: The Life of Cicero Volume II. by Trollope Anthony - Cicero Marcus Tullius; Statesmen Rome Biography; Authors Latin Biography

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ey conspired.

It would be a difficult task in the present era to recommend to my readers the murderers of Caesar as honest, loyal politicians, who did for their country, in its emergency, the best that the circumstances would allow. The feeling of the world in regard to murder has so changed during the last two thousand years, that men, hindered by their sense of what is at present odious, refuse to throw themselves back into the condition of things a knowledge of which can have come to them only from books. They measure events individually by the present scale, and refuse to see that Brutus should be judged by us now in reference to the judgment that was formed of it then. In an age in which it was considered wise and fitting to destroy the nobles of a barbarous community which had defended itself, and to sell all others as slaves, so that the perpetrator simply recorded the act he had done as though necessary, can it have been a base thing to kill a tyrant? Was it considered base by other Romans of the day? Was that plea ever made even by Caesar's friends, or was it not acknowledged by them all that "Brutus was an honorable man," even when they had collected themselves sufficiently to look upon him as an enemy? It appears abundantly in Cicero's letters that no one dreamed of regarding them as we regard assassins now, or spoke of Caesar's death as we look upon assassination. "Shall we defend the deeds of him at whose death we are rejoiced?" he says: and again, he deplores the feeling of regret which was growing in Rome on account of Caesar's death, "lest it should be dangerous to those who have slain the tyrant for us." We find that Quintilian, among his stock lessons in oratory, constantly refers to the old established rule that a man did a good deed who had killed a tyrant--a lesson which he had taken from the Greek teachers. We are, therefore, bound to accept this murder as a thing praiseworthy according to the light of the age in which it was done, and to recognize the fact that it was so regarded by the men of the day.

We are told now that Cicero "hated" Caesar. There was no such hatred as the word implies. And we are told of "assassins," with an intention to bring down on the perpetrators of the deed the odium they would have deserved had the deed been done to-day; but the word has, I think, been misused. A king was abominable to Roman ears, and was especially distasteful to men like Cicero, Brutus, and the other "optimates" who claimed to be peers. To be "primus inter pares" had been Cicero's ambition--to be the leading oligarch of the day. Caesar had gradually mounted higher and still higher, but always leaving some hope--infinitesimally small at last--that he might be induced to submit himself to the Republic. Sulla had submitted. Personally there was no hatred; but that hope had almost vanished, and therefore, judging as a Roman, when the deed was done, Cicero believed it to have been a glorious deed. There can be no doubt on that subject. The passages in which he praises it are too numerous for direct quotation; but there they are, interspersed through the letters and the Philippics. There was no doubt of his approval. The "assassination" of Caesar, if that is to be the word used, was to his idea a glorious act done on behalf of humanity. The all-powerful tyrant who had usurped dominion over his country had been made away with, and again they might fall back upon the law. He had filched the army. He had run through various provinces, and had enriched himself with their wealth. He was above all law; he was worse than a Marius or a Sulla, who confessed themselves, by their open violence, to be temporary evils. Caesar was creating himself king for all time. No law had established him. No plebiscite of the nation had endowed him with kingly power. With his life in his hands, he had dared to do it, and was almost successful. It is of no purpose to say that he was right and Cicero was wrong in their views as to the government of so mean a people as the Romans had become. Cicero's form of government, under men who were not Ciceros, had been wrong, and had led to a state of things in which a tyrant might for the time be the lesser evil; but not on that account was Cicero wrong to applaud the deed which removed Caesar. Middleton in his life gives us the opinion of Suetonius on this subject, and tells us that the best and wisest men in Rome supposed Caesar to have been justly killed. Mr. Forsyth generously abstains from blaming the deed, as to which he leaves his readers to form their own opinion. Abeken expresses no opinion concerning its morality, nor does Morabin. It is the critics of Cicero's works who have condemned him without thinking much, perhaps, of the judgment they have given.

