Roman Life in the Days of Cicero By the REV. ALFRED J. CHURCH, M. A. 

Author of "Stories from Homer"

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

New York

TO OCTAVIUS OGLE, IN REMEMBRANCE OF A LONG FRIENDSHIP THIS BOOK ISDEDICATED. 

CONTENTS. 

CHAP. 

I. A ROMAN BOY

II. A ROMAN UNDERGRADUATE

III. IN THE DAYS OF THE DICTATOR

IV. A ROMAN MAGISTRATE

V. A GREAT ROMAN CAUSE

VI. COUNTRY LIFE

VII. A GREAT CONSPIRACY

VIII. CAESAR

IX. POMPEY

X. EXILE

XI. A BRAWL AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

XII. CATO, BRUTUS, AND PORCIA

XIII. A GOVERNOR IN HIS PROVINCE

XIV. ATTICUS

XV. ANTONY AND AUGUSTUS

PREFACE. 

This book does not claim to be a life of Cicero or a history of the lastdays of the Roman Republic. Still less does it pretend to come intocomparison with such a work as Bekker's _Gallus_, in which on a slenderthread of narrative is hung a vast amount of facts relating to thesocial life of the Romans. I have tried to group round the centralfigure of Cicero various sketches of men and manners, and so to give myreaders some idea of what life actually was in Rome, and the provincesof Rome, during the first six decades--to speak roughly--of the firstcentury B. C. I speak of Cicero as the "central figure, " not as judginghim to be the most important man of the time, but because it is fromhim, from his speeches and letters, that we chiefly derive theinformation of which I have here made use. Hence it follows that I give, not indeed a life of the great orator, but a sketch of his personalityand career. I have been obliged also to trespass on the domain ofhistory: speaking of Cicero, I was obliged to speak also of Caesar andof Pompey, of Cato and of Antony, and to give a narrative, which I havestriven to make as brief as possible, of their military achievements andpolitical action. I must apologize for seeming to speak dogmatically onsome questions which have been much disputed. It would have beenobviously inconsistent with the character of the book to give theopposing arguments; and my only course was to state simply conclusionswhich I had done my best to make correct. 

I have to acknowledge my obligations to Marquardt's _Privat-Leben derRomer_, Mr. Capes' _University Life in Ancient Athens_, and Mr. Watson's_Select Letters of Cicero_, I have also made frequent use of Mr. AnthonyTrollope's _Life of Cicero_, a work full of sound sense, thoughcuriously deficient in scholarship. 

The publishers and myself hope that the illustrations, giving as thereis good reason to believe they do the veritable likenesses of some ofthe chief actors in the scenes described, will have a special interest. It is not till we come down to comparatively recent times that we findart again lending the same aid to the understanding of history. 

Some apology should perhaps be made for retaining the popular title ofone of the illustrations. The learned are, we believe, agreed that thestatue known as the "Dying Gladiator" does not represent a gladiator atall. Yet it seemed pedantic, in view of Byron's famous description, tolet it appear under any other name. 

ALFRED CHURCH. 

HADLEY GREEN _October_ 8, 1883. 

 ROMAN LIFE IN THE DAYS OF CICERO. 

CHAPTER I. 

A ROMAN BOY. 

A Roman father's first duty to his boy, after lifting him up in his armsin token that he was a true son of the house, was to furnish him with afirst name out of the scanty list (just seventeen) to which his choicewas limited. This naming was done on the eighth day after birth, and wasaccompanied with some religious ceremonies, and with a feast to whichkinsfolk were invited. Thus named he was enrolled in some family orstate register. The next care was to protect him from the malignantinfluence of the evil eye by hanging round his neck a gilded _bulla_, around plate of metal. (The _bulla_ was of leather if he was not ofgentle birth. ) This he wore till he assumed the dress of manhood. Thenhe laid it aside, possibly to assume it once more, if he attained thecrowning honor to which a Roman could aspire, and was drawn in triumphup the slope of the Capitol. He was nursed by his mother, or, in anycase, by a free-born woman. It was his mother that had exclusive chargeof him for the first seven years of his life, and had much to say to theordering of his life afterwards. For Roman mothers were not shut up liketheir sisters in Greece, but played no small part in affairs--witnessthe histories or legends (for it matters not for this purpose whetherthey are fact or fiction) of the Sabine wives, of Tullia, who stirred upher husband to seize a throne, or Veturia, who turned her son Coriolanusfrom his purpose of besieging Rome. At seven began the education whichwas to make him a citizen and a soldier. Swimming, riding, throwing thejavelin developed his strength of body. He learned at the same time tobe frugal, temperate in eating and drinking, modest and seemly inbehavior, reverent to his elders, obedient to authority at home andabroad, and above all, pious towards the gods. If it was the duty ofthe father to act as priest in some temple of the State (for thepriests were not a class apart from their fellow-citizens), or toconduct the worship in some chapel of the family, the lad would act as_camillus_ or acolyte. When the clients, the dependents of the house, trooped into the hall in the early morning hours to pay their respectsto their patron, or to ask his advice and assistance in their affairs, the lad would stand by his father's chair and make acquaintance with hishumble friends. When the hall was thrown open, and high festival washeld, he would be present and hear the talk on public affairs or on pasttimes. He would listen to and sometimes take part in the songs whichcelebrated great heroes. When the body of some famous soldier orstatesman was carried outside the walls to be buried or burned, he wouldbe taken to hear the oration pronounced over the bier. 

At one time it was the custom, if we may believe a quaint story whichone of the Roman writers tells us, for the senators to introduce theiryoung sons to the sittings of their assembly, very much in the same wayas the boys of Westminster School are admitted to hear the debates inthe Houses of Parliament. The story professes to show how it was thatone of the families of the race of Papirius came to bear the name of_Praetextatus_, i. E. , clad in the _praetexta_ (the garb of boyhood), andit runs thus:--"It was the custom in the early days of the Roman Statethat the senators should bring their young sons into the Senate to theend that they might learn in their early days how great affairs of thecommonwealth were managed. And that no harm should ensue to the city, itwas strictly enjoined upon the lads that they should not say aught ofthe things which they had heard within the House. It happened on a daythat the Senate, after long debate upon a certain matter, adjourned thething to the morrow. Hereupon the son of a certain senator, namedPapirius, was much importuned by his mother to tell the matter which hadbeen thus painfully debated. And when the lad, remembering the commandwhich had been laid upon him that he should be silent about suchmatters, refused to tell it, the woman besought him to speak moreurgently, till at the last, being worn out by her importunities, hecontrived this thing. 'The Senate, ' he said, 'debated whether somethingmight not be done whereby there should be more harmony in families thanis now seen to be; and whether, should it be judged expedient to makeany change, this should be to order that a husband should have manywives, or a wife should have more husbands than one. ' Then the woman, being much disturbed by the thing which she had heard, hastened to allthe matrons of her acquaintance, and stirred them up not to suffer anysuch thing. Thus it came to pass that the Senate, meeting the next day, were astonished beyond measure to see a great multitude of womengathered together at the doors, who besought them not to make anychange; or, if any, certainly not to permit that a man should have morewives than one. Then the young Papirius told the story how his motherhad questioned him, and how he had devised this story to escape from herimportunity. Thereupon the Senate, judging that all boys might not havethe same constancy and wit, and that the State might suffer damage fromthe revealing of things that had best be kept secret, made this law, that no sons of a senator should thereafter come into the House, saveonly this young Papirius, but that he should have the right to come solong as he should wear the _praetexta_. "

While this general education was going on, the lad was receiving somedefinite teaching. He learned of course to read, to write, and tocypher. The elder Cato used to write in large characters for the benefitof his sons portions of history, probably composed by himself or by hiscontemporary Fabius, surnamed the "Painter" (the author of a chronicleof Italy from the landing of Aeneas down to the end of the Second PunicWar). He was tempted to learn by playthings, which ingeniously combinedinstruction and amusement. Ivory letters--probably in earlier times aless costly material was used--were put into his hands, just as they areput into the hands of children now-a-days, that he might learn how toform words. As soon as reading was acquired, he began to learn by heart. "When we were boys, " Cicero represents himself as saying to his brotherQuintus, in one of his Dialogues, "we used to learn the 'TwelveTables. '" The "Twelve Tables" were the laws which Appius of evil fameand his colleagues the decemvirs had arranged in a code. "No one, " hegoes on to say, "learns them now. " Books had become far more common inthe forty years which had passed between Cicero's boyhood and the timeat which he is supposed to be speaking; and the tedious lesson of hisearly days had given place to something more varied and interesting. 

Writing the boy learned by following with the pen (a sharp-pointed_stylus_ of metal), forms of letters which had been engraved on tabletsof wood. At first his hand was held and guided by the teacher. This wasjudged by the experienced to be a better plan than allowing him to shapeletters for himself on the wax-covered tablet. Of course parchment andpaper were far too expensive materials to be used for exercises andcopies. As books were rare and costly, dictation became a matter of muchimportance. The boy wrote, in part at least, his own schoolbooks. Horaceremembers with a shudder what he had himself written at the dictation ofhis schoolmaster, who was accustomed to enforce good writing andspelling with many blows. He never could reconcile himself to the earlypoets whose verse had furnished the matter of these lessons. 

Our Roman boy must have found arithmetic a more troublesome thing thanthe figures now in use (for which we cannot be too thankful to the Arabstheir inventors) have made it. It is difficult to imagine how any thinglike a long sum in multiplication or division could have been done withthe Roman numerals, so cumbrous were they. The number, for instance, which we represent by the figures 89 would require for its expression noless than _nine_ figures, LXXXVIIII. The boy was helped by using thefingers, the left hand being used to signify numbers below a hundred, and the right numbers above it. Sometimes his teacher would have acounting-board, on which units, tens, and hundreds would be representedby variously colored balls. The sums which he did were mostly of apractical kind. Here is the sample that Horace gives of an arithmeticlesson. "The Roman boys are taught to divide the penny by longcalculations. 'If from five ounces be subtracted one, what is theremainder?' At once you can answer, 'A third of a penny. ' 'Good, youwill be able to take care of your money. If an ounce be added what doesit make?' 'The half of a penny. '"

While he was acquiring this knowledge he was also learning a language, the one language besides his own which to a Roman was worthknowing--Greek. Very possibly he had begun to pick it up in the nursery, where a Greek slave girl was to be found, just as the French _bonne_ orthe German nursery-governess is among our own wealthier families. Hecertainly began to acquire it when he reached the age at which hisregular education was commenced. Cato the Elder, though he made it apractice to teach his own sons, had nevertheless a Greek slave who wascapable of undertaking the work, and who actually did teach, to theprofit of his very frugal master, the sons of other nobles. Aemilius, the conqueror of Macedonia, who was a few years younger than Cato, hadas a tutor a Greek of some distinction. While preparing the processionof his triumph he had sent to Athens for a scene-painter, as we shouldcall him, who might make pictures of conquered towns wherewith toillustrate his victories. He added to the commission a stipulation thatthe artist should also be qualified to take the place of tutor. By goodfortune the Athenians happened to have in stock, so to speak, exactlythe man he wanted, one Metrodorus. Cicero had a Greek teacher in his ownfamily, not for his son indeed, who was not born till later, but for hisown benefit. This was one Diodotus, a Stoic philosopher. Cicero had beenhis pupil in his boyhood, and gave him a home till the day of his death, "I learned many things from him, logic especially. " In old age he losthis sight. "Yet, " says his pupil, "he devoted himself to study even morediligently than before; he had books read to him night and day. Thesewere studies which he could pursue without his eyes; but he also, andthis seems almost incredible, taught geometry without them, instructinghis learners whence and whither the line was to be drawn, and of whatkind it was to be. " It is interesting to know that when the old man diedhe left his benefactor about nine thousand pounds. 

Of course only wealthy Romans could command for their sons the servicesof such teachers as Diodotus; but any well-to-do-household contained aslave who had more or less acquaintance with Greek. In Cicero's time acentury and more of conquests on the part of Rome over Greek andGreek-speaking communities had brought into Italian families a vastnumber of slaves who knew the Greek language, and something, often agood deal, of Greek literature. One of these would probably be set apartas the boy's attendant; from him he would learn to speak and read alanguage, a knowledge of which was at least as common at Rome as is aknowledge of French among English gentlemen. 

If the Roman boy of whom we are speaking belonged to a very wealthy anddistinguished family, he would probably receive his education at home. Commonly he would go to school. There were schools, girls' schools aswell as boys' schools, at Rome in the days of the wicked AppiusClaudius. The schoolmaster appears among the Etruscans in the story ofCamillus, when the traitor, who offers to hand over to the Roman generalthe sons of the chief citizen of Falerii, is at his command scourgedback into the town by his scholars. We find him again in the same storyin the Latin town of Tusculum, where it is mentioned as one of the signsof a time of profound peace (Camillus had hurriedly marched against thetown on a false report of its having revolted), that the hum of scholarsat their lessons was heard in the market-place. At Rome, as time wenton, and the Forum became more and more busy and noisy, the schools wereremoved to more suitable localities. Their appliances for teaching wereimproved and increased. Possibly maps were added, certainly readingbooks. Homer was read, and, as we have seen, the old Latin play-writers, and, afterwards, Virgil. Horace threatens the book which willfullyinsists on going out into the world with this fate, that old age willfind it in a far-off suburb teaching boys their letters. Some hundredyears afterwards the prophecy was fulfilled. Juvenal tells us how theschoolboys stood each with a lamp in one hand and a well-thumbed Horaceor sooty Virgil in the other. Quintilian, writing about the same time, goes into detail, as becomes an old schoolmaster. "It is an admirablepractice that the boy's reading should begin with Homer and Virgil. Thetragic writers also are useful; and there is much benefit to be got fromthe lyric poets also. But here you must make a selection not of authorsonly, but a part of authors. " It is curious to find him banishingaltogether a book that is, or certainly was, more extensively used inour schools than any other classic, the Heroides of Ovid. 

These, and such as these, then, are the books which our Roman boy wouldhave to read. Composition would not be forgotten. "Let him take, " saysthe author just quoted, "the fables of Aesop and tell them in simplelanguage, never rising above the ordinary level. Then let him pass on toa style less plain; then, again, to bolder paraphrases, sometimesshortening, sometimes amplifying the original, but always following hissense. " He also suggests the writing of themes and characters. Oneexample he gives is this, "Was Crates the philosopher right when, havingmet an ignorant boy, he administered a beating to his teacher?" Manysubjects of these themes have been preserved. Hannibal was naturallyone often chosen. His passage of the Alps, and the question whether heshould have advanced on the city immediately after the battle of Cannae, were frequently discussed. Cicero mentions a subject of the speculativekind. "It is forbidden to a stranger to mount the wall. A. Mounts thewall, but only to help the citizens in repelling their enemies. Has A. Broken the law?"

To make these studies more interesting to the Roman boy, hisschoolmaster called in the aid of emulation. "I feel sure, " saysQuintilian, "that the practice which I remember to have been employed bymy own teachers was any thing but useless. They were accustomed todivide the boys into classes, and they set us to speak in the order ofour powers; every one taking his turn according to his proficiency. Ourperformances were duly estimated; and prodigious were the struggleswhich we had for victory. To be the head of one's class was consideredthe most glorious thing conceivable. But the decision was not made oncefor all. The next month brought the vanquished an opportunity ofrenewing the contest. He who had been victorious in the first encounterwas not led by success to relax his efforts, and a feeling of vexationimpelled the vanquished to do away with the disgrace of defeat. Thispractice, I am sure, supplied a keener stimulus to learning than did allthe exhortations of our teachers, the care of our tutors, and the wishesof our parents. " Nor did the schoolmaster trust to emulation alone. Thethird choice of the famous Winchester line, "Either learn, or go: thereis yet another choice--to be flogged, " was liberally employed. Horacecelebrates his old schoolmaster as a "man of many blows, " and anotherdistinguished pupil of this teacher, the Busby or Keate of antiquity, has specified the weapons which he employed, the ferule and the thong. The thong is the familiar "tawse" of schools north of the Border. Theferule was a name given both to the bamboo and to the yellow cane, whichgrew plentifully both in the islands of the Greek Archipelago and inSouthern Italy, as notably at Cannae in Apulia, where it gave a name tothe scene of the great battle. The _virga_ was also used, a rodcommonly of birch, a tree the educational use of which had been alreadydiscovered. The walls of Pompeii indeed show that the practice of Etonis truly classical down to its details. 

As to the advantage of the practice opinions were divided. Oneenthusiastic advocate goes so far as to say that the Greek word for acane signifies by derivation, "the sharpener of the young" (_narthex, nearous thegein_), but the best authorities were against it. Seneca isindignant with the savage who will "butcher" a young learner because hehesitates at a word--a venial fault indeed, one would think, when weremember what must have been the aspect of a Roman book, written as itwas in capitals, almost without stops, and with little or no distinctionbetween the words. And Quintilian is equally decided, though he allowsthat flogging was an "institution. "

As to holidays the practice of the Roman schools probably resembled thatwhich prevails in the Scotch Universities, though with a lessmagnificent length of vacation. Every one had a holiday on the "days ofSaturn" (a festival beginning on the seventeenth of December), and theschoolboys had one of their own on the "days of Minerva, " which fell inthe latter half of March; but the "long vacation" was in the summer. Horace speaks of lads carrying their fees to school on the fifteenth ofthe month for eight months in the year (if this interpretation of adoubtful passage is correct). Perhaps as this was a country school theholidays were made longer than usual, to let the scholars take theirpart in the harvest, which as including the vintage would not be overtill somewhat late in the autumn. We find Martial, however, imploring aschoolmaster to remember that the heat of July was not favorable tolearning, and suggesting that he should abdicate his seat till thefifteenth of October brought a season more convenient for study. Romeindeed was probably deserted in the later summer and autumn by thewealthier class, who were doubtless disposed to agree in the poet'sremark, a remark to which the idlest schoolboy will forgive its Latinfor the sake of its admirable sentiment:

 "Aestate pueri si valent satis discunt. " "In summer boys learn enough, if they keep their health. "

Something, perhaps, may be said of the teachers, into whose hands theboys of Rome were committed. We have a little book, of not more thantwoscore pages in all, which gives us "lives of illustriousschoolmasters;" and from which we may glean a few facts. The firstbusiness of a schoolmaster was to teach grammar, and grammar Rome owed, as she owed most of her knowledge, to a Greek, a certain Crates, whocoming as ambassador from one of the kings of Asia Minor, broke his legwhile walking in the ill-paved streets of Rome, and occupied his leisureby giving lectures at his house. Most of the early teachers were Greeks. Catulus bought a Greek slave for somewhat more than fifteen hundredpounds, and giving him his freedom set him up as a schoolmaster; anotherof the same nation received a salary of between three and four hundredpounds, his patron taking and probably making a considerable profit outof the pupils' fees. Orbilius, the man of blows, was probably of Greekdescent. He had been first a beadle, then a trumpeter, then a trooper inhis youth, and came to Rome in the year in which Cicero was consul. Heseems to have been as severe on the parents of his pupils as he was inanother way on the lads themselves, for he wrote a book in which heexposed their meanness and ingratitude. His troubles, however, did notprevent him living to the great age of one hundred and three. The authorof the little book about schoolmasters had seen his statue in his nativetown. It was a marble figure, in a sitting posture, with two writingdesks beside it. The favorite authors of Orbilius, who was of theold-fashioned school, were, as has been said, the early dramatists. Caecilius, a younger man, to whom Atticus the friend and correspondentof Cicero gave his freedom, lectured on Virgil, with whom, as he wasintimate with one of Virgil's associates, he probably had someacquaintance. A certain Flaccus had the credit of having first inventedprizes. He used to pit lads of equal age against each other, supplyingnot only a subject on which to write, but a prize for the victor. Thiswas commonly some handsome or rare old book. Augustus made him tutor tohis grandsons, giving him a salary of eight hundred pounds per annum. Twenty years later, a fashionable schoolmaster is said to have madebetween three and four thousands. 

These schoolmasters were also sometimes teachers of eloquence, lecturingto men. One Gnipho, for instance, is mentioned among them, as havingheld his classes in the house of Julius Caesar (Caesar was left anorphan at fifteen); and afterwards, when his distinguished pupil wasgrown up, in his own. But Cicero, when he was praetor, and at the veryheight of his fame, is said to have attended his lectures. This was theyear in which he delivered the very finest of his non-politicalspeeches, his defence of Cluentius. He must have been a very cleverteacher from whom so great an orator hoped to learn something. 

These teachers of eloquence were what we may call the "Professors" ofRome. A lad had commonly "finished his education" when he put on the"man's gown;" but if he thought of political life, of becoming astatesman, and taking office in the commonwealth, he had much yet tolearn. He had to make himself a lawyer and an orator. Law he learned byattaching himself, by becoming the pupil, as we should say, of somegreat man that was famed for his knowledge. Cicero relates to us his ownexperience: "My father introduced me to the Augur Scaevola; and theresult was that, as far as possible and permissible, I never left theold man's side. Thus I committed to memory many a learned argument ofhis, many a terse and clever maxim, while I sought to add to my ownknowledge from his stores of special learning. When the Augur died Ibetook myself to the Pontiff of the same name and family. " Elsewhere wehave a picture of this second Scaevola and his pupils. "Though he didnot undertake to give instruction to any one, yet he practically taughtthose who were anxious to listen to him by allowing them to hear hisanswers to those who consulted him. " These consultations took placeeither in the Forum or at his own house. In the Forum the great lawyerindicated that clients were at liberty to approach by walking across theopen space from corner to corner. The train of young Romans would thenfollow his steps, just as the students follow the physician or thesurgeon through the wards of a hospital. When he gave audience at homethey would stand by his chair. It must be remembered that the great mantook no payment either from client or from pupil. 

But the young Roman had not only to learn law, he must also learn how tospeak-learn, as far as such a thing can be learned, how to be eloquent. What we in this country call the career of the public man was therecalled the career of the orator. With us it is much a matter of chancewhether a man can speak or not. We have had statesmen who wielded allthe power that one man ever can wield in this country who had no sort ofeloquence. We have had others who had this gift in the highest degree, but never reached even one of the lower offices in the government. Sometimes a young politician will go to a professional teacher to getcured of some defect or trick of speech; but that such teaching is partof the necessary training of a statesman is an idea quite strange to us. A Roman received it as a matter of course. Of course, like other thingsat Rome, it made its way but slowly. Just before the middle of thesecond century b. C. The Senate resolved: "Seeing that mention has beenmade of certain philosophers and rhetoricians, let Pomponius the praetorsee to it, as he shall hold it to be for the public good, and for hisown honor, that none such be found at Rome. " Early in the first centurythe censors issued an edict forbidding certain Latin rhetoricians toteach. One of these censors was the great orator Crassus, greatest ofall the predecessors of Cicero. Cicero puts into his mouth an apologyfor this proceeding: "I was not actuated by any hostility to learning orculture. These Latin rhetoricians were mere ignorant pretenders, inefficient imitators of their Greek rivals, from whom the Roman youthwere not likely to learn any thing but impudence. " In spite of thecensors, however, and in spite of the fashionable belief in Rome thatwhat was Greek must be far better than what was of native growth, theLatin teachers rose into favor. "I remember, " says Cicero, "when we wereboys, one Lucius Plotinus, who was the first to teach eloquence inLatin; how, when the studious youth of the capital crowded to hear himit vexed me much, that I was not permitted to attend him. I was checked, however, by the opinion of learned men, who held that in this matter theabilities of the young were more profitably nourished by exercises inGreek. " We are reminded of our own Doctor Johnson, who declared thathe would not disgrace the walls of Westminster Abbey by an epitaph inEnglish. 

The chief part of the instruction which these teachers gave was topropose imaginary cases involving some legal difficulty for their pupilsto discuss. One or two of these cases may be given. 

One day in summer a party of young men from Rome made an excursion toOstia, and coming down to the seashore found there some fishermen whowere about to draw in a net. With these they made a bargain that theyshould have the draught for a certain sum. The money was paid. When thenet was drawn up no fish were found in it, but a hamper sewn with threadof gold. The buyers allege this to be theirs as the draught of the net. The fishermen claim it as not being fish. To whom did it belong?

Certain slave-dealers, landing a cargo of slaves at Brundisium, andhaving with them a very beautiful boy of great value, fearing lest thecustom-house officers should lay hands upon him, put upon him the_bulla_ and the purple-edged robe that free-born lads were wont to wear. The deceit was not discovered. But when they came to Rome, and thematter was talked of, it was maintained that the boy was really free, seeing that it was his master who of his own free will had given him thetoken of freedom. 

I shall conclude this chapter with a very pretty picture, which a Romanpoet draws of the life which he led with his teacher in the days when hewas first entering upon manhood. "When first my timid steps lost theguardianship of the purple stripe, and the _bulla_ of the boy was hungup for offering to the quaint household gods; when flattering comradescame about me, and I might cast my eyes without rebuke over the wholebusy street under the shelter of the yet unsullied gown; in the dayswhen the path is doubtful, and the wanderer knowing naught of life comeswith bewildered soul to the many-branching roads--then I made myselfyour adopted child. You took at once into the bosom of another Socratesmy tender years; your rule, applied with skillful disguise, straightenseach perverse habit; nature is molded by reason, and struggles to besubdued, and assumes under your hands its plastic lineaments. Ay, well Imind how I would wear away long summer suns with you, and pluck with youthe bloom of night's first hours. One work we had, one certain time forrest, and at one modest table unbent from sterner thoughts. "

It accords with this charming picture to be told that the pupil, dyingin youth, left his property to his old tutor, and that the latter handedit over to the kinsfolk of the deceased, keeping for himself the booksonly. 

CHAPTER II. 

A ROMAN UNDERGRADUATE. 

In the last chapter we had no particular "Roman Boy" in view; but our"Roman Undergraduate" will be a real person, Cicero's son. It will beinteresting to trace the notices which we find of him in his father'sletters and books. "You will be glad to hear, " he writes in one of hisearliest letters to Atticus, "that a little son has been born to me, andthat Terentia is doing well. " From time to time we hear of him, andalways spoken of in terms of the tenderest affection. He is his"honey-sweet Cicero, " his "little philosopher. " When the father is inexile the son's name is put on the address of his letters along withthose of his mother and sister. His prospects are the subject of mostanxious thought. Terentia, who had a considerable fortune of her own, proposes to sell an estate. "Pray think, " he writes, "what will happento us. If the same ill fortune shall continue to pursue us, what willhappen to our unhappy boy? I cannot write any more. My tears fairlyoverpower me; I should be sorry to make you as sad as myself. I will sayso much. If my friends do their duty by me, I shall not want for money;if they do not, your means will not save me. I do implore you, by allour troubles, do not ruin the poor lad. Indeed he is ruined enoughalready. If he has only something to keep him from want, then modestmerit and moderate good fortune will give him all he wants. "

Appointed to the government of Cilicia, Cicero takes his son with himinto the province. When he starts on his campaign against the mountaintribes, the boy and his cousin, young Quintus, are sent to the court ofDeiotarus, one of the native princes of Galatia. "The young Ciceros, " hewrites to Atticus, "are with Deiotarus. If need be, they will be takento Rhodes. " Atticus, it may be mentioned, was uncle to Quintus, andmight be anxious about him. The need was probably the case of the oldprince himself marching to Cicero's help. This he had promised to do, but the campaign was finished without him. This was in the year 51 B. C. , and Marcus was nearly fourteen years old, his cousin being his senior byabout two years. "They are very fond of each other, " writes Cicero;"they learn, they amuse themselves together, but one wants the rein, theother the spur. " (Doubtless the latter is the writer's son. ) "I am veryfond of Dionysius their teacher: the lads say that he is apt to getfuriously angry. But a more learned and more blameless man there doesnot live. " A year or so afterwards he seems to have thought lessfavorably of him. "I let him go reluctantly when I thought of him as thetutor of the two lads, but quite willingly as an ungrateful fellow. " InB. C. 49, when the lad was about half through his sixteenth year, Cicero"gave him his _toga_. " To take the _toga_, that is to exchange the gownof the boy with its stripe of purple for the plain white gown of thecitizen, marked the beginning of independence (though indeed a Roman'sson was even in mature manhood under his father's control). The ceremonytook place at Arpinum, much to the delight of the inhabitants, who feltof course the greatest pride and interest in their famousfellow-townsman. But it was a sad time. "There and every where as Ijourneyed I saw sorrow and dismay. The prospect of this vast trouble issad indeed. " The "vast trouble" was the civil war between Caesar andPompey. This indeed had already broken out. While Cicero wasentertaining his kinsfolk and friends at Arpinum, Pompey was preparingto fly from Italy. The war was probably not an unmixed evil to a lad whowas just beginning to think himself a man. He hastened across theAdriatic to join his father's friend, and was appointed to the commandof a squadron of auxiliary cavalry. His maneuvers were probably assistedby some veteran subordinate; but his I seat on horseback, his skill withthe javelin, and his general soldierly qualities were highly praisedboth by his chief and by his comrades. After the defeat at Pharsalia hewaited with his father at Brundisium till a kind letter from Caesarassured him of pardon. In B. C. 46 he was made aedile at Arpinum, hiscousin being appointed at the same time. The next year he would havegladly resumed his military career. Fighting was going on in Spain, where the sons of Pompey were holding out against the forces of Caesar;and the young Cicero, who was probably not very particular on which sidehe drew his sword, was ready to take service against the son of his oldgeneral. Neither the cause nor the career pleased the father, and theson's wish was overruled, just as an English lad has sometimes to giveup the unremunerative profession of arms, when there is a living in thefamily, or an opening in a bank, or a promising connection with a firmof solicitors. It was settled that he should take up his residence atAthens, which was then the university of Rome, not indeed exactly in thesense in which Oxford and Cambridge are the universities of England, butstill a place of liberal culture, where the sons of wealthy Romanfamilies were accustomed to complete their education. Four-and-twentyyears before the father had paid a long visit to the city, partly forstudy's sake. "In those days, " he writes, "I was emaciated and feeble toa degree; my neck was long and thin; a habit of body and a figure thatare thought to indicate much danger to life, if aggravated by alaborious profession and constant straining of the voice. My friendsthought the more of this, because in those days I was accustomed todeliver all my speeches without any relaxation of effort, without anyvariety, at the very top of my voice, and with most abundantgesticulation. At first, when friends and physicians advised me toabandon advocacy for a while, I felt that I would sooner run any riskthan relinquish the hope of oratorical distinction. Afterwards Ireflected that by learning to moderate and regulate my voice, andchanging my style of speaking, I might both avert the danger thatthreatened my health and also acquire a more self-controlled manner. Itwas a resolve to break through the habits I had formed that induced meto travel to the East. I had practiced for two years, and my name hadbecome well known when I left Rome. Coming to Athens I spent six monthswith Antiochus, the most distinguished and learned philosopher of theOld Academy, than whom there was no wiser or more famous teacher. At thesame time I practiced myself diligently under the care of DemetriusSyrus, an old and not undistinguished master of eloquence. " To Athens, then, Cicero always looked back with affection. He hears, for instance, that Appius is going to build a portico at Eleusis. "Will you think me afool, " he writes to Atticus, "if I do the same at the Academy? 'I thinkso, ' you will say. But I love Athens, the very place, much; and I shallbe glad to have some memorial of me there. "

The new undergraduate, as we should call him, was to have a liberalallowance. "He shall have as much as Publilius, as much as Lentulus theFlamen, allow their sons. " It would be interesting to know the amount, but unhappily this cannot be recovered. All that we know is that therichest young men in Rome were not to have more. "I will guarantee, "writes this liberal father, "that none of the three young men [whom henames] who, I hear, will be at Athens at the same time shall live atmore expense than he will be able to do on those rents. " These "rents"were the incomings from certain properties at Rome. "Only, " he adds, "Ido not think he will want a horse. "

We know something of the university buildings, so to speak, which theyoung Cicero found at Athens. "To seek for truth among the groves ofAcademus" is the phrase by which a more famous contemporary, the poetHorace, describes his studies at Athens. He probably uses it generallyto express philosophical pursuits; taken strictly it would mean that heattached himself to the sage whose pride it was to be the successor ofPlato. Academus was a local hero, connected with the legend of Theseusand Helen. Near his grove, or sacred inclosure, which adjoined the roadto Eleusis, Plato had bought a garden. It was but a small spot, purchased for a sum which maybe represented by about three or fourhundred pounds of our money, but it had been enlarged by the liberalityof successive benefactors. This then was one famous lecture-room. Another was the Lyceum. Here Aristotle had taught, and after Aristotle, Theophrastus, and after him, a long succession of thinkers of the sameschool. A third institution of the same kind was the garden in whichEpicurus had assembled his disciples, and which he bequeathed totrustees for their benefit and the benefit of their successors for alltime. 

