The Letters, Volume 3. Cicero
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of the Pompeians in Africa.8 All these reports made him doubt the wisdom of the step he had taken in submitting to Caesar and throwing himself upon his protection. In doing so he had committed an unpardonable sin in the eyes of the Pompeian party. If they eventually succeeded, therefore, he would be in a still worse position than he was now. His heart was still with them—though he disliked young Gnaeus Pompeius—but for his own personal security he was forced to wish them ill. To complete his unhappiness, the failure of the opposition to Caesar had caused a bitter quarrel with his brother and nephew. The younger Quintus had always been Caesarian in sympathy, and had caused his uncle much disquiet by going to Rome to meet Caesar in the previous year.9 But now the elder Quintus seems to have joined his son in reproaching Cicero with having misled them into joining the losing side. They had parted from him in anger at Patrae, and were on their way to meet Caesar as he was following Pompey through Asia, and make their submission to him. Cicero is not only distressed at the loss of his brother's affection, but fearful of their denouncing him to Caesar.10 As far as the younger Quintus was concerned, there may have been cause for such fears. But though the elder Quintus was always intemperate in language, there does not seem any reason to suppose that he wished or attempted to injure his brother. If he did, Cicero took a generous revenge: for he was careful to let Caesar know that he himself was alone to blame for the course they had taken as a family in the civil war; and that Quintus had followed, not led him, in the matter.11 "Believe rather," he says, "that he always advised our union; and was the companion, not the leader, of my journey." The breach between the brothers was not long in healing; but the subsequent conduct of his nephew, who served under Caesar in Spain, gave Cicero much distress for the next two years.12 An interview between them in December, B.C. 45, described in a letter to Atticus, shews how strained the relations between them still were.13 After Caesar's death, though young Quintus for a time adhered to Antony, he surprised his uncle by suddenly announcing his conversion to the cause of Brutus and Cassius.14 And though Cicero doubted the sincerity and the motives of the change, there seems to have been no farther quarrel, till the proscription overwhelmed all three of them in the same destruction.
Caesar's return to Italy in September, B.C. 47, after successfully settling the difficulties in Alexandria, and the rising in Pontus under Pharnaces, restored peace and safety to Italy.
Cicero under the new régime, B.C. 47 to B.C. 44
The mutinous legions were either satisfied by the payment of their promised bounties, or sent over to Sicily to be ready for the next year's campaign in Africa. The troubles in Rome caused by Dolabella's wild measures collapsed in the presence of the Dictator, who, however, pardoned Dolabella and continued to employ him. To Cicero Caesar's arrival brought the long-wished-for freedom to quit Brundisium and resume his life at Rome or in his villas. Caesar landed at Tarentum, and Cicero went with others from Brundisium in a complimentary procession to meet him. Whatever doubts he had felt as to the reception he was likely to meet were quickly dispelled by Caesar's cordial kindness. As soon as he saw Cicero in the procession he alighted from his carriage, greeted him warmly, and walked some distance conversing with him exclusively.15 Caesar always liked Cicero, and we can imagine that, returning to Italy after an absence of three years, so crowded with various experiences, there would be abundant subjects of conversation between men of such wide interests without touching on dangerous political topics. Caesar seems finally to have expressed a courteous desire that Cicero should return to Rome. On the 1st of October therefore he writes to Terentia, announcing his arrival at Tusculum on the 7th or the next day. The letter is from Venusia, so that he was already on his way home by the Appia. From that time till the death of Caesar he resumes his old life as far as residence and studies are concerned. But it was in other respects a changed life. Outwardly things at Rome seemed to be going on as before. The comitia still elected the magistrates; the senate still met for deliberation and the transaction of public business; the law courts were still sitting in the forum. In fact, for a time at any rate, Cicero complains that he was overwhelmed with legal business.16 But the spirit was all gone out of it. The will of a single man really controlled everything. The comitia returned his nominees; the senate merely registered his decrees, and dutifully recognized his appointments, when they were not rather made by a lex passed as a matter of course by the tribes. Even the law courts felt the hand of the master, and though they still probably settled private suits unchecked, men accused of public crimes were tried before the Dictator in his own house (cognitio), or were banished and recalled by his single fiat. The constitution, so dear to Cicero, and under which he had lived in the constant excitement of success and fame, was practically abrogated. The Dictatorship, begun while Caesar was still at Alexandria, continued till the end of B.C. 46, was renewed at the beginning of B.C. 45, and made lifelong after Munda. It gave him unlimited control over all magistrates and all citizens, and all parts of the empire. "If we seek freedom," Cicero says to M. Marcellus, "what place is free from the master's hand?"17 From the first, therefore, Cicero refrained as much as he could from speaking in the senate, and absented himself from it as often as he dared.18
Neither did he find the old charm in social life at Rome. With one or two exceptions he declares that he finds no satisfaction in the society with which he is forced to live.19 He dines constantly with the Caesarians, who sought his society, enjoyed his wit, and, as he flattered himself, had a genuine regard for him, and he confesses that he liked dining out.20 He even gave up his old simplicity of living, and allowed Hirtius and Dolabella to initiate him in the mysteries of the fashionable epicure.21 Yet when the excitement was over—and he had a natural love for society—he sadly reflected how few of those with whom he thus passed a few hours of gaiety could be reckoned as friends. "Am I to seek comfort with my friends?" he says to Lucceius in answer to his letter of condolence. "How many of them are there? You know, for they were common to us both. Some have fallen, others have somehow grown callous."22 This is a subject on which, as he gets on in life, a man is likely to take a somewhat exaggerated view, and after all perhaps Cicero still found in general society as much satisfaction as it can give, which is not very much. And though the number of his friends was of course greatly curtailed, there were still some left.
Cicero's causes of discontent.
But there were other sources of unhappiness, such as the continued disloyalty of his nephew, his own resolution to divorce Terentia, and a continual uneasiness as to his own position. The Pompeians were still strong in Africa when he returned to Rome, and might conceivably be successful against Caesar. In that case he looked forward to acts of retaliation on the part of the victors, in which he would certainly have his share of suffering. Nothing could be more miserable, he thought, than the state of suspense; and he was astonished at the gaiety with which men who had so much at stake could crowd the games at Praeneste.23 Even after the news reached Rome of Caesar's victory at Thapsus, he imagines that the clemency which had hitherto characterized the Caesarians would in their hour of victory give place to a vindictive cruelty, which had been only concealed while the result was doubtful.24 The constitution he thinks had totally collapsed: things were going from bad to worse: his very house at Tusculum may before long be torn from him for the benefit of some veteran of Caesar's.25 He himself has no place in politics, is ashamed of surviving the Republic, and can find no consolation for the general débâcle in the personal kindness of Caesar to himself.26 Victory in a civil war, he reflects, forces the victors to be ruthless and cruel in spite of themselves. The conqueror does not do what he wishes, but what he must: for he has to gratify those by whose aid he has won the victory. In fact the disorganization and confusion are so great and universal, that every man thinks that the worst possible position is that in which he happens to be.27
These are the views of the political situation which Cicero communicates to his friends—mostly leading Pompeians now living in exile. Yet he is constrained to confess that it is possible for a member of his party to live at Rome unmolested: "You may not perhaps be able to say what you think: you may certainly hold your tongue.
For authority of every kind has been committed to one man. He consults nobody but himself not even his friends. There would not have been much difference if he whom we followed had been master of the Republic."28