Cicero

by Anthony Everitt

  During the year that Pompey and Crassus were Consuls, Gabinius, who had failed to help Cicero during his exile and was now governor of Syria, stepped into the fray and restored King Ptolemy to power in Egypt for a huge price with the help of a Roman army. In light of the prohibition in the Sibylline Books, this was a serious flouting of the law.

  At about this time unusually bad weather broke the banks of the Tiber, flooding the lower levels of the city. Some people were drowned as were many animals, and houses were damaged. In the public mind the disaster was a punishment for Gabinius’s invasion.

  Cicero launched a blistering attack on Gabinius in the Senate. Pompey and Crassus responded in his defense. Crassus seems to have hurled the epithet “exile” at him, an insult that Cicero, who had never liked him, refused to forgive. Pompey, backed by a letter from Caesar, used his personal authority to impose an entente. The widowed Tullia, probably now about twenty years old, had recently married her second husband, Furius Crassipes, a member of an old but faded patrician family. Cicero’s new son-in-law held a dinner party in the garden of his house to celebrate the apparent reconciliation with Crassus. Towards the end of the year, Crassus, paying no attention to bad omens, set off on his great expedition against the Parthians. “What a rascal he is!” Cicero observed, unrepentantly.

  The three members of the First Triumvirate, or now, rather, the two, persuaded Cicero, against his better judgment, fearful that they might switch their support back to Clodius again, to give evidence on Gabinius’s behalf when he faced a treason charge. The task was all the more difficult in that Cicero remained on extremely bad terms with Gabinius. He told Atticus: “Pompey is putting a lot of pressure on me for a reconciliation, but so far he has got nowhere, nor ever will if I keep a scrap of personal independence.” He had even asked Cicero to undertake the defense, but that was a line Cicero absolutely refused to cross.

  Cicero’s finances continued to cause him anxiety. Help came at this time from a surprising source. In 54, despite what he called his own “straitened circumstances” (without for one moment expecting to be believed), Caesar agreed to make him a loan of 800,000 sesterces and offered Quintus, also hard-pressed for cash, an appointment as one of his senior officers in Gaul.

  The brothers accepted the money—evidence not only of the straits in which they found themselves but of their warm personal relations with Caesar despite political disagreements. Cicero knew how deeply he was indebted. He wrote to his brother later in the year, after Quintus had joined the legions in Gaul, that he had come to regard Caesar almost as a member of the family: “In all the world Caesar is the only man who cares for me as I could wish, or (as others would have it) who wants me to care for him.” No doubt he said this with half an eye on the likelihood that Quintus would show Caesar the letter, but there is little reason to doubt the sincerity of his gratitude. Caesar was a man of great charm and was fond of the sensitive, witty advocate; of course, he was also a hardheaded calculator and had every interest in using generosity to neutralize an opponent.

  The relationship between the two was helped by their shared literary interests. Somehow Caesar found time during his campaign to compose a weighty tome on Latin grammar. Well aware of Cicero’s penchant for praise, he flatteringly dedicated it to Cicero, who responded by sending him another ill-advised epic he had written, this time on his exile and return. Caesar made some polite comments but evidently had reservations, and it seems the work was never published.

  Quintus was a competent soldier and Caesar valued his services. At one point Quintus and his legion were besieged in their camp by a Gallic tribe, the Nervii, which had already ambushed and destroyed a Roman army. Attacks came in wave after wave. Quintus behaved coolly and bravely, as Caesar made clear in his account of the Gallic War: “Cicero himself, although in very poor health, would not rest even at night, until a crowd of soldiers actually went to him and by their remonstrances made him take care of himself.” The Nervii repeated a trick they had played on the previous army and tried unsuccessfully to lure Quintus out of his camp on the promise of safe conduct.