To a Roman of the nobler sort these gardens and buildings must have beenas holy places. It was with these rather than with the temples of godsthat he connected what there was of goodness and purity in his life. Toworship Jupiter or Romulus did not make him a better man, though itmight be his necessary duty as a citizen; his real religion, as weunderstand it, was his reverence for Plato or Zeno. Athens to him wasnot only what Athens, but what the Holy Land is to us. Cicero describessomething of this feeling in the following passage: "We had beenlistening to Antiochus (a teacher of the Academics) in the school calledthe Ptolemaeus, where he was wont to lecture. Marcus Piso was with me, and my brother Quintus, and Atticus, and Lucius Cicero, by relationshipa cousin, in affection a brother. We agreed among ourselves to finishour afternoon walk in the Academy, chiefly because that place was surenot to be crowded at that hour. At the proper time we met at Piso'shouse; thence, occupied with varied talk, we traversed the six furlongsthat lie between the Double Gate and the Academy; and entering the wallswhich can give such good reason for their fame, found there the solitudewhich we sought. 'Is it, ' said Piso, 'by some natural instinct orthrough some delusion that when we see the very spots where famous menhave lived we are far more touched than when we hear of the things thatthey have done, or read something that they have written? It is thusthat I am affected at this moment. I think of Plato, who was, we aretold, the first who lectured in this place; his little garden which liesthere close at hand seems not only to remind me of him, but actually tobring him up before my eyes. Here spake Speusippus, here Xenocrates, here his disciple Polemo--to Polemo indeed belonged this seat which wehave before us. '" This was the Polemo who had been converted, as weshould say, when, bursting in after a night of revel upon a lecture inwhich Xenocrates was discoursing of temperance, he listened to suchpurpose that from that moment he became a changed man. Then Atticusdescribes how he found the same charms of association in the gardenwhich had belonged to his own master, Epicurus; while Quintus Cicerosupplies what we should call the classical element by speaking ofSophocles and the grove of Colonus, still musical, it seems, with thesame song of the nightingale which had charmed the ear of the poet morethan three centuries before. 

One or other, perhaps more than one, of these famous places the youngCicero frequented. He probably witnessed, he possibly took part (forstrangers were admitted to membership) in, the celebrations with whichthe college of Athenian youths (Ephebi) commemorated the glories oftheir city, the procession to the tombs of those who died at Marathon, and the boat-races in the Bay of Salamis. That he gave his father sometrouble is only too certain. His private tutor in rhetoric, as we shouldcall him, was a certain Gorgias, a man of ability, and a writer of somenote, but a worthless and profligate fellow. Cicero peremptorily orderedhis son to dismiss him; and the young man seems to have obeyed andreformed. We may hope at least that the repentance which he expressesfor his misdoings in a letter to Tiro, his father's freedman, wasgenuine. This is his picture of his life in the days of repentance andsoberness: "I am on terms of the closest intimacy with Cratippus, livingwith him more as a son than as a pupil. Not only do I hear his lectureswith delight, but I am greatly taken with the geniality which ispeculiar to the man. I spend whole days with him, and often no smallpart of the night; for I beg him to dine with me as often as he can. This has become so habitual with him that he often looks in upon us atdinner when we are not expecting him; he lays aside the sternness of thephilosopher and jokes with us in the pleasantest fashion. As forBruttius, he never leaves me; frugal and strict as is his life, he isyet a most delightful companion. For we do not entirely banish mirthfrom our daily studies in philology. I have hired a lodging for himclose by; and do my best to help his poverty out of my own narrow means. I have begun to practice Greek declamation with Cassius, and wish tohave a Latin course with Bruttius. My friends and daily companions arethe pupils whom Cratippus brought with him from Mitylene, well-read men, of whom he highly approves. I also see much of Epicrates, who is thefirst man at Athens. " After some pleasant words to Tiro, who had boughta farm, and whom he expects to find turned into a farmer, bringingstores, holding consultations with his bailiff, and putting byfruit-seeds in his pocket from dessert, he says, "I should be glad ifyou would send me as quickly as possible a copyist, a Greek bypreference. I have to spend much pains on writing out my notes. "

A short time before one of Cicero's friends had sent a satisfactoryreport of the young man's behavior to his father. "I found your sondevoted to the most laudable studies and enjoying an excellentreputation for steadiness. Don't fancy, my dear Cicero, that I say thisto please you; there is not in Athens a more lovable young man than yourson, nor one more devoted to those high pursuits in which you would havehim interested. "

Among the contemporaries of the young Cicero was, as has been said, thepoet Horace. His had been a more studious boyhood. He had not been takenaway from his books to serve as a cavalry officer under Pompey. In himaccordingly we see the regular course of the studies of a Roman lad. "It was my lot, " he says, "to be bred up at Rome, and to be taught howmuch the wrath of Achilles harmed the Greeks. In other words, he hadread his Homer, just as an English boy reads him at Eton or Harrow. "Kind Athens, " he goes on, "added a little more learning, to the endthat I might be able to distinguish right from wrong, and to seek fortruth amongst the groves of Academus. " And just in the same way theEnglish youth goes on to read philosophy at Oxford. 

The studies of the two young men were interrupted by the same cause, thecivil war which followed the death of Caesar. They took service withBrutus, both having the same rank, that of military tribune, a commandanswering more or less nearly to that of colonel in our own army. Itwas, however, mainly an ornamental rank, being bestowed sometimes byfavor of the general in command, sometimes by a popular vote. The youngCicero indeed had already served, and he now distinguished himselfgreatly, winning some considerable successes in the command of thecavalry which Brutus afterwards gave him. When the hopes of the partywere crushed at Phillippi, he joined the younger Pompey in Sicily; buttook an opportunity of an amnesty which was offered four yearsafterwards to return to Rome. Here he must have found his oldfellow-student, who had also reconciled himself to the victorious party. He was made one of the college of augurs, and also a commissioner of themint, and in B. C. 30 he had the honour of sharing the consulship withAugustus himself. It was to him that the dispatch announcing the finaldefeat and death of Antony was delivered; and it fell to him to executethe decree which ordered the destruction of all the statues of thefallen chief. "Then, " says Plutarch, "by the ordering of heaven thepunishment of Antony was inflicted at last by the house of Cicero. " Histime of office ended, he went as Governor to Asia, or, according to someaccounts, to Syria; and thus disappears from our view. 

Pliny the Elder tells us that he was a drunkard, sarcastically observingthat he sought to avenge himself on Antony by robbing him of thereputation which he had before enjoyed of being the hardest drinker ofthe time. As the story which he tells of the younger Cicero being ableto swallow twelve pints of wine at a draught is clearly incredible, perhaps we may disbelieve the whole, and with it the other anecdote, that he threw a cup at the head of Marcus Agrippa, son-in-law to theEmperor, and after him the greatest man in Rome. 

CHAPTER III. 

IN THE DAYS OF THE DICTATOR. 

In November 82 B. C. , Cornelius Sulla became absolute master of Rome. Itis not part of my purpose to give a history of this man. He was a greatsoldier who had won victories in Africa and Asia over the enemies ofRome, and in Italy itself over the "allies, " as they were called, thatis the Italian nations, who at various times had made treaties withRome, and who in the early part of the first century B. C. Rebelledagainst her, thinking that they were robbed of the rights and privilegeswhich belonged to them. And he was the leader of the party of thenobles, just as Marius was the leader of the party of the people. Oncebefore he had made himself supreme in the capital; and then he had usedhis power with moderation. But he was called away to carry on the war inAsia against Mithridates, the great King of Pontus; and his enemies hadgot the upper hand, and had used the opportunity most cruelly. Aterrible list of victims, called the "proscription, " because it wasposted up in the forum, was prepared. Fifty senators and a thousandknights (peers and gentlemen we should call them) were put to death, almost all of them without any kind of trial. Sulla himself wasoutlawed. But he had an army which he had led to victory and hadenriched with prize-money, and which was entirely devoted to him; and hewas not inclined to let his enemies triumph. He hastened back to Italy, and landed in the spring of 83. In the November of the following year, just outside the walls of Rome, was fought the final battle of the war. 

The opposing army was absolutely destroyed and Sulla had every thing athis mercy. He waited for a few days outside the city till the Senate hadpassed a decree giving him absolute power to change the laws, to fillthe offices of State, and to deal with the lives and properties ofcitizens as it might please him. This done, he entered Rome. Then cameanother proscription. The chief of his enemies, Marius. Was gone. He haddied, tormented it was said by remorse, seventeen days after he hadreached the crowning glory, promised him in his youth by an oracle, andhad been made consul for the seventh time. The conqueror had to contenthimself with the same vengeance that Charles II. In our own countryexacted from the remains of Cromwell. The ashes of Marius were taken outof his tomb on the Flaminian Way, the great North Road of Rome, and werethrown into the Anio. But many of his friends and partisans survived, and these were slaughtered without mercy. Eighty names were put on thefatal list on the first day, two hundred and twenty on the second, andas many more on the third. With the deaths of many of these victimspolitics had nothing to do. Sulla allowed his friends and favorites toput into the list the names of men against whom they happened to bear agrudge, or whose property they coveted. No one knew who might be thenext to fall. Even Sulla's own partisans were alarmed. A young senator, Caius Metellus, one of a family which was strongly attached to Sulla andwith which he was connected by marriage, had the courage to ask him inpublic when there would be an end to this terrible state of things. "We do not beg you, " he said, "to remit the punishment of those whom youhave made up your mind to remove; we do beg you to do away with theanxiety of those whom you have resolved to spare. " "I am not yetcertain, " answered Sulla, "whom I shall spare. " "Then at least, " saidMetellus, "you can tell us whom you mean to punish. " "That I will do, "replied the tyrant. It was indeed a terrible time that followed, Plutarch thus describes it: "He denounced against any who might shelteror save the life of a proscribed person the punishment of death for hishumanity. He made no exemption for mother, or son, or parent. Themurderers received a payment of two talents (about £470) for eachvictim; it was paid to a slave who killed his master, to a son whokilled his father. The most monstrous thing of all, it was thought, wasthat the sons and grandsons of the proscribed were declared to belegally infamous and that their property was confiscated. Nor was itonly in Rome but in all the cities of Italy that the proscription wascarried out. There was not a single temple, not a house but was pollutedwith blood. Husbands were slaughtered in the arms of their wives, andsons in the arms of their mothers. And the number of those who fellvictims to anger and hatred was but small in comparison with the numberwho were put out of the way for the sake of their property. Themurderers might well have said: 'His fine mansion has been the death ofthis man; or his gardens, or his baths. ' Quintus Aurelius, a peaceablecitizen, who had had only this share in the late civil troubles, that hehad felt for the misfortunes of others, coming into the forum, read thelist of the proscribed and found in it his own name. 'Unfortunate that Iam, ' he said, 'it is my farm at Alba that has been my ruin;' and he hadnot gone many steps before he was cut down by a man that was followinghim. Lucius Catiline's conduct was especially wicked. He had murderedhis own brother. This was before the proscription began. He went toSulla and begged that the name might be put in the list as if the manwere still alive; and it was so put. His gratitude to Sulla was shown byhis killing one Marius, who belonged to the opposite faction, andbringing his head to Sulla as he sat in the forum. (This Marius was akinsman of the great democratic leader, and was one of the most popularmen in Rome. ) This done, he washed his hands in the holy water-basin ofthe temple of Apollo. "

Forty senators and sixteen hundred knights, and more than as many men ofobscure station, are said to have perished. At last, on the first ofJune, 81, the list was closed. Still the reign of terror was not yet atan end, as the strange story which I shall now relate will amply prove. To look into the details of a particular case makes us better able toimagine what it really was to live at Rome in the days of the Dictatorthan to read many pages of general description. The story is all themore impressive because the events happened after order had beenrestored and things were supposed to be proceeding in their regularcourse. 

The proscription came to an end, as has been said, in the early summerof 81. In the autumn of the same year a certain Sextus Roscius wasmurdered in the streets of Rome as he was returning home from dinner. Roscius was a native of Ameria, a little town of Etruria, between fiftyand sixty miles north of Rome. He was a wealthy man, possessed, itwould seem, of some taste and culture, and an intimate friend of some ofthe noblest families at Rome. In politics he belonged to the party ofSulla, to which indeed in its less prosperous days he had rendered goodservice. Since its restoration to power he had lived much at Rome, evidently considering himself, as indeed he had the right to do, to beperfectly safe from any danger of proscription. But he was wealthy, andhe had among his own kinsfolk enemies who desired and who would profitby his death. One of these, a certain Titus Roscius, surnamed Magnus, was at the time of the murder residing at Rome; the other, who was knownas Capito, was at home at Ameria. The murder was committed about seveno'clock in the evening. A messenger immediately left Rome with the news, and made such haste to Ameria that he reached the place before dawn thenext day. Strangely enough he went to the house not of the murderedman's son, who was living at Ameria in charge of his farms, but of thehostile kinsman Capito. Three days afterwards Capito and Magnus madetheir way to the camp of Sulla (he was besieging Volaterrae, anotherEtrurian town). They had an interview with one Chrysogonus, a Greekfreedman of the Dictator, and explained to him how rich a prey theycould secure if he would only help them. The deceased, it seems, hadleft a large sum of money and thirteen valuable farms, nearly all ofthem running down to the Tiber. And the son, the lawful heir, couldeasily be got out of the way. Roscius was a well-known and a popularman, yet no outcry had followed his disappearance. With the son, asimple farmer, ignorant of affairs, and wholly unknown to Rome, it wouldbe easy to deal. Ultimately the three entered into alliance. Theproscription was to be revived, so to speak, to take in this particularcase, and the name of Roscius was included in the list of the condemned. All his wealth was treated as the property of the proscribed, and wassold by auction. It was purchased by Chrysogonus. The real value wasbetween fifty and sixty thousand pounds. The price paid was somethingless than eighteen pounds. Three of the finest farms were at once handedover to Capito as his share of the spoil. Magnus acted as the agent ofChrysogonus for the remainder. He took possession of the house in whichRoscius the younger was living, laid his hands on all its contents, among which was a considerable sum of money, and drove out theunfortunate young man in an absolutely penniless condition. 

These proceedings excited great indignation at Ameria. The local senatepassed a resolution to the effect that the committee of ten shouldproceed to Sulla's camp and put him in possession of the facts, with theobject of removing the name of the father from the list of theproscribed, and reinstating the son in his inheritance. The tenproceeded accordingly to the camp, but Chrysogonus cajoled andover-reached them. It was represented to them by persons of highposition that there was no need to trouble Sulla with the affair. Thename should be removed from the list; the property should be restored. Capito, who was one of the ten, added his personal assurance to the sameeffect, and the deputation, satisfied that their object had beenattained, returned to Ameria. There was of course no intention offulfilling the promises thus made. The first idea of the trio was todeal with the son as they had dealt with the father. Some hint of thispurpose was conveyed to him, and he fled to Rome, where he washospitably entertained by Caecilia, a wealthy lady of the family ofMetellus, and therefore related to Sulla's wife, who indeed bore thesame name. As he was now safe from violence, it was resolved to take theaudacious step of accusing him of the murder of his father. Outrageousas it seems, the plan held out some promise of success. The accused wasa man of singularly reserved character, rough and boorish in manner, andwith no thoughts beyond the rustic occupations to which his life wasdevoted. His father, on the other hand, had been a man of genial temper, who spent much of his time among the polished circles of the Capitol. Ifthere was no positive estrangement between them, there was a greatdiscrepancy of tastes, and probably very little intercourse. This itwould be easy to exaggerate into something like a plausible charge, especially under the circumstances of the case. It was beyond doubt thatmany murders closely resembling the murder of Roscius had been committedduring the past year, committed some of them by sons. This was thefirst time that an alleged culprit was brought to trial, and it wasprobable that the jury would be inclined to severity. In any case, andwhatever the evidence, it was hoped that the verdict would not be suchas to imply the guilt of a favorite of Sulla. He was the person whowould profit most by the condemnation of the accused, and it was hopedthat he would take the necessary means to secure it. 

The friends of the father were satisfied of the innocence of the son, and they exerted themselves to secure for him an efficient defense. Sulla was so much dreaded that none of the more conspicuous orators ofthe time were willing to undertake the task. Cicero, however, had thecourage which they wanted; and his speech, probably little altered fromthe form in which he delivered it, remains. 

It was a horrible crime of which his client was accused, and thepunishment the most awful known to the Roman law. The face of the guiltyman was covered with a wolf's skin, as being one who was not worthy tosee the light; shoes of wood were put upon his feet that they might nottouch the earth. He was then thrust into a sack of leather, and with himfour animals which were supposed to symbolize all that was most hideousand depraved--the dog, a common object of contempt; the cock, proverbialfor its want of all filial affection; the poisonous viper; and the ape, which was the base imitation of man. In this strange company he wasthrown into the nearest river or sea. 

Cicero begins by explaining why he had undertaken a case which hiselders and betters had declined. It was not because he was bolder, butbecause he was more insignificant than they, and could speak withimpunity when they could not choose but be silent. He then gives thefacts in detail, the murder of Roscius, the seizure of his property, thefruitless deputation to Sulla, the flight of the son to Rome, and theaudacious resolve of his enemies to indict him for parricide. They hadmurdered his father, they had robbed him of his patrimony, and now theyaccused him--of what crime? Surely of nothing else than the crime ofhaving escaped their attack. The thing reminded him of the story ofFimbria and Scaevola. Fimbria, an absolute madman, as was allowed by allwho were not mad themselves, got some ruffian to stab Scaevola at thefuneral of Marius. He was stabbed but not killed. When Fimbria foundthat he was likely to live, he indicted him. For what do you indict aman so blameless? asked some one. For what? for not allowing himself tobe stabbed to the heart. This is exactly why the confederates haveindicted Roscius. His crime has been of escaping from their hands. "Roscius killed his father, " you say. "A young man, I suppose, led awayby worthless companions. " Not so; he is more than forty years of age. "Extravagance and debt drove him to it. " No; you say yourself that henever goes to an entertainment, and he certainly owes nothing. "Well, "you say, "his father disliked him. " Why did he dislike him? "That, " youreply, "I cannot say; but he certainly kept one son with him, and leftthis Roscius to look after his farms. " Surely this is a strangepunishment, to give him the charge of so fine an estate. "But, " yourepeat, "he kept his other with him. " "Now listen to me, " cries Cicero, turning with savage sarcasm to the prosecutor, "Providence never allowedyou to know who your father was. Still you have read books. Do youremember in Caecilius' play how the father had two sons, and kept onewith him and left the other in the country? and do you remember that theone who lived with him was not really his son, the other was true-born, and yet it was the true-born who lived in the country? And is it such adisgrace to live in the country? It is well that you did not live in oldtimes when they took a Dictator from the plow; when the men who madeRome what it is cultivated their own land, but did not covet the land ofothers. 'Ah! but, ' you say, 'the father intended to disinherit him. 'Why? 'I cannot say. ' Did he disinherit him? 'No, he did not. ' Whostopped him? 'Well, he was thinking of it. ' To whom did he say so? 'Tono one. ' Surely, " cries Cicero, "this is to abuse the laws and justiceand your dignity in the basest and most wanton way, to make chargeswhich he not only cannot but does not even attempt to establish. "

Shortly after comes a lively description of the prosecutor's demeanor. "It was really worth while, if you observed, gentlemen, the man's utterindifference as he was conducting his case. I take it that when he sawwho was sitting on these benches, he asked whether such an one or suchan one was engaged for the defense. Of me he never thought, for I hadnever spoken before in a criminal case. When he found that none of theusual speakers were concerned in it, he became so careless that when thehumor took him, he sat down, then walked about, sometimes called aservant, to give him orders, I suppose, for dinner, and certainlytreated this court in which you are sitting as if it were an absolutesolitude. At last he brought his speech to an end. I rose to reply. Hecould be seen to breathe again that it was I and no one else. I noticed, gentlemen, that he continued to laugh and be inattentive till Imentioned Chrysogonus. As soon as I got to him my friend roused himselfand was evidently astonished. I saw what had touched him, and repeatedthe name a second time, and a third. From that time men have neverceased to run briskly backwards and forwards, to tell Chrysogonus, Isuppose, that there was some one in the country who ventured to opposehis pleasure, that the case was being pleaded otherwise than as heimagined it would be; that the sham sale of goods was being exposed, theconfederacy grievously handled, his popularity and power disregarded, that the people were giving their whole attention to the cause, and thatthe common opinion was that the transaction generally was disgraceful. 

"Then, " continued the speaker, "this charge of parricide, so monstrousis the crime, must have the very strongest evidence to support it. Therewas a case at Tarracina of a man being found murdered in the chamberwhere he was sleeping, his two sons, both young men, being in the sameroom. No one could be found, either slave or free man, who seemed likelyto have done the deed; and as the two sons, grown up as they were, declared that they knew nothing about it, they were indicted forparricide. What could be so suspicious? Suspicious, do I say? Nay, worse. That neither knew any thing about it? That any one had venturedinto that chamber at the very time when there were in it two young menwho would certainly perceive and defeat the attempt? Yet, because it wasproved to the jury that the young men had been found fast asleep, withthe door wide open, they were acquitted. It was thought incredible thatmen who had just committed so monstrous a crime could possibly sleep. Why, Solon, the wisest of all legislators, drawing up his code of laws, provided no punishment for this crime; and when he was asked the reasonreplied that he believed that no one would ever commit it. To provide apunishment would be to suggest rather than prevent. Our own ancestorsprovided indeed a punishment, but it was of the strangest kind, showinghow strange, how monstrous they thought the crime. And what evidence doyou bring forward? The man was not at Rome. That is proved. There-forehe must have done it, if he did it at all, by the hands of others. Whowere these others? Were they free men or slaves? If they were free menwhere did they come from, where live? How did he hire them? Where isthe proof? You haven't a shred of evidence, and yet you accuse him ofparricide. And if they were slaves, where, again I ask, are they? There_were_ two slaves who saw the deed; but they belonged to the confederatenot to the accused. Why do you not produce them? Purely because theywould prove your guilt. 

"It is there indeed that we find the real truth of the matter. It wasthe maxim of a famous lawyer, Ask: _who profited by the deed_? I ask itnow. It was Magnus who profited. He was poor before, and now he is rich. And then he was in Rome at the time of the murder; and he was familiarwith assassins. Remember too the strange speed with which he sent thenews to Ameria, and sent it, not to the son, as one might expect, but toCapito his accomplice; for that he was an accomplice is evident enough. What else could he be when he so cheated the deputation that went toSulla at Volaterrae?"

Cicero then turned to Chrysogonus, and attacked him with a boldnesswhich is surprising, when we remember how high he stood in the favor ofthe absolute master of Rome, "See how he comes down from his finemansion on the Palatine. Yes, and he has for his own enjoyment adelightful retreat in the suburbs, and many an estate besides, and notone of them but is both handsome and conveniently near. His house iscrowded with ware of Corinth and Delos, among them that famousself-acting cooking apparatus, which he lately bought at a price so highthat the passers-by, when they heard the clerk call out the highest bid, supposed that it must be a farm which was being sold. And whatquantities, think you, he has of embossed plate, and coverlets ofpurple, and pictures, and statues, and colored marbles! Such quantities, I tell you, as scarce could be piled together in one mansion in a timeof tumult and rapine from many wealthy establishments. And hishousehold--why should I describe how many it numbers, and how varied areits accomplishments? I do not speak of ordinary domestics, the cook, thebaker, the litter-bearer. Why, for the mere enjoyment of his ears he hassuch a multitude of men that the whole neighborhood echoes again withthe daily music of singers, and harp-players, and flute-players, andwith the uproar of his nightly banquets. What daily expenses, whatextravagance, as you well know, gentlemen, there must be in such a lifeas this! how costly must be these banquets! Creditable banquets, indeed, held in such a house--a house, do I say, and not a manufactory ofwickedness, a place of entertainment for every kind of crime? And as forthe man himself--you see, gentlemen, how he bustles every where aboutthe forum, with his hair fashionably arranged and dripping withperfumes; what a crowd of citizens, yes, of citizens, follow him; yousee how he looks down upon every one, thinks no one can be compared tohimself, fancies himself the one rich and powerful man in Rome?"

The jury seems to have caught the contagion of courage from theadvocate. They acquitted the accused. It is not known whether he everrecovered his property. But as Sulla retired from power in the followingyear, and died the year after, we may hope that the favorites and thevillains whom he had sheltered were compelled to disgorge some at leastof their gains. 

CHAPTER IV. 

A ROMAN MAGISTRATE. 

Of all the base creatures who found a profit in the massacres andplunderings which Sulla commanded or permitted, not one was baser thanCaius Verres. The crimes that he committed would be beyond our belief ifit were not for the fact that he never denied them. He betrayed hisfriends, he perverted justice, he plundered a temple with as littlescruple as he plundered a private house, he murdered a citizen as boldlyas he murdered a foreigner; in fact, he was the most audacious, the mostcruel, the most shameless of men. And yet he rose to high office at homeand abroad, and had it not been for the courage, sagacity, and eloquenceof one man, he might have risen to the very highest. What Roman citizenshad sometimes, and Roman subjects, it is to be feared, very often toendure may be seen from the picture which we are enabled to draw of a_Roman magistrate_. 

Roman politicians began public life as quaestors. (A quaestor was anofficial who managed money matters for higher magistrates. Everygovernor of a province had one or more quaestors under him. They wereelected at Rome, and their posts were assigned to them by lot. ) Verreswas quaestor in Gaul and embezzled the public money; he was quaestor inCilicia with Dolabella, a like-minded governor, and diligently used hisopportunity. This time it was not money only, but works of art, on whichhe laid his hands; and in these the great cities, whether in Asia or inEurope, were still rich. The most audacious, perhaps, of these robberieswas perpetrated in the island of Delos. Delos was known all over theworld as the island of Apollo. The legend was that it was the birthplaceof the god. None of his shrines was more frequented or more famous. Verres was indifferent to such considerations. He stripped the temple ofits finest statues, and loaded a merchant ship which he had hired withthe booty. But this time he was not lucky enough to secure it. Theislanders, though they had discovered the theft, did not, indeed, venture to complain. They thought it was the doing of the governor, anda governor, though his proceedings might be impeached after his term ofoffice, was not a person with whom it was safe to remonstrate. But aterrible storm suddenly burst upon the island. The governor's departurewas delayed. To set sail in such weather was out of the question. Thesea was indeed so high that the town became scarcely habitable. ThenVerres' ship was wrecked, and the statues were found cast upon theshore. The governor ordered them to be replaced in the temple, and thestorm subsided as suddenly as it had arisen. 

On his return to Rome Dolabella was impeached for extortion. Withcharacteristic baseness Verres gave evidence against him, evidence soconvincing as to cause a verdict of guilty. But he thus secured his owngains, and these he used so profusely in the purchase of votes that twoor three years afterwards he was elected praetor. The praetors performedvarious functions which were assigned to them by lot. Chance, or it maypossibly have been contrivance, gave to Verres the most considerable ofthem all. He was made "Praetor of the City;" that is, a judge beforewhom a certain class of very important causes were tried. Of course heshowed himself scandalously unjust. One instance of his proceedings maysuffice. 

A certain Junius had made a contract for keeping the temple of Castor inrepair. When Verres came into office he had died, leaving a son underage. There had been some neglect, due probably to the troubles of thetimes, in seeing that the contracts had been duly executed, and theSenate passed a resolution that Verres and one of his fellow-praetorsshould see to the matter. The temple of Castor came under review likethe others, and Verres, knowing that the original contractor was dead, inquired who was the responsible person. When he heard of the son underage he recognized at once a golden opportunity. It was one of the maximswhich he had laid down for his own guidance, and which he had even beenwont to give out for the benefit of his friends, that much profit mightbe made out of the property of wards. It had been arranged that theguardian of the young Junius should take the contract into his ownhands, and, as the temple was in excellent repair, there was nodifficulty in the way. Verres summoned the guardian to appear beforehim. "Is there any thing, " he asked, "that your ward has not made good, and which we ought to require of him?" "No, " said he, "every thing isquite right; all the statues and offerings are there, and the fabric isin excellent repair. " From the praetor's point of view this was notsatisfactory; and he determined on a personal visit. Accordingly he wentto the temple, and inspected it. The ceiling was excellent; the wholebuilding in the best repair. "What is to be done?" he asked of one ofhis satellites. "Well, " said the man, "there is nothing for you tomeddle with here, except possibly to require that the columns should berestored to the perpendicular. " "Restored to the perpendicular? what doyou mean?" said Verres, who knew nothing of architecture. It wasexplained to him that it very seldom happened that a column wasabsolutely true to the perpendicular. "Very good, " said Verres; "we willhave the columns made perpendicular. " Notice accordingly was sent tothe lad's guardians. Disturbed at the prospect of indefinite loss totheir ward's property, they sought an interview with Verres. One of thenoble family of Marcellus waited upon him, and remonstrated against theiniquity of the proceeding. The remonstrance was in vain. The praetorshowed no signs of relenting. There yet remained one way, a way only toowell known to all who had to deal with him, of obtaining their object. Application must be made to his mistress (a Greek freedwoman of the nameof Chelidon or "The Swallow"). If she could be induced to take aninterest in the case something might yet be done. Degrading as such acourse must have been to men of rank and honor, they resolved, in theinterest of their ward, to take it. They went to Chelidon's house. Itwas thronged with people who were seeking favors from the praetor. Somewere begging for decisions in their favor; some for fresh trials oftheir cases. "I want possession, " cried one. "He must not take theproperty from me, " said another. "Don't let him pronounce judgmentagainst me, " cried a third. "The property must be assigned to me, " wasthe demand of a fourth. Some were counting out money; others signingbonds. The deputation, after waiting awhile, were admitted to thepresence. Their spokesman explained the case, begged for Chelidon'sassistance, and promised a substantial consideration. The lady was verygracious. She would willingly do what she could, and would talk to thepraetor about it. The deputation must come again the next day and hearhow she had succeeded. They came again, but found that nothing could bedone. Verres felt sure that a large sum of money was to be got out ofthe proceeding, and resolutely refused any compromise. 

