The Classical World

by Robin Lane Fox

  Basking in his success nonetheless, Cicero circulated the details of his interventions in prose and in verse, in Greek and in Latin. But his moment of triumph was immediately darkened by his treatment of citizens under arrest: he had allowed the principle of 'liberty' to be infringed. Enemies attacked him as a 'tyrant', activating profound beliefs about justice and legality in the Republic. We can watch, through Cicero's letters, how the glory of his own inflation was brusquely brought down. Early in 62 he wrote to the absent Pompey, setting himself up as the great man's equal, the future adviser at his side. Pompey did not even answer.8 In 63 Cicero had antagonized the powerful Crassus (arguably, the enmity went deep) and had also crossed the preferred path of a major rising star, young Julius Caesar. In late 62. he added the enmity of the forceful Clodius, not least by denying an alibi which Clodius wanted to plead to save himself in a scandalous cause celebre at Rome. Having used Cicero, the nobles then stood apart from their embarrassing 'new man'. The consulship had given Cicero a seniority in the Senate, but his constant praising of his own achievements and the mess with which he became identified removed him from the centre stage.

  Of the four keys to political success at Rome, Cicero had only one: he was a superb orator, but his military capacity was minimal, his finances insufficient, and his connections with noble friends and family non-existent. Nonetheless, he looked socially upwards, hoping to be taken 'up' rather than constructing a circle of similar new men and helping them to rise with him. In late 60, as new groupings formed, we can read him actually believing that Julius Caesar would be looking to him, Cicero, to reconcile great Pompey with Crassus and to help events to go more smoothly. Indeed, Julius Caesar liked Cicero: he liked his wit and his literary talent and valued his skill as a speaker. But politically he never kept him on the inside track. Pompey, too, recognized how Cicero had helped him earlier in the 60s, but the two of them were never serious friends. Crassus, basically, detested him.

  For the next year, 59, these three big men agreed an ungentlemanly deal whereby they would advance each other's political needs. Cicero emerges from his letters as gloriously slow to realize the existence of this deal,9 and, when he eventually speaks out against the three of them in fury, within hours the threat of his enemy Clodius is loosed by them against him. Neither Caesar nor Pompey would intervene to save him. In March 58 he preferred to leave Rome for a voluntary exile rather than wait for Clodius, now tribune, to prosecute him. He wandered away from the Rome which was his life-blood, reduced to absolute misery and the possibility of suicide. In Rome, with program­matic irony, Cicero's enemy Clodius promptly demolished Cicero's proudly acquired house on the Palatine and consecrated its site as a temple to Liberty. The 'Liberty' was the people's 'freedom from' harassment, infringed by Cicero's presiding over citizens' executions in December 63.

  By September 57 Cicero was back again, as Clodius' star waned and Pompey, especially, regained his nerve and realized Cicero's potential uses as an orator (Pompey was a poor speaker). But return came at a price: Cicero had promptly to speak up for Pompey's interests and once again, in 56, he was completely deceived about the three big men's intentions. He was left unaware of the renewal of their 'gentlemen's agreement' until it had happened. As a result, his ignorant stirrings of independence were quickly silenced by them yet again and he found himself obliged to co-operate, or else to risk his life; co-operation meant delivering the most humiliating speeches in defence of his former public enemies, the political friends of the domi­nant three. For Cicero, the one bright ray in these speeches was the occasion to hark back to his own consulship in 63: its reception was the event from which he never recovered psychologically.

  Cicero's reactions to this chequered political course are the most vivid witness to the value of freedom for the psychology of a senatorial participant. It certainly did not mean the freedom of democracy, but it did mean 'freedom from' the dominance of others and 'freedom for' senators like himself to exercise authority and dignity, while retaining 'equality' among their own peer group. The artful domination by the three big men, Caesar, Pompey and Crassus, was a disaster for him, second only to exile, that fate as bad as death. In 54 he wrote to his brother: 'I am tortured, tortured by the fact that we no longer have a constitution in the state or justice in the courts. Some of my enemies I could not attack; others I have defended.' And above all, 'I am unable to give a free rein to either my opinions or my hatred. And Caesar is the only man who loves me as I wish.'10 But this 'love' was only a love professed by Caesar in absence. Caesar (we can see) had other ambitions, and Cicero was not at the heart of them.