  The siege continued and messenger after messenger dispatched to Caesar was caught, tortured and killed. The Nervii invested the camp with a rampart and managed to set much of it alight with incendiary darts and red-hot molded-clay bullets. Eventually news got through to Caesar of Quintus’s plight and he marched to relieve him. He sent one of his Gallic horsemen ahead to tell him to hold out. The man was afraid to go up to the camp and enter it so he flung a javelin with a message wrapped around it into the camp. Unfortunately, the javelin happened to stick in one of the camp towers and was not noticed for a couple of days. Eventually a soldier saw it, pulled it out and took it to Quintus. By this time the smoke of burning villages warned the Romans that help was near. The camp was relieved and, in due course, the Nervii were defeated. Although on one occasion he allowed some of his troops to be surprised by a German force, there is no question that Quintus had a good war.

  In Italy, his brother was still looking after his domestic interests. Quintus had bought a couple of villas near Arpinum and Cicero spent time supervising their refurbishment. In September 54 he wrote to Quintus: “Escaped from the great heat wave (I don’t remember a greater), I have refreshed myself on the banks of our delightful river at Arpinum.” Cicero went on to tell his brother how impressed he was by one of the new properties. He seems to have had conventional tastes in interior decor and fine art, admiring the work of Greek painters and sculptors from their heyday in the fifth and fourth centuries BC. “I was very pleased with the house, because the colonnade is a most imposing feature; it struck me only on this visit, now that its whole range is open to view and the columns have been cleared. All depends on the elegance of the stucco, and that I shall attend to. The paving seemed to be going nicely. I did not care for some of the ceilings and gave orders to alter them.”

  Family life was on an even keel. On October 21 he assured his brother: “Our affairs stand as follows: domestically they are as we wish. The boys are well, keen on their lessons and conscientiously taught. They love us and each other.” Young Quintus seems not to have enjoyed his uncle’s attempts to teach him. He preferred working with his tutor, and Cicero, not wanting his development to be held up, did not press the point and withdrew.

  Civic disorder and widespread corruption continued unabated and the streets of Rome were still unsafe. The only convincing center of power, however unconstitutional, was the First Triumvirate, but fate soon played a hand in subverting Caesar’s brilliant rescue operation at Luca. In June 53 Crassus and his seven legions (up to 42,000 men) invaded the Parthian Empire but came spectacularly to grief, tricked into defeat and death.

  Misled by the enemy he marched his forces through barren terrain and was harried mercilessly by Parthian archers. Depressed by the death in battle of his son Publius and pressed by desperate, near-mutinous soldiers, he agreed, against his better judgment, to parley with the Parthian general, Surena. Once in his hands, Crassus was killed and his head and right hand cut off. His head was used as a grisly prop during a performance of Euripides’ Bacchae at the Parthian court. The legionary standards were lost, a terrible blow to Roman prestige, and thousands of soldiers were killed or captured. Only 10,000 survivors made their way back to safety. Luckily the Parthians were content with their victory and did not follow it up. Pompey’s conquests in the region were left intact.

  A canny businessman and an able fixer, Crassus had bulked large in the affairs of the Republic. He was a man of few obvious convictions. If his career had a keynote, it lay in his rivalry with Pompey, the immovable obstacle to his own advancement. No friend of the optimates, Crassus supported radicals like Catilina and Caesar, but cautiously from the wings. His death was perhaps the most influential act of his career, for it threw the spotlight on the relationship between Pompey and Caesar.

  Catastrophe for Crassus brought some good to Cicero. For years he had yearned for an appointment to the Coll
ege of Augurs, a board of senior Romans responsible for ascertaining the gods’ opinion of intended public actions; they did this by examining the flight of birds, thunder and lightning and other signs. Cicero did not believe in augury and could see a certain illogicality in his ambition: “What an irresponsible fellow I am,” he confessed to Atticus. However, when Pompey and Hortensius recommended him for the vacancy left by Crassus’s dead son, Cicero was delighted. It was just the kind of honor that enhanced the standing of a distinguished elder statesman.

  In August, Caesar’s daughter and Pompey’s wife, Julia, died in childbirth. (The infant, a boy, died a few days later.) She seems to have inherited all her father’s charm and both men in their different ways were devoted to her. This personal tragedy was also a political event of great importance, for it shut down a private channel of communication which (and it is one of the great ifs of history) might have preserved their alliance.

