July 26, 2025 • 41 mins
Dive into the captivating life of Marcus Tullius Cicero, an influential orator, statesman, philosopher, and correspondent who emerged as a new man in the chaotic final years of Romes republican government. In this biography, acclaimed novelist Anthony Trollope delivers a passionate defense of Ciceros virtues against critics who question his political and personal strength. Trollopes personal approach offers a unique glimpse into his own thought process and era, as well as those of Cicero. Volume I explores Ciceros formative years, his ascension through the courts and state offices to the Consulship, and his subsequent exile. This version omits footnotes and appendices, which mostly consist of bibliographical citations, Latin quotations, and substantial extracts from other works, unless they are explicitly referred to in the main text. Catch up with Volume II after this.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter eight of the Life of Cicero, Volume one. This
is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
LibriVox dot org. Recording by Philippa Jevans. The Life of Cicero,
Volume one by Anthony Trollop, Chapter eight Cicero as consul.
(00:23):
Hitherto everything had succeeded with Cicero. His fortune and his
fame had gone hand in hand. The good will of
the citizens had been accorded to him. On all possible occasions.
He had risen, surely, if not quickly, to the top
of his profession, and had so placed himself there as
to have torn the wreath from the brow of his
predecessor and rival, Hortensius. On no memorable occasion had he
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been beaten. If now and then he had failed to
win a cause in which he was interested, it was
as to some matter in which, as he had said
to Atticus in speaking of his contemplated defense of Cataline,
he was not called on to break his heart. If
he were beaten, we may imagine that his life had
been as happy up to this point as a man's life.
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Maybe he had married well, children had been born to him,
who were the source of infinite delight. He had provided
himself with houses, marbles, books, and all the intellectual luxuries
which well used wealth could produce. Friends were thick around him.
His industry, his ability, and his honesty were acknowledged. The
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citizens had given him all that it was in their
power to give. Now, at the earliest possible day, with
circumstances of much more than usual honor, he was put
in the highest place which his country had to offer,
and knew himself to be the one man in whom
his country, at this moment trusted. Then came the one twelvemonth,
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the apex of his fortunes, and after that, for the
twenty years that followed, there fell upon him one misery
after another, one trouble on the head of another, trouble
so cruelly that the reader, knowing the manner of the Romans,
almost wonders that he condescended to live side note BC
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sixty four. At forty three he was chosen consul, we
are told, not by the votes, but for the unanimous
acclamation of the citizens. What was the exact manner of
doing this? We can hardly now understand the consuls were
elected by ballot wooden tickets having been distributed to the
people for the purpose. But Cicero tells us that no
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voting tickets were used in his case, but that he
was elected by the combined voice of the whole people.
He had stood with six competitors. Of these, it is
only necessary to mention two, as by them only was
Cicero's life affected, and as out of the six only
they seemed to have come prominently forward during the canvassing.
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These were Catiline, the conspirator, as we shall have to
call him in dealing with his head name in the
next chapter. And Caius Antonius, one of the sons of
mark Antony, the great orator of the preceding age, and
uncle of the marc Antony, with whom we are all
so well acquainted, and with whom we shall have so
much to do before we get to the end of
this work. Cicero was so easily the first that it
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may be said of him that he walked over the course.
Whether this was achieved by the Machiavelian arts which his
brother Quintus taught in his treaties De Petitioni Consulatus, or
was attributable to his general popularity may be a matter
of doubt. As far as we can judge from the
signs which remain to us of the public feeling of
the period, it seems that he was at this time
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regarded with singular affection by his countrymen. He had robbed
none and had been cruel to no one. He had
already abandoned the prophet of provincial government, to which he
was by custom entitled after the lapse of his year's
duty as pritor, in order that he might remain in
Rome among the people, one of the Senate himself, and
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full of the glory of the Senate. As he had
declared plainly enough in that passage from one of the
Veri narrations which I have quoted, he had generally pleaded
on the popular side. Such was his cleverness that even
when on the unpopular side, as he may be supposed
to have been when defending Fontaeus, he had given a
popular aspect to the cause in hand. We cannot doubt,
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judging from the loud expression of the people's joy at
his election, that he had made himself beloved. But nevertheless
he omitted none of those cares which it was expected
that a candidate should take. He made his electioneering speech
in Toga Candida in a white robe, as candidates did
and were thence so called. It has not come down
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to us, nor do we regret it. Judging from the
extracts which have been collected from the notes which, Asconius
wrote upon it, it was full of personal abuse of
Antony and Cataline, his competitors. Such the practice of Rome
at this time, as it was also with us. Not
very long since, we shall have more than enough of
such eloquence before we have done our task. When we
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come to the language in which Cicero spoke of Clodius,
his enemy, of Piso and Gabinius, the consuls who allowed
him to be banished, and of mark Antony, his last
great opponent, the nephew of the man who was now
his colleague, we shall have very much of it. It
must again be pleaded that the foul abuse which fell
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from other lips has not been preserved, and that Cicero
therefore must not be supposed to have been more foul
mouthed than his rivals. We can easily imagine that he
was more bitter than others, because he had more power
to throw into his words the meaning which he intended
them to convey. Antony was chosen as Cicero's colleague. It seems,
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from such evidence as we are able to get on
the subject, that Cicero trusted Antony no better than he
did Cataline. But, appreciating the wisdom of the Maxim de
wede it imperah, separate your enemies and you will get
the better of them, which was no doubt known as
well then as now, he soon determined to use Antony
as his ally against Catiline, who was presumed to reckon
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Antony among his fellow conspirators. Sallust puts into the mouth
of Cataline a declaration to this effect, and Cicero did
use Antony for the purpose. The story of Cataline's conspiracy
is so essentially the story of Cicero's consulship that I
may be justified in hurrying over the other events of
his year's rule. But still there is something that must
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be told. Though Cataline's conduct was under his eye during
the whole year, it was not till October that the
affairs in which we shall have to interest ourselves commenced.
Of what may have been the nature of the administrative
work done by the great Roman officers of the state,
we know very little. Perhaps I might better say that
we know nothing. Men in their own diaries, when they
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keep them, or even in their private letters, are seldom
apt to say much of those daily doings which are
matter of routine to themselves, and are by them supposed
to be as little interesting to others. A prime minister
with us, were he as prone to reveal himself in
correspondence as was Cicero with his friend Atticus, would hardly
say when he went to the treasury chambers, or what
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he did when he got there. We may imagine that
to a cabinet minister, even a cabinet council would after
many sittings, become a matter of course. A leading barrister
would hardly leave behind him a record of his work
in chambers. It has thus come to pass that though
we can picture to ourselves a Cicero before the judges,
or addressing the people from the Rostra, or uttering his
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opinion in the Senate, we know nothing of him as
he sat in his office and did his consular work.
We cannot but suppose that there must have been an
office with many clerks, there must have been heavy daily work.
The whole operation of government was under the consul's time charge,
and to Cicero, with a catalin on his hands, this
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must have been more than usually heavy. How he did
it with what assistance, sitting at what writing table, dressed
in what robes, with what surroundings of archives and red tape,
I cannot make manifest to myself. I can imagine that
there must have been much of dignity, as there was
with all leading Romans, but beyond that I cannot advance
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even in fancying what was the official life of a consul.
In the old days, the consul used as a matter
of course to go out and do the fighting. When
there was an enemy here or an enemy there, the
consul was bound to hurry off with his army north
or south to different parts of Italy. But gradually this
system became impracticable. Distances became too great as the Empire
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extended itself beyond the bounds of Italy. To admit of
the absence of the consuls, wars prolonged themselves through many campaigns,
as notable that which was soon to take place in Gaul.
Under Caesar, the consuls remained at home and generals were
sent out with proconsular authority. This had become so certainly
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the case that Cicero, on becoming consul, had no fear
of being called on to fight the enemies of his country.
