July 26, 2025 • 42 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 twelve, Part two 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 Jevons. The Life
of Cicero, Volume one by Anthony Trollope, Chapter twelve, His Exile,
(00:22):
Part two, Side note b C fifty eight. Itight at
forty nine. Now we will go back to the story
of Cicero's exile gradually. During the preceding year, he had
learned that Clodius was preparing to attack him, and to
doubt whether he could expect protection from the Triumvirate, that
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he could be made safe by the justice either of
the people or by that of any court before which
he could be tried, seems never to have occurred to him.
He knew the people, and he knew the courts too well. Pompey,
no doubt, might have warded off the coming evil. Such
at least was Cicero's eye. To him, Pompey was the
greatest political power as yet extant in Rome. But he
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was beginning to believe that Pompey would be untrue to him.
When he had sent to Pompey a long account of
the grand doings of his consulship, Pompey had replied with
faintest praises. He had rejected the overtures of the Triumvirate.
In the last letter to Atticus in the year before,
written in August, he had declared that the republic was ruined,
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that they who had brought things to this pass, meaning
the Triumvirate, were hostile. But for himself he was confident
in saying that he was quite safe in the good
will of men around him. There is a letter to
his brother written in November, the next letter in the collection,
in which he says that Pompey and Caesar promise him everything.
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With the exception of two letters of introduction, we have
nothing from him till he writes to Atticus from the
first scene of his exile. When the new year commenced,
Clodius was Tribune of the people and immediately was active.
Piso and Gabinius were consuls. Piso was kinsman to Piso Frugi,
who had married Cicero's daughter, and was expected to befriend
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Cicero at this crisis, but Clodius procured the allotment of
Syria and Macedonia to the two consuls by the popular vote.
They were provinces rich in plunder, and it was matter
of importance for a consul to know that the prey
which should come to him as proconsul, should be worthy
of his grasp. They were therefore ready to support the
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Tribune in what he proposed to do. It was necessary
to Cicero's enemies that there should be some law by
which Cicero might be condemned. It would not be within
the power of Clodius, even with the Triumvirate at his back,
to drive the man out of Rome and out of
Italy without an alleged cause. Though justice had been tabooed,
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law was still in vogue. Now there was a matter
as to which Cicero was opened to attack. As consul,
he had caused certain Roman citizens to be executed as
conspirators in the teeth of a law which enacted that
no Roman citizen should be condemned to die except by
a direct vote of the people. It had certainly become
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a maxim of the constitution of the Republic that a
citizen should not be made to suffer death except by
the voice of the people. The Valerian, the Porchian, and
the Sempronian laws had all been passed to that effect.
Now there had been no popular vote as to the
execution of Lentilus and the other conspirators who had been
taken red handed in Rome in the affair of Catiline.
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Their death had been decreed by the Senate, and the
decree of the Senate had been carried out by Cicero.
But no decree of the Senate had the power of
a law. In spite of that decree, the old law
was in force, and no appeal to the people had
been allowed to Lentilus. But there had grown up in
the Constitution a practice which had been supposed to over
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the Valerian and Porcian laws. In certain emergencies, the Senate
would call upon the consuls to see that the republic
should suffer no injury, and it had been held that
at such moments the consuls were invested with an authority
above all law. Cicero had been thus strengthened when as
consul he had struggled with Cataline. But it was an
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open question, as Cicero himself very well knew. In the
year of his consulship the very year in which Lentilus
and the others had been strangled. He had defended Rabirius,
who was then accused of having killed a citizen. Thirty
years before. Rabirius was charged with having slaughtered the tribune
Saturninus by consular authority, the consuls of the day having
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been ordered to defend the republic, as Cicero had been ordered.
Rabiius probably had not killed Saturninus, nor did anyone now
care whether he had done so or not. The trial
had been brought about notoriously by the agency of Cea,
who caused himself to be selected by the pritor as
one of the two judges for the occasion, and Caesar's object,
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as notoriously, was to lessen the authority of the Senate
and to support the democratic interest. Both Cicero and Hortensius
defended Rabirius, but he was condemned by Caesar, and, as
we are told, himself only escaped by using that appeal
to the people in support of which he had himself
been brought to trial. In this, as in so many
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of the forensic actions of the day, there had been
an admixture of violence and law. We must I think
acknowledge that there was the same leaven of illegality in
the proceedings against Lentilus. It had no doubt been the
intention of the Constitution that a consul, in the heat
of an emergency should use his personal authority for the
protection of the commonwealth. But it cannot be alleged that
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there was such an emergency when the full Senate had
had time to debate on the fate of the Catalan criminals.
Both from Caesar's words as reported by Sallust and from
Cicero's as given to us by himself, we are aware
that an idea of the illegality of the proceeding was
present in the minds of senators at the moment. But
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though law was loved at Rome, all forensic and legislative
proceedings were at this time carried on with monstrous illegality.
Consuls consulted the heavens falsely, Tribunes used their veto violently,
Judges accepted bribes openly. The votes of the people were
manipulated fraudulently in the trial and escape of Robirius. The
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laws were despised by those who pretended to vindicate them.
Clodius had now become a tribune by the means of
certain legal provision, but yet in opposition to all law.
In the conduct of the affair against Cataline, Cicero seems
to have been actuated by pure patriotism, and to have
been supported by a fine courage. But he knew that
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in destroying Lentilus and Cathagus he subjected himself to certain dangers.
He had willingly faced these dangers for the sake of
the object in view. As long as he might remain
the darling of the people as he was at that moment,
he would no doubt be safe. But it was not
given to anyone to be for long the darling of
the Roman people. Cicero had become so by using an
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eloquence to which the Romans were peculiarly susceptible. But though
they loved sweet tongues, long purses went farther with them.
Since Cicero's consulship, he had done nothing to offend the people,
except to remain occasionally out of their sight. But he
had lost the brilliancy of his popularity, and he was
aware that it was so. In discussing popularity in Rome,
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we have to remember of what elements it was formed
we hear that this or that man was potent at
some special time by the assistance coming to him from
the popular voice. There was in Rome of asked population
of idle men who had been trained by their city
life to look to the fact of their citizenship for
their support, and who did, in truth live on their citizenship.
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Of panemt kitchensis. We have all heard and know that eleaemusnry,
bread and the public amusements of the day supplied the
material and esthetic wants of many Romans. But men so
fed and so amused were sure to need further occupations.
They became attached to certain friends, to certain patrons, and
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to certain parties, and soon learned that a return was
expected for the food and for the excitements applied to them.
This they gave by holding themselves in readiness for whatever
violence was needed from them, till it became notorious in
Rome that a great party man might best attain his
political object by fighting for it in the streets. This
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was the meaning of that saying of Crassus that a
man could not be considered rich till he could keep
an army in his own pay. A popular vote obtained
and declared by a faction. Fight in the forum was
still a popular vote, and if supported by sufficient violence,
would be valid. There had been street fighting of the
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kind when Cicero had defended Caius Cornelius in the year
after his pritorship. They had been fighting of the kind
when Robirius had been condemned in his consulship. We shall
learn by and by to what extent such fighting prevailed
when Clodius was killed by Milo's bodyguard at the period
of which we are now writing, when Clodius was intent
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on pursuing Cicero to his ruin, it was a question
with Cicero himself whether he would not trust to a
certain faction in Rome to fight for him and so
to protect him. Though his popularity was on the wane,
that general popularity, which we may presume had been produced
by the tone of his voice and the grace of
his language, there still remained to him that other popularity,
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which consisted in truth of the trained bands employed by
the Bonnie and the Optimates, and which might be used,
if need were, in opposition to trained bands. On the
other side, the bill first proposed by Clodius to the people,
with the object of destroying Cicero did not mention Cicero,
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nor in truth refer to him. It purported to an
act that he who had caused to be executed any
Roman citizen not duly condemned to death, should himself be
deprived of the privilege of water or fire. This condemned
no suggested malefactor to death, but in accordance with Roman law,
made it impossible that any Roman so condemned should live
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within whatever bounds might be named. For this, withholding of
fire and water, the penalty intended was banishment, but by
this enactment no individual would be banished. Cicero, however, at
once took the suggestion to himself and put himself into mourning.
