The Life of Cicero Volume I Part 3

So far the matter had gone with the t.i.tuses, and with Chrysogonus who had got his lion's share. Our poor Roscius, the victim, did at first abandon his property, and allow himself to be awed into silence. We cannot but think that he was a poor creature, and can fancy that he had lived a wretched life during all the murders of the Sullan proscriptions. But in his abject misery he had found his way up among the great friends of his family at Rome, and had there been charged with the parricide, because Chrysogonus and the t.i.tuses began to be afraid of what these great friends might do.

This is the story as Cicero has been able to tell it in his speech.

Beyond that, we only know that the man was acquitted. Whether he got back part of his father's property there is nothing to inform us.

Whether further inquiry was made as to the murder; whether evil befell those two t.i.tuses or Chrysogonus was made to disgorge, there has been no one to inform us. The matter was of little importance in Rome, where murders and organized robberies of the kind were the common incidents of every-day life. History would have meddled with nothing so ordinary had not it happened that the case fell into the hands of a man so great a master of his language that it has been worth the while of ages to perpetuate the speech which he made in the matter. But the story, as a story of Roman life, is interesting, and it gives a slight aid to history in explaining the condition of things which Sulla had produced.

The attack upon Chrysogonus is bold, and cannot but have been offensive to Sulla, though Sulla is by name absolved from immediate blame.

Chrysogonus himself, the favorite, he does not spare, saying words so bitter of tone that one would think that the judges--Sulla's judges--would have stopped him, had they been able. "Putting aside s.e.xtus Roscius," he says, "I demand, first of all, why the goods of an esteemed citizen were sold; then, why have the goods been sold of one who had not himself been proscribed, and who had not been killed while defending Sulla's enemies? It is against those only that the law is made. Then I demand why they were sold when the legal day for such sales had pa.s.sed, and why they were sold for such a trifle."[72] Then he gives us a picture of Chrysogonus flaunting down the streets. "You have seen him, judges, how, his locks combed and perfumed, he swims along the Forum"--he, a freedman, with a crowd of Roman citizens at his heels, that all may see that he thinks himself inferior to none--"the only happy man of the day, the only one with any power in his hands."[73]

This trial was, as has been said, a "causa publica," a criminal accusation of such importance as to demand that it should be tried before a full bench of judges. Of these the number would be uncertain, but they were probably above fifty. The Praetor of the day--the Praetor to whom by lot had fallen for that year that peculiar duty--presided, and the judges all sat round him. Their duty seems to have consisted in listening to the pleadings, and then in voting. Each judge could vote[74] "guilty," "acquitted," or "not proven," as they do in Scotland.

They were, in fact, jurymen rather than judges. It does not seem that any amount of legal lore was looked for specially in the judges, who at different periods had been taken from various orders of the citizens, but who at this moment, by a special law enacted by Sulla, were selected only from the Senators. We have ample evidence that at this period the judges in Rome were most corrupt. They were tainted by a double corruption: that of standing by their order instead of standing by the public--each man among them feeling that his turn to be accused might come--and that also of taking direct bribes. Cicero on various occasions--on this, for instance, and notably in the trial of Verres, to which we shall come soon--felt very strongly that his only means of getting a true verdict from the majority of judges was to frighten them into temporary honesty by the magnitude of the occasion. If a trial could be slurred through with indifferent advocates, with nothing to create public notice, with no efforts of genius to attract admiration, and a large attendance and consequent sympathy the judgment would, as a matter of course, be bought. In such a case as this of s.e.xtus Roscius, the poor wretch would be condemned, sewed up in his bag, and thrown into the sea, a portion of the plunder would be divided among the judges, and nothing further would be said about it. But if an orator could achieve for himself such a reputation that the world would come and listen to him, if he could so speak that Rome should be made to talk about the trial, then might the judges be frightened into a true verdict. It may be understood, therefore, of what importance it was to obtain the services of a Cicero, or of a Hortensius, who was unrivalled at the Roman bar when Cicero began to plead.