  One resort for Cicero was to withdraw and write works of ideal political theory. From 54 onwards Cicero was engaged with writing an ideal Republic and books of Laws, works which conspicuously failed to address the realities and evils of the contemporary Republic in Rome. As a self-made man, he was the champion of the establish­ment view of the state: it involved the supremacy of the Senate, as opposed to the unvetted sovereignty of the people's assemblies. The Senate's decrees, he wrote, should be binding and the Senate should be 'master' of public policy: senators should also inspect the votes which the people would otherwise cast. The secret ballot was a disas­ter: senators should supervise voting and grant only 'the appearance of freedom' so as to preserve the 'authority' of the 'good men and true'.11 His ideal state did leave a role for the people's tribunes, but its vague ideals of 'concord' between the senators and knights and an enlightened 'moderator' as the head of state were completely irrelevant to the real crises of his beloved Republic. The Republic's problems were rooted in the power of military commanders and their followers and the social and economic disorders which made their gangs and armies relatively easy to retain.

  His other response to the dynasts' pre-eminence was to write an 'inside story' of events since the mid-6os.12 Sadly the work is lost to us, although Cicero read bits of it aloud to Atticus and compared its tone to the most malignant of previous Greek historians, Theopompus, the contemporary of Philip and Alexander the Great. But we do know that in it he blamed both Crassus and Julius Caesar for political plottings which we would otherwise hesitate to ascribe to them: plans for a coup in 65 (Crassus, he believed, had been particu­larly active in this) and the backing of the desperate populist Catiline in 63. Was his book only embittered gossip, distorted by his hindsight? It is one of the books from antiquity which we would dearly like to recover, for it may well have told the truths which Cicero was afraid to state elsewhere, as well as airing yet more conspiracy theories which would be extremely entertaining to study.

  In 51 bc a discontented Cicero found himself sent east to a miserable province, Cilicia, in southern Asia Minor (although Cyprus was in­cluded, together with more territory in southern Asia). Through his letters, we have our first prolonged view of a Roman governor at work abroad, applying justice to the local affairs of his province.13 Cicero went on the customary assize-tours round the province's main towns; he issued the usual 'edict' on taking office and chose to base it, wisely, on the edict of an admired predecessor, the lawyer Scaevola. In general, he wished the Greek-speaking locals to settle their disputes between themselves, but if he found that these disputes involved Romans or foreigners or points of importance under Roman law, he would judge them on the lines of the Roman praetors' edicts at Rome.

  By such piecemeal decisions, the Romans' own laws on such topics as inheritance or defaulting debtors would come to apply to subjects outside Rome: there was no single act or decree imposing them.

  Despite Cicero's complaints, provincial duties were a better alterna­tive for him than political life at Rome. Cicero lived for his Republic, and pined without it, yet his life and incomparable letters were to encompass its ultimate crisis. Back in 59 bc Julius Caesar had offered Cicero a responsible post on his staff abroad so as to escape from the political storm which was then brewing round him. Even Atticus had advised him to take it. It was a typical act of graciousness, the 'clem­ency' which Ca
esar would publicize to his Roman audience. But as Cicero now observed, this 'clemency' was insidious: who was Caesar to deign to pardon the likes of us?14 On that question, the history of 'liberty' and 'justice' would now depend.

  35

  The Rise of Julius Caesar

  I have had a visit from Cornelius - Balbus, I mean, the intimate of Julius Caesar. He assured me that Caesar will follow my advice and Pompey's in all things and will try to bring Pompey and Crassus together. This course offers the following advan­tages: an intimate association for me with Pompey, with Caesar too if I want it, a return to favour with my enemies, peace with the populace, tranquillity in my old age . . .