As a man accused and about to be brought to
his trial. He went about the streets accompanied by crowds
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armed for his protection, and Clodius also caused himself to
be so accompanied. There came thus to be a question
which might prevail should there be a general fight. The
Senate was as a body on Cicero's side, but was
quite unable to cope with the triumvirate Caesar. No doubt
had resolved that Cicero should be made to go and
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Caesar was lord of the Triumvirate on behalf of Cicero.
There was a large body of the conservative or oligarchical
party who was still true to him, and they, too,
all went into the usual public mourning, evincing their desire
that the accused man should be rescued from his accusers.
The bitterness of Clodius would be surprising, did we not
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know how bitter had been Cicero's tongue when the affair
of the Bonardea had taken place. There was no special
enmity between this debauched young man and the great consul. Cicero,
though his own life had ever been and well ordered,
rather affected the company of fast young men when he
found them to be witty as well as clever. This
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very Clodius had been in his good books till the
affair of the Bonadeer. But now the tribune's hatred was interniesine.
I have hitherto said nothing, and need say but little
of a certain disreputable lady named Clodia. She was the
sister of Clodius and the wife of Metellus Cella. She
was accused by public voice in Rome of living in
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incest with her brother and of poisoning her husband. Cicero
calls her afterward in his defense of Celius a meeka omnium.
She had the nickname of Quadrantaria given to her because
she frequented the public baths, at which the charge was
a farthing. It must be said also of her, either
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in praise or in dispraise, that she was the Lesbia
who inspired the muse of Catullus. It was rumored in
Rome that she had endeavored to set her cap at Cicero. Cicero,
in his raillery, had not spared the lady to speak publicly.
The grossest evil of women was not opposed to any
idea of gallantry current among the Romans. Our sense of chivalry,
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as well as decency, is disgusted by the language used
by Horace to women who once, to him were young
and pretty, but have become old and ugly. The venom
of Cicero's abuse of Clodia annoys us, and we have
to remember that the gentle ideas which we have taken
in with our mother's milk had not grown into use
with the Romans. It is necessary that this woman's name
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should be mentioned, and it may appear here, as she
was one of the causes of that hatred which burnt
between Clodius and Cicero till Clodius was killed in a
street row. It has been presumed that Cicero was badly
advised in presuming publicly that the new law was intended
against himself, and in taking upon himself the outward signs
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of a man under affliction. The resolution, says Mittle, and
of changing his gown was too hasty and inconsiderate, and
helped to precipitate his ruin. He was sensible of his
error when too late and oft. Reproaches Atticus that, being
a stander by and less heated with the game than himself,
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he would suffer him to make such blunders. And he
quotes the words written to Atticus here, My judgment first
failed me, or indeed brought me into trouble. We were
blind blind, I say, in changing our raiment and in
appealing to the populace, I handed myself and all belonging
to me over to my enemies, while you were looking on,
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while you were holding your peace. Yes, you who, if
your wit in the matter was no better than mine,
were impeded by no personal fears. But the reader should
study the entire letter and study it in the original,
for no translator can give its true purport. This the
reader must do before he can understand Sister's state of
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mind when writing it, or his relation to Atticus, all
the thoughts which distracted him, when in accordance with the
advice of Atticus, he resolved, while yet uncondemned to retire
into banishment. The censure to which Atticus is subjected throughout
this letter is that which a thoughtful, hesitating, scrupulous man
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is so often disposed to address to himself. After reminding
Atticus of the sort of advice which should have been given,
the want of which in the first moment of his exile,
he regrets, and doing this in words of which it
is very difficult now to catch the exact flavor, he
begs to be pardoned for his reproaches. You will forgive me,
he says. I blame myself more than I do you.
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But I look to you as a second self, and
I make you a sharer with me of my own folly.
I take this letter out of its course and speak
of it as connected with that terrible period of doubt
to which it refers, in which he had to decide
whether he would remain in Rome and fight it out
or run before his enemies. But in writing the letter afterward,
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his mind was as much disturbed as when he did fly.
I am inclined therefore to think that Middleton and others
may have been wrong in blaming his flight, which they
have done, because in his subsequent vacillating moods, he blamed himself.
How the battle might have gone had he remained, We
have no evidence to show, but we do know that
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though he fled, he returned soon with renewed glory, and
altogether overcame the attempt which had been made to destroy him.
In this time of his distress, a strong effort was
made by the Senate to rescue him. It was proposed
to them that they all as a body, should go
into mourning on his behalf. Indeed, the Senate passed a
vote to this effect, but were prevented by the two
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consuls from carrying it out. As to what he had
best do, he and his friends were divided. Some recommended
that he should remain where he was and defend himself
by street fighting, should it be necessary. In doing this,
he would acknowledge that law no longer prevailed in Rome.
A condition of things to which many had given in
their adherents, but with which Cicero would surely have been
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the last to comply. He himself, in his despair, thought
for a time that the old Roman mode of escape
would be preferable, and that he might, with decorum, end
his life and his troubles by suicide. Atticus and others
dissuaded him from this and recommended him to fly. Among these,
Cato and Hortensius have both been named to this advice
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he at last yielded, and it may be doubted whether
any better could have been given. Lawlessness, which had been
rampant in Rome before, had under the triumvirate become almost lawful.
It was Caesar's intention to carry out his will with
such compliance with the forms of the republic as might
suit him, but in utter disregard to all such forms
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when they did not suit him. The banishment of Cicero
was one of the last steps taken by Caesar before
he left Rome for his campaigns in Gaul. He was
already in command of the legions and was just without
the city he had endeavored to buy Cicero, but had failed.
Having failed, he had determined to be rid of him.
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Claudius was but his tool, as were Pompey and the
two consuls. Had Cicero endeavored to support himself by violence
in Rome, his contest would in fact have been with Caesar. Cicero,
before he went, applied for protection personally to Piso the consul,
and to Pompey. Gabinius, the other consul, had already declared
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his purpose to the Senate, but Piso was bound to
him by family ties. He himself relates to us in
his oration spoken after his return against this Piso, the
manner of the meeting between him and Rome's chief officer.
Piso told him so at least Cicero declared in the Senate,
and we have heard of no contradiction, that Gabinius was
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so driven by debts as to be unable to hold
up his head without a rich province, and that he
himself Piso could only hope to get a province by
taking part with Gabinius, that any application to the consuls
was useless, and that every one must look after himself.
Concerning his appeal to Pompey, two stories have been given
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to us, neither of which appears to be true. Plutarch
says that when Cicero had traveled out from Rome to
Pompey's alban villa, Pompey ran out of the back door
to avoid meeting him. Plutarch cared more for a good
story than for accuracy, and it is not worthy of
much credit as to details, unless when corroborated. The other
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account is based on Cicero's assertion that he did see
Pompey on this occasion, nine or ten years after the meeting.
He refers to it in a letter to Atticus, which
leads no doubt as to the fact. The story founded
on that letter declares that Cicero threw himself bodily at
his old friend's feet, and that Pompey did not lend
a hand to raise him, but told him simply that
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everything was in Caesar's hands. This narrative is, i think,
due to a misinterpretation of Cicero's words, though it is
given by a close translation of them. He is describing
Pompey when Caesar, after his Gallic wars, had crossed the Rubicon,
and the two late triumvirates, the third having perished miserably
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in the East, were in arms against each other. Alter
addet fuoret sgulere. He says Caesar is pressing on unscrupulous
in his passion. Alter is quinos sibi quonda mat pedestratos
ne suble abat quidem quise nihil contre juyas l antateem
ayabat facere posse that other one, he continues, meaning Pompey,
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and pursuing his picture of the present contrast, who in
days gone by would not even lift me when I
lay at his feet, and told me that he could
do nothing, but as Caesar wished it. This little supposed
detail of biography has been given no doubt from an
accurate reading of the words, But in it the spirit
of the writer's mind as he wrote it has surely
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been missed. The prostration of which he spoke, from which
Pompey would not raise him, the memory of which was
still so bitter to him, was not a prostration of
the body. I hold it to have been impossible that
Cicero should have assumed such an attitude before Pompey, or
that he would have so written to Atticus. Had he
done so, it would have been neither Roman nor Ciceronian,
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as displayed by Cicero to Pompey. He had gone to
his old ally and told him of his trouble, and
had no doubt reminded him of those promises of assistance
which Pompey had so often made. Then Pompey had refused
to help him, and had assured him with too much truth,
that Caesar's will was everything. Again, we have to remember
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that in judging of the meaning of words which tween
two such correspondents as Cicero and Atticus, we must read
between the lines and interpret the words by creating for
ourselves something of the spirit in which they were written
and in which they were received. I cannot imagine that
in describing to Atticus what had occurred at that interview,
nine years after it had taken place, Cicero had intended
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it to be understood that he had really groveled in
the dust. Toward the end of March, he started from Rome,
intending to take refuge among his friends in Sicily. On
the same day, Clodius brought in a bill directed against
Cicero by name, and caused it to be carried by
the people. Would Marco Tulio are quite igni in te
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richtums seat that it should be illegal to supply Cicero
with fire and water. The law when passed for bad
anyone to harbour the criminal within four hundred miles of Rome,
and declared the doing so to be a capital offense.