There were three special modes of oratory in which Cicero displayed his powers. He spoke either before the judges--a large body of judges who sat collected round the Praetor, as in the case of s.e.xtus Roscius--or in cases of civil law before a single judge, selected by the Praetor, who sat with an a.s.sessor, as in the case of Roscius the actor, which shall be mentioned just now. This was the recognized work of his life, in which he was engaged, at any rate, in his earlier years; or he spoke to the populace, in what was called the Concio, or a.s.sembly of the people--speeches made before a crowd called together for a special purpose, as were the second and third orations against Catiline; or in the Senate, in which a political rather than a judicial sentence was sought from the votes of the Senators. There was a fourth mode of address, which in the days of the Emperors became common, when the advocate spoke "ad Principem;" that is, to the Emperor himself, or to some ruler acting for him as sole judge. It was thus that Cicero pleaded before Caesar for Ligarius and for King Deiotarus, in the latter years of his life. In each of these a separate manner and a distinct line had to be adopted, in all of which he seems to have been equally happy, and equally powerful. In judging of his speeches, we are bound to remember that they were not probably uttered with their words arranged as we read them. Some of those we have were never spoken at all, as was the case with the five last Verrene orations, and with the second, by far the longest of the Philippics. Some, as was specially the case with the defence of Milo, the language of which is perhaps as perfect as that of any oration which has reached us from ancient or 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.[75]

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 s.e.xtus Roscius, 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 Praetor 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. The 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 Rome all exterior gifts were there. Cicero knew how to use them, so that the judges who made so large a part in the pageant should not dare to disgrace themselves because of its publicity.

Quintilian gives his pupils much advice as to the way in which they should dress themselves[76] 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 Roman 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.

s.e.xtus Roscius 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 think, more attractive than most novels.

We know that Cicero pleaded other 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 for a lady of Arretium, in which he defended her right to be regarded as a free woman 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 Rome--or rebelled against Rome; and Sertorius, who was in truth a great man, was in arms against Rome in Spain, as a rebel, though he was in truth struggling to create a new Roman 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 ardor 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 rumor that Cicero, when he returned home from Greece, thought for awhile of giving himself up to philosophy, so that he was called Greek and Sophist in 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 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 honors of the Republic. 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 Rome, when he was thirty, he married Terentia, a n.o.ble lady, of whom we are informed that she had a good fortune, and that her sister was one of the Vestal Virgins.[77] Her n.o.bility is inferred from the fact that the virgins were, as a rule, chosen from the n.o.ble families, though the law required only that they should be 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, a.s.suming a sum which was equal to about 4200 of our money. He tells us at the same time that Cicero's own fortune was less than 4000. But in both of these statements, Plutarch, who was forced to take his facts where 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 Rome who had the command of large means. We are aware that he was often in debt. We find 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. Speculation 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. Caesar'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 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 aedile, he kept within bounds, and he did not lavish money which he did not possess. We know also that he refrained, altogether refrained, from the iniquitous habits of making large fortunes which were open to the great politicians of the Republic. To be Quaestor that he might be aedile, aedile 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 cope with all his creditors, and to bribe the judges should he be accused for his misdeeds--these were the usual steps to take by enterprising Romans toward power, wealth, and enjoyment. But it will be observed, in this sequence of circ.u.mstances, the robbery of the province was essential to success. This was sometimes done after so magnificent a fas.h.i.+on as to have become an immortal fact in history. The instance of Verres 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 Roman mode of declaring himself without reserve in his letters has been perpetuated for us 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 n.o.ble Roman might 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," pa.s.sed more than a century before Cicero began his pleadings.[78] 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 Rome than it has been found to be in England, where every barrister is theoretically presumed 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, had his price. He himself tells us that he took 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 insure the value of his services, and when he was a Senator.

n.o.ble Romans also--n.o.ble 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 such baseness on the part of Brutus--that Brutus whom we have 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 Roman n.o.bleman in quest of revenue. The allied city, when absolutely eaten to the bone by one n.o.ble Roman, who had plundered it as Proconsul or Governor, would escape from its immediate embarra.s.sment by borrowing money from another n.o.ble Roman, who would then grind its very bones in exacting his interest and his princ.i.p.al.