They next made an offer of about two thousand pounds. This again wasrejected. Verres resolved that he would put up the contract to auction, and did his best that the guardians should have no notice of it. Here, however, he failed. They attended the auction and made a bid. Of coursethe lowest bidder ought to have been accepted, so long as he gavesecurity for doing the work well. But Verres refused to accept it. Heknocked down the contract to himself at a price of more than fivethousand pounds, and this though there were persons willing to do it forless than a sixth of that sum. As a matter of fact very little wasdone. Four of the columns were pulled down and built up again with thesame stones. Others were whitewashed; some had the old cement taken outand fresh put in. [1] The highest estimate for all that could possibly bewanted was less than eight hundred pounds. 

[Footnote 1: "Pointed, " I suppose. ]

His year of office ended, Verres was sent as governor to Sicily. Byrights he should have remained there twelve months only, but hissuccessor was detained by the Servile war in Italy, and his stay wasthus extended to nearly three years, three years into which he crowdedan incredible number of cruelties and robberies. Sicily was perhaps thewealthiest of all the provinces. Its fertile wheat-fields yieldedharvests which, now that agriculture had begun to decay in Italy, provided no small part of the daily bread of Rome. In its cities, founded most of them several centuries before by colonists from Greece, were accumulated the riches of many generations. On the whole it hadbeen lightly treated by its Roman conquerors. Some of its states hadearly discerned which would be the winning side, and by making theirpeace in time had secured their privileges and possessions. Others hadbeen allowed to surrender themselves on favorable terms. This wealth hadnow been increasing without serious disturbance for more than a hundredyears. The houses of the richer class were full of the rich tapestriesof the East, of gold and silver plate cunningly chased or embossed, ofstatues and pictures wrought by the hands of the most famous artists ofGreece. The temples were adorned with costly offerings and with imagesthat were known all over the civilized world. The Sicilians wereprobably prepared to pay something for the privilege of being governedby Rome. And indeed the privilege was not without its value. The days offreedom indeed were over; but the turbulence, the incessant strife, thebitter struggles between neighbors and parties were also at an end. Menwere left to accumulate wealth and to enjoy it without hindrance. Anymoderate demands they were willing enough to meet. They did notcomplain, for instance, or at least did not complain aloud, that theywere compelled to supply their rulers with a fixed quantity of corn atprices lower than could have been obtained in the open market. And theywould probably have been ready to secure the good will of a governor whofancied himself a connoisseur in art with handsome presents from theirmuseums and picture galleries. But the exactions of Verres exceeded allbounds both of custom and of endurance. The story of how he dealt withthe wheat-growers of the province is too tedious and complicated to betold in this place. Let it suffice to say that he enriched himself andhis greedy troop of followers at the cost of absolute ruin both to thecultivators of the soil and to the Roman capitalists who farmed thispart of the public revenue. As to the way in which he laid his hands onthe possessions of temples and of private citizens, his doings wereemphatically summed up by his prosecutor when he came, as we shallafterwards see, to be put upon his trial. "I affirm that in the whole ofSicily, wealthy and old-established province as it is, in all thosetowns, in all those wealthy homes, there was not a single piece ofsilver plate, a single article of Corinthian or Delian ware, a singlejewel or pearl, a single article of gold or ivory, a single picture, whether on panel or on canvas, which he did not hunt up and examine, and, if it pleased his fancy, abstract. This is a great thing to say, you think. Well, mark how I say it. It is not for the sake of rhetoricalexaggeration that I make this sweeping assertion, that I declare thatthis fellow did not leave a single article of the kind in the wholeprovince. I speak not in the language of the professional accuser but inplain Latin. Nay, I will put it more clearly still: in no single privatehouse, in no town; in no place, profane or even sacred; in the hands ofno Sicilian, of no citizen of Rome, did he leave a single article, public or private property, of things profane or things religious, whichcame under his eyes or touched his fancy. "

Some of the more remarkable of these acts of spoliation it may be worthwhile to relate. A certain Heius, who was at once the wealthiest andmost popular citizen of Messana, had a private chapel of great antiquityin his house, and in it four statues of the very greatest value. Therewas a Cupid by Praxiteles, a replica of a famous work which attractedvisitors to the uninteresting little town of Thespiae in Boeotia; aHercules from the chisel of Myro; and two bronze figures, "Basket-bearers, " as they were called, because represented as carryingsacred vessels in baskets on their heads. These were the work ofPolyclitus. The Cupid had been brought to Rome to ornament the forum onsome great occasion, and had been carefully restored to its place. Thechapel and its contents was the great sight of the town. No one passedthrough without inspecting it. It was naturally, therefore, one of thefirst things that Verres saw, Messana being on his route to the capitalof his province. He did not actually take the statues, he bought them;but the price that he paid was so ridiculously low that purchase wasonly another name for robbery. Something near sixty pounds was given forthe four. If we recall the prices that would be paid now-a-days for acouple of statues by Michael Angelo and two of the masterpieces ofRaphael and Correggio, we may imagine what a monstrous fiction this salemust have been, all the more monstrous because the owner was a wealthyman, who had no temptation to sell, and who was known to value hispossessions not only as works of art but as adding dignity to hishereditary worship. 

A wealthy inhabitant of Tyndaris invited the governor to dinner. He wasa Roman citizen and imagined that he might venture on a display which aprovincial might have considered to be dangerous. Among the plate on thetable was a silver dish adorned with some very fine medallions. Itstruck the fancy of the guest, who promptly had it removed, and whoconsidered himself to be a marvel of moderation when he sent it backwith the medallions abstracted. 

His secretary happened one day to receive a letter which bore anoteworthy impression on the composition of chalk which the Greeks usedfor sealing. It attracted the attention of Verres, who inquired fromwhat place it had come. Hearing that it had been sent from Agrigentum, he communicated to his agents in that town his desire that the seal-ringshould be at once secured for him. And this was done. The unluckypossessor, another Roman citizen, by the way, had his ring actuallydrawn from his finger. 

A still more audacious proceeding was to rob, not this time a mereSicilian provincial or a simple Roman citizen, but one of the tributarykings, the heir of the great house of Antiochus, which not many yearsbefore had matched itself with the power of Rome. Two of the youngprinces had visited Rome, intending to prosecute their claims to thethrone of Egypt, which, they contended, had come to them through theirmother. The times were not favorable to the suit, and they returned totheir country, one of them, Antiochus, probably the elder, choosing totake Sicily on his way. He naturally visited Syracuse, where Verres wasresiding, and Verres at once recognized a golden opportunity. The firstthing was to send the visitor a handsome supply of wine, olive-oil, andwheat. The next was to invite him to dinner. The dining-room and tablewere richly furnished, the silver plate being particularly splendid. Antiochus was highly delighted with the entertainment, and lost no timein returning the compliment. The dinner to which he invited the governorwas set out with a splendor to which Verres had nothing to compare. There was silver plate in abundance, and there were also cups of gold, these last adorned with magnificent gems. 

Conspicuous among the ornaments of the table was a drinking vessel, allin one piece, probably of amethyst, and with a handle of gold. Verresexpressed himself delighted with what he saw. He handled every vesseland was loud in its praises. The simple-minded King, on the other hand, heard the compliment with pride. Next day came a message. Would the Kinglend some of the more beautiful cups to his excellency? He wished toshow them to his own artists. A special request was made for theamethyst cup. All was sent without a suspicion of danger. 

But the King had still in his possession something that especiallyexcited the Roman's cupidity. This was a candelabrum of gold richlyadorned with jewels. It had been intended for an offering to thetutelary deity of Rome, Jupiter of the Capitol. But the temple, whichhad been burned to the ground in the civil wars, had not yet beenrebuilt, and the princes, anxious that their gift should not be seenbefore it was publicly presented, resolved to carry it back with them toSyria. Verres, however, had got, no one knew how, some inkling of thematter, and he begged Antiochus to let him have a sight of it. The youngprince, who, so far from being suspicious, was hardly sufficientlycautious, had it carefully wrapped up, and sent it to the governor'spalace. When he had minutely inspected it, the messengers prepared tocarry it back. Verres, however, had not seen enough of it. It clearlydeserved more than one examination. Would they leave it with him for atime? They left it, suspecting nothing. 

Antiochus, on his part, had no apprehensions. When some days had passedand the candelabrum was not returned, he sent to ask for it. Thegovernor begged the messenger to come again the next day. It seemed astrange request; still the man came again and was again unsuccessful. The King himself then waited on the governor and begged him to returnit. Verres hinted, or rather said plainly, that he should very much likeit as a present. "This is impossible, " replied the prince, "the honordue to Jupiter and public opinion forbid it. All the world knows thatthe offering is to be made, and I cannot go back from my word. " Verresperceived that soft words would be useless, and took at once anotherline. The King, he said, must leave Sicily before nightfall. The publicsafety demanded it. He had heard of a piratical expedition which was onits way from Syria to the province, and that his departure wasnecessary. Antiochus had no choice but to obey; but before he went hepublicly protested in the market-place of Syracuse against the wrongthat had been done. His other valuables, the gold and the jewels, he didnot so much regret; but it was monstrous that he should be robbed of thegift that he destined for the altar of the tutelary god of Rome. 

The Sicilian cities were not better able to protect their possessionsthan were private individuals. Segesta was a town that had early rangeditself on the side of the Romans, with whom its people had a legendaryrelationship. (The story was that Aeneas on his way to Italy had leftthere some of his followers, who were unwilling any longer to endure thehardships of the journey. ) In early days it had been destroyed by theCarthaginians, who had carried off all its most valuable possessions, the most precious being a statue of Diana, a work of great beauty andinvested with a peculiar sacredness. When Carthage fell, Scipio itsconqueror restored the spoils which had been carried off from the citiesof Sicily. Among other things Agrigentum had recovered its famous bullof brass, in which the tyrant Phalaris had burned, it was said, hisvictims. Segesta was no less fortunate than its neighbors, and got backits Diana. It was set on a pedestal on which was inscribed the name ofScipio, and became one of the most notable sights of the island. It wasof a colossal size, but the sculptor had contrived to preserve thesemblance of maidenly grace and modesty. Verres saw and coveted it. Hedemanded it of the authorities of the town and was met with a refusal. It was easy for the governor to make them suffer for their obstinacy. All their imposts were doubled and more than doubled. Heavy requisitionsfor men and money and corn were made upon them. A still more hatefulburden, that of attending the court and progresses of the governor wasimposed on their principal citizens. This was a contest which theycould not hope to wage with success. Segesta resolved that the statueshould be given up. It was accordingly carried away from the town, allthe women of the town, married and unmarried, following it on itsjourney, showering perfumes and flowers upon it, and burning incensebefore it, till it had passed beyond the borders of their territory. 

If Segesta had its Diana, Tyndaris had its Mercury; and this also Verreswas resolved to add to his collection. He issued his orders to Sopater, chief magistrate of the place, that the statue was to betaken toMessana. (Messana being conveniently near to Italy was the place inwhich he stored his plunder. ) Sopater refusing was threatened with theheaviest penalties if it was not done without delay, and judged it bestto bring the matter before the local senate. The proposition wasreceived with shouts of disapproval. Verres paid a second visit to thetown and at once inquired what had been done about the statue. He wastold that it was impossible. The senate had decreed the penalty ofdeath against any one that touched it. Apart from that, it would be anact of the grossest impiety. "Impiety?" he burst out upon the unluckymagistrates; "penalty of death! senate! what senate? As for you, Sopater, you shall not escape. Give me up the statue or you shall beflogged to death. " Sopater again referred the matter to his townsmen andimplored them with tears to give way. The meeting separated in greattumult without giving him any answer. Summoned again to the governor'spresence, he repeated that nothing could be done. But Verres had stillresources in store. He ordered the lictors to strip the man, the chiefmagistrate, be it remembered, of an important town, and to set him, naked as he was, astride on one of the equestrian statues that adornedthe market-place. It was winter; the weather was bitterly cold, withheavy rain. The pain caused by the naked limbs being thus brought intoclose contact with the bronze of the statue was intense. So frightfulwas his suffering that his fellow-townsmen could not bear to see it. They turned with loud cries upon the senate and compelled them to votethat the coveted statue should be given up to the governor. So Verresgot his Mercury. 

We have a curious picture of the man as he made his progresses from townto town in his search for treasures of art. "As soon as it wasspring--and he knew that it was spring not from the rising of anyconstellation or the blowing of any wind, but simply because he saw theroses--then indeed he bestirred himself. So enduring, so untiring was hethat no one ever saw him upon horseback. No--he was carried in a litterwith eight bearers. His cushion was of the finest linen of Malta, and itwas stuffed with roses. There was one wreath of roses upon his head, andanother round his neck, made of the finest thread, of the smallest mesh, and this, too, was full of roses. He was carried in this litter straightto his chamber; and there he gave his audiences. "

When spring had passed into summer even such exertions were too much forhim. He could not even endure to remain in his official residence, theold palace of the kings of Syracuse. A number of tents were pitched forhim at the entrance of the harbor to catch the cool breezes from thesea. There he spent his days and nights, surrounded by troops of thevilest companions, and let the province take care of itself. 

Such a governor was not likely to keep his province free from thepirates who, issuing from their fastnesses on the Cilician coast andelsewhere, kept the seaboard cities of the Mediterranean in constantterror. One success, and one only, he seems to have gained over them. His fleet was lucky enough to come upon a pirate ship, which was sooverladen with spoil that it could neither escape nor defend itself. News was at once carried to Verres, who roused himself from his feastingto issue strict orders that no one was to meddle with the prize. It wastowed into Syracuse, and he hastened to examine his booty. The generalfeeling was one of delight that a crew of merciless villains had beencaptured and were about to pay the penalty of their crimes. Verres hadfar more practical views. Justice might deal as she pleased with the oldand useless; the young and able bodied, and all who happened to behandicraftsmen, were too valuable to be given up. His secretaries, hisretinue, his son had their share of the prize; six, who happened to besingers, were sent as a present to a friend at Rome. As to the piratecaptain himself, no one knew what had become of him. It was a favoriteamusement in Sicily to watch the sufferings of a pirate, if thegovernment had had the luck but to catch one, while he was being slowlytortured to death. The people of Syracuse, to whom the pirate captainwas only too well known, watched eagerly for the day when he was to bebrought out to suffer. They kept an account of those who were broughtout to execution, and reckoned them against the number of the crew, which it had been easy to conjecture from the size of the ship. Verreshad to correct the deficiency as best he could. He had the audacity tofill the places of the prisoners whom he had sold or given away withRoman citizens, whom on various false pretenses he had thrown intoprison. The pirate captain himself was suffered to escape on thepayment, it was believed, of a very large sum of money. 

But Verres had not yet done with the pirates. It was necessary that someshow, at least, of coping with them should be made. There was a fleet, and the fleet must put to sea. A citizen of Syracuse, who had no sort ofqualification for the task, but whom Verres was anxious to get out ofthe way, was appointed to the command. The governor paid it the unwontedattention of coming out of his tent to see it pass. His very dress, ashe stood upon the shore, was a scandal to all beholders. His sandals, his purple cloak, his tunic, or under-garment, reaching to his ankles, were thought wholly unsuitable to the dignity of a Roman magistrate. Thefleet, as might be expected, was scandalously ill equipped. Its men forthe most part existed, as the phrase is, only "on paper. " There was theproper complement of names, but of names only. The praetor drew from thetreasury the pay for these imaginary soldiers and marines, and divertedit into his own pocket. And the ships were as ill provisioned as theywere ill manned. After they had been something less than five days atsea they put into the harbor of Pachynus. The crews were driven tosatisfy their hunger on the roots of the dwarf palm, which grew, andindeed still grows, in abundance on that spot. Cleomenes meanwhile wasfollowing the example of his patron. He had his tent pitched on theshore, and sat in it drinking from morning to night. While he was thusemployed tidings were brought that the pirate fleet was approaching. Hewas ill prepared for an engagement. His hope had been to complete themanning of his ships from the garrison of the fort. But Verres had dealtwith the fort as he had dealt with the fleet. The soldiers were asimaginary as the sailors. Still a man of courage would have fought. Hisown ship was fairly well manned, and was of a commanding size, quiteable to overpower the light vessels of the pirates; and such a crew asthere was was eager to fight. But Cleomenes was as cowardly as he wasincompetent. He ordered the mast of his ship to be hoisted, the sails tobe set, and the cable cut, and made off with all speed. The rest of hisfleet could do nothing but follow his example. The pirates gave chase, and captured two of the ships as they fled. Cleomenes reached the portof Helorus, stranded his ship, and left it to its fate. His colleaguesdid the same. The pirate chief found them thus deserted and burned them. He had then the audacity to sail into the inner harbor of Syracuse, aplace into which, we are told, only one hostile fleet, the ill-fatedAthenian expedition, three centuries and a half before, had everpenetrated. The rage of the inhabitants at this spectacle exceeded allbounds, and Verres felt that a victim must be sacrificed. He was, ofcourse, himself the chief culprit. Next in guilt to him was Cleomenes. But Cleomenes was spared for the same scandalous reason which had causedhis appointment to the command. The other captains, who might indeedhave shown more courage, but who were comparatively blameless, wereordered to execution. It seemed all the more necessary to remove thembecause they could have given inconvenient testimony as to theinefficient condition of the ships. 

The cruelty of Verres was indeed as conspicuous as his avarice. Of this, as of his other vices, it would not suit the purpose of this book tospeak in detail. One conspicuous example will suffice. A certain Gaviushad given offense, how we know not, and had been confined in thedisused stone quarries which served for the public prison of Syracuse. From these he contrived to escape, and made his way to Messana. Unluckily for himself, he did not know that Messana was the one place inSicily where it would not be safe to speak against the governor. Just ashe was about to embark for Italy he was heard to complain of thetreatment which he had received, and was arrested and brought before thechief magistrate of the town. Verres happened to come to the town thesame day, and heard what had happened. He ordered the man to be strippedand flogged in the market-place. Gavius pleaded that he was a Romancitizen and offered proof of his claim. Verres refused to listen, andenraged by the repetition of the plea, actually ordered the man to becrucified. "And set up, " he said to his lictors, "set up the cross bythe straits. He is a Roman citizen, he says, and he will at least beable to have a view of his native country. " We know from the history ofSt. Paul what a genuine privilege and protection this citizenship was. And Cicero exactly expresses the feeling on the subject in his famouswords. "It is a crime to put a Roman citizen in irons; it is positivewickedness to inflict stripes upon him; it is close upon parricide toput him to death; as to crucifying him there is no word for it. " And onthis crowning act of audacity Verres had the recklessness to venture. 

After holding office for three years Verres came back to Rome. Thepeople of Messana, his only friends in the islands, had built amerchantman for him, and he loaded it with his spoils. He came back witha light heart. He knew indeed that the Sicilians would impeach him. Hiswrong-doings had been too gross, too insolent, for him to escapealtogether. But he was confident that he had the means in his hands forsecuring an acquittal. The men that were to judge him were men of hisown order. The senators still retained the privilege which Sulla hadgiven them. They, and they alone, furnished the juries before whom suchcauses were tried. Of these senators not a few had a fellow-feeling fora provincial governor accused of extortion and wrong. Some hadplundered provinces in the past; others hoped to do so in the future. Many insignificant men who could not hope to obtain such promotion werenotoriously open to bribes. And some who would have scorned to receivemoney, or were too wealthy to be influenced by it, were not insensibleto the charms of other gifts--to a fine statue or a splendid picturejudiciously bestowed. A few, even more scrupulous, who would not acceptsuch presents for their own halls or gardens, were glad to have suchsplendid ornaments for the games which they exhibited to the people. Verres came back amply provided with these means of securing his safety. He openly avowed--for indeed he was as frank as he was unscrupulous--thathe had trebled his extortions in order that, after leaving a sufficiencyfor himself, he might have wherewith to win the favor of his judges. Itsoon became evident to him that he would need these and all other help, if he was to escape. The Sicilians engaged Cicero to plead their cause. He had been quaestor in a division of the province for a year six yearsbefore, and had won golden opinions by his moderation and integrity. AndCicero was a power in the courts of the law, all the greater because hehad never yet prosecuted, but had kept himself to what was held the morehonorable task of defending persons accused. [2] Verres secured Hortensius. He too was a great orator; Cicero had chosen him as the model which hewould imitate, and speaks of him as having been a splendid and energeticspeaker, full of life both in diction and action. At that time, perhaps, his reputation stood higher than that of Cicero himself. It was somethingto have retained so powerful an advocate; it would be still more if itcould be contrived that the prosecutor should be a less formidable person. And there was a chance of contriving this. A certain Caecilius was inducedto come forward, and claim for himself, against Cicero, the duty ofprosecuting the late governor of Sicily. He too had been a quaestor in theprovince, and he had quarreled, or he pretended that he had quarreled, withVerres. The first thing there had to be argued before the court, which, like our own, consisted of a presiding judge and a jury, was thequestion, who was to prosecute, Cicero or Caecilius, or the twotogether. Cicero made a great speech, in which he established his ownclaim. He was the choice of the provincials; the honesty of his rivalwas doubtful, while it was quite certain that he was incompetent. Thecourt decided in his favor, and he was allowed one hundred and ten daysto collect evidence. Verres had another device in store. This time amember of the Senate came forward and claimed to prosecute Verres formisdoings in the province of Achaia in Greece. He wanted one hundred andeight days only for collecting evidence. If this claim should beallowed, the second prosecution would be taken first; of course it wasnot intended to be serious, and would end in an acquittal. Meanwhile allthe available time would have been spent, and the Sicilian affair wouldhave to be postponed till the next year. It was on postponement indeedthat Verres rested his hopes. In July Hortensius was elected consul forthe following year, and if the trial could only be put off till he hadentered upon office, nothing was to be feared. Verres was openlycongratulated in the streets of Rome on his good fortune. "I have goodnews for you, " cried a friend; "the election has taken place and you areacquitted. " Another friend had been chosen praetor, and would be thenew presiding judge. Consul and praetor between them would have theappointment of the new jurors, and would take care that they should besuch as the accused desired. At the same time the new governor of Sicilywould be also a friend, and he would throw judicious obstacles in theway of the attendance of witnesses. The sham prosecution came tonothing. The prosecutor never left Italy. Cicero, on the other hand, employed the greatest diligence. Accompanied by his cousin Lucius hevisited all the chief cities of Sicily, and collected from them anenormous mass of evidence. In this work he only spent fifty out of thehundred and ten days allotted to him, and was ready to begin long beforehe was expected. 

[Footnote 2: So Horace compliments a friend on being "the illustrioussafeguard of the sad accused. "]

Verres had still one hope left; and this, strangely enough, sprang outof the very number and enormity of his crimes. The mass of evidence wasso great that the trial might be expected to last for a long time. If itcould only be protracted into the next year, when his friends would bein office, he might still hope to escape. And indeed there was butlittle time left. The trial began on the fifth of August. In the middleof the month Pompey was to exhibit some games. Then would come the gamescalled "The Games of Rome, " and after this others again, filling up muchof the three months of September, October, and November. Ciceroanticipated this difficulty. He made a short speech (it could not havelasted more than two hours in delivering), in which he stated the casein outline. He made a strong appeal to the jury. They were themselves ontheir trial. The eyes of all the world were on them. If they did not dojustice on so notorious a criminal they would never be trusted any more. It would be seen that the senators were not fit to administer the law. The law itself was on its trial. The provincials openly declared that ifVerres was acquitted, the law under which their governors were liable tobe accused had better be repealed. If no fear of a prosecution werehanging over them, they would be content with as much plunder as wouldsatisfy their own wants. They would not need to extort as much morewherewith to bribe their judges. Then he called his witnesses. Amarvelous array they were. "From the foot of Mount Taurus, from theshores of the Black Sea, from many cities of the Grecian mainland, frommany islands of the Aegean, from every city and market-town of Sicily, deputations thronged to Rome. In the porticoes, and on the steps of thetemples, in the area of the Forum, in the colonnade that surrounded it, on the housetops and on the overlooking declivities, were stationeddense and eager crowds of impoverished heirs and their guardians, bankrupt tax-farmers and corn merchants, fathers bewailing theirchildren carried off to the praetor's harem, children mourning for theirparents dead in the praetor's dungeons, Greek nobles whose descent wastraced to Cecrops or Eurysthenes, or to the great Ionian and Minyanhouses, and Phoenicians, whose ancestors had been priests of the TyrianMelcarth, or claimed kindred with the Zidonian Jah. "[3] Nine days werespent in hearing this mass of evidence. Hortensius was utterlyoverpowered by it. He had no opportunity for displaying his eloquence, or making a pathetic appeal for a noble oppressed by the hatred of thedemocracy. After a few feeble attempts at cross-examination, hepractically abandoned the case. The defendant himself perceived that hisposition was hopeless. Before the nine days, with their terribleimpeachment, had come to an end he fled from Rome. 

[Footnote 3: Article in "Dictionary of Classical Biography andMythology, " by William Bodham Donne. ]

The jury returned an unanimous verdict of guilty, and the prisoner wascondemned to banishment and to pay a fine. The place of banishment(which he was apparently allowed to select outside certain limits) wasMarseilles. The amount of the fine we do not know. It certainly was notenough to impoverish him. 

Much of the money, and many of the works of art which he had stolen wereleft to him. These latter, by a singularly just retribution, proved hisruin in the end. After the death of Cicero, Antony permitted the exilesto return. Verres came with them, bringing back his treasures of art, and was put to death because they excited the cupidity of the masters ofRome. 

CHAPTER V. 

A GREAT ROMAN CAUSE. 

There were various courts at Rome for persons accused of variouscrimes. One judge, for instance, used to try charges of poisoning;another, charges of murder; and, just as is the case among us, eachjudge had a jury, who gave their verdict on the evidence which they hadheard. But this verdict was not, as with us, the verdict of the wholejury, given only if all can be induced to agree, but of the majority. Each juryman wrote his opinion on a little tablet of wood, putting A. (_absolvo_, "I acquit") if he thought the accused innocent, K. (_condemno_, "I condemn") if he thought him guilty, and N. L. (_nonliquet_, "It is not clear") if the case seemed suspicious, though therewas not enough evidence to convict. 

In the year 66 B. C. A very strange trial took place in the Court ofPoison Cases. A certain Cluentius was accused of having poisoned hisstep-father, Oppianicus, and various other persons. Cicero, who waspraetor that year (the praetor was the magistrate next in rank to theconsul), defended Cluentius, and told his client's whole story. 

Cluentius and his step-father were both natives of Larinum, a town inApulia, where there was a famous temple of Mars. A dispute about theproperty of this temple caused an open quarrel between the two men, whohad indeed been enemies for some years. Oppianicus took up the case ofsome slaves, who were called _Servants of Mars_, declaring that theywere not slaves at all, but Roman citizens. This he did, it would seem, because he desired to annoy his fellow-townsmen, with whom he was veryunpopular. The people of Larinum, who were very much interested in allthat concerned the splendor of their temple services, resisted theclaim, and asked Cluentius to plead their case. Cluentius consented. While the cause was going on, it occurred to Oppianicus to get rid ofhis opponent by poison. He employed an agent, and the agent put thematter into the hands of his freedman, a certain Scamander. Scamandertried to accomplish his object by bribing the slave of the physician whowas attending Cluentius. The physician was a needy Greek, and his slavehad probably hard and scanty fare; but he was an honest man, and asclever as he was honest. He pretended to accept the offer, and arrangedfor a meeting. This done, he told the whole matter to his master thephysician, and the physician told it again to his patient. Cluentiusarranged that certain friends should be present in concealment at theinterview between the slave and his tempter. The villain came, and wasseized with the poison and a packet of money, sealed with his master'sseal, upon him. 

Cluentius, who had put up with many provocations from his mother'shusband, now felt that his life was in danger, and determined to defendhimself. He indicted Scamander for an attempt to poison. The man wasfound guilty. Scamander's patron (as they used to call a freedman's oldmaster) was next brought to trial, and with the same result. Last of allOppianicus, the chief criminal, was attacked. Scamander's trial hadwarned him of his danger, and he had labored to bring about the man'sacquittal. One vote, and one only, he had contrived to secure. And tothe giver of this vote, a needy and unprincipled member of the Senate, he now had recourse. He went, of course, with a large sum in hishand--something about five thousand six hundred pounds of our money. With this the senator--Staienus by name--was to bribe sixteen out of thethirty-two jurymen. They were to have three hundred and fifty poundsapiece for their votes, and Staienus was to have as much for his ownvote (which would give a majority), and something over for his trouble. Staienus conceived the happy idea of appropriating the whole, and hemanaged it in this way. He accosted a fellow-juror, whom he knew to beas unprincipled as himself. "Bulbus, " he said, "you will help me intaking care that we sha'n't serve our country for nothing. " "You maycount on me, " said the man. Staienus went on, "The defendant haspromised three hundred and fifty pounds to every juror who will vote'Not Guilty. ' You know who will take the money. Secure them, and comeagain to me. " Nine days after, Bulbus came with beaming face toStaienus. "I have got the sixteen in the matter you know of; and now, where is the money?" "He has played me false, " replied the other; "themoney is not forthcoming. As for myself, I shall certainly vote'Guilty. '"

The trial came to an end, and the verdict was to be given. The defendantclaimed that it should be given by word of mouth, being anxious to knowwho had earned their money. Staienus and Bulbus were the first to vote. To the surprise of all, they voted "Guilty. " Rumors too of foul play hadspread about. The two circumstances caused some of the more respectablejurors to hesitate. In the end _five_ voted for acquittal, _ten_ said"Not Proven, " and seventeen "Guilty. " Oppianicus suffered nothing worsethan banishment, a banishment which did not prevent him from living inItaly, and even in the neighborhood of Rome. The Romans, though theyshed blood like water in their civil strife, were singularly lenient intheir punishments. Not long afterwards he died. 

His widow saw in his death an opportunity of gratifying the unnaturalhatred which she had long felt for her son Cluentius. She would accusehim of poisoning his step-father. Her first attempt failed completely. She subjected three slaves to torture, one of them her own, anotherbelonged to the younger Oppianicus, a third the property of thephysician who had attended the deceased in his last illness. But thecruelties and tortures extorted no confession from the men. At last thefriends whom she had summoned to be present at the inquiry compelled herto desist. Three years afterwards she renewed the attempt. She had takenone of the three tortured slaves into high favor, and had establishedhim as a physician at Larinum. The man committed an audacious robbery inhis mistress's house, breaking open a chest and abstracting from it aquantity of silver coin and five pounds weight of gold. At the same timehe murdered two of his fellow-slaves, and threw their bodies into thefish-pond. Suspicion fell upon the missing slaves. But when the chestcame to be closely examined, the opening was found to be of a verycurious kind. A friend remembered that he had lately seen among themiscellaneous articles at an auction a circular saw which would havemade just such an opening. It was found that this saw had been bought bythe physician. He was now charged with the crime. Thereupon a young ladwho had been his accomplice came forward and told the story. The bodieswere found in the fish-pond. The guilty slave was tortured. He confessedthe deed, and he also confessed, his mistress declared, that he hadgiven poison to Oppianicus at the instance of Cluentius. No opportunitywas given for further inquiry. His confession made, the man wasimmediately executed. Under strong compulsion from his step-mother, theyounger Oppianicus now took up the case, and indicted Cluentius formurder. The evidence was very weak, little or nothing beyond the verydoubtful confession spoken of above; but then there was a very violentprejudice against the accused. There had been a suspicion--perhaps morethan a suspicion--of foul play in the trial which had ended in thecondemnation of Oppianicus. The defendant, men said, might haveattempted to bribe the jury, but the plaintiff had certainly done so. Itwould be a fine thing if he were to be punished even by finding himguilty of a crime which he had not committed. 

In defending his client, Cicero relied as much upon the terrible listof crimes which had been proved against the dead Oppianicus as upon anything else. Terrible indeed it was, as a few specimens from thecatalogue will prove. 

