then left the city as Proconsul, but waited awhile without the walls, partly, perhaps, to crush another effort to prosecute him, but chiefly, as is probable,19 to lend his aid in the attack of Clodius upon Cicero. "20 "I will think no more," wrote Cicero from his retirement during Cæsar's consulship, "no more about the Commonwealth...... I will depart from these men who are weary of me, to visit Alexandria and the rest of Egypt. . . . . . I have my books at Antium to amuse me, or I can count the waves.' "I was weary," he says again, "with steering, even when it was in my power; but now that I am compelled to leave the ship, and that the rudder has been wrenched from my hands, I wish to see from the shore the shipwreck of those other helmsmen. . . . . . The only hope is in their disagreement amongst themselves." 21 But a little later, the faintness of his hopes sinks to profound despair. "The Commonwealth," he writes, "is utterly lost." 22 It would seem, at first, as if this downcast spirit could have been no object of distrust, much more of dread, to Cæsar or to any of the turbulent and designing men whose names need not be here repeated. But sorrowful as Cicero really was, and prepared, as he professed to be, for obscurity and personal contumely, he was the only citizen to lament, with any reason, the degradation of his coun 19 As would be certain but for Dion Cass., XXXVIII. 11, 12, 17. His statement, that Cæsar was not in favor of Clodius's proceedings, is altogether incredible. See Plut., Cæs., 14. 20 Ad Att., II. 4, 5, 6. 22 Ibid., 21. “De republica quid ego tibi subtiliter? tota periit.” Further see letters 23, 24, 25. try; and his patient remonstrances, as Cæsar knew, were more to be feared than all the uproar which Cato, with impetuous indignation, or other adversaries, with selfish or party courage, could arouse. The appointment of commissioner under the Agrarian law, and that of lieutenant in Gaul, were both of fered to Cicero,23 and both refused. He could not be persuaded, and as he could not then be despised, he was assailed. The name of Publius Clodius Pulcher, by whom the assault was conducted, is prominent above all others in the history of the years succeeding to that of Cæsar's consulship. He was by no means one of Cæsar's instruments and nothing more; but was rather the representative of a numerous class, whom Cæsar might sometimes lead, but by whom in their waywardness and profligacy he would yet at some times be opposed, until he became rich enough to buy them with his gold or fierce enough to crush them by his arms. The liberty of Rome before its overthrow was consummated is to be estimated, in great part, by the spirit which such as Clodius exhibited. He was a younger son of an Appius Claudius, and therefore of a most illustrious family; but after having been detected in a sacrilegious intrigue, for which he was brought to trial, he caused himself to be adopted into a Plebeian family, and was elected Tribune for the twelvemonth following the consulship of Cæsar.24 23 Cic., Ad Att., II. 18, 19, 20. against Clodius at his trial. Ad Cf. Plut., Cic., 30. Att., I. 16. Plut., Cic., 28, 29. The favor of the Triumvirs, and that of the party to which Clodius, as the most audacious and the most polluted, suddenly became the leader, were requited in part by several laws in their behalf,25 but chiefly by an attack upon Cicero, under cover of a bill to banish him who had put a Roman citizen to death without trial. It was the reaction, congenial and necessary to the condition of the Commonwealth, from the momentary triumph obtained for its liberties over Catiline. 26 They who remember what manner of man Cicero would have been under holier influences than those of the law or the philosophy of his times will not care to read the miserable details of the conduct into which he was now driven by feebleness and alarm. He changed his robe, as if he had been expressly mentioned in Clodius's bill; and though sustained by a large proportion 27 of the Knights and Senators, he betook himself to the most abject entreaties for defence from those who were then in authority. These failing, he withdrew, in order, as he afterwards declared,28 to save the city from the tumults that were sure to ensue if he remained, but more probably, as must be sorrowfully confessed, to save himself from the terrors in which the whole strength of his soul was shivered.29 His flight armed his enemies as 25 See the enumeration in Dion Cass., XXXVIII. 13; and compare Cic., in Pis., 4, 5. 26 Digest. Lib. XLVIII. Tit. I. 2. With Cic., Ad Att., III. 4; Plut., Cic., 32; Vell. Pat., II. 45. 27 Plut., Cic., 31. Cic., Post Red. ad Quir., 3. 28 Post Red. in Sen., 13. 29 Appian (Bell. Civ., II. 15) compares the behaviour of Cicero with that of Demosthenes. much as it disarmed his friends; and a law was passed on the same day, exiling him until the conspirators whom he had executed should be restored to life.30 Cato was absent on a mission to Cyprus,31 or he would have defended the man whom he had called the Father of his Country. Pompey and Crassus both regarded the shame of Cicero with unconcern; while Cæsar, satisfied that there was none with whom he could not easily cope at a convenient season, set out, at last, for Gaul. After seventeen months of wretched longing, and still more wretched grief, in which he repented of every thing he had done, and even of the life that was yet before him,32 Cicero, no longer feared by Cæsar, and upheld with some show of liberality by Pompey, was recalled. The most terrible scenes 33 of tumult and bloodshed occurred upon the movement in his behalf; for though the better classes both of the aristocracy and the people were anxious to repair the injustice of the preceding year, the faction which Clodius had led was sufficiently resolute to oppose the general will as well as the inclinations of Pompey.34 The restoration of the exile to his home and his possessions was carried; and he, "brought back," 30 Cic., Post Red. in Sen., 2. 31 Plut., Cat., 34. 32 Me valde pœnitet vivere." Ad Att., III. 4. His expressions are stronger still in another letter, III. 7. 33 Α. C. 57. Καὶ σφαγαὶ κατὰ πᾶσαν, ὡς εἰπεῖν, τὴν πόλιν ἐγίγνοντο. Dion Cass., XXXIX. 8. 34 Whose dignity and personal safety had been previously threatened by Clodius. Dion Cass., XXXVIII. 30. Plut., Pomp., 48, 49. As for Cæsar's part in recalling Cicero, see Ad Att., II. 18. 35 re as he declared, "upon the shoulders of Italy," turned to promise that "of his former fortitude in defending the Commonwealth nothing should be wanting, nay, that it should rather be more bravely defended than ever." "36 But the day for men who could not wholly rely upon themselves was past; and within the next few months the tone of Cicero was once more changed. "What can be viler," as he wrote, "than our lives, especially than mine? If I speak what I ought concerning the Commonwealth, I am considered mad; if what I must, servile; and if I am silent, I am said to be entrapped and overwhelmed." The complaint, it is true, may not be more literally trustworthy than the vaunt preceding it; yet we have deeds as well as words to prepare us for the doom of Rome. Cicero and Cato, for instance, were long on distant terms, because the former was eager to assail, and the latter was as eager to defend, on personal grounds,38 the lawfulness of Clodius's tribunate. While such was the poor agreement amongst the stanchest of the older citizens, the best of the younger men were like the nephew of Cato, Marcus 35 Ad Quint. Frat., X. 1. "Incredibili concursu Italiæ." Ad Att., IV. 1. See the oration Pro Sext., 60, 61. 36 Post Red. in Sen., 14. 37 Ad Att., IV. 6. The following references to Cicero's letters will lead the reader farther through the sunken fortunes of the Commonwealth :·Ad Att., IV. 15, 16; Ad Quint., II. 15, III. 2, 4, 5; Ad 38 Cato wished to maintain it, on account of his mission to Cyprus. Plut., Cat., 40; Cic. 34. Dion Cass., XXXIX. 21, 22. While on this point, see the remarkable answer of the Haruspices, which Cicero records, Har. Resp., 19. |