It is evident from the action of those who obeyed
the law and of those who did not, that legal
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results were not feared so much as the ill will
of those who had driven Cicero to his exile. They
who refused him succor did not do so because to
give it to him would be illegal, but lest Caesar
and Pompey would be offended. It did not last long,
and during the short period of his exile he found
perhaps more of friendship than of enmity. But he directed
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his steps in accordance with the bearing of party spirit.
We are told that he was afraid to go to
Athens because at Athens lived that Autronius, whom he had
refused to defend. Autronius had been convicted of conspiracy and banished,
and having been a Catalinarian conspirator, had been in truth
on Caesar's side. Nor were geographical facts sufficiently established to
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tell Cicero what places were and were not. Without the
forbidden circle. He sojourned first at Vibo, in the extreme
south of Italy, intending to pass from thence into Sis.
It was there that he learned that a certain distance
had been prescribed, But it seems that he had already
learned that the proconsular governor of the island would not
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receive him. Fearing Caesar, then he came north from Vibo
to Brundisium, that being the port by which travelers generally
went from Italy to the east. He had determined to
leave his family in Rome, feeling probably that it would
be easier for him to find a temporary home for
himself than for him and them together. And there were
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money difficulties in which Atticus helped him. Atticus, always wealthy,
had now become a very rich man by the death
of an uncle. We did not know of what nature
were the money arrangements made by Ciso at the time,
but there can be no doubt that the losses by
his exile were very great. There was a thorough disruption
of his property, for which the subsequent generosity of his
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country was unable altogether to atone. But this sat likely
on Cicero's heart. Pecuniary losses never weighed heavily with him
as he journeyed back from Vibo to Brundisium. Friends were
very kind to him in spite of the law. Toward
the end of the speech, which he made five years afterward,
on behalf of his friend's he Plancius, he explains the
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debt of gratitude which he owed to his client, whose
kindness to him in his exile had been very great.
He commences his story of the goodness of Plantius by
describing the generosity of the towns on the road to Brundisium,
and the hospitality of his friend Flavius, who had received
him at his house in the neighborhood of that town,
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and had placed him safely on board a ship. When
at last he resolved to cross over to Drachium, there
were many schemes running in his head at this time.
At one period he had resolved to pass through Macedonia
into Asia and to remain for a while at Sisicum.
This idea he expresses in a letter to his wife
written from Brundisium, then wailing no doubt, but in words
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which seem to me very natural as coming from a
husband in such a condition, or may perreditum or maya
flichtum exclamations which it is impossible to translate, as they
refer to his wife's separation from himself rather than to
his own personal sufferings. How am I to ask you
to come to me, he says, you a woman ill
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in health, worn out in body and in spirit. I
cannot ask you. Must I then live without you? It
must be so, I think. If there be any hope
of my return, it is you must look to it.
You that must strengthen it. But if as I fear
the thing is done, then come to me. If I
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can have you, I shall not be altogether destroyed. No
doubt these are wailings. But is a man unmanly because
he so wails to the wife of his bosom. Other
humans have written prissily about women. It was common for
Romans to do so. Catullus desires from Lesbia as many
kisses as are the stars of the night, are the
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sands of Libya. Horace swears that he would perish for
Chloe if Chloe might be left alive. When I am dying,
says Tibullus to Delia, may I be gazing at you,
May my last grasp hold your hand Propertius tells Cynthia
that she stands to him in lieu of home and
parents and all the joys of life. Whether he be
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sad with his friends or happy, Cynthia does it all.
The language in each case is perfect. But what other
Roman was there of whom we have evidence that he
spoke to his wife like this? Ovid, in his letters
from his banishment, says much of his love for his wife,
but there is no passion expressed in anything that Ovid wrote.
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Clodius as soon as the enactment against Cicero became law,
caused it to be carried into effect, with all its
possible cruelties. The criminal's property was confiscated, The house on
the Palatine Hill was destroyed, and the goods were put
up to auction, with, as we are told, a great
lack of buyers. His choicest treasures were carried away by
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the consuls themselves. Piso, who had lived near him in Rome,
got for himself and for his father in law the
rich booty from the town house. The country villas were
also destroyed, and Gabinius, who had a country house close
by Cicero's Tusculan retreat, took even the very shrubs out
of the garden. He tells the story of the greed
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and enmity of the consuls in the speech he made
after his return Prodomo Sua, pleading for the restitution of
his household property. My house on the Palatine was burnt,
he says, not by any accident, but by arson. In
the meantime, the consuls were feasting and were congratulating themselves
among the conspirators, when one boasted that he had been
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Catilines for free, and the other that Cathagus had been
his cousin. By this, he implies that the conspiracy, which
during his consulship had been so odious to Rome, was
now in these days of the Triumvirate again in favour
among Roman aristocrats. He went across from Brundisium to Diracium,
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and from thence to Thessalonica, where he was treated with
most loving kindness by Planchius, who was quist in these parts,
and who came down to Irachium to meet him, clad
in mourning for the occasion. This was the Planchius whom
he afterward defended, and indeed he was bound to do so.
Planchius seems to have had but little dread of the law,
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though he was a Roman officer employed in the very
province to the government of which the present consulpiso had
already been appointed. Thessalonica was within four hundred miles, and
yet Cicero lived there with Planchius for some months. The
letters from Cicero during his exile are to me very touching,
though I have been told so often that in having
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written them he lacked the fortitude of a Roman. Perhaps
I am more capable of appreciating natural humanity than Roman fortitude.
We remembered the story of the Spartan boy who allowed
the fox to bite him beneath his frock without crying.
I think we may imagine that he refrained from tears
in public before some heard of schoolfellows or a bench
(30:25):
of masters, or amid the sternness of parental authority, but
that he told his sister afterward how he had been tortured,
or his mother as he lay against her bosom, or
perhaps his chosen chum. Such reticences are made dignified by
the occasion when something has to be won by controlling
the expression to which nature uncontrolled would give utterance, but
(30:48):
are not in themselves evidence either of sagacity or of courage.
Roman fortitude was but a suit of armor to be
worn on state occasions. If we come across a warrior
with his crested helmet and his sword and his spear,
we see, no doubt an impressive object. If we could
find him in his night shirt, the same man would
(31:09):
be there. But those who do not look deeply into
things would be apt to despise him, because his grand
trappings were absent. Chance has given us Cicero in his
night shirt. The linen is of such fine texture that
we had delighted with it. But we despise the man
because he wore a garment such as we wear ourselves. Indeed,
(31:31):
though when we wear it, nobody has then brought in
to look at us. There is one most touching letter
written from Thessalonica to his brother, by whom after thoughts
vacillating this way, and that he was unwilling to be visited,
thinking that a meeting would bring more of pain than
of service. Mifrater, mifrater, mi frater, he begins. The words
(31:56):
in English would hardly give all the pathos. Did you
think that I did not write because I am angry,
or that I did not wish to see you ay
angry with you, but I could not endure to be
seen by you. You would not have seen your brother,
not him whom you had left, not him whom you
had known, Not him whom, weeping as you went away
(32:19):
you had dismissed, weeping himself as he strove to follow you.