There was much fighting then, in course of being done
by Pompey in the East, but this would give but
little trouble to the great officers at home, unless it
might be in sending out necessary supplies. The consul's work, however,
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was severe enough. We find from his own words in
a letter to Atticus, written in the year but one
after his consulship sixty one BC, that as consul he
made twelve public addresses. Each of them must have been
a work of labor, requiring a full mastery over the
subject in hand, and an arrangement of words very different
in their polished perfection from the generality of parliamentary speeches
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to which we are accustomed. The getting up of his
cases must have taken great time. Letters went slowly and
at a heavy cost. Writing must have been tedious, when
that most common was done with a metal point on
soft wax. An advocate who was earnest in a case
had to do much for himself. We have heard how
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Cicero made his way over to sicily creeping in a
little boat through the dangers prepared for him, in order
that he might get up the evidence against Berries in
defending Aulus Cluentius when he was Brital, Cicero must have
found the work to have been immense in preparing the
attack upon Cataline. It seems that every witness was brought
to himself. There were four Catiline speeches made in the
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year of his consulship, but in the same year many
others were delivered by him. He mentions, as we shall
see just now, twelve various speeches made in the year
of his consulship. I imagine that the words spoken can
in no case have been identical with those which have
come to us, which were, as we may say, prepared
for the press by Tyro his slave, And say, secretary,
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we have evidence as to some of them, especially as
to the second catalin oration, that time did not admit
of its being written and learned by heart after the
occurrence of the circumstances to which it alludes. It needs
must have been extemporary, with such mental preparation of one
night may have sufficed to give him. How the words
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may have been taken down in such a case we
do not quite know, but we are aware that shorthand
writers were employed, though there can hardly have been a
science of stenography perfected, as is that with us. The
words which we read were probably much polished before they
were published. But how far this was done we do
not know. What we do know is that the words
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which he spoke moved, convinced and charmed those who heard them,
as do the words we read move, convince and charm us.
Of these twelve consular speeches, Cissero gives a special account
to his friend, I will send you, he says, the
speechlings which you require, as well as some others, seeing
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that those which I have written out at the request
of a few young men please you. Also, it was
an advantage to me here to follow the example of
that fellow citizen of yours in those orations which he
called his Philippics. In this way he brightened himself up
and declared his nisi prius way of speaking, so that
he might achieve something more dignified, something more statesmen like.
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So I have done with these speeches of mine, which
may be called consulares, as having been made not only
in his consular year, but also with something of consular dignity.
Of these, one on the new land laws proposed, was
spoken in the Senate on the callons of January, the
second on the same subject to the people. The third
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was respecting Otto's law. The fourth was in defense of Rabirius.
The fifth was in reference to the children of those
who had lost their property and their rank under Sulla's prescription.
The sixth was an address to the peace and explained
why I renounced my provincial government. The seventh drove Catialan
out of the city. The eighth was addressed to the
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people the day after Catalan fled. The ninth was again
spoken to the people on the day on which the
Alabroges gave their evidence. Then again the tenth was addressed
to the Senate on the fifth of December, also respecting Cataline.
There are also two short supplementary speeches on the agrarian war.
You shall have the whole body of them. As what
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I write and what I do are equally interesting to you.
You will gather from the same documents all my doings
and all my sayings. It is not to be supposed
that in this list are contained all the speeches which
he made in his consular year, but those only which
he made as consul, those to which he was desirous
of adding something of the dignity of statesmanship, something beyond
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the weight attached to his pleadings as a lawyer, as
an advocate consul, though he was, he conte to perform
his work. From whence we learn that no state dignity
was so high as to exempt an established pleader from
the duty of defending his friends. Hortensius, when consul elect,
had undertaken to defend Vheries, Cicero defended Murina. When he
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was consul, he defended c Calpurnius Piso also, who was accused,
as were so many, of proconsulate extortion. But whether in
this year or in the preceding, is not, I think
known of his speech on that occasion. We have nothing
remaining of his pleading for Morena. We have, if not
the whole, the material part. And though nobody cares very
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much for Murina. Now the oration is very amusing. It
was made toward the end of the year, on the
twentieth of November, after the second catialin oration, and before
the third, at the very moment in which Cicero was
fully occupied with the evidence on which he intended to
convict Cataline's fellow conspirators. As I read it, I am
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carried away by wonder rather than admiration, at the energy
of the man who could, at such a period of
his life give up his time to master the details
necessary for the trial of Morena. Earlier in the year,
Cicero had caused a law to be passed, which after
him was called the Lex Tullia, increasing the stringency of
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the enactments against bribery on the part of consular candidates.
His intention had probably been to Hinda Catiline, who was
again about to become a candidate, but Murina, who was elected,
was supposed to have been caught in the meshes of
the net, and also Silanus, the other consul designate. Kato,
the man of stern nature, the great Stoic of the day,
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was delighted to have an opportunity of proceeding against someone,
and not very sorry to attack Mourina with weapons provided
from the armory of Morena's friend Cicero. Silanus, however, who
happened to be cousin to Cato, was allowed to pass unmolested. Sulpicius,
who was one of the disappointed candidates. Cato and Posthumius
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were the accusers. Hortensius, Crassus, and Cicero were combined together
for the defense of Morena. But as we read the
single pleading that has come to us, we feel that,
unlike those Roman trials generally, this was carried on without
any acrimony on either side. I think it must have
been that Cato wished to have an opportunity of displaying
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his virtue, but it had been arranged that Morena was
to be acquitted. Morena was accused, among other things, of dancing.
Greeks might dance, as we hear from Cornelius Nepos, but
for our Roman consul it would be disgraceful in the
highest extreme. A lady indeed might dance, but not much.
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Sallust tells us of Sempronia, who was indeed a very
bad female. If all that he says of her be true,
that she danced more elegantly than became an honest woman.
She was the wife of a consul, But a male
Roman of high standing might not dance at all. Cicero
defends his friend by showing how impossible it was, how
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monstrous the idea. No man would dance unless drunk or mad. Nevertheless,
I imagine that Merena had danced. Cicero seizes an opportunity
of quizzing Cato for his stoicism and uses it delightfully.
Horace was not more happy when, in defense of Aristippus,
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he declared that any philosopher would turn up his nose
at cabbage if he could get himself asked to the
tables of rich men. There was one Zeno, Cicero says,
who laid down laws. No wise man would forgive any fault.
No man worthy of the name of man would allow
himself to be pitiful. Wise men are beautiful even though deformed,
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rich though penniless, kings though they be slaves. We who
are not wise are mere exiles, reunegates, enemies of our country,
and madmen. Any fault is an unpardonable crime. To kill
an old cock, if you do not want it, is
as bad as to murder your father. And these doctrines,
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he goes on to say, which are used by most
of us merely as something to talk about. This man
Cato absolutely believes and tries to live by them. I
shall have to refer back to this when I speak
of Cicero's philosophy more at length, But his common sense
crops up continually in the expressions which he uses for
defending the ordinary conditions of a man's life, in opposition
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to that impossible superiority to mundane things which the philosophers
profess to teach their pupils. He turns to Cato and
asks him questions which he answers himself with his own philosophy.
Would you pardon nothing, well, yes, but not all things.
Would you do nothing for friendship sometimes, unless duty should
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stand in the way. Would you never be moved to pity?
I would maintain my habit of sincerity. But something must,
no doubt be allowed to humanity. It is good to
stick to your opinion, but only until some better opinion
shall have prevailed with you. In all this, the humanity
of our Cicero, as opposed equally to the impossible virtue
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of a Cato or the abominable vice of a Verais,
is in advance of his age, and reminds us of
what Christ has taught us. But the best morsel in
the whole oration is that in which he snubs the lawyers.
