The Life of Cicero. Volume II.. Trollope Anthony
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In the first portion of this speech, Pro Domo Sua, Cicero devotes himself to a matter which has no bearing on his house. Concomitant with Cicero's return there had come a famine in Rome. Such a calamity was of frequent occurrence, though I doubt whether their famines ever led to mortality so frightful as that which desolated Ireland just before the repeal of the Corn Laws. No records, as far as I am aware, have reached us of men perishing in the streets; but scarcity was not uncommon, and on such occasions complaints would become very loud. The feeding of the people was a matter of great difficulty, and subject to various chances. We do not at all know what was the number to be fed, including the free and the slaves, but have been led by surmises to suppose that it was under a million even in the time of Augustus. But even though the number was no more than five hundred thousand at this time, the procuring of food must have been a complicated and difficult matter. It was not produced in the country. It was imported chiefly from Sicily and Africa, and was plentiful or the reverse, not only in accordance with the seasons but as certain officers of state were diligent and honest, or fraudulent and rapacious. We know from one of the Verrine orations the nature of the laws on the subject, but cannot but marvel that, even with the assistance of such laws, the supply could be maintained with any fair proportion to the demand. The people looked to the government for the supply, and when it fell short would make their troubles known with seditious grumblings, which would occasionally assume the guise of insurrection. At this period of Cicero's return food had become scarce and dear; and Clodius, who was now in arms against Pompey as well as against Cicero, caused it to be believed that the strangers flocking into Rome to welcome Cicero had eaten up the food which should have filled the bellies of the people. An idea farther from truth could hardly have been entertained: no chance influx of visitors on such a population could have had the supposed effect. But the idea was spread abroad, and it was necessary that something should be done to quiet the minds of the populace. Pompey had hitherto been the resource in State difficulties. Pompey had scattered the pirates, who seem, however, at this period to have been gathering head again. Pompey had conquered Mithridates. Let Pompey have a commission to find food for Rome. Pompey himself entertained the idea of a commission which should for a time give him almost unlimited power. Cæsar was increasing his legions and becoming dominant in the West. Pompey, who still thought himself the bigger man of the two, felt the necessity of some great step in rivalry of Cæsar. The proposal made on his behalf was that all the treasure belonging to the State should be placed at his disposal; that he should have an army and a fleet, and should be for five years superior in authority to every Proconsul in his own province. This was the first great struggle made by Pompey to strangle the growing power of Cæsar. It failed altogether.6 The fear of Cæsar had already become too great in the bosoms of Roman Senators to permit them to attempt to crush him in his absence. But a mitigated law was passed, enjoining Pompey to provide the food required, and conferring upon him certain powers. Cicero was nominated as his first lieutenant, and accepted the position. He never acted, however, giving it up to his brother Quintus. A speech which he made to the people on the passing of the law is not extant; but as there was hot blood about it in Rome, he took the opportunity of justifying the appointment of Pompey in the earlier portion of this oration to the priests. It must be understood that he did not lend his aid toward giving those greater powers which Pompey was anxious to obtain. His trust in Pompey had never been a perfect trust since the first days of the Triumvirate. To Cicero's thinking, both Pompey and Cæsar were conspirators against the Republic. Cæsar was the bolder, and therefore the more dangerous. It might probably come to pass that the services of Pompey would be needed for restraining Cæsar. Pompey naturally belonged to the "optimates," while Cæsar was as naturally a conspirator. But there never again could come a time in which Cicero would willingly intrust Pompey with such power as was given to him nine years before by the Lex Manilia. Nevertheless, he could still say grand things in praise of Pompey. "To Pompey have been intrusted wars without number, wars most dangerous to the State, wars by sea and wars by land, wars extraordinary in their nature. If there be a man who regrets that this has been done, that man must regret the victories which Rome has won." But his abuse of Clodius is infinitely stronger than his praise of Pompey. For the passages in which he alluded to the sister of Clodius I must refer the reader to the speech itself. It is impossible here to translate them or to describe them. And these words were spoken before the College of Priests, of whom nineteen were Consulares! And they were prepared with such care that Cicero specially boasted of them to Atticus, and declares that they should be put into the hands of all young orators. Montesquieu says that the Roman legislators, in establishing their religion, had no view of using it for the improvement of manners or of morals.7 The nature of their rites and ceremonies gives us evidence enough that it was so. If further testimony were wanting, it might be found in this address, Ad Pontifices. Cicero himself was a man of singularly clean life as a Roman nobleman, but, in abusing his enemy, he was restrained by no sense of what we consider the decency of language.
He argues the question as to his house very well, as he did all questions. He tells the priests that the whole joy of his restoration must depend on their decision. Citizens who had hitherto been made subject to such penalties had been malefactors; whereas, it was acknowledged of him that he had been a benefactor to the city. Clodius had set up on the spot, not a statue of Liberty, but, as was well known to all men, the figure of a Greek prostitute. The priests had not been consulted. The people had not ratified the proposed consecration. Of the necessity of such authority he gives various examples. "And this has been done," he says, "by an impure and impious enemy of all religions – by this man among women, and woman among men – who has gone through the ceremony so hurriedly, so violently, that his mind and his tongue and his voice have been equally inconsistent with each other." "My fortune," he says, as he ends his speech, "all moderate as it is, will suffice for me. The memory of my name will be a patrimony sufficient for my children;" but if his house be so taken from him, so stolen, so falsely dedicated to religion, he cannot live without disgrace. Of course he got back his house; and with his house
5
Ad Att., lib. iv., 2. He recommends that the speech should be put into the hands of all young men, and thus gives further proof that we still here have his own words. When so much has come to us, we cannot but think that an oration so prepared would remain extant.
6
I had better, perhaps, refer my readers to book v., chap. viii., of Mommsen's History.
7
"Politique des Romains dans la religion;" a treatise which was read by its author to certain students at Bordeaux. It was intended as a preface to a longer work.