Political Speeches (Oxford World's Classics) (3 page)

In the midst of the Catilinarian crisis (in November) Cicero also found time to undertake the defence of one of the consuls-elect for 62, Lucius Licinius Murena, who had been prosecuted for electoral malpractice by one of the unsuccessful candidates; the law under which the case was brought was Cicero’s own bribery law, the
lex Tullia de ambitu
, which he had successfully carried earlier in the year. Together with Hortensius and Crassus, he secured his acquittal, arguing that, in the face of the danger from Catiline, the necessity of having as consul an experienced military man such as Murena overrode all other considerations.
Pro Murena
(‘For Murena’) is Cicero’s funniest and most enjoyable speech (unless one prefers
Pro Caelio
). Much of it is taken up with making fun of the prosecutors, the lawyer Servius Sulpicius Rufus and the Stoic philosopher Marcus Porcius Cato, both men for whom Cicero had in reality a considerable regard.

Cicero’s suppression of the Catilinarian conspiracy won him enormous prestige, and on 1 January 62 he was the first senator to be asked for his opinion in the senate: he was viewed as the leading senator present (Pompey was still in the east). We have two speeches of his from this year,
Pro Sulla
(‘For Sulla’) and
Pro Archia
(‘For Archias’).
Pro Sulla
is a defence of a wealthy aristocrat, the nephew of the dictator Sulla (and probably the brother-in-law of Pompey), on a charge of participation in the conspiracy; Cicero secured his acquittal by arguing that he of all people would hardly have undertaken his defence if he had believed him to be guilty. In this speech we see Cicero seeking to present himself as a mild and compassionate person, to counteract his enemies’ portrayal of him as cruel and vindictive in his execution of the conspirators.
Pro Archia
, by contrast, is one of the least political of Cicero’s forensic speeches. A
defence not of a Roman aristocrat but of a Syrian poet, Cicero’s old teacher, on a charge of illegally assuming Roman citizenship, it contains not just a legal defence of Archias’ claim, but a lengthy encomium of literature. This is of great interest to literary historians, and shows the degree to which Cicero had to go to present Archias’ profession to a Roman jury in a favourable light. Archias was acquitted.

At the end of the year a scandal occurred at Rome which was to have disastrous consequences for Cicero. A young aristocrat, Publius Clodius Pulcher, was discovered to have dressed up in women’s clothes and attended the festival of the Bona Dea, to which only women were admitted, and which was being held at the house of Caesar, the
pontifex maximus
. The suggestion was that he had taken advantage of Caesar’s absence from his house to commit adultery with his wife. Caesar divorced his wife on the grounds that ‘Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion’ (Plut.
Caes
. 10.6). At Clodius’ trial for sacrilege in May 61, Cicero gave evidence which disproved his alibi. Nevertheless, Clodius managed to bribe his way to an acquittal; and he was henceforward to be a far more troublesome enemy to Cicero than Catiline had been.

At the end of 60, Caesar, who was consul-elect for the following year, formed a political alliance with Pompey and Crassus conventionally known as the ‘first triumvirate’. He tried to persuade Cicero to join the alliance: Cicero would have lost his political independence, but would have been protected from Clodius and from the increasing attacks on his execution of the Catilinarians. He preferred to keep his independence—and was to pay for it. In 59 Caesar sanctioned Clodius’ adoption into a plebeian family (he was of patrician birth), thus enabling him to stand for election to the tribunate of the plebs, the office traditionally sought by popular politicians who wished to propose radical legislation or, in conservative eyes, to stir up trouble. Clodius was duly elected and, as tribune in 58, he proposed a bill outlawing anyone who had put a Roman citizen to death without trial. The senate put on mourning for Cicero and the towns of Italy passed resolutions in his favour. But Clodius, who had earlier carried a law to provide the people with free grain for the first time, had the support of the urban plebs. More importantly, he also had the tacit support of the triumvirs, who were angered at Cicero’s rejection of their advances and worried that he might lead the conservatives in
the senate in an attack on their position. The consuls Piso and Gabinius did as the triumvirs wanted, and instructed the senate to resume normal dress. Cicero’s support melted away, and he himself left for exile in Macedonia on the day that Clodius’ law was passed. His house in Rome was plundered and burned, and Clodius consecrated the site as a shrine to Libertas (‘Liberty’), in order to portray Cicero as a tyrant and to prevent rebuilding.

