Cicero was deeply depressed by the direction of events, which he tended to see in personal terms. In a letter to Atticus written from Athens, the first of many such, he agonized as to how he should react.
There looms ahead a tremendous contest between them. Each counts me as his man, unless by any chance one of them is pretending—for Pompey has no doubts, judging correctly that I strongly approve of his present politics [that is, his rapprochement with the Senate]. What is more, I received letters from both of them at the same time as yours, conveying the impression that neither has a friend in the world he values more than myself. But what am I to do? I don’t mean in the last resort, for if war is to decide the issue, I am clear that defeat with one is better than victory with the other. What I mean are the practical steps that will be taken when I get back to prevent [Caesar’s] candidacy in absentia [for the Consulship] and to make him give up his army.… There is no room for fence-sitting.
When he asserted his preference for Pompey, Cicero was being truthful. For all his ditherings in the months and years ahead, his first priority was and remained the salvation of the Republic and, it followed, opposition to Caesar. In this he remained unalterable. However, fence-sit he did. He did not have the temperament for war and was not physically courageous—a failing to which he half-admitted: “While I am not cowardly in facing dangers, I am in guarding against them.”
His personal relations with the optimates continued to be unsatisfactory. Cato objected to Cicero’s request for a Triumph. It is hard to understand why he took this line, at a time when it was self-evidently in the optimates’ interest to ensure that Cicero was on their side. Perhaps Cato simply assumed this was the case, but, aware of Cicero’s instinct for compromise and reconciliation, preferred to keep him at arm’s length from the Senatorial leadership. Caesar immediately noticed the error of judgment and wrote to Cicero, sympathizing and offering his support.
Cicero was highly critical in private of Pompey and the Senate’s handling of affairs. It was an old complaint. Caesar had not been stopped during his Consulship. He, Cicero, had been betrayed into exile. Resistance to the First Triumvirate had been feeble. The shortsighted extremism of Cato and his friends was inappropriate when dealing with “a man who fears nothing and is ready for everything.” Cicero was even beginning to wonder how the optimates would behave in the future if they were victorious. On Atticus’s advice, he stayed away from Rome, using as convenient cover the need to maintain his imperium in case he won his Triumph.
In Cicero’s opinion, peace was the only rational policy and to obtain it would mean compromise. In this he was in tune with public opinion and with the majority of Senators. On December 1, in his last coup as Tribune, Curio persuaded the Senate to vote on his proposal that both Caesar and Pompey should resign their commands and disband their armies. This ingenious motion was designed to expose the true state of feeling in the chamber. It was carried by 370 votes to 22. Curio went straight to a meeting of the General Assembly, where he was cheered and garlanded. The crowd pelted him with flowers. He had won the day: there would be no war.
This put the optimates in an awkward position. If they did not act quickly it would be too late. After a night’s reflection, the presiding Consul, Caius Claudius Marcellus, supported by the Consuls-Elect, but with no Senate authorization (nor that of the other Consul, Lucius Aemilius Paulus, whom Caesar had bought with a bribe of 9 million denarii) went to Pompey, handed him a sword and asked him to take command of the Italian legions. His task was to save the Republic. Pompey accepted the invitation.
Curio’s Tribuneship ended on December 12 and his place was taken by his longtime friend Mark Antony. The movement for peace was still flowing strongly and Caesar, partly for reasons of public relations but also because he may have preferred a negotiated solution, put forward some compromise proposals, well calculated to appeal to the Senatorial majority.
Events now accelerated beyond anyone’s power to control them. Pompey went to Campania to raise troops and met Cicero by chance on a country road. They went together to Formiae and talked from two in the afternoon until evening. Pompey almost persuaded Cicero that a firm approach was the right one; if challenged, Caesar would probably step back and, if not, the forces of the Republic under his leadership would easily defeat him. A couple days later a gloomy Cicero sent Atticus a well-reasoned statement of possible outcomes. His prognosis included the one that actually occurred—a surprise attack by Caesar before the Senate and Pompey were ready to fight him. Cicero even wondered whether it would be possible to hold Rome.