It must be understood that Cicero did not pride himself
on being a lawyer. He was an advocate, and if
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he wanted law, there were those of an inferior grade
to whom he could go to get it. In truth,
he did understand the law, being a man of deep
research who inquired into everything as legal points had been raised.
He thus addresses Sulpicius, who seems to have affected a
knowledge of jurisprudence, who had been a candidate for the consulship,
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and who was his own intimate friend. I must put
you out of your conceit, he says. It was your
other gifts, not a knowledge of the laws, your moderation,
your wisdom, your justice, which in my opinion, made you
worthy of being loved. I will not say you threw
away your time in studying law, But it was not
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thus you made yourself worthy of the consulship. That power
of eloquence, majestic and full of dignity, which has so
often availed in raising a man to the consulship, is
able by its words to move the minds of the
Senate and the people and the judges. But in such
a poor science as that of law, what honor can
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there be? Its details are taken up with mere words
and fragments of words. They forget all equity in points
of law and stick to the mere letter. He goes
through a presumed scene of chicanery, which consul as he was,
he must have acted before the judges and the people,
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no doubt the extreme delight of them all. At last
he says, full as I am of business, if you
raise my wrath, I will make myself a lawyer and
learn it all in three days. From these and many
other passages in Cicero's writings and speeches, and also from Contillion,
we learn that a Roman advocate was by no means
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the same as an English barrister. The science which he
was supposed to have learned was simply that of telling
his story in effective language. It no doubt came to
pass that he had much to do in getting up
the details of his story what we make all the evidence.
But he looked elsewhere to men of another profession for
his law. The URIs consultus or the URIs peritus, was
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the lawyer, and as was regarded as being of much
less importance than the patronus or advocate, who stood before
the whole city and pleaded the cause. In this trial
of Morayna, who was by trade a soldier. It suited
Cicero to belittle lawyers and to extol the army. When
he is telling Sulpicius that it was not by being
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a lawyer that a man could become consul, he goes
on to praise the high dignity of his client's profession.
The greatest glory is achieved by those who excel in battle.
All our empire, all our republic, is defended and made
strong by them. It was thus that the advocate could speak.
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This comes from the man who always took glory to himself.
In declaring that the toga was superior to helmet and shield,
He had already declared that they erred, who thought that
they were going to get his own private opinion In
speeches made in law courts, he knew how to defend
his friend Morayna, who was a soldier, and in doing
so could say very sharp things, though yet in joke
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against his friend Sulpicius the lawyer. But in truth, few
men understood the Roman law better than did Cicero. But
we must go back to that agrarian law, respecting which,
as he tells us, four of his consular speeches were made.
This had been brought forward by Rulus, one of the Tribunes,
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towards the end of the last year. The Tribunes came
into office in December, whereas at this period of the
Republic the consuls were in power only on and from January.
The first Cicero, who had been unable to get the
particulars of the new law till it had been proclaimed,
had but a few days to master its details. It was,
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to his thinking, altogether revolutionary. We have the words of
many of the clauses, and though it is difficult at
this distance of time to realize what would have been
its effect, I think we are entitled to say that
it was intended to subvert all property. Property speaking of
it generally cannot be destroyed. The land remains, and the
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combined results as man's industry, are too numerous, too large,
and too lasting to become a wholesale prey to man's
anger or madness. Even the elements, when out of order,
can do but little toward perfecting destruction. A deluge is wanted,
or that crash of doom, which, whether it is to
come or not, is believed by the world to be
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very distant, but it is within human power to destroy
possession and redistribute the goods which industry avarice or perhaps
injustice has congregated. They who own property are in these
days so much stronger than those who have none, that
an idea of any such redistribution does not create much
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alarm among the possessors. The spirit of communism does not
prevail among people who have learned that it is in
truth easier to earn than to steal. But with the
Romans political a economy had naturally not advanced so far
as with us. A subversion of property had to a
great extent taken place no later than in Sulla's time.
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How this had been affected the story of the property
of Roscius and Marinus has explained to us. Under Sulla's enactments,
no man with a house with hoarded money, with a
family of slaves with rich ornaments, was safe. Property had
been made to change hands recklessly, ruthlessly violently, by the
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illegal application of a law promulgated by a single individual, who, however,
had himself been instigated by no other idea than that
of re establishing the political order of things, which he approved. Rulers,
probably with other motives, was desirous of affecting a subversion, which,
though equally great, should be made altogether in a different direction.
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The ostensible purpose was something as follows. As the Roman
people had, by their valor and wisdom achieved for Rome
victories and therefore great wealth. They as Roman citizens, were
entitled to the enjoyment of what they had won, whereas
in fact the suites of victory fell to the lot
only of a few aristocrats. For the reform of this evil,
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it should be enacted that all public property which had
been thus acquired, whether land or chattels, should be sold,
and with the proceeds other land should be bought fit
for the use of Roman citizens, and be given to
those who would choose to have it. It was specially
suggested that the rich country called the Campania, that in
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which Naples now stands, with its adjacent isles, should be
brought up and given over to a great Roman colony.
For the purpose of carrying out this law, ten magistrates
should be appointed with plenipotentiary power both as to buying
and selling. There were many underplots in this No one
need sell unless he chose to sell. But at this
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moment much land was held by no other title than
that of Suller's proscriptions. The present possessors were in daily
fear of dispossession by some new law made with the
object of restoring their property to those who had been
so cruelly robbed. These would be very glad to get
any price in hand for land of which their tenure
was so doubtful, And these were the men whom the
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Dekemwiri or ten magistrates would be anxious to assist. We
are told that the father in law of rulers himself
had made a large acquisition by his use of Sulla's prescriptions.
And then there would be the instantaneous selling of vast
districts obtained by conquest and now held by the Roman state.
When so much land would be thrown into the market,
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it would be sold very cheap, and would be sold
to those whom the Dekenwiri might choose to favor. We
can hardly now hope to unravel all the intended details,
but we may be sure that the basis on which
property stood would have been altogether changed by the measure.
The Dekemwiri were to have plenary power for ten years,
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all the taxes in all the provinces were to be
sold or put up to market. Everything supposed to belong
to the Roman state was to be sold in every
province for the sake of collecting together a huge sum
of money, which was to be divided in the shape
of land among the poorer Romans. Whatever may have been
the private intentions of Rullus, whether good or bad, it
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is evident, even at this distance of time, that a
redistribution of property was intended, which can only be described
as a general subversion to this the new consul opposed
himself vehemently, successfully, and we must needs say patriotically. The
intense interest which this Roe threw into his work is
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as manifest in these agrarian orations as in those subsequently made.
As to the Cataline conspiracy. He ascends in his energy
to a dignity of self praise, which induces the reader
to feel that a man who could so speak of
himself without fear of contradiction, had a right to assert
the supremacy of his own character and intellect. He condescends,
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on the other hand, to a virulence of personal abuse
against Rulus, which, though it is to our taste offensive,
is even to us persuasive, making us feel that such
a man should not have undertaken such a work. He
is describing the way in which the bill was first
introduced our tribunes at last enter upon their office. The
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harangue to be made by Rulus is especially expected. He
is the projector of the law, and it was expected
that he would carry himself with an air of special audacity.
When he was only tribune elect. He began to put
on a different countenance, to speak with a different voice,
to walk with a different stop. We all saw how
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he appeared with soiled raiment, with his person uncared for
and foul with dirt, with his hair and beard uncombed
and untrimmed. In Rome, men under affliction, particularly of under accusation,
showed themselves in soiled garments so as to attract pity.
And the meaning here is that Rulis went about as
though under grief at the condition of his poor fellow citizens,
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who were distressed by the want of this agrarian law.
No description could be more likely to turn an individual
into ridicule than this of his taking upon himself to
represent in his own person the sorrows of the city.
The picture of the man with the self assumed garments
of public woe. As though he were big enough to
exhibit the grief of all Rome, could not but be effective.