Then he heaps blame upon his own head, bitterly accusing
himself because he had brought his brother to such a
pass of sorrow. In this letter he throws great blame
upon Hortensius, whom, together with Pompey, he accuses of betraying him.
(32:40):
What truth there may have been in this accusation as
to Hortensius, we have no means of saying. He couples
Pompey in the same charge. And as to Pompey's treatment
of him, there can be no doubt Pompey had been
untrue to his promises because of his bond with Caesar.
It is probable that Hortensius had failed to put himself
forward on Cicero's behalf, with that all alacrity which the
(33:01):
one advocate had expected from the other. Cicero and Hortensius
were friends afterward, but so were Cicero and Pompey. Cicero
was forgiving by nature and also by self training. It
did not suit his purposes to retain his enemies. Had
there been a possibility of reconciling Antony to the cause
(33:21):
of the Optimates after the Philippis, he would have availed
himself of it. Cicero at one time intended to go
to Busrotum in a Pyrus, where Atticus possessed a house
and property, but he changed his purpose. He remained at
Thessalonica till November, and then returned to Durrachium, having all
(33:41):
through his exile been kept alive by tidings of steps
taken for his recall. There seems very soon to have
grown up a feeling in Rome that the city had
disgraced itself by banishing such a man, and Caesar had
gone to his provinces. We can well imagine that when
he had once left Rome, with all his purposes achieved,
having so far quieted the tongue of the strong speaker
(34:04):
who might have disturbed them, he would take no further
steps to perpetuate the orator's banishment. Then, Pompey and Clodius
soon quarreled. Pompey, without Caesar to direct him, found the
arrogance of the patrician tribune insupportable. We hear of wheels
within wheels, and stories within stories in the drama of
(34:26):
Roman history as it was played at this time. Together
with Cicero. It had been necessary to Caesar's projects that
Cato also should be got out of Rome, and this
had been managed by means of Clodius, who had a
bill passed for the honorable employment of Cato on state
purposes in Cyprus. Cato had found himself obliged to go.
(34:48):
It was as though our prime minister had got parliamentary
authority for sending a noisy member of the opposition to
Asiatic Turkey. For six months there was an attempt, or
an alleged attempt of Clodius to have Pompey murdered, and
there was street fighting, so that Pompey was besieged or
pretended to be besieged in his own house. We might
(35:10):
as well seek to set a sharivari to music as
to write the history of this political witch's revel says Momson,
speaking of the state of Rome. When Caesar was gone
Cicero banished, and Pompey supposed to be in the ascendant.
There was at any rate quarreling between Clodius and Pompey,
in the course of which Pompey was induced to consent
(35:32):
to Cicero's return. Then Clodius took upon himself in revenge,
to turn against the triumvirate altogether, and to repudiate even
Caesar himself. But it was all a vain, hurly burly,
as to which Caesar, when he heard the details in Gaul,
could only have felt how little was to be gained
by maintaining his alliance with Pompey. He had achieved his purpose,
(35:56):
which he could not have done without the assistance of Crassus,
whose wealth, and of Pompey, whose authority stood highest in Rome.
And now having had his legions voted to him, and
his promises and his prolonged term of years, he cared
nothing for either of them. There is a little story
which must be repeated as against Cicero in reference to
(36:19):
this period of his exile, because it has been told
in all records of his life. Were I to omit
the little story, it would seem as though I shunned
the records which have been repeated as opposed to his credit.
He had written some time back a squib in which
he had been severe upon the elder Curio, so it
is supposed, But it matters little who was the object
(36:40):
or what the subject. This had got wind in Rome,
as such matters do sometimes, and he now feared that
it would do him a mischief with the Curios and
the friends of the Curios. The authorship was only matter
of gossip. Could it not be denied? As it is written,
says Cicero, in a style inferio to that which is
(37:01):
usual to me? Can it not be shown not to
have been mine? Had Cicero possessed all the Christian virtues,
as we hope that prelates and pastors possessed them in
this happy land, he would not have been betrayed into
at any rate. The expression of such a wish as
it is. The enemies of Cicero must make the most
(37:22):
of it. His friends, I think, will look upon it leniently.
Continued efforts were made among Cicero's friends at Rome to
bring him back, with which he was not altogether contented.
He argues the matter repeatedly, with Atticus, not always in
the best temper his friends at Rome. Were he thought
doing the matter amiss, they would fail, and he would
(37:43):
still have to finish his days abroad. Atticus, in his
way to Epirus, visits him at Drachium, and he is
sure that Atticus would not have left Rome, but that
the affair was hopeless. The reader of the correspondence is
certainly led to believe that Atticus must have been the
most patient of friends, but he feels at the same
time that Attigus would not have been patient had not
(38:05):
Cicero been affectionate and true. The consuls for the new
year were Lentilus and Metellus Nepos. The former was Cicero's
declared friend, and the other had already abandoned his enmity.
Clodius was no longer Tribune, and Pompey had been brought
to yield. The Senate were all but unanimous, but there
(38:27):
was still life in Clodius and his party, and day
dragged itself after day and months after month, while Cicero
still lingered at Dracium, waiting till a bill should have
been passed by the people. Pompey, who was never wholehearted
in anything, had declared that a bill voted by the
people would be necessary. The bill at last was voted
(38:48):
on the fourteenth of August, and Cicero, who knew well
what was being done at Rome, passed over from Dracium
to Brindisium on the same day, having been a year
and four months absent from Rome. During the year BC
fifty seven. Up to the time of his return, he
wrote but three letters that have come to us, two
(39:09):
very short notes to Atticus, in the first of which
he declares that he will come over on the authority
of a decree of the Senate, without waiting for a law.
In the second, he falls again into despair, declaring that
everything is over. In the third he asks Metellus for
his aid, telling the consul that unless it be given soon,
the man for whom it is asked will no longer
(39:29):
be living to receive it. Metellus did give the aid
very cordially. It has been remarked that Cicero did nothing
for literature during his banishment, either by writing essays or
preparing speeches, and it has been implied that the prostration
of mind arising from his misfortunes must have been indeed complete.
(39:49):
When a man whose general life was made marvelous by
its fecundity, had been repressed into silence. It should, however,
be borne in mind, that there could be no inducement
for the the writing of speeches when there was no
opportunity of delivering them. As to his essays, including what
we call his philosophy and his rhetoric, they who are
(40:09):
familiar with his works will remember how apt he was
in all that he produced to refer to the writings
of others. He translates, and he quotes, and he makes
constant use of arguments of illustrations of those who have
gone before him. He was a man who rarely worked
without the use of a library. When I think how
impossible it would be for me to repeat this oft
(40:32):
told tale of Cicero's life without a crowd of books
within reach of my hand, I can easily understand why
Cicero was silent at their Salonica and Drachium. It has
been remarked also by a modern critic, that we find
in the letters from exile a carelessness and inaccuracy of expression,
(40:52):
which contrasts strongly with the style of his happier days.
I will not for a moment but my judgment in
such a matter in opposit position to that of mister Tyrrel.
But I should myself have been inclined rather to say
that the style of Cicero's letters varies constantly, being very
different when used to Atticus, or to his brother, or
to lighter friends such as Poetus and Trebatius, and very
(41:15):
different again when business of state was in hand, as
are his letters to Decimus Brutus, Cassius Brutus, and Plancus.
To be correct in familiar letters is not to charm.
A studied negligence is needed to make such work live
to posterity, a grace of loose expression, which may indeed
(41:35):
have been made easy by use, but which is far
from easy to the idle and unpracticed writer. His sorrow
perhaps required a style of its own. I have not
felt my own untutored perception of the language to be
offended by unfitting slovenliness in the expression of his grief.
(41:58):
End of Chapter twelve, End of the Life of Cicero,
Volume one by Anthony Trollop
Chapter twelve, Part two 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 Jevons. The Life
of Cicero, Volume one by Anthony Trollope, Chapter twelve, His Exile,
(00:22):
Part two, Side note b C fifty eight. Itight at
forty nine. Now we will go back to the story
of Cicero's exile gradually. During the preceding year, he had
learned that Clodius was preparing to attack him, and to
doubt whether he could expect protection from the Triumvirate, that
(00:43):
he could be made safe by the justice either of
the people or by that of any court before which
he could be tried, seems never to have occurred to him.