Among the wealthier inhabitants of Larinum was a certain Dinaea, achildless widow. She had lost her eldest son in the Social War (the warcarried on between Rome and her Italian allies), and had seen two othersdie of disease. Her only daughter, who had been married to Oppianicus, was also dead. Now came the unexpected news that her eldest son wasstill alive. He had been sold into slavery, and was still working amonga gang of laborers on a farm in Gaul. The poor woman called her kinsfolktogether and implored them to undertake the task of recovering him. Atthe same time she made a will, leaving the bulk of her property to herdaughter's son, the younger Oppianicus, but providing for the missingman a legacy of between three and four thousand pounds. The elderOppianicus was not disposed to see so large a sum go out of the family. Dinaea fell ill, and he brought her his own physician. The patientrefused the man's services; they had been fatal, she said, to all herkinsfolk. Oppianicus then contrived to introduce to her a travelingquack from Ancona. He had bribed the man with about seventeen pounds ofour money to administer a deadly drug. The fee was large, and the fellowwas expected to take some pains with the business; but he was in ahurry; he had many markets to visit; and he gave a single dose whichthere was no need to repeat. 

Meanwhile Dinaea's kinsfolk had sent two agents to make inquiries forthe missing son. But Oppianicus had been beforehand with them. He hadbribed the man who had brought the first news, had learned where he wasto be found, and had caused him to be assassinated. The agents wrote totheir employers at Larinum, saying that the object of their search couldnot be found, Oppianicus having undoubtedly tampered with the personfrom whom information was to be obtained. This letter excited greatindignation at Larinum; and one of the family publicly declared in themarket-place that he should hold Oppianicus (who happened to be present)responsible if any harm should be found to have happened to the missingman. A few days afterwards the agents themselves returned. They hadfound the man, but he was dead. Oppianicus dared not face the burst ofrage which this news excited, and fled from Larinum. But he was not atthe end of his resources. The Civil War between Sulla and the party ofMarius (for Marius himself was now dead) was raging, and Oppianicus fledto the camp of Metellus Pius, one of Sulla's lieutenants. There herepresented himself as one who had suffered for the party. Metellus hadhimself fought in the Social War, and fought against the side to whichthe murdered prisoner belonged. It was therefore easy to persuade himthat the man had deserved his fate, and that his friends were unworthypersons and dangerous to the commonwealth. Oppianicus returned toLarinum with an armed force, deposed the magistrates whom thetowns-people had chosen, produced Sulla's mandate for the appointment ofhimself and three of his creatures in their stead, as well as for theexecution of four persons particularly obnoxious to him. These fourwere, the man who had publicly threatened him, two of his kinsfolk, andone of the instruments of his own villainies, whom he now found itconvenient to get out of the way. 

The story of the crimes of Oppianicus, of which only a small part hasbeen given, having been finished, Cicero related the true circumstancesof his death. After his banishment he had wandered about for a whileshunned by all his acquaintances. Then he had taken up his quarters in afarmhouse in the Falernian country. From these he was driven away by aquarrel with the farmer, and removed to a small lodging which he hadhired outside the walls of Rome. Not long afterwards he fell from hishorse, and received a severe injury in his side. His health was alreadyweak, fever came on, he was carried into the city and died after a fewdays' illness. 

Besides the charge of poisoning Oppianicus there were others that had tobe briefly dealt with. One only of these needs to be mentioned. Cluentius, it was said, had put poison into a cup of honey wine, withthe intention of giving it to the younger Oppianicus. The occasion, itwas allowed, was the young man's wedding-breakfast, to which, as wasthe custom at Larinum, a large company had been invited. The prosecutoraffirmed that one of the bridegroom's friends had intercepted the cup onits way, drunk off its contents, and instantly expired. The answer tothis was complete. The young man had not instantly expired. On thecontrary, he had died after an illness of several days, and this illnesshad had a different cause. He was already out of health when he came tothe breakfast, and he had made himself worse by eating and drinking toofreely, "as, " says the orator, "young men will do. " He then called awitness to whom no one could object, the father of the deceased. "Theleast suspicion of the guilt of Cluentius would have brought him as awitness against him. Instead of doing this he gives him his support. Read, " said Cicero to the clerk, "read his evidence. And you, sir, "turning to the father, "stand up a while, if you please, and submit tothe pain of hearing what I am obliged to relate. I will say no moreabout the case. Your conduct has been admirable; you would not allowyour own sorrow to involve an innocent man in the deplorable calamity ofa false accusation. "

Then came the story of the cruel and shameful plot which the mother hadcontrived against her son. Nothing would content this wicked woman butthat she must herself journey to Rome to give all the help that shecould to the prosecution. "And what a journey this was!" cried Cicero. "I live near some of the towns near which she passed, and I have heardfrom many witnesses what happened. Vast crowds came to see her. Men, ay, and women too, groaned aloud as she passed by. Groaned at what? Why, that from the distant town of Larinum, from the very shore of the UpperSea, a woman was coming with a great retinue and heavy money-bags, coming with the single object of bringing about the ruin of a son whowas being tried for his life. In all those crowds there was not a manwho did not think that every spot on which she set her foot needed to bepurified, that the very earth, which is the mother of us all, wasdefiled by the presence of a mother so abominably wicked. There was nota single town in which she was allowed to stay; there was not an inn ofall the many upon that road where the host did not shun the contagionof her presence. And indeed she preferred to trust herself to solitudeand to darkness rather than to any city or hostelry. And now, " saidCicero, turning to the woman, who was probably sitting in court, "doesshe think that we do not all know her schemes, her intrigues, herpurposes from day to day? Truly we know exactly to whom she has gone, towhom she has promised money, whose integrity she has endeavored tocorrupt with her bribes. Nay, more: we have heard all about the thingswhich she supposes to be a secret, her nightly sacrifice, her wickedprayers, her abominable vows. "

He then turned to the son, whom he would have the jury believe was asadmirable as the mother was vile. He had certainly brought together awonderful array of witnesses to, character. From Larinum every grown-upman that had the strength to make the journey had come to Rome tosupport their fellow-townsman. The town was left to the care of womenand children. With these witnesses had come, bringing a resolution ofthe local senate full of the praises of the accused, a deputation of thesenators. Cicero turned to the deputation and begged them to stand upwhile the resolution was being read. They stood up and burst into tears, which indeed are much more common among the people of the south thanamong us, and of which no one sees any reason to be ashamed. "You seethese tears, gentlemen, " cried the orator to the jury. "You may be sure, from seeing them, that every member of the senate was in tears also whenthey passed this resolution. " Nor was it only Larinum, but all the chiefSamnite towns that had sent their most respected citizens to give theirevidence for Cluentius. "Few, " said Cicero, "I think, are loved by me asmuch as he is loved by all these friends. "

Cluentius was acquitted. Cicero is said to have boasted afterwards thathe had blinded the eyes of the jury. Probably his client had bribed thejury in the trial of his step-father. That was certainly the commonbelief, which indeed went so far as to fix the precise sum which hepaid. "How many miles is your farm from Rome?" was asked of one of thewitnesses at a trial connected with the case. "Less than fifty-three, "he replied. "Exactly the sum, " was the general cry from the spectators. The point of the joke is in the fact that the same word stood in Latinfor the _thousand_ paces which made a mile and the _thousand_ coins bywhich sums of money were commonly reckoned. Oppianicus had paid fortythousand for an acquittal, and Cluentius outbid him with fifty thousand("less than fifty-three") to secure a verdict of guilty. But whatever wemay think of the guilt or innocence of Cluentius, there can be no doubtthat the cause in which Cicero defended him was one of the mostinteresting ever tried in Rome. 

CHAPTER VI. 

COUNTRY LIFE. 

A Roman of even moderate wealth--for Cicero was far from being one ofthe richest men of his time--commonly possessed more country-houses thanbelong even to the wealthiest of English nobles. One such house at leastCicero inherited from his father. It was about three miles from Arpinum, a little town in that hill country of the Sabines which was theproverbial seat of a temperate and frugal race, and which Cicerodescribes in Homeric phrase as

 "Rough but a kindly nurse of men. "

In his grandfather's time it had been a plain farmhouse, of the kindthat had satisfied the simpler manners of former days--the days whenConsuls and Dictators were content, their time of office ended, to plowtheir own fields and reap their own harvests. Cicero was born within itswalls, for the primitive fashion of family life still prevailed, and themarried son continued to live in his father's house. After the old man'sdeath, when the old-fashioned frugality gave way to a more sumptuousmanner of life, the house was greatly enlarged, one of the additionsbeing a library, a room of which the grandfather, who thought that hiscontemporaries were like Syrian slaves, "the more Greek they knew thegreater knaves they were, " had never felt the want; but in which hisson, especially in his later days, spent most of his time. The gardenand grounds were especially delightful, the most charming spot of allbeing an island formed by the little stream Fibrenus. A description putinto the mouth of Quintus, the younger son of the house, thus depictsit: "I have never seen a more pleasant spot. Fibrenus here divides hisstream into two of equal size, and so washes either side. Flowingrapidly by he joins his waters again, having compassed just as muchground as makes a convenient place for our literary discussions. Thisdone he hurries on, just as if the providing of such a spot had been hisonly office and function, to fall into the Liris. Then, like one adoptedinto a noble family, he loses his own obscurer name. The Liris indeed hemakes much colder. A colder stream than this indeed I never touched, though I have seen many. I can scarce bear to dip my foot in it. Youremember how Plato makes Socrates dip his foot in Ilissus. " Atticus toois loud in his praises. "This, you know, is my first time of cominghere, and I feel that I cannot admire it enough. As to the splendidvillas which one often sees, with their marble pavements and gildedceilings, I despise them. And their water-courses, to which they givethe fine names of Nile or Euripus, who would not laugh at them when hesees your streams? When we want rest and delight for the mind it is tonature that we must come. Once I used to wonder--for I never thoughtthat there was any thing but rocks and hills in the place--that you tooksuch pleasure in the spot. But now I marvel that when you are away fromRome you care to be any where but here. " "Well, " replied Cicero, "when Iget away from town for several days at a time, I do prefer this place;but this I can seldom do. And indeed I love it, not only because it isso pleasant, so healthy a resort, but also because it is my native land, mine and my father's too, and because I live here among the associationsof those that have gone before me. "

Other homes he purchased at various times of his life, as his meanspermitted. The situation of one of them, at Formiae near Cape Caista, was particularly agreeable to him, for he loved the sea; it amused himas it had amused, he tells us, the noble friends, Scipio and Laelius, before him, to pick up pebbles on the shore. But this part of the coastwas a fashionable resort. Chance visitors were common; and there weremany neighbors, some of whom were far too liberal of their visits. Hewrites to Atticus on one occasion from his Formian villa: "As tocomposition, to which you are always urging me, it is absolutelyimpossible. It is a public-hall that I have here, not a country-house, such a crowd of people is there at Formiae. As to most of them nothingneed be said. After ten o'clock they cease to trouble me. But my nearestneighbor is Arrius. The man absolutely lives with me, says that he hasgiven up the idea of going to Rome because he wants to talk philosophywith me. And then, on the other side, there is Sebosus, Catulus' friend, as you will remember. Now what am I to do? I would certainly be off toArpinum if I did not expect to see you here. " In the next letter herepeats the complaints: "Just as I am sitting down to write in comes ourfriend Sebosus. I had not time to give an inward groan, when Arriussays, 'Good morning. ' And this is going away from Rome! I willcertainly be off to

 'My native hills, the cradle of my race. '"

Still, doubtless, there was a sweetness, the sweetness of being famousand sought after, even in these annoyances. He never ceased to payoccasional visits to Formiae. It was a favorite resort of his family;and it was there that he spent the last days of his life. 

But the country-house which he loved best of all was his villa atTusculum, a Latin town lying on the slope of Mount Algidus, at such aheight above the sea[4] as would make a notable hill in England. Herehad lived in an earlier generation Crassus, the orator after whose modelthe young Cicero had formed his own eloquence; and Catulus, who sharedwith Marius the glory of saving Rome from the barbarians; and Caesar, anelder kinsman of the Dictator. Cicero's own house had belonged toSulla, and its walls were adorned with frescoes of that great soldier'svictories. For neighbors he had the wealthy Lucullus, and the still morewealthy Crassus, one of the three who ruled Rome when it could no longerrule itself, and, for a time at least, Quintus, his brother. "This, " hewrites to his friend Atticus, "is the one spot in which I can get somerest from all my toils and troubles. "

[Footnote 4: 2200 feet. ]

Though Cicero often speaks of this house of his, he nowhere describesits general arrangements. We shall probably be not far wrong if weborrow our idea of this from the letter in which the younger Pliny tellsa friend about one of his own country seats. 

"The courtyard in front is plain without being mean. From this you passinto a small but cheerful space inclosed by colonnades in the shape ofthe letter D. Between these there is a passage into an inner coveredcourt, and out of this again into a handsome hall, which has on everyside folding doors or windows equally large. On the left hand of thishall lies a large drawing-room, and beyond that a second of a smallersize, which has one window to the rising and another to the setting sun. Adjoining this is another room of a semicircular shape, the windows ofwhich are so arranged as to get the sun all through the day: in thewalls are bookcases containing a collection of authors who cannot beread too often. Out of this is a bedroom which can be warmed with hotair. The rest of this side of the house is appropriated to the use ofthe slaves and freedmen; yet most of the rooms are good enough to put myguests into. In the opposite wing is a most elegant bedroom, anotherwhich can be used both as bedroom and sitting-room, and a third whichhas an ante-room of its own, and is so high as to be cool in summer, andwith walls so thick that it is warm in winter. Then comes the bath withits cooling room, its hot room, and its dressing chamber. And not farfrom this again the tennis court, which gets the warmth of the afternoonsun, and a tower which commands an extensive view of the country round. Then there is a granary and a store-room. "

This was probably a larger villa than Cicero's, though it was itselfsmaller than another which Pliny describes. We must make an allowancefor the increase in wealth and luxury which a century and a half hadbrought. Still we may get some idea from it of Cicero's country-house, one point of resemblance certainly being that there was but one floor. 

What Cicero says about his "Tusculanum" chiefly refers to its furnishingand decoration, and is to be found for the most part in his letters toAtticus. Atticus lived for many years in Athens and had thereforeopportunities of buying works of art and books which did not fall in theway of the busy lawyer and statesman of Rome. But the room which inCicero's eyes was specially important was one which we may call thelecture-room, and he is delighted when his friend was able to procuresome appropriate ornaments for it. "Your _Hermathena_" he writes (the_Hermathena_ was a composite statue, or rather a double bust upon apedestal, with the heads of Hermes and Athene, the Roman Mercury andMinerva) "pleases me greatly. It stands so prettily that the wholelecture-room looks like a votive chapel of the deity. I am greatlyobliged to you. " He returns to the subject in another letter. Atticushad probably purchased for him another bust of the same kind. "What youwrite about the _Hermathena_ pleases me greatly. It is a mostappropriate ornament for my own little 'seat of learning. ' Hermes issuitable every where, and Minerva is the special emblem of alecture-room. I should be glad if you would, as you suggest, find asmany more ornaments of the same kind for the place. As for the statuesthat you sent me before, I have not seen them. They are at my house atFormiae, whither I am just now thinking of going. I shall remove themall to my place at Tusculum. If ever I shall find myself with more thanenough for this I shall begin to ornament the other. Pray keep yourbooks. Don't give up the hope that I may be able to make them mine. If Ican only do this I shall be richer than Crassus. " And, again, "If youcan find any lecture-room ornaments do not neglect to secure them. MyTusculum house is so delightful to me that it is only when I get therethat I seem to be satisfied with myself. " In another letter we hearsomething about the prices. He has paid about one hundred and eightypounds for some statues from Megara which his friend had purchased forhim. At the same time he thanks him by anticipation for some busts ofHermes, in which the pedestals were of marble from Pentelicus, and theheads of bronze. They had not come to hand when he next writes: "I amlooking for them, " he says, "most anxiously;" and he again urgesdiligence in looking for such things. "You may trust the length of mypurse. This is my special fancy. " Shortly after Atticus has foundanother kind of statue, double busts of Hermes and Hercules, the god ofstrength; and Cicero is urgent to have them for his lecture-room. Allthe same he does not forget the books, for which he is keeping his oddsand ends of income, his "little vintages, " as he calls them--possiblythe money received from a small vineyard attached to hispleasure-grounds. Of books, however, he had an ample supply close athome, of which he could make as much use as he pleased, the splendidlibrary which Lucullus had collected. "When I was at my house inTusculum, " he writes in one of his treatises, "happening to want to makeuse of some books in the library of the young Lucullus, I went to hisvilla, to take them out myself, as my custom was. Coming there I foundCato (Cato was the lad's uncle and guardian), of whom, however, then Iknew nothing, sitting in the library absolutely surrounded with books ofthe Stoic writers on philosophy. "

When Cicero was banished, the house at Tusculum shared the fate of therest of his property. The building was destroyed. The furniture, andwith it the books and works of art so diligently collected, were stolenor sold. Cicero thought, and was probably right in thinking, that theSenate dealt very meanly with him when they voted him something betweenfour and five thousand pounds as compensation for his loss in thisrespect. For his house at Formiae they gave him half as much. We hear ofhis rebuilding the house. He had advertised the contract, he tells us inthe same letter in which he complains of the insufficient compensation. Some of his valuables he recovered, but we hear no more of collecting. He had lost heart for it, as men will when such a disaster has happenedto them. He was growing older too, and the times were growing more andmore troublous. Possibly money was not so plentiful with him as it hadbeen in earlier days. But we have one noble monument of the manconnected with the second of his two Tusculum houses. He makes it thescene of the "Discussions of Tusculum, " one of the last of the treatisesin the writing of which he found consolation for private and publicsorrows. He describes himself as resorting in the afternoon to his"Academy, " and there discussing how the wise man may rise superior tothe fear of death, to pain and to sorrow, how he may rule his passions, and find contentment in virtue alone. "If it seems, " he says, summing upthe first of these discussions, "if it seems the clear bidding of Godthat we should quit this life [he seems to be speaking of suicide, whichappeared to a Roman to be, under certain circumstances, a laudable act], let us obey gladly and thankfully. Let us consider that we are beingloosed from prison, and released from chains, that we may either findour way back to a home that is at once everlasting and manifestly ourown, or at least be quit forever of all sensation and trouble. If nosuch bidding come to us, let us at least cherish such a temper that wemay look on that day so dreadful to others as full of blessing to us;and let us look on nothing that is ordered for us either by theeverlasting gods or by nature, our common mother, as an evil. It is notby some random chance that we have been created. There is beyond alldoubt some mighty Power which watches over the race of man, which doesnot produce a creature whose doom it is, after having exhausted allother woes, to fall at last into the unending woe of death. Rather letus believe that we have in death a haven and refuge prepared for us. Iwould that we might sail thither with widespread sails; if not, ifcontrary winds shall blow us back, still we must needs reach, though itmay be somewhat late, the haven where we would be. And as for the fatewhich is the fate of all, how can it be the unhappiness of one?"

CHAPTER VII. 

A GREAT CONSPIRACY. 

Sergius Catiline belonged to an ancient family which had fallen intopoverty. In the evil days of Sulla, when the nobles recovered the powerwhich they had lost, and plundered and murdered their adversaries, hehad shown himself as cruel and as wicked as any of his fellows. Likemany others he had satisfied grudges of his own under pretense ofserving his party, and had actually killed his brother-in-law with hisown hand. These evil deeds and his private character, which was of thevery worst, did not hinder him from rising to high offices in the State. He was made first aedile, then praetor, then governor of Africa, aprovince covering the region which now bears the names of Tripoli andTunis. At the end of his year of government he returned to Rome, intending to become a candidate for the consulship. In this he met witha great disappointment. He was indicted for misgovernment in hisprovince, and as the law did not permit any one who had such a chargehanging over him to stand for any public office, he was compelled toretire. But he soon found, or fancied that he had found, an opportunityof revenging himself. The two new consuls were found guilty of bribery, and were compelled to resign. One of them, enraged at his disgrace, madecommon cause with Catiline. A plot, in which not a few powerful citizenswere afterwards suspected with more or less reason of having joined, wasformed. It was arranged that the consuls should be assassinated on thefirst day of the new year; the day, that is, on which they were to enteron their office. But a rumor of some impending danger got about; on theappointed day the new consuls appeared with a sufficient escort, and theconspirators agreed to postpone the execution of their scheme till anearly day in February. This time the secret was better kept, but theimpatience of Catiline hindered the plot from being carried out. It hadbeen arranged that he should take his place in front of thesenate-house, and give to the hired band of assassins the signal tobegin. This signal he gave before the whole number was assembled. Thefew that were present had not the courage to act, and the opportunitywas lost. 

The trial for misgovernment ended in an acquittal, purchased, it wassaid, by large bribes given to the jurymen and even to the prosecutor, acertain Clodius, of whom we shall hear again, and shall find to havebeen not one whit better than Catiline himself. A second trial, thistime for misdeeds committed in the days of Sulla, ended in the same way. Catiline now resolved on following another course of action. He wouldtake up the character of a friend of the people. He had the advantage ofbeing a noble, for men thought that he was honest when they saw him thusturn against his own order, and, as it seemed, against his owninterests. And indeed there was much that he could say, and say withperfect truth, against the nobles. They were corrupt and profligatebeyond all bearing. They sat on juries and gave false verdicts formoney. They went out to govern provinces, showed themselves horriblycruel and greedy, and then came home to be acquitted by men who had doneor hoped to do the very same things themselves. People listened toCatiline when he spoke against such doings, without remembering that hewas just as bad himself. He had too, just the reputation for strengthand courage that was likely to make him popular. He had never been asoldier, but he was known to be very brave, and he had a remarkablepower of enduring cold and hunger and hardships of every kind. On thestrength of the favor which he thus gained, he stood again for theconsulship. In anticipation of being elected, he gathered a number ofmen about him, unsuccessful and discontented like himself, and unfoldedhis plans. All debts were to be wiped out, and wealthy citizens were tobe put to death and their property to be divided. It was hoped that theconsuls at home, and two at least of the armies in the provinces, wouldsupport the movement. The first failure was that Catiline was notelected consul, Cicero being chosen unanimously, with Antonius, who hada small majority over Catiline, for his colleague. Enraged at his wantof success, the latter now proceeded to greater lengths than ever. Heactually raised troops in various parts of Italy, but especially inEtruria, which one Manlius, an old officer in Sulla's army, commanded. He then again became a candidate for the consulship, resolving first toget rid of Cicero, who, he found, met and thwarted him at every turn. Happily for Rome these designs were discovered through the weakness ofone of his associates. This man told the secret to a lady, with whom hewas in love, and the lady, dismayed at the boldness and wickedness ofthe plan, communicated all she knew to Cicero. 

Not knowing that he was thus betrayed, Catiline set about riddinghimself of his great antagonist. Nor did the task seem difficult. Thehours both of business and of pleasure in Rome were what we should thinkinconveniently early. Thus a Roman noble or statesman would receive inthe first hours of the morning the calls of ceremony or friendship whichit is our custom to pay in the afternoon. It would sometimes happen thatearly visitors would find the great man not yet risen. In these cases hewould often receive them in bed. This was probably the habit of Cicero, a courteous, kindly man, always anxious to be popular, and thereforeeasy of access. On this habit the conspirators counted. Two of theirnumber, one of them a knight, the other a senator, presented themselvesat his door shortly after sunrise on the seventh of November. Theyreckoned on finding him, not in the great hall of his mansion, surrounded by friends and dependents, but in his bed-chamber. But theconsul had received warning of their coming, and they were refusedadmittance. The next day he called a meeting of the Senate in the templeof Jupiter the Stayer, which was supposed to be the safest place wherethey could assemble. 

To this meeting Catiline, a member in right of having filled highoffices of state, himself ventured to come. A tall, stalwart man, manifestly of great power of body and mind, but with a face pale andwasted by excess, and his eyes haggard and bloodshot, he sat alone inthe midst of a crowded house. No man had greeted him when he entered, and when he took his place on the benches allotted to senators who hadfilled the office of consul, all shrank from him. Then Cicero rose inhis place. He turned directly and addressed his adversary. "How long, Catiline, " he cried, "will you abuse our patience?" How had he dared tocome to that meeting? Was it not enough for him to know how all the citywas on its guard against him; how his fellow-senators shrank from him asmen shrink from a pestilence? If he was still alive, he owed it to theforbearance of those against whom he plotted; and this forbearance wouldlast so long, and so long only, as to allow every one to be convinced ofhis guilt. For the present, he was suffered to live, but to live guardedand watched and incapable of mischief. Then the speaker related everydetail of the conspiracy. He knew not only every thing that theaccomplices had intended to do, but the very days that had been fixedfor doing it. Overwhelmed by this knowledge of his plans, Catilinescarcely attempted a defense. He said in a humble voice, "Do not think, Fathers, that I, a noble of Rome, I who have done myself, whoseancestors have done much good to this city, wish to see it in ruins, while this consul, a mere lodger in the place, would save it. " He wouldhave said more, but the whole assembly burst into cries of "Traitor!Traitor!" and drowned his voice. "My enemies, " he cried, "are drivingme to destruction. But look! if you set my house on fire, I will put itout with a general ruin. " And he rushed out of the Senate. 

Nothing, he saw, could be done in Rome; every point was guarded againsthim. Late that same night he left the city, committing the management ofaffairs to Cethegus and Lentulus, and promising to return before longwith an army at his back. Halting awhile on his road, he wrote lettersto some of the chief senators, in which he declared that for the sake ofthe public peace he should give up the struggle with his enemies andquietly retire to Marseilles. What he really did was to make his way tothe camp of Manlius, where he assumed the usual state of a regularmilitary command. The Senate, on hearing of these doings, declared himto be an outlaw. The consuls were to raise an army; Antonius was tomarch against the enemy, and Cicero to protect the city. 

Meanwhile the conspirators left behind in Rome had been busy. One ofthe tribes of Gaul had sent deputies to the Capitol to obtain redressfor injuries of which they complained. The men had effected little ornothing. The Senate neglected them. The help of officials could only bepurchased by heavy bribes. They were now heavily in debt both on theirown account and on account of their state, and Lentulus conceived theidea of taking advantage of their needs. One of his freedmen, who hadbeen a trader in Gaul, could speak the language, and knew several of thedeputies, opened negotiations with them by his patron's desire. Theytold him the tale of their wrongs. They could see, they said, no way outof their difficulties. "Behave like men, " he answered, "and I will showyou a way. " He then revealed to them the existence of the conspiracy, explained its objects, and enlarged upon the hopes of success. While heand his friends were busy at Rome, they were to return to Gaul and rousetheir fellow-tribesmen to revolt. There was something tempting in theoffer, and the deputies doubted long whether they should not accept it. In the end prudence prevailed. To join the conspiracy and to rebelwould be to run a terrible risk for very doubtful advantages. On theother hand they might make sure of a speedy reward by telling all theyknew to the authorities. This was the course on which they resolved, andthey went without loss of time to a Roman noble who was the hereditary"patron" of their tribe. The patron in his turn communicated theintelligence to Cicero. Cicero's instructions were that the deputiesshould pretend to agree to the proposals which had been made to them, and should ask for a written agreement which they might show to theircountrymen at home. An agreement was drawn up, signed by Lentulus andtwo of his fellow-conspirators, and handed over to the Gauls, who nowmade preparations to return to their country. Cicero himself tells us inthe speech which he delivered next day in the Forum the story of whatfollowed. 

"I summoned to my presence two of the praetors on whose courage I knew Icould rely, put the whole matter before them, and unfolded my own plans. As it grew dusk they made their way unobserved to the Mulvian Bridge, and posted themselves with their attendants (they had some trustyfollowers of their own, and I had sent a number of picked swordsmen frommy own body-guard), in two divisions in houses on either side of thebridge. About two o'clock in the morning the Gauls and their train, which was very numerous, began to cross the bridge. Our men chargedthem; swords were drawn on both sides; but before any blood was shed thepraetors appeared on the scene, and all was quiet. The Gauls handed overto them the letters which they had upon them with their seals unbroken. These and the deputies themselves were brought to my house. The day wasnow beginning to dawn. Immediately I sent for the four men whom I knewto be the principal conspirators. They came suspecting nothing, Lentulus, who had been up late the night before writing the letters, being the last to present himself. Some distinguished persons who hadassembled at my house wished me to open the letters before laying thembefore the Senate. If their contents were not what I suspected I shouldbe blamed for having given a great deal of trouble to no purpose. Irefused in so important a matter to act on my own responsibility. Noone, I was sure, would accuse me of being too careful when the safety ofRome was at stake. I called a meeting of the Senate, and took care thatthe attendance should be very large. Meanwhile, at the suggestion of theGauls, I sent a praetor to the house of Cethegus to seize all theweapons that he could find. He brought away a great number of daggersand swords. 

"The Senate being now assembled, I brought Vulturcius, one of theconspirators, into the House, promised him a public pardon, and bade himtell all he knew without fear. As soon as the man could speak, for hewas terribly frightened, he said, 'I was taking a letter and a messagefrom Lentulus to Catiline. Catiline was instructed to bring his forcesup to the walls of the city. They meanwhile would set it on fire invarious quarters, as had been arranged, and begin a general massacre. Hewas to intercept the fugitives, and thus effect a junction with hisfriends within the walls. ' I next brought the Gauls into the House. Their story was as follows. 'Lentulus and two of his companions gave usletters to our nation. We were instructed to send our cavalry into Italywith all speed. They would find a force of infantry. Lentulus told ushow he had learned from Sibylline books that he was that "thirdCornelius" who was the fated ruler of Rome. The two that had gone beforehim were Cicero and Sulla. The year too was the one which was destinedto see the ruin of the city, for it was the tenth after the acquittal ofthe Vestal Virgins, the twentieth after the burning of the Capitol. After this Cethegus and the others had a dispute about the time forsetting the city on fire. Lentulus and others wished to have it done onthe feast of Saturn (December 17th). Cethegus thought that this wasputting it off too long. ' I then had the letter brought in. First Ishowed Cethegus his seal. He acknowledged it. I cut the string. I readthe letter. It was written in his own handwriting and was to thiseffect: he assured the Senate and people of the Gauls that he would dowhat he had promised to their deputies, and begged them on the otherhand to perform what their deputies had undertaken. Cethegus, who hadaccounted for the weapons found in his house by declaring that he hadalways been a connoisseur in such things, was overwhelmed by hearing hisletter read, and said nothing. 

"Manlius next acknowledged his seal and handwriting. A letter from himmuch to the same effect was read. He confessed his guilt. I then showedLentulus his letter, and asked him, 'Do you acknowledge the seal?' 'Ido, ' he answered. 'Yes, ' said I, 'it is a well-known device, thelikeness of a great patriot, your grandfather. The mere sight of itought to have kept you from such a crime as this. ' His letter was thenread. I then asked him whether he had any explanation to give. 'I havenothing to say, ' was his first answer. After a while he rose and putsome questions to the Gauls. They answered him without any hesitation, and asked him in reply whether he had not spoken to them about theSibylline books. What followed was the strangest proof of the power ofconscience. He might have denied every thing, but he did what no oneexpected, he confessed; all his abilities, all his power of speechdeserted him. Vulturcius then begged that the letter which he wascarrying from Lentulus to Catiline should be brought in and opened. Lentulus was greatly agitated; still he acknowledged the seal and thehandwriting to be his. The letter, which was unsigned, was in thesewords: _You will know who I am by the messenger whom I send to you. Bearyourself as a man. Think of the position in which you now are, andconsider what you must now do. Collect all the help you can, even thoughit be of the meanest kind. _ In a word, the case was made out againstthem all not only by the seals, the letters, the handwritings, but bythe faces of the men, their downcast look, their silence. Theirconfusion, their stealthy looks at each other were enough, if there hadbeen no other proof, to convict them. "

Lentulus was compelled to resign his office of praetor. He and the otherconspirators were handed over to certain of the chief citizens, who werebound to keep them in safe custody and to produce them when they werecalled for. 

