James Leigh Strachan-Davidson

“ The consul who had risen from the ranks defended the State from revolution as vigorously as the proudest aristocrat could have done, and his success was largely owing to the staunchness with which the equestrian order stood by its leader and by the Senate. To consolidate and perpetuate the "harmony between the orders" thus attained was the dream of Cicero's politics, "the good cause" as he often calls it. His ideal party was to include the moderate men of both orders, and their combination was to present a firm barrier against revolution. ”

“ Nobles alike and men of business preferred their private interests and animosities and prejudices to the pursuit of a sane and consistent policy; and Pompey, the leader of Cicero's choice, was by no means equal to the difficult and delicate part which he had to play.
The most obvious and pressing danger to liberty was however for the moment averted. With the outraged tribune in his camp, Pompey was furnished with the same sort of pretext for armed rebellion as that of which Cæsar availed himself, when he crossed the Rubicon thirteen years later. ”

“ But as a temporary expedient, staving off the evil day for that generation at least, and giving time for the Republic to work out its problems and re-model its institutions, Cicero's policy seems to have been far superior to that of any other statesman of his time. If the great disaster of the military despotism was to be avoided, it was necessary that Senate and Knights should compose their differences once for all and show a united front to the enemy. Still more necessary was it, that Pompey should be attached to the constitution, and diverted from any alliance with the revolutionary party. ”

“ How can an Empire be organised without the sacrifice of political liberty? In the absence of representative government, the sole forms of free State known to the ancients were the Confederation, an organisation which common-sense at once discarded as too loose and inefficient for the purpose, and the City-state, as it had been elaborated by Greek politicians and political philosophers. ”

“ He spoiled a good thing by making too much of it, and we get tired, as doubtless did Cicero's contemporaries, of "the great Nones of December," with its "inspirations of Providence," and its "glorious deed," and its "eternal fame."
If it be a deadly sin to be thoroughly pleased with one's own conduct and to express that pleasure blushingly, Cicero must stand condemned. But two faults, of very different degree of blackness, are liable to be confused under the common name of vanity or self-conceit. There are men into whose souls the poison seems to have eaten deep ”

“ The natural and logical sequence to the dispersion of Pompey's army was a frank union with the constitutionalists; and this implied a clear and unmistakable approval of the action of the government in the matter of Catiline. But for this Cicero looked in vain.
During the month of December, 62 B.C., another question had arisen in Rome, petty enough in itself but destined to have serious consequences. A young patrician named Publius Clodius was caught, disguised as a woman, invading the mysteries of the "Good Goddess," whose privacy was polluted by the presence of any male at her worship. ”

“ Sometimes, on the other hand, vanity is a mere superficial weakness, the accompaniment of a light heart, a quick, sensitive temperament, an unsuspicious loquacity, and an innocent love of display. Carlyle has hit off the difference very happily in the contrast which he draws between Boswell and his father—"Old Auchinleck had, if not the gay tail-spreading peacock vanity of his son, no little of the slow-stalking contentious hissing vanity of the gander, a still more fatal species." ”

“ With the subject-matter of his treatise he is no less delighted, and it never occurs to him for a moment that he ought to conceal his delight. It is true that in requesting the historian Lucceius to take his consulship as the theme for a separate treatise, Cicero professes to beg humbly for his encomiums, and pretends to hope that he will owe something to the favour of the writer beyond the simple requirements of historical truth ”

“ The single man who cares for the public good is Cato; and he brings to the work principle and honesty, but, as it seems to me, very little judgment or sense." Next month, Cicero gives to his friend a fuller explanation of the political situation and of his own relations March 60, B.C.to Pompey. Ever since his consulship he has [23] "never ceased to act in politics with the same great aims, and worthily to maintain the dignity then achieved." ”

“ Cæsar's failure to perform it was at least as conspicuous as that of Cicero and Cato. It is to Cæsar's credit that he saw that the Empire must be maintained and organised at whatever sacrifice; but his plan of organising it was simply to throw up in despair the problem which he was called to solve. He reverted to the method of primitive despotism, that crude and long discredited form of government by which Egypt, Assyria, and Persia had ruled and degraded vast populations. ”

“ At first it seemed as if the jury were going to decide according to the facts. When Cicero came forward to give his evidence and the partisans of Clodius hooted and attempted to mob him, the jurors rose as one man, and interposed their persons for his protection. They protested likewise against the coercion of the court by Clodius' rabble, and applied to the Senate for an armed guard, which was immediately granted. Hortensius was triumphant, and all the world believed that a verdict of Guilty was inevitable. ”

“ The Senate was too weak when it had to deal with the details of government throughout the empire, or to defend the civilised world by military force and at the same time to keep the soldiers and their commanders in order ”

“ For if you hold with me that the tempers of the best men are often easily excited and again as easily quieted down, and that this mobility and fluidity, if I may so speak, is often the characteristic of a kindly nature, and, which is the main point of all, that we ought to bear with whatever we find in each other that is inconsiderate or faulty or aggressive, I hope and believe that this unpleasantness may easily be got over. ”

“ The failure of Cicero's "good cause" is the story which we have to trace of the politics of the ensuing years; but it may be well to attempt, once for all, to arrive at a judgment on the practicability of his ideal. The problem presented to Rome was one which had never been solved in the ancient world. Free States there had been and great Empires, but the two had always proved mutually exclusive. The question then which pressed for solution was this: How can a free State be at the same time a conquering and governing State? ”

“ Might not a state of affairs, in which citizens could be put to death without trial, be represented as calling for the intervention of the second Sulla? If Pompey could no longer be summoned to save the State from the anarchy of Catiline, might not the "tyranny of Cicero" [3] serve, for want of a better, as an available pretext? With this object Nepos took the first opportunity of entering a formal protest against the executions. When Cicero laid down his consulship on the last day of December, he prepared to address, as was the custom, a parting speech to the people. ”