  Cicero, Letters to Atticus 2.3 (late 60 bc)

  The truth is that the present regime is the most infamous, most disgraceful and uniformly odious to all sorts and classes and ages of men that ever was, more so upon my word than I could ever have wished, let alone expected. Those 'populist' politicians have taught even quiet folk to hiss . . . Cicero, Letters to Atticus 2.19, between 7 and 14 July 59 bc, on Caesar's consulship and its deal with Pompey and Crassus

  Julius Caesar, the most famous Roman, proved to be the most masterly populist in Roman politics. For more than twenty years he pursued this line, yet by birth and manners he was a true patrician, descended from the oldest nobility in Roman history. The founding father, Aeneas, was claimed as his family's ancestor and beyond him, the goddess Venus herself. The 'traditions' of ordinary senators were latecomers in the long view of such an ultimate aristocrat. He stands in sharp contrast to the assumed traditionalism of Cicero, the man made good.

  Caesar had a proud, patrician sense of his own high worth, or dignitas, but, first as a consul, then ten years later as a dictator, he forced through detailed populist laws which 'traditional' senators had resisted and continued to obstruct. They ranged from curbs on extortion by provincial governors and checks on the use of violence in public life to the granting of plots of land to tens of thousands of settlers, not all of whom were veteran soldiers. There were values behind such laws, a sense of justice which made them more than personal bids for pre-eminence. Yet Caesar, the 'people's politician', ended by limiting the urban poor's right of free association in their clubs and colleges in Rome. They might be a threat to his own -, not least during his absence from the city. Until the years of his dictatorships, he correctly relied on tribunes, the popular magis­trates, to propose his legislation to the people's assemblies and to veto proposals against his interests. Yet he ended by deposing holders of the tribunate simply because their actions displeased him. Eventually he nominated Rome's magistrates himself.

  Artfully, Caesar began to encourage 'open government'. In 59, as consul, he caused the business of the Senate to be published and made accessible for the first time: Hadrian, nearly two hundred years later, would be 'curator' of the published senatorial 'acts'. Those senators like Cicero who spoke contemptuously of the people as 'cattle' or the 'dregs' in the Senate house, but praised them before their assemblies, would not exactly welcome the new publications. Caesar himself spoke clearly and forcefully, dictated letters freely (even while on horseback) and became the first Roman nobleman to make a real contribution to Latin literature. For, as a general abroad, Caesar sent lucidly written 'commentaries' back from his prolonged command in Gaul. 'Avoid an unfamiliar word,' he used to say, 'as a sailor avoids the rocks." His prose works are unusually clear in structure and form, but they are also highly economical with the truth. They were composed so that a wider public in Rome, in Italy, and perhaps even in southern Gaul, could read of his prowess. Probably, they were issued year by year, but they ended in 52, long before Caesar's return to Rome. Publication of these exercises in 'spin' had important politi­cal relevance for his career at that time. These artful 'commentaries' presented a Roman Caesar who was more than the equal of Pompey the great conqueror. Whereas Pompey was glorified by Greek histori­ans and Greek orators around him, Caesar was now glorified by his own clear Latin. Written in the third person, the commentaries use the word 'Caesar' 775 times.

  In Julius Caesar, charm and ruthlessness, daring and deceit were intertwined. Above all, he proved to be a superb general. He was indifferent to personal comforts or luxuries and he was a fine horse­man who could even ride fast with both hands clasped behind his back. From 58 to 50 he was the conqueror of vast territories in the West, all of which he identified as Gaul. In 55 he crossed the Channel and became the first invader of Britain, 'beyond the Ocean's limit' which had bounded Alexander the Great. Yet the British invasion failed and the conquests in Gaul went far beyond a strict interpretation of the commands which had been given to him. When these commands ended he reckoned to have caused the death in battle of no less than 1,192,000 enemies in his Gallic campaigns. Even so, civilian casualties were excluded from this total, so glorious to him, but not to us.