  Many people realized this at the time. Pompey intended to have Julia interred at his country estate near Alba, but during her funeral procession the crowd hijacked the corpse and buried it in the Field of Mars. This show of emotion demonstrated the impact of her death on public opinion, which respected both Caesar and Pompey and regarded Julia as the living symbol of their friendship. Caesar, absent in Gaul, was moved by the news of her funeral rites and announced the holding of gladiatorial games followed by a public banquet in her name. This was an unprecedented honor for a woman.

  The year 52 got off to a gloomy start. No officeholders had been elected in the confusion of the previous year. New Year’s Day fell on a market day, an unfavorable sign, and portents were reported. Wolves were seen in Rome and dogs were heard howling by night. A statue of Mars sweated. A storm with thunderbolts raged over the city, knocking down images of the gods and taking some lives. Then, on January 20, an event took place which lifted such a load of fear and loathing from Cicero’s mind and gave him such pleasure that in future years he regularly celebrated the anniversary of what he called the “Battle of Bovillae.”

  Sometime in the early afternoon, Milo left Rome by the Appian Way. He was on his way to his hometown, where he was mayor and was due to preside at the installation of a priest on the following day. At about three o’clock he reached the small village of Bovillae a few miles outside the city when he saw Clodius coming from the opposite direction, returning to the capital from Aricia, a town a few miles farther south, where he had been addressing municipal officials. Clodius was traveling on horseback with three friends and was accompanied by about 30 slaves armed with swords.

  Milo was in a carriage with his wife, Sulla’s daughter, and a relative. Behind them walked a long column of slaves and some gladiators, including two stars of the arena, Eudamas and Birria, who brought up the rear. The lines passed each other without incident, but as the two ends met the gladiators started a brawl with some of Clodius’s men. Clodius heard the noise and looked back menacingly. This was enough to provoke Birria, who hurled a lance at him, wounding him in the shoulder or back. More of Milo’s entourage turned back and ran up to join the melee. Clodius, streaming with blood, was taken to a roadside inn, and before long most of his entourage was dead or badly injured.

  When Milo heard that Clodius had been wounded, he decided it would be more dangerous to leave him alive than to finish him off in the inn. When the deed was done, Clodius’s body was hauled out into the road and abandoned. By a curious coincidence, a shrine of the Great Goddess stood nearby, into whose mysteries Clodius had intruded in search of dalliance.

  Milo and his wife resumed their journey, as if nothing had taken place. Sometime later in the afternoon, a passing Senator, traveling back to Rome from the country, found Clodius’s corpse and had it sent on in his litter. He himself returned the way he had come, presumably wishing to avoid becoming involved in what was certain to be a major scandal.

  The body arrived at Clodius’s new house, centrally located off the Holy Way, a couple of minutes from the Forum. It was placed in the hallway and surrounded by distraught followers and slaves. Clodius’s wife, Fulvia (not the same woman as Cicero’s informant against Catilina), did not hold back her grief and showed his wounds to visitors. The following morning a crowd gathered outside the front door. Some well-connected friends, including two Tribunes, called. At their suggestion, the body was taken, naked and battered, down to the Forum, and placed on the Speakers’ Platform. The Tribunes then called an informal public meeting. They persuaded the crowd to take the body to the Senate House and cremate it there, in one final act of defiance against the powers-that-be. Benches, tables and other furniture, together with the clerks’ notebooks, were piled up inside the building, which was then set alight. The fire spread to the Basilica Porcia next door.

  Rumors had leapt from house to house throughout the city and by then there were few doubts as to who was responsible for Clodius’s murder. The crowd swept to Milo’s house, but it was driven back by a hail of arrows. Crowd members grabbed the Consular fasces from their place of safekeeping in the grove of Libitina, goddess of the dead, and presented themselves at Pompey’s garden villa, “calling on him variously as Consul and Dictator.” They offered him the fasces as a sign of political authority. The political movement Clodius had led collapsed with his death. His power had been purely personal. After an orgy of destruction his supporters and street gangs could think of nothing better to do than ask Pompey, whom Clodius had bullied and undermined on and off for years, for justice.

