Cicero
Page 18
In January 59, the new Consul moved with speed, introducing his land-reform bill designed to resettle Pompey’s soldiers. He was determined to proceed legally if at all possible. The legislation had been very carefully framed to avoid giving needless offense, and Senators could find little to say against it. After he had read the text aloud, Caesar said he was ready to make any improvements that might be suggested. But Cato was having none of it: he tried to talk the proposal out by filibustering until sunset, when Senate meetings automatically closed.
The strategy of the optimates was simple; to oppose Caesar’s reforms lock, stock and barrel and to get his fellow Consul Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, to veto them. This would have the effect either of neutralizing Caesar or of pushing him into illegality, for which he could be put on trial once he resigned.
The Forum now provided the setting for one of those decisive turning points in history. AS recounted by Dio Cassius, Caesar seems to have been genuinely taken aback by the opposition of the diehards and, using his legal power of enforcement (coercitio), ordered an official to arrest Cato and take him to prison. This was too much for many Senators and, as in the recent case of Metellus Celer, they followed him to the prison.
“Why are you leaving the meeting early?” Caesar asked one of them.
“I prefer Cato’s company in prison to yours in the Senate,” came the reply.
Outmaneuvered, the Consul rescinded the arrest and announced that he would ignore the Senate from now on and take the bill directly to the People. An informal public meeting was held at which Caesar asked Bibulus if he had any objections to what was proposed. Bibulus replied that there would be no innovations during his term of office.
“You shall have the law,” Caesar told the crowd, “only if he agrees to it.”
“You shall not have this law this year, not even if you all want it,” Bibulus shouted back. This incautiously undemocratic admission made the Senate’s intransigence embarrassingly clear.
Pompey and Crassus were then brought forward to speak, an unusual step for they were private citizens and had no official status. They made the point that the law could well be afforded, seeing that the eastern campaign had filled the state’s coffers. In fact, it would even be possible to acquire land for the veterans of an earlier war, a measure which the Senate had approved at the time but never acted on.
Bibulus now started to “watch the heavens daily”—a religious device for halting public business and, to make assurance double sure, declared all the remaining days of the year on which the General Assembly could be legally held to be holidays. This did not deter Caesar from formally convening the General Assembly to pass the bill—a good example of the Consul’s sweeping powers, even when wielded against his coequal colleague. The result of the vote could not be in any doubt, but Caesar was taking no risks. Crowds of veterans occupied the Forum the night before it was to be taken. Bibulus, with a crowd of followers, turned up during the middle of a speech Caesar was giving from the Temple of the Castors. He was let through, partly out of respect for his office and partly because no one imagined he would continue to maintain his opposition. But that was just what he did. When he tried to announce a veto, he was thrown down the Temple steps. He was showered with filth, his fasces—the rods and axes of office—were smashed and he and some Tribunes who supported him were lucky to escape with their lives. After being beaten up and wounded, they made their escape as best they could.
The optimates had little choice but to give way under duress and the bill was passed. Insultingly it included a clause obliging Senators to sign a statement agreeing to abide by the legislation. Cato was persuaded only with the greatest difficulty to do so.
With every new development, each side raised the stakes. Not long afterwards, Caesar introduced a second land bill, this time much harsher in its terms. Its purpose was to redistribute publicly owned land in Campania (a fertile territory in the Naples area) to Roman citizens with more than three children. At present it was rented out, so the reform would severely reduce an important stream of state revenue. AS Cicero noted, nothing could be better designed to inflame “better class sentiment.” An ancient Senator, Lucius Gellius, declared that the bill would not be implemented for as long as he lived. “Let us wait then,” said Cicero, “since Gellius is not asking us to postpone things for long.” Despite Senatorial opposition, this measure too was pushed through the General Assembly.
Bibulus withdrew to his house, where he stayed for the rest of the year. He tried to halt all public business, including elections, by continually declaring bad omens. Because they had been unable to stop Caesar, the optimates were laying the ground for a move, after the Consulship was over, to declare all his measures unlawful. Powerless, Bibulus resorted to insult: dredging up the old story about King Nicomedes, he described Caesar in an edict as “the Queen of Bithynia … who once wanted to sleep with a king but now wants to be one.” On the streets people laughingly spoke of the Consulship of Julius and Caesar.
Cicero was not impressed by Bibulus’s behavior. He became more and more depressed by the course of events and could only wait and watch from the sidelines as Pompey’s settlement in the east was at last ratified, in the end with little trouble. Crassus’s tax farmers had the price of their contracts reduced by a third, but he could not claim any of the credit.
