No More Learning

172 CICERO'S SPEECH ON CATILINE'S CONSPIRACY.
CICERO'S SPEECH ON CATILINE'S CONSPIRACY.
[Marcus Tuixrcs Cicero, the greatest of Roman orators and perhaps the second of all time, was born b. c. 106, of the nobility. Trained for the bar, his first important case obliged him to go into exile for fear of the dictator Sulla. Returning after Sulla's death, he became the leader of the bar and high in politi cal life ; rose to be consul, B. C. 63, and gained great credit for suppressing Catiline's conspiracy. Later, he was again exiled for taking sides against the tribune Clodius, and again recalled in a storm of popular enthusiasm. He sided with Pompey against Caesar, but made peace with the latter after Pharsalia. After the murder of Caesar, Cicero sided with Octavius, and thundered against Antony, who on his coalition with Octavius demanded Cicero's life as the price of the junction ; Octavius consented, and Cicero was assassinated by an officer whose life he had once saved at the bar. His orations, his letters saved and pub lished by his freedman Tiro, and his varied disquisitions keep his fame unfail ingly bright. ]
When, O Catiline, do you mean to cease abusing our patience? How long is that madness of yours still to mock us ? When is there to be an end of that unbridled audacity of yours, swaggering about as it does now? Do not the mighty guards placed on the Palatine Hill — do not the watches posted throughout the city — does not the alarm of the people, and the union of all good men — does not the precaution taken of assembling the senate in this most defensible place — do not the looks and countenances of this venerable body here present, have any effect upon you ? Do you not feel that your plans are detected ? Do you not see that your conspiracy is already arrested and rendered powerless by the knowledge which every one here possesses of it? What is there that you did last night, what the night before — where is it that you were — who was there that you summoned to meet you — what design was there which was adopted by you, with which you think that any one of us is unacquainted?
Shame on the age and on its principles ! The senate is aware of these things ; the consul sees them ; and yet this man lives. Lives I ay, he comes even into the senate. He takes a part in the public deliberations ; he is watching and marking down and checking off for slaughter every individual among us. And we, gallant men that we are, think that we are doing our duty to the republic if we keep out of the way of his frenzied attacks.
You ought, O Catiline, long ago to have been led to execu tion by command of the consul. That destruction which you
CICERO'S SPEECH ON CATILINE'S CONSPIRACY. 173
have been long plotting against us ought to have already fallen on your own head.
What ? Did not that most illustrious man, Publius Scipio, the Pontifex Maximus, in his capacity of a private citizen, put to death Tiberius Gracchus, though but slightly undermining the constitution ? And shall we, who are the consuls, tolerate Catiline, openly desirous to destroy the whole world with fire and slaughter? For I pass over older instances, such as how Caius Servilius Ahala with his own hand slew Spurius Maelius when plotting a revolution in the state. There was — there was once such virtue in this republic, that brave men would repress mischievous citizens with severer chastisement than the most bitter enemy. For we have a resolution of the senate, a formidable and authoritative decree against you, O Catiline ; the wisdom of the republic is not at fault, nor the dignity of this senatorial body. We, we alone — I say it openly — we, the consuls, are wanting in our duty.
The senate once passed a decree that Lucius Opimius, the consul, should take care that the republic suffered no injury. Not one night elapsed. There was put to death, on some mere suspicion of disaffection, Caius Gracchus, a man whose family had borne the most unblemished reputation for many genera tions. There was slain Marcus Fulvius, a man of consular rank, and all his children. By a like decree of the senate the safety of the republic was intrusted to Caius Marius and Lucius Valerius, the consuls. Did not the vengeance of the republic, did not execution overtake Lucius Saturninus, a tribune of the people, and Caius Servilius, the pretor, without the delay of one single day? But we, for these twenty days, have been allowing the edge of the senate's authority to grow blunt, as it were. For we are in possession of a similar decree of the sen ate, but we keep it locked up in its parchment — buried, I may say, in the sheath ; and according to this decree you ought, O Catiline, to be put to death this instant. You live — and you live, not to lay aside, but to persist in your audacity.
I wish, O conscript fathers, to be merciful ;
appear negligent amid such danger to the state ; but I do now accuse myself of remissness and culpable inactivity. A camp is pitched in Italy, at the entrance of Etruria, in hostility to the republic ; the number of the enemy increases every day ; and yet the general of that camp, the leader of those enemies, we see within the walls — ay, and even in the senate — plan
I wish not to
174 CICERO'S SPEECH ON CATILINE'S CONSPIRACY.
ning every day some internal injury to the republic. If, O Catiline, I should now order you to be arrested, to be put to death, I should, I suppose, have to fear lest all good men should say that I had acted tardily, rather than that any one should affirm that I acted cruelly. But yet this, which ought to have been done long since, I have good reason for not doing as yet ; I will put you to death, then, when there shall be not one per son possible to be found so wicked, so abandoned, so like your self, as not to allow that it has been rightly done. As long as one person exists who can dare to defend you, you shall live ; but you shall live as you do now, surrounded by my many and trusty guards, so that you shall not be able to stir one finger against the republic : many eyes and ears shall still observe and watch you, as they have hitherto done, though you shall not perceive them.
For what is there, O Catiline, that you can still expect, if night is not able to veil your nefarious meetings in darkness, and if private houses cannot conceal the voice of your conspir acy within their walls — if everything is seen and displayed ? Change your mind : trust me : forget the slaughter and con flagration you are meditating. You are hemmed in on all sides ; all your plans are clearer than the day to us ; let me remind you of them. Do you recollect that on the 21st of October I said in the senate, that on a certain day, which was to be the 27th of October, C. Manlius, the satellite and servant of your audacity, would be in arms? Was I mistaken, Catiline, not only in so important, so atrocious, so incredible a fact, but, what is much more remarkable, in the very day ? I said also in the senate that you had fixed the massacre of the nobles for the 28th of October, when many chief men of the senate had left Rome, not so much for the sake of saving themselves as of checking your designs. Can you deny that on that very day you were so hemmed in by my guards and my vigilance, that you were unable to stir one finger against the republic ; when you said that you would be content with the flight of the rest, and the slaughter of us who remained ? What ? when you made sure that you would be able to seize Praeneste on the first of November by a nocturnal attack, did you not find that that colony was fortified by my order, by my garrison, by my watch fulness and care? You do nothing, you plan nothing, think of nothing which I not only do not hear, but which I do not see and know every particular of.
