History of Julius Caesar Vol. 2 of 2

Intrigues of Clodius.

V. Clodius, whose imprudent support of those who were subsequently called the triumvirs had increased his influence, continued, after Cæsar’s departure, to court a vain popularity, and to excite the passions which had been imperfectly allayed. Not satisfied with having, at the beginning of his tribuneship, re-established those religious, commercial, and political associations, which, composed chiefly of the dregs of the people, were a permanent danger to society; with having made distributions of wheat, restrained the censors in their right of exclusion, forbidden the auspices to be taken or the sky observed on the day fixed for the meeting of the comitia,[566 - Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 13.] and with having provoked the exile of Cicero, he turned his restless activity against Pompey,[567 - Plutarch, Pompey, 51, 52.] whom he soon deeply offended, by causing to be taken away and set at liberty a son of Tigranes, King of Armenia, made prisoner in the war against Mithridates, and retained as a pledge for the tranquillity of Asia.[568 - Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 30.] At the same time he began judicial proceedings against some of Pompey’s friends, and replied to the expostulations which were addressed to him, “That he was glad to learn how far the great man’s credit went.”[569 - Plutarch, Pompey, 48 and 50.] The latter then conceived the idea of recalling Cicero, to oppose him to Clodius, just as, a few months before, he had raised Clodius against Cicero. We see the game of political see-saw is not new.

Pompey consults Cæsar on the Return of Cicero.

VI. Under these circumstances, the opinion of Cæsar was of great weight. Pompey wrote to consult him,[570 - “Pompey is going at last to labour on my recall: he only waited for a letter from Cæsar to cause the proposal to be made by one of his partisans.” (Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, III. 18.) – “If Cæsar has abandoned me, if he has joined my enemies, he has been unfaithful to his friendship, and has done me an injury; I ought to have been his enemy, I deny it not; but if Cæsar has interested himself in my restoration, if it be true that you thought it important for me that Cæsar should not be opposed,” &c… (Orat. de Provinciis Consularibus, 18.)] and P. Sextius, one of those nominated as the new tribunes, repaired to Gaul to ascertain his mind.[571 - “It was then that P. Sextius, the tribune nominate, repaired to Cæsar to interest him in my recall. I say only that if Cæsar were well intentioned towards me, and I believe he was, these proceedings added nothing to his good intentions. He (Sextius) thought that, if they wished to restore concord among the citizens and decide on my recall, they must secure the consent of Cæsar.” (Cicero, Pro Sextio, 33)] It appears certain that it was favourable,[572 - “Pompey took my brother as witness that all he had done for me he had done by the will of Cæsar.” (Cicero, Epist. Familiar., I. 9.)] for, so early as the Calends of June, 696, hardly two months after the decree against Cicero, a tribune of the people, L. Ninnius, demanded his recall in the Senate. This proposal was on the point of being carried, when another tribune of the people, Ælius Ligus, interceded.[573 - Cicero, Pro Sextio, 31, et seq.] The Senate, in its irritation, declared that it would take into consideration no political or administrative affair until it had voted on Cicero’s return.[574 - Cicero, Pro Sextio, 31.] We thus judge how much the assembly took to heart the success of this measure, and how much, in supporting it, Pompey flattered the sentiments of the majority.

Pompey believes himself threatened by a Slave of Clodius.

VII. A singular occurrence determined his reconciliation with the Senate: on the 3rd of the Ides of Sextilis (the 5th of August), a slave of Clodius let a dagger fall in Pompey’s way, as he was entering the curia; arrested by the lictors, and questioned by the consul A. Gabinius, the slave declared that his master had ordered him to assassinate the great citizen.[575 - Plutarch, Pompey, 51. – Cicero, Pro Sextio, 32; De Responsu Haruspic., 23: Pro Milone, 7. – Asconius, Comment. in Orat. pro Milone, p. 47, edit. Orelli.] This attempt, whether serious or not, produced a sufficient impression on Pompey to prevent him, for a long time, from going to the Forum, or showing himself in public.[576 - Plutarch, Pompey, 51. – Cicero, Pro Milone, 7. – Asconius, Comment. in Orat. pro Milone, p. 47, edit. Orelli.]

