Troops were raised;
armed outposts were placed at various points; Q.
armed outposts were placed at various points; Q.
Napoleon - History of Julius Caesar - a
Whilst Cæsar endeavoured to react legally against the system of
Sylla, another party, composed of the ambitious and discontented, ruined
by debt, had long sought to arrive at power by plotting. Of this number
had been, since 688, Cn. Piso, P. Sylla, P. Autronius, and Catiline.
These men, with diverse antecedents and different qualities, were
equally decried, yet they did not want for adherents among the lower
class, whose passions they flattered, or among the upper class, to whose
policy or enmity they were serviceable. P. Sylla and Autronius, after
having been made consuls-elect in 688, had been effaced from the
senatorial list for solicitation. Public report mixed up the names of
Crassus and Cæsar with these secret manœuvres; but was it possible that
these two men, in such opposite positions, and even divided between
themselves, should enter into an understanding together for the sake of
a vulgar plot; and was it not a new inconsistency of calumny to
associate in the same conspiracy Cæsar because of his immense debts, and
Crassus because of his immense riches?
Let us remark, besides, that each of the factions then in agitation
necessarily sought to compromise, for the purpose of appropriating to
itself, such a personage as Cæsar, notorious for his name, his
generosity, and his courage.
A matter which has remained obscure, but which then made a great noise,
shows the progress of the ideas of disorder. One of the conspirators,
Cn. Piso, had taken part in the attempt to assassinate the Consuls Cotta
and Torquatus; yet he obtained, through the influence of Crassus, the
post of questor _pro prætore_ into Citerior Spain; the Senate, either to
get rid of him, or in the doubtful hope of finding in him some support
against Pompey, whose power began to appear formidable, consented to
grant him this province. But in 691, on his arrival in Spain, he was
slain by his escort--some say by the secret emissaries of Pompey. [928]
As to Catiline, he was not the man to bend under the weight of the
misfortunes of his friends, or under his own losses; he employed new
ardour in braving the perils of a conspiracy, and in pursuing the
honours of the consulship. He was the most dangerous adversary the
Senate had. Cæsar supported this candidature. In a spirit of opposition,
he supported all that could hurt his enemies and favour a change of
system. Besides, all parties were constrained to deal with those who
enjoyed the popular favour. The nobles accepted as candidate C. Antonius
Hybrida, a worthless man, capable only of selling himself and of
treachery. [929] Cicero, in 690, had promised Catiline to defend
him;[930] and a year before, the Consul Torquatus, one of the most
esteemed chiefs of the Senate, pleaded for the same individual accused
of embezzlement. [931]
[Sidenote: the difficulty of constituting a New Party. ]
IX. We thus see that the misfortunes of the times obliged the most
notable men to have dealings with those whose antecedents seemed to
devote them to contempt.
In times of transition, when a choice must be made between a glorious
past and an unknown future, the rock is, that bold and unscrupulous men
alone thrust themselves forward; others, more timid, and the slaves of
prejudices, remain in the shade, or offer some obstacle to the movement
which hurries away society into new ways. It is always a great evil for
a country, a prey to agitations, when the party of the honest, or that
of the good, as Cicero calls them, do not embrace the new ideas, to
direct by moderating them. Hence profound divisions. On the one side,
unknown men often take possession of the good or bad passions of the
crowd; on the other, honourable men, immovable or morose, oppose all
progress, and by their obstinate resistance excite legitimate impatience
and lamentable violence. The opposition of these last has the double
inconvenience of leaving the way clear to those who are less worthy than
themselves, and of throwing doubts into the minds of that floating mass,
which judges parties much more by the honourableness of men than by the
value of ideas.
What was then passing in Rome offers a striking example of this. Was it
not reasonable, in fact, that men should hesitate to prefer a faction
which had at its head such illustrious names as Hortensius, Catulus,
Marcellus, Lucullus, and Cato, to that which had for its main-stays
individuals like Gabinius, Manilius, Catiline, Vatinius, and Clodius?
What more legitimate in the eyes of the descendants of the ancient
families than this resistance to all change, and this disposition to
consider all reform as Utopian and almost as sacrilege? What more
logical for them than to admire Cato’s firmness of soul, who, still
young, allowed himself to be menaced with death rather than admit the
possibility of becoming one day the defender of the cause of the allies
claiming the rights of Roman citizens? [932] How not comprehend the
sentiments of Catulus and Hortensius obstinately defending the
privileges of the aristocracy, and manifesting their fears at this
general inclination to concentrate all power in the hands of one
individual?
And yet the cause maintained by these men was condemned to perish, as
everything which has had its time. Notwithstanding their virtues, they
were only an additional obstacle to the steady march of civilisation,
because they wanted the qualities most essential for a time of
revolution--an appreciation of the wants of the moment, and of the
problems of the future. Instead of trying what they could save from the
shipwreck of the ancient regime, just breaking to pieces against a
fearful rock, the corruption of political morals, they refuse to admit
that the institutions to which the Republic owed its grandeur could
bring about its decay. Terrified at all innovation, they confounded in
the same anathema the seditious enterprises of certain tribunes, and the
just reclamations of the citizens. But their influence was so
considerable, and ideas consecrated by time have so much empire over
minds, that they would have yet hindered the triumph of the popular
cause, if Cæsar, in putting himself at its head, had not given it a new
glory and an irresistible force. A party, like an army, can only conquer
with a chief worthy to command it; and all those who, since the Gracchi,
had unfurled the standard of reform, had sullied it with blood, and
compromised it by revolts. Cæsar raised and purified it. To constitute
his party, it is true, he had recourse to agents but little estimated;
the best architect can build only with the materials under his hand; but
his constant endeavour was to associate to himself the most trustworthy
men, and he spared no effort to gain by turns Pompey, Crassus, Cicero,
Servilius Cæpio, Q. Fufius Calenus, Serv. Sulpicius, and many others.
In moments of transition, when the old system is at an end, and the new
not yet established, the greatest difficulty consists, not in overcoming
the obstacles which are in the way of the advent of a regime demanded by
the country, but to establish the latter solidly, by establishing it
upon the concurrence of honourable men penetrated with the new ideas,
and steady in their principles.
CHAPTER III.
(691-695. )
[Sidenote: Cicero and Antonius, Consuls (691). ]
I. In the year 690, the candidates for the consulship were Cicero, C.
Antonius Hybrida, L. Cassius Longinus, Q. Cornificius, C. Lucinius
Sacerdos, P. Sulpicius Galba, and Catiline. [933] Informed of the plots
so long in progress, the Senate determined to combat the conspiracies of
the last by throwing all the votes they could dispose of upon Cicero,
who was thus unanimously elected, and took possession of his office at
the beginning of 691. This choice made up for the mediocrity of his
colleague Antonius.
The illustrious orator, whose eloquence had such authority, was born at
Arpinum, of obscure parents; he had served some time in the war of the
allies;[934] afterwards, his orations acquired for him a great
reputation, amongst others the defence of the young Roscius, whom the
dictator would have despoiled of his paternal heritage. After the death
of Sylla, he was appointed questor and sent to Sicily. In 684, he lashed
with his implacable speech the atrocities of Verres; at last, in 688, he
obtained the prætorship, and displayed in this capacity those sentiments
of high probity and of justice which distinguished him throughout his
whole career. But the esteem of his fellow-citizens would not have
sufficed, in ordinary times, to have raised him to the first magistracy.
“The dread of the conspiracy,” says Sallust, “was the cause of his
elevation. Under other circumstances, the pride of the nobility would
have revolted against such a choice. The consulship would have been
considered profaned, if, even with superior merit, a new man[935] had
obtained it; but, on the approach of danger, envy and pride became
silent. ”[936] The Roman aristocracy must have greatly lost its
influence, when, at a critical moment, it allowed a new man to possess
more authority over the people than one from its own ranks.
By birth, as well as by his instincts, Cicero belonged to the popular
party; nevertheless, the irresolution of his mind, sensible to flattery,
and his fear of innovations, led him to serve by turn the rancours of
the great or those of the people. [937] Of upright heart, but
pusillanimous, he only saw rightly when his self-esteem was not at stake
or his interest in danger. Elected consul, he ranged himself on the side
of the Senate, and resisted all proposals advantageous to the multitude.
Cæsar honoured his talent, but had little confidence in his character;
hence he was averse to his candidature, and hostile during the whole of
his consulship.
[Sidenote: Agrarian Law of Rullus. ]
II. Scarcely had Cicero entered on his functions, when the tribune P.
Servilius Rullus revived one of those projects which, for ages, have had
the effect of exciting to the highest degree both the avidity of the
proletaries and the anger of the Senate: it was an agrarian law.
It contained the following provisions: To sell, with certain
exceptions,[938] the territories recently conquered, and some other
domains but little productive to the State; devoting the proceeds to the
purchase, by private contract, of lands in Italy which were to be
divided among the indigent citizens; to cause to be nominated, according
to the customary mode for the election of grand pontiff--that is, by
seventeen tribes, drawn by lot from the thirty-five--ten commissioners
or decemvirs, to whom should be left, for five years, the power,
absolute and without control, of distributing or alienating the domains
of the Republic and private properties wherever they liked. No one could
be appointed who was not present in Rome, which excluded Pompey, and the
authority of the decemvirs was to be sanctioned by a curiate law. To
them alone was intrusted the right to decide what belonged to the State
and what to individuals. The lands of the public domain which should not
be alienated were to be charged with a considerable impost. [939] The
decemvirs had also the power of compelling all the generals, Pompey
excepted, to account for the booty and money received during war, but
not yet deposited in the treasury, or employed upon some monument. They
were allowed to found colonies anywhere they thought proper,
particularly in the territory of Stella, and in the _ager_ of Campania,
where five thousand Roman citizens were to be established. In a word,
the administration of the revenues and the resources of the State came
almost wholly into their hands; they had, moreover, their lictors; they
could take the omens, and choose amongst the knights two hundred persons
to execute their decrees in the provinces, and these were without
appeal.
This project offered inconveniences, but also great advantages. Rullus,
certainly, was to blame for not designating all the places where he
wished to establish colonies; for making two exemptions, one favourable,
the other unfavourable to Pompey; for assigning to the decemvirs powers
too extensive, tending to arbitrary acts and speculations: nevertheless,
his project had an important political aim. The public domain,
encroached upon by usurpations or by the colonies of Sylla, had almost
disappeared. The law was to re-constitute it by the sale of conquered
territories. On the other side, the lands confiscated in great number by
Sylla, and given or sold at a paltry price to his partisans, had
suffered a general depreciation, for the ownership was liable to be
contested, and they no longer found purchasers. The Republic, while
desirous of relieving the poorer class, had thus an interest in raising
the price of these lands and in securing the holders. The project of
Rullus was, in fact, a veritable law of indemnity. There are injustices
which, sanctioned by time, ought also to be sanctioned by law, in order
to extinguish the causes of dissension, by restoring their security to
existing things, and its value to property.
If the great orator had known how to raise himself above the questions
of person and of party, he would, like Cæsar, have supported the
proposal of the tribune, amending only what was too absolute or too
vague in it; but, overreached by the faction of the great, and desiring
to please the knights, whose interests the law injured, he attacked it
with his usual eloquence, exaggerating its defects. It would only
benefit, he said, a small number of persons. Whilst appearing to favour
Pompey, it deprived him, on account of his absence, of the chance of
being chosen decemvir. It allowed some individuals to dispose of
kingdoms like Egypt, and of the immense territories of Asia. Capua would
become the capital of Italy, and Rome, surrounded by a girdle of
military colonies devoted to ten new tyrants, would lose its
independence. To purchase the lands, instead of apportioning the _ager
publicus_, was monstrous, and he could not admit that they would engage
the people to abandon the capital to go and languish in the fields.
Then, exposing the double personal interest of the author of the law, he
reminded them that the father-in-law of Rullus was enriched with the
spoils of proscripts, and that Rullus himself had reserved the right of
being nominated decemvir.