The lower orders of the capital, to whom Catiline and his companionshad made liberal promises, and who regarded his plans, or what weresupposed to be his plans, with considerable favor, were greatly moved byCicero's account of what had been discovered. No one could expect toprofit by conflagration and massacre; and they were disposed to takesides with the party of order. Still there were elements of danger, asthere always are in great cities. It was known that a determined effortwould be made by the clients of Lentulus, whose family was one of thenoblest and wealthiest in Rome, to rescue him from custody. At the sametime several of the most powerful nobles were strongly suspected offavoring the revolutionists. Crassus, in particular, the wealthiest manin Rome, was openly charged with complicity. A certain Tarquinius wasbrought before the Senate, having been, it was said, arrested whenactually on his way to Catiline. Charged to tell all he knew, he gavethe same account as had been given by other witnesses of thepreparations for fire and massacre, and added that he was the bearer ofa special message from Crassus to Catiline, to the effect that he wasnot to be alarmed by the arrest of Lentulus and the others; only he mustmarch upon the city without delay, and so rescue the prisoners andrestore the courage of those who were still at large. The charge seemedincredible to most of those who heard it. Crassus had too much at staketo risk himself in such perilous ventures. Those who believed it wereafraid to press it against so powerful a citizen; and there were manywho were under too great obligations to the accused to allow it, whatever its truth or falsehood, to be insisted upon. The Senateresolved that the charge was false, and that its author should be keptin custody till he disclosed at whose suggestion he had come forward. Crassus himself believed that the consul had himself contrived the wholebusiness, with the object of making it impossible for him to take thepart of the accused. "He complained to me, " says Sallust the historian, "of the great insult which had thus been put upon him by Cicero. ". 

Under these circumstances Cicero determined to act with vigor. On thefifth of December he called a meeting of the Senate, and put it to theHouse what should be done with the prisoners in custody. The consulelect gave his opinion that they should be put to death. Caesar, whenhis turn came to speak, rose and addressed the Senate. He did not seekto defend the accused. They deserved any punishment. Because that wasso, let them be dealt with according to law. And the law was that noRoman citizen could suffer death except by a general decree of thepeople. If any other course should be taken, men would afterwardsremember not their crimes but the severity with which they had beentreated. Cato followed, giving his voice for the punishment of death;and Cicero took the same side. The Senate, without dividing, voted thatthe prisoners were traitors, and must pay the usual penalty. 

The consul still feared that a rescue might be attempted. He directedthe officials to make all necessary preparations, and himself conductedLentulus to prison, the other criminals being put into the charge of thepraetors. The prison itself was strongly guarded. In this building, which was situated under the eastern side of the Capitoline Hill, was apit twelve feet deep, said to have been constructed by King Tullius. Ithad stone walls and a vaulted stone roof; it was quite dark, and thestench and filth of the place were hideous. Lentulus was hurried intothis noisome den, where the executioners strangled him. His accomplicessuffered the same fate. The consul was escorted to his house by anenthusiastic crowd. When he was asked how it had fared with thecondemned, he answered with the significant words "THEY HAVE LIVED. "

The chief conspirator died in a less ignoble fashion. He had contrivedto collect about twelve thousand men; but only a fourth part of thesewere regularly armed; the rest carried hunting spears, pikes, sharpenedstakes, any weapon that came to hand. At first he avoided an engagement, hoping to hear news of something accomplished for his cause by thefriends whom he had left behind him in Rome. When the news of what hadhappened on the fifth of December reached him, he saw that his positionwas desperate. Many who had joined the ranks took the first opportunityof deserting; with those that remained faithful he made a hurried marchto the north-west, hoping to make his way across the Apennines intoHither Gaul. But he found a force ready to bar his way, while Antonius, with the army from Rome, was pressing him from the south. Nothingremained for him but to give battle. Early in the year 62 B. C. Thearmies met. The rebel leader showed himself that day at his best. Nosoldier could have been braver, no general more skillful. But the forcesarrayed against him were overpowering. When he saw that all was lost, herushed into the thickest of the fight, and fell pierced with wounds. Hewas found afterwards far in advance of his men, still breathing and withthe same haughty expression on his face which had distinguished him inlife. And such was the contagious force of his example that not a singlefree man of all his followers was taken alive either in the battle or inthe pursuit that followed it. Such was the end of a GREAT CONSPIRACY. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

CAESAR. 

At eight-and-twenty, Caesar, who not thirty years later was to diemaster of Rome, was chiefly known as a fop and a spendthrift. "In allhis schemes and all his policy, " said Cicero, "I discern the temper of atyrant; but then when I see how carefully his hair is arranged, howdelicately with a single finger he scratches his head, I cannot conceivehim likely to entertain so monstrous a design as overthrowing theliberties of Rome. " As for his debts they were enormous. He hadcontrived to spend his own fortune and the fortune of his wife; and hewas more than three hundred thousand pounds in debt. This was before hehad held any public office; and office, when he came to hold it, certainly did not improve his position. He was appointed one of theguardians of the Appian Way (the great road that led southward fromRome, and was the route for travelers to Greece and the East). He spenta great sum of money in repairs. His next office of aedile was stillmore expensive. Expensive it always was, for the aedile, besides keepingthe temples and other public buildings in repair (the special businesssignified by his name), had the management of the public games. Anallowance was made to him for his expenses from the treasury, but he wasexpected, just as the Lord Mayor of London is expected, to spend a gooddeal of his own money. Caesar far outdid all his predecessors. At one ofthe shows which he exhibited, three hundred and twenty pairs ofgladiators fought in the arena; and a gladiator, with his armor andweapons, and the long training which he had to undergo before he couldfight in public, was a very expensive slave. The six hundred and fortywould cost, first and last, not less than a hundred pounds apiece, andmany of them, perhaps a third of the whole number, would be killed inthe course of the day. Nor was he content with the expenses which weremore or less necessary. He exhibited a great show of wild beasts inmemory of his father, who had died nearly twenty years before. The wholefurniture of the theater, down to the very stage, was made on thisoccasion of solid silver. 

For all this seeming folly, there were those who discerned thoughts anddesigns of no common kind. Extravagant expenditure was of course anusual way of winning popular favors. A Roman noble bought office afteroffice till he reached one that entitled him to be sent to govern aprovince. In the plunder of the province he expected to find what wouldrepay him all that he had spent and leave a handsome sum remaining. Caesar looked to this end, but he looked also to something more. Hewould be the champion of the people, and the people would make him thegreatest man at Rome. This had been the part played by Marius beforehim; and he determined to play it again. The name of Marius had been inill repute since the victory of his great rival, Sulla, and Caesardetermined to restore it to honor. He caused statues of this great manto be secretly made, on which were inscribed the names of the victoriesby which he had delivered Rome from the barbarians. On the morning ofthe show these were seen, splendid with gilding, upon the height of theCapitol. The first feeling was a general astonishment at the youngmagistrate's audacity. Then the populace broke out into expressions ofenthusiastic delight; many even wept for joy to see again the likenessof their old favorite; all declared that Caesar was his worthysuccessor. The nobles were filled with anger and fear. Catulus, who wastheir leader, accused Caesar in the Senate. "This man, " he said, "is nolonger digging mines against his country, he is bringing battering-ramsagainst it. " The Senate, however, was afraid or unwilling to act. As forthe people, it soon gave the young man a remarkable proof of its favor. What may be called the High Priesthood became vacant. It was an honorcommonly given to some aged man who had won victories abroad and bornehigh honors at home. Such competitors there were on this occasion, Catulus being one of them. But Caesar, though far below the age at whichsuch offices were commonly held, determined to enter the lists. Herefused the heavy bribe by which Catulus sought to induce him towithdraw from the contest, saying that he would raise a greater sum tobring it to a successful end. Indeed, he staked all on the struggle. When on the day of election he was leaving his house, his motherfollowed him to the door with tears in her eyes. He turned and kissedher, "Mother, " he said, "to-day you will see your son either High Priestor an exile. "

The fact was that Caesar had always shown signs of courage and ambition, and had always been confident of his future greatness. Now that hisposition in the country was assured men began to remember these storiesof his youth. In the days when Sulla was master of Rome, Caesar had beenone of the very few who had ventured to resist the great man's will. Marius, the leader of the party, was his uncle, and he had himselfmarried the daughter of Cunia, another of the popular leaders. This wifeSulla ordered him to divorce, but he flatly refused. For some time hislife was in danger; but Sulla was induced to spare it, remarking, however, to friends who interceded for him, on the ground that he wasstill but a boy, "You have not a grain of sense, if you do not see thatin this boy there is the material for many Mariuses. " The young Caesarfound it safer to leave Italy for a time. While traveling in theneighborhood of Asia Minor he fell into the hands of the pirates, whowere at that time the terror of all the Eastern Mediterranean. His firstproceeding was to ask them how much they wanted for his ransom. "Twentytalents, " (about five thousand pounds) was their answer. "What folly!"he said, "you don't know whom you have got hold of. You shall havefifty. " Messengers were sent to fetch the money, and Caesar, who wasleft with a friend and a couple of slaves, made the best of thesituation. If he wanted to go to sleep he would send a messagecommanding his captors to be silent. He joined their sports, read poemsand speeches to them, and roundly abused them as ignorant barbarians ifthey failed to applaud. But his most telling joke was threatening tohang them. The men laughed at the free-spoken lad, but were not long infinding that he was in most serious earnest. In about five weeks' timethe money arrived and Caesar was released. He immediately went toMiletus, equipped a squadron, and returning to the scene of hiscaptivity, found and captured the greater part of the band. Leaving hisprisoners in safe custody at Pergamus, he made his way to the governorof the province, who had in his hands the power of life and death. Butthe governor, after the manner of his kind, had views of his own. Thepirates were rich and could afford to pay handsomely for their lives. Hewould consider the case, he said. This was not at all to Caesar's mind. He hastened back to Pergamus, and, taking the law into his own hands, crucified all the prisoners. 

This was the cool and resolute man in whom the people saw their bestfriend and the nobles their worst enemy. These last seemed to see achance of ruining him when the conspiracy of Catiline was discovered andcrushed. He was accused, especially by Cato, of having been anaccomplice; and when he left the Senate after the debate in which he hadargued against putting the arrested conspirators to death, he was mobbedby the gentlemen who formed Cicero's body-guard, and was even in dangerof his life. But the formal charge was never pressed; indeed it wasmanifestly false, for Caesar was too sure of the favor of the people tohave need of conspiring to win it. The next year he was made praetor, and after his term of office was ended, governor of Further Spain. Theold trouble of debt still pressed upon him, and he could not leave Rometill he had satisfied the most pressing of his creditors. This he did byhelp of Crassus, the richest man in Rome, who stood security for nearlytwo hundred thousand pounds. To this time belong two anecdotes which, whether true or no, are curiously characteristic of his character. Hewas passing, on the way to his province, a town that had a particularlymean and poverty-stricken look. One of his companions remarked, "I daresay there are struggles for office even here, and jealousies andparties. " "Yes, " said Caesar; "and indeed, for myself, I would sooner bethe first man here than the second in Rome. " Arrived at his journey'send, he took the opportunity of a leisure hour to read the life ofAlexander. He sat awhile lost in thought, then burst into tears. Hisfriends inquired the cause. "The cause?" he replied. "Is it not causeenough that at my age Alexander had conquered half the world, while Ihave done nothing?" Something, however, he contrived to do in Spain. Heextended the dominion of Rome as far as the Atlantic, settled theaffairs of the provincials to their satisfaction, and contrived at thesame time to make money enough to pay his debts. Returning to Rome whenhis year of command was ended, he found himself in a difficulty. Hewished to have the honor of a triumph (a triumph was a procession inwhich a victorious general rode in a chariot to the Capitol, precededand followed by the spoils and prisoners taken in his campaigns), and healso wished to become a candidate for the consulship. But a general whodesired a triumph had to wait outside the gates of the city till it wasvoted to him, while a candidate for the consulship must lose no time inbeginning to canvass the people. Caesar, having to make his choicebetween the two, preferred power to show. He stood for the consulship, and was triumphantly elected. 

Once consul he made that famous Coalition which is commonly called theFirst Triumvirate. Pompey was the most famous soldier of the day, andCrassus, as has been said before, the richest man. These two had beenenemies, and Caesar reconciled them; and then the three together agreedto divide power and the prizes of power between them. Caesar would havewillingly made Cicero a fourth, but he refused, not, perhaps, withoutsome hesitation. He did more; he ventured to say some things which werenot more agreeable because they were true of the new state of things. This the three masters of Rome were not willing to endure, and theydetermined that this troublesome orator should be put out of the way. They had a ready means of doing it. A certain Clodius, of whom we shallhear more hereafter, felt a very bitter hatred against Cicero, and byway of putting himself in a position to injure him, and to attain otherobjects of his own, sought to be made tribune. But there was a greatobstacle in the way. The tribunes were tribunes of the _plebs_, that is, of the commons, whose interests they were supposed specially to protect;while Clodius was a noble--indeed, a noble of nobles--belonging as hedid to that great Claudian House which was one of the oldest andproudest of Roman families. The only thing to be done was to be adoptedby some plebeian. But here, again, there were difficulties. The lawprovided that an adoption should be real, that the adopter should bechildless and old enough to be the father of his adopted son. Theconsent of the priests was also necessary. This consent was never asked, and indeed never could have been given, for the father was a marriedman, had children of his own, and was not less than fifteen years, younger than his new son. Indeed the bill for making the adoption legalhad been before the people for more than a year without making anyprogress. The Three now took it up to punish Cicero for his presumptionin opposing them; and under its new promoters it was passed in a singleday, being proposed at noon made law by three o'clock in the afternoonWhat mischief Clodius was thus enabled to work against Cicero we shallhear in the next chapter but one. 

His consulship ended, Caesar received a substantial prize for hisservices, the government of the province of Gaul for five years. Beforehe left Italy to take up his command, he had the satisfaction of seeingCicero driven into banishment. That done, he crossed the Alps. The nextnine years (for his government was prolonged for another period when thefirst came to an end) he was engaged in almost incessant war, thoughstill finding time to manage the politics of Rome. The campaigns whichended in making Gaul from the Alps to the British Channel, and from theAtlantic to the Rhine, a Roman possession, it is not within my purposeto describe. Nevertheless, it may be interesting to say a few wordsabout his dealings with our own island. In his first expedition, in thesummer of 55 B. C. , he did little more than effect a landing on thecoast, and this not without considerable loss. In the next, made earlyin the following year, he employed a force of more than forty thousandmen, conveyed in a flotilla of eight hundred ships. This time theBritons did not venture to oppose his landing; and when they met him inthe field, as he marched inward, they were invariably defeated. Theythen changed their tactics and retired before him, laying waste thecountry as they went. He crossed the Thames some little way to thewestward of where London now stands, received the submission of onenative tribe, and finally concluded a peace with the native leaderCassivelaunus, who gave hostages and promised tribute. The generalresult of ten years' fighting was to add a great province to the empireat the cost of a horrible amount of bloodshed, of the lives, as somesay, of two millions of men, women, and children (for Caesar, though notpositively cruel, was absolutely careless of suffering), and to leavethe conqueror master of the Roman world. The coalition indeed was brokenup, for Crassus had perished in the East, carrying on a foolish andunprovoked war with the Parthians, and Pompey had come to fear and hatehis remaining rival. But Caesar was now strong enough to do withoutfriends, and to crush enemies. The Senate vainly commanded him todisperse his army by a certain day, on pain of being considered an enemyof the country. He continued to advance till he came to the boundariesof Italy, a little river, whose name, the Rubicon, was then made famousforever, which separated Cisalpine Gaul from Umbria. To cross this waspractically to declare war, and even the resolute Caesar hesitatedawhile. He thought his course over by himself; he even consulted hisfriends. He professed himself pained at the thought of the war of whichhis act would be the beginning, and of how posterity would judge hisconduct. Then with the famous words, "The die is cast, " he plunged intothe stream. Pompey fled from Rome and from Italy. Caesar did not wastean hour in pursuing his success. First making Italy wholly his own, hemarched into Spain, which was Pompey's stronghold, and secured it. Thence he returned to Rome, and from Rome again made his way intoMacedonia, where Pompey had collected his forces. The decisive battlewas fought at Pharsalia in Thessaly; for though the remnants of Pompey'sparty held out, the issue of the war was never doubtful after that day. 

Returning to Rome (for of his proceedings in Egypt and elsewhere thereis no need to speak), he used his victory with as much mercy as he hadshown energy in winning it. To Cicero he showed not only nothing ofmalice, but the greatest courtesy and kindness. He had written to himfrom Egypt, telling him that he was to keep all his dignities andhonors; and he had gone out of his way to arrange an interview with him, and he even condescended to enter into a friendly controversy. Cicerohad written a little treatise about his friend Cato; and as Cato hadbeen the consistent adversary of Caesar, and had killed himself ratherthan fall into the hands of the master of Rome, it required no littlegood nature in Caesar to take it in good part. He contented himself withwriting an answer, to which he gave the title of _Anti-Cato_, and inwhich, while he showed how useless and unpractical the policy of Catohad been, he paid the highest compliments to the genius and integrity ofthe man. He even conferred upon Cicero the distinguished honor of avisit; which the host thus describes in a letter to Atticus. "What aformidable guest I have had! Still, I am not sorry; for all went offvery well. On December 8th he came to Philippus' house in the evening. (Philippus was his brother-in-law. ) The villa was so crammed with troopsthat there was scarcely a chamber where the great man himself coulddine. I suppose there were two thousand men. I was really anxious whatmight happen next day. But Barba Cassius came to my help, and gave me aguard. The camp was pitched in the park; the house was strictly guarded. On the 19th he was closeted with Philippus till one o'clock in theafternoon. No one was admitted. He was going over accounts with Balbus, I fancy. After this he took a stroll on the shore. Then came the bath. He heard the epigram to Mamurra, (a most scurrilous epigram byCatullus), and betrayed no annoyance. He dressed for dinner and satdown. As he was under a course of medicine, he ate and drank withoutapprehension and in the pleasantest humor. The entertainment wassumptuous and elaborate; and not only this, but well cooked and seasonedwith good talk. The great man's attendants also were most abundantlyentertained in three other rooms. The inferior freedmen and the slaveshad nothing to complain of; the superior kind had an even elegantreception. Not to say more, I showed myself a genial host. Still he wasnot the kind of guest to whom we would say, 'My very dear sir, you willcome again, I hope, when you are this way next time. ' There was nothingof importance in our conversation, but much literary talk. What do youwant to know? He was gratified and seemed pleased to be with me. He toldme that he should be one day at Baiae, and another at Puteoli. "

Within three months this remarkable career came to a sudden and violentend. There were some enemies whom all Caesar's clemency and kindness hadnot conciliated. Some hated him for private reasons of their own, somehad a genuine belief that if he could be put out of the way, Rome mightyet again be a free country. The people too, who had been perfectlyready to submit to the reality of power, grew suspicious of some of itsoutward signs. The name of King had been hateful at Rome since the lastbearer of it, Tarquin the Proud, had been driven out nearly sevencenturies before. There were now injudicious friends, or, it may be, judicious enemies, who were anxious that Caesar should assume it. Theprophecy was quoted from the books of the Sibyl, that Rome might conquerthe Parthians if she put herself under the command of a king; otherwiseshe must fail. On the strength of this Caesar was saluted by the titleof King as he was returning one day from Alba to the Capitol. Thepopulace made their indignation manifest, and he replied, "I am no king, only Caesar;" but it was observed that he passed on with a gloomy air. He bore himself haughtily in the Senate, not rising to acknowledge thecompliments paid to him. At the festival of the Lupercalia, as he satlooking on at the sports in a gilded chair and clad in a triumphal robe, Antony offered him a crown wreathed with bay leaves. Some applausefollowed; it was not general, however, but manifestly got up for theoccasion. Caesar put the crown away, and the shout that followed couldnot be misunderstood. It was offered again, and a few applauded asbefore, while a second rejection drew forth the same hearty approval. His statues were found with crowns upon them. These two tribunesremoved, and at the same time ordered the imprisonment of the men whohad just saluted him as king. The people were delighted, but Caesar hadthem degraded from their office. The general dissatisfaction thus causedinduced the conspirators to proceed. Warnings, some of which we maysuppose to have come from those who were in the secret, were notwanting. By these he was wrought upon so much that he had resolved notto stir from his house on the day which he understood was to be fatal tohim; but Decimus Brutus, who was in the plot, dissuaded him from hispurpose. The scene that followed may be told once again in the words inwhich Plutarch describes it: "Artemidoros, of Cnidus, a teacher ofGreek, who had thus come to be intimate with some of the associates ofBrutus, had become acquainted to a great extent with what was inprogress, and had drawn up a statement of the information which he hadto give. Seeing that Caesar gave the papers presented to him to theslaves with him, he came up close and said, 'Caesar, read this alone andthat quickly: it contains matters that nearly concern yourself. ' Caesartook it, and would have read it, but was hindered by the crowd ofpersons that thronged to salute him. Keeping it in his hand, he passedinto the House. In the place to which the Senate had been summoned stooda statue of Pompey. Cassius is said to have looked at it and silentlyinvoked the dead man's help, and this though he was inclined to theskeptical tenets of Epicurus. Meanwhile Antony, who was firmly attachedto Caesar and a man of great strength, was purposely kept inconversation outside the senate-house by Decimus Brutus. As Caesarentered, the Senate rose to greet him. Some of the associates of Brutusstood behind his chair; others approached him in front, seeminglyjoining their entreaties to those which Cimber Tullius was addressing tohim on behalf of his brother. He sat down and rejected the petition witha gesture of disapproval at their urgency. Tullius then seized his togawith both hands and dragged it from his neck. This was the signal forattack. Casca struck him first on the neck. The wound was not fatal, noreven serious, so agitated was the striker at dealing the first blow inso terrible a deed. Caesar turned upon him, seized the dagger, and heldit fast, crying at the same time in Latin, 'Casca, thou villain, whatart thou about?' while Casca cried in Greek to his brother, 'Brother, help!' Those senators who were not privy to the plot were overcome withhorror. They could neither cry nor help: they dared not even speak. Theconspirators were standing round Caesar each with a drawn sword in hishand; whithersoever he turned his eyes he saw a weapon ready to strike, and he struggled like a wild beast among the hunters. They had agreedthat every one should take a part in the murder, and Brutus, friend ashe was, could not hold back. The rest, some say, he struggled with, throwing himself hither and thither, and crying aloud; but as soon as hesaw Brutus with a drawn sword in his hand, he wrapped his head in histoga and ceased to resist, falling, whether by chance or by compulsionfrom the assassins, at the pedestal of Pompey's statue. He is said tohave received three-and-twenty wounds. Many of his assailants struckeach other as they aimed repeated blows at his body. " His funeral was aremarkable proof of his popularity. The pit in which the body was to beburned was erected in the Field of Mars. In the Forum was erected agilded model of the temple of Mother Venus. (Caesar claimed descentthrough Aeneas from this goddess. ) Within this shrine was a couch ofivory, with coverlets of gold and purple, and at its head a trophy withthe robe which he had worn when he was assassinated. High officers ofstate, past and present, carried the couch into the Forum. Some had theidea of burning it in the chapel of Jupiter in the Capitol, some inPompey's Hall (where he was killed). Of a sudden two men, wearing swordsat their side, and each carrying two javelins, came forward and setlight to it with waxen torches which they held in their hands. The crowdof bystanders hastily piled up a heap of dry brush-wood, throwing on itthe hustings, the benches, and any thing that had been brought as apresent. The flute players and actors threw off the triumphal robes inwhich they were clad, rent them, and threw them upon the flames, and theveterans added the decorations with which they had come to attend thefuneral, while mothers threw in the ornaments of their children. 

The doors of the building in which the murder was perpetrated wereblocked up so that it never could be entered again. The day (the 15th ofMarch) was declared to be accursed. No public business was ever to bedone upon it. 

These proceedings probably represented the popular feeling about thedeed, for Caesar, in addition to the genius which every one must haverecognized, had just the qualities which make men popular. He had noscruples, but then he had no meannesses. He incurred enormous debts withbut a faint chance of paying them--no chance, we may say, except by therobbery of others. He laid his hands upon what he wanted, taking forinstance three thousand pounds weight of gold from the treasury of theCapitol and leaving gilded brass in its stead; and he plundered theunhappy Gauls without remorse. But then he was as free in giving as hewas unscrupulous in taking. He had the personal courage, too, which isone of the most attractive of all qualities. Again and again in battlehe turned defeat into victory. He would lay hold of the fugitives asthey ran, seize them by the throat, and get them by main force face toface with the foe. Crossing the Hellespont after the battle of Pharsaliain a small boat, he met two of the enemy's ships. Without hesitation hediscovered himself, called upon them to surrender, and was obeyed. AtAlexandria he was surprised by a sudden sally of the besieged, and hadto leap into the harbor. He swam two hundred paces to the nearest ship, lifting a manuscript in his left hand to keep it out of the water, andholding his military cloak in his teeth, for he would not have the enemyboast of securing any spoil from his person. 

He allowed nothing to stand in his way. If it suited his policy tomassacre a whole tribe, men, women, and children, he gave the orderwithout hesitation, just as he recorded it afterwards in his historywithout a trace of remorse or regret. If a rival stood in his way he hadhim removed, and was quite indifferent as to how the removal waseffected. But his object gained, or wherever there was no object inquestion, he could be the kindest and gentlest of men. A friend withwhom he was traveling was seized with sudden illness. Caesar gave up atonce to him the only chamber in the little inn, and himself spent thenight in the open air. His enemies he pardoned with singular facility, and would even make the first advances. Political rivals, once renderedharmless, were admitted to his friendship, and even promoted to honor;writers who had assailed him with the coarsest abuse he invited to histable. 

Of the outward man this picture has reached us: "He is said to have beenremarkably tall, with a light complexion and well-shaped limbs. His facewas a little too full; his eyes black and brilliant. His health wasexcellent, but towards the latter end of his life he was subject tofainting fits and to frightful dreams at night. On two occasions also, when some public business was being transacted, he had epileptic fits. He was very careful of his personal appearance, had his hair and beardscrupulously cut and shaven. He was excessively annoyed at thedisfigurement of baldness, which he found was made the subject of manylampoons. It had become his habit, therefore, to bring up his scantylocks over his head; and of all the honors decreed to him by the Senateand people, none was more welcome to him than that which gave him theright of continually wearing a garland of bay. "

He was wonderfully skillful in the use of arms, an excellent swimmer, and extraordinarily hardy. On the march he would sometimes ride, butmore commonly walk, keeping his head uncovered both in rain andsunshine. He traveled with marvelous expedition, traversing a hundredmiles in a day for several days together; if he came to a river he wouldswim it, or sometimes cross it on bladders. Thus he would oftenanticipate his own messengers. For all this he had a keen appreciationof pleasure, and was costly and even luxurious in his personal habits. He is said, for instance, to have carried with him a tesselated pavementto be laid down in his tent throughout his campaign in Gaul. 

CHAPTER IX. 

POMPEY. 

At an age when Caesar was still idling away his time, Pompey hadachieved honors such as the veteran generals of Rome were accustomed toregard as the highest to which they could aspire. He had only just left, if indeed he had left, school, when his father took him to serve underhim in the war against the Italian allies of Rome. He was not more thannineteen when he distinguished himself by behaving in circumstances ofgreat difficulty and danger with extraordinary prudence and courage. Theelder Pompey, Strabo "the squint-eyed, " as his contemporaries calledhim, after their strange fashion of giving nicknames from personaldefects, and as he was content to call himself, was an able general, buthated for his cruelty and avarice. The leaders of the opposite factionsaw an opportunity of getting rid of a dangerous enemy and of bringingover to their own side the forces which he commanded. Their plan was toassassinate the son as he slept, to burn the father in his tent, and atthe same time to stir up a mutiny among the troops. The secret, however, was not kept. A letter describing the plot was brought to the youngPompey as he sat at dinner with the ringleader. The lad showed no signof disturbance, but drank more freely than usual, and pledged his falsefriend with especial heartiness. He then rose, and after putting anextra guard on his father's tent, composed himself to sleep, but not inhis bed. The assassins stabbed the coverlet with repeated blows, andthen ran to rouse the soldiers to revolt. The camp was immediately in anuproar, and the elder Pompey, though he had been preserved by his son'sprecautions, dared not attempt to quell it. The younger man was equal tothe occasion. Throwing himself on his face in front of the gate of thecamp, he declared that if his comrades were determined to desert to theenemy, they must pass over his dead body. His entreaties prevailed, anda reconciliation was effected between the general and his troops. 

Not many weeks after this incident the father died, struck, it was said, by lightning, and Pompey became his own master. It was not long beforehe found an opportunity of gaining still higher distinction. The civilwar still continued to rage, and few did better service to the party ofthe aristocrats than Pompey. Others were content to seek their personalsafety in Sulla's camp; Pompey was resolved himself to do something forthe cause. He made his way to Picenum, where his family estates we esituated and where his own influence was great, and raised three legions(nearly twenty thousand men), with all their commissariat and transportcomplete, and hurried to the assistance of Sulla. Three of the hostilegenerals sought to intercept him. He fell with his whole force on one ofthem, and crushed him, carrying off, besides his victory, the personaldistinction of having slain in single combat the champion of theopposing force. The towns by which he passed eagerly hailed him as theirdeliverer. A second commander who ventured to encounter him foundhimself deserted by his army and was barely able to escape; a third wastotally routed. Sulla received his young partisan, who was not more thantwenty-three years of age, with distinguished honors, even rising fromhis seat and uncovering at his approach. 

During the next two years his reputation continued to increase. He wonvictories in Gaul, in Sicily, and in Africa. As he was returning toRome after the last of these campaigns, the great Dictator himselfheaded the crowd that went forth to meet him, and saluted him as Pompeythe Great, a title which he continued to use as his family name[5]. Butthere was a further honor which the young general was anxious to obtain, but Sulla was unwilling to grant, the supreme glory of a triumph. "Noone, " he said, "who was not or had not been consul, or at least praetor, could triumph. The first of the Scipios, who had won Spain from theCarthaginians, had not asked for this honor because he wanted thisqualification. Was it to be given to a beardless youth, too young evento sit in the Senate?" But the beardless youth insisted. He even had theaudacity to hint that the future belonged not to Sulla but to himself. "More men, " he said, "worship the rising than the setting sun. " Sulladid not happen to catch the words, but he saw the emotion they arousedin the assembly, and asked that they should be repeated to him. Hisastonishment permitted him to say nothing more than "Let him triumph!Let him triumph. " And triumph he did, to the disgust of his olderrivals, whom he intended, but that the streets were not broad enough toallow of the display, still further to affront by harnessing elephantsinstead of horses to his chariot. 