The demands in favour of Cicero were renewed; and on the 4th of the Calends of November (the 20th of October) eight tribunes of the people, most of them men devoted to Pompey, proposed formally in the Senate the recall of the exile. One of these was T. Annius Milo, a violent, bold man, without scruples, and resembling Clodius in all things, but his open adversary. Clodius and his brother, the prætor Appius, again succeeded in defeating this motion.[577 - Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, III. 23. – Dio Cassius, XXXIX. 6.] At last, with the extreme of audacity, the turbulent tribune, when near the close of his functions, dared to attack Cæsar himself, and tried to obtain the revocation of the Julian laws; but this attempt was powerless in face of the splendour of the victories gained over the Helvetii and the Germans.

CHAPTER II.

EVENTS OF THE YEAR 697

War against the Belgæ.

I. CÆSAR’S victories had awakened among the Gauls feelings of admiration, but also of distrust; they could not see without fear that it had required only six legions to scatter two invasions, each counting 100,000 combatants. There are successes which, by their very brilliancy, alarm even those who profit by them. Nearly all Gaul looks on with jealousy at events which prove the superiority of permanent armies over populations without military organization. A small number of experienced and disciplined soldiers, under the guidance of a great captain, make all the peoples tremble from the Rhine to the ocean, and even the islanders of Great Britain feel themselves unsafe against the attacks of the Roman power; the Belgæ especially, proud of having formerly alone repulsed the invasion of the Cimbri and the Teutones, feel their warlike instincts revive. Provocations which have come from the other side of the Straits increase their distrust; these picture to them the abode of the Roman army in Franche-Comté as a threat against the independence of the whole of Gaul. The greatest part of the peoples comprised between the Rhine, the Scheldt, the Ocean, and the Seine, agitate, combine, and assemble an army of 300,000 men.

Informed in Italy of these preparations, Cæsar raises two new legions, rejoins his army in Franche-Comté, and decides immediately on invading the country of the Belgæ. The first who present themselves on his road are the people of Champagne. Surprised by his sudden arrival, they submit, and even offer him subsidies and auxiliaries. Cæsar is able to add to his eight legions and his light troops the contingents from Rheims, and join them with those of Burgundy and Trèves. In spite of this augmentation of his forces, the enemy he has to combat is four times more numerous. To defeat them, he sends the Burgundians to make a diversion and ravage the territory of Beauvais, then he crosses the Aisne at Berry-au-Bac, and selects, behind the Miette, a marshy stream, a defensive position which he renders inexpugnable.

The Belgæ, whose army occupies, on the right bank of the Miette, an extent of twelve kilomètres, are powerless to force the position of the Romans, and fail in all their attempts to cross the Aisne at Pontavert. Soon, discouraged by the want of provisions, disputes among themselves, and the news that the Burgundians have just invaded the territory of Beauvais, they separate, because each, believing his own country threatened, thinks only of going to its defence. The Belgian league is thus dissolved almost without combat. Cæsar then hastens to chastise each people one after the other; he seizes in their turn Soissons and Breteuil, the principal citadels of the Soissonais and Beauvaisis, and arrives at Amiens.

But the coalitions of the peoples of the north succeed each other like the waves of the sea; after the Helvetii, the Germans; after the Germans, the people of the Beauvaisis; after them, the inhabitants of Hainault. These have assembled on the Sambre, and wait to be re-enforced by the peoples of German origin established in the neighbourhood of Namur. Cæsar then marches towards the Sambre by its left bank. When he arrives near the enemy concealed in the woods of the right bank, on the heights of Haumont, he unites six legions, places the two others in reserve with the baggage of the army, and, reaching the heights of Neuf-Mesnil, begins to fortify his camp; but hardly have the soldiers commenced their work, when the Belgæ debouch from all the issues of the forest, cross the shallow waters of the Sambre, scale the abrupt slopes, and fall upon the Romans, who, taken by surprise and unable to form their line of battle, range themselves without order under the first ensigns which offer themselves. The confusion is extreme; Cæsar is obliged, sword in hand, to throw himself into the thick of the fight. Nevertheless, the fortune of the battle is gradually restored; the centre and left wing have repulsed their assailants; the latter arrives to succour the right wing in its peril; the two legions of the rear-guard hasten to the field of battle; then victory decides for the Romans, and the peoples of Hainault are nearly annihilated. In this engagement the experience and valour of the old veteran soldiers save the Roman army from the impetuosity of the Belgæ. After this exploit, Cæsar marches towards Namur, in which the inhabitants of the whole country have shut themselves up on the news of the defeat of their allies, and he makes himself master of that place.