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It has been supposed that Cicero was insulting the tribune
because he was dirty. Not so, he was ridiculing Rullus
because Rullus had dared to go about in mourning sordidatus
on behalf of his country. But the tone in which
Cicero speaks of himself is magnificent. It is so grand
as to make us feel that a consul of Rome,
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who had the cares of Rome on his shoulders, were
entitled to declare his own greatness to the Senate and
to the people. There are the two important orations that
spoken first in the Senate, and then the speech to
the people, from which I have already quoted the passage
personal to Rullus. In both of them he declares his
own idea of a consul, and of himself as consul.
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He has been speaking of the effect of the proposed
law on the revenues of the state, and then proceeds.
But I pass by what I have to say on
that matter, and reserve it for the people. I speak
now of the danger which menaces our safety and our liberty.
For what will there be left to us untouched in
the republic? What will remain of your authority and freedom?
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When Rulus and those whom you fear much more than Rullus,
with this band of ready knaves, with all the rascaldom
of Rome, laden with gold and silver, shall have seized
on Capua and all the cities ran to all this,
Senators Patre's CONSCRIPTI, he calls them, I will oppose what
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power I have as long as I am Consul. I
will not suffer them to carry out their designs against
the Republic. But you, Rulus, and those who are with you,
have been mistaken grievously in supposing that you will be
regarded as friends of the people, in your attempts to
subvert the republic, in opposition to a consul who is
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known in very truth to be the people's friend. I
call upon you. I invite you to meet me in
the assembly. Let us have the people of Rome as
a judge between us. Let us look round and see
what it is that the people really desire. We shall
find that there is nothing so dear to them as
peace and quietness and ease. You have handed over the
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city to me full of anxiety, depressed with fear, disturbed
by these projected laws and seditious assemblies. It must be
remembered that he had only on that very day begun
his consulship. The wicked you have filled with hope the
good with fear. You have robbed the forum of loyalty
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and the republic of dignity. But now, when, in the
midst of these troubles of mind and body, when in
this great darkness the voice and the authority of the
Consul has been heard by the people, when he shall
have made it plain that there is no cause for fear,
That no strange army shall enroll itself, no bands collect themselves,
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That there shall be no new colonies, no sale of
the revenue, no altered empire, no royal dec mveirs, no
second rome, no other center of rule, but this, that
while I am Consul, there shall be perfect peace, perfect ease.
Do you suppose that I shall dread the superior popularity
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of your new agrarian law? Shall I do you think
be afraid to hold my own against you in an
assembly of the citizens, When I shall have exposed the
iniquity of your designs, the fraud of this law, the
plots which your tribunes of the people, popular as they
think themselves, have contrived against the Roman people. Shall I
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fear I who have determined to be consul after that
fashion in which alone a man may do so in
dignity and freedom, reaching to ask nothing for myself which
any tribune could object to have given me. This was
to the Senate, but his bolder. Still, when he addresses
the people, he begins by reminding them that it has
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always been the custom of the great officers of state,
who have enjoyed the right of having in their houses
the busts and images of their ancestors, in their first
speech to the people, to join with thanks for the
favors done to themselves some records of the noble deeds
done by their forefathers. He, however, ever, could do nothing
of the kind. He had no such right. None in
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his family had achieved such dignity. To speak of himself
might seem too proud, but to be silent would be ungrateful.
Therefore he would restrain himself, but would still say something
so that he might acknowledge what he had received. Then
he would leave it for them to judge whether he
had deserved what they had done for him. It is
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long ago, almost beyond the memory of us now here
since you last made a new man conseil that high
office the nobles had reserved for themselves and defended it
as it were with ramparts. You have secured it for me,
so that in future it shall be open to any
who may be worthy of it. Nor have you only
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made me a consul, much as that is, but you
have done so in such fashion that but few among
the old nobles have been so treated, And no new
man nobus sante mae nemo I have, if you will
think of it, been the only new man who has
stood for the consulship in the first year in which
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it was legal, and who has got it. Then he
goes on to remind them, in words which I have
quoted before, that they had elected him by their unanimous voices.
All this, he says, had been very grateful to him,
but he had quite understood that it had been done
that he might labor on their behalf. That such labor
was severe, He declares, the consulship itself must be defended.
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His period of consulship, to any consul, must be a
year of grave responsibility. But more so to him than
to any other. To him, should he be in doubt,
the great nobles would give no kind advice to him.
Should he be overtasked, they would give no assistance. But
the first thing he would look for should be their
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good opinion. To declare now before the people that he
would exercise his own office for the good of the
people was his natural duty. But in that place in
which it was difficult to speak after such a fashion,
in the Senate itself, on the very first day of
his consulship, he had declared the same thing popularm me
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futuro messe consulem. The course he had to pursue was noble,
but very difficult. He desired, certainly to be recognized as
a friend of the people, but he desired so to
befriend them that he might support also at the same
time the power of the aristocracy. He still believed, as
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we cannot believe now, that there was a residuum of
good in the Senate sufficient to blossom forth into new
powers of honest government. When speaking to the oligarchs in
the Senate of Rulus and his land law, it was
easy enough to carry them with him that a consul
should oppose a Tribune, who was coming forward with Alex
Sagaria in his hands as the latest disciple of the Grachai,
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was not out of the common order of things. Another
consul would either have looked for popularity and increased power
of plundering, as Antony might have done, or have stuck
to his order, as he would have called it, as
might have been the case with the Cottas, Lepiduses, and
Pisos of preceding years. But Cicero determined to oppose the
demagogue Tribune by proving himself to the people to be
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more of a demagogue than he He succeeded, and Rullus,
with his agrarian law, was sent back into darkness. I
regard the second speech against Rulus as the naplus ultra,
the very beau ideal of a political harangue to the
people on the side of order and good government. I
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cannot finish this chapter, in which I have attempted to
describe the lesser operations of Cicero's consulship, without again alluding
to the picture drawn by Virgil of a great man
quelling the storms of seditious rising by the gravity of
his presence and the weight of his words. The poet
surely had in his memory some occasion in which had
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taken place this great triumph of character and intellect combined.
When the knights during Cicero's consulship essayed to take their
privileged places in the public theater in accordance with the
law passed by Roscius Otto a few years earlier BC.
Sixty eight, the founder of the obnoxious law himself entered
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the building. The people, enraged against a man who had
interfered with them and their pleasures, and who had brought them,
as it were, under new restraints from the aristocracy, arose
in a body and began to break everything that came
to hand. Tom pier Tarte Garrawem, the consul was sent for.
He called on the people to follow him out of
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the theater to the temple of Bellona, and there addressed
to them that wonderful oration by which they were sent
away not only pacified, but in good humor with Otto himself. Reggitt, Dictys,
Animos et pector a mulket I have spoken of Pliny's
eulogy as to the great Consul's doings of the year.
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The passage is short, and I will translate it. But
Marcus Tullius how shall I reconcile it to myself to
be silent as to you? Or by what special glory
shall I best declare your excellence? How better than by
referring to the grand testimony given to you by the
whole nation, and to the achievements of your consulship as
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a specimen of your entire life. At your voice, the
tribes gave up their agrarian law, which was as the
very bread in their mouths. At your persuasion. They pardoned
Otto his law, and bore with good humor the difference
of the seats assigned to them. At your prayer, the
children of the prescribed forbore from demanding their rights of citizenship.
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Catiline was put to flight by your skill and eloquence.
It was you who silenced m antony. Hail thou who
wert first addressed as the father of your country, the
first who in the garb of peace hast deserved a triumph,
and one the laurel wreath of eloquence. This was grand
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praise to be spoken of a man more than a
hundred years after his death, by one who had no
particular sympathies with him other than those created by literary affinity.