He knew the people, and he knew the courts too well. Pompey,
no doubt, might have warded off the coming evil. Such
at least was Cicero's eye. To him, Pompey was the
greatest political power as yet extant in Rome. But he
(01:06):
was beginning to believe that Pompey would be untrue to him.
When he had sent to Pompey a long account of
the grand doings of his consulship, Pompey had replied with
faintest praises. He had rejected the overtures of the Triumvirate.
In the last letter to Atticus in the year before,
written in August, he had declared that the republic was ruined,
(01:27):
that they who had brought things to this pass, meaning
the Triumvirate, were hostile. But for himself he was confident
in saying that he was quite safe in the good
will of men around him. There is a letter to
his brother written in November, the next letter in the collection,
in which he says that Pompey and Caesar promise him everything.
(01:47):
With the exception of two letters of introduction, we have
nothing from him till he writes to Atticus from the
first scene of his exile. When the new year commenced,
Clodius was Tribune of the people and immediately was active.
Piso and Gabinius were consuls. Piso was kinsman to Piso Frugi,
who had married Cicero's daughter, and was expected to befriend
(02:10):
Cicero at this crisis, but Clodius procured the allotment of
Syria and Macedonia to the two consuls by the popular vote.
They were provinces rich in plunder, and it was matter
of importance for a consul to know that the prey
which should come to him as proconsul, should be worthy
of his grasp. They were therefore ready to support the
(02:32):
Tribune in what he proposed to do. It was necessary
to Cicero's enemies that there should be some law by
which Cicero might be condemned. It would not be within
the power of Clodius, even with the Triumvirate at his back,
to drive the man out of Rome and out of
Italy without an alleged cause. Though justice had been tabooed,
(02:54):
law was still in vogue. Now there was a matter
as to which Cicero was opened to attack. As consul,
he had caused certain Roman citizens to be executed as
conspirators in the teeth of a law which enacted that
no Roman citizen should be condemned to die except by
a direct vote of the people. It had certainly become
(03:15):
a maxim of the constitution of the Republic that a
citizen should not be made to suffer death except by
the voice of the people. The Valerian, the Porchian, and
the Sempronian laws had all been passed to that effect.
Now there had been no popular vote as to the
execution of Lentilus and the other conspirators who had been
taken red handed in Rome in the affair of Catiline.
(03:39):
Their death had been decreed by the Senate, and the
decree of the Senate had been carried out by Cicero.
But no decree of the Senate had the power of
a law. In spite of that decree, the old law
was in force, and no appeal to the people had
been allowed to Lentilus. But there had grown up in
the Constitution a practice which had been supposed to over
(04:00):
the Valerian and Porcian laws. In certain emergencies, the Senate
would call upon the consuls to see that the republic
should suffer no injury, and it had been held that
at such moments the consuls were invested with an authority
above all law. Cicero had been thus strengthened when as
consul he had struggled with Cataline. But it was an
(04:21):
open question, as Cicero himself very well knew. In the
year of his consulship the very year in which Lentilus
and the others had been strangled. He had defended Rabirius,
who was then accused of having killed a citizen. Thirty
years before. Rabirius was charged with having slaughtered the tribune
Saturninus by consular authority, the consuls of the day having
(04:45):
been ordered to defend the republic, as Cicero had been ordered.
Rabiius probably had not killed Saturninus, nor did anyone now
care whether he had done so or not. The trial
had been brought about notoriously by the agency of Cea,
who caused himself to be selected by the pritor as
one of the two judges for the occasion, and Caesar's object,
(05:06):
as notoriously, was to lessen the authority of the Senate
and to support the democratic interest. Both Cicero and Hortensius
defended Rabirius, but he was condemned by Caesar, and, as
we are told, himself only escaped by using that appeal
to the people in support of which he had himself
been brought to trial. In this, as in so many
(05:30):
of the forensic actions of the day, there had been
an admixture of violence and law. We must I think
acknowledge that there was the same leaven of illegality in
the proceedings against Lentilus. It had no doubt been the
intention of the Constitution that a consul, in the heat
of an emergency should use his personal authority for the
protection of the commonwealth. But it cannot be alleged that
(05:52):
there was such an emergency when the full Senate had
had time to debate on the fate of the Catalan criminals.
Both from Caesar's words as reported by Sallust and from
Cicero's as given to us by himself, we are aware
that an idea of the illegality of the proceeding was
present in the minds of senators at the moment. But
(06:13):
though law was loved at Rome, all forensic and legislative
proceedings were at this time carried on with monstrous illegality.
Consuls consulted the heavens falsely, Tribunes used their veto violently,
Judges accepted bribes openly. The votes of the people were
manipulated fraudulently in the trial and escape of Robirius. The
(06:36):
laws were despised by those who pretended to vindicate them.
Clodius had now become a tribune by the means of
certain legal provision, but yet in opposition to all law.
In the conduct of the affair against Cataline, Cicero seems
to have been actuated by pure patriotism, and to have
been supported by a fine courage. But he knew that
(06:59):
in destroying Lentilus and Cathagus he subjected himself to certain dangers.
He had willingly faced these dangers for the sake of
the object in view. As long as he might remain
the darling of the people as he was at that moment,
he would no doubt be safe. But it was not
given to anyone to be for long the darling of
the Roman people. Cicero had become so by using an
(07:23):
eloquence to which the Romans were peculiarly susceptible. But though
they loved sweet tongues, long purses went farther with them.
Since Cicero's consulship, he had done nothing to offend the people,
except to remain occasionally out of their sight. But he
had lost the brilliancy of his popularity, and he was
aware that it was so. In discussing popularity in Rome,
(07:49):
we have to remember of what elements it was formed
we hear that this or that man was potent at
some special time by the assistance coming to him from
the popular voice. There was in Rome of asked population
of idle men who had been trained by their city
life to look to the fact of their citizenship for
their support, and who did, in truth live on their citizenship.
(08:10):
Of panemt kitchensis. We have all heard and know that eleaemusnry,
bread and the public amusements of the day supplied the
material and esthetic wants of many Romans. But men so
fed and so amused were sure to need further occupations.
They became attached to certain friends, to certain patrons, and
(08:31):
to certain parties, and soon learned that a return was
expected for the food and for the excitements applied to them.
This they gave by holding themselves in readiness for whatever
violence was needed from them, till it became notorious in
Rome that a great party man might best attain his
political object by fighting for it in the streets. This
(08:53):
was the meaning of that saying of Crassus that a
man could not be considered rich till he could keep
an army in his own pay. A popular vote obtained
and declared by a faction. Fight in the forum was
still a popular vote, and if supported by sufficient violence,
would be valid. There had been street fighting of the
(09:13):
kind when Cicero had defended Caius Cornelius in the year
after his pritorship. They had been fighting of the kind
when Robirius had been condemned in his consulship. We shall
learn by and by to what extent such fighting prevailed
when Clodius was killed by Milo's bodyguard at the period
of which we are now writing, when Clodius was intent
(09:34):
on pursuing Cicero to his ruin, it was a question
with Cicero himself whether he would not trust to a
certain faction in Rome to fight for him and so
to protect him. Though his popularity was on the wane,
that general popularity, which we may presume had been produced
by the tone of his voice and the grace of
his language, there still remained to him that other popularity,
(09:56):
which consisted in truth of the trained bands employed by
the Bonnie and the Optimates, and which might be used,
if need were, in opposition to trained bands. On the
other side, the bill first proposed by Clodius to the people,
with the object of destroying Cicero did not mention Cicero,
(10:16):
nor in truth refer to him. It purported to an
act that he who had caused to be executed any
Roman citizen not duly condemned to death, should himself be
deprived of the privilege of water or fire. This condemned
no suggested malefactor to death, but in accordance with Roman law,
made it impossible that any Roman so condemned should live
(10:39):
within whatever bounds might be named. For this, withholding of
fire and water, the penalty intended was banishment, but by
this enactment no individual would be banished. Cicero, however, at
once took the suggestion to himself and put himself into mourning.