Cicero, nevertheless, pointed out clearly the political bearing of the
project, although censuring it, when he said; “The new law enriches
those who occupied the domain lands, and withdraws them from public
indignation. How many men are embarrassed by their vast possessions, and
cannot support the odium attached to the largesses of Sylla! How many
would sell them, and find no buyers! How many seek means, of whatever
kind, to dispossess themselves of them! . . . And you, Romans, you are
going to sell those revenues which your ancestors have acquired at the
cost of so much sweat and blood, to augment the fortune and assure the
tranquillity of the possessors of the goods confiscated by Sylla! ”[940]
We see thus that Cicero seems to deny the necessity of allaying the
inquietudes of the new and numerous acquirers of this kind of national
property; and yet, when a short time afterwards another tribune proposed
to relieve from civic degradation the sons of proscripts, he opposed
him, not because this reparation appeared to him unjust, but for fear
the rehabilitation in political rights should carry with it the
reintegration into the properties, a measure, according to his views,
subversive of all interests. [941] Thus, with a strange inconsistency,
Cicero combated these two laws of conciliation; the one because it
re-assured, the other because it disquieted the holders of the effects
of the proscribed. Why must it be that, amongst men of superiority, but
without convictions, talent only too often serves to sustain with the
like facility the most opposite causes? The opinion of Cicero triumphed,
nevertheless, thanks to his eloquence; and the project, despite the
lively adhesion of the people, encountered in the Senate such a
resistance, that it was abandoned without being referred to the comitia.
Cæsar advocated the agrarian law, because it raised the value of the
soil, put an end to the disfavour attached to the national property,
augmented the resources of the treasury, prevented the extravagance of
the generals, delivered Rome from a turbulent and dangerous populace by
wresting it from degradation and misery. He supported the rehabilitation
of the children of proscripts, because that measure, profoundly
reparative, put an end to one of the great iniquities of the past
regime.
There are victories which enfeeble the conquerors more than the
vanquished. Such was the success of Cicero. The rejection of the
agrarian law, and of the claims of the sons of proscripts, augmented
considerably the number of malcontents. A crowd of citizens, driven by
privations and the denial of justice, went over to swell the ranks of
the conspirators, who, in the shade, were preparing a revolution; and
Cæsar, pained at seeing the Senate reject that sage and ancient policy
which had saved Rome from so many agitations, resolved to undermine by
every means its authority. For this purpose he engaged the tribune, T.
Labienus, the same who was afterwards one of his best lieutenants, to
get up a criminal accusation which was a direct attack upon the abuse
of one of the prerogatives of the government. [942]
[Sidenote: Trial of Rabirius (691). ]
III. For a long time, when internal or external troubles were
apprehended, Rome was put, so to speak, in a state of siege, by the
sacramental formula, according to which the consuls were enjoined _to
see that the Republic received no injury_; then the power of the consuls
was unlimited;[943] and often, in seditions, the Senate had profited by
this omnipotence to rid itself of certain factious individuals without
observing the forms of justice. The more frequent the agitations had
become, the more they had used this extreme remedy. The tribunes always
protested ineffectually against a measure which suspended all the
established laws, legalised assassination, and made Rome a battle-field.
Labienus tried anew to blunt in the hands of the Senate so formidable a
weapon.
Thirty-seven years before, as will be remembered, Saturninus, the
violent promoter of an agrarian law, had, by the aid of a riot, obtained
possession of the Capitol; the country had been declared in danger. The
tribune perished in the struggle, and the senator C. Rabirius boasted of
having killed him. Despite this long interval of time, Labienus accused
Rabirius under an old law of _perduellio_, which did not leave to the
guilty, like the law of treason, the power of voluntary exile, but, by
declaring him a public enemy, authorised against him cruel and
ignominious punishments. [944] This procedure provoked considerable
agitation; the Senate, which felt the blow struck at its privileges, was
unwilling to put any one to trial for the execution of an act authorised
by itself. The people and the tribunes, on the contrary, insisted that
the accused should be brought before a tribunal. Every passion was at
work. Labienus claimed to avenge one of his uncles, massacred with
Saturninus; and he had the audacity to expose in the Campus Martius the
portrait of the factious tribune, forgetting the case of Sextus Titius,
condemned, on a former occasion, for the mere fact of having preserved
in his house the likeness of Saturninus. [945] The affair was brought,
according to ancient usage, before the decemvirs. Cæsar, and his cousin
Lucius Cæsar, were designated by the prætor to perform the functions of
judges. The very violence of the accusation, compared with the eloquence
of his defenders, Hortensius and Cicero, overthrew the charge of
_perduellio_. Nevertheless, Rabirius, condemned, appealed to the people;
but the animosity against him was so great that the fatal sentence was
about to be irrevocably pronounced, when the prætor, Metellus Celer,
devised a stratagem to arrest the course of justice; he carried away the
standard planted at the Janiculum. [946] This battered flag formerly
announced an invasion of the country round Rome. Immediately all
deliberation ceased, and the people rushed to arms. The Romans were
great formalists; and, moreover, as this custom left to the magistrates
the power of dissolving at their will the comitia, they had the most
cogent motives for preserving it; the assembly soon separated, and the
affair was not taken up again. Cæsar, nevertheless, had hoped to attain
his object. He did not demand the head of Rabirius, whom, when he was
subsequently dictator, he treated with favour; he only wished to show to
the Senate the strength of the popular party, and to warn it that
henceforth it would no more be permitted, as in the time of the Gracchi,
to sacrifice its adversaries in the name of the public safety.
If, on the one hand, Cæsar let no opportunity escape of branding the
former regime, on the other he was the earnest advocate of the
provinces, which vainly looked for justice and protection from Rome. He
had, for example, the same year accused of peculation C. Calpurnius
Piso, consul in 687, and afterwards governor of Transpadane Gaul, and
brought him to trial for having arbitrarily caused an inhabitant of that
country to be executed. The accused was acquitted through the influence
of Cicero; but Cæsar had shown to the Transpadanes that he was ever the
representative of their interests and their vigilant patron.
[Sidenote: Cæsar Grand Pontiff (691). ]
IV. He soon received a brilliant proof of the popularity he enjoyed. The
dignity of sovereign pontiff, one of the most important in the Republic,
was for life, and gave great influence to the individual clothed with
it, for religion mingled itself in all the public and private acts of
the Romans.
Metellus Pius, sovereign pontiff, dying in 691, the most illustrious
citizens, such as P. Servilius Isauricus, and Q. Lutatius Catulus,
prince of the Senate, put themselves at the head of the ranks of
candidates to replace him. Cæsar also solicited the office, and,
desirous of proving himself worthy of it, he published, at this time
doubtless, a very extensive treatise on the augural law, and another on
astronomy, designed to make known in Italy the discoveries of the
Alexandrian school. [947]
Servilius Isauricus and Catulus, relying on their antecedents, and on
the esteem in which they were held, believed themselves the more sure of
election, because, since Sylla, the people had not interfered in the
nomination of grand pontiff, the college solely making the election.
Labienus, to facilitate Cæsar’s access to this high dignity, obtained a
plebiscitum restoring the nomination to the suffrages of the people.
This manœuvre disconcerted the other competitors without discouraging
them, and, as usual, they attempted to seduce the electors with money.
All who held with the party of the nobles united against Cæsar, who
combated solicitation by solicitation, and sustained the struggle by the
aid of considerable loans; he knew how to interest in his success,
according to Appian, both the poor that he had paid, and the rich from
whom he borrowed. [948] Catulus, knowing Cæsar to be greatly in debt, and
mistaking his character, offered him a large sum to desist. He answered
him that he would borrow a much greater sum of him if he would support
his candidature. [949]
At length the great day arrived which was to decide the future of Cæsar;
when he started to present himself at the comitia, the most gloomy
thoughts agitated his ardent mind, and calculating that if he should not
succeed, his debts would constrain him perhaps to go into exile, he
embraced his mother and said, “To-day thou wilt see me grand pontiff or
a fugitive. ”[950] The most brilliant success crowned his efforts, and
what added to his joy was his obtaining more votes in the tribes of his
adversaries than they had in all the tribes put together. [951]
Such a victory made the Senate fear whether Cæsar, strong in his
ascendency over the people, might not proceed to the greatest excesses;
but his conduct remained the same.
Hitherto he had inhabited a very moderate house, in the quarter called
Suburra; nominated sovereign pontiff, he was lodged in a public building
in the Via Sacra. [952] This new position necessarily obliged him,
indeed, to a sumptuous life, if we may judge by the luxuriousness
displayed at the reception of a simple pontiff, at which he assisted as
king of the sacrifices, and of which Macrobius has preserved to us the
curious details. [953] Moreover, he built himself a superb villa on the
Lake of Nemi, near Aricia.
[Sidenote: Catiline’s Conspiracy. ]
V. Catiline, who has already been spoken of, had twice failed in his
designs upon the consulship; he solicited it again for the year 692,
without abandoning his plans of conspiracy. The moment seemed
favourable. Pompey being in Asia, Italy was bared of troops; Antonius,
associated in the plot, shared the consulship with Cicero. Calm existed
on the surface, whilst passions, half extinguished, and bruised
interests, offered to the first man bold enough, numerous means of
raising commotions. [954] The men whom Sylla had despoiled, as well as
those he had enriched, but who had dissipated the fruits of their
immense plunder, were equally discontented; so that the same idea of
subversion formed a bond of union between the victims and the
accomplices of the past oppression.
Addicted to excesses of every kind, Catiline dreamed, in the midst of
his orgies, of the overthrow of the oligarchy; but we may doubt his
desire to put all to fire and sword, as Cicero says, and as most
historians have repeated after him. Of illustrious birth, questor in
677, he distinguished himself in Macedonia, in the army of Curio; he had
been prætor in 686, and governor of Africa the year following. He was
accused of having in his youth imbrued his hands in Sylla’s murders, of
having associated with the most infamous men, and of having been guilty
of incest and other crimes; there would be no reason for exculpating him
if we did not know how prodigal political parties in their triumph are
of calumnies against the vanquished. Besides, we must acknowledge that
the vices with which he was charged he shared in common with many
personages of that epoch, among others with Antonius, the colleague of
Cicero, who subsequently undertook his defence. Gifted with a high
intelligence and a rare energy, Catiline could not have meditated a
thing so insensate as massacre and burning. It would have been to seek
to reign over ruins and tombs. The truth will present itself better in
the following portrait, traced by Cicero seven years after the death of
Catiline, when, returning to a calmer appreciation, the great orator
painted in less sombre colours him whom he had so disfigured:--“This
Catiline, you cannot have forgotten, I think had, if not the reality, at
least the appearance of the greatest virtues. He associated with a crowd
of perverse men, but he affected to be devoted to men of greatest
estimation. If for him debauchery had powerful attractions, he applied
himself with no less ardour to labour and affairs. The fire of passions
devoured his heart, but he had also a taste for the labours of war. No,
I do not believe there ever existed on this earth a man who offered so
monstrous an assemblage of passions and qualities so varied, so
contrary, and in continual antagonism with each other. ”[955]
The conspiracy, conducted by the adventurous spirit of its chief, had
acquired considerable development. Senators, knights, young patricians,
a great number of the notable citizens of the allied towns, partook in
it. Cicero, informed of these designs, assembles the Senate in the
Temple of Concord, and communicates to it the information he had
received: he informs it that, on the 5th of the calends of November, a
rising was to take place in Etruria; that on the morrow a riot would
break out in Rome; that the lives of the consuls were threatened; that,
lastly, everywhere stores of warlike arms and attempts to enlist the
gladiators indicated the most alarming preparations. Catiline,
questioned by the consul, exclaims, that the tyranny of some men, their
avarice, their inhumanity, are the true causes of the uneasiness which
torments the Republic; then, repelling with scorn the projects of revolt
which they imputed to him, he concludes with this threatening figure of
speech: “The Roman people is a robust body, but without head: I shall be
that head. ”[956] He departed with these words, leaving the Senate
undecided and trembling. The assembly, meanwhile, passed the usual
decree, enjoining the consuls to watch _that the Republic received no
injury_.
The election of consuls for the following year, till then deferred, took
place on the 21st of October, 691, and Silanus having been nominated
with Murena, Catiline was a third time rejected. He then dispatched to
different parts of Italy his agents, and among others, C. Mallius into
Etruria, Septimius to the Picenum, and C. Julius into Apulia, to
organise the revolt. [957] At the mouth of the Tiber, a division of the
fleet, previously employed against the pirates, was ready to second his
projects. [958] At Rome even the assassination of Cicero was boldly
attempted.
The Senate was convened again on the 8th of November. Catiline dared to
attend, and take his seat in the midst of his colleagues. Cicero, in a
speech which has become celebrated, apostrophised him in terms of the
strongest indignation, and by a crushing denunciation forced him to
retire. [959] Catiline, accompanied by three hundred of his adherents,
left the capital next morning to join Mallius. [960] During the following
days, alarming news arriving from all parts threw Rome into the utmost
anxiety. Stupor reigned there. To the animation of fêtes and pleasures
had, all of a sudden, succeeded a gloomy silence.