While he was completing the conquest of Belgic Gaul, one of his lieutenants, the young Publius Crassus, detached, after the battle of the Sambre, into Normandy and Brittany, reduced to submission the peoples of those provinces, so that at that time the greatest part of Gaul acknowledged the authority of the Republic: the effect of Cæsar’s victories was such that the Ubii, a German people from beyond the Rhine, established between the Maine and the Sieg, sent their congratulations to the conqueror with the offer of their services.

Before leaving for the Cisalpine, Cæsar sent a legion into the Valais, to chastise the inhabitants of those Alpine valleys, who, at the beginning of the year, had attacked in their march the two new legions on their way from Italy; it was his aim also to open easy communications with the Cisalpine by the Simplon and Saint-Bernard. But his lieutenant Galba, after a sanguinary battle, was obliged to retreat and take up his winter quarters in Savoy. Thus Cæsar’s designs could not be realised. It was reserved for another great man, nineteen centuries afterwards, to level that formidable barrier of the Alps.

Return of Cicero.

II. Let us now resume the account of events in Rome subsequent to the Calends of January, 697 (20th of December, 696). The consuls who entered upon their office were P. Cornelius Lentulus Spinther and Q. Cecilius Metellus Nepos; the first, a friend of Cicero; the second, favourable to Clodius from hatred to the celebrated orator who had offended him.[578 - Cicero, Pro Sextio, 33.]

Lentulus brought forward the question of the recall of the exile.[579 - Cicero, Orat. pro Domo sua, 27; Pro Sextio, 34.] L. Aurelius Cotta, a man of esteem and of consular dignity, declared that the banishment of Cicero, pronounced in the sequel of extreme acts of violence, carried in itself the cause of its nullity; and that, therefore, there was no need of a law to revoke an act that was contrary to the laws.[580 - Cicero, Pro Sextio, 34; De Legibus, III. 19.] Pompey combated the opinion of Cotta, and sustained that it was necessary that Cicero should owe his recall, not only to the authority of the Senate, but also to a vote of the people. Nothing further was proposed but to present a plebiscitum to the comitia. Nobody opposed it, when Sextus Atilius, tribune of the people, demanded the adjournment,[581 - Cicero, Pro Sextio, 34.] and, by those dilatory manœuvres so familiar to the Romans, obliged the Senate to defer the presentation of the law to the 22nd of the same month. When the day arrived, the two parties prepared to support their opinion by force. Q. Fabricius, tribune of the people, favourable to Cicero, sought in the morning to gain possession of the rostra. Clodius was no longer tribune, but he continued to guide the populace. To the professional agitators in his pay he had joined a troop of gladiators, brought to Rome, by his brother Appius, for the funeral of one of his kinsmen.[582 - Cicero, Pro Sextio, 35. – Dio Cassius, XXXIX. 7. – Plutarch, Pompey, 51.] The troop of Fabricius was easily put to the rout; a tribune, M. Cistius, had hardly presented himself, when he was driven away. Pompey had his toga covered with blood, and Quintus Cicero, whom he had brought with him to the Forum to speak to the people in favour of his brother, was obliged to hide himself; the gladiators rushed upon another tribune, P. Sextius, and left him for dead. “The struggle was so violent,” Cicero says, “that the corpses obstructed the Tiber and filled the sewers, and the Forum was inundated with blood to such a degree that it was found necessary to wash it with sponges. A tribune was killed, and the house of another was threatened with fire.”[583 - Cicero, Pro Sextio, 35; Orat. prima post Reditum, 5, 6.] The amazement was so great, that the question of the recall of the exile was again adjourned. It was thus by the sword that everything was decided in Rome in its disorder and abasement.