The Faction shared Pompey’s optimism. At the time and later they have been represented as hell-bent on war. This was probably not the case, for it would have meant handing over control of events to their general, and they did not trust him enough to want to see that happen. They calculated that an ultimatum backed by force would deter Caesar from seeking the Consulship that summer. This would have been a rational policy if the balance of military power had been clearly in the Senate’s favor. It was not. AS early as August, Caelius had seen that, although Pompey had access in the medium term to far greater resources both by sea and land, Caesar’s “army is incomparably superior.” It is telling that once hostilities actually started, Cato altered his tune and told the Senate that even slavery was preferable to war. Clearly he too could see where the real balance of power lay.
Cicero stayed for a time at Formiae and then made his way to Rome for consultations. The Senate appeared to be willing to give him his Triumph after all and so he lodged at Pompey’s villa outside the city. The Senate’s mood (or at any rate that of those who attended its meetings) had hardened so far as the political situation was concerned. On January 1, 49, the incoming Consuls won a large majority for an ultimatum instructing Caesar to disband his legions on pain of outlawry.
Cicero had not given up hope of a compromise and was determined to exploit the widespread antiwar sentiment. Three days later he attended an informal meeting at Pompey’s villa and once again argued for a peaceful solution. According to Plutarch, he supported an offer by Caesar to give up Gaul and most of his army in exchange for retaining Illyricum and two legions while waiting for his second Consulship. When Caesar’s supporters suggested he would even be satisfied with one legion, Pompey wavered. But Cato shouted that he was making a fool of himself again and letting himself be taken in. The proposal was dropped. On January 7 the Senate passed the Final Act. Mark Antony and a fellow Tribune, who had been tirelessly wielding their veto on Caesar’s behalf and making themselves highly unpopular in the process, were warned to leave town. They fled from Rome, together with Curio and Caelius, and arrived three days later at Caesar’s camp in Italian Gaul.
Although he continued to make peace offers, Caesar knew that it was time for action. He moved with all his famous “celerity.” Most of his army was on the other side of the Alps and he had only a single legion with him in Italian Gaul, where he was waiting near the frontier for news. Suetonius gives a vivid account of Caesar’s next move.
He at once sent a few troops ahead with all secrecy, and disarmed suspicion by himself attending a theatrical performance, inspecting the plans of a school for gladiators which he proposed to build and dining as usual among a crowd of guests. But at dusk he borrowed a pair of mules from a bakery near headquarters, harnessed them to a gig and set off quietly with a few of his staff. His lights went out, he lost his way and the party wandered about aimlessly for some hours; but at dawn found a guide who led them on foot along narrow lanes, until they came to the right road. Caesar overtook his advanced guard at the river Rubicon, which formed the frontier between Italian Gaul and Italy. Well aware how critical decision confronted him, he turned to his staff, remarking: “We may still draw back but, across that little bridge, we will have to fight it out.”
When Caesar crossed the river, he quoted a phrase from the Greek comic playwright Menander, “Let the dice fly high,” and rushed south towards Rome. He had long been kno
wn for his luck and he would need it now.
It is to Caesar’s credit as a leader that his soldiers and their officers loyally followed him. Only one senior commander defected, Titus Labienus, who had helped him with the Rabirius trial in 63 and been the most able of his deputies in Gaul. They went back a long way together and it must have been a personal blow.
Caesar’s troops met no resistance and town after town fell to him. In Rome discussions were under way on recruitment and the distribution of provinces. The news of Caesar’s rapid advance brought them to an abrupt halt. Pompey declared, to widespread amazement and dismay, that the government should evacuate Rome. Plutarch’s account captures the fevered atmosphere:
Since nearly all Italy was in confusion it was hard to understand the course of events. Refugees from outside the city poured in from all directions, while its inhabitants were rushing out of it and abandoning the city. Conditions were so stormy and disordered that the better class of person could exert little control and insubordinate elements were strong and very difficult for the authorities to keep in check. It was impossible to check the panic. No one would allow Pompey to follow his own judgment and everyone bombarded him with their own experiences—whether of fear, distress or perplexity. AS a result contradictory decisions were made on one and the same day and it was impossible for Pompey to get accurate intelligence about the enemy since many people reported to him whatever they happened to hear and were upset when he did not believe them. In these circumstances Pompey issued a decree declaring a state of civil war. He ordered all Senators to follow him and announced that he would regard anybody who stayed behind as being on Caesar’s side. Late in the evening he left Rome.
