Cicero

by Anthony Everitt

  AS he was getting nowhere at a distance, Quintus decided to spend some days with Cicero at Puteoli and see what persuasion in person could achieve. He wanted an introduction to Brutus, which his embarrassed uncle could not decently refuse. Also he was anxious for a family reconciliation and Cicero wrote Atticus a dissembling letter in which he pretended to be convinced that the young man’s reformation was sincere. He warned Atticus under separate cover that he had written in these terms only under pressure from Quintus and his father.

  At long last, on July 17, Cicero set sail for Greece from his house in Pompeii in three ten-oared rowing boats. AS he boarded, he was, of course, already having second thoughts. A long sea voyage would be fatiguing for a man of his age. (He was now 62.) The timing of his departure was unfortunate, for he was leaving peace behind him with the intention of returning when the Republic would very probably be at war. Also, he was going to miss his country estates. His financial affairs were in their usual state of disarray.

  The little flotilla sailed at a comfortable speed down to Syracuse, from where it would set out west across the open sea. But a southern gale blew the boats back to the toe of Italy. Cicero stayed for a few days at a friend’s villa near Regium and waited for more favorable weather. While he was there a local delegation returned from the capital on August 6 with some exciting news.

  The story was that disorder on the streets of Rome and Octavian’s ceaseless efforts to gain the public-relations initiative were shifting the Consul’s policy again. Perhaps, after all, Antony was believed to think, his best bet would be to return to the March 17 settlement and align himself with moderate, antiwar Caesarians and the Senate. He delivered a speech in which he made some friendly references to the conspirators. A Senate meeting was called for August 1, which Brutus and Cassius begged all ex-Consuls to attend.

  Cicero also learned, to his dismay, that people were commenting adversely on his absence. Atticus was having second thoughts too and, although he had endorsed Cicero’s original plan to spend some time in Athens, now took him to task. Cicero decided to abandon the expedition. On his way back to Rome he met Brutus, who was in the southwest of Italy gathering ships in preparation for his departure for Macedonia. “You wouldn’t believe how delighted he was at my return or rather my turning back!” Cicero told Atticus. “Everything he had held back came gushing out.”

  Unfortunately, the Republicans had been tempted by a false dawn. Caesar’s father-in-law, Piso, who Cicero still believed had connived at his exile and whom he consequently loathed, launched a fierce attack on Antony at the August Senate meeting. He received no support, but, if a tentative rapprochement was being considered, this was enough to halt it in its tracks.

  In fact, the idea had probably never been seriously viable. Octavian, or his advisers, was too canny to allow a complete breach with his competitor. Dealing with Antony was a balancing act: on the one hand the two were rivals for popularity with the army—that is, for Caesar’s political succession, for whoever controlled the legions in the last analysis controlled Rome. On the other hand, it was essential not to drive the Consul back into the arms of the optimates. The task was to manage him, not to crush him.

  At a personal level the two men had little in common. Antony, who was twenty years older than Octavian, was a playboy. He probably had no long-term strategy and seems not to have been particularly interested in avenging the Ides of March. He would react vigorously if prodded but preferred to live and let live. By contrast, Octavian had a colder personality and, although he told no one about it, intended to pursue the conspirators to the end. Yet, whether they liked it or not, the two men were obliged to cooperate. The legionnaires, aghast at their disagreements, forced a reconciliation and a special ceremony was held on the Capitoline Hill to mark the event.

  Hopes of compromise dashed, Brutus and Cassius had finally made up their minds to abandon Italy, although their precise intentions after that were unclear. Servilia had evidently fulfilled her promise to work behind the scenes to get the corn commissions canceled and they had again been awarded new provinces, but they did not go to them. Instead, Brutus settled in Athens in the province of Macedonia where, hoping that the political situation would improve, he waited for as long as possible before determining whether or not to recruit an army. Cassius traveled to Syria (where he had been Quaestor in 51) with the idea of taking over the legions based in the region.