In March Cicero defended his former fellow Consul, Antonius, on a corruption charge, without success. After Antonius’s conviction, flowers were laid on Catilina’s grave and a celebratory banquet was held. Audaciously Cicero used his speech for a strong attack on the First Triumvirate. He soon saw that this was a serious mistake. Caesar made no public comment, but he acted at once to bring Cicero into line by letting Clodius off his leash. On the afternoon of the day Cicero made his comments, Caesar approved an application by Clodius for a change in status from Patrician to Plebeian. This was no mere technicality: only a Plebeian could be elected Tribune—a post Clodius coveted, for (among other things) it would enable him to get his long meditated revenge. AS part of the procedure to change his social status, Clodius had to be adopted by a Plebeian man; to show his disregard for social norms, he chose as his “father” a youth of twenty.
Alongside covert threats, various blandishments were offered to Cicero during the spring and summer, including a seat on the commission that had been set up to implement the land-reform laws and an assignment as special envoy to the Egyptian Pharaoh. He turned them all down. Seeing that Caesar would use fair means or foul to gag him, he silently admitted defeat and for the time being withdrew from public life, leaving Rome for a tour of his villas.
Cicero was planning to write a book on geography but could not concentrate on it. He preferred to work instead on a candid memoir of his life and times, in which he denounced his enemies and attacked the First Triumvirate. This Secret History (De consiliis suis) was well-known in antiquity but is now lost; it was unpublishable in Cicero’s lifetime and he gave it to young Marcus with the instruction not to issue it until after his death. In April 59, he told Atticus: “I have taken so kindly to idleness that I can’t tear myself away from it. So either I amuse myself with books, of which I have a good stock at Antium, or I count the waves—the weather is unsuitable for mackerel fishing.… And my sole form of political activity is to hate the rascals, and even that I do without anger.” This did not mean he had lost his appetite for news and gossip. He depended on his friend for a reliable flow. “When I read a letter of yours I feel I am in Rome, hearing one thing one minute and another the next, as one does when big events are toward.” At about the same time, he wrote: “I have so lost my manly spirit that I prefer to be tyrannized over in peace and quiet.”
Curio paid an unexpected visit. No longer a “little Miss” but now “my young friend,” he brought the welcome news that his circle was unhappy with the regime but also reported, less agreeably, that Clodius was definitely standing as Tribune for 58. Cicero could see this only as an ominous development.
Cicero told Atticus that “Sampsiceramus,” his nickname for Pompey (after an oriental potentate), “is out for trouble. We can expect anything. He is confessedly working for absolute power.… They would never have come so far if they were not paving their way to other and disastrous objectives.” He noticed that the uninhibited freedom of speech which marked political life in the Republic was giving way to caution at social gatherings and across dinner tables. Despite the fact that there was no official censorship, he agreed on a simple code with Atticus for sensitive parts of their correspondence.
Popular opinion began to move against the First Triumvirate and they were booed at a gladiatorial show in July. A contemporary commentator called them “the Beast with Three Heads.” When an actor in a play spoke the line, “To our misfortune art thou Great,” the audience took it as a reference to Pompey and called for a dozen encores.
Cicero began to detect a weakness in the alliance. He suspected that Pompey profoundly disliked the position he found himself in. He was right, up to a point. But although he knew better than to trust Pompey, with whose double-dealing he was familiar, he needed so much to believe that the former general could be detached from the “rascals” that he over-interpreted the evidence of his unease. There is no doubt that Pompey did feel uncomfortable, but at the same time there is every reason to suppose that his alliance with Caesar and Crassus remained as firm as ever. In fact, it was Cicero, the recipient of many melancholy private confidences, who would be discarded.
Cicero pretended to take Clodius’s election as Tribune lightly, but he could not stop mentioning it. “Dear Publius is threatening me, most hostile.… I think I have very firm backing in my old Consular army of all honest men, including the moderately honest. Pompeius signifies goodwill to me out of the ordinary. He also assures me that Clodius will not say a word about me; in this he does not deceive me but is himself deceived.”
Caesar’s final task was to decide on the future once his Consulship came to an end. So far he had achieved all they could have hoped: Pompey had had his eastern settlement approved and his soldiers had been given land, and Crassus had had the tax farmers’ contract renegotiated. The Consular elections, delayed from the summer by a decree of Bibulus, were eventually held on October 17. Two supporters of the Triumvirate, Aulus Gabinius and Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, whose daughter Caesar had recently married, won the day. Caesar was allocated the governorships of Italian Gaul, Transalpine Gaul and Illyricum (today Dalmatia) for five years. His friend Sallust wrote: “For himself he wanted a high command, an army and a war in some field where his gifts could shine in all their brightness.” This is what he had now obtained and over the coming years he methodically set about conquering what is now France and Belgium. Rome called these territories Long-haired Gaul (Gallia Comata).
On December 10, Clodius at last took office as Tribune. Unfortunately, as his great crisis approached, Cicero was joined in Rome by Atticus and their correspondence stops. He was still guardedly optimistic about his prospects and thought that the worst that could happen would be a trial before the Military Assembly, as had been the case with Rabirius. Because its voting system favored the affluent, his chances of acquittal would, he felt, be reasonably good. In any case, “all Italy” would come to his support.