CICERO'S SPEECH ON CATILINE'S CONSPIRACY. 175
Listen while I speak of the night before. You shall now see that I watch far more actively for the safety than you do for the destruction of the republic. I say that you came the night before (I will say nothing obscurely) into the Scythe- dealers' street, to the house of Marcus Lecca ; that many of your accomplices in the same insanity and wickedness came there too. Do you dare to deny it ? Why are you silent ? I
see here in the senate
O ye immortal Gods, where on earth are we ? in what city are we living ? what constitution is ours ? There are here — here in our body, O conscript fathers, in this the most holy and dignified assembly of the whole world, men who meditate my death, and the death of all of us, and the destruction of this city, and of the whole world. I, the consul, see them ;
them their opinion about the republic, and I do not yet attack, even by words, those who ought to be put to death by the sword. You were, then, O Catiline, at Lecca's that night ; you divided Italy into sections ; you settled where every one was to go ; you fixed whom you were to leave at Rome, whom you were to take with you ; you portioned out the divisions of the city for conflagration ; you undertook that you yourself would at once leave the city, and said that there was then only this to delay you, that I was still alive. Two Roman knights were found to deliver you from this anxiety, and to promise that very night, before daybreak, to slay me in my bed. All this I knew almost before your meeting had broken up. I strength ened and fortified my house with a stronger guard ;
admittance, when they came, to those whom you sent in the morning to salute me, and of whom I had foretold to many eminent men that they would come to me at that time.
As, then, this is the case, O Catiline, continue as you have begun. Leave the city at last : the gates are open ; depart. That Manlian camp of yours has been waiting too long for you as its general. And lead forth with you all your friends, or at least as many as you can ; purge the city of your presence ; you will deliver me from a great fear, when there is a wall between me and you. Among us you can dwell no longer — I will not bear it, I will not permit it, I will not tolerate it. Great thanks are due to the immortal gods, and to this very Jupiter Stator, in whose temple we are, the most ancient protector of this city, that we have already so often escaped so foul, so hor
willprove itifyou do denyit; for I some men who were there with you.
I ask
I refused
176 CICERO'S SPEECH ON CATILINE'S CONSPIRACY.
rible, and so deadly an enemy to the republic. But the safety of the commonwealth must not be too often allowed to be risked on one man. As long as you, O Catiline, plotted against me while I was the consul elect, I defended myself not with a public guard, but by my own private diligence. When, in the next consular comitia, you wished to slay me when I was actually consul, and your competitors also, in the Campus Martius, I checked your nefarious attempt by the assistance and resources of my own friends, without exciting any dis turbance publicly. In short, as often as you attacked me, I by myself opposed you, and that, too, though I saw that my ruin was connected with great disaster to the republic. But now you are openly attacking the entire republic.
You are summoning to destruction and devastation the tem ples of the immortal gods, the houses of the city, the lives of all the citizens ; in short, all Italy. Wherefore, since I do not yet venture to do that which is the best thing, and which be longs to my office and to the discipline of our ancestors, I will do that which is more merciful if we regard its rigor, and more expedient for the state. For if I order you to be put to death, the rest of the conspirators will still remain in the republic ; as have long been exhorting you, you depart, your companions, these worthless dregs of the republic, will be drawn off from the city too. What the matter, Catiline Do you hesitate to do that when order you which you were already doing of your own accord? The consul orders an enemy to depart from the city. Do you ask me, Are you to go into banishment do not order but, you consult me, advise it.
For what there, Catiline, that can now afford you any pleasure in this city for there no one in it, except that band of profligate conspirators of yours, who does not fear you —no one who does not hate you. What brand of domestic baseness not stamped upon your life? What disgraceful circumstance wanting to your infamy in your private affairs From what licentiousness have your eyes, from what atrocity have your hands, from what iniquity has your whole body ever abstained Is there one youth, when you have once entangled him in the temptations of your corruption, to whom you have not held out sword for audacious crime, or torch for licen tious wickedness?
What? when lately by the death of your former wife you
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CICERO'S SPEECH ON CATILINE'S CONSPIRACY. 177
had made your house empty and ready for a new bridal, did you not even add another incredible wickedness to this wicked ness? But I pass that over, and willingly allow it to be buried in silence, that so horrible a crime may not be seen to have existed in this city and not to have been chastised. I pass over the ruin of your fortune, which you know is hanging over
Can the light of this life, O Catiline, can the breath of this atmosphere be pleasant to you, when you know that there is not one man of those here present who is ignorant that you, on the last day of the year, when Lepidus and Tullus were con suls, stood in the assembly armed ; that you had prepared your hand for the slaughter of the consuls and chief men of the state, and that no reason or fear of yours hindered your crime and madness, but the fortune of the republic ? And I say no more of these things, for they are not unknown to every one. How often have you endeavored to slay me, both as consul elect and as actual consul ? how many shots of yours, so aimed that they seemed impossible to be escaped, have I avoided by some slight stooping aside, and some dodging, as it were, of my body ? You attempt nothing, you execute nothing, you devise nothing that can be kept hid from me at the proper time ; and yet you do not cease to attempt and to contrive. How often already has that dagger of yours been wrested from your hands ? how often has it slipped through them by some chance, and dropped down? and yet you cannot any longer do without it ; and to what sacred mysteries it is consecrated and devoted by you I know not, that you think it necessary to plunge it in the body of the consul.
But now, what is that life of yours that you are leading ? For I will speak to you not so as to seem influenced by the hatred I ought to feel, but by pity, nothing of which is due to you. You came a little while ago into the senate : in so numerous an assembly, who of so many friends and connections of yours saluted you? If this in the memory of man never happened to any one else, are you waiting for insults by word of mouth, when you are overwhelmed by the most irresistible condemnation of silence ? Is it nothing that at your arrival all those seats were vacated ? that all the men of consular rank,
TOl. v. — 12
you against the ides of the very next month ;
things which relate not to the infamy of your private vices, not to your domestic difficulties and baseness, but to the welfare of the republic and to the lives and safety of us all.