In fact, to obtain the recall of Cicero, the Senate saw itself obliged to oppose riot to riot, and to make use of P. Sextius, who had recovered from his wounds, as well as of Milo, who had organised, with military discipline, an armed band in condition to make head against the rioters.[584 - Cicero, De Officiis, II. 17; Orat. pro Sextio, 39. – Dio Cassius XXXIX. 8.] At the same time, it hoped to intimidate the urban mob by bringing into Rome, from all parts of Italy,[585 - Cicero, Orat. secunda post Reditum ad Senatum, 10; Orat. pro Domo sua, 28; Orat. in Pisonem, 15.] the citizens upon whom it relied. In fine, the very men who had, two years before, engaged Bibulus to embarrass all Cæsar’s measures by observing the sky,[586 - We thus see that the power of observing the sky continued to exist in spite of the law Clodia.] now prohibited, under pain of being considered as an enemy of the Republic,[587 - Cicero, in the passages cited.] those religious artifices which suspended all deliberations. The result was that the law of recall was passed.

Cicero re-entered Rome on the eve of the Nones of September (the 15th of August, 697), in the midst of the warmest demonstrations of joy. The Senate had thus at last triumphed over the factious opposition of Clodius; but it was not without great efforts, nor without frequently having had recourse on its own side to violence and arbitrary acts.

Pompey is charged with the Supplying of Food.

III. From the first moment of his return, Cicero gave all his care to augmenting the influence of Pompey and reconciling him with the Senate. The famine under which Italy suffered that year furnished him with the occasion. The populace rose suddenly, hurried first to a theatre, where games were celebrating, and afterwards to the Capitol, uttering threats of death and fire against the Senate, to which they attributed the public distress.[588 - Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, IV, 1.] Before this, in July, at the time of the Apollinarian games,[589 - Asconius, Comment in Orat. Ciceronis pro Milone, p. 48, edit. Orelli.] a riot had occurred from the same motive.

Cicero, by his persuasive eloquence, calmed the irritated mob, and proposed to entrust to Pompey the care of provisioning, and to confer upon him for five years proconsular powers in Italy and out of Italy.[590 - Dio Cassius, XXXIX. 9. – Plutarch, Pompey, 52.] The senators, in their terror, adopted this measure immediately. It was, as at the time of the war of the pirates, to give to one man an excessive power over all the earth, according to the words of the decree. Fifteen lieutenants were associated with him, of whom Cicero was one.[591 - Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, IV. 1. – Cicero’s proposal was further amplified by C. Messius, tribune of the people, who demanded for Pompey a fleet, an army, and the authority to dispose of the finances.] But the creation of this new office did not put an end to the discontent of the multitude. Clodius tried to persuade the people that the famine was fictitious, and that the Senate had created it, in order to have a pretext for making Pompey master over everything.[592 - Plutarch, Pompey, 52. – Cicero, Orat. pro Domo sua, 10.] He overlooked no occasion for stirring up troubles.

Although the Senate had given Cicero an indemnity of more than two millions of sestertii,[593 - Epist. ad Attic., IV. 2.] and decided that his house should be rebuilt in the same place, Clodius, who sought to prevent the rebuilding of it, came several times to blows with Milo, in struggles which resembled regular battles, their adherents carrying bucklers and swords. Every day witnessed a riot in the streets. Milo swore he would kill Clodius, and Cicero confessed at a later period that the victim and the arm which was to strike were pointed out beforehand.[594 - “I will add that, in the opinion of the public, Clodius is regarded as a victim reserved for Milo.” (Cicero, De Respons. Harusp., 3.) – This oration on the reply of the Aruspices is of May, June, or July, 698. See, also, what he says in his letter to Atticus, of November, 697. (Epist. ad Attic. IV. 3.)]

Festivals to commemorate Cæsar’s Victories.

