It was true that Cicero dithered, and also true that he was not occupying himself in recruitment duties, either in Minturnae or at his next stop on that round of beautiful villas he owned from one end of the Campanian coast to the other. Misenum was next to Minturnae, therefore Misenum was his next stop. He wasn't alone; Quintus Cicero, young Quintus Cicero and his own son, Marcus, were with him; and so too were his twelve lictors, their fasces wreathed in laurels because Cicero was a triumphator who had not yet held his triumph. A big enough nuisance to have the male members of the family in attendance, but not half the nuisance those wretched lictors were! He couldn't move without them, and since he still held his imperium and his imperium was a foreign one, the lictors were clad in all the glory of crimson tunics broadly belted in black leather studded with brass emblems, and bore the axes in their fasces among the thirty rods. Imposing. But not to a man burdened with as many cares as Cicero. He'd been visited by none other than his protg, that most promising young advocate Gaius Trebatius Testa, who had been released from service with Caesar so thoroughly indoctrinated to Caesar's way of thinking that he would hear not one word against him. Trebatius came, podgy as ever, to beg that Cicero return at once to Rome, which desperately needed, said Trebatius, the genuine stability of a knot of consulars. "I will not go anywhere at the behest of an outlaw!" said Cicero indignantly. "Marcus Cicero, Caesar is no outlaw," pleaded Trebatius. "He has marched to retrieve his dignitas, and that is proper. All he wants is to ensure its continuance. After that and in concert with that he wants peace and prosperity for Rome. He feels that your presence in Rome would be a calming one." "Well, let him feel what he likes!" snapped Cicero. "I will not be seen to betray my colleagues who are dedicated to the cause and preservation of the Republic. Caesar wants to be a king, and candidly, I believe Pompeius Magnus wouldn't refuse if he were asked to reign as King Magnus. Hah! Magnus Rex!" Which reply left Trebatius with no alternative other than to litter himself away. Next came a letter from Caesar himself, its brevity and off-the-point paragraph symptomatic of Caesar's exasperation.
My dear Marcus Cicero, you are one of the few people involved in this mess who may have the foresight and the courage to choose an intermediate path. Night and day I worry over the plight of Rome, left rudderless by the deplorable exodus of her government. What kind of answer is it to cry tumultus and then desert the ship? For that is what Gnaeus Pompeius, egged on by Cato and the Marcelli, has done. So far I have received no indication that any of them, including Pompeius, are thinking of Rome. And that despite the rhetoric. If you would return to Rome, it would be a great help. In this, I know, I am supported by Titus Atticus. A great joy to know him recovered from that terrible bout of the ague. He doesn't take enough care of himself. I remember that Quintus Sertorius's mother, Ria she cared for me when I almost died of the ague without a rhythm sent me a letter after I returned to Rome advising me which herbs to hang and which herbs to throw on a brazier to avoid contracting the ague. They work, Cicero. I haven't had the ague since. But though I told him what to do, Atticus can't be bothered. Do please consider coming home. Not for my sake. Nor will anyone apostrophize you as my partisan. Do it for Rome.
But Cicero wouldn't do it for Rome; did he do it, he would be acting to oblige Caesar. And that, he vowed, he would never do! But by the time that January ended and February arrived, Cicero was very torn. Nothing he heard inspired any confidence. One moment he was assured that Pompey was marching for Picenum to finish Caesar before he got started; the next moment he was being told that Pompey was in Larinum and planning to march for Brundisium and a voyage across the Adriatic to Epirus or western Macedonia. Caesar's letter had tickled an itch, with the result that Cicero fretted about Pompey's indifference to Rome the city. Why wasn't he defending her? Why? By this time the whole of the north was open to Caesar, from the Via Aurelia on the Tuscan Sea to the Adriatic coast. He held every great road or knew they contained no troops to oppose him; Hirrus had vacated Camerinum, Lentulus Spinther had fled from Asculum Picentum, and Caesar held all of Picenum. While, apparently, Pompey sat in Larinum. His prefect of engineers, Vibullius Rufus, had encountered Lentulus Spinther in disarray on the road after quitting Asculum Picentum, and stood up to the haughty consular sturdily. With the result that he took over command of Lentulus Spinther's troops and hied them, plus the dejected Lentulus Spinther, to Corfinium, where Ahenobarbus had established himself. Of all the legates the Senate had dispatched to defend Italia back