[Footnote 5: _Pompeius_ was the name of his house (_gens). Strabo_ hadbeen the name of his family (_familia_). This he seems to have disused, assuming _Magnus_ in its stead. ]

Two years afterwards he met an antagonist more formidable than any hehad yet encountered. Sertorius, the champion at once of the party of thepeople and of the native tribes of Spain, was holding out against thegovernment of Rome. The veteran leader professed a great contempt forhis young adversary, "I should whip the boy, " he said, "if I were notafraid of the old woman" (meaning Pompey's colleague). But he took goodcare not to underrate him in practice, and put forth all his skill indealing with him. Pompey's first campaign against him was disastrous;the successes of the second were checkered by some serious defeats. Forfive years the struggle continued, and seemed little likely to come toan end, when Sertorius was assassinated by his second in command, Perpenna. Perpenna was unable to wield the power which he had thusacquired, and was defeated and taken prisoner by Pompey. He endeavoredto save his life by producing the correspondence of Sertorius. Thisimplicated some of the most distinguished men in Rome, who had heldsecret communications with the rebel leader and had even invited himover into Italy. With admirable wisdom Pompey, while he ordered theinstant execution of the traitor, burned the letters unread. 

Returning to Italy he was followed by his usual good fortune. Thatcountry had been suffering cruelly from a revolt of the slaves, whichthe Roman generals had been strangely slow in suppressing. Roused toactivity by the tidings of Pompey's approach, Crassus, who was insupreme command, attacked and defeated the insurgent army. Aconsiderable body, however, contrived to escape, and it was this withwhich Pompey happened to fall in, and which he completely destroyed. "Crassus defeated the enemy, " he was thus enabled to boast, "but Ipulled up the war by the roots. " No honors were too great for a man atonce so skillful and so fortunate (for the Romans had always a greatbelief in a general's good fortune). On the 31st of December, B. C. 71, being still a simple gentleman--that is, having held no civil office inthe State--he triumphed for the second time, and on the following day, being then some years below the legal age, and having held none of theoffices by which it was usual to mount to the highest dignity in thecommonwealth, he entered on his first consul ship, Crassus being hiscolleague. 

Still he had not yet reached the height of his glory. During the yearsthat followed his consulship, the pirates who infested the Mediterraneanhad become intolerable. Issuing, not as was the case in after times, from the harbors of Northern Africa, but from fastnesses in the southerncoast of Asia Minor, they plundered the more civilized regions of theWest, and made it highly dangerous to traverse the seas either forpleasure or for gain. It was impossible to transport the armies of Rometo the provinces except in the winter, when the pirates had retired totheir strongholds. Even Italy itself was not safe. The harbor of Caietawith its shipping, was burned under the very eye of the praetor. FromMisenum the pirates carried off the children of the admiral who had theyear before led an expedition against them. They even ventured not onlyto blockade Ostia, the harbor of Rome, and almost within sight of thecity, but to capture the fleet that was stationed there. They wereespecially insulting to Roman citizens. If a prisoner claimed to besuch--and the claim generally insured protection--they would pretend thegreatest penitence and alarm, falling on their knees before him, andentreating his pardon. Then they would put shoes on his feet, and robehim in a citizen's garb. Such a mistake, they would say, must not happenagain. The end of their jest was to make him "walk the plank, " and withthe sarcastic permission to depart unharmed, they let down a ladder intothe sea, and compelled him to descend, under penalty of being still moresummarily thrown overboard. Men's eyes began to be turned on Pompey, asthe leader who had been prosperous in all his undertakings. In 67 B. C. Alaw was proposed appointing a commander (who, however, was not named), who should have absolute power for three years over the sea as far asthe Pillars of Hercules (the Straits of Gibraltar), and the coast forfifty miles inland, and who should be furnished with two hundred ships, as many soldiers and sailors as he wanted, and more than a millionpounds in money. The nobles were furious in their opposition, andprepared to prevent by force the passing of this law. The proposernarrowly escaped with his life, and Pompey himself was threatened. "Ifyou will be another Romulus, like Romulus you shall die" (one form ofthe legend of Rome's first king represented him as having been torn topieces by the senators. ) But all resistance was unavailing. The newcommand was created, and of course bestowed upon Pompey. The price ofcorn, which had risen to a famine height in Rome, fell immediately theappointment was made. The result, indeed, amply justified the choice. The new general made short work of the task that had been set him. Notsatisfied with the force put under his command, he collected fivehundred ships and one hundred and twenty thousand men. With these heswept the pirates from the seas and stormed their strongholds, and allin less than three months. Twenty thousand prisoners fell into hishands. With unusual humanity he spared their lives, and thinking thatman was the creature of circumstances, determined to change their mannerof life. They were to be removed from the sea, should cease to besailors, and become farmers. It is possible that the old man of Corycus, whose skill in gardening Virgil celebrates in one of his Georgics, wasone of the pirates whom the judicious mercy of Pompey changed into auseful citizen. 

A still greater success remained to be won. For more than twenty yearswar, occasionally intercepted by periods of doubtful peace, had beencarried on between Rome and Mithridates, king of Pontus. This prince, though reduced more than once to the greatest extremities, had contrivedwith extraordinary skill and courage to retrieve his fortunes, and nowin 67 B. C. Was in possession of the greater part of his originaldominion. Lucullus, a general of the greatest ability, was in command ofthe forces of Rome, but he had lost the confidence of his troops, andaffairs were at a standstill. Pompey's friends proposed that thesupreme command should be transferred to him, and the law, which Cicerosupported in what is perhaps the most perfect of his politicalspeeches[6], was passed. Pompey at once proceeded to the East. For fouryears Mithridates held out, but with little hope of ultimate success oreven of escape. In 64, after vainly attempting to poison himself, suchwas the power of the antidotes by which he had fortified himself againstdomestic treachery (for so the story runs), he perished by the sword ofone of his mercenaries. For two years more Pompey was busied in settlingthe affairs of the East. At last, in 61, he returned to Rome to enjoy athird triumph, and that the most splendid which the city had everwitnessed. It lasted for two days, but still the time was too short forthe display of the spoils of victory. The names of no less than fifteenconquered nations were carried in procession. A thousand forts, ninehundred cities, had been taken, and the chief of them were presented bymeans of pictures to the eyes of the people. The revenue of the Statehad been almost doubled by these conquests. Ninety thousand talents ingold and silver coin were paid into the treasury, nor was this at theexpense of the soldiers, whose prize money was so large that thesmallest share amounted to fifty pounds. Never before was such a sightseen in the world, and if Pompey had died when it was finished, he wouldhave been proclaimed the most fortunate of mankind. 

[Footnote 6: The Pro Lege Manilia. The law was proposed by one Manilius, a tribune of the people. ]

Certainly he was never so great again as he was that day. When withCaesar and Crassus he divided all the power of the State, he was onlythe second, and by far the second, of the three. His influence, hisprestige, his popularity declined year by year. The good fortune whichhad followed him without ceasing from his earliest years now seemed todesert him. Even the shows, the most magnificent ever seen in the city, with which he entertained the people at the dedication of his theater(built at his own expense for the public benefit) were not wholly asuccess. Here is a letter of Cicero about them to his friend Marius;interesting as giving both a description of the scene and as an accountof the writer's own feelings about it. "If it was some bodily pain orweakness of health that kept you from coming to the games, I mustattribute your absence to fortune rather than to a judicious choice. Butif you thought the things which most men admire contemptible, and so, though health permitted, would not come, then I am doubly glad; gladboth that you were free from illness and that you were so vigorous inmind as to despise the sights which others so unreasonably admire. .. . Generally the shows were most splendid, but not to your taste, if I mayjudge of yours by my own. First, the veteran actors who for their ownhonor had retired from the stage, returned to it to do honor to Pompey. Your favorite, my dear friend Aesopus, acquitted himself so poorly as tomake us all feel that he had best retire. When he came to the oath--

 'And if of purpose set I break my faith, '

his voice failed him. What need to tell you more? You know all about theother shows; they had not even the charm which moderate shows commonlyhave. The ostentation with which they were furnished forth took away alltheir gayety. What charm is there in having six hundred mules in the_Clytemnestra_ or three thousand supernumeraries in the _Trojan Horse, _or cavalry and infantry in foreign equipment in some battle-piece. Thepopulace admired all this; but it would have given you no kind ofpleasure. After this came a sort of wild-beast fights, lasting for fivedays. They were splendid: no man denies it. But what man of culture canfeel any pleasure when some poor fellow is torn in pieces by somepowerful animal, or when some noble animal is run through with a huntingspear. If these things are worth seeing, you have seen them before. AndI, who was actually present, saw nothing new. The last day was given upto the elephants. Great was the astonishment of the crowd at the sight;but of pleasure there was nothing. Nay, there was some feeling ofcompassion, some sense that this animal has a certain kinship with man. "The elder Pliny tells us that two hundred lions were killed on thisoccasion, and that the pity felt for the elephants rose to the height ofabsolute rage. So lamentable was the spectacle of their despair, sopitifully did they implore the mercy of the audience, "that the wholemultitude rose in tears and called down upon Pompey the curses whichsoon descended on him. "

And then Pompey's young wife, Julia, Caesar's daughter, died. She hadbeen a bond of union between the two men, and the hope of peace wassensibly lessened by her loss. Perhaps the first rupture would havecome any how; when it did come it found Pompey quite unprepared for theconflict. He seemed indeed to be a match for his rival, but his strengthcollapsed almost at a touch. "I have but to stamp with my foot, " he saidon one occasion, "and soldiers will spring up;" yet when Caesar declaredwar by crossing the Rubicon, he fled without a struggle. In little morethan a year and a half all was over. The battle of Pharsalia was foughton the 9th of August, and on September the 29th the man who hadtriumphed over three continents lay a naked, headless corpse on theshore of Egypt. 

CHAPTER X. 

EXILE. 

The suppression of the "Great Conspiracy" was certainly the mostglorious achievement of Cicero's life. Honors such as had never beforebeen bestowed on a citizen of Rome were heaped upon him. Men of thehighest rank spoke of him both in the Senate and before the people asthe "Father of his fatherland. " A public thanksgiving, such as wasordered when great victories had been won, was offered in his name. Italy was even more enthusiastic than the capital. The chief towns votedhim such honors as they could bestow; Capua in particular erected to hima gilded statue, and gave him the title of Patron of the city. 

Still there were signs of trouble in the future. It was the duty of theconsul on quitting office to swear that he had discharged his duty withfidelity, and it was usual for him at the same time to make a speech inwhich he narrated the events of his consulship. Cicero was preparing tospeak when one of the new tribunes intervened. "A man, " he cried, "whohas put citizens to death without hearing them in their defense is notworthy to speak. He must do nothing more than take the oath. " Cicero wasready with his answer. Raising his voice he said, "I swear that I, and Ialone, have saved this commonwealth and this city. " The assembly shoutedtheir approval; and when the ceremony was concluded the whole multitudeescorted the ex-consul to his house. The time was not come for hisenemies to attack him; but that he had enemies was manifest. 

With one dangerous man he had the misfortune to come into collision inthe year that followed his consulship. This was the Clodius of whom wehave heard something in the preceding chapter. The two men had hithertobeen on fairly good terms. Clodius, as we have seen, belonged to one ofthe noblest families in Rome, was a man of some ability and wit, andcould make himself agreeable when he was pleased to do so. But eventsfor which Cicero was not in the least to blame brought about a life-longenmity between them. Toward the close of the year Clodius had beenguilty of an act of scandalous impiety, intruding himself, disguised asa woman, into some peculiarly sacred rites which the matrons of Romewere accustomed to perform in honor of the "Good Goddess. " He hadpowerful friends, and an attempt was made to screen him, which Cicero, who was genuinely indignant at the fellow's wickedness, seems to haveresisted. In the end he was put upon his trial, though it was before ajury which had been specially packed for the occasion. His defense wasan _alibi_, an attempt, that is, to prove that he was elsewhere on thenight when he was alleged to have misconducted himself at Rome. Hebrought forward witnesses who swore that they had seen him at the verytime at Interamna, a town in Umbria, and a place which was distant atleast two days' journey from Rome. To rebut this evidence Cicero wasbrought forward by the prosecution. As he stepped forward the partisansof the accused set up a howl of disapproval. But the jury paid him thehigh compliment of rising from their seats, and the uproar ceased. Hedeposed that Clodius had been at his house on the morning of the day inquestion. 

Clodius was acquitted. If evidence had any thing to do with the result, it was the conduct of Caesar that saved him. It was in his house thatthe alleged intrusion had taken place, and he had satisfied himself by aprivate examination of its inmates that the charge was true. But now heprofessed to know nothing at all about the matter. Probably the reallypotent influence in the case was the money which Crassus liberallydistributed among the jurors. The fact of the money was indeednotorious. Some of the jury had pretended that they were in fear oftheir lives, and had asked for a guard. "A guard!" said Catulus, to oneof them, "what did you want a guard for? that the money should not betaken from you?"

But Clodius, though he had escaped, never forgave the man whose evidencehad been given against him. Cicero too felt that there as war to theknife between them. On the first meeting of the Senate after theconclusion of the trial he made a pointed attack upon his oldacquaintance. "Lentulus, " he said, "was twice acquitted, and Catilinetwice, and now this third malefactor has been let loose on thecommonwealth by his judges. But, Clodius, do not misunderstand what hashappened. It is for the prison, not for the city, that your judges havekept you; not to keep you in the country, but to deprive you of theprivilege of exile was what they intended. Be of good cheer, then, Fathers. No new evil has come upon us, but we have found out the evilthat exists. One villain has been put upon his trial, and the result hastaught us that there are more villains than one. "

Clodius attempted to banter his antagonist. "You are a fine gentleman, "he said; "you have been at Baiae" (Baiae was a fashionablewatering-place on the Campanian coast). "Well, " said Cicero, "that isbetter than to have been at the 'matrons' worship. '" And the attack andrepartee went on. "You have bought a fine house. " (Cicero had spent alarge sum of money on a house on the Palatine, and was known to havesomewhat crippled his means by doing so. ) "With you the buying has beenof jurymen. " "They gave you no credit though you spoke on oath. " "Yes;five-and-twenty gave me credit" (five-and-twenty of the jury had votedfor a verdict of guilty; two-and-thirty for acquittal), "but yourthirty-two gave you none, for they would have their money down. " TheSenate shouted applause, and Clodius sat down silent and confounded. 

How Clodius contrived to secure for himself the office of tribune, thevantage ground from which he hoped to work his revenge, has beenalready told in the sketch of Caesar. Caesar indeed was reallyresponsible for all that was done. It was he who made it possible forClodius to act; and he allowed him "to act when he could have stoppedhim by the lifting of his finger. He was determined to prove to Cicerothat he was master. But he never showed himself after the firstinterference in the matter of the adoption. He simply allowed Clodius towork his will without hindrance. 

Clodius proceeded with considerable skill. He proposed various laws, which were so popular that Cicero, though knowing that they would beturned against himself, did not venture to oppose them. Then came aproposal directly leveled at him. "Any man who shall have put to death aRoman citizen uncondemned and without a trial is forbidden fire andwater. " (This was the form of a sentence of exile. No one was allowedunder penalty of death to furnish the condemned with fire and waterwithin a certain distance of Rome. ) Cicero at once assumed the squaliddress with which it was the custom for accused persons to endeavor toarouse the compassion of their fellow-citizens. Twenty thousand of theupper classes supported him by their presence. The Senate itself, on themotion of one of the tribunes, went into this strange kind of mourningon his account. 

The consuls of the year were Gabinus and Piso. The first was notoriouslyhostile, of the second Cicero hoped to make a friend, the more so as hewas a kinsman of his daughter's husband. He gives a lively picture of aninterview with him. "It was nearly eleven o'clock in the morning when wewent to him. He came out of a dirty hovel to meet us, with his slipperson, and his head muffled up. His breath smelt most odiously of wine; buthe excused himself on the score of his health, which compelled him, hesaid, to use medicines in which wine was employed. " His answer to thepetition of his visitors (for Cicero was accompanied by his son-in-law)was at least commendably frank. "My colleague Gabinius is in absolutepoverty, and does not know where to turn. Without a province he must beruined. A province he hopes to get by the help of Clodius, but it mustbe by my acting with him. I must humor his wishes, just as you, Cicero, humored your colleague when you were consul. But indeed there is noreason why you should seek the consul's protection. Every one must lookout for himself. "

In default of the consuls there was still some hope that Pompey might beinduced to interfere, and Cicero sought an interview with him. Plutarchsays that he slipped out by a back door to avoid seeing him; butCicero's own account is that the interview was granted. "When I threwmyself at his feet" (he means I suppose, humiliated himself by askingsuch a favor), "he could not lift me from the ground. He could donothing, he said, against the will of Caesar. "

Cicero had now to choose between two courses. He might stay and do hisbest with the help of his friends, to resist the passing of the law. Butthis would have ended, it was well known, in something like an openbattle in the streets of Rome. Clodius and his partisans were ready tocarry their proposal by force of arms, and would yield to nothing butsuperior strength. It was possible, even probable, that in such aconflict Cicero would be victorious. But he shrank from the trial, notfrom cowardice, for he had courage enough when occasion demanded, noteven from unwillingness to risk the lives of his friends, though thisweighed somewhat with him, but chiefly because he hated to confess thatfreedom was becoming impossible in Rome, and that the strong hand of amaster was wanted to give any kind of security to life and property. Theother course was to anticipate the sentence and to go into voluntaryexile. This was the course which his most powerful friends pressed uponhim, and this was the course which he chose. He left Rome, intending togo to Sicily, where he knew that he should find the heartiest ofwelcomes. 

Immediately on his departure Clodius formally proposed his banishment. "Let it be enacted, " so ran the proposition, "that, seeing that MarcusTullius Cicero has put Roman citizens to death without trial, forgingthereto the authority of the Senate, that he be forbidden fire andwater; that no one harbor or receive him on pain of death; and thatwhosoever shall move, shall vote, or take any steps for the recalling ofhim, be dealt with as a public enemy. " The bill was passed, the distancewithin which it was to operate being fixed at four hundred miles. Thehouses of the banished man were razed to the ground, the site of themansion on the. Palatine, being dedicated to Liberty. His property waspartly plundered, partly sold by auction. 

Cicero meanwhile had hurried to the south of Italy. He found shelter fora while at the farm of a friend near Vibo in Brutii (now the Abruzzi), but found it necessary to leave this place because it was within theprescribed limits. Sicily was forbidden to him by its governor, who, though a personal friend, was unwilling to displease the party in power. Athens, which for many reasons he would have liked to choose for hisplace of exile, was unsafe. He had bitter enemies there, men who hadbeen mixed up in Catiline's conspiracy. The place, too, was within thedistance, and though this was not very strictly insisted upon--as amatter of fact, he did spend the greater part of his banishment insidethe prescribed limit--it might at any moment be made a means ofannoyance. Atticus invited him to take up his residence at his seat atButhrotum in Epirus (now Albania). But the proposal did not commenditself to his taste. It was out of the way, and would be very drearywithout the presence of its master, who was still at Rome, andapparently intended to remain there. After staying for about a fortnightat a friend's house near Dyrrachium--the town itself, where he was oncevery popular, for fear of bringing some trouble upon it, he refused toenter--he crossed over to Greece, and ultimately settled himself atThessalonica. 

Long afterward he tells us of a singular dream which seems to have givenhim some little comfort at this time. "I had lain awake for the greaterpart of the night, but fell into a heavy slumber toward morning. I wasat the point of starting, but my host would not allow me to be waked. Atseven o'clock, however, I rose, and then told my friend this dream. Iseemed to myself to be wandering disconsolately in some lonely placewhen the great Marius met me. His lictors were with him, their _fasces_wreathed with bays. 'Why are you so sad?' he asked me. 'I have beenwrongly banished from my country, ' I answered. He then took my hand, andturning to the nearest lictor, bade him lead me to his own MemorialHall. 'There, ' he said, 'you will be safe. '" His friend declared thatthis dream portended a speedy and honorable return. Curiously enough itwas in the Hall of Marius that the decree repealing the sentence ofbanishment was actually proposed and passed. 

For the most part he was miserably unhappy and depressed. In letterafter letter he poured out to Atticus his fears, his complaints, and hiswants. Why had he listened to the bad advice of his friends? He hadwished to stay at Rome and fight out the quarrel. Why had Hortensiusadvised him to retire from the struggle? It must have been jealousy, jealousy of one whom he knew to be a more successful advocate thanhimself. Why had Atticus hindered his purposes when he thought ofputting an end to all his trouble by killing himself? Why were all hisfriends, why was Atticus himself, so lukewarm in his cause? In oneletter he artfully reproaches himself for his neglect of his friends intimes past as the cause of their present indifference. But the reproachis of course really leveled at them. 

"If ever, " he writes in one letter, "fortune shall restore me to mycountry and to you, I will certainly take care that of all my friends;none shall be more rejoiced than you. All my duty to you, a duty which Imust own in time past was sadly wanting, shall be so faithfullydischarged that you will feel that I have been restored to you quite asmuch as I shall have been restored to my brother and to my children. Forwhatever I have wronged you, and indeed because I have wronged you, pardon me; for I have wronged myself far worse. I do not write this asnot knowing that you feel the very greatest trouble on my account; butif you were and had been under the obligation to love me, as much as youactually do love me and have loved me, you never would have allowed meto lack the wise advice which you have so abundantly at your command. "This is perhaps a little obscure, as it is certainly somewhat subtle;but Cicero means that Atticus had not interested himself in his affairsas much as he would have felt bound to do, if he (Cicero) had been lessremiss in the duties of friendship. 

To another correspondent, his wife Terentia, he poured out his heart yetmore freely. "Don't think, " he writes in one of his letters to her, "that I write longer letters to others than to you, except indeed I havereceived some long communication which I feel I must answer. Indeed Ihave nothing to write; and in these days I find it the most difficult ofduties. Writing to you and to my dearest Tullia I never can do withoutfloods of tears. I see you are utterly miserable, and I wanted you to becompletely happy. I might have made you so. I could have made you had Ibeen less timid. .. . My heart's delight, my deepest regret is to thinkthat you, to whom all used to look for help, should now be involved insuch sorrow, such distress! and that I should be to blame, I who savedothers only to ruin myself and mine!. .. As for expenditure, let others, who can if they will, undertake it. And if you love me, don't distressyour health, which is already, I know, feeble. All night, all day Ithink of you. I see that you are undertaking all imaginable labors on mybehalf; I only fear that you will not be able to endure them. I am awarethat all depends upon you. If we are to succeed in what you wish and arenow trying to compass, take care of your health. " In another he writes:"Unhappy that I am! to think that one so virtuous, so loyal, so honest, so kind, should be so afflicted, and all on my account. And my dearestTullia, too, that she should be so unhappy about a father in whom sheonce found so much happiness. And what shall I say about my dear littleCicero? That he should feel the bitterest sorrow and trouble as soon ashe began to feel any thing! If all this was really, as you write, thework of fate, I could endure it a little more easily; but it was allbrought about by my fault, thinking that I was loved by men who reallywere jealous of me, and keeping aloof from others who were really on myside. "

This is, perhaps, a good opportunity of saying something about the ladyherself. Who she was we do not certainly know. There was a family of thename in Rome, the most notable of whom perhaps was the TerentiusVarro[7] whose rashness brought upon his country the terrible disasterof the defeat of Cannae. She had a half-sister, probably older thanherself, of the name of Fabia, who was a vestal virgin. She brought herhusband, to whom she was married about 78 B. C. , a fair dowry, aboutthree thousand five hundred pounds. We have seen how affectionatelyCicero writes to her during his exile. She is his darling, his onlyhope; the mere thought of her makes his eyes overflow with tears. Andshe seems to have deserved all his praise and affection, exertingherself to the utmost to help him, and ready to impoverish herself tofind him the means that he needed. Four letters of this period have beenpreserved. There are twenty others belonging to the years 50-47 B. C. Theearlier of these are sufficiently affectionate. When he is about toreturn to Rome from his province (Cilicia), she is still the mostamiable, the dearest of women. Then we begin to see signs of coolness, yet nothing that would strike us did we not know what was afterwards tohappen. He excuses the rarity of his letters. There is no one by whom tosend them. If there were, he was willing to write. The greetings becameformal, the superlatives "dearest, " "fondest, " "best, " are dropped. "Youare glad, " he writes after the battle of Pharsalia had dashed his hopes, "that I have got back safe to Italy; I hope that you may continue to beglad. " "Don't think of coming, " he goes on, "it is a long journey andnot very safe; and I don't see what good you would do if you shouldcome. " In another letter he gives directions about getting ready hishouse at Tusculum for the reception of guests. The letter is dated onthe first of October, and he and his friends would come probably to stayseveral days, on the seventh. If there was not a tub in the bath-room, one must be provided. The greeting is of the briefest and most formal. Meanwhile we know from what he writes to Atticus that he was greatlydissatisfied with the lady's conduct. Money matters were at the bottomof their quarrel. She was careless, he thinks, and extravagant. Thoughhe was a rich man, yet he was often in need of ready money, and Terentiacould not be relied upon to help him. His vexation takes form in aletter to Atticus. "As to Terentia--there are other things withoutnumber of which I don't speak--what can be worse than this? You wrote toher to send me bills for one hundred and eight pounds; for there was somuch money left in hand. She sent me just ninety pounds, and added anote that this was all. If she was capable of abstracting such a triflefrom so small a sum, don't you see what she would have done in mattersof real importance?" The quarrel ended in a divorce, a thing far morecommon than, happily, it is among ourselves, but still a painful anddiscreditable end to an union which had lasted for more thanfive-and-twenty years. Terentia long survived her husband, dying inextreme old age (as much, it was said, as a hundred and three years), far on in the reign of Augustus; and after a considerable experience ofmatrimony, if it be true that she married three or even, according tosome accounts, four other husbands. 

[Footnote 7: Another of the same name was an eminent man of letters ofCicero's own time. ]

Terentia's daughter, Tullia, had a short and unhappy life. She was born, it would seem, about 79 B. C. , and married when fifteen or sixteen to ayoung Roman noble, Piso Frugi by name. "The best, the most loyal ofmen, " Cicero calls him. He died in 57 B. C. , and Rome lost, if hisfather-in-law's praises of him may be trusted, an orator of the veryhighest promise. "I never knew any one who surpassed my son-in-law, Piso, in zeal, in industry, and, I may fairly say, in ability. " The nextyear she married a certain Crassipes, a very shadowy person indeed. Weknow nothing of what manner of man he was, or what became of him. But in50 B. C. Tullia was free to marry again. Her third venture was of her ownor her mother's contriving. Her father was at his government in Cilicia, and he hears of the affair with surprise. "Believe me, " he writes toAtticus, "nothing could have been less expected by me. Tiberius Nero hadmade proposals to me, and I had sent friends to discuss the matter withthe ladies. But when they got to Rome the betrothal had taken place. This, I hope, will be a better match. I fancy the ladies were very muchpleased with the young gentleman's complaisance and courtesy, but do notlook for the thorns. " The "thorns, " however, were there. A friend whokept Cicero acquainted with the news of Rome, told him as much, thoughhe wraps up his meaning in the usual polite phrases. "I congratulateyou, " he writes, "on your alliance with one who is, I really believe, aworthy fellow. I do indeed think this of him. If there have been somethings in which he has not done justice to himself, these are now pastand gone; any traces that may be left will soon, I am sure, disappear, thanks to your good influence and to his respect for Tullia. He is notoffensive in his errors, and does not seem slow to appreciate betterthings. " Tullia, however, was not more successful than other wives inreforming her husband. Her marriage seems to have been unhappy almostfrom the beginning. It was brought to an end by a divorce after aboutthree years. Shortly afterward Tullia, who could have been little morethan thirty, died, to the inconsolable grief of her father. "My grief, "he writes to Atticus, "passes all consolation. Yet I have done whatcertainly no one ever did before, written a treatise for my ownconsolation. (I will send you the book if the copyists have finishedit. ) And indeed there is nothing like it. I write day after day, and allday long; not that I can get any good from it, but it occupies me alittle, not much indeed; the violence of my grief is too much for me. Still I am soothed, and do my best to compose, not my feelings, indeed, but, if I can, my face. " And again: "Next to your company nothing ismore agreeable to me than solitude. Then all my converse is with books;yet this is interrupted by tears; these I resist as well as I can; butat present I fail. " At one time he thought of finding comfort in unusualhonors to the dead. He would build a shrine of which Tullia should bethe deity. "I am determined, " he writes, "on building the shrine. Fromthis purpose I cannot be turned . .. Unless the building be finished thissummer, I shall hold myself guilty. " He fixes upon a design. He begsAtticus, in one of his letters, to buy some columns of marble of Chiosfor the building. He discusses the question of the site. Some gardensnear Rome strike him as a convenient place. It must be conveniently nearif it is to attract worshipers. "I would sooner sell or mortgage, orlive on little, than be disappointed. " Then he thought that he wouldbuild it on the grounds of his villa. In the end he did not build it atall. Perhaps the best memorial of Tullia is the beautiful letter inwhich one of Cicero's friends seeks to console him for his loss. "Shehad lived, " he says, "as long as life was worth living, as long as therepublic stood. " One passage, though it has often been quoted before, Imust give. "I wish to tell you of something which brought me no smallconsolation, hoping that it may also somewhat diminish your sorrow. Onmy way back from Asia, as I was sailing from Aeigina to Megara, I beganto contemplate the places that lay around me. Behind me was Aegina, before me Megara; on my right hand the Piraeus, on my left hand Corinth;towns all of them that were once at the very height of prosperity, butnow lie ruined and desolate before our eyes. I began thus to reflect:'Strange! do we, poor creatures of a day, bear it ill if one of usperish of disease, or are slain with the sword, we whose life is boundto be short, while the dead bodies of so many lie here inclosed withinso small a compass?"

But I am anticipating. When Cicero was in exile the republic had yetsome years to live; and there were hopes that it might survivealtogether. The exile's prospects, too, began to brighten. Caesar hadreached for the present the height of his ambition, and was busy withhis province of Gaul. Pompey had quarreled with Clodius, whom he foundto be utterly unmanageable. And Cicero's friend, one Milo, of whom Ishall have to say more hereafter, being the most active of them all, never ceased to agitate for his recall. It would be tedious to recallall the vicissitudes of the struggle. As early as May the Senate passeda resolution repealing the decree of banishment, the news of it havingcaused an outburst of joy in the city. Accius' drama of "Telamon" wasbeing acted at the time, and the audience applauded each senator as heentered the Senate, and rose from their places to greet the consul as hecame in. But the enthusiasm rose to its height when the actor who wasplaying the part of Telamon (whose banishment from his country formedpart of the action of the drama) declaimed with significant emphasis thefollowing lines--

 What! he--the man who still with steadfast heart Strove for his country, who in perilous days Spared neither life nor fortune, and bestowed Most help when most she needed; who surpassed In wit all other men. Father of Gods, _His_ house--yea, _his_!--I saw devoured by fire; And ye, ungrateful, foolish, without thought Of all wherein he served you, could endure To see him banished; yea, and to this hour Suffer that he prolong an exile's day. 

Still obstacle after obstacle was interposed, and it was not till thefourth of August that the decree passed through all its stages andbecame finally law. Cicero, who had been waiting at the point of Greecenearest to Italy, to take the earliest opportunity of returning, hadbeen informed by his friends that he might now safely embark. He sailedaccordingly on the very day when the decree was passed, and reachedBrundisium on the morrow. It happened to be the day on which thefoundation of the colony was celebrated, and also the birthday ofTullia, who had come so far to meet her father. The coincidence wasobserved by the towns-people with delight. On the eighth the welcomenews came from Rome, and Cicero set out for the capital. "All along myroad the cities of Italy kept the day of my arrival as a holiday; theways were crowded with the deputations which were sent from all parts tocongratulate me. When I approached the city, my coming was honored bysuch a concourse of men, such a heartiness of congratulation as are pastbelieving. The way from the gates, the ascent of the Capitol, the returnto my home made such a spectacle that in the very height of my joy Icould not but be sorry that a people so grateful had yet been sounhappy, so cruelly oppressed. " "That day, " he said emphatically, "thatday was as good as immortality to me. "

CHAPTER XI. 