  That afternoon the Senate met in an emergency session and passed the Final Act. They called on the only officeholders then in place, a Regent (interrex, an official appointed every five days in the absence of elected Consuls), on the Tribunes and on Pompey, with his Proconsular authority, to take steps to restore order. They authorized Pompey to raise troops.

  Pompey was in no hurry to accept the Senate’s commission. He wanted full powers without conditions and was eager to consult Caesar in Gaul, anxious to avoid any step that might unbalance the equal partnership agreed on at Luca. The delaying tactic worked, for the Senate, having lost whatever last vestige of control it could lay claim to, in desperation offered him what he wanted, full and complete authority. Even Cato approved, saying that any government was better than no government at all. The optimates cleverly arranged for Pompey to be appointed sole Consul rather than Dictator, the post he would have preferred. This was to close off any risk that he might repeat the precedent set by Sulla, who had extended his Dictatorship beyond the legal six-month limit. To make sure of Caesar’s consent to the deal a sweetener was offered; all ten Tribunes put forward a bill allowing him to stand for a second-term Consulship in absentia. Once he was in charge, Pompey moved firmly. Troops were levied and the city was brought under control.

  With characteristic managerial firmness, the sole Consul acted to restore law and order through the courts. A series of trials was undertaken of Clodius’s men and Milo, for his part, was brought to justice for Clodius’s murder. Cicero, the obvious choice, was asked to undertake the defense. When the case came up, troops lined the Forum. Milo knew of Cicero’s tendency to be nervous at the beginning of a speech and was afraid that the presence of soldiers might alarm him. He persuaded him to come down from his home on the Palatine to the Forum in a closed litter and to wait quietly inside the litter until the jury had assembled and the court was ready. It was a good idea, but it didn’t work. AS soon as Cicero emerged from the litter he saw Pompey standing on high ground as if commanding a military operation and weapons flashing in the sunlight from all sides. His body shook, his voice faltered and he could hardly start his speech. This was a potential catastrophe, for, unusually, he was Milo’s only advocate.

  The line of defense Cicero chose was controversial. Some advised that the best thing would be to admit to the killing but to claim bluntly that it had been in the public interest. Cicero chose instead to trump the prosecution, which claimed that Milo had ambushed Clodius, with the counterargument that it w
as Clodius who had ambushed Milo. Of course, both accounts were wrong, for the encounter had come about by chance.

  When Cicero began to speak, followers of Clodius in the square, undaunted by the presence of troops, created an uproar. He did not completely break down, but his performance fell a long way short of his usual standards. He spoke briefly and soon withdrew. It was the most embarrassing moment in his professional life.

  Milo was convicted and exiled from Rome. He retired to Massilia. Cicero sent him a copy of the fully worked-up address, which he had prepared for publication. It was an accomplished piece of work. Milo sent a letter back saying that it was lucky for him that this had not been what had been said in court, for he would not now be eating such wonderful Massilian mullets.

  During these years when his own career had stalled, Cicero developed an interest in nurturing the prospects of promising young men. There was Caius Trebatius Testa, a lawyer in his late twenties or early thirties, for whom he arranged a job with Caesar in Gaul. And in 53 the reprobate Curio made a reappearance, now an ardent conservative and ready for public life. Cicero recalled the good advice he had given him “in the days of your boyhood.”

  But perhaps the most important of Cicero’s youthful correspondents in those years was his personal slave and secretary, Tiro. It is not certain when Tiro was born, but he was probably a young man at this time. His name is a Latin word (meaning “newcomer,” “recruit” or “beginner”) and this suggests that he may have been born in the Cicero household rather than bought at a sale. Cicero was deeply attached to him and the references in his letters present him almost as a member of the family (“a friend to us rather than a slave,” Cicero wrote to Quintus). Tiro was given his freedom in 53 but, like most former slaves in Roman society, continued to work for his onetime owner.