IV. It was towards the end of the year 697 that the news of Cæsar’s prodigious successes against the Belgæ reached Rome; they excited there the warmest enthusiasm. As soon as the Senate was informed of them, it voted fifteen days of thanksgiving to celebrate them.[595 - Plutarch, Cæsar, 23. —De Bello Gallico, II. 35.] This number of days had never before been accorded to anybody. Marius had obtained five, and Pompey, when he had vanquished Mithridates, only ten. The decree of the Senate was expressed in more flattering terms than had ever been used for any general. Cicero himself took part in obtaining this high testimony of public gratitude.[596 - “But why, especially on that occasion, should any one be astonished at my conduct or blame it, when I myself have already several times supported propositions which were more honourable for Cæsar than necessary for the state? I voted in his favour fifteen days of prayers; it was enough for the Republic to have decreed to Cæsar the same number of days which Marius had obtained. The gods would have been satisfied, I think, with the same thanksgivings which had been rendered to them in the most important wars. So great a number of days had therefore for its only object to honour Cæsar personally. Ten days of thanksgivings were accorded, for the first time, to Pompey, when the war of Mithridates had been terminated by the death of that prince. I was consul, and, on my report, the number of days usually decreed to the consulars was doubled, after you had heard Pompey’s letter, and been convinced that all the wards were terminated on land and sea. You adopted the proposal I made to you of ordaining ten days of prayers. At present I have admired the virtue and greatness of soul of Cn. Pompey, who, loaded with distinctions such as no other before him had received the like, gave to another more honours than he had obtained himself. Thus, then, those prayers which I voted in favour of Cæsar were accorded to the immortal gods, to the customs of our ancestors, and to the needs of the state; but the flattering terms of the decree, this new distinction, and the extraordinary number of days, it is to the person itself of Cæsar that they were addressed, and they were a homage rendered to his glory.” (Cicero, Orat. pro Provinc. Consular., 10, 11.) (August, A.U.C. 698.)]

Riots at Rome.

V. In spite of these demonstrations, there continued to exist among a certain class a secret hatred against the conqueror of Gaul: in the month of December, 697, Rutilius Lupus, named tribune for the following year, proposed to revoke Cæsar’s laws, and to suspend the distribution of the lands in Campania;[597 - Cicero, Epist. ad Quint., II. 1.] he expatiated in accusations against that general and Pompey. The senators were silent; Cn. Marcellinus, the consul nominate, declared that in the absence of Pompey nothing could be decided. On another hand, Racilius, tribune of the people, rose to renew the old accusations against Clodius.[598 - Cicero, Epist. ad Quint., II. 1.] In order to baffle the designs of the latter, who aspired to the office of ædile, and who, once named, would have been inviolable, the consuls nominate proposed that the election of the judges should take place before that of the ædiles. Cato and Cassius opposed this. Cicero eagerly seized the opportunity of fulminating against Clodius; but the latter, who was prepared, defended himself at length, and during this time his adherents excited, by attacking Milo’s men, such an uproar on the steps of the Temple of Castor, where the Senate held its sitting, that the Forum became a new field of battle. The senators fled, and all projects of laws were abandoned.[599 - Cicero, Epist. ad Quint., II. 1.]

In the presence of these sanguinary collisions, the elections of ædiles and quæstors could not take place; moreover, Milo and Sextius, from feelings of personal vengeance, prevented the Consul Q. Metellus from convoking the comitia. As soon as the consul named a day of assembly, the two tribunes declared immediately that they were observing the sky; and, for fear that this cause of adjournment might not be sufficient, Milo established himself in the Campus Martius with his followers in arms. Metellus tried to hold the comitia by surprise,[600 - Cicero, Epist. ad Attic., IV. 3.] and proceeded by night to the Campus Martius through bye streets; but he was well watched. Before he arrived at the place, he was met and recognised by Milo, who signified to him, in virtue of his tribunitial power, the obnunciation, that is, the declaration of a religious obstacle to the holding of the popular assemblies.[601 - Cicero, Epist. ad Attic., IV. 2 and 3; Epist. ad Quint., II. 1.] Thus ended the year 697.