As a man accused and about to be brought to
his trial. He went about the streets accompanied by crowds
(11:02):
armed for his protection, and Clodius also caused himself to
be so accompanied. There came thus to be a question
which might prevail should there be a general fight. The
Senate was as a body on Cicero's side, but was
quite unable to cope with the triumvirate Caesar. No doubt
had resolved that Cicero should be made to go and
(11:25):
Caesar was lord of the Triumvirate on behalf of Cicero.
There was a large body of the conservative or oligarchical
party who was still true to him, and they, too,
all went into the usual public mourning, evincing their desire
that the accused man should be rescued from his accusers.
The bitterness of Clodius would be surprising, did we not
(11:46):
know how bitter had been Cicero's tongue when the affair
of the Bonardea had taken place. There was no special
enmity between this debauched young man and the great consul. Cicero,
though his own life had ever been and well ordered,
rather affected the company of fast young men when he
found them to be witty as well as clever. This
(12:07):
very Clodius had been in his good books till the
affair of the Bonadeer. But now the tribune's hatred was interniesine.
I have hitherto said nothing, and need say but little
of a certain disreputable lady named Clodia. She was the
sister of Clodius and the wife of Metellus Cella. She
was accused by public voice in Rome of living in
(12:29):
incest with her brother and of poisoning her husband. Cicero
calls her afterward in his defense of Celius a meeka omnium.
She had the nickname of Quadrantaria given to her because
she frequented the public baths, at which the charge was
a farthing. It must be said also of her, either
(12:50):
in praise or in dispraise, that she was the Lesbia
who inspired the muse of Catullus. It was rumored in
Rome that she had endeavored to set her cap at Cicero. Cicero,
in his raillery, had not spared the lady to speak publicly.
The grossest evil of women was not opposed to any
idea of gallantry current among the Romans. Our sense of chivalry,
(13:13):
as well as decency, is disgusted by the language used
by Horace to women who once, to him were young
and pretty, but have become old and ugly. The venom
of Cicero's abuse of Clodia annoys us, and we have
to remember that the gentle ideas which we have taken
in with our mother's milk had not grown into use
with the Romans. It is necessary that this woman's name
(13:35):
should be mentioned, and it may appear here, as she
was one of the causes of that hatred which burnt
between Clodius and Cicero till Clodius was killed in a
street row. It has been presumed that Cicero was badly
advised in presuming publicly that the new law was intended
against himself, and in taking upon himself the outward signs
(13:56):
of a man under affliction. The resolution, says Mittle, and
of changing his gown was too hasty and inconsiderate, and
helped to precipitate his ruin. He was sensible of his
error when too late and oft. Reproaches Atticus that, being
a stander by and less heated with the game than himself,
(14:16):
he would suffer him to make such blunders. And he
quotes the words written to Atticus here, My judgment first
failed me, or indeed brought me into trouble. We were
blind blind, I say, in changing our raiment and in
appealing to the populace, I handed myself and all belonging
to me over to my enemies, while you were looking on,
(14:37):
while you were holding your peace. Yes, you who, if
your wit in the matter was no better than mine,
were impeded by no personal fears. But the reader should
study the entire letter and study it in the original,
for no translator can give its true purport. This the
reader must do before he can understand Sister's state of
(14:58):
mind when writing it, or his relation to Atticus, all
the thoughts which distracted him, when in accordance with the
advice of Atticus, he resolved, while yet uncondemned to retire
into banishment. The censure to which Atticus is subjected throughout
this letter is that which a thoughtful, hesitating, scrupulous man
(15:19):
is so often disposed to address to himself. After reminding
Atticus of the sort of advice which should have been given,
the want of which in the first moment of his exile,
he regrets, and doing this in words of which it
is very difficult now to catch the exact flavor, he
begs to be pardoned for his reproaches. You will forgive me,
he says. I blame myself more than I do you.
(15:42):
But I look to you as a second self, and
I make you a sharer with me of my own folly.
I take this letter out of its course and speak
of it as connected with that terrible period of doubt
to which it refers, in which he had to decide
whether he would remain in Rome and fight it out
or run before his enemies. But in writing the letter afterward,
(16:04):
his mind was as much disturbed as when he did fly.
I am inclined therefore to think that Middleton and others
may have been wrong in blaming his flight, which they
have done, because in his subsequent vacillating moods, he blamed himself.
How the battle might have gone had he remained, We
have no evidence to show, but we do know that
(16:24):
though he fled, he returned soon with renewed glory, and
altogether overcame the attempt which had been made to destroy him.
In this time of his distress, a strong effort was
made by the Senate to rescue him. It was proposed
to them that they all as a body, should go
into mourning on his behalf. Indeed, the Senate passed a
vote to this effect, but were prevented by the two
(16:47):
consuls from carrying it out. As to what he had
best do, he and his friends were divided. Some recommended
that he should remain where he was and defend himself
by street fighting, should it be necessary. In doing this,
he would acknowledge that law no longer prevailed in Rome.
A condition of things to which many had given in
their adherents, but with which Cicero would surely have been
(17:10):
the last to comply. He himself, in his despair, thought
for a time that the old Roman mode of escape
would be preferable, and that he might, with decorum, end
his life and his troubles by suicide. Atticus and others
dissuaded him from this and recommended him to fly. Among these,
Cato and Hortensius have both been named to this advice
(17:33):
he at last yielded, and it may be doubted whether
any better could have been given. Lawlessness, which had been
rampant in Rome before, had under the triumvirate become almost lawful.
It was Caesar's intention to carry out his will with
such compliance with the forms of the republic as might
suit him, but in utter disregard to all such forms
(17:54):
when they did not suit him. The banishment of Cicero
was one of the last steps taken by Caesar before
he left Rome for his campaigns in Gaul. He was
already in command of the legions and was just without
the city he had endeavored to buy Cicero, but had failed.
Having failed, he had determined to be rid of him.
(18:17):
Claudius was but his tool, as were Pompey and the
two consuls. Had Cicero endeavored to support himself by violence
in Rome, his contest would in fact have been with Caesar. Cicero,
before he went, applied for protection personally to Piso the consul,
and to Pompey. Gabinius, the other consul, had already declared
(18:39):
his purpose to the Senate, but Piso was bound to
him by family ties. He himself relates to us in
his oration spoken after his return against this Piso, the
manner of the meeting between him and Rome's chief officer.
Piso told him so at least Cicero declared in the Senate,
and we have heard of no contradiction, that Gabinius was
(19:01):
so driven by debts as to be unable to hold
up his head without a rich province, and that he
himself Piso could only hope to get a province by
taking part with Gabinius, that any application to the consuls
was useless, and that every one must look after himself.
Concerning his appeal to Pompey, two stories have been given
(19:21):
to us, neither of which appears to be true. Plutarch
says that when Cicero had traveled out from Rome to
Pompey's alban villa, Pompey ran out of the back door
to avoid meeting him. Plutarch cared more for a good
story than for accuracy, and it is not worthy of
much credit as to details, unless when corroborated. The other
(19:43):
account is based on Cicero's assertion that he did see
Pompey on this occasion, nine or ten years after the meeting.