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 endeavor 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 a.s.sertion on an idea which is too often supported by the world's practice, namely, that men cannot do a retail business profitably without lying.[79] The doctrine, however, has always been common that retail trade is not compatible with n.o.ble bearing, and was practised by all Romans who aspired to be considered among the upper cla.s.ses. That other and certainly baser means of making money by usury was, however, only too common. Cra.s.sus, the noted rich man of Rome in Caesar's day, who was one of the first Triumvirate, and who perished ignominiously in Parthia, was known to have gathered much of his wealth by such means. But against this Cicero is as staunchly severe as against shopkeeping. "First of all," he says, "these profits are despicable which incur the hatred of men, such as those of gatherers of custom and lenders of money on usury."[80]

Again, we are ent.i.tled to say that Cicero did not condescend 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 Officiis, was only less dear to him than Atticus. But Cicero himself seems to have done so faithfully. We learn from his letter 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 Romans of high position.[81] 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 him; and that though he was often in debt, as was customary with n.o.ble Romans, he could always write about his debts in a vein of pleasantry, showing that they were not a heavy burden to him; 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 honors of the Republic, he did so with the means of living like a n.o.bleman.

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 their 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 Caesar his debts have been accounted happy audacity; his pillage of Gaul and Spain, and 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.[82] I do not mean to draw a parallel between Caesar 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 right. 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 color 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. and his election as Quaestor 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 in behalf of that Roscius, 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 Roscius 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 Rabelais, probably from this occurrence, and given to his demon of mischief--showed apt.i.tude for acting, and was therefore valuable. Then one Flavius killed him; why or how we do not know; and, having killed him, settled with Roscius for the injury by giving him a small farm. But Roscius had only borrowed or hired the man from one Chaerea--or was in partners.h.i.+p with Chaerea 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 Roscius. "He is such an actor,"

says Cicero, "that 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."[83] The orator's praise of the actor is not of much importance.

Had not Roscius 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 the preceding year he had solicited the Quaestors.h.i.+p, when Cotta was candidate for the Consuls.h.i.+p and Hortensius for the Praetors.h.i.+p. There are in the dialogue De Claris Oratoribus--which has had the name of Brutus always given to it--some pa.s.sages in which the orator tells us more of himself than in any other of his 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.[84]

CHAPTER V.

_CICERO AS QUaeSTOR._

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 Praetor, 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 Roman advocate who purposed to make his fortune by serving the State. To act as Quaestor in his thirty-second year, aedile 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 Propraetor with proconsular authority could make a large fortune, as we shall learn when we come to deal with Verres, and though aediles, 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 pa.s.sage to which I have referred in the last chapter, and which is to be found in the Appendix, he gained the good-will of men--that is, of free Romans who had the suffrage, and who could therefore vote either for him or against him--by the a.s.siduity of his attention to the cases which he undertook, and by a certain brilliancy of speech which was new to them.[85] Putting his hand strenuously to the plough, allowing himself to be diverted by none of those luxuries to which Romans of his day were so wont to give way, he earned his purpose by a resolution to do his very best. He was "Novus h.o.m.o"--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 Republic dispersed among an increased number of hands. The power of voting was common to all Roman male citizens; but the power of influencing the electors had pa.s.sed 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 Praetor; a Lepidus some years since could receive the Consuls.h.i.+p; 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 spending of money, that is, with direct bribery, Cicero would have nothing to do; but of the art of canva.s.sing--that art by which he could at the moment make himself beloved by the citizens who had a vote to give--he was a profound master.

There is a short treatise, De Pet.i.tione Consulatus, on canva.s.sing for the Consuls.h.i.+p, of which mention may be made here, because all the tricks of the trade were as essential to him, when looking to be Quaestor, as when he afterward desired to be Consul, and because the political doings of his life will hurry us on too quickly in the days of his Consuls.h.i.+p to admit of our referring to these lessons. This little piece, of which we have only a fragment, is supposed to have been addressed to Cicero by his brother Quintus, giving fraternal advice as to the then coming great occasion. The critics say that it was retouched by the orator himself. The reader who has studied Cicero's style will think that the retouching went to a great extent, or that the two brothers were very like each other in their power of expression.

The first piece of advice was no doubt always in Cicero's mind, not only when he looked for office, but whenever he addressed a meeting of his fellow-citizens. "Bethink yourself what is this Republic; what it is you seek to be in it, and who you are that seek it. As you go down daily to the Forum, turn the answer to this in your mind: 'Novus sum; consulatum peto; Roma est'--'I am a man of an untried family. It is the Consuls.h.i.+p that I seek. It is Rome in which I seek it.'" Though the condition of Rome was bad, still to him the Republic was the greatest thing in the world, and to be Consul in that Republic the highest honor which the world could give.