During these inglorious struggles, in which both parties dishonoured themselves by acts of violence, Cæsar had, in two campaigns, saved Italy from the invasion of the barbarians, and vanquished the most warlike peoples of Gaul. Thus, at Rome, venality and anarchy prevailed; with the army, devotedness and glory. Then, as at certain epochs of our own revolution, we may say that the national honour had taken refuge under the flag.

CHAPTER III.

EVENTS IN ROME DURING THE YEAR 698

Presence in Rome of Ptolemy Auletes.

I. THE Consuls of the year preceding had just been succeeded by Cn. Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus and L. Marcius Philippus; the latter allied by family to Cæsar, whose niece, Atia, he had married.[602 - Atia had wedded in first marriage Octavius, by whom she had a son, who was afterwards Augustus.] It was in vain that the chief magistrates succeeded each other annually, the change of persons led to no change in the state of the Republic.

There happened about this time a circumstance which showed to what a low degree of contempt law and morality had fallen. Ptolemy Auletes, King of Egypt, father of the famous Cleopatra, hated by his subjects, had fled from Alexandria, and arrived in Rome, towards the end of 697, in spite of the advice of M. Cato, whom he had met at Rhodes. He came to solicit the protection of the Republic against the Egyptians, who, in his absence, had given the crown to his daughter Berenice. He had obtained the title, then the object of so much emulation, of friend and ally of the Roman people, by purchasing the suffrages of a great number of considerable personages, which had obliged him to exact heavy taxes from his subjects. He was at first well received, for it was known that he had brought with him his treasure, ready for distribution among his new protectors. Pompey gave him a lodging in his house,[603 - Dio Cassius, XXXIX. 14.] and declared publicly in his favour. But the Egyptians, when they were informed of his departure, sent an embassy, composed of more than a hundred persons, to defend their cause; most of them were assassinated on their way by Ptolemy’s agents; and the rest, terrified or corrupted by force of bribery, never carried out their mission.[604 - Dio Cassius, XXXIX. 12, 13. – Plutarch, Pompey, 52.] This affair made so much noise, that Favonius, called the ape of Cato, because he imitated his austerity, denounced the conduct of Ptolemy in the Senate, and added that he knew one of the Egyptian deputies, named Dio, who was ready to confirm his assertions. Dio did not dare to appear, and, a short time after, was assassinated. In spite of this crime, Pompey persisted in his friendship for Ptolemy, and no one dared to prosecute the guest of so powerful a man.[605 - Dio Cassius, XXXIX. 14. – “I do not spare upon him even reproaches, to prevent him (Pompey) from meddling in this infamy.” Cicero, Epist. Famil., I. 1.]

Several plans were proposed for replacing the King of Egypt on the throne, and this enterprise, which promised glory and profit, excited everybody’s ambition. Those who, probably, were opposed to it, proposed to consult the Sibylline books, which gave the answer: “If the King of Egypt come to ask you for succour, do not refuse him your friendship, but grant him no army.” Caius Cato, tribune of the people, kinsman of M. Porcius Cato, and yet his adversary, lost no time in divulging this reply, although it was not permitted, without a decree of the Senate, to publish the Sibylline oracles.[606 - Dio Cassius, XXXIX. 15.] The Senate decreed that the King of Egypt should be restored to his throne by the Roman magistrates, but without an armed intervention.[607 - Cicero, Epist. ad Quintum, II. 2.] But this mission was a cause of great dispute: some proposed to charge Lentulus Spinther with it, others preferred Pompey, with the obligation to employ only two lictors; the jealousy of the candidates caused it soon to be renounced. Ptolemy, abandoning all hope, quitted Rome and retired to Ephesus.[608 - Dio Cassius, XXXIX. 16.] He was restored subsequently by Gabinius.

Clodius named Ædile. Trial of Milo.

II. The election for the ædileship had taken place on the 11th of the Calends of February of the year 698 (28th of December, 697), and, thanks to the money he had distributed, Clodius had been named ædile.[609 - Cicero, Epist. ad Quintum, II. 2. – Dio Cassius, XXXIX. 18.] He had hardly been invested with this office, which protected him from the prosecutions of Milo, when he turned round and attacked his accuser, charging him with an armed conspiracy, precisely the same crime with which Milo reproached him. It was not Milo he had in view, but his powerful protectors. Moreover, alleging unfavourable auspicia, or employing for that purpose some tribunes of the people, he absolutely opposed the presentation by the consuls of all public affairs of any importance, not excepting the curiate law, which decreed their commands to the proconsuls and proprætors.[610 - Dio Cassius, XXXIX. 18, 19.]