  Caesar also showed stunning daring in further wars between 49 and 45, fought in Greece, Egypt, Asia, north Africa and Spain at places which Hadrian's peaceful touring would later encompass. However, he never published the casualties for these battles, because they were fought in a civil war against fellow Roman citizens. For, in 49, Caesar embarked on civil war inside Italy, like a 'new Hannibal', while professing the need to defend the 'liberty' of the 'Roman people', the 'sanctity of the tribunes' and, more honestly, his own 'dignity'. For nearly five years political life became subjected to the personal will of Caesar himself. He was certainly not the inevitable consequence of the times in which he lived. The Roman Republic could, indeed should, have survived him. Ultimately, he overthrew it for his own impressive 'dignity', to which all else, the populism, the inclusiveness, the much-advertised 'clemency', were secondary. He overthrew a flex­ible constitution which had evolved over more than four centuries, and in due course he was murdered by some sixty conspirators in Rome. But his example, and his fate, coloured the next acts in the long-running drama of the Roman Republic. These acts did then prove to be its end, a turning point for liberty.

  Julius Caesar was born six years after Cicero, in the year 100 in the month which was later named July in his honour. Historians of his early years are at risk from hindsight: could contemporaries really have feared his cool ability very early in his life? Most of his historians would now postpone the 'making of Caesar' until his late thirties or forties, but contemporaries may have seen the signs much earlier. Aged (probably) fifteen, Caesar was chosen to be the ceremonial Priest of Jupiter, a job for patricians only. Since the Priest was not allowed so much as to look at troops under arms, was the offer of this priest­hood an early attempt to block this feared young noble from any public career? These years were those of Sulla's awful rise to power, and Caesar was married to the noble young daughter of Sulla's enemy, Cinna. Through his aunt, he was a nephew of the great Marius, Sulla's greatest foe. In fact, Sulla refused to let Caesar hold on to the priesthood (as if he saw no immobilizing purpose in it) but he is also said to have warned against the casually dressed young Caesar's potential. Is this story, too, only the creation of hindsight?

  Caesar escaped execution and left for military service in the East. Here, hostile gossip later claimed that he became a sexual favourite of the king of Bithynia. There was nothing in it, but when Caesar was later insulted as 'womanish' he retorted brilliantly that Amazons had once ruled most of Asia and so his threat to dance on the heads of his senatorial enemies was not an empty one.2 In 80 bc a brave exploit in the Aegean won him the 'civic crown', a very high military distinc­tion for saving a citizen's life in battle: its oak wreath could then be worn in public and even senators would have to stand up in his presence at public games, a privilege which cannot have been lost on his high sense of dignity. He returned to Rome and gained fame, and hostility, for prosecuting a respected ex-consul for plundering his province. He then returned to the Greek East to study and let the hostility cool at Rome. Unlike the rising star, Pompey, Caesar had a quick, educated mind which was always interested in literature. But he to
o was a born fighter. He took a sweet, swift revenge on some pirates in the Aegean who tried to hold him to ransom. Aged twenty-six, he took troops back into Bithynia to stop defections there to Rome's great enemy, Mithridates. Already, he was acting without orders.

  Back at Rome, as Sulla's reactionary settlement broke up, Caesar held fast to the alternative populist line. His aunt was the widow of the popular hero Marius, and when she died he gave a funeral speech in the Forum which dwelt on her (and therefore his) very noble descent from gods and kings. The words would eventually seem prophetic when he himself seemed to rival both these types of dangerous ances­tor. People noticed him, as they did when he displayed the insignia of Marius, the long-suppressed popular hero, in his aunt's funeral procession. He even displayed Marius' trophies, long concealed, up on the Capitol. Then, later in 69, Caesar left to serve as a junior magistrate in southern Spain. Here, he went on the usual assize-tour, hearing cases. In Cadiz, he is said to have seen a statue of Alexander the Great in the town's main temple, and to have wept that he had done nothing memorable, although at his same age Alexander had already conquered the world.' Again, historians mostly doubt this story, but perhaps unwisely; it is a less likely story that Caesar also dreamed that he was raping his mother, signifying a wish to dominate (mother) Earth, the world. In Spain, at any rate, occasional attacks of epilepsy are specifically attested as beginning to afflict him.