I come to those
178 CICERO'S SPEECH ON CATILINE'S CONSPIRACY.
who had often been marked out by you for slaughter, the very moment you sat down, left that part of the benches bare and vacant ? With what feelings do you think you ought to bear this ? On my honor, if my slaves feared me as all your fellow- citizens fear you, I should think I must leave my house. Do not you think you should leave the city ? If I saw that I was even undeservedly so suspected and hated by my fellow-citizens, I would rather flee from their sight than be gazed at by the hostile eyes of every one. And do you, who, from the con sciousness of your wickedness, know that the hatred of all men is just and has been long due to you, hesitate to avoid the sight and presence of those men whose minds and senses you offend ? If your parents feared and hated you, and if you could by no means pacify them, you would, I think, depart somewhere out of their sight. Now, your country, which is the common par ent of all of us, hates and fears you, and has no other opinion of you than that you are meditating parricide in her case ; and will you neither feel awe of her authority, nor deference for her judgment, nor fear of her power ?
And she, O Catiline, thus pleads with you, and after a manner silently speaks to you : There has now for many years been no crime committed but by you ; no atrocity has taken place without you ; you alone unpunished and unques tioned have murdered the citizens, have harassed and plundered the allies ; you alone have had power not only to neglect all laws and investigations, but to overthrow and break through them. Your former actions, though they ought not to have been borne, yet I did bear as well as I could ; but now that I should be wholly occupied with fear of you alone, that at every sound I should dread Catiline, that no design should seem possible to be entertained against me which does not proceed from your wickedness, this is no longer endurable. Depart, then, and deliver me from this fear ; that, if it be a just one, I may not be destroyed ; if an imaginary one, that at least I may at last cease to fear.
If, as I have said, your country were thus to address you, ought she not to obtain her request, even if she were not able to enforce it? What shall I say of your having given your self into custody ? what of your having said, for the sake of avoiding suspicion, that you were willing to dwell in the house of Marcus Lepidus ? And when you were not received by him, you dared even to come to me, and begged me to keep you in
CICERO'S SPEECH ON CATILINE'S CONSPIRACY. 179
my house ; and when you had received answer from me that I could not possibly be safe in the same house with you, when I considered myself in great danger as long as we were in the same city, you came to Quintus Metellus, the pretor, and being rejected by him, you passed on to your associate, that most excellent man, Marcus Marcellus, who would be, I suppose you thought, most diligent in guarding you, most sagacious in sus pecting you, and most bold in punishing you ; but how far can we think that man ought to be from bonds and imprisonment who has already judged himself deserving of being given into custody ?
Since, then, this is the case, do you hesitate, O Catiline, if you cannot remain here with tranquillity, to depart to some distant land, and to trust your life, saved from just and de served punishment, to flight and solitude ? Make a motion, say you, to the senate (for that is what you demand), and if this body votes that you ought to go into banishment, you say that you will obey. I will not make such a motion, — it is contrary to my principles, — and yet I will let you see what these men think of you. Begone from the city, O Catiline, deliver the republic from fear ; depart into banishment, if that is the word you are waiting for. What now, O Catiline ? Do you not perceive, do you not see the silence of these men ? they permit it, they say nothing ; why wait you for the au thority of their words, when you see their wishes in their silence ?
But had I said the same to this excellent young man, Publius Sextius, or to that brave man, Marcus Marcellus, before this time the senate would deservedly have laid violent hands on me, consul though I be, in this very temple. But as to you, Catiline, while they are quiet they approve, while
they permit me to speak they vote, while they are silent they are loud and eloquent. And not they alone, whose authority forsooth is dear to you, though their lives are unimportant, but the Roman knights too, those most honorable and excellent men, and the other virtuous citizens who are now surrounding the senate, whose numbers you could see, whose desires you could know, and whose voices you a few minutes ago could hear — ay, whose very hands and weapons I have for some time been scarcely able to keep off from you ; but those, too, I will easily bring to attend you to the gates if you leave these places you have been long desiring to lay waste.
■
180 CICERO'S SPEECH ON CATILINE'S CONSPIRACY.
And yet, why am I speaking ? that anything may change your purpose ? that you may ever amend your life ? that you may meditate flight or think of voluntary banishment ? I wish the gods may give you such a mind ; though I see, if alarmed at my words you bring your mind to go into banishment, what a storm of unpopularity hangs over me, if not at present, while the memory of your wickedness is fresh, at all events hereafter. But it is worth while to incur that, as long as that is but a private misfortune of my own, and is unconnected with the dangers of the republic. But we cannot expect that you should be concerned at your own vices, that you should fear the penalties of the laws, or that you should yield to the neces sities of the republic, for you are not, O Catiline, one whom either shame can recall from infamy, or fear from danger, or reason from madness.
Wherefore, as I have said before, go forth, and if you wish to make me, your enemy as you call me, unpopular, go straight into banishment. I shall scarcely be able to endure all that will be said if you do so ;
my load of unpopularity if you do go into banishment at the command of the consul ; but if you wish to serve my credit and reputation, go forth with your ill-omened band of profligates ; betake yourself to Manlius, rouse up the abandoned citizens, separate yourself from the good ones, wage war against your country, exult in your impious banditti, so that you may not seem to have been driven out by me and gone to strangers, but to have gone invited to your own friends.
I shall scarcely be able to support
Though why should I invite you, by whom I know men have been already sent on to wait in arms for you at the forum Aurelium ; who I know has fixed and agreed with Manlius upon a settled day ; by whom I know that that silver eagle, which I trust will be ruinous and fatal to you and to all your friends, and to which there was set up in your house a shrine as it were of your crimes, has been already sent forward ? Need I fear that you can long do without that which you used to worship when going out to murder, and from whose altars you have often transferred your impious hand to the slaughter of citizens ?
You will go at last where your unbridled and mad desire has been long hurrying you. And this causes you no grief, but an incredible pleasure. Nature has formed you, desire has trained you, fortune has preserved you for this insanity. Not
CICERO'S SPEECH ON CATILINE'S CONSPIRACY. 181
only did you never desire quiet, but you never even desired any war but a criminal one ; you have collected a band of profligates and worthless men, abandoned not only by all for tune but even by hope.