None of Cicero's letters have come to us from the
year of his consulship. End of Chapter eight
Chapter eight of the Life of Cicero, Volume one. This
is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
LibriVox dot org. Recording by Philippa Jevans. The Life of Cicero,
Volume one by Anthony Trollop, Chapter eight Cicero as consul.
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Hitherto everything had succeeded with Cicero. His fortune and his
fame had gone hand in hand. The good will of
the citizens had been accorded to him. On all possible occasions.
He had risen, surely, if not quickly, to the top
of his profession, and had so placed himself there as
to have torn the wreath from the brow of his
predecessor and rival, Hortensius. On no memorable occasion had he
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been beaten. If now and then he had failed to
win a cause in which he was interested, it was
as to some matter in which, as he had said
to Atticus in speaking of his contemplated defense of Cataline,
he was not called on to break his heart. If
he were beaten, we may imagine that his life had
been as happy up to this point as a man's life.
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Maybe he had married well, children had been born to him,
who were the source of infinite delight. He had provided
himself with houses, marbles, books, and all the intellectual luxuries
which well used wealth could produce. Friends were thick around him.
His industry, his ability, and his honesty were acknowledged. The
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citizens had given him all that it was in their
power to give. Now, at the earliest possible day, with
circumstances of much more than usual honor, he was put
in the highest place which his country had to offer,
and knew himself to be the one man in whom
his country, at this moment trusted. Then came the one twelvemonth,
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the apex of his fortunes, and after that, for the
twenty years that followed, there fell upon him one misery
after another, one trouble on the head of another, trouble
so cruelly that the reader, knowing the manner of the Romans,
almost wonders that he condescended to live side note BC
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sixty four. At forty three he was chosen consul, we
are told, not by the votes, but for the unanimous
acclamation of the citizens. What was the exact manner of
doing this? We can hardly now understand the consuls were
elected by ballot wooden tickets having been distributed to the
people for the purpose. But Cicero tells us that no
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voting tickets were used in his case, but that he
was elected by the combined voice of the whole people.
He had stood with six competitors. Of these, it is
only necessary to mention two, as by them only was
Cicero's life affected, and as out of the six only
they seemed to have come prominently forward during the canvassing.
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These were Catiline, the conspirator, as we shall have to
call him in dealing with his head name in the
next chapter. And Caius Antonius, one of the sons of
mark Antony, the great orator of the preceding age, and
uncle of the marc Antony, with whom we are all
so well acquainted, and with whom we shall have so
much to do before we get to the end of
this work. Cicero was so easily the first that it
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may be said of him that he walked over the course.
Whether this was achieved by the Machiavelian arts which his
brother Quintus taught in his treaties De Petitioni Consulatus, or
was attributable to his general popularity may be a matter
of doubt. As far as we can judge from the
signs which remain to us of the public feeling of
the period, it seems that he was at this time
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regarded with singular affection by his countrymen. He had robbed
none and had been cruel to no one. He had
already abandoned the prophet of provincial government, to which he
was by custom entitled after the lapse of his year's
duty as pritor, in order that he might remain in
Rome among the people, one of the Senate himself, and
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full of the glory of the Senate. As he had
declared plainly enough in that passage from one of the
Veri narrations which I have quoted, he had generally pleaded
on the popular side. Such was his cleverness that even
when on the unpopular side, as he may be supposed
to have been when defending Fontaeus, he had given a
popular aspect to the cause in hand. We cannot doubt,
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judging from the loud expression of the people's joy at
his election, that he had made himself beloved. But nevertheless
he omitted none of those cares which it was expected
that a candidate should take. He made his electioneering speech
in Toga Candida in a white robe, as candidates did
and were thence so called. It has not come down
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to us, nor do we regret it. Judging from the
extracts which have been collected from the notes which, Asconius
wrote upon it, it was full of personal abuse of
Antony and Cataline, his competitors. Such the practice of Rome
at this time, as it was also with us. Not
very long since, we shall have more than enough of
such eloquence before we have done our task. When we
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come to the language in which Cicero spoke of Clodius,
his enemy, of Piso and Gabinius, the consuls who allowed
him to be banished, and of mark Antony, his last
great opponent, the nephew of the man who was now
his colleague, we shall have very much of it. It
must again be pleaded that the foul abuse which fell
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from other lips has not been preserved, and that Cicero
therefore must not be supposed to have been more foul
mouthed than his rivals. We can easily imagine that he
was more bitter than others, because he had more power
to throw into his words the meaning which he intended
them to convey. Antony was chosen as Cicero's colleague. It seems,
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from such evidence as we are able to get on
the subject, that Cicero trusted Antony no better than he
did Cataline. But, appreciating the wisdom of the Maxim de
wede it imperah, separate your enemies and you will get
the better of them, which was no doubt known as
well then as now, he soon determined to use Antony
as his ally against Catiline, who was presumed to reckon
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Antony among his fellow conspirators. Sallust puts into the mouth
of Cataline a declaration to this effect, and Cicero did
use Antony for the purpose. The story of Cataline's conspiracy
is so essentially the story of Cicero's consulship that I
may be justified in hurrying over the other events of
his year's rule. But still there is something that must
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be told. Though Cataline's conduct was under his eye during
the whole year, it was not till October that the
affairs in which we shall have to interest ourselves commenced.
Of what may have been the nature of the administrative
work done by the great Roman officers of the state,
we know very little. Perhaps I might better say that
we know nothing. Men in their own diaries, when they
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keep them, or even in their private letters, are seldom
apt to say much of those daily doings which are
matter of routine to themselves, and are by them supposed
to be as little interesting to others. A prime minister
with us, were he as prone to reveal himself in
correspondence as was Cicero with his friend Atticus, would hardly
say when he went to the treasury chambers, or what
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he did when he got there. We may imagine that
to a cabinet minister, even a cabinet council would after
many sittings, become a matter of course. A leading barrister
would hardly leave behind him a record of his work
in chambers. It has thus come to pass that though
we can picture to ourselves a Cicero before the judges,
or addressing the people from the Rostra, or uttering his
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opinion in the Senate, we know nothing of him as
he sat in his office and did his consular work.
We cannot but suppose that there must have been an
office with many clerks, there must have been heavy daily work.
The whole operation of government was under the consul's time charge,
and to Cicero, with a catalin on his hands, this
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must have been more than usually heavy. How he did
it with what assistance, sitting at what writing table, dressed
in what robes, with what surroundings of archives and red tape,
I cannot make manifest to myself. I can imagine that
there must have been much of dignity, as there was
with all leading Romans, but beyond that I cannot advance
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even in fancying what was the official life of a consul.
In the old days, the consul used as a matter
of course to go out and do the fighting. When
there was an enemy here or an enemy there, the
consul was bound to hurry off with his army north
or south to different parts of Italy. But gradually this
system became impracticable. Distances became too great as the Empire
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extended itself beyond the bounds of Italy. To admit of
the absence of the consuls, wars prolonged themselves through many campaigns,
as notable that which was soon to take place in Gaul.
Under Caesar, the consuls remained at home and generals were
sent out with proconsular authority. This had become so certainly
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the case that Cicero, on becoming consul, had no fear
of being called on to fight the enemies of his country.
