Cicero (27 page)

The next morning, in broad daylight, Clodius led a force armed with swords and shields to storm and burn the house of Milo, his competitor for mastery of the streets. A counterattack beat them off and a number of leading Clodians were killed. For the time being, this was a decisive encounter, and Clodius temporarily lost control of the situation.

In general, Cicero was in a remarkably good mood, considering the political disarray, his continuing money worries and the threats to his physical safety. “My heart is high,” he wrote to Atticus, “higher even than in my palmy days, but my purse is low.” We do not know the reason for his elation,
because the surviving correspondence with Atticus is sparse for a number of months, but he may have been buoyed by signs of strain among the First Triumvirate. In December, apparently with Pompey's tacit support, a long-standing Senatorial grievance received a new airing: a Tribune criticized Caesar's second Land Reform Act, which had removed from state ownership the profitable Capuan Marches and had been a sore point with the
optimates
ever since. The Senate had been forced to authorize 40 million sesterces to pay for the corn supply and this new expenditure went to highlight the loss of state revenues that the law had brought about.

In the new year a problem with the Egyptian Pharaoh led to a falling out between Pompey and Crassus. Although nominally a freestanding kingdom, Egypt was effectively a Roman dependency. Its importance was not merely its legendary wealth but its grain production, which served as an increasingly valuable complement to Sicilian supplies. King Ptolemy had been expelled from his country by his subjects and the question arose of who should reinstall him. A stable Egypt was in Rome's interest and, what was more, the king could be counted on to pay a generous reward to his lucky savior. The Senate thought that the former Consul Lentulus, now governor of Cilicia, should be given the commission. However, as it promised to be an extremely lucrative operation, Pompey was understood not to be averse to accepting it himself.

This was most embarrassing to Cicero, who was indebted to both men for their help in ending his exile. He was seeing a good deal of Pompey at this time, who as usual failed to make his wishes explicit. For once, Cicero found this vagueness helpful, for it allowed him to press Lentulus's qualifications for the job without causing offense. He describes these attempts in laborious detail in a sequence of long letters to Lentulus. Reading between the lines, one senses that he knew he was fighting for a lost cause. The
optimates
were determined to prevent Pompey from winning the commission under any circumstances and, with breathtaking shortsightedness, allied themselves with Clodius to present a common front. Pompey strongly suspected that Crassus was behind this curious turn of events.

About this time an old prophecy was discovered in the Sibylline Books, stored in a vault in the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol Hill and consulted in times of emergency. Cicero had little faith in them, though
he admired the ingenuity by which they avoided specific references to persons and place and so appeared to predict everything that happened. On this occasion, they conveniently but unconvincingly pronounced that the Egyptian king should not be restored “with a host.” The point was that the Senate did not want to see the great commander in charge of another army. To their disappointment Pompey let it be known that he would be willing to restore Ptolemy without military assistance.

With typical impudence Clodius, who had by now won election as Aedile and was back in office, brought Milo to court in February 56 for the illegal use of force. Milo appeared with Pompey as his supporting counselor. The Forum was packed with supporters of both sides. Clodius's people tried to shout Pompey down when he got up to speak, but he plowed doggedly on. He concluded with some highly scabrous verses about Clodius and Clodia. Cicero described the scene in a letter to his brother, Quintus:

Pompey found it hard to handle this kind of abuse and, nervous, stayed away from the Forum. He eventually abandoned the idea of the Egyptian command (as did Lentulus, who had no intention of proceeding without an army behind him) and came to believe that there was a plot against his life. Soon after he decided to bring men to the city from his country estates in northern Italy to protect him.

Cicero continued to speak in the courts as and when the opportunity arose. Sometime in the spring of 56 he gave his entertaining (and successful) defense of young Marcus Caelius Rufus, his former pupil, against Clodia's charge of attempted murder. This allowed him plenty of opportunity to amuse himself and his listeners with jabs at her brother. A
S
ever, he could not resist a joke. “My refutation would be framed in considerably more forcible terms,”
he said, “if I did not feel inhibited by the fact that the woman's husband—sorry, I mean brother, I
always
make that slip—is my personal enemy.”

In February accusations of bribery and breach of the peace were laid against Sestius, the Tribune who had pressed for Cicero's recall. Cicero agreed at once to represent him. In the meantime, he was involved in a separate trial defending a former Aedile on a bribery charge. By a happy chance the man had saved Sestius's life in a riot in the Forum and Cicero was able to use the speech to lay down the outline of his defense of Sestius. This had the helpful effect of preparing public opinion.

By the time the case against Sestius came to court in early March, political observers in Rome were convinced that the First Triumvirate was in serious trouble. There were rumors that it was teetering and might even collapse. Now that Pompey had broken with Clodius and Crassus, perhaps he could be persuaded to distance himself from Caesar, preoccupied in Gaul. Cicero judged the moment right to set out a viable political alternative. In his defense of Sestius he restated his political philosophy. Although he showed little sign of understanding the true balance of forces, he offered a rational and civilized alternative to the policies of the reactionaries in the Senate. Rome no longer faced any foreign dangers, Cicero claimed; the threat now came from within. Radicals like Clodius were not true friends of the People and, by the same token, the term
optimates
should not be restricted to a small backwards-looking circle of aristocrats. All men of goodwill were
optimates
now.