A BRAWL AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 

Clodius, who had taken the lead in driving Cicero into exile, was ofcourse furious at his return, and continued to show him an unceasinghostility. His first care was to hinder the restoration of his property. He had contrived to involve part at least of this in a considerabledifficulty. Cicero's house on the Palatine Hill had been pulled down andthe area dedicated--so at least Clodius alleged--to the Goddess ofLiberty. If this was true, it was sacred forever; it could not berestored. The question was, Was it true? This question was referred tothe Pontiffs as judges of such matters. Cicero argued the case beforethem, and they pronounced in his favor. It was now for the Senate toact. A motion was made that the site should be restored. Clodius opposedit, talking for three hours, till the anger of his audience compelledhim to bring his speech to an end. One of the tribunes in his interestput his veto on the motion, but was frightened into withdrawing it. ButClodius was not at the end of his resources. A set of armed ruffiansunder his command drove out the workmen who were rebuilding the house. Afew days afterwards he made an attack on Cicero himself. He was woundedin the struggle which followed, and might, says Cicero, have beenkilled, "but, " he adds, "I am tired of surgery. "

Pompey was another object of his hatred, for he knew perfectly well thatwithout his consent his great enemy would not have been restored. Cicerogives a lively picture of a scene in the Senate, in which this hatredwas vigorously expressed. "Pompey spoke, or rather wished to speak; for, as soon as he rose, Clodius' hired ruffians shouted at him. All throughhis speech it was the same; he was interrupted not only by shouts but byabuse and curses. When he came to an end--and it must be allowed that heshowed courage; nothing frightened him: he said his say and sometimeseven obtained silence--then Clodius rose. He was met with such an uproarfrom our side (for we had determined to give him back as good as he hadgiven) that he could not collect his thoughts, control his speech, orcommand his countenance. This went on from three o'clock, when Pompeyhad only just finished his speech, till five. Meanwhile every kind ofabuse, even to ribald verses, were shouted out against Clodius and hissister. Pale with fury he turned to his followers, and in the midst ofthe uproar asked them, 'Who is it that is killing the people withhunger?' 'Pompey, ' they answered. 'Who wants to go to Alexandria?''Pompey, ' they answered again. 'And whom do _you_ want to go?''Crassus, ' they said. About six o'clock the party of Clodius began, atsome given signal, it seemed, to spit at our side. Our rage now burstout. They tried to drive us from our place, and we made a charge. Thepartisans of Clodius fled. He was thrust down from the hustings. I thenmade my escape, lest any thing worse should happen. "

A third enemy, and one whom Clodius was destined to find more dangerousthan either Cicero or Pompey, was Annius Milo. Milo was on the mother'sside of an old Latin family. The name by which he was commonly known wasprobably a nickname given him, it may be, in joking allusion to the Miloof Crotona, the famous wrestler, who carried an ox on his shoulders andate it in a single day. For Milo was a great fighting man, a well-borngladiator, one who was for cutting all political knots with the sword. He was ambitious, and aspired to the consulship; but the dignity wasscarcely within his reach. His family was not of the highest; he wasdeeply in debt; he had neither eloquence nor ability. His best chance, therefore, was to attach himself to some powerful friend whose gratitudehe might earn. Just such a friend he seemed to find in Cicero. He sawthe great orator's fortunes were very low, but they would probably riseagain, and he would be grateful to those who helped him in hisadversity. Hence Milo's exertions to bring him back from banishment andhence the quarrel with Clodius. The two men had their bands of hired, orrather purchased, ruffians about the city, and came into frequentcollisions. Each indicted the other for murderous assault. Each publiclydeclared that he should take the earliest chance of putting his I enemyto death. What was probably a chance collision brought matters to acrisis. 

On the twentieth of January Milo left Rome to pay a visit to Lanuvium, aLatin town on the Appian road, and about fifteen miles south of Rome. Itwas a small town, much decayed from the old days when its revoltagainst Rome was thought to be a thing worth recording; but itcontained one of the most famous temples of Italy, the dwelling of Junothe Preserver, whose image, in its goat-skin robe, its quaint, turned-upshoes, with spear in one hand and small shield in the other, had apeculiar sacredness. Milo was a native of the place, and its dictator;and it was his duty on this occasion to nominate the chief priest of thetemple. He had been at a meeting of the Senate in the morning, and hadremained till the close of the sitting. Returning home he had changedhis dress and shoes, waited a while, as men have to wait, says Cicero, while his wife was getting ready, and then started. He traveled in acarriage his wife and a friend. Several maid-servants and a troop ofsinging boys belonging to his wife followed. Much was made of this greatretinue of women and boys, as proving that Milo had no intention when hestarted of coming to blows with his great enemy. But he had also withhim a number of armed slaves and several gladiators, among whom were twofamous masters of their art. He had traveled about ten miles when he metClodius, who had been delivering an address to the town council ofAricia, another Latin town, nearer to the capital than Lanuvium, and wasnow returning to Rome. He was on horseback, contrary to his usualcustom, which was to use a carriage, and he had with him thirty slavesarmed with swords. No person of distinction thought of traveling withoutsuch attendants. 

The two men passed each other, but Milo's gladiators fell out with theslaves of Clodius. Clodius rode back and accosted the aggressors in athreatening manner. One of the gladiators replied by wounding him in theshoulder with his sword. A number of Milo's slaves hastened back toassist their comrades. The party of Clodius was overpowered, and Clodiushimself, exhausted by his wound, took refuge in a roadside tavern, whichprobably marked the first stage out of Rome. Milo, thinking that now hehad gone so far he might go a little further and rid himself of hisenemy forever, ordered his slaves to drag Clodius from his refuge andfinish him. This was promptly done. Cicero indeed declared that theslaves did it without orders, and in the belief that their master hadbeen killed. But Rome believed the other story. The corpse of the deadman lay for some time upon the road uncared for, for all his attendantshad either fallen in the struggle or had crept into hiding-places. Thena Roman gentleman on his way to the city ordered it to be put into hislitter and taken to Rome, where it arrived just before nightfall. It waslaid out in state in the hall of his mansion, and his widow stood byshowing the wounds to the sympathizing crowd which thronged to see hisremains. Next day the excitement increased. Two of the tribunessuggested that the body should be carried into the market-place, andplaced on the hustings from which the speaker commonly addressed thepeople. Then it was resolved, at the suggestion of another Clodius, anotary, and a client of the family, to do it a signal honor. "Thou shaltnot bury or burn a man within the city" was one of the oldest of Romanlaws. Clodius, the favorite of the people, should be an exception. Hisbody was carried into the Hall of Hostilius, the usual meeting-place ofthe Senate. The benches, the tables, the platform from which the oratorsspoke, the wooden tablets on which the clerks wrote their notes, werecollected to make a funeral pile on which the corpse was to be consumed. The hall caught fire, and was burned to the ground; another largebuilding adjoining it, the Hall of Porcius, narrowly escaped the samefate. The mob attacked several houses, that of Milo among them, and waswith difficulty repulsed. 

It had been expected that Milo would voluntarily go into exile; but theburning of the senate-house caused a strong reaction of feeling of whichhe took advantage. He returned to Rome, and provided to canvass for theconsulship, making a present in money (which may be reckoned atfive-and-twenty shillings) to every voter. The city was in a continualuproar; though the time for the new consuls to enter on their office waslong past, they had not even been elected, nor was there any prospect, such was the violence of the rival candidates, of their being so. Atlast the Senate had recourse to the only man who seemed able to dealwith the situation, and appointed Pompey sole consul. Pompey proposedto institute for the trial of Milo's case a special court with aspecial form of procedure. The limits of the time which it was to occupywere strictly laid down. Three days were to be given to the examinationof witnesses, one to the speeches of counsel, the prosecution beingallowed two hours only, the defense three. After a vain resistance onthe part of Milo's friends, the proposal was carried, Pompey threateningto use force if necessary. Popular feeling now set very strongly againstthe accused. Pompey proclaimed that he went in fear of his life from hisviolence; refused to appear in the Senate lest he should beassassinated, and even left his house to live in his gardens, whichcould be more effectually guarded by soldiers. In the Senate Milo wasaccused of having arms under his clothing, a charge which he had todisprove by lifting up his under garment. Next a freedman came forward, and declared that he and four others had actually seen the murder ofClodius, and that having mentioned the fact, they had been seized andshut up for two months in Milo's counting-house. Finally a sheriff'sofficer, if we may so call him, deposed that another important witness, one of Milo's slaves, had been forcibly taken out of his hands by thepartisans of the accused. 

On the eighth of April the trial was begun. The first witness called wasa friend who had been with Clodius on the day of his death. His evidencemade the case look very dark against Milo, and the counsel who was tocross-examine him on behalf of the accused was received with such angrycries that he had to take refuge on the bench with the presiding judge. Milo was obliged to ask for the same protection. 

Pompey resolved that better order should be kept for the future, andoccupied all the approaches to the court with troops. The rest of thewitnesses were heard and cross-examined without interruption. April 11thwas the last day of the trial. Three speeches were delivered for theprosecution; for the defense one only, and that by Cicero. It had beensuggested that he should take the bold line of arguing that Clodius wasa traitor, and that the citizen who slew him had deserved well of hiscountry. But he judged it better to follow another course, and to showthat Clodius had been the aggressor, having deliberately laid an ambushfor Milo, of whose meditated journey to Lanuvium he was of course aware. Unfortunately for his client the case broke down. Milo had evidentlyleft Rome and the conflict had happened much earlier than was said, because the body of the murdered man had reached the capital not laterthan five o'clock in the afternoon. This disproved the assertion thatClodius had loitered on his way back to Rome till the growing darknessgave him an opportunity of attacking his adversaries. Then it came outthat Milo had had in his retinue, besides the women and boys, a numberof fighting men. Finally there was the damning fact, established, itwould seem, by competent witnesses, that Clodius had been dragged fromhis hiding-place and put to death. Cicero too lost his presence of mind. The sight of the city, in which all the shops were shut in expectationof a riot, the presence of the soldiers in court, and the clamor of amob furiously hostile to the accused and his advocate, confounded him, and he spoke feebly and hesitatingly. The admirable oration which hascome down to us, and professes to have been delivered on this occasion, was really written afterwards. The jury, which was allowed by commonconsent to have been one of the best ever assembled, gave a verdict ofguilty. Milo went into banishment at Marseilles--a punishment which heseems to have borne very easily, if it is true that when Cicero excusedhimself for the want of courage which had marred the effect of hisdefense, he answered, "It was all for the best; if you had spokenbetter I should never have tasted these admirable Marseilles mullets. "

Naturally he tired of the mullets before long. When Caesar had madehimself master of Rome, he hoped to be recalled from banishment. ButCaesar did not want him, and preferred to have him where he was. Enragedat this treatment, he came over to Italy and attempted to raise aninsurrection in favor of Pompey. The troops whom he endeavored tocorrupt refused to follow him. He retreated with his few followers intothe extreme south of the peninsula, and was there killed. 

CHAPTER XII. 

CATO, BRUTUS, AND PORCIA. 

"From his earliest years, " so runs the character that has come down tous of Cato, "he was resolute to obstinacy. Flattery met with a roughrepulse, and threats with resistance. He never laughed, and his smilewas of the slightest. Not easily provoked, his anger, once roused, wasimplacable. He learned but slowly, but never forgot a thing onceacquired; he was obedient to his teachers, but wanted to know the reasonof every thing. " The stories told of his boyhood bear out thischaracter. Here is one of them. His tutor took him to Sulla's house. Itwas in the evil days of the Proscription, and there were signs of thebloody work that was going on. "Why does no one kill this man?" he askedhis teacher. "Because, my son, they fear him more than they hate him, "was the answer. "Why then, " was the rejoinder, "have you not given me asword that I may set my country free?" The tutor, as it may be supposed, carried him off in haste. 

Like most young Romans he began life as a soldier, and won goldenopinions not only by his courage, which indeed was common enough in anation that conquered the world, but by his temperance and diligentperformance of duty. His time of service ended, he set out on histravels, accepting an invitation from the tributary king of Galatia, who happened to be an old friend of the family, to visit him. We get aninteresting little picture of a Roman of the upper class on a tour. "Atdawn he would send on a baker and a cook to the place which he intendedto visit. These would enter the town in a most unpretending fashion, andif their master did not happen to have a friend or acquaintance in theplace, would betake themselves to an inn, and there prepare for theirmaster's accommodation without troubling any one. It was only when therewas no inn that they went to the magistrates and asked forentertainment; and they were always content with what was assigned. Often they met with but scanty welcome and attention, not enforcingtheir demands with the customary threats, so that Cato on his arrivalfound nothing prepared. Nor did their master create a more favorableimpression, sitting as he did quietly on his luggage, and seeming toaccept the situation. Sometimes, however, he would send for the townauthorities and say, "You had best give up these mean ways, myinhospitable friends; you won't find that all your visitors are Catos. "Once at least he found himself, as he thought, magnificently received. Approaching Antioch, he found the road lined on either side with troopsof spectators. The men stood in one company, the boys in another. Everybody was in holiday dress. Some--these were the magistrates andpriests--wore white robes and garlands of flowers. Cato, supposing thatall these preparations were intended for himself, was annoyed that hisservants had not prevented them. But he was soon undeceived. An old manran out from the crowd, and without so much as greeting the new comer, cried, "Where did you leave Demetrius? When will he come?" Demetrius wasPompey's freedman, and had some of his master's greatness reflected onhim. Cato could only turn away muttering, "Wretched place!"

Returning to Rome he went through the usual course of honors, alwaysdischarging his duties with the utmost zeal and integrity, and probably, as long as he filled a subordinate place, with great success. It waswhen statesmanship was wanted that he began to fail. 

In the affair of the conspiracy of Catiline Cato stood firmly byCicero, supporting the proposition to put the conspirators to death in apowerful speech, the only speech of all that he made that was preserved. This preservation was due to the forethought of Cicero, who put thefastest writers whom he could find to relieve each other in taking downthe oration. This, it is interesting to be told, was the beginning ofshorthand. 

Cato, like Cicero, loved and believed in the republic; but he was muchmore uncompromising, more honest perhaps we may say, but certainly lessdiscreet in putting his principles into action. He set himself to opposethe accumulation of power in the hands of Pompey and Caesar; but helacked both dignity and prudence, and he accomplished nothing. When, forinstance, Caesar, returning from Spain, petitioned the Senate forpermission to become a candidate for the consulship without entering thecity--to enter the city would have been to abandon his hopes of atriumph--Cato condescended to use the arts of obstruction in opposinghim. He spoke till sunset against the proposition, and it failed bysheer lapse of time. Yet the opposition was fruitless. Caesar of courseabandoned the empty honor, and secured the reality, all the morecertainly because people felt that he had been hardly used. And so hecontinued to act, always seeking to do right, but always choosing thevery worst way of doing it; anxious to serve his country, but alwayscontriving to injure it. Even in that which, we may say, best became himin his life, in the leaving of it (if we accept for the moment the Romanview of the morality of suicide), he was not doing his best for Rome. Had he been willing to live (for Caesar was ready to spare him, as hewas always ready to spare enemies who could not harm him), there was yetgood for him to do; in his hasty impatience of what he disapproved, hepreferred to deprive his country of its most honest citizen. 

We must not omit a picture so characteristic of Roman life as the storyof his last hours. The last army of the republic had been destroyed atThapsus, and Caesar was undisputed master of the world. Cato vainlyendeavored to stir up the people of Utica, a town near Carthage, inwhich he had taken up his quarters; when they refused, he resolved toput an end to his life. A kinsman of Caesar, who was preparing tointercede with the conqueror for the lives of the vanquished leaders, begged Cato's help in revising his speech. "For you, " he said, "I shouldthink it no shame to clasp his hands and fall at his knees. " "Were Iwilling to take my life at his hands, " replied Cato, "I should go aloneto ask it. But I refuse to live by the favor of a tyrant. Still, asthere are three hundred others for whom you are to intercede, let us seewhat can be done with the speech. " This business finished, he took anaffectionate leave of his friend, commending to his good offices his sonand his friends. On his son he laid a strict injunction not to meddlewith public life. Such a part as was worthy of the name of Cato no mancould take again; to take any other would be shameful. Then followed thebath, and after the bath, dinner, to which he had invited a number offriends, magistrates of the town. He sat at the meal, instead ofreclining. This had been his custom ever since the fated day ofPharsalia. After dinner, over the wine, there was much learned talk, and this not other than cheerful in tone. But when the conversationhappened to turn on one of the favorite maxims of the Stoics, "Only thegood man is free; the bad are slaves, " Cato expressed himself with anenergy and even a fierceness that made the company suspect some terribleresolve. The melancholy silence that ensued warned the speaker that hehad betrayed himself, and he hastened to remove the suspicion by talkingon other topics. After dinner he took his customary walk, gave thenecessary orders to the officers on guard, and then sought his chamber. Here he took up the Phaedo, the famous dialogue in which Socrates, onthe day when he is to drink the poison, discusses the immortality of thesoul. He had almost finished the book, when, chancing to turn his eyesupwards, he perceived that his sword had been removed. His son hadremoved it while he sat at dinner. He called a slave and asked, "Who hastaken my sword?" As the man said nothing, he resumed his book; but inthe course of a few minutes, finding that search was not being made, heasked for the sword again. Another interval followed; and still it wasnot forthcoming. His anger was now roused. He vehemently reproached theslaves, and even struck one of them with his fist, which he injured bythe blow. "My son and my slaves, " he said, "are betraying me to theenemy. " He would listen to no entreaties, "Am I a madman, " he said, "that I am stripped of my arms? Are you going to bind my hands and giveme up to Caesar? As for the sword I can do without it; I need but holdmy breath or dash my head against the wall. It is idle to think that youcan keep a man of my years alive against his will. " It was felt to beimpossible to persist in the face of this determination, and a youngslave-boy brought back the sword. Cato felt the weapon, and finding thatthe blade was straight and the edge perfect, said, "Now I am my ownmaster. " He then read the Phaedo again from beginning to end, andafterwards fell into so profound a sleep that persons standing outsidethe chamber heard his breathing. About midnight he sent for hisphysician and one of his freedmen. The freedman was commissioned toinquire whether his friends had set sail. The physician he asked to bindup his wounded hand, a request which his attendants heard with delight, as it seemed to indicate a resolve to live. He again sent to inquireabout his friends and expressed his regret at the rough weather whichthey seemed likely to have. The birds were now beginning to twitter atthe approach of dawn, and he fell into a short sleep. The freedman nowreturned with news that the harbor was quiet. When he found himselfagain alone, he stabbed himself with the sword, but the blow, dealt asit was by the wounded hand, was not fatal. He fell fainting on thecouch, knocking down a counting board which stood near, and groaning. His son with others rushed into the chamber, and the physician, findingthat the wound was not mortal, proceeded to bind it up. Cato, recoveringhis consciousness, thrust the attendants aside, and tearing open thewound, expired. 

If the end of Cato's life was its noblest part it is still more truethat the fame of Brutus rests on one memorable deed. He was known, indeed, as a young man of promise, with whose education special painshad been taken, and who had a genuine love for letters and learning. Hewas free, it would seem, from some of the vices of his age, but he hadserious faults. Indeed the one transaction of his earlier life withwhich we happen to be well acquainted is very little to his credit. Andthis, again, is so characteristic of one side of Roman life that itshould be told in some detail. 

Brutus had married the daughter of a certain Appius Claudius, a kinsmanof the notorious Clodius, and had accompanied his father-in-law to hisprovince, Cilicia. He took the opportunity of increasing his means bylending money to the provincials. Lending money, it must be remembered, was not thought a discreditable occupation even for the very noblest. Tolend money upon interest was, indeed, the only way of making aninvestment, besides the buying of land, that was available to the Romancapitalist. But Brutus was more than a money-lender, he was an usurer;that is, he sought to extract an extravagantly high rate of interestfrom his debtors. And this greed brought him into collision with Cicero. 

A certain Scaptius had been agent for Brutus in lending money to thetown of Salamis in Cyprus. Under the government of Claudius, Scaptiushad had every thing his own way. He had been appointed to a command inthe town, had some cavalry at his disposal, and extorted from theinhabitants what terms he pleased, shutting up, it is told us, theSenate in their council-room till five of them perished of hunger. Cicero heard of this monstrous deed as he was on his way to hisprovince; he peremptorily refused the request of Scaptius for a renewalof his command, saying that he had resolved not to grant such posts toany person engaged in trading or money-lending. Still, for Brutus'sake--and it was not for some time that it came out that Brutus was theprincipal--he would take care that the money should be paid. This thetown was ready to do; but then came in the question of interest. Anedict had been published that this should never exceed twelve per cent. , or one per cent, monthly, that being the customary way of payment. ButScaptius pleaded his bond, which provided for four per cent, monthly, and pleaded also a special edict that regulations restraining interestwere not to apply to Salamis. The town protested that they could notpay if such terms were exacted--terms which would double the principal. They could not, they said, have met even the smaller claim, if it hadnot been for the liberality of the governor, who had declined thecustomary presents. Brutus was much vexed. 

"Even when he asks me a favor, " writes Cicero to Atticus, "there isalways something arrogant and churlish: still he moves laughter morethan anger. "

When the civil war broke out between Caesar and Pompey, it was expectedthat Brutus would attach himself to the former. Pompey, who had put hisfather to death, he had no reason to love. But if he was unscrupulous insome things, in politics he had principles which he would not abandon, the strongest of these, perhaps, being that the side of which Catoapproved was the side of the right. Pompey received his new adherentwith astonishment and delight, rising from his chair to greet him. Hespent most of his time in camp in study, being ingrossed on the very eveof the battle in making an epitome of Polybius, the Greek historian ofthe Second Punic War. He passed through the disastrous day of Pharsaliaunhurt, Caesar having given special orders that his life was to bespared. After the battle, the conqueror not only pardoned him buttreated him with the greatest kindness, a kindness for which, for a timeat least, he seems not to have been ungrateful. But there wereinfluences at work which he could not resist. There was his friendshipwith Cassius, who had a passionate hatred against usurpers, theremembrance of how Cato had died sooner than submit himself to Caesar, and, not least, the association of his name, which he was not permittedto forget. The statue of the old patriot who had driven out the Tarquinswas covered with such inscriptions as, "Brutus, would thou wert alive!"and Brutus' own chair of office--he was praetor at the time--was foundcovered with papers on which were scribbled, "Brutus, thou sleepest, "or, "A true Brutus art thou, " and the like. How he slew Caesar I havetold already; how he killed himself in despair after the second battleof Philippi may be read elsewhere. 

Porcia, the daughter of Cato, was left a widow in 48 B. C. , and marriedthree years afterwards her cousin Brutus, who divorced his first wifeClaudia in order to marry her. She inherited both the literary tastesand the opinions of her father, and she thought herself aggrieved whenher husband seemed unwilling to confide his plans to her. Plutarch thustells her story, his authority seeming to be a little biography whichone of her sons by her first husband afterwards wrote of hisstep-father. "She wounded herself in the thigh with a knife such asbarbers use for cutting the nails. The wound was deep, the loss of bloodgreat, and the pain and fever that followed acute. Her husband was inthe greatest distress, when his wife thus addressed him: 'Brutus, it wasa daughter of Cato who became your wife, not merely to share your bedand board, but to be the partner of your adversity and your prosperity. _You_ give me no cause to complain, but what proof can I give you of myaffection if I may not bear with you your secret troubles. Women, Iknow, are weak creatures, ill fitted to keep secrets. Yet a goodtraining and honest company may do much, and this, as Cato's daughterand wife to Brutus, I have had. ' She then showed him the wound, and toldhim that she had inflicted it upon herself to prove her courage andconstancy. " For all this resolution she had something of a woman'sweakness. When her husband had left the house on the day fixed for theassassination, she could not conceal her agitation. She eagerly inquiredof all who entered how Brutus fared, and at last fainted in the hall ofher house. In the midst of the business of the senate-house Brutus heardthat his wife was dying. 

Porcia was not with her husband during the campaigns that ended atPhilippi, but remained in Rome. She is said to have killed herself byswallowing the live coals from a brazier, when her friends kept from herall the means of self-destruction. This story is scarcely credible;possibly it means that she suffocated herself with the fumes ofcharcoal. That she should commit suicide suited all the traditions ofher life. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

A GOVERNOR IN HIS PROVINCE. 

It was usual for a Roman statesman, after filling the office of praetoror consul, to undertake for a year or more the government of one of theprovinces. These appointments were indeed the prizes of the professionof politics. The new governor had a magnificent outfit from thetreasury. We hear of as much as one hundred and fifty thousand poundshaving been allowed for this purpose. Out of this something might easilybe economized. Indeed we hear of one governor who left the whole of hisallowance put out at interest in Rome. And in the province itselfsplendid gains might be, and indeed commonly were, got. Even Cicero, who, if we may trust his own account of his proceedings, wasexceptionally just, and not only just, but even generous in his dealingswith the provincials, made, as we have seen, the very handsome profit oftwenty thousand pounds out of a year of office. Verres, who, on theother hand, was exceptionally rapacious, made three hundred and fiftythousand pounds in three years, besides collecting works of art ofincalculable value. But the honors and profits to which most of hiscontemporaries looked forward with eagerness did not attract Cicero. Hedid not care to be absent from the center of political life, and felthimself to be at once superior to and unfitted for the pettier affairsof a provincial government. 

He had successfully avoided the appointment after his praetorship andagain after his consulship. But the time came when it was forced uponhim. Pompey in his third consulship had procured the passing of a law bywhich it was provided that all senators who had filled the office ofpraetor or consul should cast lots for the vacant provinces. Cicero hadto take his chance with the rest, and the ballot gave him Cilicia. Thiswas in B. C. 51, and Cicero was in his fifty-sixth year. 

Cilicia was a province of considerable extent, including, as it did, thesouth-eastern portion of Asia Minor, together with the island of Cyprus. The position of its governor was made more anxious by the neighborhoodof Rome's most formidable neighbors, the Parthians, who but two yearsbefore had cut to pieces the army of Crassus. Two legions, numberingtwelve thousand troops besides auxiliaries, were stationed in theprovince, having attached to them between two and three thousandcavalry. 

Cicero started to take up his appointment on May 1st, accompanied by hisbrother, who, having served with distinction under Caesar in Gaul, hadresigned his command to act as lieutenant in Cilicia. At Cumae hereceived a levee of visitors--a "little Rome, " he says. Hortensius wasamong them, and this though in very feeble health (he died beforeCicero's return). "He asked me for my instructions. Every thing else Ileft with him in general terms, but I begged him especially not to allowas far as in him lay, the government of my province to be continued tome into another year. " On the 17th of the month he reached Tarentum, where he spent three days with Pompey. He found him "ready to defend theState from the dangers that we dread. " The shadows of the civil war, which was to break out in the year after Cicero's return, were alreadygathering. At Brundisium, the port of embarkation for the East, he wasdetained partly by indisposition, partly by having to wait for one ofhis officials for nearly a fortnight. He reached Actium, innorth-western Greece, on the 15th of June. He would have liked toproceed thence by land, being, as he tells us, a bad sailor, and havingin view the rounding of the formidable promontory Leucate; but there wasa difficulty about his retinue, without which he could not maintain thestate which became a governor _en route_ for his province. Eleven moredays brought him to Athens. "So far, " he writes from this place, "noexpenditure of public or private money has been made on me or any of myretinue. I have convinced all my people that they must do their best formy character. So far all has gone admirably. The thing has been noticed, and is greatly praised by the Greeks. " "Athens, " he writes again, "delighted me much; the city with all its beauty, the great affectionfelt for you" (he is writing, it will be remembered, to Atticus, an oldresident), "and the good feeling towards myself, much more, too, itsphilosophical studies. " He was able before he left to do the people aservice, rescuing from the hands of the builder the house of Epicurus, which the council of Areopagus, with as little feeling for antiquity asa modern town council, had doomed. Then he went on his way, grumbling atthe hardships of a sea voyage in July, at the violence of the winds, atthe smallness of the local vessels. He reached Ephesus on July 22nd, without being sea-sick, as he is careful to tell us, and found a vastnumber of persons who had come to pay their respects to him. All thiswas pleasant enough, but he was peculiarly anxious to get back to Rome. Rome indeed to the ordinary Roman was--a few singular lovers of thecountry, as Virgil and Horace, excepted--as Paris is to the Parisian. "Make it absolutely certain, " he writes to Atticus, "that I am to be inoffice for a year only; that there is not to be even an intercalatedmonth. " From Ephesus he journeys, complaining of the hot and dustyroads, to Tralles, and from Tralles, one of the cities of his province, to Laodicea, which he reached July 31st, exactly three months afterstarting[8]. The distance, directly measured, may be reckoned atsomething less than a thousand miles. 

[Footnote 8: Forty-seven days was reckoned a very short time foraccomplishing the journey. ]

He seems to have found the province in a deplorable condition. "Istaid, " he writes, "three days at Laodicea, three again at Apamca, andas many at Synnas, and heard nothing except complaints that they couldnot pay the poll-tax imposed upon them, that every one's property wassold; heard, I say, nothing but complaints and groans, and monstrousdeeds which seemed to suit not a man but some horrid wild beast. Stillit is some alleviation to these unhappy towns that they are put to noexpense for me or for any of my followers. I will not receive the fodderwhich is my legal due, nor even the wood. Sometimes I have accepted fourbeds and a roof over my head; often not even this, preferring to lodgein a tent. The consequence of all this is an incredible concourse ofpeople from town and country anxious to see me. Good heavens! my veryapproach seems to make them revive, so completely do the justice, moderation, and clemency of your friend surpass all expectation. " Itmust be allowed that Cicero was not unaccustomed to sound his ownpraises. 

Usury was one of the chief causes of this widespread distress; andusury, as we have seen, was practiced even by Romans of good repute. Wehave seen an "honorable man, " such as Brutus, exacting an interest ofnearly fifty per cent. Pompey was receiving, at what rate of interest wedo not know, the enormous sum of nearly one hundred thousand pounds perannum from the tributary king of Cappadocia, and this was less than hewas entitled to. Other debtors of this impecunious king could getnothing; every thing went into Pompey's purse, and the whole country wasdrained of coin to the very uttermost. In the end, however, Cicero didmanage to get twenty thousand pounds for Brutus, who was also one of theking's creditors. We cannot but wonder, if such things went on under agovernor who was really doing his best to be moderate and just, what wasthe condition of the provincials under ordinary rulers. 

While Cicero was busy with the condition of his province; his attentionwas distracted by what we may call a Parthian "scare. " The whole army ofthis people was said to have crossed the Euphrates under the command ofPacorus, the king's son. The governor of Syria had not yet arrived. Thesecond in command had shut himself up with all his troops in Antioch. Cicero marched into Cappadocia, which bordered the least defensible sideof Cilicia, and took up a position at the foot of Mount Taurus. Nextcame news that Antioch was besieged. On hearing this he broke up hiscamp, crossed the Taurus range by forced marches, and occupied thepasses into Syria. The Parthians raised the siege of Antioch, andsuffered considerably at the hands of Cassius during their retreat. 