Troops were raised;
armed outposts were placed at various points; Q. Marcius Rex is
dispatched to Fæsulæ (_Fiesole_); Q. Metellus Creticus into Apulia;
Pomponius Rufus to Capua; Q. Metellus Celer into the Picenum; and,
lastly, the consul, C. Antonius, led an army into Etruria. Cicero had
detached the latter from the conspiracy by giving him the lucrative
government of Macedonia. [961] He accepted in exchange that of Gaul,
which he also subsequently renounced, not wishing, after his consulship,
to quit the city and depart as proconsul. The principal conspirators, at
the head of whom were the prætor Lentulus and Cethegus, remained at
Rome. They continued energetically the preparations for the
insurrection, and entered into communication with the envoys of the
Allobroges. Cicero, secretly informed by his spies, among others by
Curius, watched their doings, and, when he had indisputable proofs,
caused them to be arrested, convoked the Senate, and exposed the plan of
the conspiracy.
Lentulus was obliged to resign the prætorship. Out of nine conspirators
convicted of the attempt against the Republic, five only failed to
escape; they were confided to the custody of the magistrates appointed
by the consul. Lentulus was delivered to his kinsman Lentulus Spinther;
L. Statilius to Cæsar; Gabinius to Crassus; Cethegus to Cornificius; and
Cæparius, who was taken in his flight, to the senator Cn.
Terentius. [962] The Senate was on the point of proceeding against them
in a manner in which all the forms of justice would have been violated.
The criminal judgments were not within its competence, and neither the
consul nor the assembly had the right to condemn a Roman citizen without
the concurrence of the people. Be that as it may, the senators assembled
for a last time on the 5th of December, to deliberate on the punishment
of the conspirators; they were less numerous than on the preceding days.
Many of them were unwilling to pass sentence of death against citizens
belonging to the great patrician families. Some, however, were in favour
of capital punishment, in spite of the law Portia. After others had
spoken, Cæsar made the following speech, the bearing of which merits
particular attention:--
“Conscript fathers, all who deliberate upon doubtful matters ought to be
uninfluenced by hatred, affection, anger, or pity. When we are animated
by these sentiments, it is hard to unravel the truth; and no one has
ever been able to serve at once his passions and his interests. Free
your reason of that which beclouds it, and you will be strong; if
passion invade your mind and rules it, you will be without strength. It
would be here the occasion, conscript fathers, to recall to mind how
many kings and peoples, carried away by rage or pity, have taken fatal
resolutions; but I prefer reminding you how our ancestors, unswayed by
prejudice, performed good and just deeds. In our Macedonian war against
King Perseus, the Republic of Rhodes, in its power and pride, although
it owed its greatness to the support of the Roman people, proved
disloyal and hostile to us; but when, on the termination of this war,
the fate of the Rhodians was brought under deliberation, our ancestors
left them unpunished in order that no one should ascribe the cause of
the war to their riches rather than to their wrongs. So, also, in all
the Punic wars, although the Carthaginians had often, both during peace
and during the truces, committed perfidious atrocities, our fathers, in
spite of the opportunity, never imitated them, because they thought more
of their honour than of vengeance, however just.
“And you, conscript fathers, take care that the crime of P. Lentulus and
his accomplices overcome not the sentiment of your dignity, and consult
not your anger more than your reputation. Indeed, if there be a
punishment adequate to their offences, I will approve the new measure;
but if, on the contrary, the vastness of the crime exceeds all that can
be imagined, we should adhere, I think, to that which has been provided
by the laws.
“Most of those who have expressed their opinion before me have deplored
in studied and magniloquent terms the misfortune of the Republic; they
have recounted the horrors of war and the sufferings of the vanquished,
the rapes of young girls and boys, infants torn from the arms of their
parents, mothers delivered to the lusts of the vanquisher, the pillage
of temples and houses, the carnage and burning everywhere; in short,
arms, corpses, blood, and mourning. But, by the immortal gods, to what
tend these speeches? To make you detest the conspiracy? What! will he
whom a plot so great and so atrocious has not moved, be inflamed by a
speech? No, not so; men never consider their personal injuries slight;
many men resent them too keenly. But, conscript fathers, that which is
permitted to some is not permitted to others. Those who live humbly in
obscurity may err by passion, and few people know it; all is equal with
them, fame and fortune; but those who, invested with high dignities,
pass their life in an exalted sphere, do nothing of which every mortal
is not informed. Thus, the higher the fortune the less the liberty; the
less we ought to be partial, rancorous, and especially angry. What, in
others, is named hastiness, in men of power is called pride and cruelty.
“I think then, conscript fathers, that all the tortures known can never
equal the crimes of the conspirators; but, among most mortals, the last
impressions are permanent, and the crimes of the greatest culprits are
forgotten, to remember only the punishment, if it has been too severe.
“What D. Silanus, a man of constancy and courage, has said, has been
inspired in him, I know, by his zeal for the Republic, and in so grave a
matter he has been swayed neither by partiality nor hatred. I know too
well the wisdom and moderation of that illustrious citizen.
Nevertheless, his advice seems to me, I will not say cruel (for can one
be cruel towards such men? ), but contrary to the spirit of our
government. Truly, Silanus, either fear or indignation would have forced
you, consul-elect, to adopt a new kind of punishment. As to fear, it is
superfluous to speak of it, when, thanks to the active foresight of our
illustrious consul, so many guards are under arms. As to the punishment,
we may be permitted to say the thing as it is: in affliction and
misfortune death is the termination of our sufferings, and not a
punishment; it takes away all the ills of humanity; beyond are neither
cares nor joy. But, in the name of the immortal gods, why not add to
your opinion, Silanus, that they shall be forthwith beaten with rods? Is
it because the law Portia forbids it? But other laws also forbid the
taking away the lives of condemned citizens, and prescribe exile. Is it
because it is more cruel to be beaten with rods than to be put to death?
But is there anything too rigorous, too cruel, against men convicted of
so black a design? If, then, this penalty is too light, is it fitting to
respect the law upon a less essential point, and break it in its most
serious part? But, it may be said, who will blame your decree against
the parricides of the Republic? Time, circumstances, and fortune, whose
caprice governs the world. Whatever happens to them, they will have
merited. But you, senators, consider the influence your decision may
have upon other offenders. Abuses often grow from precedents good in
principle; but when the power falls into the hands of men less
enlightened or less honest, a just and reasonable precedent receives an
application contrary to justice and reason.
“The Lacedæmonians imposed upon Athens vanquished a government of thirty
rulers. These began by putting to death without judgment all those whose
crimes marked them out to public hatred; the people rejoiced, and said
it was well done. Afterwards, when the abuses of this power multiplied,
good and bad alike were sacrificed at the instigation of caprice; the
rest were in terror. Thus Athens, crushed under servitude, expiated
cruelly her insensate joy. In our days, when Sylla, conqueror, caused to
be butchered Damasippus and other men of that description, who had
attained to dignities to the curse of the Republic, who did not praise
such a deed? Those villains, those factious men, whose seditions had
harassed the Republic, had, it was said, merited their death. But this
was the signal for a great carnage. For if any one coveted the house or
land of another, or only a vase or vestment, it was somehow contrived
that he should be put in the number of the proscribed. Thus, those to
whom the death of Damasippus had been a subject for joy, were soon
themselves dragged to execution, and the massacres ceased not until
Sylla had gorged all his followers with riches.
“It is true, I dread nothing of the sort, either from M. Tullius or from
present circumstances; but, in a great state, there are so many
different natures! Who knows if at another epoch, under another consul,
master of an army, some imaginary plot may not be believed real? And if
a consul, armed with this example and with a decree of the Senate, once
draw the sword, who will stay his hand or limit vengeance?
“Our ancestors, conscript fathers, were never wanting in prudence or
decision, and pride did not hinder them from adopting foreign customs
provided they appeared good. From the Samnites they borrowed their arms,
offensive and defensive; from the Etruscans, the greater part of the
insignia of our magistrates; in short, all that, amongst their allies
or their enemies, appeared useful to themselves, they appropriated with
the utmost eagerness, preferring to imitate good examples than to be
envious of them. At the same epoch, adopting a Grecian custom, they
inflicted rods upon the citizens, and death upon criminals. Afterwards
the Republic increased; and with the increase of citizens factions
prevailed more, and the innocent were oppressed; they committed many
excesses of this kind. Then the law Portia and many others were
promulgated, which only sanctioned the punishment of exile against the
condemned. This consideration, conscript fathers, is, in my opinion, the
strongest for rejecting the proposed innovation. Certainly those men
were superior to us in virtue and wisdom, who, with such feeble means,
have raised so great an empire, whilst we preserve with difficulty an
inheritance so gloriously acquired. Are we then to set free the guilty,
and increase with them the army of Catiline? In no wise; but I vote that
their goods be confiscated, themselves imprisoned in the municipia best
furnished with armed force, to the end that no one may hereafter propose
their restoration to the Senate or even to the people; that whoever
shall act contrary to this measure be declared by the Senate an enemy of
the State and of the public tranquillity. ”[963]
With this noble language, which reveals the statesman, compare the
declamatory speeches of the orators who pleaded for the penalty of
death: “I wish,” cries Cicero, “to snatch from massacre your wives,
your children, and the sainted priestesses of Vesta; from the most
frightful outrages, your temples and sanctuaries; our fair country from
the most horrible conflagration; Italy from devastation. . . . [964] The
conspirators seek to slaughter all, in order that no one may remain to
weep for the Republic, and lament over the ruin of so great an
empire. ”[965] And when he speaks of Catiline: “Is there in all Italy a
poisoner, is there a gladiator, a brigand, an assassin, a parricide, a
forger of wills, a suborner, a debauchee, a squanderer, an adulterer; is
there a disreputable woman, a corrupter of youth, a man tarnished in
character, a scoundrel, in short, who does not confess to having lived
with Catiline in the greatest familiarity? ”[966] Certainly, this is not
the cool and impartial language which becomes a judge.
Cicero holds cheap the law and its principles; he must have, above all,
arguments for his cause, and he goes to history to seek for facts which
might authorise the putting to death of Roman citizens. He holds forth,
as an example to follow, the murder of Tiberius Gracchus by Scipio
Nasica, and that of Caius Gracchus by the consul Lucius Opimius;[967]
forgetting that but lately, in a famous oration, he had called the two
celebrated tribunes the most brilliant geniuses, the true friends of the
people;[968] and that the murderers of the Gracchi, for having massacred
inviolable personages, became a butt to the hatred and scorn of their
fellow-citizens. Cicero himself will shortly pay with exile for his
rigour towards the accomplices of Catiline.
Cæsar’s speech had such an effect upon the assembly that many of the
senators, amongst others the brother of Cicero, adopted his
opinion. [969] Decimus Silanus, consul-elect, modified his own, and
Cicero at last seemed ready to withdraw from his responsibility, when he
said: “If you adopt the opinion of Cæsar, as he has always attached
himself to the party which passes in the Republic as being that of the
people, it is probable that a sentence of which he shall be the author
and guarantee will expose me less to popular storms. ”[970] However, he
persevered in his demand for the immediate execution of the accused. But
Cato mainly decided the vacillating majority of the Senate by words the
most calculated to influence his auditors. Far from seeking to touch the
strings of the higher sentiments and of patriotism, he appeals to
selfish interests and fear. “In the name of the immortal gods,” cried
he, “I adjure you, you, who have ever held your houses, your lands, your
statues, your pictures, in greater regard than the Republic, if these
goods, of whatever kind they be, you desire to preserve; if for your
enjoyments you would economise a necessary leisure; rise at last from
your lethargy, and take in hand the Republic;”[971] which means, in
other terms: “If you wish to enjoy peaceably your riches, condemn the
accused without hearing them. ” This is what the Senate did.
A singular incident happened, in the midst of these debates, to show to
what point Cæsar had awakened people’s suspicions. At the most animated
moment of the discussion, a letter was brought to him. He read it with
eagerness. Cato and other senators, supposing it to be a message from
one of the conspirators, insisted upon its being read to the Senate.
