The republic of Cicero. Marcus Tullius Cicero
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a law for the trial of Clodius before the people, which was resisted by one of the tribunes friendly to Clodius. At length it was agreed that a law should be passed to try him before the prætor and a select number of judges. Clodius rested his defence upon an alibi, which he endeavoured to sustain by witnesses. When Cicero was called to give his deposition, he was insulted by the mob which adhered to Clodius; but such was the veneration in which he was held, that the judges stood up, and received him with great honour. He testified that Clodius had been with him in his house in Rome on the very day of the pollution. Cæsar who was also called, said that he was ignorant of the whole affair; although it occurred in his own house, and in the presence of his mother and sister, who had deposed to the truth of the accusation. Being asked, why then he had put away his wife? he answered, “Because those who are connected with me, must be as free from suspicion as from crime.”[6]
That the wife of Cæsar must be free even from suspicion, is a saying that has passed down to our days: yet too many who have heard it are ignorant of the circumstances attending its origin. We read the commentaries of Cæsar at school, and are fired with admiration at his talents and successes. We are thus prepared to pity his death and the manner of it. But the military and political glories of Cæsar, can never furnish an apology for a profligate private life; and a memorable saying is stripped of every attraction, when we know that it was uttered by the lips of a perjured atheist.
In a letter to Atticus, Cicero draws a curious picture of the judges selected to try this famous cause; a majority of whom appears to have been packed from the outcasts of all the orders, and to have been paid for the occasion. Clodius was acquitted by a majority of thirty-one voices over twenty-five. Upon their appointment some of them had requested a guard from the senate to protect them from the mob. Upon which occasion, Catulus a distinguished member of the senate, very facetiously asked one of the judges, “why they wanted a guard, and whether it was to protect the money which Clodius had bribed them with?”
After his acquittal, Clodius was wont to attempt to throw ridicule upon Cicero in the senate, finding it vain to encounter him in argument, and hoping to divert in some degree the force of his attacks. “So the judges” said Clodius, “would give no credit to your oath.” “Twenty-five of them did,” replied Cicero: “the rest would give you none it seems, but made you pay beforehand.”
After the return of Pompey to Rome, as well as of Cæsar from Spain, a triumvirate of interests was formed between these two and Crassus: each having his own ascendancy in view. Cæsar, to make the interest it was thus intended to direct against the independence of the republic, still stronger, made overtures to Cicero, who declined connecting himself with them. At length Cæsar openly declared against him, and favoured the election of Clodius to the tribunate, in the which he succeeded. Being now in authority, he brought forward the law, that whoever had taken away the life of a Roman citizen, uncondemned, should be interdicted bread and water. This was directed against Cicero, in relation to his consular acts respecting the conspirators; and affected him so much, that although the law was in general terms, and his name was not mentioned in it, he changed his garments, and appeared abroad sordidly dressed to attract the compassion of the people. The young Romans of liberal character, to the number of twenty thousand also changed their dress, and accompanied him; soliciting the favour of all in authority, and of the people, against the passage of this law. But the combination of bad men proved too strong against him, and Pompey having refused his protection, Cicero was induced by the advice of his friends, to withdraw himself into a temporary exile from Rome. This humiliating event took place in his forty-ninth year. During his absence his residences both in town and country, which were upon a scale commensurate with his dignity, were despoiled; and together with the furniture appropriated by the consuls and by Clodius. At length the daring insolence of that tribune, and the perpetual broils he occasioned, began to indispose all men against him, except his immediate profligate retainers. Advantage was taken of this to propose in the senate the recall of Cicero; which finally prevailed at a very numerous convocation of the senators and magistrates; Clodius alone giving a dissenting voice. At its final passage into a law by the Roman people, the field of Mars was crowded with their assembled centuries. Such was the public veneration for him, that voters from every town in Italy were present to insure the passage of a law which restored so great a benefactor to his country. All the centuries concurred in an act thus most solemnly passed by the whole Roman people. In anticipation of the event, he left Dyrrhachium in Macedonia, and soon after his arrival at Brundisium, where his daughter Tullia had come to meet him, he received the welcome news from Rome. His journey was a continued triumph, and he was received on his arrival at the city in the most enthusiastic manner. An insufficient sum of money was voted to him to rebuild his mansions. When he had almost finished his palatine house, it was attacked by one of Clodius’ mobs, and destroyed. Broils and slaughters were now so common in the streets of Rome, that gladiators were retained to assist in these feuds; in which the consuls of the same year were sometimes opposed to each other. Cicero who had now reached his fifty-first year, was again made to feel how unremitting is the hatred of enemies, and uncertain the support of friends. Public virtue appeared to him to have no longer any value in the eyes of the Romans. He saw that every man attended more to his private safety and advancement, than to the public peace and dignity of the city; and perceiving the necessity of a powerful protector for himself and family in his old age, he appears from one of his letters to have determined to conform himself in every thing to the pleasure of Pompey. We also see him from time to time engaged in agreeable services to Cæsar, with whom Pompey was yet connected. Experience and persecution appear to have induced him to adopt a course foreign to the character of the perfect citizen he has pourtrayed in his republic. In his fourth epistle to Atticus, he says[7] “If they will not be friendly to me who possess no power, I must endeavour to make those like me who have the power of being useful. ‘I told you so long ago,’ you will say; I know that you did, and I was an ass for not taking your advice.” The opinion too of his friend Cælius, would have great weight with most men, in such disturbed times. “It cannot have escaped you, that the duty of men amidst domestic dissensions, is to espouse the honestest side, as long as the contention is of a civil nature, and force is not used. But when it comes to wars and camps, they should take the strongest side, and consider that the best which is the most safe.”[8]
The influence of Cæsar was now becoming very conspicuous. His military career in Gaul, his generosity, and the universality of his talents, gave him at length a pre-eminence over Pompey in the public estimation. Pompey and Crassus had entered into the consulship with little observance of constitutional forms; and, with as little deference to the senate, had caused provinces to be assigned to them for five years. Spain and Africa to Pompey. Syria and the fatal Parthian war to Crassus. This triumvirate had now almost the whole Roman military force at their command.
It was in the spring of the next year, that Cicero at his Cuman villa, began his famous work on government. He was now advancing into his fifty-fourth year, and it appears that he had completed his work before he entered upon his command in Cilicia. His military career was distinguished by great activity and judgment. He was saluted emperor by the army upon one of his military successes, and returned gladly to Rome at the end of the year. During the remainder of his eventful life, he appears to have found comfort only in the cultivation of philosophy and letters. The corruption of the Romans, the ruin of the republic, the death of his beloved daughter, and his separation from the wife he had lived with thirty years, embittered his days. He was too conspicuous a man not to be affected by all the political changes which took place. Crassus perished in the Parthian war; and Cæsar, as soon as he felt himself strong enough, crossed the Rubicon, which was the limit of his military command, and marched upon Rome, from which Pompey and the senate ingloriously fled. Cicero at length felt himself also constrained to follow the fortunes of Pompey, because he believed the dignity of the Roman name was alone to be found under his banners. And when the battle of Pharsalia left Cæsar sole master of the Roman world, he submitted to Cæsar, because there was no other government to submit to. But he rejoiced in his death, of which he was a spectator, and to the last, gave all the aid in his power to the patriots who sought to raise the liberties of his country. In his latter days, he showed an invincible spirit, defying the profligate Anthony in the plenitude of his power. And when the assassins of the second and more bloody triumvirate surprised him, he ordered his servants to set down the litter