There is n.o.bility in that, but there is very much that is ign.o.ble in the means of canva.s.sing which are advocated. I cannot say that they are as yet too ign.o.ble for our modern use here in England, but they are too ign.o.ble to be acknowledged by our candidates themselves, or by their brothers on their behalf. Cicero, not having progressed far enough in modern civilization to have studied the beauty of truth, is held to be false and hypocritical. We who know so much more than he did, and have the doctrine of truth at our fingers' ends, are wise enough to declare nothing of our own shortcomings, but to attribute such malpractices only to others. "It is a good thing to be thought worthy of the rank we seek by those who are in possession of it." Make yourself out to be an aristocrat, he means. "Canva.s.s them, and cotton to them. Make them believe that in matters of politics you have always been with the aristocracy, never with the mob;" that if "you have at all spoken a word in public to tickle the people, you have done so for the sake of gaining Pompey." As to this, it is necessary to understand Pompey's peculiar popularity at the moment, both with the Liberals and with the Conservatives. "Above all, see that you have with you the 'jeunesse doree.' They carry so much! There are many with you already. Take care that they shall know how much you think of them."

He is especially desired to make known to the public the iniquities of Catiline, his opponent, as to whom Quintus says that, though he has lately been acquitted in regard to his speculations in Africa, he has had to bribe the judges so highly that he is now as poor as they were before they got their plunder. At every word we read we are tempted to agree with Mommsen that on the Roman oligarchy of the period no judgment can be pa.s.sed save one, "of inexorable condemnation."[86]

"Remember," says Quintus, "that your candidature is very strong in that kind of friends.h.i.+p which has been created by your pleadings. Take care that each of those friends shall know what special business is allotted to him on the occasion; and as you have not troubled any of them yet, make them understand that you have reserved for the present moment the payment of their debts." This is all very well; but the next direction mingles so much of business with its truth, that no one but Machiavelli or Quintus Cicero could have expressed it in words. "Men," says Quintus, "are induced to struggle for us in these canva.s.sings by three motives--by memory of kindness done, by the hope of kindness to come, and by community of political conviction. You must see how you are to catch each of these. Small favors will induce a man to canva.s.s for you; and they who owe their safety to your pleadings, for there are many such, are aware that if they do not stand by you now they will be regarded by all the world as sorry fellows. Nevertheless, they should be made to feel that, as they are indebted to you, you will be glad to have an opportunity of becoming indebted to them. But as to those on whom you have a hold only by hope--a cla.s.s of men very much more numerous, and likely to be very much more active--they are the men whom you should make to understand that your a.s.sistance will be always at their command."

How severe, how difficult was the work of canva.s.sing in Rome, we learn from these lessons. It was the very essence of a great Roman's life that he should live in public; and to such an extent was this carried that we wonder how such a man as Cicero found time for the real work of his life. The Roman patron was expected to have a levee every morning early in his own house, and was wont, when he went down into the Forum, to be attended by a crowd of parasites. This had become so much a matter of course that a public man would have felt himself deserted had he been left alone either at home or abroad. Rome was full of idlers--of men who got their bread by the favors of the great, who lounged through their lives--political quidnuncs, who made canva.s.sing a trade--men without a conviction, but who believed in the ascendency of this or the other leader, and were ready to fawn or to fight in the streets, as there might be need. These were the Quirites of the day--men who were in truth fattened on the leavings of the plunder which was extracted from the allies; for it was the case now that a Roman was content to live on the industry of those whom his father had conquered. They would still fight in the legions; but the work of Rome was done by slaves, and the wealth of Rome was robbed from the Provinces. Hence it came about that there was a numerous cla.s.s, to whom the name "a.s.sectatores" was given, who of course became specially prominent at elections. Quintus divides all such followers into three kinds, and gives instructions as to the special treatment to be applied to each. "There are those who come to pay their respects to you at your own house"--"Salutatores" they were called; "then those who go down with you into the Forum"--"Deductores;" "and after these the third, the cla.s.s of constant followers"--"a.s.sectatores,"

as they were specially named. "As to the first, who are the least in consequence, and who, according to our present ways of living, come in great numbers, you should take care to let them know that their doing even so much as this is much esteemed by you. Let them perceive that you note it when they come, and say as much to their friends, who will repeat your words. Tell themselves often if it be possible. In this way men, when there are many candidates, will observe that there is one who has his eyes open to these courtesies, and they will give themselves heart and soul to him, neglecting all others. And mind you, when you find that a man does but pretend, do not let him perceive that you have perceived it. Should any one wish to excuse himself, thinking that he is suspected of indifference, swear that you have never doubted him, nor had occasion to doubt.