in those far-off days before Caesar crossed the Rubicon, only Ahenobarbus had fared well. In Alba Fucentia beside the Fucine Lake he had marshaled two legions of Marsi, a warlike and ardent people in his clientele. He had then proceeded with them to the fortress city of Corfinium on the river Aternus, resolved to hold Corfinium and its sister city, Sulmo, in Caesar's teeth. Thanks to Vibullius, he received Lentulus Spinther's ten cohorts and five more cohorts Vibullius poached from Hirrus, retreating from Camerinum. Thus, or so it seemed to Cicero, Ahenobarbus looked like the only serious foe Caesar was likely to meet. For Pompey, it was clear, didn't want to meet him. The stories about what Caesar intended to do once he owned Italia and Rome were legion and horrifying: he was going to cancel all debts; proscribe the entire knight class; hand the Senate and the Assemblies over to the rabble, the Head Count who owned nothing and could give the State nothing save children. It was perhaps something of a comfort to know that Atticus stoutly maintained Caesar would do none of these things. "Don't dismiss Caesar as a Saturninus or a Catilina," said Atticus to Cicero in a letter. "He's a very able and clever man with a mine of common sense. Far from believing that he would do anything as foolish as cancel debts, I think him absolutely committed to protecting and ensuring the well-being of Rome's commercial sphere. Truly, Cicero, Caesar is no radical!" Oh, how much Cicero wanted to believe that! The trouble was that he couldn't, chiefly because he listened to everyone and deemed everyone right at the time. Save those, like Atticus, who kept blowing Caesar's trumpet, no matter in how restrained and reasonable a way. For he couldn't like Caesar, couldn't trust Caesar. Not since that dreadful year when he had been consul, when Catilina had plotted to overthrow the State, and Caesar had accused him of executing Roman citizens without a trial. Inexcusable. Unforgivable. Out of Caesar's stand came Clodius's persecution and eighteen months in exile. "You're an outright, downright fool!" snarled Quintus Cicero. "I beg your pardon!" gasped Cicero. "You heard me, big brother! You're a fool! Why won't you see that Caesar is a decent man, a highly conservative politician, and the most brilliant military man Rome has ever produced?" Quintus Cicero emitted a series of derisive raspberries. "He'll wallop the lot of them, Marcus! They do not stand a chance, no matter how much they prate about your precious Republic!" "I will repeat," said Cicero with great dignity, "what I have already said several times. It's infinitely preferable to be beaten with Pompeius than victorious with Caesar!" "Well," said Quintus, "don't expect me to feel the same way. I served with Caesar. I like him. And, by all the Gods, I admire him! So don't ask me to fight against him, because I won't." "I am the head of the Tullii Cicerones!" cried big brother. "You will do what I say!" "I'll cleave to the family in this much, Marcus I won't enlist to fight for Caesar. But nor will I take up a sword or a command against him." And from that stand little brother Quintus would not be budged. Which led to more and fiercer quarrels when Cicero's wife and daughter, Terentia and Tullia, joined them at Formiae. As did Quintus's wife, Pomponia, the sister of Atticus and a worse termagant than Terentia. Terentia sided with Cicero (not always the case), but Pomponia and Tullia sided with Quintus Cicero. Added to which, Quintus Cicero's son wanted to enlist in Caesar's legions, and Cicero's son wanted to enlist in Pompey's legions. "Tata," said Tullia, big and pretty brown eyes pleading, "I do wish you'd see reason! My Dolabella says Caesar is everything a great Roman aristocrat ought to be." "As I know him to be," said Quintus Cicero warmly. "I agree, Pater," said young Quintus Cicero with equal warmth. "My brother Atticus thinks him an excellent sort of man,
" said Pomponia, chin out pugnaciously. "You're all mentally deficient!" snapped Terentia. "Not to mention getting ready to suck up to the man you think will win!" yelled young Marcus Cicero, glaring at his cousin. "Tacete, tacete, tacete!" roared the head of the Tullii Cicerones. "Shut up, the lot of you! Go away! Leave me in peace! Isn't it enough that I can't persuade anybody to enlist? Isn't it enough to be plagued by twelve lictors? Isn't it enough that the consuls in Capua have got no further than boarding out Caesar's five thousand gladiators among loyal Republican families? Where they're eating their hosts out of house and home? Isn't it enough that Cato can't make up his mind whether to stay in Capua or go to govern Sicily? Isn't it enough that Balbus writes twice a day, begging me to heal the breach between Caesar and Pompeius? Isn't it enough that I hear Pompeius is already transferring cohorts to Brundisium to ship across the Adriatic? Tacete, tacete, tacete!"
5. Caesar Page 59