Then what happiness will you enjoy ! with what delight will you exult ! in what pleasure will you revel ! when in so numerous a body of friends, you neither hear nor see one good man. All the toils you have gone through have always pointed to this sort of life ; your lying on the ground not merely to lie in wait to gratify your unclean desires, but even to accom plish crimes ; your vigilance, not only when plotting against the sleep of husbands, but also against the goods of your mur dered victims, have all been preparations for this. Now you have an opportunity of displaying your splendid endurance of hunger, of cold, of want of everything ; by which in a short time you will find yourself worn out. All this I effected when I procured your rejection from the consulship, that you should be reduced to make attempts on your country as an exile, in stead of being able to distress it as consul, and that that which
had been wickedly undertaken by you should be called piracy rather than war.
Now that I may remove and avert, O conscript fathers, any in the least reasonable complaint from myself, listen, I beseech you, carefully to what I say, and lay it up in your inmost hearts and minds. In truth, if my country, which is far dearer to me than my life"— if all Italy — if the whole republic were to address me, Marcus Tullius, what are you doing ? will you permit that man to depart whom you have ascertained to be an enemy ? whom you see ready to become the general of the war ? whom you know to be expected in the camp of the enemy as their chief, the author of all this wickedness, the head of the conspiracy, the instigator of the slaves and abandoned citizens, so that he shall seem not driven out of the city by you, but let loose by you against the city ? Will you not order him
to be thrown into prison, to be hurried off to execution, to be put to death with the most prompt severity? What hinders you ? Is it the customs of our ancestors ? But even private men have often in this republic slain mischievous citizens. Is it the laws which have been passed about the punishment of Roman citizens? But in this city those who have rebelled against the republic have never had the rights of citizens. Do you fear odium with posterity ? You are showing fine grati
182 CICERO'S SPEECH ON CATILINE'S CONSPIRACY.
tude to the Roman people which has raised you, a man known only by your own actions, of no ancestral renown, through all the degrees of honor at so early an age to the very highest office, if from fear of unpopularity or of any danger you neglect the safety of your fellow-citizens. But if you have a fear of unpopularity, is that arising from the imputation of vigor and boldness, or that arising from that of inactivity and indecision most to be feared? When Italy is laid waste by war, when cities are attacked and houses in flames, do you not think that you will be then consumed by a perfect conflagration of hatred? "
To this holy address of the republic, and to the feelings of those men who entertain the same opinion, I will make this short answer : If, O conscript fathers, I thought it best that Catiline should be punished with death, I would not have given the space of one hour to this gladiator to live in. If, forsooth, those excellent men and most illustrious cities not only did not pollute themselves, but even glorified themselves by the blood of Saturninus, and the Gracchi, and Flaccus, and many others of old time, surely I had no cause to fear lest for slaying this parricidal murderer of the citizens any unpopular ity should accrue to me with posterity. And if it did threaten me to ever so great a degree, yet I have always been of the disposition to think unpopularity earned by virtue and glory, not unpopularity.
Though there are some men in this body who either do not see what threatens, or dissemble what they do see ; who have fed the hope of Catiline by mild sentiments, and have strength ened the rising conspiracy by not believing it ; influenced by whose authority many, and they not wicked, but only igno rant, if I punished him would say that I had acted cruelly and tyrannically. But I know that if he arrives at the camp of Manlius, to which he is going, there will be no one so stupid as not to see that there has been a conspiracy, no one so hard ened as not to confess it. But if this man alone were put to death, I know that this disease of the republic would be only checked for a while, not eradicated forever. But if he ban ishes himself, and takes with him all his friends, and collects at one point all the ruined men from every quarter, then not only will this full-grown plague of the republic be extinguished and eradicated, but also the root and seed of all future evils.
We have now for a long time, O conscript fathers, lived
CICERO'S SPEECH ON CATILINE'S CONSPIRACY. 188
among these dangers and machinations of conspiracy ; but somehow or other, the ripeness of all wickedness, and of this long-standing madness and audacity, has come to a head at the time of my consulship. But if this man alone is removed from this piratical crew, we may appear, perhaps, for a short time relieved from fear and anxiety, but the danger will settle down and lie hid in the veins and bowels of the republic.
As it often happens that men afflicted with a severe disease, when they are tortured with heat and fever, if they drink cold water, seem at first to be relieved, but afterward suffer more and more severely ; so this disease which is in the republic, if relieved by the pun ishment of this man, will only get worse and worse, as the rest will be still alive.
Wherefore, O conscript fathers, let the worthless begone — let them separate themselves from the good — let them collect in one place — let them, as I have often said before, be separated from us by a wall ; let them cease to plot against the consul in his own house — to surround the tribunal of the city pretor — to besiege the senate house with swords — to prepare brands and torches to burn the city ; let it, in short, be written on the brow of every citizen, what are his sentiments about the repub lic. I promise you this, O conscript fathers, that there shall be so much diligence in us the consuls, so much authority in you, so much virtue in the Roman knights, so much unanimity in all good men, that you shall see everything made plain and manifest by the departure of Catiline — everything checked and punished.
With these omens, O Catiline, begone to your impious and nefarious war, to the great safety of the republic, to your own misfortune and injury, and to the destruction of those who have joined themselves to you in every wickedness and atrocity. Then do you, O Jupiter, who were consecrated by Romulus with the same auspices as this city, whom we rightly call the stay of this city and empire, repel this man and his companions from your altars and from the other temples — from the houses and walls of the city — from the lives and fortunes of all the citizens ; and overwhelm all the enemies of good men, the foes of the republic, the robbers of Italy, men bound together by a treaty and infamous alliance of crimes, dead and alive, with eternal punishments.
184
THE DYING GLADIATOR.
THE DYING GLADIATOR. By LORD BYRON.
The seal is set. — Now welcome, thou dread power ! Nameless, yet this omnipotent, which here
Walk'st in the shadow of the midnight hour With a deep awe, yet all distinct from fear ; Thy haunts are ever where the dead walls rear
Their ivy mantles, and the solemn scene Derives from thee a sense so deep and clear
That we become a part of what has been, And grow unto the spot, all-seeing but unseen.
And here the buzz of eager nations ran,
In murmured pity or loud-roared applause,
As man was slaughtered by his fellow-man.