"As to the work of the 'Deductores,' who go out with you--as it is much more severe than that of those who merely come to pay their compliments, let them understand that you feel it to be so, and, as far as possible, be ready to go into town with them at fixed hours." Quintus here means that the "Deductores" are not to be kept waiting for the patron longer than can be helped. "The attendance of a daily crowd in taking you down to the Forum gives a great show of character and dignity.

"Then come the band of followers which accompanies you diligently wherever you go. As to those who do this without special obligation, take care that they should know how much you think of them. From those who owe it to you as a duty, exact it rigorously. See that they who can come themselves do come themselves, and that they who cannot, send others in their places." What an idea does this give as to the labor of a candidate in Rome! I can imagine it to be worse even than the canva.s.sing of an English borough, which to a man of spirit and honor is the most degrading of all existing employments not held to be absolutely disgraceful.

Quintus then goes on from the special management of friends to the general work of canva.s.sing. "It requires the remembering of men's names"--"nomenclationem," a happy word we do not possess--"flattery, diligence, sweetness of temper, good report, and a high standing in the Republic. Let it be seen that you have been at the trouble to remember people, and practise yourself to it so that the power may increase with you. There is nothing so alluring to the citizen as that. If there be a softness which you have not by nature, so affect it that it shall seem to be your own naturally. You have indeed a way with you which is not unbecoming to a good-natured man; but you must caress men--which is in truth vile and sordid at other times, but is absolutely necessary at elections. It is no doubt a mean thing to flatter some low fellow, but when it is necessary to make a friend it can be pardoned. A candidate must do it, whose face and look and tongue should be made to suit those he has to meet. What perseverance means I need not tell you. The word itself explains itself. As a matter of course, you shall not leave the city; but it is not enough for you to stick to your work in Rome and in the Forum. You must seek out the voters and canva.s.s them separately; and take care that no one shall ask from another what it is that you want from him. Let it have been solicited by yourself, and often solicited."

Quintus seems to have understood the business well, and the elder brother no doubt profited by the younger brother's care.

It was so they did it at Rome. That men should have gone through all this in search of plunder and wealth does not strike us as being marvellous, or even out of place. A vile object justifies vile means.

But there were some at Rome who had it in their hearts really to serve their country, and with whom it was at the same time a matter of conscience that, in serving their country, they would not dishonestly or dishonorably enrich themselves. There was still a grain of salt left.

But even this could not make itself available for useful purpose without having recourse to tricks such as these!

[Sidenote: B.C. 75, aetat. 32.]

In his proper year Cicero became Quaestor, and had a.s.signed to him by lot the duty of looking after the Western Division of Sicily. For Sicily, though but one province as regarded general condition, being under one governor with proconsular authority, retained separate modes of government, or, rather, varied forms of subjection to Rome, especially in matters of taxation, according as it had or had not been conquered from the Carthaginians.[87] Cicero was quartered at Lilybaeum, on the west, whereas the other Quaestor was placed at Syracuse, in the east.

There were at that time twenty Quaestors elected annually, some of whom remained in Rome; but most of the number were stationed about the Empire, there being always one as a.s.sistant to each Proconsul. When a Consul took the field with an army, he always had a Quaestor with him.

This had become the case so generally that the Quaestor became, as it were, something between a private secretary and a senior lieutenant to a governor. The arrangement came to have a certain sanct.i.ty attached to it, as though there was something in the connection warmer and closer than that of mere official life; so that a Quaestor has been called a Proconsul's son for the time, and was supposed to feel that reverence and attachment that a son entertains for his father.