It soon transpired that the new Tribune had more ambitious plans than anyone had expected. He produced a far-reaching program, well tailored to win the support of the urban proletariat. Grain distributions to citizens in Rome would, for the first time, be absolutely free; the right of association was restored and the veto on local clubs revoked; officeholders were prohibited from halting public business by reporting bad omens on days when the General Assembly was due to vote on a bill; a limitation on legislation brought in by Tribunes was removed; and a restriction on the Censors’ powers to expel Senators (presumably this was to protect popularis members) was imposed. The importance of the clubs or collegia for Clodius was that they would allow him to organize support (in the form of well-organized street gangs) in Rome’s poorer districts.
Clodius was a mysterious and in some senses a maligned figure, whose behavior was so bizarre that for some people rational explanations were unnecessary. So far as can be judged from the uniformly hostile sources, he was a serious politician with a loyal constituency among the urban masses. He had a coherent reform program designed to advance their interests. According to Cicero, the restoration of political clubs meant that he had inherited “all Catilina’s forces with scarcely any change of leaders.” However, unlike Catilina, Clodius saw that there was a distinction to be drawn between revolution and behavior that was merely illegal. Clodius observed the basic political norms, attending Senate meetings and standing for office. In the years ahead he stood for Aedile, successfully, and for Praetor. From the few scraps of evidence that remain, he maintained a client list both in the city and beyond.
Clodius’s originality lay in his perception of what could be achieved by consistent violence on the streets and in the Forum. For half a century politicians of every persuasion had resorted to force from time to time. The scale of public spaces in the city center, the absence of wide streets or avenues and the facts that there was no police force and that soldiers were forbidden to cross the pomoerium meant that gangs could temporarily take over the seat of government, terrorize officeholders and force legislation through or impede it. Clodius saw that this could be turned into a permanent state of affairs. He developed the concept of the standing gang, equipped and ready to act at any time. Once his Tribuneship was over in December 58, this would become his power base. He realized that this private army would need an operational headquarters and, apparently, took over the Temple of the Castors in the Forum for a time, turning the building into a fortress by demolishing the steps that led down from its high podium. This was insurrection as a means of government rather than as a means of overthrowing a government.
What Clodius wanted to do with power, once he had achieved it, is uncertain. Unlike other radicals, whether of the left or right, he gave no indication that has come down to us of a serious interest in root-and-branch constitutional reform. He was happy enough to exploit the constitution or subvert it, but he had no idea of overthrowing it. Beneath the eccentricity of his politics probably lay a basically conventional ambition to climb the political ladder, reach the Consulship and make a fortune from misgoverning a province. In that sense, there was no material difference between him and his hot-tempered brother, Appius Claudius Pulcher, who stood on the other side of the political fence and was a leading conservative. Clodius was typical of his ancestors in his waywardness, volatile moods and disrespect for respectable opinion. He regarded the political scene in a highly personalized light and was not a man to be crossed lightly, as Cicero found out.
Wisely, Cicero had taken steps to protect his personal position by finding a friendly Tribune who agreed to veto all Clodius’s reforms. In response, Clodius made a
deal with Cicero: if Cicero would not block his legislation, he promised not to launch a prosecution. He made a point of being friendly with Cicero, saying that he wanted a reconciliation and blaming Terentia for their estrangement.
In late January or early February of 58, Clodius hurled his thunderbolt. He proposed two new bills, the first of which bought off the Consuls by allotting them rich provinces (Macedonia and Cilicia) for the following year with unusually generous financial allowances. The second cynically broke the assurance he had given Cicero. It punished with the denial of the traditional symbols of hospitality, fire and water (in other words exile), any public official who executed or had executed a citizen without due process of law. This was, in effect, a renewal or restatement of an existing law, but its target was obvious. It would be wrong, though, to see the bill simply as a question of revenge. From the point of view of his patron, Caesar, waiting outside the city limits in order to watch developments before he left for his provincial command, the indictment of Cicero for illegal acts as Consul would distract the Senate from examining the legality of his own legislation. More broadly, Clodius was exactly the weapon Caesar needed to keep the Senate cowed and on the defensive.
Cicero responded by going into mourning, wearing torn clothes and letting his beard and hair grow, and presented himself in public as a suppliant. This was recognized behavior when a Roman found himself in serious trouble and especially if facing prosecution in the courts. Many equites followed suit and held a protest meeting at the Capitol. According to Plutarch, “the Senate met to pass a vote that the people should go into mourning as at times of public calamity.” The Consuls, one of whom was Caesar’s father-in-law, were politely unsympathetic. They opposed the measure, although the Senate as a whole seems to have been on Cicero’s side. When Clodius surrounded the Senate House with armed men, many Senators ran out of the building, tearing their clothes as a sign of grief.