And wherefore slaughtered ? wherefore, but because Such were the bloody Circus' genial laws,
And the imperial pleasure. — Wherefore not ? What matters where we fall to fill the maws
Of worms — on battle plains or listed spot ? Both are but theaters where the chief actors rot.
I see before me the Gladiator lie :
He leans upon his hand ; his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony,
And his drooped head sinks gradually low ;
And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,
Like the first of a thunder-shower, — and now
The arena swims around him — he is gone,
Ere ceased the inhuman shout that hailed the wretch who
He heard but he heeded not — his eyes Were with his heart, and that was far away
He recked not of the life he lost, nor prize, But where his rude hut by the Danube lay, There were his young barbarians all at play,
There was their Dacian mother he, their sire, Butchered to make a Roman holiday
All this gushed with his blood. — Shall he expire, And unavenged Arise, ye Goths, and glut your ire
?
!
;
;
;
it,
CJESAR'S FIRST INVASION OF BRITAIN. 185
CESAR'S FIRST INVASION OF BRITAIN.
(The " Commentaries. ")
[Caius Julius Cesak, founder of the Roman monarchy, was born b. c. 100 and murdered b. c. 44. He was of an important family; engaged in politics with a profligacy and unscrupulousness equal to those of any other politician of his time, but with more humanity and generosity than most, and more sagacity and executive ability than any others ; became a great military leader, and on his rival Fompey inducing the senate to remove him from the command, refused obedience, invaded Italy, overthrew the Republic, and made himself dictator (b. c. 49). After crushing all resistance, he was made perpetual dictator early in b. c 44, — king in all but name ; this aroused the friends of popular freedom to take his life, which was done in March of the same year. His literary repute rests on his " Commentaries," a report of his campaigns in Gaul, Germany, and
Britain. ]
Though but a small part of the summer now remained, Caesar resolved to pass over into Britain, having certain intelligence that in all his wars with the Gauls the enemies of the Common wealth had ever received assistance from thence. . . .
Meanwhile the Britons having notice of his design by the merchants that resorted to their island, ambassadors from many of their states came to Caesar, with an offer of hostages, and submission to the authority of the people of Rome. To these he gave a favorable audience, and, exhorting them to continue in the same mind, sent them back into their own country. Along with them he dispatched Comius, whom he had consti tuted king of the Atrebatians — a man in whose virtue, wisdom, and fidelity he greatly confided, and whose authority in the island was very considerable. To him he gave it in charge to visit as many states as he could, and persuade them to enter into an alliance with the Romans, letting them know at the same time that Caesar designed as soon as possible to come over in person to their island.
Having got together about eighty transports, which he thought would be sufficient for the carrying over two legions, he distributed the galleys he had over and above to the questor, lieutenants, and officers of the cavalry. There were, in addi tion, eighteen transports detained by contrary winds at a port about eight miles off, which he appointed to carry over the cavalry.
Things being in this manner settled, and the winds springing up fair, he weighed anchor about one in the morning, ordering
186 CESAR'S FIRST INVASION OF BRITAIN.
the cavalry to embark at the other port and follow him. But, as these orders were executed but slowly, he himself about ten in the morning reached the coast of Britain, where he saw all the cliffs covered with the enemy's forces. The nature of the place was such that, the sea being bounded by steep mountains, the enemy might easily launch their javelins on us from above. Not thinking this, therefore, a convenient landing place, he resolved to lie by till three in the afternoon, and wait the arrival of the rest of his fleet. Meanwhile, having called the lieutenants and military tribunes together, he informed them of what he had learned from Volusenus, instructed them in the part they were to act, and particularly exhorted them to do everything with readiness, and at a signal given, agreeable to the rules of military discipline, which in sea affairs especially required expedition and dispatch, because of all others the most changeable and uncertain. Having dismissed them, and finding both the wind and tide favorable, he made the signal for weigh ing anchor, and after sailing about eight miles further, stopped over against a plain and open shore.
But the barbarians, perceiving our design, sent their cavalry and chariots before, which they frequently make use of in battle, and, following with the rest of their forces, endeavored to oppose our landing. And indeed we found the difficulty very great on many accounts ; for our ships, being large, required a great depth of water ; and the soldiers, who were wholly unac quainted with the places, and had their hands embarrassed and laden with a weight of armor, were at the same time to leap from the ships, stand breast-high amidst the waves, and en counter the enemy, while they, fighting on dry ground, or advancing only a little way into the water, having the free use of all their limbs, and in places which they perfectly knew, could boldly cast their darts and spur on their horses, well inured to that kind of service. All these circumstances serving to spread a terror among our men, who were wholly strangers to this way of fighting, they pushed not the enemy with the same vigor and spirit as was usual for them in combats on dry ground.
Caesar, observing this, ordered some galleys — a kind of shipping less common with the barbarians, and more easily governed and put in motion — to advance a little from the transports towards the shore, in order to set on the enemy in flank, and, by means of their engines, slings, and arrows, drive
CiESAR'S FIRST INVASION OF BRITAIN. 187
them to some distance. This proved of considerable service to our men, for, what with the surprise occasioned by the make of our galleys, the motion of the oars, and the playing of the engines, the enemy were forced to halt, and in a little time began to give back. But our men still demurring to leap into the sea, chiefly because of the depth of the water in those parts, the standard bearer of the tenth legion, having first invoked the gods for success, cried out aloud : " Follow me, fellow-soldiers, unless you will betray the Roman eagle into the hands of the enemy : for my part, I am resolved to discharge my duty to Caesar and the Commonwealth. " On this he jumped into the sea, and advanced with the eagle against the enemy ; whereat, our men exhorting one another to prevent so signal a disgrace, all that were in the ship followed him ; which being perceived by those in the nearest vessels, they also did the like, and boldly approached the enemy.
The battle was obstinate on both sides; but our men, as being neither able to keep their ranks, nor get firm footing, nor follow their respective standards, —because, leaping pro miscuously from their ships, every one joined the first ensign he met, — were thereby thrown into great confusion. The enemy, on the other hand, being well acquainted with the shal lows, when they saw our men advancing singly from the ships, spurred on their horses, and attacked them in that perplexity. In one place great numbers would gather round a handful of the Romans ; others, falling on them in flank, galled them mightily with their darts, which Caesar observing, ordered some small boats to be manned, and ply about with recruits. By this means the foremost ranks of our men, having got firm footing, were followed by all the rest, when, falling on the enemy briskly, they were soon put to the rout. But, as the cavalry were not yet arrived, we could not pursue or advance far into the island, which was the only thing wanting to render the vic tory complete.