There was much fighting then, in course of being done
by Pompey in the East, but this would give but
little trouble to the great officers at home, unless it
might be in sending out necessary supplies. The consul's work, however,
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was severe enough. We find from his own words in
a letter to Atticus, written in the year but one
after his consulship sixty one BC, that as consul he
made twelve public addresses. Each of them must have been
a work of labor, requiring a full mastery over the
subject in hand, and an arrangement of words very different
in their polished perfection from the generality of parliamentary speeches
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to which we are accustomed. The getting up of his
cases must have taken great time. Letters went slowly and
at a heavy cost. Writing must have been tedious, when
that most common was done with a metal point on
soft wax. An advocate who was earnest in a case
had to do much for himself. We have heard how
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Cicero made his way over to sicily creeping in a
little boat through the dangers prepared for him, in order
that he might get up the evidence against Berries in
defending Aulus Cluentius when he was Brital, Cicero must have
found the work to have been immense in preparing the
attack upon Cataline. It seems that every witness was brought
to himself. There were four Catiline speeches made in the
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year of his consulship, but in the same year many
others were delivered by him. He mentions, as we shall
see just now, twelve various speeches made in the year
of his consulship. I imagine that the words spoken can
in no case have been identical with those which have
come to us, which were, as we may say, prepared
for the press by Tyro his slave, And say, secretary,
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we have evidence as to some of them, especially as
to the second catalin oration, that time did not admit
of its being written and learned by heart after the
occurrence of the circumstances to which it alludes. It needs
must have been extemporary, with such mental preparation of one
night may have sufficed to give him. How the words
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may have been taken down in such a case we
do not quite know, but we are aware that shorthand
writers were employed, though there can hardly have been a
science of stenography perfected, as is that with us. The
words which we read were probably much polished before they
were published. But how far this was done we do
not know. What we do know is that the words
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which he spoke moved, convinced and charmed those who heard them,
as do the words we read move, convince and charm us.
Of these twelve consular speeches, Cissero gives a special account
to his friend, I will send you, he says, the
speechlings which you require, as well as some others, seeing
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that those which I have written out at the request
of a few young men please you. Also, it was
an advantage to me here to follow the example of
that fellow citizen of yours in those orations which he
called his Philippics. In this way he brightened himself up
and declared his nisi prius way of speaking, so that
he might achieve something more dignified, something more statesmen like.
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So I have done with these speeches of mine, which
may be called consulares, as having been made not only
in his consular year, but also with something of consular dignity.
Of these, one on the new land laws proposed, was
spoken in the Senate on the callons of January, the
second on the same subject to the people. The third
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was respecting Otto's law. The fourth was in defense of Rabirius.
The fifth was in reference to the children of those
who had lost their property and their rank under Sulla's prescription.
The sixth was an address to the peace and explained
why I renounced my provincial government. The seventh drove Catialan
out of the city. The eighth was addressed to the
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people the day after Catalan fled. The ninth was again
spoken to the people on the day on which the
Alabroges gave their evidence. Then again the tenth was addressed
to the Senate on the fifth of December, also respecting Cataline.
There are also two short supplementary speeches on the agrarian war.
You shall have the whole body of them. As what
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I write and what I do are equally interesting to you.
You will gather from the same documents all my doings
and all my sayings. It is not to be supposed
that in this list are contained all the speeches which
he made in his consular year, but those only which
he made as consul, those to which he was desirous
of adding something of the dignity of statesmanship, something beyond
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the weight attached to his pleadings as a lawyer, as
an advocate consul, though he was, he conte to perform
his work. From whence we learn that no state dignity
was so high as to exempt an established pleader from
the duty of defending his friends. Hortensius, when consul elect,
had undertaken to defend Vheries, Cicero defended Murina. When he
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was consul, he defended c Calpurnius Piso also, who was accused,
as were so many, of proconsulate extortion. But whether in
this year or in the preceding, is not, I think
known of his speech on that occasion. We have nothing
remaining of his pleading for Morena. We have, if not
the whole, the material part. And though nobody cares very
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much for Murina. Now the oration is very amusing. It
was made toward the end of the year, on the
twentieth of November, after the second catialin oration, and before
the third, at the very moment in which Cicero was
fully occupied with the evidence on which he intended to
convict Cataline's fellow conspirators. As I read it, I am
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carried away by wonder rather than admiration, at the energy
of the man who could, at such a period of
his life give up his time to master the details
necessary for the trial of Morena. Earlier in the year,
Cicero had caused a law to be passed, which after
him was called the Lex Tullia, increasing the stringency of
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the enactments against bribery on the part of consular candidates.
His intention had probably been to Hinda Catiline, who was
again about to become a candidate, but Murina, who was elected,
was supposed to have been caught in the meshes of
the net, and also Silanus, the other consul designate. Kato,
the man of stern nature, the great Stoic of the day,
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was delighted to have an opportunity of proceeding against someone,
and not very sorry to attack Mourina with weapons provided
from the armory of Morena's friend Cicero. Silanus, however, who
happened to be cousin to Cato, was allowed to pass unmolested. Sulpicius,
who was one of the disappointed candidates. Cato and Posthumius
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were the accusers. Hortensius, Crassus, and Cicero were combined together
for the defense of Morena. But as we read the
single pleading that has come to us, we feel that,
unlike those Roman trials generally, this was carried on without
any acrimony on either side. I think it must have
been that Cato wished to have an opportunity of displaying
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his virtue, but it had been arranged that Morena was
to be acquitted. Morena was accused, among other things, of dancing.
Greeks might dance, as we hear from Cornelius Nepos, but
for our Roman consul it would be disgraceful in the
highest extreme. A lady indeed might dance, but not much.
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Sallust tells us of Sempronia, who was indeed a very
bad female. If all that he says of her be true,
that she danced more elegantly than became an honest woman.
She was the wife of a consul, But a male
Roman of high standing might not dance at all. Cicero
defends his friend by showing how impossible it was, how
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monstrous the idea. No man would dance unless drunk or mad. Nevertheless,
I imagine that Merena had danced. Cicero seizes an opportunity
of quizzing Cato for his stoicism and uses it delightfully.
Horace was not more happy when, in defense of Aristippus,
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he declared that any philosopher would turn up his nose
at cabbage if he could get himself asked to the
tables of rich men. There was one Zeno, Cicero says,
who laid down laws. No wise man would forgive any fault.
No man worthy of the name of man would allow
himself to be pitiful. Wise men are beautiful even though deformed,
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rich though penniless, kings though they be slaves. We who
are not wise are mere exiles, reunegates, enemies of our country,
and madmen. Any fault is an unpardonable crime. To kill
an old cock, if you do not want it, is
as bad as to murder your father. And these doctrines,
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he goes on to say, which are used by most
of us merely as something to talk about. This man
Cato absolutely believes and tries to live by them. I
shall have to refer back to this when I speak
of Cicero's philosophy more at length, But his common sense
crops up continually in the expressions which he uses for
defending the ordinary conditions of a man's life, in opposition
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to that impossible superiority to mundane things which the philosophers
profess to teach their pupils. He turns to Cato and
asks him questions which he answers himself with his own philosophy.
Would you pardon nothing, well, yes, but not all things.
Would you do nothing for friendship sometimes, unless duty should
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stand in the way. Would you never be moved to pity?
I would maintain my habit of sincerity. But something must,
no doubt be allowed to humanity. It is good to
stick to your opinion, but only until some better opinion
shall have prevailed with you. In all this, the humanity
of our Cicero, as opposed equally to the impossible virtue
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of a Cato or the abominable vice of a Verais,
is in advance of his age, and reminds us of
what Christ has taught us. But the best morsel in
the whole oration is that in which he snubs the lawyers.
It must be understood that Cicero did not pride himself
on being a lawyer. He was an advocate, and if
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he wanted law, there were those of an inferior grade
to whom he could go to get it. In truth,
he did understand the law, being a man of deep
research who inquired into everything as legal points had been raised.