The trial with which he was threatened by Clodius gave little uneasiness to Milo, who had lost none of his habitual audacity. In fact, at a time when a political personage could not be in safety unless escorted by a band of armed men, it was difficult to condemn Milo for having gladiators in his pay, especially when his enemies had set the example of having recourse to similar auxiliaries.

The judicial struggle was at hand, and preparations were made as for a combat. The accused had for his defenders Cicero and Pompey; the greater part of the Senate was favourable to him, and, as a precaution against riots, his friends brought their clients from all parts of Italy, and even from Cisalpine Gaul.[611 - Cicero, Epist. ad Quintum, II. 3.] Clodius and Caius Cato, on their side, had assembled all their forces. They calculated, moreover, that the populace, rendered still more turbulent by the dearth, would give a very ill reception to Pompey, who found no remedy for the public misery; and to Cicero, who, as superstitious people said, had drawn upon the town the anger of the gods, by choosing to rebuild his house on a piece of ground consecrated to the goddess Libertas.[612 - Dio Cassius, XXXIX. 20.] It appears that many enemies of Pompey secretly encouraged and aided Clodius. Crassus himself was suspected of giving money to him, as well as to Caius Cato.

On the 8th of the Ides of February, (the 12th January, 698), Milo appeared before his judges.[613 - Cicero, Epist. ad Quintum, II. 3.] When Pompey presented himself to speak in his defence, the mob, excited by Clodius, received him with hooting and insults. The town mob knew all Pompey’s vanities, and wounded them with subtle cruelty. He, meanwhile, though every moment interrupted, kept his temper, and strove to speak. Clodius replied to him; but his adversaries also had a mob organised and paid to abuse him, and to sing infamous verses on the subject of his amours with his own sister.[614 - Cicero, Epist. ad Quintum, II. 3.] In this strange and ignoble dispute Milo was forgotten; it had become nothing more than a sort of duel between Clodius and Pompey. Clodius, in the midst of his satellites, cried out at the utmost extent of his voice, “Who is the man who makes us die of hunger?” And all the populace, with the unity of a tragic chorus, cried “Pompey!” – “Who wants to go into Egypt?” cried Clodius again. A thousand voices replied, “Pompey!” – “Who ought to be sent there?” “Crassus!”[615 - Cicero, Epist. ad Quintum, II. 3. – We look upon this word as giving the explanation of the quarrel then existing between the two triumvirs. Egypt was so rich a prey, that it was calculated to cause division between them.] Clodius added, “Who is the autocrat whom nothing satisfies? Who is the man who seeks a man? Who scratches his head with a single finger?” “Pompey! Pompey!” the crowd continued repeating. After all these mutual provocations, the two parties, tired of shouting, came to blows. Cicero prudently made his escape,[616 - “Clodius is cast down from the tribune, and I steal away, for fear of accident.” (Cicero, Ep. ad Quint., II. 3.)] and the victory once again remained with the nobles, who were probably supported by a greater number of gladiators.[617 - Cicero, Ep. ad Quint., II. 3.] The judgment of Milo, adjourned to another day, gave rise again to similar scenes; but he was acquitted.

Return of Cato.

III. In the midst of these intestine quarrels, M. Cato returned from Cyprus to Rome. He brought with him the treasure of Ptolemy, the brother of Ptolemy Auletes, amounting to 7,000 talents (about 40,000,000 francs), a considerable quantity of personal goods, and a great number of slaves. Ptolemy had poisoned himself on the report of Cato’s arrival, leaving him no other trouble than that of collecting his treasures, for the Cypriots, then slaves, in the hope of becoming the allies and friends of Rome, received him with open arms. Proud of his expedition, which he had carried out with the most perfect integrity, he was very anxious that it should be approved.[618 - Dio Cassius, XXXIX. 22.]