But Cicero was not in the conspiracy, nor had he even contemplated Caesar's death. Assertions to the contrary have been made both lately and in former years, but without foundation. I have already alluded to some of these, and have shown that phrases in his letters have been misinterpreted. A passage was quoted by M. Du Rozoir--Ad Att., lib. x., 8--"I don't think that he can endure longer than six months. He must fall, even if we do nothing." How often might it be said that the murder of an English minister had been intended if the utterings of such words be taken as a testimony! He quotes again--Ad Att., lib. xiii., 40--"What good news could Brutus hear of Caesar, unless that he hung himself?" This is to be taken as meditating Caesar's death, and is quoted by a French critic, after two thousand years, in proof of Cicero's fatal ill-will! The whole tenor of Cicero's letters proves that he had never entertained the idea of Caesar's destruction.

How long before the time the conspiracy may have been in existence we have no means of knowing; but we feel that Cicero was not a man likely to be taken into the plot. He would have dissuaded Brutus and Cassius. Judging from what we know of his character, we think that he would have distrusted its success. Though he rejoiced in it after it was done, he would have been wretched while burdened with the secret. At any rate, we have the fact that he was not so burdened. The sight of Caesar's slaughter, when he saw it, must have struck him with infinite surprise, but we have no knowledge of what his feelings may have been when the crowd had gathered round the doomed man. Cicero has left us no description of the moment in which Caesar is supposed to have gathered his toga over his face so that he might fall with dignity. It certainly is the case that when you take your facts from the chance correspondence of a man you lose something of the most touching episodes of the day. The writer passes these things by, as having been surely handled elsewhere. It is always so with Cicero. The trial of Milo, the passing of the Rubicon, the battle of the Pharsalus, and the murder of Pompey are, with the death of Caesar, alike unnoticed. "I have paid him a visit as to whom we spoke this morning. Nothing could be more forlorn." It is thus the next letter begins, after Caesar's death, and the person he refers to is Matius, Caesar's friend; but in three weeks the world had become used to Caesar's death. The scene had passed away, and the inhabitants of Rome were already becoming accustomed to his absence. But there can be no doubt as to Cicero's presence at Caesar's fall. He says so clearly to Atticus. Morabin throws a doubt upon it. The story goes that Brutus, descending from the platform on which Caesar had been seated, and brandishing the bloody dagger in his hand, appealed to Cicero. Morabin says that there is no proof of this, and alleges that Brutus did it for stage effect. But he cannot have seen the letter above quoted, or seeing it, must have misunderstood it.

It soon became evident to the conspirators that they had scotched the snake, and not killed it. Cassius and others had desired that Antony also should be killed, and with him Lepidus. That Antony would be dangerous they were sure. But Marcus Brutus and Decimus overruled their counsels. Marcus had declared that the "blood of the tyrant was all that the people required." The people required nothing of the kind. They were desirous only of ease and quiet, and were anxious to follow either side which might be able to lead them and had something to give away. But Antony had been spared; and though cowed at the moment by the death of Caesar, and by the assumption of a certain dignified forbearance on the part of the conspirators, was soon ready again to fight the battle for the Caesareans. It is singular to see how completely he was cowed, and how quickly he recovered himself.

Mommsen finishes his history with a loud paean in praise of Caesar, but does not tell us of his death. His readers, had they nothing else to inform them, might be led to suppose that he had gone direct to heaven, or at any rate had vanished from the world, as soon as he had made the Empire perfect. He seems to have thought that had he described the work of the daggers in the Senate-house he would have acknowledged the mortality of his godlike hero. We have no right to complain of his omissions. For research, for labor, and for accuracy he has produced a work almost without parallel. That he should have seen how great was Caesar because he accomplished so much, and that he should have thought Cicero to be small because, burdened with scruples of justice, he did so little, is in the idiosyncrasy of the man. A Caesar was wanted, impervious to clemency, to justice, to moderation--a man who could work with any tools. "Men had forgotten what honesty was. A person who refused a bribe was regarded not as an upright man but as a personal foe." Caesar took money, and gave bribes, when he had the money to pay them, without a scruple. It would be absurd to talk about him as dishonest. He was above honesty. He was "supra grammaticam." It is well that some one should have arisen to sing the praises of such a man--some two or three in these latter days. To me the character of the man is unpleasant to contemplate, unimpressionable, very far from divine. There is none of the human softness necessary for love; none of the human weakness needed for sympathy.