But to Cicero, and to young Quaestors in general, the great attraction of the office consisted in the fact that the aspirant having once become a Quaestor was a Senator for the rest of his life, unless he should be degraded by misconduct. Gradually it had come to pa.s.s that the Senate was replenished by the votes of the people, not directly, but by the admission into the Senate of the popularly elected magistrates. There were in the time of Cicero between 500 and 600 members of this body. The numbers down to the time of Sulla had been increased or made up by direct selection by the old Kings, or by the Censors, or by some Dictator, such as was Sulla; and the same thing was done afterward by Julius Caesar. The years between Sulla's Dictators.h.i.+p and that of Caesar were but thirty--from 79 to 49 B.C. These, however, were the years in which Cicero dreamed that the Republic could be re-established by means of an honest Senate, which Senate was then to be kept alive by the constant infusion of new blood, accruing to it from the entrance of magistrates who had been chosen by the people. Tacitus tells us that it was with this object that Sulla had increased the number of Quaestors.[88] Cicero's hopes--his futile hopes of what an honest Senate might be made to do--still ran high, although at the very time in which he was elected Quaestor he was aware that the judges, then elected from the Senate, were so corrupt that their judgment could not be trusted. Of this popular mode of filling the Senate he speaks afterward in his treatise De Legibus. "From those who have acted as magistrates the Senate is composed--a measure altogether in the popular interest, as no one can now reach the highest rank"--namely, the Senate--"except by the votes of the people, all power of selecting having been taken away from the Censors."[89] In his pleadings for P. s.e.xtus he makes the same boast as to old times, not with absolute accuracy, as far as we can understand the old const.i.tution, but with the same pa.s.sionate ardor as to the body.

"Romans, when they could no longer endure the rule of kings, created annual magistrates, but after such fas.h.i.+on that the Council of the Senate was set over the Republic for its guidance. Senators were chosen for that work by the entire people, and the entrance to that order was opened to the virtue and to the industry of the citizens at large."[90]

When defending Cluentius, he expatiates on the glorious privileges of the Roman Senate. "Its high place, its authority, its splendor at home, its name and fame abroad, the purple robe, the ivory chair, the appanage of office, the fasces, the army with its command, the government of the provinces!"[91] On that splendor "apud exteras gentes," he expatiates in one of his attacks upon Verres.[92] From all this will be seen Cicero's idea of the chamber into which he had made his way as soon as he had been chosen Quaestor.

In this matter, which was the pivot on which his whole life turned--the character, namely, of the Roman Senate--it cannot but be observed that he was wont to blow both hot and cold. It was his nature to do so, not from any apt.i.tude for deceit, but because he was sanguine and vacillating--because he now aspired and now despaired. He blew hot and cold in regard to the Senate, because at times he would feel it to be what it was--composed, for the most part, of men who were time-serving and corrupt, willing to sell themselves for a price to any buyer; and then, again, at times he would think of the Senate as endowed with all those privileges which he names, and would dream that under his influence it would become what it should be--such a Senate as he believed it to have been in its old palmy days. His praise of the Senate, his description of what it should be and might be, I have given.

To the other side of the picture we shall come soon, when I shall have to show how, at the trial of Verres, he declared before the judges themselves how terrible had been the corruption of the judgment-seat in Rome since, by Sulla's enactment, it had been occupied only by the Senators. One pa.s.sage I will give now, in order that the reader may see by the juxtaposition of the words that he could denounce the Senate as loudly as he would vaunt its privileges. In the column on the left hand in the note I quote the words with which, in the first pleading against Verres, he declared "that every base and iniquitous thing done on the judgment-seat during the ten years since the power of judging had been transferred to the Senate should be not only denounced by him, but also proved;" and in that on the right I will repeat the n.o.ble phrases which he afterward used in the speech for Cluentius when he chose to speak well of the order.[93]

It was on the Senate that they who wished well for Rome must depend--on the Senate, chosen, refreshed, and replenished from among the people; on a body which should be at the same time august and popular--as far removed on the one side from the tyranny of individuals as on the other from the violence of the mob; but on a Senate freed from its corruption and dirt, on a body of n.o.ble Romans, fitted by their individual character and high rank to rule and to control their fellow-citizens.