He refers to it in a letter to Atticus, which
leads no doubt as to the fact. The story founded
on that letter declares that Cicero threw himself bodily at
his old friend's feet, and that Pompey did not lend
a hand to raise him, but told him simply that
(20:05):
everything was in Caesar's hands. This narrative is, i think,
due to a misinterpretation of Cicero's words, though it is
given by a close translation of them. He is describing
Pompey when Caesar, after his Gallic wars, had crossed the Rubicon,
and the two late triumvirates, the third having perished miserably
(20:26):
in the East, were in arms against each other. Alter
addet fuoret sgulere. He says Caesar is pressing on unscrupulous
in his passion. Alter is quinos sibi quonda mat pedestratos
ne suble abat quidem quise nihil contre juyas l antateem
ayabat facere posse that other one, he continues, meaning Pompey,
(20:51):
and pursuing his picture of the present contrast, who in
days gone by would not even lift me when I
lay at his feet, and told me that he could
do nothing, but as Caesar wished it. This little supposed
detail of biography has been given no doubt from an
accurate reading of the words, But in it the spirit
of the writer's mind as he wrote it has surely
(21:13):
been missed. The prostration of which he spoke, from which
Pompey would not raise him, the memory of which was
still so bitter to him, was not a prostration of
the body. I hold it to have been impossible that
Cicero should have assumed such an attitude before Pompey, or
that he would have so written to Atticus. Had he
done so, it would have been neither Roman nor Ciceronian,
(21:36):
as displayed by Cicero to Pompey. He had gone to
his old ally and told him of his trouble, and
had no doubt reminded him of those promises of assistance
which Pompey had so often made. Then Pompey had refused
to help him, and had assured him with too much truth,
that Caesar's will was everything. Again, we have to remember
(21:57):
that in judging of the meaning of words which tween
two such correspondents as Cicero and Atticus, we must read
between the lines and interpret the words by creating for
ourselves something of the spirit in which they were written
and in which they were received. I cannot imagine that
in describing to Atticus what had occurred at that interview,
nine years after it had taken place, Cicero had intended
(22:20):
it to be understood that he had really groveled in
the dust. Toward the end of March, he started from Rome,
intending to take refuge among his friends in Sicily. On
the same day, Clodius brought in a bill directed against
Cicero by name, and caused it to be carried by
the people. Would Marco Tulio are quite igni in te
(22:43):
richtums seat that it should be illegal to supply Cicero
with fire and water. The law when passed for bad
anyone to harbour the criminal within four hundred miles of Rome,
and declared the doing so to be a capital offense.
It is evident from the action of those who obeyed
the law and of those who did not, that legal
(23:04):
results were not feared so much as the ill will
of those who had driven Cicero to his exile. They
who refused him succor did not do so because to
give it to him would be illegal, but lest Caesar
and Pompey would be offended. It did not last long,
and during the short period of his exile he found
perhaps more of friendship than of enmity. But he directed
(23:26):
his steps in accordance with the bearing of party spirit.
We are told that he was afraid to go to
Athens because at Athens lived that Autronius, whom he had
refused to defend. Autronius had been convicted of conspiracy and banished,
and having been a Catalinarian conspirator, had been in truth
on Caesar's side. Nor were geographical facts sufficiently established to
(23:49):
tell Cicero what places were and were not. Without the
forbidden circle. He sojourned first at Vibo, in the extreme
south of Italy, intending to pass from thence into Sis.
It was there that he learned that a certain distance
had been prescribed, But it seems that he had already
learned that the proconsular governor of the island would not
(24:10):
receive him. Fearing Caesar, then he came north from Vibo
to Brundisium, that being the port by which travelers generally
went from Italy to the east. He had determined to
leave his family in Rome, feeling probably that it would
be easier for him to find a temporary home for
himself than for him and them together. And there were
(24:33):
money difficulties in which Atticus helped him. Atticus, always wealthy,
had now become a very rich man by the death
of an uncle. We did not know of what nature
were the money arrangements made by Ciso at the time,
but there can be no doubt that the losses by
his exile were very great. There was a thorough disruption
of his property, for which the subsequent generosity of his
(24:55):
country was unable altogether to atone. But this sat likely
on Cicero's heart. Pecuniary losses never weighed heavily with him
as he journeyed back from Vibo to Brundisium. Friends were
very kind to him in spite of the law. Toward
the end of the speech, which he made five years afterward,
on behalf of his friend's he Plancius, he explains the
(25:17):
debt of gratitude which he owed to his client, whose
kindness to him in his exile had been very great.
He commences his story of the goodness of Plantius by
describing the generosity of the towns on the road to Brundisium,
and the hospitality of his friend Flavius, who had received
him at his house in the neighborhood of that town,
(25:37):
and had placed him safely on board a ship. When
at last he resolved to cross over to Drachium, there
were many schemes running in his head at this time.
At one period he had resolved to pass through Macedonia
into Asia and to remain for a while at Sisicum.
This idea he expresses in a letter to his wife
written from Brundisium, then wailing no doubt, but in words
(26:02):
which seem to me very natural as coming from a
husband in such a condition, or may perreditum or maya
flichtum exclamations which it is impossible to translate, as they
refer to his wife's separation from himself rather than to
his own personal sufferings. How am I to ask you
to come to me, he says, you a woman ill
(26:25):
in health, worn out in body and in spirit. I
cannot ask you. Must I then live without you? It
must be so, I think. If there be any hope
of my return, it is you must look to it.
You that must strengthen it. But if as I fear
the thing is done, then come to me. If I
(26:47):
can have you, I shall not be altogether destroyed. No
doubt these are wailings. But is a man unmanly because
he so wails to the wife of his bosom. Other
humans have written prissily about women. It was common for
Romans to do so. Catullus desires from Lesbia as many
kisses as are the stars of the night, are the
(27:08):
sands of Libya. Horace swears that he would perish for
Chloe if Chloe might be left alive. When I am dying,
says Tibullus to Delia, may I be gazing at you,
May my last grasp hold your hand Propertius tells Cynthia
that she stands to him in lieu of home and
parents and all the joys of life. Whether he be
(27:31):
sad with his friends or happy, Cynthia does it all.
The language in each case is perfect. But what other
Roman was there of whom we have evidence that he
spoke to his wife like this? Ovid, in his letters
from his banishment, says much of his love for his wife,
but there is no passion expressed in anything that Ovid wrote.
(27:53):
Clodius as soon as the enactment against Cicero became law,
caused it to be carried into effect, with all its
possible cruelties. The criminal's property was confiscated, The house on
the Palatine Hill was destroyed, and the goods were put
up to auction, with, as we are told, a great
lack of buyers. His choicest treasures were carried away by
(28:14):
the consuls themselves. Piso, who had lived near him in Rome,
got for himself and for his father in law the
rich booty from the town house. The country villas were
also destroyed, and Gabinius, who had a country house close
by Cicero's Tusculan retreat, took even the very shrubs out
of the garden. He tells the story of the greed
(28:36):
and enmity of the consuls in the speech he made
after his return Prodomo Sua, pleading for the restitution of
his household property. My house on the Palatine was burnt,
he says, not by any accident, but by arson. In
the meantime, the consuls were feasting and were congratulating themselves
among the conspirators, when one boasted that he had been
(28:59):
Catilines for free, and the other that Cathagus had been
his cousin. By this, he implies that the conspiracy, which
during his consulship had been so odious to Rome, was
now in these days of the Triumvirate again in favour
among Roman aristocrats. He went across from Brundisium to Diracium,
(29:20):
and from thence to Thessalonica, where he was treated with
most loving kindness by Planchius, who was quist in these parts,
and who came down to Irachium to meet him, clad
in mourning for the occasion. This was the Planchius whom
he afterward defended, and indeed he was bound to do so.
Planchius seems to have had but little dread of the law,
(29:41):
though he was a Roman officer employed in the very
province to the government of which the present consulpiso had
already been appointed. Thessalonica was within four hundred miles, and
yet Cicero lived there with Planchius for some months. The
letters from Cicero during his exile are to me very touching,
though I have been told so often that in having
(30:03):
written them he lacked the fortitude of a Roman. Perhaps
I am more capable of appreciating natural humanity than Roman fortitude.
We remembered the story of the Spartan boy who allowed
the fox to bite him beneath his frock without crying.
I think we may imagine that he refrained from tears
in public before some heard of schoolfellows or a bench
(30:25):
of masters, or amid the sternness of parental authority, but
that he told his sister afterward how he had been tortured,
or his mother as he lay against her bosom, or
perhaps his chosen chum. Such reticences are made dignified by
the occasion when something has to be won by controlling
the expression to which nature uncontrolled would give utterance, but
(30:48):
are not in themselves evidence either of sagacity or of courage.
Roman fortitude was but a suit of armor to be
worn on state occasions. If we come across a warrior
with his crested helmet and his sword and his spear,
we see, no doubt an impressive object. If we could
find him in his night shirt, the same man would
(31:09):
be there. But those who do not look deeply into
things would be apt to despise him, because his grand
trappings were absent. Chance has given us Cicero in his
night shirt. The linen is of such fine texture that
we had delighted with it. But we despise the man
because he wore a garment such as we wear ourselves. Indeed,
(31:31):
though when we wear it, nobody has then brought in
to look at us. There is one most touching letter
written from Thessalonica to his brother, by whom after thoughts
vacillating this way, and that he was unwilling to be visited,
thinking that a meeting would bring more of pain than
of service. Mifrater, mifrater, mi frater, he begins. The words
(31:56):
in English would hardly give all the pathos. Did you
think that I did not write because I am angry,
or that I did not wish to see you ay
angry with you, but I could not endure to be
seen by you. You would not have seen your brother,
not him whom you had left, not him whom you
had known, Not him whom, weeping as you went away
(32:19):
you had dismissed, weeping himself as he strove to follow you.