On the 15th of March Caesar fell. When the murder had been effected. Brutus and the others concerned in it went out among the people expecting to be greeted as saviors of their country. Brutus did address the populace, and was well received; but some bad feeling seems to have been aroused by hard expressions as to Caesar's memory coming from one of the Praetors. For the people, though they regarded Caesar as a tyrant, and expressed themselves as gratified when told that the would-be king had been slaughtered, still did not endure to hear ill spoken of him. He had understood that it behooved a tyrant to be generous, and appealed among them always with full hands--not having been scrupulous as to his mode of filling them. Then the conspirators, frightened at menacing words from the crowd, betook themselves to the Capitol. Why they should have gone to the Capitol as to a sanctuary I do not think that we know. The Capitol is that hill to a portion of which access is now had by the steps of the church of the Ara Coeli in front, and from the Forum in the rear. On one side was the fall from the Tarpeian rock down which malefactors were flung. On the top of it was the temple to Jupiter, standing on the site of the present church. And it was here that Brutus and Cassius and the other conspirators sought for safety on the evening of the day on which Caesar had been killed. Here they remained for the two following days, till on the 18th they ventured down into the city. On the 17th Dolabella claimed to be Consul, in compliance with Caesar's promise, and on the same day the Senate, moved by Antony, decreed a public funeral to Caesar. We may imagine that the decree was made by them with fainting hearts. There were many fainting hearts in Rome during those days, for it became very soon apparent that the conspirators had carried their plot no farther than the death of Caesar.

It was now that those scenes took place which Shakspeare has described with such accuracy--the public funeral, Antony's oration, and the rising of the people against the conspirators. Antony, when he found that no plan had been devised for carrying on the government, and that the men were struck by amazement at the deed they had themselves done, collected his thoughts and did his best to put himself in Caesar's place. Cicero had pleaded in the Senate for a general amnesty, and had carried it as far as the voice of the Senate could do so. But the amnesty only intended that men should pretend to think that all should be forgotten and forgiven. There was no forgiving, as there could be no forgetting. Then Caesar's will was brought forth. They could not surely dispute his will or destroy it. In this way Antony got hold of the dead man's papers, and with the aid of the dead man's private secretary or amanuensis, one Fabricius, began a series of most unblushing forgeries. He procured, or said that he procured, a decree to be passed confirming by law all Caesar's written purposes. Such a decree he could use to any extent to which he could carry with him the sympathies of the people. He did use it to a great extent, and seems at this period to have contemplated the assumption of dictatorial power in his own hands. Antony was nearly being one of the greatest rascals the world has known. The desire was there, and so was the intellect, had it not been weighted by personal luxury and indulgence.

Now young Octavius came upon the scene. He was the great-nephew of Caesar, whose sister Julia had married one Marcus Atius. Their daughter Atia had married Caius Octavius, and of that marriage Augustus was the child. When Octavius, the father, died, Atia, the widow, married Marcius Philippus, who was Consul B.C. 56. Caesar, having no nearer heir, took charge of the boy, and had, for the last years of his life, treated him as his son, though he had not adopted him. At this period the youth had been sent to Apollonia, on the other side of the Adriatic, in Macedonia, to study with Apollodorus, a Greek tutor, and was there when he heard of Caesar's death. He was informed that Caesar had made him his heir and at once crossed over into Italy with his friend Agrippa. On the way up to Rome he met Cicero at one of his southern villas, and in the presence of the great orator behaved himself with becoming respect. He was then not twenty years old, but in the present difficulty of his position conducted himself with a caution most unlike a boy. He had only come, he said for what his great-uncle had left him; and when he found that Antony had spent the money, does not appear to have expressed himself immediately in anger. He went on to Rome, where he found that Antony and Dolabella and Marcus Brutus and Decimus Brutus and Cassius were scrambling for the provinces and the legions. Some of the soldiers came to him, asking him to avenge his uncle's death; but he was too prudent as yet to declare any purpose of revenge.