To summarize his message he invented a famous but almost untranslatable slogan:
otium cum dignitate
. By
otium
he meant “peace” as distinct not only from war but also from engagement in public affairs. This is what Cicero promised the People, security at the price of minimum involvement
in the political process. Peace could be achieved only if respect was given to the traditional political establishment. In other words, social harmony could be achieved only if the balance of power was shifted from the People back to the Senate. Cicero was presenting himself as a Sulla without blood and tears—but also, unfortunately, a Sulla without a method, for he had little idea how reconciliation and reform might be attained in practice.

One of the witnesses for the prosecution of Sestius was Publius Vatinius, who as Tribune in 59 had helped Caesar with his legislation and had proposed the law giving him his special five-year command. In cross-examination Cicero “cut him up to the applause of gods and men” with extraordinary, but probably calculated, fury. There was growing talk that the Gallic command was unconstitutional and an attack on Vatinius was a good way to soften up the terrain for a later assault.

This was playing a dangerous game. Quintus was worried and told his brother that he might be going too far for Caesar's comfort. Cicero did his best to reassure him. In April, flush with his victory in the case against Sestius, who was acquitted unanimously, he felt bold enough to place the question of Caesar's second Land Reform Act on the agenda of a Senate meeting in May. Its repeal would be an open attack on Caesar. Cicero's move was received with unusual warmth. His confidence was at its height and he was sure that his political career was back on track. He had regained his lost prestige and was delighted to see that his house was as full of visitors and petitioners as it had been in his heyday.

One evening in early April Cicero called on Pompey, who informed him he was leaving shortly for Sardinia to buy grain. Pompey was being more than ordinarily economical with the truth. When he left the city he in fact made a detour before setting sail for Sardinia and first made his way to Luca, a town at the extreme limit of Italian Gaul, where Caesar had secretly summoned him for emergency talks. Taking time off from his operations in Gaul, Caesar had already met Crassus in Ravenna and was planning a counterstroke which would silence his opponents in Rome.

Caesar had spent the last two years in a series of brilliantly conducted military campaigns. When taking up his governorship, he hoped for an opportunity to build on the military reputation he had won three years previously during his governorship in Spain. He was in luck, for long-standing
hostilities between two Germanic tribes led one of them to invade Gaul from what is now Switzerland. Caesar claimed to see a potential threat to Italy from barbarian hordes and reacted vigorously. He routed the enemy with ease and then turned his attention to the other tribe, led by a charismatic chieftain who had incautiously reminded him when they once met that Caesar's death would not be unwelcome in certain circles in Rome. This accurately aimed insult was not left unavenged. A victory, this time hard won, ensued.

“The Germans' left was routed,”
Caesar wrote, “but their right began to press our troops hard by weight of numbers. Their perilous position attracted the attention of young Publius Crassus [son of Caesar's political partner], better able to move about and see what was happening than those in the fighting line. He therefore sent up a third line to their relief. This move turned the battle once more in our favor, and the enemy's whole army broke and fled without stopping until they came to the Rhine, some fifteen miles away. A very few of the strongest tried to swim the river and a few others saved themselves by finding boats … but all the rest were hunted down and killed by our cavalry.”

Risings in the northeast gave Caesar the pretext to proceed to the subjugation of the entire country from the Mediterranean to the Channel. He briefly visited that remote, almost mythical island, Britannia, an exploit that was militarily insignificant but was received as a huge propaganda coup back home.

Propaganda was a matter of some moment. His political opponents looked for any opportunity to criticize him and argued that the war itself was illegal on the grounds that he had not had sufficient excuse to intervene. To promote his cause, Caesar devoted great care to his dispatches to the Senate and in due course wrote them up as a history of the Gallic wars.

He was proving to be a field commander of the first rank. Pompey and Crassus were gradually coming to realize that their junior partner was growing into a serious competitor in both wealth and reputation. He was no longer the “young man” they had seen him to be in 59.

Caesar was always on the move, ready to react to the latest military threat as it arose. But wherever he was stationed, he assiduously nurtured his links with the capital. After the campaigning season he spent every winter in Italian Gaul, a vantage point from which he could keep a close
eye on political developments. His newfound riches were at the disposal of anyone who would sign up (literally in many cases, with oaths and written guarantees) to protect his interests. Few applicants were turned away.

From Caesar's perspective the news from Rome in the spring of 56 could not have been worse. Clodius was running amok, Pompey and Crassus were at loggerheads, and several allies who stood for public office lost their elections. Caesar spoke bitterly at Luca about Cicero's Senate motion to nullify his second Land Reform Act. He could see that the situation was slipping out of his grasp.

Caesar's partners had long since gained all that had been covenanted when the First Triumvirate set up business: Pompey's eastern settlement had been approved, land had been found for his soldiers and, for Crassus, the tax farmers' contracts had been rewritten. Neither had any particular interest in keeping the alliance going.

With typical decisiveness and sensitivity to changing circumstances, Caesar proposed an extension to their agreement which would bring new and clearly identifiable benefits for each of them. Crassus and Pompey would stand for the Consulship in 55 and Caesar would guarantee their election by sending soldiers from his army to Rome to vote for them. Once in office the new Consuls would see to it that they were awarded new five-year special commands in Spain and Syria respectively. Crassus aimed to refresh his military laurels by leading a major expedition against the Parthian Empire, which neighbored Rome's eastern possessions. In order to ensure strict equality of treatment, Caesar's Gallic command would also be extended for an additional five years, which would give him the time he needed to complete the annexation of Gaul. After that he too would stand for a second Consulship. It was an elegant plan, with something in it for all three partners—so much so that Crassus and Pompey readily agreed to paper over their quarrels.