Then he heaps blame upon his own head, bitterly accusing
himself because he had brought his brother to such a
pass of sorrow. In this letter he throws great blame
upon Hortensius, whom, together with Pompey, he accuses of betraying him.
(32:40):
What truth there may have been in this accusation as
to Hortensius, we have no means of saying. He couples
Pompey in the same charge. And as to Pompey's treatment
of him, there can be no doubt Pompey had been
untrue to his promises because of his bond with Caesar.
It is probable that Hortensius had failed to put himself
forward on Cicero's behalf, with that all alacrity which the
(33:01):
one advocate had expected from the other. Cicero and Hortensius
were friends afterward, but so were Cicero and Pompey. Cicero
was forgiving by nature and also by self training. It
did not suit his purposes to retain his enemies. Had
there been a possibility of reconciling Antony to the cause
(33:21):
of the Optimates after the Philippis, he would have availed
himself of it. Cicero at one time intended to go
to Busrotum in a Pyrus, where Atticus possessed a house
and property, but he changed his purpose. He remained at
Thessalonica till November, and then returned to Durrachium, having all
(33:41):
through his exile been kept alive by tidings of steps
taken for his recall. There seems very soon to have
grown up a feeling in Rome that the city had
disgraced itself by banishing such a man, and Caesar had
gone to his provinces. We can well imagine that when
he had once left Rome, with all his purposes achieved,
having so far quieted the tongue of the strong speaker
(34:04):
who might have disturbed them, he would take no further
steps to perpetuate the orator's banishment. Then, Pompey and Clodius
soon quarreled. Pompey, without Caesar to direct him, found the
arrogance of the patrician tribune insupportable. We hear of wheels
within wheels, and stories within stories in the drama of
(34:26):
Roman history as it was played at this time. Together
with Cicero. It had been necessary to Caesar's projects that
Cato also should be got out of Rome, and this
had been managed by means of Clodius, who had a
bill passed for the honorable employment of Cato on state
purposes in Cyprus. Cato had found himself obliged to go.
(34:48):
It was as though our prime minister had got parliamentary
authority for sending a noisy member of the opposition to
Asiatic Turkey. For six months there was an attempt, or
an alleged attempt of Clodius to have Pompey murdered, and
there was street fighting, so that Pompey was besieged or
pretended to be besieged in his own house. We might
(35:10):
as well seek to set a sharivari to music as
to write the history of this political witch's revel says Momson,
speaking of the state of Rome. When Caesar was gone
Cicero banished, and Pompey supposed to be in the ascendant.
There was at any rate quarreling between Clodius and Pompey,
in the course of which Pompey was induced to consent
(35:32):
to Cicero's return. Then Clodius took upon himself in revenge,
to turn against the triumvirate altogether, and to repudiate even
Caesar himself. But it was all a vain, hurly burly,
as to which Caesar, when he heard the details in Gaul,
could only have felt how little was to be gained
by maintaining his alliance with Pompey. He had achieved his purpose,
(35:56):
which he could not have done without the assistance of Crassus,
whose wealth, and of Pompey, whose authority stood highest in Rome.
And now having had his legions voted to him, and
his promises and his prolonged term of years, he cared
nothing for either of them. There is a little story
which must be repeated as against Cicero in reference to
(36:19):
this period of his exile, because it has been told
in all records of his life. Were I to omit
the little story, it would seem as though I shunned
the records which have been repeated as opposed to his credit.
He had written some time back a squib in which
he had been severe upon the elder Curio, so it
is supposed, But it matters little who was the object
(36:40):
or what the subject. This had got wind in Rome,
as such matters do sometimes, and he now feared that
it would do him a mischief with the Curios and
the friends of the Curios. The authorship was only matter
of gossip. Could it not be denied? As it is written,
says Cicero, in a style inferio to that which is
(37:01):
usual to me? Can it not be shown not to
have been mine? Had Cicero possessed all the Christian virtues,
as we hope that prelates and pastors possessed them in
this happy land, he would not have been betrayed into
at any rate. The expression of such a wish as
it is. The enemies of Cicero must make the most
(37:22):
of it. His friends, I think, will look upon it leniently.
Continued efforts were made among Cicero's friends at Rome to
bring him back, with which he was not altogether contented.
He argues the matter repeatedly, with Atticus, not always in
the best temper his friends at Rome. Were he thought
doing the matter amiss, they would fail, and he would
(37:43):
still have to finish his days abroad. Atticus, in his
way to Epirus, visits him at Drachium, and he is
sure that Atticus would not have left Rome, but that
the affair was hopeless. The reader of the correspondence is
certainly led to believe that Atticus must have been the
most patient of friends, but he feels at the same
time that Attigus would not have been patient had not
(38:05):
Cicero been affectionate and true. The consuls for the new
year were Lentilus and Metellus Nepos. The former was Cicero's
declared friend, and the other had already abandoned his enmity.
Clodius was no longer Tribune, and Pompey had been brought
to yield. The Senate were all but unanimous, but there
(38:27):
was still life in Clodius and his party, and day
dragged itself after day and months after month, while Cicero
still lingered at Dracium, waiting till a bill should have
been passed by the people. Pompey, who was never wholehearted
in anything, had declared that a bill voted by the
people would be necessary. The bill at last was voted
(38:48):
on the fourteenth of August, and Cicero, who knew well
what was being done at Rome, passed over from Dracium
to Brindisium on the same day, having been a year
and four months absent from Rome. During the year BC
fifty seven. Up to the time of his return, he
wrote but three letters that have come to us, two
(39:09):
very short notes to Atticus, in the first of which
he declares that he will come over on the authority
of a decree of the Senate, without waiting for a law.
In the second, he falls again into despair, declaring that
everything is over. In the third he asks Metellus for
his aid, telling the consul that unless it be given soon,
the man for whom it is asked will no longer
(39:29):
be living to receive it. Metellus did give the aid
very cordially. It has been remarked that Cicero did nothing
for literature during his banishment, either by writing essays or
preparing speeches, and it has been implied that the prostration
of mind arising from his misfortunes must have been indeed complete.
(39:49):
When a man whose general life was made marvelous by
its fecundity, had been repressed into silence. It should, however,
be borne in mind, that there could be no inducement
for the the writing of speeches when there was no
opportunity of delivering them. As to his essays, including what
we call his philosophy and his rhetoric, they who are
(40:09):
familiar with his works will remember how apt he was
in all that he produced to refer to the writings
of others. He translates, and he quotes, and he makes
constant use of arguments of illustrations of those who have
gone before him. He was a man who rarely worked
without the use of a library. When I think how
impossible it would be for me to repeat this oft
(40:32):
told tale of Cicero's life without a crowd of books
within reach of my hand, I can easily understand why
Cicero was silent at their Salonica and Drachium. It has
been remarked also by a modern critic, that we find
in the letters from exile a carelessness and inaccuracy of expression,
(40:52):
which contrasts strongly with the style of his happier days.
I will not for a moment but my judgment in
such a matter in opposit position to that of mister Tyrrel.
But I should myself have been inclined rather to say
that the style of Cicero's letters varies constantly, being very
different when used to Atticus, or to his brother, or
to lighter friends such as Poetus and Trebatius, and very
(41:15):
different again when business of state was in hand, as
are his letters to Decimus Brutus, Cassius Brutus, and Plancus.
To be correct in familiar letters is not to charm.
A studied negligence is needed to make such work live
to posterity, a grace of loose expression, which may indeed
(41:35):
have been made easy by use, but which is far
from easy to the idle and unpracticed writer. His sorrow
perhaps required a style of its own. I have not
felt my own untutored perception of the language to be
offended by unfitting slovenliness in the expression of his grief.
(41:58):
End of Chapter twelve, End of the Life of Cicero,
Volume one by Anthony Trollop
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