CICERO. MARCUS TCLLIUS. 



CICERO, MARCOS TULLIUS. 



114 



but the work in its origin 



oatained probably, like 



1W, Republic*,' to which it is a kind of supplement, a* many as 

 re quoted from the fourth and fifth. 

 Be* UM civil and literary purauita of Cicero were soon interrupted by 



J book*. M- ancMnt authors hare < 



_ I for hat services abroad. Among the diff.rent laws which 



FMDpey brootht forward for checking UM violence and corruption 

 which UM fmiHMV- employed for th. attainment of public office, was 

 oo. which ^-H'*- 1 all future conniU and prton from holding 

 any profiaee until five yean after the expiration of their magistracies. 

 Bat before the law passed, Pompey procured an exception for hiuwelf, 

 getting the goTemment of Spain and Africa continued to him for fire 

 yean longer ; while, to gratify Ctrear on the other aide, Cicero, at the 

 special request of Pompey, induced one of hii friends to bring forward 

 a law by which Caear's pmenoe might be dispensed with in euiug for 

 UM conulhip in the following year. There wai Talid ground for thU 

 pmilon being conferred upon GsMsr in the circumitances of the Gallic 

 war, where the sucose* of the Roman anna would have been seriously 



I by his absence. Thus Cicero and Pompey were the chief 

 I in' passing the very law which they afterwards declared 

 unonmtiliitiiinsl and invalid, and so brought upon their country the 

 horror* of civil war. A* the magistrates of the time being were pre- 

 cluded from provincial government by Pompey's law, it was provided 

 that for the next period of five yean the senators of consular and 

 pnrtorian rank, who bad not held foreign command upon the expiration 

 of their magistral ice, should divide the vacant provinces by lot : in 

 oontequenc* of which Cicero moat reluctantly undertook the govern- 

 ment of Cilicia, with which were united Pisidia, Pamphylia, Cyprus, 

 and three dioceses, aa they were called, of the adjoining province of 

 Asia. Thus Cicero found himself in the very position which it hod 

 ever been one of his chief objects to avoid, and his friends were the 

 more uneasy aa that quarter of the empire was threatened by the 

 Parthian* in revenge of the late invasion of their territories by Crassus. 

 Under these circumstances Cicero was fortunate in having among hia 

 lieutenant* two such men as hia brother and Pontiniua. The latter had 

 established a high military reputation by bis successes and triumph 

 over the AUobrogea, while the merit* of Quintua Cicero as a soldier 

 had been proved and acknowledged by Cesar in Gallia. 



Still the government of a province was suited, neither to the taste 

 nor the talent* of Cicero, and he urged all hia friends before his 

 departure, a* well aa in nearly every letter he subsequently wrote, 

 not to allow the command to be extended beyond the year which the 

 law of Pompey required, or the year itself to be lengthened out by 

 the caprice of the pontifical college ; for the length of the Roman year 

 at thi* time varied according aa it was the pleasure of that body to 

 ineert more or leas intercalary days in the mouth of February, and the 

 Pontifices were guided in this not by any fixed rule, but by private 

 motive*, lengthening or shortening the year to favour a friend or 

 injure an enemy. 