Cæsar handed the letter to Cato, who was seated near him. The latter saw
it was a love-letter from his sister Servilia, and threw it back
indignantly, crying out, “There! keep it, drunkard! ”[972] a gratuitous
insult, since he himself did justice to the temperance of Cæsar the day
when he said that, of all the men who had overthrown the State, he was
the only one who had done it fasting. [973] Cato expressed with still
greater force the fears of his party when he said: “If, in the midst of
such great and general alarms, Cæsar alone is without fear, it is for
you as well as me an additional motive for fear. ”[974] Cato went
further. After the condemnation of the accused to death, he tried to
drive Cæsar to extremities by turning against them an opinion which the
latter had expressed in their interest: he proposed to confiscate their
goods. The debate became then warmer than ever. Cæsar declared that it
was an indignity, after having rejected the humane part of his opinion,
to adopt from it the rigorous spirit it contained, for the purpose of
aggravating the lot of the condemned and adding to their
punishment. [975] As his protestation met with no echo in the Senate, he
adjured the tribunes to use their right of intercession, but they
remained deaf to his appeal. The agitation was at its height, and to put
an end to it, the consul, in haste to terminate a struggle the issue of
which might become doubtful, agreed that the confiscation should not
form a part of the _Senatus-consultum_.
Whilst the populace outside, excited by the friends of the conspirators,
raised seditious clamours, the knights who formed the guard around the
Temple of Concord, exasperated by the language of Cæsar and the length
of the debates, broke in upon the assembly; they surrounded Cæsar, and
with threatening words, despite his rank of pontiff and of prætor-elect,
they drew their swords upon him, which M. Curio and Cicero generously
turned aside. [976] Their protection enabled him to regain his home: he
declared, however, that he would not appear again in the Senate until
the new consuls could ensure order and liberty for the deliberations.
Cicero, without loss of time, went with the prætors to seek the
condemned, and conducted them to the prison of the Capitol, where they
were immediately executed. Then a restless crowd, ignorant of what was
taking place, demanding what had become of the prisoners, Cicero replied
with these simple words, “They have lived. ”[977]
We are easily convinced that Cæsar was not a conspirator; but this
accusation is explained by the pusillanimity of some and the rancour of
others. Who does not know that in times of crisis, feeble governments
always tax sympathy for the accused with complicity, and are not sparing
of calumny towards their adversaries? Q. Catulus and C. Piso were
animated against him with so deep a hatred that they had importuned the
consul to include him in the prosecutions directed against the
accomplices of Catiline. Cicero resisted. The report of his
participation in the plot was not the less spread, and had been
accredited eagerly by the crowd of the envious. [978] Cæsar was not one
of the conspirators; if he had been, his influence would have been
sufficient to have acquitted them triumphantly. [979] He had too high an
idea of himself; he enjoyed too great a consideration to think of
arriving at power by an underground way and reprehensible means. However
ambitious a man may be, he does not conspire when he can attain his end
by lawful means. Cæsar was quite sure of being raised to the consulship,
and his impatience never betrayed his ambition. Moreover, he had
constantly shown a marked aversion to civil war; and why should he throw
himself into a vulgar conspiracy with infamous individuals, he who
refused his participation in the attempts of Lepidus when at the head of
an army? If Cicero had believed Cæsar guilty, would he have hesitated to
accuse him, seeing he scrupled not to compromise, by the aid of a false
witness, so high a personage as Licinius Crassus? [980] How, on the eve
of the condemnation, could he have trusted to Cæsar the custody of one
of the conspirators? Would he have exculpated him in the sequel when the
accusation was renewed? Lastly, if Cæsar, as will be seen afterwards,
according to Plutarch, preferred being the first in a village in the
Alps to being second in Rome, how could he have consented to be the
second to Catiline?
The attitude of Cæsar in this matter presents nothing, then, which does
not admit an easy explanation. Whilst blaming the conspiracy, he was
unwilling that, to repress it, the eternal rules of justice should be
set aside. He reminded men, blinded by passion and fear, that
unnecessary rigour is always followed by fatal reactions. The examples
drawn from history served him to prove that moderation is always the
best adviser. It is clear also that, whilst despising most of the
authors of the conspiracy, he was not without sympathy for a cause which
approached his own by common instincts and enemies. In countries
delivered up to party divisions, how many men are there not who desire
the overthrow of the existing government, yet without the will to take
part in a conspiracy? Such was the position of Cæsar.
On the contrary, the conduct of Cicero and of the Senate can hardly be
justified. To violate the law was perhaps a necessity; but to
misrepresent the sedition in order to make it odious, to have recourse
to calumny to vilify the criminals, and to condemn them to death without
allowing them a defence, was an evident proof of weakness. In fact, if
the intentions of Catiline had not been disguised, the whole of Italy
would have responded to his appeal, so weary were people of the
humiliating yoke which weighed upon Rome; but they proclaimed him as one
meditating conflagration, murder, and pillage. “Already,” it was said,
“the torches are lit, the assassins are at their posts, the conspirators
drink human blood, and dispute over the shreds of a man they have
butchered. ”[981] It was by these rumours dexterously spread, by these
exaggerations which Cicero himself afterwards ridiculed,[982] that the
disposition of the people, at first favourable to the insurrection, soon
turned against it. [983]
That Catiline might have associated, like all promoters of revolutions,
with men who had nothing to lose and everything to gain, cannot be
disputed; but how can we believe that the majority of his accomplices
was composed of criminals loaded with vices? By the confession of
Cicero, many honourable individuals figured amongst the
conspirators. [984] Inhabitants of colonies and municipia belonging to
the first families in their country, allied themselves with Catiline.
Many sons of senators, and amongst others Aulus Fulvius,[985] were
arrested on their way to join the insurgents, and put to death by the
order of their fathers. Nearly all the Roman youth, says Sallust,
favoured at that time the designs of the bold conspirator, and, on the
other hand, throughout the whole empire, the populace, eager for
novelty, approved of his enterprise. [986]
That Catiline may have been a perverse and cruel man of the kind of
Marius and Sylla, is probable; that he wished to arrive at power by
violence, is certain; but that he had gained to his cause so many
important individuals, that he had inspired their enthusiasm, that he
had so profoundly agitated the peoples of Italy, without having
proclaimed one great or generous idea, is not probable. Indeed, although
attached to the party of Sylla by his antecedents, he knew that the only
standard capable of rallying numerous partisans was that of Marius. Thus
for a long time he preserved in his house, with a religious care, the
silver eagle which had guided the legions of that illustrious
captain. [987] His speeches confirm still further this view: in
addressing himself to his accomplices, he laments seeing the destinies
of the Republic in the hands of a faction who excluded the greatest
number from all participation in honours and riches. [988] He wrote to
Catulus, a person of the highest respect, with whom he was intimate, the
following letter, deficient neither in simplicity nor in a certain
grandeur, the calmness of which offers a striking contrast to the
vehemence of Cicero:--
“L. Catiline to Q. Catulus, salutation,--Thy tried friendship, which has
always been precious to me, gives me the assurance that in my misfortune
thou wilt hear my prayer. I do not wish to justify the part I have
taken. My conscience reproaches me with nothing, and I wish only to
expose my motives, which truly thou wilt find lawful. Driven to
extremity by the insults and injustices of my enemies, robbed of the
recompense due to my services, finally hopeless of ever obtaining the
dignity to which I am entitled, I have taken in hand, according to my
custom, the common cause of all the unfortunate. I am represented as
constrained by debts to this bold resolution: it is a calumny. My
personal means are sufficient to acquit my engagements; and it is known
that, thanks to the generosity of my wife and of her daughter, I have
done honour to other engagements which were foreign to me. But I cannot
see with composure unworthy men at the pinnacle of honours, whilst they
drive me away from them with groundless accusations. In the extremity to
which they have thus reduced me, I embrace the only part that remains
to a man of heart to defend his political position. I should like to
write more fully, but I hear they are setting on foot against me the
last degree of violence. I commend to thee Orestilla, and confide her to
thy faith. Protect her, I beseech thee, by the head of thy children.
Adieu. ”
The same sentiments inspired the band of conspirators commanded by
Mallius. They reveal themselves in these words: “We call gods and men to
witness that it is not against our country that we have taken up arms,
nor against the safety of our fellow-citizens. We, wretched paupers as
we are, who, through the violence and cruelty of usurers, are without
country, all condemned to scorn and indigence, are actuated by one only
wish, to guarantee our personal security against wrong. We demand
neither power nor wealth, those great and eternal causes of war and
strife among mankind. We only desire freedom, a treasure that no man
will surrender except with life itself. We implore you, senators, have
pity on your wretched fellow-citizens. ”[989]
These quotations indicate with sufficient clearness the real character
of the insurrection; and that the partisans of Catiline did not
altogether deserve contempt is proved by their energy and resolution.
The Senate having declared Catiline and Mallius enemies of their
country, promised a free pardon and two hundred thousand sestertii[990]
to all who would abandon the ranks of the insurgents; “but not one,”
says Sallust,[991] “of so vast an assemblage, was persuaded by the lure
of the reward to betray the plot; not one deserted from the camp of
Catiline, so deadly was the disease, which, like a pestilence, had
infected the minds of most of the citizens. ” There is no doubt that
Catiline, though without a conscience and without principles, had
notwithstanding good feeling enough to maintain a cause that he wished
to see ennobled, because, so far from offering freedom to the slaves, as
Sylla, Marius, and Cinna had done, an example so full of charms for a
conspirator,[992] he refused to make use of them, in despite of the
advice of Lentulus, who addressed him in these pregnant words: “Outlawed
from Rome, what purpose can a Catiline have in refusing the services of
slaves? ”[993] Finally, that among these insurgents, who are represented
to us as a throng of robbers, ready to melt away without striking a
blow,[994] there existed, notwithstanding, a burning faith and a genuine
fanaticism, is proved by the heroism of their final struggle. The two
armies met in the plain of Pistoja, on the 5th of January, 692: a
terrible battle ensued, and though victory was hopeless, not one of
Catiline’s soldiers gave way. To a man they were slain, following the
example of their leader, sword in hand; all were found lifeless, but
with ranks unbroken, heaped round the eagle of Marius,[995] that
glorious relic of the campaign against the Cimbri, that venerated
standard of the cause of the people.
We must admit that Catiline was guilty of an attempt to overthrow the
laws of his country by violence; but in doing so he was only following
the examples of a Marius and a Sylla. His dreams were of a revolutionary
despotism, of the ruin of the aristocratic party, and, according to Dio
Cassius,[996] of a change in the constitution of the Republic, and of
the subjugation of the allies. Yet would his success have been a
misfortune: a permanent good can never be the production of hands that
are not clean. [997]
[Sidenote: Error of Cicero. ]
VI. Cicero believed that he had destroyed an entire party. He was wrong:
he had only foiled a conspiracy, and disencumbered a grand cause of the
rash men who were compromising it. The judicial murder of the
conspirators gave them new life, and one day the tomb of Catiline was
found covered with flowers. [998] Laws may be justly broken when society
is hurrying on to its own ruin, and a desperate remedy is indispensable
for its salvation; and again, when the government, supported by the mass
of the people, becomes the organ of its interests and their hopes. But
when, on the contrary, a nation is divided into factions, and the
government represents only one of them, its duty, if it intends to foil
a plot, is to bind itself to the most exact and scrupulous respect for
the law; for at such a juncture every measure not sanctioned by the
letter of the law appears to be due rather to a selfish feeling of
interest than to a desire for the general weal; and the majority of the
public, indifferent or hostile, is always disposed to pity the accused,
whoever he may be, and to blame the severity with which he was put down.
Cicero was intoxicated with his success. His vanity made him
ridiculous. [999] He thought himself as great as Pompey, and wrote to him
with all the pride of a conqueror. But he received a chilling
answer,[1000] and in a short time saw the accomplishment of Cæsar’s
prophetic words: “If even the greatest criminals are too severely dealt
with, the heinousness of their offence is lost in the severity of their
sentence. ”[1001]
Even before the battle of Pistoja, whilst the pursuit of the adherents
of Catiline was still being prosecuted, public opinion was already
hostile to him who had urged the measure, and Metellus Nepos, sent
recently from Asia by Pompey, openly found fault with Cicero’s conduct.
When the latter, on quitting office, wished to address the people for
the purpose of glorifying his consulship, Metellus, who had been elected
tribune, silenced him with these words: “We will not hear the defence
of the man who refused to hear the defence of accused persons,” and
ordered him to confine himself to the usual oath, that he had in no way
contravened the laws. “I swear,” answered Cicero, “that I have saved the
Republic. ” However loudly this boastful exclamation might be applauded
by Cato and the bystanders, who hail him with Father of his Country,
their enthusiasm will have but a short duration. [1002]
[Sidenote: Cæsar Prætor (692). ]
VII.