This was Cicero's idea, and this the state of things which he endeavored to achieve. No doubt he dreamed that his own eloquence and his own example might do more in producing this than is given to men to achieve by such means. No doubt there was conceit in this--conceit and perhaps, vanity. It has to be admitted that Cicero always exaggerated his own powers. But the ambition was great, the purpose n.o.ble, and the course of his whole life was such as to bring no disgrace on his aspirations. He did not thunder against the judges for taking bribes, and then plunder a province himself. He did not speak grandly of the duty of a patron to his clients, and then open his hands to illicit payments. He did not call upon the Senate for high duty, and then devote himself to luxury and pleasure. He had a _beau ideal_ of the manner in which a Roman Senator should live and work, and he endeavored to work and live up to that ideal. There was no period after his Consuls.h.i.+p in which he was not aware of his own failure. Nevertheless, with constant labor, but with intermittent struggles, he went on, till, at the end, in the last fiery year of his existence, he taught himself again to think that even yet there was a chance. How he struggled, and in struggling perished, we shall see by-and-by.

What Cicero did as Quaestor in Sicily we have no means of knowing. His correspondence does not go back so far. That he was very active, and active for good, we have two testimonies, one of which is serious, convincing, and most important as an episode in his life. The other consists simply of a good story, told by himself of himself; not intended at all for his own glorification, but still carrying with it a certain weight. As to the first: Cicero was Quaestor in Lilybaeum in the thirty-second year of his life. In the thirty-seventh year he was elected aedile, and was then called upon by the Sicilians to attack Verres on their behalf. Verres was said to have carried off from Sicily plunder to the amount of nearly 400,000,[94] after a misrule of three years' duration. All Sicily was ruined. Beyond its pecuniary losses, its sufferings had been excruciating; but not till the end had come of a Governor's proconsular authority could the almost hopeless chance of a criminal accusation against the tyrant be attempted. The tyrant would certainly have many friends in Rome. The injured provincials would probably have none of great mark. A man because he had been Quaestor was not, necessarily, one having influence, unless he belonged to some great family. This was not the case with Cicero. But he had made for himself such a character during his year of office that the Sicilians declared that, if they could trust themselves to any man at Rome, it would be to their former Quaestor. It had been a part of his duty to see that the proper supply of corn was collected in the island and sent to Rome. A great portion of the bread eaten in Rome was grown in Sicily, and much of it was supplied in the shape of a tax. It was the hateful practice of Rome to extract the means of living from her colonies, so as to spare her own laborers. To this, hard as it was, the Sicilians were well used.

They knew the amount required of them by law, and were glad enough when they could be quit in payment of the dues which the law required; but they were seldom blessed by such moderation on the part of their rulers.

To what extent this special tax could be stretched we shall see when we come to the details of the trial of Verres. It is no doubt only from Cicero's own words that we learn that, though he sent to Rome plenteous supplies, he was just to the dealer, liberal to the p.a.w.ns, and forbearing to the allies generally; and that when he took his departure they paid him honors. .h.i.therto unheard of.[95] But I think we may take it for granted that this statement is true; firstly, because it has never been contradicted; and then from the fact that the Sicilians all came to him in the day of their distress.

As to the little story to which I have alluded, it has been told so often since Cicero told it himself, that I am almost ashamed to repeat it. It is, however, too emblematic of the man, gives us too close an insight both into his determination to do his duty and to his pride--conceit, if you will--at having done it, to be omitted. In his speech for Plancius[96] he tells us that by chance, coming direct from Sicily after his Quaestors.h.i.+p, he found himself at Puteoli just at the season when the fas.h.i.+on from Rome betook itself to that delightful resort. He was full of what he had done--how he had supplied Rome with corn, but had done so without injury to the Sicilians, how honestly he had dealt with the merchants, and had in truth won golden opinions on all sides--so much so that he thought that when he reached the city the citizens in a mob would be ready to receive him. Then at Puteoli he met two acquaintances. "Ah," says one to him, "when did you leave Rome? What news have you brought?" Cicero, drawing his head up, as we can see him, replied that he had just returned from his province. "Of course, just back from Africa," said the other. "Not so," said Cicero, bridling in anger--"stomachans fastidiose," as he describes it himself--"but from Sicily." Then the other lounger, a fellow who pretended to know everything, put in his word. "Do you not know that our Cicero has been Quaestor at Syracuse?" The reader will remember that he had been Quaestor in the other division of the island, at Lilybaeum. "There was no use in thinking any more about it," says Cicero. "I gave up being angry and determined to be like any one else, just one at the waters." Yes, he had been very conceited, and well understood his own fault of character in that respect; but he would not have shown his conceit in that matter had he not resolved to do his duty in a manner uncommon then among Quaestors, and been conscious that he had done it.