  Cicero’s return to Rome on August 31 echoed the excitement and applause of his return from exile thirteen years earlier. The crowds that poured out to meet him were so large that the greetings and speeches of welcome at the city gates and during his entry into the city took up most of a day. It would be wrong to exaggerate Cicero’s influence, for he commanded no divisions, but his significance can also be undervalued. Perhaps he undervalued it himself; his letters show him to be much preoccupied with the preservation of his public standing, but they convey little awareness of his authority and influence.

  That autumn a combination of factors conspired to give him real political influence for the first time since his Consulship. This was partly because he was one of the few senior statesmen of ability to have survived in a pollarded oligarchy. AS Brutus had recognized when he called out Cicero’s name at Pompey’s theater, he stood for the best of the past, the old days and the old ways. People were beginning to fear a new breakdown of the fragile Republic and Cicero was the one man who had proclaimed the need for reconciliation throughout his career. His proven administrative ability and formidable skills as a public speaker were assets that few other politicians of the time could deploy.

  But the most important factor was the change which seems to have taken place in his personality. He showed a new ruthlessness and clarity, as if iron had entered his soul. Perhaps it was simply that by the standards of the age Cicero was an old man and felt he had little to lose. Perhaps his immersion in philosophy had made him clearer about what was important and what could be jettisoned. In any case, step by step, he let himself be drawn towards the center of events and, to the surprise of those who knew him well, Brutus above all, showed himself willing to use unscrupulous and even unconstitutional methods to achieve his ultimate goal: the full, complete and permanent restoration of the Republic.

  The day after Cicero’s return Antony called a Senate meeting at which he would propose a new honor in Julius Caesar’s memory. Cicero was working towards a coalition with moderate Caesarians including Hirtius and Pansa who revered the Dictator’s memory. If he opposed the measure publicly he would unnecessarily offend them. So he pleaded exhaustion and kept to his bed.

  Antony was furious. During the debate he launched an outspoken attack on Cicero, threatening to send housebreakers in to demolish his home on the Palatine. On September 2, in the Consul’s absence, the Senate was reconvened and Cicero responded to the onslaught with the first of a series of speeches against Antony. He later nicknamed them his “Philippics” (after the Athenian orator Demosthenes’ speeches against Philip of Macedon) in a letter to Brutus, who for the time being was impressed by Cicero’s new firmness and replied that they deserved the title.

  Avoiding personal insults and using studiously moderate terms, he followed up Piso’s criticisms a month earlier of Antony’s unconstitutional activities and fraudulent use of Julius Caesar’s papers. It was a well-judged address, carefully aimed at all who occupied the middle ground. The Consul well understood the threat it posed to his position and spent a couple of weeks in his country villa working up a counterblast. At a Senate meeting on September 19 he delivered a comprehensive onslaught on Cicero, who cautiously stayed away: he dissected his career, blaming him for the “murder” of Catilina’s followers, the death of Clodius and the quarrel between Julius Caesar and Pompey. Antony’s aim was to unite all the factions in Rome against Cicero and, above all, to show the veterans that here was the real contriver of their hero’s downfall. If he failed, little in the way of a power base would be left to him in Rome and the affe
ctions of the legions would continue to slide toward Octavian. In a letter to Cassius, alluding to a tendency of Antony’s to vomit in public (presumably when drunk), Cicero commented: “Everyone thought he wasn’t speaking so much as spewing up.”

  Cicero settled safely in the countryside, where he spent the next month preparing the second of his Philippics, a lengthy, colorful but in the end unappealing invective against Antony, in which he reviewed the Consul’s life episode by episode. Like the speeches against Verres, it was never delivered. He wanted it published, but Atticus doubtless advised against, and the work did not appear until after its author’s death.

  At about this time, Cicero learned that an old friend of his, Caius Matius, whom he nicknamed Baldy, was annoyed by some critical remarks he had reportedly made about him. Matius had been devoted to Julius Caesar and was one of the few who had worked for him without asking for any favors. He had been deeply upset by Caesar’s assassination and had irritated Cicero by his constant prophecies of doom and, indeed, by the very fact of his grief.