Sylla, another party, composed of the ambitious and discontented, ruined
by debt, had long sought to arrive at power by plotting. Of this number
had been, since 688, Cn. Piso, P. Sylla, P. Autronius, and Catiline.
These men, with diverse antecedents and different qualities, were
equally decried, yet they did not want for adherents among the lower
class, whose passions they flattered, or among the upper class, to whose
policy or enmity they were serviceable. P. Sylla and Autronius, after
having been made consuls-elect in 688, had been effaced from the
senatorial list for solicitation. Public report mixed up the names of
Crassus and Cæsar with these secret manœuvres; but was it possible that
these two men, in such opposite positions, and even divided between
themselves, should enter into an understanding together for the sake of
a vulgar plot; and was it not a new inconsistency of calumny to
associate in the same conspiracy Cæsar because of his immense debts, and
Crassus because of his immense riches?
Let us remark, besides, that each of the factions then in agitation
necessarily sought to compromise, for the purpose of appropriating to
itself, such a personage as Cæsar, notorious for his name, his
generosity, and his courage.
A matter which has remained obscure, but which then made a great noise,
shows the progress of the ideas of disorder. One of the conspirators,
Cn. Piso, had taken part in the attempt to assassinate the Consuls Cotta
and Torquatus; yet he obtained, through the influence of Crassus, the
post of questor _pro prætore_ into Citerior Spain; the Senate, either to
get rid of him, or in the doubtful hope of finding in him some support
against Pompey, whose power began to appear formidable, consented to
grant him this province. But in 691, on his arrival in Spain, he was
slain by his escort--some say by the secret emissaries of Pompey. [928]
As to Catiline, he was not the man to bend under the weight of the
misfortunes of his friends, or under his own losses; he employed new
ardour in braving the perils of a conspiracy, and in pursuing the
honours of the consulship. He was the most dangerous adversary the
Senate had. Cæsar supported this candidature. In a spirit of opposition,
he supported all that could hurt his enemies and favour a change of
system. Besides, all parties were constrained to deal with those who
enjoyed the popular favour. The nobles accepted as candidate C. Antonius
Hybrida, a worthless man, capable only of selling himself and of
treachery. [929] Cicero, in 690, had promised Catiline to defend
him;[930] and a year before, the Consul Torquatus, one of the most
esteemed chiefs of the Senate, pleaded for the same individual accused
of embezzlement. [931]
[Sidenote: the difficulty of constituting a New Party. ]
IX. We thus see that the misfortunes of the times obliged the most
notable men to have dealings with those whose antecedents seemed to
devote them to contempt.
In times of transition, when a choice must be made between a glorious
past and an unknown future, the rock is, that bold and unscrupulous men
alone thrust themselves forward; others, more timid, and the slaves of
prejudices, remain in the shade, or offer some obstacle to the movement
which hurries away society into new ways. It is always a great evil for
a country, a prey to agitations, when the party of the honest, or that
of the good, as Cicero calls them, do not embrace the new ideas, to
direct by moderating them. Hence profound divisions. On the one side,
unknown men often take possession of the good or bad passions of the
crowd; on the other, honourable men, immovable or morose, oppose all
progress, and by their obstinate resistance excite legitimate impatience
and lamentable violence. The opposition of these last has the double
inconvenience of leaving the way clear to those who are less worthy than
themselves, and of throwing doubts into the minds of that floating mass,
which judges parties much more by the honourableness of men than by the
value of ideas.
What was then passing in Rome offers a striking example of this. Was it
not reasonable, in fact, that men should hesitate to prefer a faction
which had at its head such illustrious names as Hortensius, Catulus,
Marcellus, Lucullus, and Cato, to that which had for its main-stays
individuals like Gabinius, Manilius, Catiline, Vatinius, and Clodius?
What more legitimate in the eyes of the descendants of the ancient
families than this resistance to all change, and this disposition to
consider all reform as Utopian and almost as sacrilege? What more
logical for them than to admire Cato’s firmness of soul, who, still
young, allowed himself to be menaced with death rather than admit the
possibility of becoming one day the defender of the cause of the allies
claiming the rights of Roman citizens? [932] How not comprehend the
sentiments of Catulus and Hortensius obstinately defending the
privileges of the aristocracy, and manifesting their fears at this
general inclination to concentrate all power in the hands of one
individual?
And yet the cause maintained by these men was condemned to perish, as
everything which has had its time. Notwithstanding their virtues, they
were only an additional obstacle to the steady march of civilisation,
because they wanted the qualities most essential for a time of
revolution--an appreciation of the wants of the moment, and of the
problems of the future. Instead of trying what they could save from the
shipwreck of the ancient regime, just breaking to pieces against a
fearful rock, the corruption of political morals, they refuse to admit
that the institutions to which the Republic owed its grandeur could
bring about its decay. Terrified at all innovation, they confounded in
the same anathema the seditious enterprises of certain tribunes, and the
just reclamations of the citizens. But their influence was so
considerable, and ideas consecrated by time have so much empire over
minds, that they would have yet hindered the triumph of the popular
cause, if Cæsar, in putting himself at its head, had not given it a new
glory and an irresistible force. A party, like an army, can only conquer
with a chief worthy to command it; and all those who, since the Gracchi,
had unfurled the standard of reform, had sullied it with blood, and
compromised it by revolts. Cæsar raised and purified it. To constitute
his party, it is true, he had recourse to agents but little estimated;
the best architect can build only with the materials under his hand; but
his constant endeavour was to associate to himself the most trustworthy
men, and he spared no effort to gain by turns Pompey, Crassus, Cicero,
Servilius Cæpio, Q. Fufius Calenus, Serv. Sulpicius, and many others.
In moments of transition, when the old system is at an end, and the new
not yet established, the greatest difficulty consists, not in overcoming
the obstacles which are in the way of the advent of a regime demanded by
the country, but to establish the latter solidly, by establishing it
upon the concurrence of honourable men penetrated with the new ideas,
and steady in their principles.
CHAPTER III.
(691-695. )
[Sidenote: Cicero and Antonius, Consuls (691). ]
I. In the year 690, the candidates for the consulship were Cicero, C.
Antonius Hybrida, L. Cassius Longinus, Q. Cornificius, C. Lucinius
Sacerdos, P. Sulpicius Galba, and Catiline. [933] Informed of the plots
so long in progress, the Senate determined to combat the conspiracies of
the last by throwing all the votes they could dispose of upon Cicero,
who was thus unanimously elected, and took possession of his office at
the beginning of 691. This choice made up for the mediocrity of his
colleague Antonius.
The illustrious orator, whose eloquence had such authority, was born at
Arpinum, of obscure parents; he had served some time in the war of the
allies;[934] afterwards, his orations acquired for him a great
reputation, amongst others the defence of the young Roscius, whom the
dictator would have despoiled of his paternal heritage. After the death
of Sylla, he was appointed questor and sent to Sicily. In 684, he lashed
with his implacable speech the atrocities of Verres; at last, in 688, he
obtained the prætorship, and displayed in this capacity those sentiments
of high probity and of justice which distinguished him throughout his
whole career. But the esteem of his fellow-citizens would not have
sufficed, in ordinary times, to have raised him to the first magistracy.
“The dread of the conspiracy,” says Sallust, “was the cause of his
elevation. Under other circumstances, the pride of the nobility would
have revolted against such a choice. The consulship would have been
considered profaned, if, even with superior merit, a new man[935] had
obtained it; but, on the approach of danger, envy and pride became
silent. ”[936] The Roman aristocracy must have greatly lost its
influence, when, at a critical moment, it allowed a new man to possess
more authority over the people than one from its own ranks.
By birth, as well as by his instincts, Cicero belonged to the popular
party; nevertheless, the irresolution of his mind, sensible to flattery,
and his fear of innovations, led him to serve by turn the rancours of
the great or those of the people. [937] Of upright heart, but
pusillanimous, he only saw rightly when his self-esteem was not at stake
or his interest in danger. Elected consul, he ranged himself on the side
of the Senate, and resisted all proposals advantageous to the multitude.
Cæsar honoured his talent, but had little confidence in his character;
hence he was averse to his candidature, and hostile during the whole of
his consulship.
[Sidenote: Agrarian Law of Rullus. ]
II. Scarcely had Cicero entered on his functions, when the tribune P.
Servilius Rullus revived one of those projects which, for ages, have had
the effect of exciting to the highest degree both the avidity of the
proletaries and the anger of the Senate: it was an agrarian law.
It contained the following provisions: To sell, with certain
exceptions,[938] the territories recently conquered, and some other
domains but little productive to the State; devoting the proceeds to the
purchase, by private contract, of lands in Italy which were to be
divided among the indigent citizens; to cause to be nominated, according
to the customary mode for the election of grand pontiff--that is, by
seventeen tribes, drawn by lot from the thirty-five--ten commissioners
or decemvirs, to whom should be left, for five years, the power,
absolute and without control, of distributing or alienating the domains
of the Republic and private properties wherever they liked. No one could
be appointed who was not present in Rome, which excluded Pompey, and the
authority of the decemvirs was to be sanctioned by a curiate law. To
them alone was intrusted the right to decide what belonged to the State
and what to individuals. The lands of the public domain which should not
be alienated were to be charged with a considerable impost. [939] The
decemvirs had also the power of compelling all the generals, Pompey
excepted, to account for the booty and money received during war, but
not yet deposited in the treasury, or employed upon some monument. They
were allowed to found colonies anywhere they thought proper,
particularly in the territory of Stella, and in the _ager_ of Campania,
where five thousand Roman citizens were to be established. In a word,
the administration of the revenues and the resources of the State came
almost wholly into their hands; they had, moreover, their lictors; they
could take the omens, and choose amongst the knights two hundred persons
to execute their decrees in the provinces, and these were without
appeal.
This project offered inconveniences, but also great advantages. Rullus,
certainly, was to blame for not designating all the places where he
wished to establish colonies; for making two exemptions, one favourable,
the other unfavourable to Pompey; for assigning to the decemvirs powers
too extensive, tending to arbitrary acts and speculations: nevertheless,
his project had an important political aim. The public domain,
encroached upon by usurpations or by the colonies of Sylla, had almost
disappeared. The law was to re-constitute it by the sale of conquered
territories. On the other side, the lands confiscated in great number by
Sylla, and given or sold at a paltry price to his partisans, had
suffered a general depreciation, for the ownership was liable to be
contested, and they no longer found purchasers. The Republic, while
desirous of relieving the poorer class, had thus an interest in raising
the price of these lands and in securing the holders. The project of
Rullus was, in fact, a veritable law of indemnity. There are injustices
which, sanctioned by time, ought also to be sanctioned by law, in order
to extinguish the causes of dissension, by restoring their security to
existing things, and its value to property.
If the great orator had known how to raise himself above the questions
of person and of party, he would, like Cæsar, have supported the
proposal of the tribune, amending only what was too absolute or too
vague in it; but, overreached by the faction of the great, and desiring
to please the knights, whose interests the law injured, he attacked it
with his usual eloquence, exaggerating its defects. It would only
benefit, he said, a small number of persons. Whilst appearing to favour
Pompey, it deprived him, on account of his absence, of the chance of
being chosen decemvir. It allowed some individuals to dispose of
kingdoms like Egypt, and of the immense territories of Asia. Capua would
become the capital of Italy, and Rome, surrounded by a girdle of
military colonies devoted to ten new tyrants, would lose its
independence. To purchase the lands, instead of apportioning the _ager
publicus_, was monstrous, and he could not admit that they would engage
the people to abandon the capital to go and languish in the fields.
Then, exposing the double personal interest of the author of the law, he
reminded them that the father-in-law of Rullus was enriched with the
spoils of proscripts, and that Rullus himself had reserved the right of
being nominated decemvir.