On January 17 large numbers of Senators and magistrates accompanied him en route to Campania, abandoning the city so hurriedly that they forgot to take the contents of the Treasury with them. A few days later, Caesar entered Rome.
Cicero met Pompey just before his departure and recalled a couple of months later that he had found him “thoroughly cowed. Nothing he did after that was to my liking. He went on blundering now here now there.” Cicero was shocked as much by the incompetence and rashness of the optimates as by the catastrophe itself. On January 18 he wrote to Atticus from the outskirts of Rome: “I have decided on the spur of the moment to leave before daybreak so as to avoid looks or talk, especially with these laureled lictors. AS for what is to follow, I really don’t know what I am doing or going to do, I am so confounded by our crazy way of going on.” He retreated to his villa at Formiae, where he could watch developments in safety and consider his next move. A few days later he accepted Pompey’s request that he take responsibility for northern Campania and the sea-coast. He could not decently refuse, but he assumed his duties without enthusiasm.
Cicero was naturally worried about his family’s safety. His imagination ran riot as he thought of what the “barbarians” might do to Terentia and Tullia when they took Rome. Perhaps, he suggested to Atticus, the boys should be sent to Greece where they would be out of the way. His fears were in part allayed by Tullia’s new husband, Dolabella; he was a passionate Caesarian and would guarantee the safety of Terentia and the others. Cicero arranged for the house on the Palatine to be properly barricaded and guarded; but he soon decided that the family, including (it seems) Quintus and his son, should join him at Formiae. He was greatly put out when he learned that the boys’ tutor, Dionysius, refused to come with them. A few weeks later he remarked: “He scorns me in my present plight. It is disgusting. I hate the fellow and always shall. I wish I could punish him. But his own character will do that.” Typically, Cicero could not stay angry for long and there was a reconciliation in due course, if a grudging one.
AS for the nonpolitical Atticus, his friend had few anxieties. “It looks to me as though you yourself and Sextus [an intimate friend of Atticus] can properly stay on in Rome. You certainly have little cause to love our friend Pompey. Nobody has ever knocked so much off property values in town. I still have my joke, you see.”
Cicero condemned Pompey’s abandonment of Rome and was afraid that the Commander-in-Chief was thinking of evacuating Italy, for Greece or perhaps Spain, where there were loyal legions. There can be little doubt that Pompey had been knocked off balance. He had exaggerated his personal popularity and was depressed both by the easy progress Caesar was making and by his own difficulties of recruitment. The psychological impact of the evacuation of Rome had been tremendous. The damage to public opinion if Pompey now abandoned Italy would be even greater. Yet there was strategic sense in basing himself in Greece, where he would have all the resources of Asia Minor at his back. With the army of Spain in the west, commanded by Lucius Afranius, the reputed dancer, and Marcus Petreius, Caesar would then be gripped in a vise. Once he had mustered his full strength, Pompey would descend on Italy, as Sulla had done, and meet Caesar with overwhelming force. In addition he controlled a large fleet and had unchallenged mastery of the seas. Unfortunately this plan left out of account the fact that it handed the initiative to Caesar.
Cicero had still not given up all hopes of peace. His disgust at the conduct of the war made him reluctant to join Pompey as an active supporter. More important, he felt that his hand as an intermediary would be strengthened if he could present himself as (more or less) neutral. His motives were mixed, but he was right to believe that it was in his and the Republic’s interest to play a lone hand. His stance became increasingly untenable as it became clear that the war was going to continue. Unfriendly voices were already criticizing him for not joining the rest of the evacuees in Campania. His mood became volatile and edgy. It was not helped by a painful bout of ophthalmia, which lasted until May. He was finding it hard to sleep. He relied more and more on Atticus, whom he showered with letters, often daily, appealing for advice.