He thus addresses Sulpicius, who seems to have affected a
knowledge of jurisprudence, who had been a candidate for the consulship,
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and who was his own intimate friend. I must put
you out of your conceit, he says. It was your
other gifts, not a knowledge of the laws, your moderation,
your wisdom, your justice, which in my opinion, made you
worthy of being loved. I will not say you threw
away your time in studying law, But it was not
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thus you made yourself worthy of the consulship. That power
of eloquence, majestic and full of dignity, which has so
often availed in raising a man to the consulship, is
able by its words to move the minds of the
Senate and the people and the judges. But in such
a poor science as that of law, what honor can
(20:52):
there be? Its details are taken up with mere words
and fragments of words. They forget all equity in points
of law and stick to the mere letter. He goes
through a presumed scene of chicanery, which consul as he was,
he must have acted before the judges and the people,
(21:12):
no doubt the extreme delight of them all. At last
he says, full as I am of business, if you
raise my wrath, I will make myself a lawyer and
learn it all in three days. From these and many
other passages in Cicero's writings and speeches, and also from Contillion,
we learn that a Roman advocate was by no means
(21:34):
the same as an English barrister. The science which he
was supposed to have learned was simply that of telling
his story in effective language. It no doubt came to
pass that he had much to do in getting up
the details of his story what we make all the evidence.
But he looked elsewhere to men of another profession for
his law. The URIs consultus or the URIs peritus, was
(21:58):
the lawyer, and as was regarded as being of much
less importance than the patronus or advocate, who stood before
the whole city and pleaded the cause. In this trial
of Morayna, who was by trade a soldier. It suited
Cicero to belittle lawyers and to extol the army. When
he is telling Sulpicius that it was not by being
(22:19):
a lawyer that a man could become consul, he goes
on to praise the high dignity of his client's profession.
The greatest glory is achieved by those who excel in battle.
All our empire, all our republic, is defended and made
strong by them. It was thus that the advocate could speak.
(22:39):
This comes from the man who always took glory to himself.
In declaring that the toga was superior to helmet and shield,
He had already declared that they erred, who thought that
they were going to get his own private opinion In
speeches made in law courts, he knew how to defend
his friend Morayna, who was a soldier, and in doing
so could say very sharp things, though yet in joke
(23:01):
against his friend Sulpicius the lawyer. But in truth, few
men understood the Roman law better than did Cicero. But
we must go back to that agrarian law, respecting which,
as he tells us, four of his consular speeches were made.
This had been brought forward by Rulus, one of the Tribunes,
(23:22):
towards the end of the last year. The Tribunes came
into office in December, whereas at this period of the
Republic the consuls were in power only on and from January.
The first Cicero, who had been unable to get the
particulars of the new law till it had been proclaimed,
had but a few days to master its details. It was,
(23:43):
to his thinking, altogether revolutionary. We have the words of
many of the clauses, and though it is difficult at
this distance of time to realize what would have been
its effect, I think we are entitled to say that
it was intended to subvert all property. Property speaking of
it generally cannot be destroyed. The land remains, and the
(24:05):
combined results as man's industry, are too numerous, too large,
and too lasting to become a wholesale prey to man's
anger or madness. Even the elements, when out of order,
can do but little toward perfecting destruction. A deluge is wanted,
or that crash of doom, which, whether it is to
come or not, is believed by the world to be
(24:27):
very distant, but it is within human power to destroy
possession and redistribute the goods which industry avarice or perhaps
injustice has congregated. They who own property are in these
days so much stronger than those who have none, that
an idea of any such redistribution does not create much
(24:47):
alarm among the possessors. The spirit of communism does not
prevail among people who have learned that it is in
truth easier to earn than to steal. But with the
Romans political a economy had naturally not advanced so far
as with us. A subversion of property had to a
great extent taken place no later than in Sulla's time.
(25:09):
How this had been affected the story of the property
of Roscius and Marinus has explained to us. Under Sulla's enactments,
no man with a house with hoarded money, with a
family of slaves with rich ornaments, was safe. Property had
been made to change hands recklessly, ruthlessly violently, by the
(25:29):
illegal application of a law promulgated by a single individual, who, however,
had himself been instigated by no other idea than that
of re establishing the political order of things, which he approved. Rulers,
probably with other motives, was desirous of affecting a subversion, which,
though equally great, should be made altogether in a different direction.
(25:52):
The ostensible purpose was something as follows. As the Roman
people had, by their valor and wisdom achieved for Rome
victories and therefore great wealth. They as Roman citizens, were
entitled to the enjoyment of what they had won, whereas
in fact the suites of victory fell to the lot
only of a few aristocrats. For the reform of this evil,
(26:15):
it should be enacted that all public property which had
been thus acquired, whether land or chattels, should be sold,
and with the proceeds other land should be bought fit
for the use of Roman citizens, and be given to
those who would choose to have it. It was specially
suggested that the rich country called the Campania, that in
(26:35):
which Naples now stands, with its adjacent isles, should be
brought up and given over to a great Roman colony.
For the purpose of carrying out this law, ten magistrates
should be appointed with plenipotentiary power both as to buying
and selling. There were many underplots in this No one
need sell unless he chose to sell. But at this
(26:56):
moment much land was held by no other title than
that of Suller's proscriptions. The present possessors were in daily
fear of dispossession by some new law made with the
object of restoring their property to those who had been
so cruelly robbed. These would be very glad to get
any price in hand for land of which their tenure
was so doubtful, And these were the men whom the
(27:18):
Dekemwiri or ten magistrates would be anxious to assist. We
are told that the father in law of rulers himself
had made a large acquisition by his use of Sulla's prescriptions.
And then there would be the instantaneous selling of vast
districts obtained by conquest and now held by the Roman state.
When so much land would be thrown into the market,
(27:40):
it would be sold very cheap, and would be sold
to those whom the Dekenwiri might choose to favor. We
can hardly now hope to unravel all the intended details,
but we may be sure that the basis on which
property stood would have been altogether changed by the measure.
The Dekemwiri were to have plenary power for ten years,
(28:01):
all the taxes in all the provinces were to be
sold or put up to market. Everything supposed to belong
to the Roman state was to be sold in every
province for the sake of collecting together a huge sum
of money, which was to be divided in the shape
of land among the poorer Romans. Whatever may have been
the private intentions of Rullus, whether good or bad, it
(28:23):
is evident, even at this distance of time, that a
redistribution of property was intended, which can only be described
as a general subversion to this the new consul opposed
himself vehemently, successfully, and we must needs say patriotically. The
intense interest which this Roe threw into his work is
(28:43):
as manifest in these agrarian orations as in those subsequently made.
As to the Cataline conspiracy. He ascends in his energy
to a dignity of self praise, which induces the reader
to feel that a man who could so speak of
himself without fear of contradiction, had a right to assert
the supremacy of his own character and intellect. He condescends,
(29:06):
on the other hand, to a virulence of personal abuse
against Rulus, which, though it is to our taste offensive,
is even to us persuasive, making us feel that such
a man should not have undertaken such a work. He
is describing the way in which the bill was first
introduced our tribunes at last enter upon their office. The
(29:27):
harangue to be made by Rulus is especially expected. He
is the projector of the law, and it was expected
that he would carry himself with an air of special audacity.
When he was only tribune elect. He began to put
on a different countenance, to speak with a different voice,
to walk with a different stop. We all saw how
(29:48):
he appeared with soiled raiment, with his person uncared for
and foul with dirt, with his hair and beard uncombed
and untrimmed. In Rome, men under affliction, particularly of under accusation,
showed themselves in soiled garments so as to attract pity.
And the meaning here is that Rulis went about as
though under grief at the condition of his poor fellow citizens,
(30:11):
who were distressed by the want of this agrarian law.
No description could be more likely to turn an individual
into ridicule than this of his taking upon himself to
represent in his own person the sorrows of the city.
The picture of the man with the self assumed garments
of public woe. As though he were big enough to
exhibit the grief of all Rome, could not but be effective.
(30:36):
It has been supposed that Cicero was insulting the tribune
because he was dirty. Not so, he was ridiculing Rullus
because Rullus had dared to go about in mourning sordidatus
on behalf of his country. But the tone in which
Cicero speaks of himself is magnificent. It is so grand
as to make us feel that a consul of Rome,
(30:57):
who had the cares of Rome on his shoulders, were
entitled to declare his own greatness to the Senate and
to the people. There are the two important orations that
spoken first in the Senate, and then the speech to
the people, from which I have already quoted the passage
personal to Rullus. In both of them he declares his
own idea of a consul, and of himself as consul.