The enemy, being thus vanquished in battle, no sooner got together after their defeat than they dispatched ambassadors to Caesar to sue for peace, offering hostages, and an entire sub mission to his commands. Along with these ambassadors came Comius, the Atrebatian, whom Caesar, as we have related above, had sent before him into Britain. The natives seized him as soon as he landed, and, though he was charged with a commis sion from Caesar, threw him into irons. But on their late
188 CESAR'S FIRST INVASION OF BRITAIN.
defeat they thought proper to send him back, throwing the blame of what had happened on the multitude, and begged of Caesar to excuse a fault proceeding from ignorance. Caesar, after some complaints of their behavior, in that, having of their own accord sent ambassadors to the continent to sue for peace, they had yet without any reason begun a war against him, told them at last he would forgive their fault, and ordered them to send a certain number of hostages. Part were sent immediately, and the rest, as living at some distance, they promised to deliver in a few days. Meantime they dis banded their troops, and the several chiefs came to Caesar's camp, to manage their own concerns and those of the states to which they belonged.
A peace being thus concluded four days after Caesar's arri val in Britain, the eighteen transports appointed to carry the cavalry, of whom we have spoken above, put to sea with a gentle gale. But when they had so near approached the coast as to be even within view of the camp, so violent a storm all on a sudden arose, that, being unable to hold on their course, some were obliged to return to the port whence they set out, and others driven to the lower end of the island, westward, not without great danger. There they cast anchor ; but, the waves rising very high, so as to fill the ships with water, they were again in the night obliged to stand out to sea, and make for the continent of Gaul. That very night it happened to be full moon, when the tides on the seacoast always rise highest — a thing at that time wholly unknown to the Romans. Thus at one and the same time the galleys which Caesar made use of to transport his men, and which he had ordered to be drawn up on the strand, were filled with the tide, and the tempest fell furiously on the transports that lay at anchor in the road ; nor was it possible for our men to attempt anything for their preservation. Many of the ships being dashed to pieces, and the rest having lost their anchors, tackle, and rigging, which rendered them altogether unfit for sailing, a general consterna tion spread itself through the camp ; for there were no other ships to carry back the troops, nor any materials to repair those that had been disabled by the tempest. And, as it had been all along Caesar's design to winter in Gaul, he was wholly with out corn to subsist the troops in those parts.
All this being known to the British chiefs who after the battle had repaired to Caesar's camp, to perform the conditions
CESAR'S FIRST INVASION OF BRITAIN. 189
of the treaty, they began to hold conferences among them selves ; and as they plainly saw that the Romans were destitute both of cavalry, shipping, and corn, and easily judged, from the smallness of the camp, that the number of their troops was but inconsiderable — in which notion they were the more con firmed because Caesar, having brought over the legions without baggage, had occasion to inclose but a small spot of ground — they thought this a convenient opportunity for taking up arms, and, by intercepting the Roman convoys, to protract the affair till winter ; being confidently persuaded that by defeating these troops, or cutting off their return, they should effectually put a stop to all future attempts on Britain. Having therefore entered into a joint confederacy, they by degrees left the camp, and began to draw the islanders together ; but Caesar, though he was not yet apprised of their design, yet guessing in part at their intentions, by the disaster which had befallen his fleet, and the delays formed in relation to the hostages, determined to provide against all events. He therefore had corn daily brought into his camp, and ordered the timber of the ships
that had been most damaged to be made use of in repairing the rest, sending to Gaul for what other materials he wanted. As the soldiers were indefatigable in their service, his fleet was soon in a condition to sail, having lost only twelve ships.
During these transactions, the seventh legion being sent out to forage, according to custom, as part were employed in cut ting down the corn, and part in carrying it to the camp, with out suspicion of attack, news was brought to Caesar that a greater cloud of dust than ordinary was seen on that side where the legion was. Caesar, suspecting how matters went, marched with the cohorts that were on guard, ordering two others to succeed in their room, and all the soldiers in the camp to arm and follow him as soon as possible. When he was advanced a little way from the camp, he saw his men over powered by the enemy, and with great difficulty able to sustain the fight, being driven into a small compass, and exposed on every side to the darts of their adversaries. For, as the harvest was gathered in everywhere else, and one only field left, the enemy, suspecting that our men would come thither to forage, had hid themselves during the night in the woods, and waiting till our men had quitted their arms, and dispersed themselves to fall a reaping, they suddenly attacked them, killed some, put
190 CESAR'S FIRST INVASION OP BRITAIN.
the rest into disorder, and began to surround them with their horses and chariots.
Their way of fighting with their chariots is this : First they drive their chariots on all sides, and throw their darts, inso much that, by the very terror of the horses and noise of the wheels, they often break the ranks of the enemy. When they have forced their way into the midst of the cavalry, they quit their chariots, and fight on foot : meantime the drivers retire a little from the combat, and place themselves in such a manner as to favor the retreat of their countrymen, should they be overpowered by the enemy. Thus in action they perform the part both of nimble horsemen and stable infantry ; and by con tinual exercise and use have arrived at that expertness, that in the most steep and difficult places they can stop their horses on a full stretch, turn them which way they please, run along the pole, rest on the harness, and throw themselves back into their chariots with incredible dexterity.
Our men being astonished and confounded with this new way of fighting, Caesar came very timely to their relief ; for on his approach the enemy made a stand, and the Romans began to recover from their fear. This satisfied Caesar for the present, who, not thinking it a proper season to provoke the enemy and bring on a general engagement, stood facing them for some time, and then led back the legions to the camp. The con tinual rains that followed for some days after, both kept the Romans within their intrenchments, and withheld the enemy from attacking us. Meantime the Britons dispatched mes sengers into all parts, to make known to their countrymen the small number of the Roman troops, and the favorable oppor tunity they had of making immense spoils, and freeing their country forever from all future invasions, by storming the enemy's camp. Having by this means got together a great body of infantry and cavalry, they drew towards our intrench ments.