I am sure you find daily letters a bore, especially as I give you no news and indeed can no longer think of any new theme to write about. But while it would certainly be silly of me to send you special couriers with empty letters and for no reason, I can’t bring myself not to give a line for you to those who are going anyway, especially if they are fond of the family, and at the same time I do, believe me, find a modicum of relaxation in these miseries when I am as it were talking to you, much more still when I am reading your letters.
The military situation did not improve. Towards the middle of February Cicero visited Pompey at his headquarters in Capua before he moved his forces farther south to avoid being cornered by the enemy. What he found deepened his pessimism. The recruiting officers were afraid to do their work; the Consuls were hopeless and, as for Pompey, “How utterly down he is! No courage, no plan, no forces, no energy.” Cicero resigned his Campanian commission, saying he could do nothing without troops and money. Letters came from Caesar full of kind words and peace proposals and so did curt missives from Pompey asking Cicero to join him. Balbus and Oppius, Caesar’s confidential agents, were in constant touch. To these correspondents Cicero responded with fair words and no commitments.
Caesar was briefly delayed at the town of Corfinium where a reckless aristocrat, Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus made a vain stand. He was acting against the instructions of Pompey, who refused to come to his aid. When the town fell Caesar found about fifty Senators and equites in it, all of whom he immediately released on condition that they not take arms against him again—an assurance many of them swiftly broke. This act of clemency had a huge impact on public opinion, which began to swing in his direction, and a number of optimates returned to Rome. Caesar maintained this policy of leniency for the rest of his life. He intended it as vivid proof that he was no Sulla, set on the armed overthrow of the state.
Meanwhile Pompey continued to rebuff Caesar’s offers of peace and decided to extricate himself and his legions from Italy. He marched to Brundisium, where he intended to leave for Greece. Caesar followed him at top speed. On February 20 Pompey dispatched an abrupt note to “M. Cicero Imperator,” telling him to meet him at Brun
disium. Cicero wrote a long, detailed reply in which he explained why it was unsafe and impractical for him to do so. He also set out a justification of his role as peacemaker, adding oblique criticisms of Pompey’s performance and failure to inform him of his plans. The truth was, as Cicero admitted to Atticus, he had not yet made up his mind what to do. He was coming to believe that there was less to choose between the opposing sides than he had originally thought. The constitution would probably be destroyed whoever won the impending struggle.
Our Cnaeus is marvelously covetous of despotism on Sullan lines. Experto crede; he has been as open about it as he ever was about anything.… The plan is first to strangle Rome and Italy with hunger, then to carry fire and sword through the countryside and dip into the pockets of the rich. But since I fear the same from this [i.e., Caesar’s] quarter, if I did not have an obligation to repay in the other I should think it better to take whatever may come at home.
On March 9 Caesar arrived outside Brundisium, but it was too late. The Consuls had already left with part of the army to set up headquarters in Greece. Pompey was still in town, but towards nightfall on March 17 he followed after them, evading Caesar’s attempt at a blockade with few losses and escaping with the remainder of his troops. Caesar was left fuming outside the walls, from which vantage point he could see the fleet’s sails grow smaller in the darkening light.
“I was made anxious before … by my inability to think of any solution,” Cicero told Atticus, who was comfortably settled in Rome. “But now that Pompey and the Consuls have left Italy, I am not merely distressed, I am consumed with grief.” He wrote in the language of a disconsolate lover: “Nothing in [Pompey’s] conduct seemed to deserve that I should join him as his companion in flight. But now my affection comes to the surface, the sense of loss is unbearable, books, writing, philosophy are all to no purpose.” The presence of his brother doubled his anxiety: Quintus, having spent some years fighting under Caesar in Gaul, owed much more to his old commander than Cicero did and could expect to suffer the severest consequences if he defected. Nevertheless, he told Cicero that he would follow his lead.
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