Not long after Caesar's death Cicero left Rome, and spent the ensuing month travelling about among his different villas. On the 14th of April he writes to Atticus, declaring that whatever evil might befall him he would find comfort in the ides of March. In the same letter he calls Brutus and the others "our heroes," and begs his friend to send him news--or if not news, then a letter without news. In the next he again calls them his heroes, but adds that he can take no pleasure in anything but in the deed that had been done. Men are still praising the work of Caesar, and he laments that they should be so inconsistent. "Though they laud those who had destroyed Caesar, at the same time they praise his deeds." In the same letter he tells Atticus that the people in all the villages are full of joy. "It cannot be told how eager they are--how they run out to meet me, and to hear my accounts of what was done. But the Senate passes no decree!" He speaks of going into Greece to see his son--whom he never lived to see again--telling him of letters from the lad from Athens, which, he thinks, however, may be hypocritical, though he is comforted by finding their language to be clear. He has recovered his good-humor, and can be jocose. One Cluvius has left him a property at Puteoli, and the house has tumbled down; but he has sent for Chrysippus, an architect. But what are houses falling to him? He can thank Socrates and all his followers that they have taught him to disregard such worldly things. Nevertheless, he has deemed it expedient to take the advice of a certain friend as to turning the tumble-down house into profitable shape. A little later he expresses his great disgust that Caesar, in the public speeches in Rome, should be spoken of as that "great and most excellent man." And yet he had said, but a few months since, in his oration for King Deiotarus, in the presence of Caesar, "that he looked only into his eyes, only into his face--that he regarded only him." The flattery and the indignant reprobation do, in truth, come very near upon each other, and induce us to ask whether the fact of having to live in the presence of royalty be not injurious to the moral man. Could any of us have refused to speak to Caesar with adulation--any of us whom circumstances compelled to speak to him? Power had made Caesar desirous of a mode of address hardly becoming a man to give or a man to receive. Does not the etiquette of to-day require from us certain courtesies of conversation, which I would call abject were it not that etiquette requires them? Nevertheless, making the best allowance that I can for Cicero, the difference of his language within a month or two is very painful. In the letter above quoted Octavius comes to him, and we can see how willing was the young aspirant to flatter him.

He sees already that, in spite of the promised amnesty, there must be internecine feud. "I shall have to go into the camp with young Sextus"--Sextus Pompeius--"or perhaps with Brutus, a prospect at my years most odious." Then he quotes two lines of Homer, altering a word: "To you, my child, is not given the glory of war; eloquence, charming eloquence, must be the weapon with which you will fight." We hear of his contemplated journey into Greece, under the protection of a free legation. He was going for the sake of his son; but would not people say that he went to avoid the present danger? and might it not be the case that he should be of service if he remained? We see that the old state of doubt is again falling upon him. Otherwise he could go and make himself safe in Athens. There is a correspondence between him and Antony, of which he sends copies to Atticus. Antony writes to him, begging him to allow Sextus Clodius to return from his banishment. This Sextus had been condemned because of the riot on the death of his uncle in Milo's affair, and Antony wishes to have him back. Cicero replies that he will certainly accede to Antony's views. It had always been a law with him, he says, not to maintain a feeling of hatred against his humbler enemies. But in both these letters we see the subtilty and caution of the writers. Antony could have brought back Sextus without Cicero, and Cicero knew that he could do so. Cicero had no power over the law. But it suited Antony to write courteously a letter which might elicit an uncivil reply. Cicero, however, knew better, and answered it civilly.

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