  In a carefully composed letter, Cicero defended himself but made it clear that he did think Caesar had been a despot. He dropped a broad hint that in his view the claims of freedom came before those of affection. Matius wrote a reply, so open in its emotions that it still has the power to touch the reader.

  I am well aware of the criticisms which people have leveled at me since Caesar’s death. They make it a point against me that I take a friend’s death so much to heart and am indignant that the man I loved has been destroyed. They say that country should come before friendship—as though they have already proved that his death was in the public interest.… It wasn’t Caesar I followed in the civil conflict but a friend whom I did not desert, even though I didn’t like what he was doing. I never approved of the civil war or indeed the origin of the conflict, which I did my very utmost to get nipped in the Bud.… Why are they angry with me for praying that they may be sorry for what they have done? I want every man to be sorry for Caesar’s death.

  The letter is testimony to the magnetism of Caesar’s personality. Cicero had once given in to it himself, but, as he entered this last exclusively public phase of his life, he was becoming impervious to the claims of private feeling. In Duties, which he was writing at the time, he made no concession to the genius of his great contemporary; he condemned the

  unscrupulous behavior of Caius Caesar who disregarded all divine and human law for the sake of the preeminence on which he had deludedly set his heart.… If a man insists on outcompeting everyone else, then it is hard for him to respect the most important aspect of justice: equality. Men of this type put up with no restraint by way of debate or due process; they emerge as spendthrift faction leaders, because they wish to acquire as much power as possible and would sooner gain the upper hand through force than fair dealing.

  The entente between Antony and Octavian was short-lived, and the scene of action soon shifted from the Forum to the legionary camps. The Consul’s rage at Cicero’s first Philippic reflected a tacit acknowledgment that he could no longer depend on support from the Senate. His year of office was drawing to a close and his priority now was to establish himself in his province with a strong army. Otherwise, he would be politically marginalized. He decided to move at once to Italian Gaul, before his Consulship was over, and to seize it from Decimus Brutus, who was enlisting legions to add to the two already stationed there. For this purpose he needed soldiers and in early October he set out for Brundisium to pick up four legions he had ordered over from Macedonia.

  At this point his plans faltered. While his back was turned, Octavian went to Campania and started recruiting veterans. It was completely illegal for someone who held no public office to raise a private army, although forty years previously Pompey had launched his career by doing so. Today’s young adventurer, only nineteen years old, knew that unless he had troops behind him he would make no political headway. The appeal of his name and the added inducement of a hefty bribe of 2,000 sesterces per soldier was persuasive, and Octavian soon had a force of 3,000 experienced men at his disposal. The question now was what should he do with it.

  Meanwhile, at Brundisium the Consul found his legions in truculent mood. He promised them only 400 sesterces for their loyalty. Aware of Octavian’s much more generous offer, they booed him, left him standing while he was speaking to them and rioted. “You will learn to obey orders,” was his savage response. Some judicious summary executions brought the soldiers to heel, but morale remained low.

  What had been a political crisis was transforming itself into a phony war. The civilian leaders in Rome had no direct access to an army and were on the sidelines. The nearest loyal troops belonged to Decimus Brutus in Italian Gaul, but they were too few to pose an aggressive threat to anybody; he could only await the arrival of Antony, with some nervousness, behind the walls of the city of Mutina.

  Between Antony and Octavian there was a standoff. The former was an experienced general and commanded a substantial force, but his soldiers would not follow him against Octavian. For its part Octavian’s illegal army was growing, but he was no military match for the Consul.