Caesar, though he foresaw that the enemy, if beaten, would in the same manner as before escape the danger by flight, yet, having got about thirty horse, whom Comius, the Atrebatian, had brought over with him from Gaul, he drew up the legions in order of battle before the camp, and falling on the Britons, who were not able to sustain the shock of our men, soon put them to flight. The Romans, pursuing them as long as their strength would permit, made a terrible slaughter, and, setting
BOADICEA.
^191 fire to their houses and villages a great way round, returned to
the camp.
The same day ambassadors came from the enemy to Caesar,
to sue for peace. Caesar doubled the number of hostages he had before imposed on them, and ordered them to be sent over to him into Gaul, because, the equinox coming on, and his ships being leaky, he thought it not prudent to put off his return till winter. A fair wind offering, he set sail a little after midnight, and arrived safe in Gaul. Two of his transports, not being able to reach the same port with the rest, were driven into a haven a little lower in the country.
Only two of the British states sent hostages into Gaul, the rest neglecting to perform the conditions of the treaty. For these successes a thanksgiving of twenty days was decreed by the Senate.
BOADICEA.
By WILLIAM COW PER.
[William Cowpkr, English poet and letter-writer, was born in 1731 and died in 1800. Always acutely sensitive and physically delicate, ill-treatment by "fagging" at school aggravated this into later insanity, from attacks of which he suffered all his life ; he could not undergo the strain of the most quiet methods of earning a living, and subsisted on the charity of relatives, and at last on a pension. His best known works are hymns, "The Task," "John Gilpin's Ride," other small poems, a translation of Homer, and a collection of charming letters. ]
When the British warrior queen, Bleeding from the Roman rods,
Sought with an indignant mien Counsel of her country's gods,
Sage beneath the spreading oak Sat the Druid, hoary chief : Every burning word he spoke
Full of rage and full of grief.
" Princess ! if our aged eyes
Weep upon thy matchless wrongs,
'Tis because resentment ties
All the terrors of our tongues.
BOADICEA.
" Rome shall perish — write the word In the blood that she has spilt;
Perish, hopeless and abhorred, Deep in ruin as in guilt.
" Rome, for empire far renowned, Tramples on a thousand states ;
Soon her pride shall kiss the ground — Hark ! the Gaul is at her gates !
" Other Romans shall arise, Heedless of a soldier's name,
Sounds, not arms, shall win the prize, Harmony the path to fame.
" Then the progeny that springs From the forests of our land,
Armed with thunder, clad with wings, Shall a wider world command.
" Regions Caesar never knew Thy posterity shall sway ; Where his eagles never flew,
None invincible as they. "
Such the bard's prophetic words, Pregnant with celestial fire, Bending as he swept the chords Of his sweet but awful lyre.
She, with all a monarch's pride, Felt them in her bosom glow ;
Rushed to battle, fought, and died ; Dying, hurled them at the foe.
" Ruffians, pitiless as proud,
Heaven awards the vengeance due :
Empire is on us bestowed, Shame and ruin wait on you. "
CORRESPONDENCE OF CICERO. 193
CORRESPONDENCE OF CICERO.
(Translation of G. E. Jeans. )
From Quintus Metellus Celer in Cisalpine Gaul to Cicero at Rome, early in b. c. 62.
[It was usual for a consul to address the people from the rostra on laying down his office. But on Cicero's proposing to do so, one of the new tribunes, Quintus Metellus Nepos, the agent of Pompeius, interposed his veto on the ground that he "had put Roman citizens to death without trial. " Cicero retorted with an oration entitled " Metellina. " This produced the following letter from the brother of Nepos, acting proconsul in Cisalpine Gaul. ]
I trust this will find you in health.
I had certainly supposed that mutual regard, as well as our reconciliation, would have secured me from being attacked and ridiculed in my absence, and my brother Metellus from being persecuted by you in respect of his rights and property, for a mere word. Even if he found but little protection in the respect due to him, yet surely the exalted rank of our family, or my own services to your order and to the state, might have proved an adequate defence. I see now that he has been en trapped, and I have been neglected by the very men in whom such conduct was least becoming. The result is that I, the governor of a province, the general of an army, nay, actually engaged in the conduct of a war, am wearing the garb of sorrow. But since you have thus deliberately acted in defiance alike of all reason and of the courtesy of former times, you must not be surprised if you have cause to rue it. I used to hope that you were not so lightly attached to me and mine ; still, for my part, neither the slight to our family nor the injuries any one may inflict upon me shall ever alienate me from the patriotic cause.
Cicero's Reply to the Preceding.
Allow me to express my good wishes for the prosperity of yourself and your army.
Your letter to me says you had supposed that mutual regard and our reconciliation would have secured you from attack and ridicule on my part. Now what may be the meaning of this, I
fail to see quite clearly. I suspect, however, that some one may vOl. v. — 13
194 CORRESPONDENCE OF CICERO.
have informed you how I, when insisting in the Senate that a considerable party still felt some bitterness at my having been the instrument of saving the country, stated that you had con sented, at the request of some relations whom you could not well refuse, to suppress the encomiums you had intended to honor me with in the Senate. In saying this, however, I added that you and I had shared the duty of saving the consti tution ; for while my part was to defend the capital from intrigues at home and intestine treason, yours was to guard Italy from open attack and secret conspiracy; but that this alliance of ours for so great and glorious a work had been strained by your relations, who, though I had been the means of procuring you a most important and distinguished charge, were afraid of allowing you to pay me any portion of regard in return. As these words of mine showed how much I had looked forward to what you would say, and how entirely I was disappointed, my argument seemed to excite a little amusement, and was followed by a certain amount of laughter, not at you, but rather at my own disappointment, and because I was acknowledging so naively and openly that I had eagerly looked forward to being eulogized by you. And surely what I said cannot but be considered complimentary to you if even in the fullest splendor of my renown and achievements I still longed to have some confirmation of this from your own lips.