Cicero, nevertheless, pointed out clearly the political bearing of the
project, although censuring it, when he said; “The new law enriches
those who occupied the domain lands, and withdraws them from public
indignation. How many men are embarrassed by their vast possessions, and
cannot support the odium attached to the largesses of Sylla! How many
would sell them, and find no buyers! How many seek means, of whatever
kind, to dispossess themselves of them! . . . And you, Romans, you are
going to sell those revenues which your ancestors have acquired at the
cost of so much sweat and blood, to augment the fortune and assure the
tranquillity of the possessors of the goods confiscated by Sylla! ”[940]
We see thus that Cicero seems to deny the necessity of allaying the
inquietudes of the new and numerous acquirers of this kind of national
property; and yet, when a short time afterwards another tribune proposed
to relieve from civic degradation the sons of proscripts, he opposed
him, not because this reparation appeared to him unjust, but for fear
the rehabilitation in political rights should carry with it the
reintegration into the properties, a measure, according to his views,
subversive of all interests. [941] Thus, with a strange inconsistency,
Cicero combated these two laws of conciliation; the one because it
re-assured, the other because it disquieted the holders of the effects
of the proscribed. Why must it be that, amongst men of superiority, but
without convictions, talent only too often serves to sustain with the
like facility the most opposite causes? The opinion of Cicero triumphed,
nevertheless, thanks to his eloquence; and the project, despite the
lively adhesion of the people, encountered in the Senate such a
resistance, that it was abandoned without being referred to the comitia.
Cæsar advocated the agrarian law, because it raised the value of the
soil, put an end to the disfavour attached to the national property,
augmented the resources of the treasury, prevented the extravagance of
the generals, delivered Rome from a turbulent and dangerous populace by
wresting it from degradation and misery. He supported the rehabilitation
of the children of proscripts, because that measure, profoundly
reparative, put an end to one of the great iniquities of the past
regime.
There are victories which enfeeble the conquerors more than the
vanquished. Such was the success of Cicero. The rejection of the
agrarian law, and of the claims of the sons of proscripts, augmented
considerably the number of malcontents. A crowd of citizens, driven by
privations and the denial of justice, went over to swell the ranks of
the conspirators, who, in the shade, were preparing a revolution; and
Cæsar, pained at seeing the Senate reject that sage and ancient policy
which had saved Rome from so many agitations, resolved to undermine by
every means its authority. For this purpose he engaged the tribune, T.
Labienus, the same who was afterwards one of his best lieutenants, to
get up a criminal accusation which was a direct attack upon the abuse
of one of the prerogatives of the government. [942]
[Sidenote: Trial of Rabirius (691). ]
III. For a long time, when internal or external troubles were
apprehended, Rome was put, so to speak, in a state of siege, by the
sacramental formula, according to which the consuls were enjoined _to
see that the Republic received no injury_; then the power of the consuls
was unlimited;[943] and often, in seditions, the Senate had profited by
this omnipotence to rid itself of certain factious individuals without
observing the forms of justice. The more frequent the agitations had
become, the more they had used this extreme remedy. The tribunes always
protested ineffectually against a measure which suspended all the
established laws, legalised assassination, and made Rome a battle-field.
Labienus tried anew to blunt in the hands of the Senate so formidable a
weapon.
Thirty-seven years before, as will be remembered, Saturninus, the
violent promoter of an agrarian law, had, by the aid of a riot, obtained
possession of the Capitol; the country had been declared in danger. The
tribune perished in the struggle, and the senator C. Rabirius boasted of
having killed him. Despite this long interval of time, Labienus accused
Rabirius under an old law of _perduellio_, which did not leave to the
guilty, like the law of treason, the power of voluntary exile, but, by
declaring him a public enemy, authorised against him cruel and
ignominious punishments. [944] This procedure provoked considerable
agitation; the Senate, which felt the blow struck at its privileges, was
unwilling to put any one to trial for the execution of an act authorised
by itself. The people and the tribunes, on the contrary, insisted that
the accused should be brought before a tribunal. Every passion was at
work. Labienus claimed to avenge one of his uncles, massacred with
Saturninus; and he had the audacity to expose in the Campus Martius the
portrait of the factious tribune, forgetting the case of Sextus Titius,
condemned, on a former occasion, for the mere fact of having preserved
in his house the likeness of Saturninus. [945] The affair was brought,
according to ancient usage, before the decemvirs. Cæsar, and his cousin
Lucius Cæsar, were designated by the prætor to perform the functions of
judges. The very violence of the accusation, compared with the eloquence
of his defenders, Hortensius and Cicero, overthrew the charge of
_perduellio_. Nevertheless, Rabirius, condemned, appealed to the people;
but the animosity against him was so great that the fatal sentence was
about to be irrevocably pronounced, when the prætor, Metellus Celer,
devised a stratagem to arrest the course of justice; he carried away the
standard planted at the Janiculum. [946] This battered flag formerly
announced an invasion of the country round Rome. Immediately all
deliberation ceased, and the people rushed to arms. The Romans were
great formalists; and, moreover, as this custom left to the magistrates
the power of dissolving at their will the comitia, they had the most
cogent motives for preserving it; the assembly soon separated, and the
affair was not taken up again. Cæsar, nevertheless, had hoped to attain
his object. He did not demand the head of Rabirius, whom, when he was
subsequently dictator, he treated with favour; he only wished to show to
the Senate the strength of the popular party, and to warn it that
henceforth it would no more be permitted, as in the time of the Gracchi,
to sacrifice its adversaries in the name of the public safety.
If, on the one hand, Cæsar let no opportunity escape of branding the
former regime, on the other he was the earnest advocate of the
provinces, which vainly looked for justice and protection from Rome. He
had, for example, the same year accused of peculation C. Calpurnius
Piso, consul in 687, and afterwards governor of Transpadane Gaul, and
brought him to trial for having arbitrarily caused an inhabitant of that
country to be executed. The accused was acquitted through the influence
of Cicero; but Cæsar had shown to the Transpadanes that he was ever the
representative of their interests and their vigilant patron.
[Sidenote: Cæsar Grand Pontiff (691). ]
IV. He soon received a brilliant proof of the popularity he enjoyed. The
dignity of sovereign pontiff, one of the most important in the Republic,
was for life, and gave great influence to the individual clothed with
it, for religion mingled itself in all the public and private acts of
the Romans.
Metellus Pius, sovereign pontiff, dying in 691, the most illustrious
citizens, such as P. Servilius Isauricus, and Q. Lutatius Catulus,
prince of the Senate, put themselves at the head of the ranks of
candidates to replace him. Cæsar also solicited the office, and,
desirous of proving himself worthy of it, he published, at this time
doubtless, a very extensive treatise on the augural law, and another on
astronomy, designed to make known in Italy the discoveries of the
Alexandrian school. [947]
Servilius Isauricus and Catulus, relying on their antecedents, and on
the esteem in which they were held, believed themselves the more sure of
election, because, since Sylla, the people had not interfered in the
nomination of grand pontiff, the college solely making the election.
Labienus, to facilitate Cæsar’s access to this high dignity, obtained a
plebiscitum restoring the nomination to the suffrages of the people.
This manœuvre disconcerted the other competitors without discouraging
them, and, as usual, they attempted to seduce the electors with money.
All who held with the party of the nobles united against Cæsar, who
combated solicitation by solicitation, and sustained the struggle by the
aid of considerable loans; he knew how to interest in his success,
according to Appian, both the poor that he had paid, and the rich from
whom he borrowed. [948] Catulus, knowing Cæsar to be greatly in debt, and
mistaking his character, offered him a large sum to desist. He answered
him that he would borrow a much greater sum of him if he would support
his candidature. [949]
At length the great day arrived which was to decide the future of Cæsar;
when he started to present himself at the comitia, the most gloomy
thoughts agitated his ardent mind, and calculating that if he should not
succeed, his debts would constrain him perhaps to go into exile, he
embraced his mother and said, “To-day thou wilt see me grand pontiff or
a fugitive. ”[950] The most brilliant success crowned his efforts, and
what added to his joy was his obtaining more votes in the tribes of his
adversaries than they had in all the tribes put together. [951]
Such a victory made the Senate fear whether Cæsar, strong in his
ascendency over the people, might not proceed to the greatest excesses;
but his conduct remained the same.
Hitherto he had inhabited a very moderate house, in the quarter called
Suburra; nominated sovereign pontiff, he was lodged in a public building
in the Via Sacra. [952] This new position necessarily obliged him,
indeed, to a sumptuous life, if we may judge by the luxuriousness
displayed at the reception of a simple pontiff, at which he assisted as
king of the sacrifices, and of which Macrobius has preserved to us the
curious details. [953] Moreover, he built himself a superb villa on the
Lake of Nemi, near Aricia.
[Sidenote: Catiline’s Conspiracy. ]
V. Catiline, who has already been spoken of, had twice failed in his
designs upon the consulship; he solicited it again for the year 692,
without abandoning his plans of conspiracy. The moment seemed
favourable. Pompey being in Asia, Italy was bared of troops; Antonius,
associated in the plot, shared the consulship with Cicero. Calm existed
on the surface, whilst passions, half extinguished, and bruised
interests, offered to the first man bold enough, numerous means of
raising commotions. [954] The men whom Sylla had despoiled, as well as
those he had enriched, but who had dissipated the fruits of their
immense plunder, were equally discontented; so that the same idea of
subversion formed a bond of union between the victims and the
accomplices of the past oppression.
Addicted to excesses of every kind, Catiline dreamed, in the midst of
his orgies, of the overthrow of the oligarchy; but we may doubt his
desire to put all to fire and sword, as Cicero says, and as most
historians have repeated after him. Of illustrious birth, questor in
677, he distinguished himself in Macedonia, in the army of Curio; he had
been prætor in 686, and governor of Africa the year following. He was
accused of having in his youth imbrued his hands in Sylla’s murders, of
having associated with the most infamous men, and of having been guilty
of incest and other crimes; there would be no reason for exculpating him
if we did not know how prodigal political parties in their triumph are
of calumnies against the vanquished. Besides, we must acknowledge that
the vices with which he was charged he shared in common with many
personages of that epoch, among others with Antonius, the colleague of
Cicero, who subsequently undertook his defence. Gifted with a high
intelligence and a rare energy, Catiline could not have meditated a
thing so insensate as massacre and burning. It would have been to seek
to reign over ruins and tombs. The truth will present itself better in
the following portrait, traced by Cicero seven years after the death of
Catiline, when, returning to a calmer appreciation, the great orator
painted in less sombre colours him whom he had so disfigured:--“This
Catiline, you cannot have forgotten, I think had, if not the reality, at
least the appearance of the greatest virtues. He associated with a crowd
of perverse men, but he affected to be devoted to men of greatest
estimation. If for him debauchery had powerful attractions, he applied
himself with no less ardour to labour and affairs. The fire of passions
devoured his heart, but he had also a taste for the labours of war. No,
I do not believe there ever existed on this earth a man who offered so
monstrous an assemblage of passions and qualities so varied, so
contrary, and in continual antagonism with each other. ”[955]
The conspiracy, conducted by the adventurous spirit of its chief, had
acquired considerable development. Senators, knights, young patricians,
a great number of the notable citizens of the allied towns, partook in
it. Cicero, informed of these designs, assembles the Senate in the
Temple of Concord, and communicates to it the information he had
received: he informs it that, on the 5th of the calends of November, a
rising was to take place in Etruria; that on the morrow a riot would
break out in Rome; that the lives of the consuls were threatened; that,
lastly, everywhere stores of warlike arms and attempts to enlist the
gladiators indicated the most alarming preparations. Catiline,
questioned by the consul, exclaims, that the tyranny of some men, their
avarice, their inhumanity, are the true causes of the uneasiness which
torments the Republic; then, repelling with scorn the projects of revolt
which they imputed to him, he concludes with this threatening figure of
speech: “The Roman people is a robust body, but without head: I shall be
that head. ”[956] He departed with these words, leaving the Senate
undecided and trembling. The assembly, meanwhile, passed the usual
decree, enjoining the consuls to watch _that the Republic received no
injury_.
The election of consuls for the following year, till then deferred, took
place on the 21st of October, 691, and Silanus having been nominated
with Murena, Catiline was a third time rejected. He then dispatched to
different parts of Italy his agents, and among others, C. Mallius into
Etruria, Septimius to the Picenum, and C. Julius into Apulia, to
organise the revolt. [957] At the mouth of the Tiber, a division of the
fleet, previously employed against the pirates, was ready to second his
projects. [958] At Rome even the assassination of Cicero was boldly
attempted.
The Senate was convened again on the 8th of November. Catiline dared to
attend, and take his seat in the midst of his colleagues. Cicero, in a
speech which has become celebrated, apostrophised him in terms of the
strongest indignation, and by a crushing denunciation forced him to
retire. [959] Catiline, accompanied by three hundred of his adherents,
left the capital next morning to join Mallius. [960] During the following
days, alarming news arriving from all parts threw Rome into the utmost
anxiety. Stupor reigned there. To the animation of fêtes and pleasures
had, all of a sudden, succeeded a gloomy silence.