Cicero left the city about the 1st of May, and on his arrival at 

 Tarentum paid a visit to Pompey, with whom he had a conference on 

 the serious aspect of affairs, and was assured by him that he was 

 prepared for the dangers which threatened them. In the middle of 

 June he proceeded from Brundisium to Corcyra and Actium, thence 

 partly by land and partly by water to Athens, where he spent ten 

 day*, and then created in fifteen days to Ephesus, touching at several 

 ialanda on the way. He had here a foretaste of the duties be would 

 have to perform ; for among the deputation* which waited upon him 

 at hi* landing waa on* from the citizen* of Salami* in Cyprus, to lay 

 before him their complaints against the extortion and cruelty of a 

 Roman citizen named Scaptius, who had claimed from the city a large 

 sum upon a bond, together with an accumulation of interest at the 

 rate of forty-eight per cent. ; and who had used the military authority 

 he had held under the late governor, Appiut, to besiege the senate of 

 Salami* in their council-room, until five had died of starvation. As 

 Brntu* had recommended the interest* of Scaptius to Appius, who was 

 his father-in-Uw, so he now laboured to place him in the same degree 

 of favour with Cicero, and waa seconded in this suit by the letters of 

 Atticu* ; but the extortion raised Cicero's indignation, and he resisted 

 UM claim* of Scaptius, though Brutus, in order to move him the more 

 enVctually, at laat confeued what he had all along dissembled, that the 

 debt was really hi* own, and Scaptius only hi* agent in it 



Cicero however waa the friend of justice up to a certain point only, 

 for when he refused the usurious interest, Scaptiu* in a private inter- 

 view told him that though the principal wa* only 106 talent*, the 



through s 



istake beli 



-^ J>d it to be 200, and suggested 



that Cicero might safely give an award for the larger aum. Cicero 



givee ua this anecdote in hi* letter* to Atticu* (v. 21), adding 

 i aeesnted to the proposal, but wa* unable to effect the object 

 beoauM be found the SaUminiana more precisely acquainted with the 

 Mcounto than Soaptio* had anticipated. This same Brutus, whoso 

 er U eo commonly put forward as one of the finest example* of 

 virtue, had applied for th* aasutanoe of Cicero hi another 

 r of a nature somewhat similar. The King of Cappadocia, whose 

 proved bow dearly he paid for the protection of the 

 a, owed him, he aaid, a very large sum of money. But 

 Cicero wa* onable to render him the leut aanitanoe in the recovery 

 of thi* money, UM king owed a much larger sum to Pompoy, whose 

 position in th* political world at Rome gave him a higher claim, and 



yet was unable to pay him the full interest of the debt These 

 instances afford a good example of the miseries which resulted from 

 the Roman form of provincial government But Cilicia had felt these 

 miseries in degree more than usually severe under the late governor 

 Appius, the traces of whoso extortion were visible everywhere, and 

 could only be compared, says Cicero, to the track of a wild beast 

 Indeed he found employment enough in healing the wounds which 

 Appius bad inflicted. Cicero appears not to have concealed bis 

 feelings upon this subject : at any rate the accounts which reached 

 Ap|>iua led him to believe that Cicero was encouraging his enemies at 

 Rome in their determination to bring him to public trial; nor could 

 he believe the protestations of Cicero to the contrary, when he found 

 his prosecutor Dolabella waa about to be married to Cicero's daughter. 

 He again expostulated, but Cicero replied to his complaint* by dis- 

 claiming all knowledge of any such matrimonial negotiation, the 

 falsehood of which is demonstrable from the letters which he wrote 

 at the same period to Atticus. But Appius and Pompey were allied 

 by the marriage of their children, and the Utter induced Cicero to 

 promise everything from the province that could be of service to the 

 accused, so that the guilty governor was acquitted without difficulty. 

 The military proceedings of Cicero were not of a very interesting 

 nature. He had proceeded at ouce on his arrival in the province to 

 the south-eastern frontier, which was threatened by the Parthians ; 

 but the Roman officer who commanded in the adjoining province of 

 Syria had so completely occupied the attention of the enemy, that 

 Cicero's troops never came in sight of them. Being unwilling how- 

 ever to let the army return into winter-quarters without effecting 

 anything, he attacked some of the mountain tribes of Amanus, whose 

 position had hitherto protected them, and took a number of prisoners ; 

 while his troops had a pretext for saluting him 'imperator. He wu 

 also successful in the siege of a robber-fort called Pindenissua, for 

 which bis friends at Rome obtained him the honour of a public 

 thanksgiving. His other services in Cilicia include nothing d>-> 

 especial notice, and he was happy when the year of his appointment 

 expired, and enabled him to return to Italy. He landed at Urundisium 

 towards the end of November, displaying his laurel-wreathed fasces, 

 for his friends, and among them Pompey, flattered him with the 

 notion that his eminent military services deserved nothing less than a 

 triumph. But when he reached the neighbourhood of Rome on the 

 4th of January, he found matters of a more serious nature in agitation. 

 The senate had just passed a decree that Caesar should dismiss hia 

 army, and when M. Antony and another tribune opposed their vote 

 to it, proceeded to that vote which gave the consuls and other magis- 

 trates a power above all the laws. The tribunes fled to the camp of 

 Csoaar, who, considering this decree as equivalent to a declaration of 

 war, advanced with a rapidity which destroyed all the arrangements 

 of the senate. The consuls fled from Rome, accompanied in tin in- 

 flight by Cicero and the leading men of the aristocracy, in the hope 

 of defending the southern part of the peninsula. With this view the 

 principal senators had particular districts assigned to them, Cicero 

 undertaking to guard the coast south of Formirc and the country 

 around Capua ; but the rapid advance of Ctosar drove Cicero from his 

 purpose. He disavowed the military engagement he had undertaken 

 to fulfil ; made different excuses for not joining Pompey in his march 

 to lirundisium ; and finally, when I'icsar made himself master of 

 Corfinium, and by his magnanimous liberation of Lentulus Spinther, 

 and other senators, gave the lie to those reports of his cruel intentions 

 which his enemies industriously circulated, Cicero deemed it a 

 favourable opportunity to open a negociation with Ctcsar, under tho 

 pretext of thanking him for hia generosity to his friend Lentulup. 

 In the middle of March Pompey sailed from Brundisium, abandoning 

 Rome and Italy to his opponent The return of Caesar from I'.ruu- 

 disium to the capital afforded an opportunity for an interview, in 

 which it appears to have been stipulated that Cicero should remain 

 in Italy, and observe a strict neutrality. 



When C'icaar proceeded to Spain to oppose the Pompeian troops 

 under Afranius, he left Antony in command of Italy, with especial 

 directions to watch the movements of Cicero, who, residing upon the 

 coast, occasionally showed symptoms of a disposition to slip off and 

 join Pompey in Greece. This vacillation waa not unobserved by 

 Antony, and drew from him a monitory letter; but in vain. An 

 account of some temporary success obtained by Afranius in Spain, 

 magnified by himself and injudicious friends into a certain prospect of 

 speedily destroying Cajsar and his army, led many of the wavering to 

 fly from Italy to the camp in Greece. Cicero appears to have been 

 one of these; at any rate he ina '.o his escape in the early port of June, 

 and met with a cold welcome from the army of the senate. He was 

 not present at tho battle of I'harsalia, having stayed behind at Djr- 

 rachium, where he received the news of that decisive engagement, 

 and, refusing to join those who determined to cross over into Africa 

 with the intention of still maintaining the war, he again committed 

 himself to the mercy of tho conqueror, and lauded at Brundisium at 

 the end of October B.C. 48. Here he passed many miserable months, 

 the laurels upon his fasces drawing upon him an attention which he 

 would gladly have avoided, while the news of Ctesor's difficulties in 

 Egypt and the successes of the Pompeians in Africa again inclined tin- 

 balance of the war. All this time ho had received no intimation of par- 

 don from Caear himself, though he was assured of his safety by Caesar's 