And as to your reference to our "mutual regard," I know not what you consider reciprocity in friendship. To me it seems to mean that friendly feeling is as freely rendered as it is expected. In my own case, if I affirm that for your sake I have allowed my claim to your province to be passed over, I shall perhaps seem to you to be trifling with words ; for self- interest really brought about this resolution, and every day I reap therefrom additional fruit and satisfaction. What I do affirm is this — that from the moment I had declined the province in public, I began to cast about how I could best throw it into your hands. As to the balloting between you
I merely wish to
and the others I say nothing :
mise that nothing whatever which my colleague did therein was without my full cognizance. Look at what followed ; at the promptness with which I convoked the Senate that very day when the balloting was over, and the ample terms I must have used in your favor when you yourself told me that my speech not only paid a high compliment to you, but was very
suggest
a sur
CORRESPONDENCE OF CICERO. 195
disparaging to your colleagues. Nay, the very decree of the Senate passed that day is couched in such terms that as long as it remains extant my services to you cannot possibly be ignored. Then, again, I must beg you to recollect how after your depar ture I spoke about you in the Senate, how I addressed public meetings and how I corresponded with you ; and when you have taken all these things into account, then I must ask you to judge for yourself whether you can fairly say that your late demonstration of coming to Rome was meeting me in a " mutual " spirit. " "
With reference to what you say about a reconciliation between us, I do not understand why you should speak of reconciliation where there has never been an interruption of friendship. As to your brother Metellus not deserving, as you say, to be exposed to attacks from me and all for a single word, I must ask you first of all to believe that I strongly sympathize with your motives in this, and the kindly feeling shown in your brotherly affection, but then to pardon me if for my country's good I have ever opposed your brother; for in patriotism I yield not even to the most ardent of mankind. Nay more, if it prove that I have but been defending my own position against a cruelly unjust attack he himself made upon me, you may well be satisfied that I do not make a personal complaint to you of your brother's injustice to me. For when I had ascertained that he was deliberately aiming a blow delivered with the whole weight of his position as tribune in order to crush me, I applied to your wife Claudia [sister of the notorious Clodius] and your sister Mucia, whose liking for me, owing to my intimacy with Pompeius, I had often tested, to deter him
I know you must have heard, on the last day of the year he put upon me — the consul who had saved the Republic — an insult
from the wrong he proposed doing me. In spite of this, as
which the vilest citizen in the most beggarly office was never yet exposed to ; actually debarring me when laying down my
office from the privilege of a farewell address. Yet this insult of his resulted in a signal honor to myself; for as he would make no concession except that I might take the oath, I pro nounced aloud the truest and noblest of oaths, and as loudly the people in answer solemnly attested that I had sworn this truly.
Yet though I had received this signal affront, on that very day I sent an amicable message to Metellus by our common
196 CORRESPONDENCE OF CICERO.
friends to entreat him to reconsider his attitude toward me. His answer to them was that this was no longer open to him, for that not long before he had publicly expressed his opinion that a man who had punished others unheard ought himself to be debarred the privilege of being heard in his turn. How dignified I how patriotic! A punishment inflicted by the Senate, with the approval of every respectable citizen, on those who would have burned Rome, murdered her magistrates and Senate, and fanned the flames of a widespreading war, he would now inflict on one to whom it was granted to deliver the Senate from murder, the capital from fire, and Italy from civil war.
And so I withstood your brother to his face, for having to answer him in the Senate on the 1st of January about the political situation, I took care to let him know that he would find in me a most resolute and determined opponent. Upon the 3d of January, when he opened the debate upon his pro posal, about one word out of three in his speech was aimed at me or contained a threat against me. Nothing could possibly be more deliberate than his attempt to effect my ruin by any means whatever, and that not by legal trial or argument, but by a violent and bullying attack. Had I not brought spirit and determination to meet his reckless onslaught, who could fail to believe that the resolution displayed in my consulship was due not to deliberation but to chance ?
If you have not hitherto been aware that such was Metellus's attitude toward me, you have a right to think that your brother has suppressed some of the most material circumstances from you ; while, if he has taken you into his counsels at all, I have a right to be credited with having shown great modera tion of temper for not remonstrating with you about this very incident. And if you see now that I was driven into resent ment, not by a word from Metellus, as you represent it, but by his deliberate and bitter animosity against myself, let me point out to you my forbearance, if indifference and laxity about resenting so malicious an attack deserves the name of forbearance. Never once did I speak for any motion attacking your brother in the Senate at all : whenever attention was called to his conduct I supported without rising those who seemed most moderate in their proposals. I will add this too, that though after what had passed I had no reason to take any trouble about the matter, I regarded without disfavor, and indeed supported to the best of my humble ability, the proposal
CORRESPONDENCE OF CICERO. 197
for granting a bill of indemnity to my assailant, on the ground that he was your brother. "
Thus you see that what I have done was not to " attack your brother, but to repel your brother's attacks. Nor has my attachment to yourself been light as you say ; on the contrary, it has been so strong that my friendship for you remains as ever, though I have had to submit to the loss of your attentions. Even at this very moment, all that I have to say in answer to your (I might almost call it) threatening
I for my own part not only make allowance for
letter is this :
your indignation, but applaud it highly, for my own feelings teach me to remember how strong is the influence of brotherly ties. From you I claim a similar candor in judging of my sense of wrong. If I have been bitterly, cruelly, and un reasonably attacked by one who is dear to you, I claim the admission not only that I was in the right to maintain my position, but that I might have called on you — yes, and your army too — to have aided me in so doing. I have ever been
I have now striven hard to convince you that I have been a true friend to you. To those sentiments I still adhere, and so long as you permit me will continue to retain them. I would far rather forget my resentment against your brother from love for you, than permit that resentment in the smallest degree to impair our
desirous of calling you my friend ;
good will to each other.
From Cicero at Dyrrachtum (or Thessalonica) to his Wife Terentia at Rome, Nov. 25, b. c. 58.
I send this with love, my dearest Terentia, hoping that you, and my little Tullia, and my Marcus, are all well.
From the letters of several people and the talk of everybody I hear that your courage and endurance are simply wonderful, and that no troubles of body or mind can exhaust your energy. How unhappy I am to think that with all your courage and devotion, your virtues and gentleness, you should have fallen into such misfortunes for me ! And my sweet Tullia too, — that she who was once so proud of her father should have to undergo such troubles owing to him ! And what shall I say about my boy Marcus, who ever since his faculties of percep tion awoke has felt the sharpest pangs of sorrow and misery ? Now could I but think, as you tell me, that all this comes in
198 CORRESPONDENCE OF CICERO.