Troops were raised;
armed outposts were placed at various points; Q. Marcius Rex is
dispatched to Fæsulæ (_Fiesole_); Q. Metellus Creticus into Apulia;
Pomponius Rufus to Capua; Q. Metellus Celer into the Picenum; and,
lastly, the consul, C. Antonius, led an army into Etruria. Cicero had
detached the latter from the conspiracy by giving him the lucrative
government of Macedonia. [961] He accepted in exchange that of Gaul,
which he also subsequently renounced, not wishing, after his consulship,
to quit the city and depart as proconsul. The principal conspirators, at
the head of whom were the prætor Lentulus and Cethegus, remained at
Rome. They continued energetically the preparations for the
insurrection, and entered into communication with the envoys of the
Allobroges. Cicero, secretly informed by his spies, among others by
Curius, watched their doings, and, when he had indisputable proofs,
caused them to be arrested, convoked the Senate, and exposed the plan of
the conspiracy.
Lentulus was obliged to resign the prætorship. Out of nine conspirators
convicted of the attempt against the Republic, five only failed to
escape; they were confided to the custody of the magistrates appointed
by the consul. Lentulus was delivered to his kinsman Lentulus Spinther;
L. Statilius to Cæsar; Gabinius to Crassus; Cethegus to Cornificius; and
Cæparius, who was taken in his flight, to the senator Cn.
Terentius. [962] The Senate was on the point of proceeding against them
in a manner in which all the forms of justice would have been violated.
The criminal judgments were not within its competence, and neither the
consul nor the assembly had the right to condemn a Roman citizen without
the concurrence of the people. Be that as it may, the senators assembled
for a last time on the 5th of December, to deliberate on the punishment
of the conspirators; they were less numerous than on the preceding days.
Many of them were unwilling to pass sentence of death against citizens
belonging to the great patrician families. Some, however, were in favour
of capital punishment, in spite of the law Portia. After others had
spoken, Cæsar made the following speech, the bearing of which merits
particular attention:--
“Conscript fathers, all who deliberate upon doubtful matters ought to be
uninfluenced by hatred, affection, anger, or pity. When we are animated
by these sentiments, it is hard to unravel the truth; and no one has
ever been able to serve at once his passions and his interests. Free
your reason of that which beclouds it, and you will be strong; if
passion invade your mind and rules it, you will be without strength. It
would be here the occasion, conscript fathers, to recall to mind how
many kings and peoples, carried away by rage or pity, have taken fatal
resolutions; but I prefer reminding you how our ancestors, unswayed by
prejudice, performed good and just deeds. In our Macedonian war against
King Perseus, the Republic of Rhodes, in its power and pride, although
it owed its greatness to the support of the Roman people, proved
disloyal and hostile to us; but when, on the termination of this war,
the fate of the Rhodians was brought under deliberation, our ancestors
left them unpunished in order that no one should ascribe the cause of
the war to their riches rather than to their wrongs. So, also, in all
the Punic wars, although the Carthaginians had often, both during peace
and during the truces, committed perfidious atrocities, our fathers, in
spite of the opportunity, never imitated them, because they thought more
of their honour than of vengeance, however just.
“And you, conscript fathers, take care that the crime of P. Lentulus and
his accomplices overcome not the sentiment of your dignity, and consult
not your anger more than your reputation. Indeed, if there be a
punishment adequate to their offences, I will approve the new measure;
but if, on the contrary, the vastness of the crime exceeds all that can
be imagined, we should adhere, I think, to that which has been provided
by the laws.
“Most of those who have expressed their opinion before me have deplored
in studied and magniloquent terms the misfortune of the Republic; they
have recounted the horrors of war and the sufferings of the vanquished,
the rapes of young girls and boys, infants torn from the arms of their
parents, mothers delivered to the lusts of the vanquisher, the pillage
of temples and houses, the carnage and burning everywhere; in short,
arms, corpses, blood, and mourning. But, by the immortal gods, to what
tend these speeches? To make you detest the conspiracy? What! will he
whom a plot so great and so atrocious has not moved, be inflamed by a
speech? No, not so; men never consider their personal injuries slight;
many men resent them too keenly. But, conscript fathers, that which is
permitted to some is not permitted to others. Those who live humbly in
obscurity may err by passion, and few people know it; all is equal with
them, fame and fortune; but those who, invested with high dignities,
pass their life in an exalted sphere, do nothing of which every mortal
is not informed. Thus, the higher the fortune the less the liberty; the
less we ought to be partial, rancorous, and especially angry. What, in
others, is named hastiness, in men of power is called pride and cruelty.
“I think then, conscript fathers, that all the tortures known can never
equal the crimes of the conspirators; but, among most mortals, the last
impressions are permanent, and the crimes of the greatest culprits are
forgotten, to remember only the punishment, if it has been too severe.
“What D. Silanus, a man of constancy and courage, has said, has been
inspired in him, I know, by his zeal for the Republic, and in so grave a
matter he has been swayed neither by partiality nor hatred. I know too
well the wisdom and moderation of that illustrious citizen.
Nevertheless, his advice seems to me, I will not say cruel (for can one
be cruel towards such men? ), but contrary to the spirit of our
government. Truly, Silanus, either fear or indignation would have forced
you, consul-elect, to adopt a new kind of punishment. As to fear, it is
superfluous to speak of it, when, thanks to the active foresight of our
illustrious consul, so many guards are under arms. As to the punishment,
we may be permitted to say the thing as it is: in affliction and
misfortune death is the termination of our sufferings, and not a
punishment; it takes away all the ills of humanity; beyond are neither
cares nor joy. But, in the name of the immortal gods, why not add to
your opinion, Silanus, that they shall be forthwith beaten with rods? Is
it because the law Portia forbids it? But other laws also forbid the
taking away the lives of condemned citizens, and prescribe exile. Is it
because it is more cruel to be beaten with rods than to be put to death?
But is there anything too rigorous, too cruel, against men convicted of
so black a design? If, then, this penalty is too light, is it fitting to
respect the law upon a less essential point, and break it in its most
serious part? But, it may be said, who will blame your decree against
the parricides of the Republic? Time, circumstances, and fortune, whose
caprice governs the world. Whatever happens to them, they will have
merited. But you, senators, consider the influence your decision may
have upon other offenders. Abuses often grow from precedents good in
principle; but when the power falls into the hands of men less
enlightened or less honest, a just and reasonable precedent receives an
application contrary to justice and reason.
“The Lacedæmonians imposed upon Athens vanquished a government of thirty
rulers. These began by putting to death without judgment all those whose
crimes marked them out to public hatred; the people rejoiced, and said
it was well done. Afterwards, when the abuses of this power multiplied,
good and bad alike were sacrificed at the instigation of caprice; the
rest were in terror. Thus Athens, crushed under servitude, expiated
cruelly her insensate joy. In our days, when Sylla, conqueror, caused to
be butchered Damasippus and other men of that description, who had
attained to dignities to the curse of the Republic, who did not praise
such a deed? Those villains, those factious men, whose seditions had
harassed the Republic, had, it was said, merited their death. But this
was the signal for a great carnage. For if any one coveted the house or
land of another, or only a vase or vestment, it was somehow contrived
that he should be put in the number of the proscribed. Thus, those to
whom the death of Damasippus had been a subject for joy, were soon
themselves dragged to execution, and the massacres ceased not until
Sylla had gorged all his followers with riches.
“It is true, I dread nothing of the sort, either from M. Tullius or from
present circumstances; but, in a great state, there are so many
different natures! Who knows if at another epoch, under another consul,
master of an army, some imaginary plot may not be believed real? And if
a consul, armed with this example and with a decree of the Senate, once
draw the sword, who will stay his hand or limit vengeance?
“Our ancestors, conscript fathers, were never wanting in prudence or
decision, and pride did not hinder them from adopting foreign customs
provided they appeared good. From the Samnites they borrowed their arms,
offensive and defensive; from the Etruscans, the greater part of the
insignia of our magistrates; in short, all that, amongst their allies
or their enemies, appeared useful to themselves, they appropriated with
the utmost eagerness, preferring to imitate good examples than to be
envious of them. At the same epoch, adopting a Grecian custom, they
inflicted rods upon the citizens, and death upon criminals. Afterwards
the Republic increased; and with the increase of citizens factions
prevailed more, and the innocent were oppressed; they committed many
excesses of this kind. Then the law Portia and many others were
promulgated, which only sanctioned the punishment of exile against the
condemned. This consideration, conscript fathers, is, in my opinion, the
strongest for rejecting the proposed innovation. Certainly those men
were superior to us in virtue and wisdom, who, with such feeble means,
have raised so great an empire, whilst we preserve with difficulty an
inheritance so gloriously acquired. Are we then to set free the guilty,
and increase with them the army of Catiline? In no wise; but I vote that
their goods be confiscated, themselves imprisoned in the municipia best
furnished with armed force, to the end that no one may hereafter propose
their restoration to the Senate or even to the people; that whoever
shall act contrary to this measure be declared by the Senate an enemy of
the State and of the public tranquillity. ”[963]
With this noble language, which reveals the statesman, compare the
declamatory speeches of the orators who pleaded for the penalty of
death: “I wish,” cries Cicero, “to snatch from massacre your wives,
your children, and the sainted priestesses of Vesta; from the most
frightful outrages, your temples and sanctuaries; our fair country from
the most horrible conflagration; Italy from devastation. . . . [964] The
conspirators seek to slaughter all, in order that no one may remain to
weep for the Republic, and lament over the ruin of so great an
empire. ”[965] And when he speaks of Catiline: “Is there in all Italy a
poisoner, is there a gladiator, a brigand, an assassin, a parricide, a
forger of wills, a suborner, a debauchee, a squanderer, an adulterer; is
there a disreputable woman, a corrupter of youth, a man tarnished in
character, a scoundrel, in short, who does not confess to having lived
with Catiline in the greatest familiarity? ”[966] Certainly, this is not
the cool and impartial language which becomes a judge.
Cicero holds cheap the law and its principles; he must have, above all,
arguments for his cause, and he goes to history to seek for facts which
might authorise the putting to death of Roman citizens. He holds forth,
as an example to follow, the murder of Tiberius Gracchus by Scipio
Nasica, and that of Caius Gracchus by the consul Lucius Opimius;[967]
forgetting that but lately, in a famous oration, he had called the two
celebrated tribunes the most brilliant geniuses, the true friends of the
people;[968] and that the murderers of the Gracchi, for having massacred
inviolable personages, became a butt to the hatred and scorn of their
fellow-citizens. Cicero himself will shortly pay with exile for his
rigour towards the accomplices of Catiline.
Cæsar’s speech had such an effect upon the assembly that many of the
senators, amongst others the brother of Cicero, adopted his
opinion. [969] Decimus Silanus, consul-elect, modified his own, and
Cicero at last seemed ready to withdraw from his responsibility, when he
said: “If you adopt the opinion of Cæsar, as he has always attached
himself to the party which passes in the Republic as being that of the
people, it is probable that a sentence of which he shall be the author
and guarantee will expose me less to popular storms. ”[970] However, he
persevered in his demand for the immediate execution of the accused. But
Cato mainly decided the vacillating majority of the Senate by words the
most calculated to influence his auditors. Far from seeking to touch the
strings of the higher sentiments and of patriotism, he appeals to
selfish interests and fear. “In the name of the immortal gods,” cried
he, “I adjure you, you, who have ever held your houses, your lands, your
statues, your pictures, in greater regard than the Republic, if these
goods, of whatever kind they be, you desire to preserve; if for your
enjoyments you would economise a necessary leisure; rise at last from
your lethargy, and take in hand the Republic;”[971] which means, in
other terms: “If you wish to enjoy peaceably your riches, condemn the
accused without hearing them. ” This is what the Senate did.
A singular incident happened, in the midst of these debates, to show to
what point Cæsar had awakened people’s suspicions. At the most animated
moment of the discussion, a letter was brought to him. He read it with
eagerness. Cato and other senators, supposing it to be a message from
one of the conspirators, insisted upon its being read to the Senate.