  Faced with this impasse, Octavian had to regularize his position somehow or he risked being marginalized by both Antony and the Senate. In all probability, Antony would march on Rome, impose a concordat of some sort and then proceed north to Italian Gaul to defeat Decimus Brutus and install himself safely in his province. In January there would be new Consuls, Hirtius and Pansa, who would be able to raise their own troops: this was unhelpful from Octavian’s point of view because they were moderate Caesarians and likely to cooperate with the Senate. Meanwhile, there was no saying what Brutus and Cassius would be getting up to in Macedonia and Asia Minor. It was perfectly possible that they would raise armies and invade Italy if they thought the Republic was in danger.

  So the young man and his advisers took what must have been an agonizing step, going against their deepest instincts. This was to ally themselves with the despised Republican leadership, which was only too happy to forget all about Octavian’s adoptive father and had not the slightest intention of making the conspirators pay for his death. But the prize was worth the sacrifice, for, in return for helping the Senate deal with Antony, Octavian and his illegal army would receive official status.

  It was at this moment that Octavian decided to approach Cicero: if he could only win over the leading personality in the Senate to his scheme, the other Republicans would follow.

  At a safe distance from these alarms and excursions, Cicero continued to devote much of his time to literary pursuits. Besides Duties, he was working on a short dialogue, Friendship, dedicated to Atticus, as a complement to Growing Old, which he probably completed towards the end of November. In it he returned to the theme of his correspondence with Matius: the conflict between loyalty to one’s friend and loyalty to the state. There was no easy answer, he decided, except that one should make sure that a friend deserved one’s trust before giving it to him.

  This principle was soon put to the test, for a proposal of friendship arrived from a startling source. On October 31 Cicero, who was staying in his villa at the seaside resort of Puteoli on the Bay of Naples, received a letter from Octavian in which he offered to lead the Republican cause in a war against Antony. The letter was delivered by a personal emissary, who brought the news that the Consul was marching on Rome. “He has great schemes afoot,” Cicero wrote excitedly to Atticus. “So it looks to me as though in a few days’ time we shall be in arms. But whom are we to follow? Think of his name; think of his age.” It was an uninviting choice.

  Octavian proposed a secret meeting and asked for Cicero’s advice: should he anticipate the Consul, who would soon be returning from Brundisium with his troops, and march on Rome himself? In Cicero’s opinion, a secret meeting was a childish idea because news of it would inevitably be leaked. He wrote back, explaining that it was neither necessary nor feasible; but he recommended that he go to
the capital. He told Atticus: “I imagine he will have the city rabble behind him and respectable opinion too if he convinces them of his sincerity.”

  Octavian’s approach was not a one-time advance; it quickly grew into a courtship. On November 4 Cicero reported that he was being pestered:

  Two letters for me from Octavian in one day. Now he wants me to return to Rome at once, says he wants to work through the Senate. I replied that the Senate could not meet before the Kalends of January, which I believe is the case. He adds “with your advice.” In short, he presses and I play for time. I don’t trust his age and I don’t know what he’s after.

  The future for Republicans lay in splitting the partisans of Caesar. Moderates grouped around Hirtius and Pansa, the following year’s Consuls, were likely to align themselves with Cicero and the constitutionalist majority in the Senate. In theory that would isolate Antony, increasingly desperate to find himself a safe provincial base, and Octavian, with his magical name. However, they both commanded the loyalty of the legions. Together they would be irresistible and it was essential that nothing be done to persuade them to overcome their differences and join forces.

  Cooperation with Octavian would raise two difficult issues. If Cicero wanted to play this dangerous and delicate game, he would have to work with people who operated outside the constitution; he might even have to act unconstitutionally himself. However much he told himself that this would be for the greater good, dubious means might subvert virtuous ends. This was certainly the view of some of the conspirators, who were deeply suspicious of any accommodation with the new Caesar. The more immediate question was how far the young man was to be trusted. If his short-term interest was to align himself with Cicero and the Senate, what were his long-term aims? It seemed that the people around him, like Balbus and Oppius, shared the dead Dictator’s belief that the Republican oligarchy was incompetent to run an empire and would have to give way to some kind of autocracy.