(31:21):
He has been speaking of the effect of the proposed
law on the revenues of the state, and then proceeds.
But I pass by what I have to say on
that matter, and reserve it for the people. I speak
now of the danger which menaces our safety and our liberty.
For what will there be left to us untouched in
the republic? What will remain of your authority and freedom?
(31:45):
When Rulus and those whom you fear much more than Rullus,
with this band of ready knaves, with all the rascaldom
of Rome, laden with gold and silver, shall have seized
on Capua and all the cities ran to all this,
Senators Patre's CONSCRIPTI, he calls them, I will oppose what
(32:07):
power I have as long as I am Consul. I
will not suffer them to carry out their designs against
the Republic. But you, Rulus, and those who are with you,
have been mistaken grievously in supposing that you will be
regarded as friends of the people, in your attempts to
subvert the republic, in opposition to a consul who is
(32:28):
known in very truth to be the people's friend. I
call upon you. I invite you to meet me in
the assembly. Let us have the people of Rome as
a judge between us. Let us look round and see
what it is that the people really desire. We shall
find that there is nothing so dear to them as
peace and quietness and ease. You have handed over the
(32:53):
city to me full of anxiety, depressed with fear, disturbed
by these projected laws and seditious assemblies. It must be
remembered that he had only on that very day begun
his consulship. The wicked you have filled with hope the
good with fear. You have robbed the forum of loyalty
(33:13):
and the republic of dignity. But now, when, in the
midst of these troubles of mind and body, when in
this great darkness the voice and the authority of the
Consul has been heard by the people, when he shall
have made it plain that there is no cause for fear,
That no strange army shall enroll itself, no bands collect themselves,
(33:34):
That there shall be no new colonies, no sale of
the revenue, no altered empire, no royal dec mveirs, no
second rome, no other center of rule, but this, that
while I am Consul, there shall be perfect peace, perfect ease.
Do you suppose that I shall dread the superior popularity
(33:57):
of your new agrarian law? Shall I do you think
be afraid to hold my own against you in an
assembly of the citizens, When I shall have exposed the
iniquity of your designs, the fraud of this law, the
plots which your tribunes of the people, popular as they
think themselves, have contrived against the Roman people. Shall I
(34:19):
fear I who have determined to be consul after that
fashion in which alone a man may do so in
dignity and freedom, reaching to ask nothing for myself which
any tribune could object to have given me. This was
to the Senate, but his bolder. Still, when he addresses
the people, he begins by reminding them that it has
(34:41):
always been the custom of the great officers of state,
who have enjoyed the right of having in their houses
the busts and images of their ancestors, in their first
speech to the people, to join with thanks for the
favors done to themselves some records of the noble deeds
done by their forefathers. He, however, ever, could do nothing
of the kind. He had no such right. None in
(35:04):
his family had achieved such dignity. To speak of himself
might seem too proud, but to be silent would be ungrateful.
Therefore he would restrain himself, but would still say something
so that he might acknowledge what he had received. Then
he would leave it for them to judge whether he
had deserved what they had done for him. It is
(35:27):
long ago, almost beyond the memory of us now here
since you last made a new man conseil that high
office the nobles had reserved for themselves and defended it
as it were with ramparts. You have secured it for me,
so that in future it shall be open to any
who may be worthy of it. Nor have you only
(35:48):
made me a consul, much as that is, but you
have done so in such fashion that but few among
the old nobles have been so treated, And no new
man nobus sante mae nemo I have, if you will
think of it, been the only new man who has
stood for the consulship in the first year in which
(36:09):
it was legal, and who has got it. Then he
goes on to remind them, in words which I have
quoted before, that they had elected him by their unanimous voices.
All this, he says, had been very grateful to him,
but he had quite understood that it had been done
that he might labor on their behalf. That such labor
was severe, He declares, the consulship itself must be defended.
(36:34):
His period of consulship, to any consul, must be a
year of grave responsibility. But more so to him than
to any other. To him, should he be in doubt,
the great nobles would give no kind advice to him.
Should he be overtasked, they would give no assistance. But
the first thing he would look for should be their
(36:55):
good opinion. To declare now before the people that he
would exercise his own office for the good of the
people was his natural duty. But in that place in
which it was difficult to speak after such a fashion,
in the Senate itself, on the very first day of
his consulship, he had declared the same thing popularm me
(37:16):
futuro messe consulem. The course he had to pursue was noble,
but very difficult. He desired, certainly to be recognized as
a friend of the people, but he desired so to
befriend them that he might support also at the same
time the power of the aristocracy. He still believed, as
(37:36):
we cannot believe now, that there was a residuum of
good in the Senate sufficient to blossom forth into new
powers of honest government. When speaking to the oligarchs in
the Senate of Rulus and his land law, it was
easy enough to carry them with him that a consul
should oppose a Tribune, who was coming forward with Alex
Sagaria in his hands as the latest disciple of the Grachai,
(38:00):
was not out of the common order of things. Another
consul would either have looked for popularity and increased power
of plundering, as Antony might have done, or have stuck
to his order, as he would have called it, as
might have been the case with the Cottas, Lepiduses, and
Pisos of preceding years. But Cicero determined to oppose the
demagogue Tribune by proving himself to the people to be
(38:24):
more of a demagogue than he He succeeded, and Rullus,
with his agrarian law, was sent back into darkness. I
regard the second speech against Rulus as the naplus ultra,
the very beau ideal of a political harangue to the
people on the side of order and good government. I
(38:45):
cannot finish this chapter, in which I have attempted to
describe the lesser operations of Cicero's consulship, without again alluding
to the picture drawn by Virgil of a great man
quelling the storms of seditious rising by the gravity of
his presence and the weight of his words. The poet
surely had in his memory some occasion in which had
(39:06):
taken place this great triumph of character and intellect combined.
When the knights during Cicero's consulship essayed to take their
privileged places in the public theater in accordance with the
law passed by Roscius Otto a few years earlier BC.
Sixty eight, the founder of the obnoxious law himself entered
(39:26):
the building. The people, enraged against a man who had
interfered with them and their pleasures, and who had brought them,
as it were, under new restraints from the aristocracy, arose
in a body and began to break everything that came
to hand. Tom pier Tarte Garrawem, the consul was sent for.
He called on the people to follow him out of
(39:48):
the theater to the temple of Bellona, and there addressed
to them that wonderful oration by which they were sent
away not only pacified, but in good humor with Otto himself. Reggitt, Dictys,
Animos et pector a mulket I have spoken of Pliny's
eulogy as to the great Consul's doings of the year.
(40:09):
The passage is short, and I will translate it. But
Marcus Tullius how shall I reconcile it to myself to
be silent as to you? Or by what special glory
shall I best declare your excellence? How better than by
referring to the grand testimony given to you by the
whole nation, and to the achievements of your consulship as
(40:30):
a specimen of your entire life. At your voice, the
tribes gave up their agrarian law, which was as the
very bread in their mouths. At your persuasion. They pardoned
Otto his law, and bore with good humor the difference
of the seats assigned to them. At your prayer, the
children of the prescribed forbore from demanding their rights of citizenship.
(40:54):
Catiline was put to flight by your skill and eloquence.
It was you who silenced m antony. Hail thou who
wert first addressed as the father of your country, the
first who in the garb of peace hast deserved a triumph,
and one the laurel wreath of eloquence. This was grand
(41:14):
praise to be spoken of a man more than a
hundred years after his death, by one who had no
particular sympathies with him other than those created by literary affinity.
None of Cicero's letters have come to us from the
year of his consulship. End of Chapter eight
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