Cæsar handed the letter to Cato, who was seated near him. The latter saw
it was a love-letter from his sister Servilia, and threw it back
indignantly, crying out, “There! keep it, drunkard! ”[972] a gratuitous
insult, since he himself did justice to the temperance of Cæsar the day
when he said that, of all the men who had overthrown the State, he was
the only one who had done it fasting. [973] Cato expressed with still
greater force the fears of his party when he said: “If, in the midst of
such great and general alarms, Cæsar alone is without fear, it is for
you as well as me an additional motive for fear. ”[974] Cato went
further. After the condemnation of the accused to death, he tried to
drive Cæsar to extremities by turning against them an opinion which the
latter had expressed in their interest: he proposed to confiscate their
goods. The debate became then warmer than ever. Cæsar declared that it
was an indignity, after having rejected the humane part of his opinion,
to adopt from it the rigorous spirit it contained, for the purpose of
aggravating the lot of the condemned and adding to their
punishment. [975] As his protestation met with no echo in the Senate, he
adjured the tribunes to use their right of intercession, but they
remained deaf to his appeal. The agitation was at its height, and to put
an end to it, the consul, in haste to terminate a struggle the issue of
which might become doubtful, agreed that the confiscation should not
form a part of the _Senatus-consultum_.
Whilst the populace outside, excited by the friends of the conspirators,
raised seditious clamours, the knights who formed the guard around the
Temple of Concord, exasperated by the language of Cæsar and the length
of the debates, broke in upon the assembly; they surrounded Cæsar, and
with threatening words, despite his rank of pontiff and of prætor-elect,
they drew their swords upon him, which M. Curio and Cicero generously
turned aside. [976] Their protection enabled him to regain his home: he
declared, however, that he would not appear again in the Senate until
the new consuls could ensure order and liberty for the deliberations.
Cicero, without loss of time, went with the prætors to seek the
condemned, and conducted them to the prison of the Capitol, where they
were immediately executed. Then a restless crowd, ignorant of what was
taking place, demanding what had become of the prisoners, Cicero replied
with these simple words, “They have lived. ”[977]
We are easily convinced that Cæsar was not a conspirator; but this
accusation is explained by the pusillanimity of some and the rancour of
others. Who does not know that in times of crisis, feeble governments
always tax sympathy for the accused with complicity, and are not sparing
of calumny towards their adversaries? Q. Catulus and C. Piso were
animated against him with so deep a hatred that they had importuned the
consul to include him in the prosecutions directed against the
accomplices of Catiline. Cicero resisted. The report of his
participation in the plot was not the less spread, and had been
accredited eagerly by the crowd of the envious. [978] Cæsar was not one
of the conspirators; if he had been, his influence would have been
sufficient to have acquitted them triumphantly. [979] He had too high an
idea of himself; he enjoyed too great a consideration to think of
arriving at power by an underground way and reprehensible means. However
ambitious a man may be, he does not conspire when he can attain his end
by lawful means. Cæsar was quite sure of being raised to the consulship,
and his impatience never betrayed his ambition. Moreover, he had
constantly shown a marked aversion to civil war; and why should he throw
himself into a vulgar conspiracy with infamous individuals, he who
refused his participation in the attempts of Lepidus when at the head of
an army? If Cicero had believed Cæsar guilty, would he have hesitated to
accuse him, seeing he scrupled not to compromise, by the aid of a false
witness, so high a personage as Licinius Crassus? [980] How, on the eve
of the condemnation, could he have trusted to Cæsar the custody of one
of the conspirators? Would he have exculpated him in the sequel when the
accusation was renewed? Lastly, if Cæsar, as will be seen afterwards,
according to Plutarch, preferred being the first in a village in the
Alps to being second in Rome, how could he have consented to be the
second to Catiline?
The attitude of Cæsar in this matter presents nothing, then, which does
not admit an easy explanation. Whilst blaming the conspiracy, he was
unwilling that, to repress it, the eternal rules of justice should be
set aside. He reminded men, blinded by passion and fear, that
unnecessary rigour is always followed by fatal reactions. The examples
drawn from history served him to prove that moderation is always the
best adviser. It is clear also that, whilst despising most of the
authors of the conspiracy, he was not without sympathy for a cause which
approached his own by common instincts and enemies. In countries
delivered up to party divisions, how many men are there not who desire
the overthrow of the existing government, yet without the will to take
part in a conspiracy? Such was the position of Cæsar.
On the contrary, the conduct of Cicero and of the Senate can hardly be
justified. To violate the law was perhaps a necessity; but to
misrepresent the sedition in order to make it odious, to have recourse
to calumny to vilify the criminals, and to condemn them to death without
allowing them a defence, was an evident proof of weakness. In fact, if
the intentions of Catiline had not been disguised, the whole of Italy
would have responded to his appeal, so weary were people of the
humiliating yoke which weighed upon Rome; but they proclaimed him as one
meditating conflagration, murder, and pillage. “Already,” it was said,
“the torches are lit, the assassins are at their posts, the conspirators
drink human blood, and dispute over the shreds of a man they have
butchered. ”[981] It was by these rumours dexterously spread, by these
exaggerations which Cicero himself afterwards ridiculed,[982] that the
disposition of the people, at first favourable to the insurrection, soon
turned against it. [983]
That Catiline might have associated, like all promoters of revolutions,
with men who had nothing to lose and everything to gain, cannot be
disputed; but how can we believe that the majority of his accomplices
was composed of criminals loaded with vices? By the confession of
Cicero, many honourable individuals figured amongst the
conspirators. [984] Inhabitants of colonies and municipia belonging to
the first families in their country, allied themselves with Catiline.
Many sons of senators, and amongst others Aulus Fulvius,[985] were
arrested on their way to join the insurgents, and put to death by the
order of their fathers. Nearly all the Roman youth, says Sallust,
favoured at that time the designs of the bold conspirator, and, on the
other hand, throughout the whole empire, the populace, eager for
novelty, approved of his enterprise. [986]
That Catiline may have been a perverse and cruel man of the kind of
Marius and Sylla, is probable; that he wished to arrive at power by
violence, is certain; but that he had gained to his cause so many
important individuals, that he had inspired their enthusiasm, that he
had so profoundly agitated the peoples of Italy, without having
proclaimed one great or generous idea, is not probable. Indeed, although
attached to the party of Sylla by his antecedents, he knew that the only
standard capable of rallying numerous partisans was that of Marius. Thus
for a long time he preserved in his house, with a religious care, the
silver eagle which had guided the legions of that illustrious
captain. [987] His speeches confirm still further this view: in
addressing himself to his accomplices, he laments seeing the destinies
of the Republic in the hands of a faction who excluded the greatest
number from all participation in honours and riches. [988] He wrote to
Catulus, a person of the highest respect, with whom he was intimate, the
following letter, deficient neither in simplicity nor in a certain
grandeur, the calmness of which offers a striking contrast to the
vehemence of Cicero:--
“L. Catiline to Q. Catulus, salutation,--Thy tried friendship, which has
always been precious to me, gives me the assurance that in my misfortune
thou wilt hear my prayer. I do not wish to justify the part I have
taken. My conscience reproaches me with nothing, and I wish only to
expose my motives, which truly thou wilt find lawful. Driven to
extremity by the insults and injustices of my enemies, robbed of the
recompense due to my services, finally hopeless of ever obtaining the
dignity to which I am entitled, I have taken in hand, according to my
custom, the common cause of all the unfortunate. I am represented as
constrained by debts to this bold resolution: it is a calumny. My
personal means are sufficient to acquit my engagements; and it is known
that, thanks to the generosity of my wife and of her daughter, I have
done honour to other engagements which were foreign to me. But I cannot
see with composure unworthy men at the pinnacle of honours, whilst they
drive me away from them with groundless accusations. In the extremity to
which they have thus reduced me, I embrace the only part that remains
to a man of heart to defend his political position. I should like to
write more fully, but I hear they are setting on foot against me the
last degree of violence. I commend to thee Orestilla, and confide her to
thy faith. Protect her, I beseech thee, by the head of thy children.
Adieu. ”
The same sentiments inspired the band of conspirators commanded by
Mallius. They reveal themselves in these words: “We call gods and men to
witness that it is not against our country that we have taken up arms,
nor against the safety of our fellow-citizens. We, wretched paupers as
we are, who, through the violence and cruelty of usurers, are without
country, all condemned to scorn and indigence, are actuated by one only
wish, to guarantee our personal security against wrong. We demand
neither power nor wealth, those great and eternal causes of war and
strife among mankind. We only desire freedom, a treasure that no man
will surrender except with life itself. We implore you, senators, have
pity on your wretched fellow-citizens. ”[989]
These quotations indicate with sufficient clearness the real character
of the insurrection; and that the partisans of Catiline did not
altogether deserve contempt is proved by their energy and resolution.
The Senate having declared Catiline and Mallius enemies of their
country, promised a free pardon and two hundred thousand sestertii[990]
to all who would abandon the ranks of the insurgents; “but not one,”
says Sallust,[991] “of so vast an assemblage, was persuaded by the lure
of the reward to betray the plot; not one deserted from the camp of
Catiline, so deadly was the disease, which, like a pestilence, had
infected the minds of most of the citizens. ” There is no doubt that
Catiline, though without a conscience and without principles, had
notwithstanding good feeling enough to maintain a cause that he wished
to see ennobled, because, so far from offering freedom to the slaves, as
Sylla, Marius, and Cinna had done, an example so full of charms for a
conspirator,[992] he refused to make use of them, in despite of the
advice of Lentulus, who addressed him in these pregnant words: “Outlawed
from Rome, what purpose can a Catiline have in refusing the services of
slaves? ”[993] Finally, that among these insurgents, who are represented
to us as a throng of robbers, ready to melt away without striking a
blow,[994] there existed, notwithstanding, a burning faith and a genuine
fanaticism, is proved by the heroism of their final struggle. The two
armies met in the plain of Pistoja, on the 5th of January, 692: a
terrible battle ensued, and though victory was hopeless, not one of
Catiline’s soldiers gave way. To a man they were slain, following the
example of their leader, sword in hand; all were found lifeless, but
with ranks unbroken, heaped round the eagle of Marius,[995] that
glorious relic of the campaign against the Cimbri, that venerated
standard of the cause of the people.
We must admit that Catiline was guilty of an attempt to overthrow the
laws of his country by violence; but in doing so he was only following
the examples of a Marius and a Sylla. His dreams were of a revolutionary
despotism, of the ruin of the aristocratic party, and, according to Dio
Cassius,[996] of a change in the constitution of the Republic, and of
the subjugation of the allies. Yet would his success have been a
misfortune: a permanent good can never be the production of hands that
are not clean. [997]
[Sidenote: Error of Cicero. ]
VI. Cicero believed that he had destroyed an entire party. He was wrong:
he had only foiled a conspiracy, and disencumbered a grand cause of the
rash men who were compromising it. The judicial murder of the
conspirators gave them new life, and one day the tomb of Catiline was
found covered with flowers. [998] Laws may be justly broken when society
is hurrying on to its own ruin, and a desperate remedy is indispensable
for its salvation; and again, when the government, supported by the mass
of the people, becomes the organ of its interests and their hopes. But
when, on the contrary, a nation is divided into factions, and the
government represents only one of them, its duty, if it intends to foil
a plot, is to bind itself to the most exact and scrupulous respect for
the law; for at such a juncture every measure not sanctioned by the
letter of the law appears to be due rather to a selfish feeling of
interest than to a desire for the general weal; and the majority of the
public, indifferent or hostile, is always disposed to pity the accused,
whoever he may be, and to blame the severity with which he was put down.
Cicero was intoxicated with his success. His vanity made him
ridiculous. [999] He thought himself as great as Pompey, and wrote to him
with all the pride of a conqueror. But he received a chilling
answer,[1000] and in a short time saw the accomplishment of Cæsar’s
prophetic words: “If even the greatest criminals are too severely dealt
with, the heinousness of their offence is lost in the severity of their
sentence. ”[1001]
Even before the battle of Pistoja, whilst the pursuit of the adherents
of Catiline was still being prosecuted, public opinion was already
hostile to him who had urged the measure, and Metellus Nepos, sent
recently from Asia by Pompey, openly found fault with Cicero’s conduct.
When the latter, on quitting office, wished to address the people for
the purpose of glorifying his consulship, Metellus, who had been elected
tribune, silenced him with these words: “We will not hear the defence
of the man who refused to hear the defence of accused persons,” and
ordered him to confine himself to the usual oath, that he had in no way
contravened the laws. “I swear,” answered Cicero, “that I have saved the
Republic. ” However loudly this boastful exclamation might be applauded
by Cato and the bystanders, who hail him with Father of his Country,
their enthusiasm will have but a short duration. [1002]
[Sidenote: Cæsar Prætor (692). ]
VII.