“ It is true likewise that the person you name has no breadth or greatness of policy and that he is too much inclined to truckle to the mob. But for all that, it is of some use for the quiet of my own life, and of infinitely greater use for the State, that the blows aimed at me by bad citizens should be parried ”

“ Cæsar after a show of resistance submitted and shut himself up in his own house, and the Senate soon afterwards relieved him from his disabilities. Metellus declared that he was under stress of violence, and fled for protection to Pompey's camp.
Cicero's brilliant success as consul had raised him at once to a place amongst the foremost statesmen of Rome. Cato made the first use of his new power as tribune to summon an assembly in which amidst the applause of the multitude he saluted Cicero as "the father of his country." ”

“ The Knights had now recovered their place in the jury-courts and their seats in the theatre, and had for the present no special grievance against the Senate; the barrier of aristocratic exclusiveness had been forced by Cicero's election to the consulship, and everything tended towards a reconciliation between the first and ?he second order in the State. This new union was further cemented by a common fear of the revolutionary designs of Catiline. The Roman Knights could feel no sympathy with the party which had favoured men who conspired to abolish debt and to wage war on capital. ”

“ In the following December 61 B.C. Cicero writes to Atticus [20] : "However, since your friends" (the equestrian order) "seem unsteady, another road to safety is, as I hope, being laid. I cannot speak fully of it by letter, but I will indicate what I mean. I am on very intimate terms with Pompey. I perceive what you will say; yes, I will be cautious, where caution is needed, and I will write again to you more at length about my political projects." On the 1st of February 60 B.C. he says [21] : "Meanwhile you cannot find a single true statesman, no nor the ghost of one. ”

“ Hortensius, who was one of the prominent supporters of the bill, fearing that it would be vetoed at last by Fufius, suggested that it might be well to paralyse his opposition by accepting Furlus' own bill as a substitute. The guilt of Clodius, he thought, was so manifest that no jury, however constituted, could fail to find a true verdict on the question of fact. He would "cut Clodius' throat," he protested "even with a leaden sword." Accordingly, the experiment was tried; the consuls withdrew their bill, and that of Fufius was carried unopposed. ”

“ After discussions in the Senate, the consuls were instructed to bring a bill before the People, constituting a court for his trial. A tribune, Fufius, proposed in Clodius' interest a rival scheme, which differed from that of the Senate by providing that the jury should be chosen by lot, whereas the consular bill directed the prætor to select the jurymen. This was the condition of affairs when Pompey arrived early in February before the gates of Rome, and the world eagerly awaited his utterances on all these burning questions. ”

“ When Cicero retired from office and took his seat among the consulars at the beginning of the year 62 B.C., the new consuls asked his opinion first in their consultation of the Senate. His principles and line of policy are to be explained by the changes in the relation of parties which had occurred during the last seven years. The bond between the equestrian order and the democrats, who were equally hostile to the constitution of Sulla, had naturally been loosened by their joint victory. ”

“ We have still to consider a few points connected with Cicero's private life at this period. In the year after his consulship he bought from Crassus a magnificent house on the Palatine, and borrowed money freely from his friends for the purpose. His burden sat very lightly on him, and it seemed a capital joke that he who had so sternly resisted schemes of national bankruptcy should now be qualified to enlist under another Catiline. "You must know," he says, [51] "that I am so deep in debt that I should be quite inclined to join in a conspiracy, if any one would have me ”

“ This letter was written in December, 61 B.C. In the following February he refers [54] again to the same topic. "My chief want at present is a man with whom to share all my anxieties, one who loves me, and has sense, and with whom I can talk without pretence or reserve or concealment. For my brother, the most open and loving soul in the world, is gone. Metellus is not a man, but just a desert island— shore and sky and utter desolation. ”

“ Metellus by virtue of his sacrosanct power as tribune interrupted him, declaring that he who had deprived Roman citizens of their right to plead in their own defence to the people, should not be allowed to speak to the people himself. He forbade him therefore to do more than take the oath prescribed by law. Cicero affected compliance and advanced to take the oath ”

“ Thus I stand firm by our plans and principles, and maintain so far as I can the union of the orders which was cemented by my exertions."
Cato's opposition proved serious, and it was conducted in a singularly provoking manner. Cato was a master of the art of Parliamentary obstruction, and was able by means of long speeches and irrelevant objections to put off indefinitely the decision of the House. ”

“ The Senate refused to do this, and insisted that each detail should be reviewed and voted on separately. Thus Pompey was exposed at every point to a galling and wearisome opposition.
His own proceedings showed, as usual, clumsiness and want of tact. By a lavish expenditure of money he succeeded in thrusting in one of his adherents, Afranius, as consul for the year 60 B.C.; but Afranius was disliked by every one and was quite incapable of serving his master effectively. "He is such an absolute nonentity," writes Cicero, [25] "that he does not know what he has bought" ”

“ It is because he supplies me with a refuge where my mind can recruit its powers after the din of the Forum, and where my ears tired out with controversy may take some repose. Do you think, that a man could find the thoughts to express day after day on such a variety of topics, unless he cultivated his mind by study? ”

“ In both cases Cicero would have humoured the equestrian order, but he pleaded its cause in vain. We first hear of these jars in a letter of December, 61 B.C. [36]
"Here we are living in a political condition that is precarious, pitiful, and unstable. For, as I fancy you must have heard, our friends the Knights are all but alienated from the Senate. In the first place they are deeply offended that a bill has been introduced on the recommendation of the Senate, providing that all persons who have received bribes as jurors shall be put on their trial. ”