The return of Cato could bring no remedy to the deeply troubled state of the Republic.[619 - Plutarch, Cato, 45, tells us that Cato returned under the consulship of Marcius Philippus.] His virtue was not one of those which attract, but of those which repulse. Blaming everybody, because, perhaps, everybody was to blame, he remained the only one of his party.

From the moment of his arrival, he found himself at the same time in opposition with Cicero, who attacked the legality of his mission; and with Clodius, who, having entrusted it to him in his quality of tribune, counted on appropriating all the glory of it to himself. In these new intrigues of Clodius, Cæsar, it is said, supported him, and furnished him with subjects of accusation against Cato.[620 - Dio Cassius, XXXIX. 23.]

State of Anarchy in Rome.

IV. A concise view of the events at Rome at this time shows to what a degree the moral level had been abased. It was no longer those memorable struggles between the patricians and the plebeians, where the greatness of the object aimed at ennobled the means. It was no longer a question of defending secular rights, or of acquiring new rights, but of vulgar ambitions and personal interests to be satisfied.

Nothing indicates more the decay of society than when law becomes an engine of war for the use of the different parties, instead of remaining the sincere expression of the general needs. Each man who arrived at power rendered himself guilty on the morrow of that which he had condemned on the eve, and made the institutions of his country the slaves of his momentary passion. At one time it was the Consul Metellus who, in 697, retarded the nomination of the quæstors, in order to prevent that of the judges, with the view of shielding Clodius, his kinsman, from a judiciary accusation;[621 - Dio Cassius, XXXIX. 7.] at another time it was Milo and Sextius who, by way of reprisals against the same consul, opposed all imaginable obstacles to the convocation of the comitia;[622 - Cicero, Epist. ad Quintum, II. 1.] lastly, it was the Senate itself which (in 698) sought to retard the election of the judges, in order to deprive Clodius of the chance of being named ædile. The ancient custom of taking the auspices was no longer, in the eyes of anybody, more than a political manœuvre. Not one of the great personages whom the momentary favour of the people and the Senate raise to distinction preserve any true sentiment of rectitude. Cicero, who sees the whole Republic in himself, and who attacks as monstrous all which is done against him and without him, declares all the acts of the tribuneship of Clodius illegal; the rigid Cato, on the contrary, defends, through personal interest, these same acts, because Cicero’s pretension wounds his pride, and invalidates the mission he has received from Clodius.[623 - Plutarch, Cato, 40; Cicero, 45.] Caius Cato violates the law by making public the Sibylline oracle. On all sides people have recourse to illegal means, which vary according to their several tempers; some, like Milo, Sextius, and Clodius, openly place themselves at the head of armed bands; others act with timidity and dissimulation, like Cicero, who, one day, after a previous unsuccessful attempt, carries away by stealth from the Capitol the plate of brass which bore inscribed the law which had proscribed him. A singular error of men, who believe that they efface history by destroying a few visible signs of the past!

This relaxation of the social bonds caused inevitably the dispersion of all the forces, the union of which would have been so useful to the public good. It was no sooner agreed, in a moment of danger, to give to one man the authority necessary to restore order and tranquillity, than, at the same moment, everybody united to attack and degrade him, as if each were afraid of his own work. Cicero has hardly returned from exile, when the friends who have recalled him become jealous of his influence; they see with pleasure a certain degree of coldness arise between Pompey and him, and secretly support the intrigues of Clodius.[624 - “There has reached me a mass of private talk of people here, whom you may guess, who have always been, and always are, in the same ranks with me. They openly rejoice at knowing that I am, at the same time, already on terms of coolness with Pompey, and on the point of quarrelling with Cæsar; but what was most cruel was to see their attitude towards my enemy (Clodius), to see them embrace him, flatter him, coax him, and cover him with caresses.” (Cicero, Epist. Familiar., I. 9.)] Pompey, amid the famine and the public agitation, is hardly invested with new powers, before the Senate on one side, and the popular faction on the other, plot together to ruin his credit: by clever intrigues, they awaken the old hatred between him and Crassus.