made. Regarding Mr. Tyrrell as a critic always fair, and almost always satisfactory, I am sorry to have to differ from him; but it seems to me that he, too, has been carried away by the feeling that in defending a man's character it is best to give up some point.

[220] I have been amused at finding a discourse, eloquent and most enthusiastic, in praise of Cicero and especially of this oration, spoken by M. Gueroult at the College of France in June, 1815. The worst literary faults laid to the charge of Cicero, if committed by him--which M. Gueroult thinks to be doubtful--had been committed even by Voltaire and Racine! The learned Frenchman, with whom I altogether sympathize, rises to an ecstasy of violent admiration, and this at the very moment in which Waterloo was being fought. But in truth the great doings of the world do not much affect individual life. We should play our whist at the clubs though the battle of Dorking were being fought.

[221] Pro P. Sulla, iv.: "Scis me * * * illorum expertem temporum et sermonum fuisse; credo, quod nondum penitus in republica versabar, quod nondum ad propositum mihi finem honoris perveneram. * * * Quis ergo intererat vestris consiliis? Omnes hi, quos vides huic adesse et in primis Q. Hortensius."

[222] Ad Att., lib. i., 12.

[223] Ad Att., lib. i., 13.

[224] Ibid., i., 14.

[225]Ibid., i., 16: "Vis scire quomodo minus quam soleam praeliatus sum."

[226] "You have bought a fine house," said Clodius.

"There would be more in what you say if you could accuse me of buying judges," replied Cicero. "The judges would not trust you on your oath," said Clodius, referring to the alibi by which he had escaped in opposition to Cicero's oath. "Yes," replied Cicero, "twenty-five trusted me; but not one of the thirty-one would trust you without having his bribe paid beforehand."

[227] Ad Att., i., 14: "Proxime Pompeium sedebam.

Intellexi hominem moveri."

[228] Ibid.: "Quo modo [Greek: eneperpereusamen], novo auditori Pompeio."