Though Cicero never crossed swords with the Parthians, he found orcontrived an opportunity of distinguishing himself as a soldier. Theindependent mountaineers of the border were attacked and defeated;Cicero was saluted as "Imperator" on the field of battle by hissoldiers, and had the satisfaction of occupying for some days theposition which Alexander the Great had taken up before the battle ofIssus. "And he, " says Cicero, who always relates his militaryachievements with something like a smile on his face, "was a somewhatbetter general than either you or I. " He next turned his arms againstthe Free Cilicians, investing in regular form with trenches, earthworks, catapults, and all the regular machinery of a siege, their strongholdPindenissum. At the end of forty-seven days the place surrendered. Cicero gave the plunder of the place to his host, reserving the horsesonly for public purposes. A considerable sum was realized by the sale ofslaves. "Who in the world are these Pindenissi? who are they?" you willsay. "I never heard the name. " "Well, what can I do? I can't makeCilicia another Aetolia, or another Macedonia. " The campaign wasconcluded about the middle of December, and the governor, handing overthe army to his brother, made his way to Laodicea. From this place hewrites to Atticus in language that seems to us self-glorious andboastful, but still has a ring of honesty about it. "I left Tarsus forAsia (the Roman province so called) on June 5th, followed by suchadmiration as I cannot express from the cities of Cilicia, andespecially from the people of Tarsus. When I had crossed the Taurusthere was a marvelous eagerness to see me in Asia as far as mydistricts extended. During six months of my government they had notreceived a single requisition from me, had not had a single personquartered upon them. Year after year before my time this part of theyear had been turned to profit in this way. The wealthy cities used topay large sums of money not to have to find winter quarters for thesoldiers. Cyprus paid more than £48, 000 on this account; and from thisisland--I say it without exaggeration and in sober truth--not a singlecoin was levied while I was in power. In return for these benefits, benefits at which they are simply astonished. I will not allow any butverbal honors to be voted to me. Statues, temples, chariots of bronze, Iforbid. In nothing do I make myself a trouble to the cities, though itis possible I do so to you, while I thus proclaim my own praises. Bearwith me, if you love me. This is the rule which you would have had mefollow. My journey through Asia had such results that even thefamine--and than famine there is no more deplorable calamity--which thenprevailed in the country (there had been no harvest) was an event for meto desire; for wherever I journeyed, without force, without the help oflaw, without reproaches, but my simple influence and expostulations, Iprevailed upon the Greeks and Roman citizens, who had secreted the corn, to engage to convey a large quantity to the various tribes. " He writesagain: "I see that you are pleased with my moderation andself-restraint. You would be much more pleased if you were here. At thesessions which I held at Laodicea for all my districts, exceptingCilicia, from February 15th to May 1st, I effected a really marvelouswork. Many cities were entirely freed from their debts, many greatlyrelieved, and all of them enjoying their own laws and courts, and soobtaining self-government received new life. There were two ways inwhich I gave them the opportunity of either throwing off or greatlylightening the burden of debt. First: they have been put to no expenseunder my rule--I do not exaggerate; I positively say that they have notto spend a farthing. Then again: the cities had been atrociously robbedby their own Greek magistrates. I myself questioned the men who hadborne office during the last ten years. They confessed and, withoutbeing publicly disgraced, made restitution. In other respects mygovernment, without being wanting in address, is marked by clemency andcourtesy. There is none of the difficulty, so usual in the provinces, ofapproaching me; no introduction by a chamberlain. Before dawn I am onfoot in my house, as I used to be in old days when I was a candidate foroffice. This is a great matter here and a popular, and to myself, frommy old practice in it, has not yet been troublesome. "

He had other less serious cares. One Caelius, who was good enough tokeep him informed of what was happening at Rome, and whom we findfilling his letters with an amusing mixture of politics, scandal, andgossip, makes a modest request for some panthers, which the governor ofso wild a country would doubtless have no difficulty in procuring forhim. He was a candidate for the office of aedile, and wanted the beastsfor the show which he would have to exhibit. Cicero must not forget tolook after them as soon as he hears of the election. "In nearly all myletters I have written to you about the panthers. It will bediscreditable to you, that Patiscus should have sent to Curio tenpanthers, and you not many times more. These ten Curio gave me, and tenothers from Africa. If you will only remember to send for hunters fromCibyra, and also send letters to Pamphylia (for there, I understand, more are taken than elsewhere), you will succeed. I do beseech you lookafter this matter. You have only to give the orders. I have providedpeople to keep and transport the animals when once taken. " The governorwould not hear of imposing the charge of capturing the panthers on thehunters of the province. Still he would do his best to oblige hisfriend. "The matter of the panthers is being diligently attended to bythe persons who are accustomed to hunt them; but there is a strangescarcity of them, and the few that there are complain grievously, sayingthat they are the only creatures in my province that are persecuted. "

From Laodicea Cicero returned to Tarsus, the capital of his province, wound up the affairs of his government, appointed an acting governor, and started homewards early in August. On his way he paid a visit toRhodes, wishing to show to his son and nephew (they had accompanied himto his government) the famous school of eloquence in which he hadhimself studied. Here he heard with much regret of the death ofHortensius. He had seen the great orator's son at Laodicea, where he wasamusing himself in the disreputable company of some gladiators, and hadasked him to dinner for his father's sake, he says. His stay at Rhodeswas probably of some duration, for he did not reach Ephesus till thefirst of October. A tedious passage of fourteen days brought him toAthens. On his journey westwards Tiro, his confidential servant, wasseized with illness, and had to be left behind at Patrae. Tiro was aslave, though afterwards set free by his master; but he was a man ofgreat and varied accomplishments, and Cicero writes to him as he mightto the very dearest of his friends. There is nothing stranger in allthat we know of "Roman Life" than the presence in it of such men asTiro. Nor is there any thing, we might even venture to say, quite likeit elsewhere in the whole history of the world. Now and then, in thedays when slavery still existed in the Southern States of America, mulatto and quadroon slaves might have been found who in point ofappearance and accomplishments were scarcely different from theirowners. But there was always a taint, or what was reckoned as a taint, of negro blood in the men and women so situated. In Rome it must havebeen common to see men, possibly better born (for Greek might even becounted better than Roman descent), and probably better educated thantheir masters, who had absolutely no rights as human beings, and couldbe tortured or killed just as cruelty or caprice might suggest. To Tiro, man of culture and acute intellect as he was, there must have been anunspeakable bitterness in the thought of servitude, even under a masterso kindly and affectionate as Cicero. One shudders to think what thefeelings of such a man must have been when he was the chattel of aVerres, a Clodius, or a Catiline. It is pleasant to turn away from thethought, which is the very darkest perhaps in the repulsive subject ofRoman slavery, to observe the sympathy and tenderness which Cicero showsto the sick man from whom he has been reluctantly compelled to part. Theletters to Tiro fill one of the sixteen books of "Letters to Friends. "They are twenty-seven in number, or rather twenty-six, as the sixteenthof the series contains the congratulations and thanks which QuintusCicero addresses to his brother on receiving the news that Tiro hasreceived his freedom. "As to Tiro, " he writes, "I protest, as I wish tosee you, my dear Marcus, and my own son, and yours, and my dear Tullia, that you have done a thing that pleased me exceedingly in making a manwho certainly was far above his mean condition a friend rather than aservant. Believe me, when I read your letters and his, I fairly leapedfor joy; I both thank and congratulate you. If the fidelity of myStatius gives me so much pleasure[9], how valuable in Tiro must be thissame good quality with the additional and even superior advantages ofculture, wit, and politeness? I have many very good reasons for lovingyou; and now there is this that you have told me, as indeed you werebound to tell me, this excellent piece of news. I saw all your heart inyour letter. "

[Footnote 9: See page 277. ]

Cicero's letters to the invalid are at first very frequent. One is datedon the third, another on the fifth, and a third on the seventh ofNovember; and on the eighth of the month there are no fewer than three, the first of them apparently in answer to a letter from Tiro. "I amvariously affected by your letter--much troubled by the first page, alittle comforted by the second. The result is that I now say, withouthesitation, till you are quite strong, do not trust yourself to traveleither by land of sea. I shall see you as soon as I wish if I see youquite restored. " He goes on to criticise the doctor's prescriptions. Soup was not the right thing to give to a dyspeptic patient. Tiro is notto spare any expense. Another fee to the doctor might make him moreattentive. In another letter he regrets that the invalid had felthimself compelled to accept an invitation to a concert, and tells himthat he had left a horse and mule for him at Brundisium. Then, after abrief notice of public affairs, he returns to the question of thevoyage. "I must again ask you not to be rash in your traveling. Sailors, I observe, make too much haste to increase their profits. Be cautious, my dear Tiro. You have a wide and dangerous sea to traverse. If you can, come with Mescinius. He is wont to be careful in his voyages. If notwith him, come with a person of distinction, who will have influencewith the captain. " In another letter he tells Tiro that he must revivehis love of letters and learning. The physician thought that his mindwas ill at ease; for this the best remedy was occupation. In another hewrites: "I have received your letter with its shaky handwriting; nowonder, indeed, seeing how serious has been your illness. I send youAegypta (probably a superior slave) to wait upon you, and a cook withhim. " Cicero could not have shown more affectionate care of a sick son. 

Tiro is said to have written a life of his master. And we certainly oweto his care the preservation of his correspondence. His weak health didnot prevent him from living to the age of a hundred and three. 

Cicero pursued his homeward journey by slow stages, and it was not tillNovember 25th that he reached Italy. His mind was distracted betweentwo anxieties--the danger of civil war, which he perceived to be dailygrowing more imminent, and an anxious desire to have his militarysuccesses over the Cilician mountaineers rewarded by the distinction ofa triumph. The honor of a public thanksgiving had already been voted tohim; Cato, who opposed it on principle, having given him offense by sodoing. A triumph was less easy to obtain, and indeed it seems to show acertain weakness in Cicero that he should have sought to obtain it forexploits of so very moderate a kind. However, he landed at Brundisium asa formal claimant for the honor. His lictors had their fasces (bundlesof rods inclosing an ax) wreathed with bay leaves, as was the customwith the victorious general who hoped to obtain this distinction. Pompey, with whom he had a long interview, encouraged him to hope forit, and promised his support. It was not till January 4th that hereached the capital. The look of affairs was growing darker and darker, but he still clung to the hopes of a triumph, and would not dismiss hislictors with their ornaments, though he was heartily wearied of theircompany. Things went so far that a proposition was actually made in theSenate that the triumph should be granted; but the matter was postponedat the suggestion of one of the consuls, anxious, Cicero thinks, to makehis own services more appreciated when the time should come. Before theend of January he seems to have given up his hopes. In a few more dayshe was fairly embarked on the tide of civil war. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

ATTICUS. 

The name of Atticus has been mentioned more than once in the precedingchapters as a correspondent of Cicero. We have indeed more than fivehundred letters addressed to him, extending over a period of almostfive-and-twenty years. There are frequent intervals of silence--not asingle letter, for instance, belongs to the year of the consulship, thereason being that both the correspondents were in Rome. Sometimes, especially in the later years, they follow each other very closely. Thelast was written about a year before Cicero's death. 

Atticus was one of those rare characters who contrive to live at peacewith all men. The times were troublous beyond all measure; he had wealthand position; he kept up close friendship with men who were in the verythickest of the fight; he was ever ready with his sympathy and help forthose who were vanquished; and yet he contrived to arouse no enmities;and after a life-long peace, interrupted only by one or two temporaryalarms, died in a good old age. 

Atticus was of what we should call a gentleman's family, and belonged byinheritance to the democratic party. But he early resolved to standaloof from politics, and took an effectual means of carrying out hispurpose by taking up his residence at Athens. With characteristicprudence he transferred the greater part of his property to investmentsin Greece. At Athens he became exceedingly popular. He lent money ateasy rates to the municipality, and made liberal distributions of corn, giving as much as a bushel and a half to every needy citizen. He spokeGreek and Latin with equal ease and eloquence; and had, we are told, anunsurpassed gift for reciting poetry. Sulla, who, for all his savagery, had a cultivated taste, was charmed with the young man, and would havetaken him in his train. "I beseech you, " replied Atticus, "don't take meto fight against those in whose company, but that I left Italy, I mightbe fighting against you. " After a residence of twenty-three years hereturned to Rome, in the very year of Cicero's consulship. At Rome hestood as much aloof from the turmoil of civil strife as he had stood atAthens. Office of every kind he steadily refused; he was under noobligations to any man, and therefore was not thought ungrateful by any. The partisans of Caesar and of Pompey were content to receive help fromhis purse, and to see him resolutely neutral. He refused to join in aproject of presenting what we should call a testimonial to the murderersof Caesar on behalf of the order of the knights; but he did not hesitateto relieve the necessities of the most conspicuous of them with apresent of between three and four thousand pounds. When Antony wasoutlawed he protected his family; and Antony in return secured his lifeand property amidst the horrors of the second Proscription. 

His biographer, Cornelius Nepos, has much to say of his moderation andtemperate habits of life. He had no sumptuous country-house in thesuburbs or at the sea-coast, but two farm-houses. He possessed, however, what seems to have been a very fine house (perhaps we should call it"castle, " for Cicero speaks of it as a place capable of defense) inEpirus. It contained among other things a gallery of statues. A love ofletters was one of his chief characteristics. His guests were notentertained with the performances of hired singers, but with readingsfrom authors of repute. He had collected, indeed, a very large library. All his slaves, down to the very meanest, were well educated, and heemployed them to make copies. 

Atticus married somewhat late in life. His only daughter was the firstwife of Agrippa, the minister of Augustus, and his grand-daughter wasmarried to Tiberius. Both of these ladies were divorced to make room fora consort of higher rank, who, curiously enough, was in both casesJulia, the infamous daughter of Augustus. Both, we may well believe, were regretted by their husbands. 

Atticus died at the age of seventy-seven. He was afflicted with adisease which he believed to be incurable, and shortened his days byvoluntary starvation. 

It was to this correspondent, then, that Cicero confided for about aquarter of a century his cares and his wants. The two had beenschoolfellows, and had probably renewed their acquaintance when Cicerovisited Greece in search of health. Afterwards there came to be a familyconnection between them, Atticus' sister, Pomponia, marrying Cicero'syounger brother, Quintus, not much, we gather from the letters, to thehappiness of either of them. Cicero could not have had a betterconfidant. He was full of sympathy, and ready with his help; and he wasat the same time sagacious and prudent in no common degree, an excellentman of business, and, thanks to the admirable coolness which enabled himto stand outside the turmoil of politics, an equally excellent adviserin politics. 

One frequent subject of Cicero's letters to his friend is money. I mayperhaps express the relation between the two by saying that Atticus wasCicero's banker, though the phrase must not be taken too literally. Hedid not habitually receive and pay money on Cicero's account, but he didso on occasions; and he was constantly in the habit of making advances, though probably without interest, when temporary embarrassments, notinfrequent, as we may gather from the letters, called for them. Atticuswas himself a wealthy man. Like his contemporaries generally, he made anincome by money-lending, and possibly, for the point is not quite clear, by letting out gladiators for hire. His biographer happens to give usthe precise figure of his property. His words do not indeed expresslystate whether the sum that he mentions means capital or income. I aminclined to think that it is the latter. If this be so, he had in earlylife an income of something less than eighteen thousand pounds, andafterwards nearly ninety thousand pounds. 

I may take this occasion to say something about Cicero's property, amatter which is, in its way, a rather perplexing question. In the caseof a famous advocate among ourselves there would be no difficulty inunderstanding that he should have acquired a great fortune. But theRoman law strictly forbade an advocate to receive any payment from hisclients. The practice of old times, when the great noble pleaded for thelife or property of his humbler defendants, and was repaid by theirattachment and support, still existed in theory. It exists indeed tothis day, and accounts for the fact that a barrister among ourselves hasno _legal_ means of recovering his fees. But a practice of payingcounsel had begun to grow up. Some of Cicero's contemporaries certainlyreceived a large remuneration for their services. Cicero himself alwaysclaims to have kept his hands clean in this respect, and as his enemiesnever brought any charge of this kind against him, his statement mayvery well be accepted. We have, then, to look for other sources ofincome. His patrimony was considerable. It included, as we have seen, anestate at Arpinum and a house in Rome. And then he had numerouslegacies. This is a source of income which is almost strange to ourmodern ways of acting and thinking. It seldom happens among us that aman of property leaves any thing outside the circle of his family. Sometimes an intimate friend will receive a legacy. But instances ofmoney bequeathed to a statesman in recognition of his services, or aliterary man in recognition of his eminence, are exceedingly rare. InRome they were very common. Cicero declares, giving it as a proof of theway in which he had been appreciated by his fellow-citizens, that he hadreceived two hundred thousand pounds in legacies. This was in the lastyear of his life. This does something to help us out of our difficulty. Only we must remember that it could hardly have been till somewhat latein his career that these recognitions of his services to the State andto his friends began to fall in. He made about twenty thousand poundsout of his year's government of his province, but it is probable thatthis money was lost. Then, again, he was elected into the College ofAugurs (this was in his fifty-fourth year). These religious collegeswere very rich. Their banquets were proverbial for their splendor. Whether the individual members derived any benefit from their revenueswe do not know. We often find him complaining of debt; but he alwaysspeaks of it as a temporary inconvenience rather than as a permanentburden. It does not oppress him; he can always find spirits enough tolaugh at it. When he buys his great town mansion on the Palatine Hill(it had belonged to the wealthy Crassus), for thirty thousand pounds, hesays, "I now owe so much that I should be glad to conspire if any bodywould accept me as an accomplice. " But this is not the way in which aman who did not see his way out of his difficulties would speak. 

Domestic affairs furnish a frequent topic. He gives accounts of thehealth of his wife he announces the birth of his children. In afteryears he sends the news when his daughter is betrothed and when she ismarried, and tells of the doings and prospects of his son. He has also agood deal to say about his brother's household, which, as I have saidbefore, was not very happy. Here is a scene of their domestic life. "When I reached Arpinum, my brother came to me. First we had much talkabout you; afterwards we came to the subject which you and I haddiscussed at Tusculum. I never saw any thing so gentle, so kind as mybrother was in speaking of your sister. If there had been any ground fortheir disagreement, there was nothing to notice. So much for that day. On the morrow we left for Arpinum. Quintus had to remain in the Retreat;I was going to stay at Aquinum. Still we lunched at the Retreat (youknow the place). When we arrived Quintus said in the politest way, 'Pomponia, ask the ladies in; I will call the servants, ' Nothingcould--so at least I thought--have been more pleasantly said, not onlyas far as words go, but in tone and look. However, she answered beforeus all, 'I am myself but a stranger here. ' This, I fancy, was becauseStatius had gone on in advance to see after the lunch. 'See, ' saidQuintus, 'this is what I have to put up with every day. ' Perhaps youwill say, 'What was there in this?' It was really serious, so serious asto disturb me much, so unreasonably, so angrily did she speak and look. I did not show it, but I was greatly vexed. We all sat down to table, all, that is, but her. However, Quintus sent her something from thetable. She refused it Not to make a long story of it, no one could havebeen more gentle than my brother, and no one more exasperating than yoursister--in my judgment at least, and I pass by many other things whichoffended me more than they did Quintus. I went on to Aquinum. " (Thelady's behavior was all the more blameworthy because her husband was onhis way to a remote province. ) "Quintus remained at the Retreat. Thenext day he joined me at Arpinum. Your sister, he told me, would havenothing to do with him, and up to the moment of her departure was justin the same mood in which I had seen her. "

Another specimen of letters touching on a more agreeable topic mayinterest my readers. It is a hearty invitation. 

"To my delight, Cincius" (he was Atticus' agent)" came to me betweendaylight on January 30th, with the news that you were in Italy. He wassending, he said, messengers to you, I did not like them to go without aletter from me, not that I had any thing to write to you, especiallywhen you were so close, but that I wished you to understand with whatdelight I anticipate your coming . .. The day you arrive come to my housewith all your party. You will find that Tyrannio" (a Greek man ofletters) "has arranged my books marvelously well. What remains of themis much more satisfactory than I thought[10]. I should be glad if youwould send me two of your library clerks, for Tullius to employ asbinders and helpers in general; give some orders too to take someparchment for indices. All this, however, if it suits your convenience. Any how, come yourself and bring Pilia[11] with you. That is but right. Tullia too wishes it. "

[Footnote 10: They had suffered with the rest of Cicero's property at thetime of his exile. ]

[Footnote 11: Pilia was the lady to whom Atticus was engaged]

CHAPTER XV. 

ANTONY AND AUGUSTUS. 

There were some things in which Mark Antony resembled Caesar. At thetime it seemed probable that he would play the same part, and even climbto the same height of power. He failed in the end because he wanted thepower of managing others, and, still more, of controlling himself. Hecame of a good stock. His grandfather had been one of the greatestorators of his day, his father was a kindly, generous man, his mother akinswoman of Caesar, a matron of the best Roman type. But he seemedlittle likely to do credit to his belongings. His riotous life becameconspicuous even in a city where extravagance and vice were only toocommon, and his debts, though not so enormous as Caesar's, were greater, says Plutarch, than became his youth, for they amounted to about fiftythousand pounds. He was taken away from these dissipations by militaryservice in the East, and he rapidly acquired considerable reputation asa soldier. Here is the picture that Plutarch draws of him: There wassomething noble and dignified in his appearance. His handsome beard, hisbroad forehead, his aquiline nose, gave him a manly look that resembledthe familiar statues and pictures of Hercules. There was indeed a legendthat the Antonii were descended from a son of Hercules; and this he wasanxious to support by his appearance and dress. Whenever he appeared inpublic he had his tunic gired up to the hip, carried a great sword athis side, and wore a rough cloak of Cilician hair. The habits too thatseemed vulgar to others--his boastfulness, his coarse humor, hisdrinking bouts, the way he had of eating in public, taking his meals ashe stood from the soldiers' tables--had an astonishing effect in makinghim popular with the soldiers. His bounty too, the help which he gavewith a liberal hand to comrades and friends, made his way to power easy. On one occasion he directed that a present of three thousand poundsshould be given to a friend. His steward, aghast at the magnitude of thesum, thought to bring it home to his master's mind by putting the actualcoin on a table. "What is this?" said Antony, as he happened to pass by. "The money you bade me pay over, " was the man's reply. "Why, I hadthought it would be ten times as much as this. This is but a trifle. Addto it as much more. "

When the civil war broke out, Antony joined the party of Caesar, who, knowing his popularity with the troops, made him his second in command. He did good service at Pharsalia, and while his chief went on to Egypt, returned to Rome as his representative. There were afterwardsdifferences between the two; Caesar was offended at the open scandal ofAntony's manners and found him a troublesome adherent; Antony conceivedhimself to be insufficiently rewarded for his services, especially whenhe was called upon to pay for Pompey's confiscated property, which hehad bought. Their close alliance, however, had been renewed beforeCaesar's death. That event made him the first man in Rome. The chiefinstrument of his power was a strange one; the Senate, seeing that thepeople of Rome gloved and admired the dead man, passed a resolution thatall the wishes which Caesar had left in writing should have the force oflaw--and Antony had the custody of his papers. People laughed, andcalled the documents "Letters from the Styx. " There was the gravestsuspicion that many of them were forged. But for a time they were a verypowerful machinery for effecting his purpose. 

Then came a check. Caesar's nephew and heir, Octavius, arrived at Rome. Born in the year of Cicero's consulship, he was little more thannineteen; but in prudence, statecraft, and knowledge of the world he wasfully grown. In his twelfth year he had delivered the funeral orationover his grandmother Julia. After winning some distinction as a soldierin Spain, he had returned at his uncle's bidding to Apollonia, a town ofthe eastern coast of the Adriatic, where he studied letters andphilosophy under Greek teachers. Here he had received the title of"Master of the Horse, " an honor which gave him the rank next to theDictator himself. He came to Rome with the purpose, as he declared, ofclaiming his inheritance and avenging his uncle's death. But he knew howto abide his time. He kept on terms with Antony, who had usurped hisposition and appropriated his inheritance, and he was friendly, if notwith the actual murderers of Caesar, yet certainly with Cicero, who madeno secret of having approved their deed. 

For Cicero also had now returned to public life. For some time past, both before Caesar's death and after it, he had devoted himself toliterature. [12] Now there seemed to him a chance that something might yetbe done for the republic, and he returned to Rome, which he reached onthe last day of August. The next day there was a meeting of the Senate, at which Antony was to propose certain honors to Caesar. Cicero, wearied, or affecting to be wearied, by his journey, was absent, and wasfiercely attacked by Antony, who threatened to send workmen to dig himout of his house. 

[Footnote 12: To the years 46-44 belong nearly all his treatises onrhetoric and philosophy. ]

The next day Cicero was in his place, Antony being absent, and made adignified defense of his conduct, and criticised with some severity theproceedings of his assailant. Still so far there was no irreconcilablebreach between the two men. "Change your course, " says the orator, "Ibeseech you: think of those who have gone before, and so steer thecourse of the Commonwealth that your countrymen may rejoice that youwere born. Without this no man can be happy or famous. " He stillbelieved, or professed to believe, that Antony was capable ofpatriotism. If he had any hopes of peace, these were soon to be crushed. After a fortnight or more spent in preparation, assisted, we are told, by a professional teacher of eloquence, Antony came down to the Senateand delivered a savage invective against Cicero. The object of hisattack was again absent. He had wished to attend the meeting, but hisfriends hindered him, fearing, not without reason, actual violence fromthe armed attendants whom Antony was accustomed to bring into thesenate-house. 

The attack was answered in the famous oration which is called the secondPhilippic[13]. If I could transcribe this speech (which, for otherreasons besides its length, I cannot do) it would give us a strangepicture of "Roman Life. " It is almost incredible that a man so shamelessand so vile should have been the greatest power in a state stillnominally free. I shall give one extract from it. Cicero has beenspeaking of Antony's purchase of Pompey's confiscated property. "He waswild with joy, like a character in a farce; a beggar one day, amillionaire the next. But, as some writer says, 'Ill gotten, ill kept. 'It is beyond belief, it is an absolute miracle, how he squandered thisvast property--in a few months do I say?--no, in a few days. There was agreat cellar of wine, a very great quantity of excellent plate, costlystuffs, plenty of elegant and even splendid furniture, just as one mightexpect in a man who was affluent without being luxurious. And of allthis within a few days there was left nothing. Was there ever aCharybdis so devouring? A Charybdis, do I say? no--if there ever wassuch a thing, it was but a single animal. Good heavens! I can scarcelybelieve that the whole ocean could have swallowed up so quicklypossessions so numerous, so scattered, and lying at places so distant. Nothing was locked up, nothing sealed, nothing catalogued. Wholestore-rooms were made a present of to the vilest creatures. Actors andactresses of burlesque were busy each with plunder of their own. Themansion was full of dice players and drunkards. There was drinking frommorning to night, and that in many places. His losses at dice (for evenhe is not always lucky) kept mounting up. In the chambers of slaves youmight see on the beds the purple coverlets which had belonged to thegreat Pompey. No wonder that all this wealth was spent so quickly. Reckless men so abandoned might well have speedily devoured, not onlythe patrimony of a single citizen, however ample--and ample it was--butwhole cities and kingdoms. "

[Footnote 13: The orations against Antony--there are fourteen ofthem--are called "Philippics, " a name transferred to them from, thegreat speeches in which Demosthenes attacked Philip of Macedon. The nameseems to have been in common use in Juvenal's time (_circa_ 110 A. D. )]

The speech was never delivered but circulated in writing. Toward the endof 44, Antony, who found the army deserting him for the young Octavius, left Rome, and hastened into northern Italy, to attack Decimus Brutus. Brutus was not strong enough to venture on a battle with him, and shuthimself up in Mutina. Cicero continued to take the leading part inaffairs at Rome, delivering the third and fourth Philippics in December, 44, and the ten others during the five months of the following year. Thefourteenth was spoken in the Senate, when the fortunes of the fallingrepublic seem to have revived. A great battle had been fought at Mutina, in which Antony had been completely defeated; and Cicero proposedthanks to the commanders and troops, and honors to those who had fallen. 

The joy with which these tidings had been received was but very brief. Of the three generals named in the vote of thanks the two who had beenloyal to the republic were dead; the third, the young Octavius, hadfound the opportunity for which he had been waiting of betraying it. Thesoldiers were ready to do his bidding, and he resolved to seize by theirhelp the inheritance of power which his uncle had left him. Antony hadfled across the Alps, and had been received by Lepidus, who was incommand of a large army in that province, Lepidus resolved to play thepart which Crassus had played sixteen years before. He brought about areconciliation between Octavius and Antony, as Crassus had reconciledPompey and Caesar, and was himself admitted as a third into theiralliance. Thus was formed the Second Triumvirate. 

The three chiefs who had agreed to divide the Roman world between themmet on a little island near Bononia (the modern Bonogna) and discussedtheir plans. Three days were given to their consultations, the chiefsubject being the catalogue of enemies, public and private, who were tobe destroyed. Each had a list of his own; and on Antony's the first namewas Cicero. Lepidus assented, as he was ready to assent to all thedemands of his more resolute colleagues; but the young Octavius is saidto have long resisted, and to have given way only on the last day. Alist of between two and three thousand names of senators and knights wasdrawn up. Seventeen were singled out for instant execution, and amongthese seventeen was Cicero. He was staying at his home in Tusculum withhis brother Quintus when the news reached him. His first impulse was tomake for the sea-coast. If he could reach Macedonia, where Brutus had apowerful army, he would, for a time at least, be safe. The two brothersstarted. But Quintus had little or nothing with him, and was obliged togo home to fetch some money. Cicero, who was himself but ill provided, pursued his journey alone. Reaching the coast, he embarked. When it cameto the point of leaving Italy his resolution failed him. He had alwaysfelt the greatest aversion for camp life. He had had an odiousexperience of it when Pompey was struggling with Caesar for the mastery. He would sooner die, he thought, than make trial of it again. He landed, and traveled twelve miles towards Rome. Some afterwards said that hestill cherished hopes of being protected by Antony; others that it washis purpose to make his way into the house of Octavius and kill himselfon his hearth, cursing him with his last breath, but that he wasdeterred by the fear of being seized and tortured. Any how, he turnedback, and allowed his slaves to take him to Capua. The plan of takingrefuge with Brutus was probably urged upon him by his companions, whofelt that this gave the only chance of their own escape. Again heembarked, and again he landed. Plutarch tells a strange story of a flockof ravens that settled on the yardarms of his ship while he was onboard, and on the windows of the villa in which he passed the night. Onebird, he says, flew upon his couch and pecked at the cloak in which hehad wrapped himself. His slaves reproached themselves at allowing amaster, whom the very animals were thus seeking to help, to perishbefore their eyes. Almost by main force they put him into his litter andcarried him toward the coast. Antony's soldiers now reached the villa, the officer in command being an old client whom Cicero had successfullydefended on a charge of murder. They found the doors shut and burst themopen. The inmates denied all knowledge of their master's movements, tilla young Greek, one of his brother's freedmen, whom Cicero had taken apleasure in teaching, showed the officer the litter which was beingcarried through the shrubbery of the villa to the sea. Taking with himsome of his men, he hastened to follow. Cicero, hearing their steps, bade the bearers set the litter on the ground. He looked out, andstroking his chin with his left hand, as his habit was, lookedsteadfastly at the murderers. His face was pale and worn with care. Theofficer struck him on the neck with his sword, some of the roughsoldiers turning away while the deed was done. The head and hands werecut off by order of Antony, and nailed up in the Forum. 

Many years afterwards the Emperor Augustus (the Octavius of thischapter), coming unexpectedly upon one of his grandsons, saw the ladseek to hide in his robe a volume which he had been reading. He took it, and found it to be one of the treatises of Cicero. He returned it withwords which I would here repeat; "He was a good man and a lover of hiscountry. "

THE END.