Cicero’s exile, which lasted almost eighteen months, was the biggest disaster of his life. He had saved Rome, and had been exiled for his pains. The charge was executing citizens without trial; yet he had been denied a trial himself. In his despair he thought of suicide. Publicly he represented his departure as a deliberate act of self-sacrifice, intended to save Rome from the likelihood of civil war—the second time he had saved the city. But privately he felt he should have stood his ground. He was recalled to Rome the following year, when the triumvirs concluded that Clodius had become an obstacle to their plans. His actual return was glorious and gratifying. On Pompey’s motion the senate passed a decree, unanimous with the single exception of Clodius, describing Cicero as the saviour of his country; and the people passed a bill authorizing his recall. His journey through Italy resembled a triumphal procession: towns passed resolutions honouring him, and he was escorted by cheering crowds. But he never recovered from the blow to his pride; and, as the price of his recall, he had had to assure the triumvirs that in future he would serve their interests.

The speeches he gave in 57 and 56 are known as the
Post reditum
(‘After his return’) speeches.
Post reditum in senatu
(‘in the senate’, 57) and
Post reditum ad quirites
(‘to the citizens’, 57) offered thanks for his restoration.
De domo sua
(‘On his house’, 57) and
De haruspicum responsis
(‘On the answers of the omen-interpreters’, 56) dealt with the religious aspects of his feud with Clodius; he successfully persuaded the pontiffs that Clodius’ consecration of the site of his house in Rome had been invalid, and he secured compensation to enable him to rebuild. Other speeches of this period included defences of people who had campaigned for his recall and opposed Clodius. Publius Sestius and Titus Annius Milo were tribunes in 57 who had used violence against Clodius and worked tirelessly for Cicero’s recall. Sestius was prosecuted in 56 by dependants of Clodius, was defended by Hortensius, Crassus, and Cicero (the same
team that had defended Murena in 63), and was unanimously acquitted. Cicero’s
Pro Sestio
(‘For Sestius’) contains a full exposition of the orator’s own political standpoint: the state can be divided into patriots and traitors, with Sestius and Milo and the majority of Roman citizens of all classes belonging to the former category, and Clodius, Piso, and Gabinius to the latter.

A month later Cicero was to revenge himself on Clodius in a more personal way. A former friend of Clodius’, Marcus Caelius Rufus, was prosecuted on an array of charges: violence, murder, and the attempted poisoning of Clodius’ sister, Clodia Metelli, with whom Caelius had previously had an affair. Caelius had originally been a pupil of Cicero’s, before switching allegiance to the Clodii, and now that he had broken with the Clodii he was to become a friend of Cicero’s again. In taking on his defence, Cicero saw his chance to hurt Clodius by publicly humiliating his sister, whom he had reasons for hating: she had persecuted his family during his exile. In
Pro Caelio
(‘For Caelius’) the charges are largely ignored, and Cicero instead focuses on Caelius’ affair with Clodia, portraying her as a common prostitute (she was a high-ranking society lady) and holding her up to ridicule. Ingeniously, he manages to do this while exempting Caelius from moral blame. The speech is wonderfully funny, and very cruel: Cicero won his case by avoiding the issue and making the jury laugh at his enemy. After the trial, Clodia (who has a one-in-three chance of being the same person as Catullus’ ‘Lesbia’) disappears from history.

Cicero owed his recall from exile to Pompey’s influence, and in return he had reluctantly undertaken to give the triumvirs his political support. But he soon detected an apparent rift between Pompey and Caesar (who was absent in Gaul from 58 to 49), and decided to drive the two men further apart by opposing Caesar. First he published an attack on Publius Vatinius which he had made at the time of Sestius’ trial (
In Vatinium
, ‘Against Vatinius’): Vatinus was a legate of Caesar’s who as tribune in 59 had procured for him his Gallic command. Secondly, he put a motion before the senate calling for discussion of Caesar’s controversial agrarian law of 59. This challenge to Caesar’s position did not split the triumvirate as Cicero had hoped: instead it drove the three men closer together. They reaffirmed their alliance, and Pompey and Crassus held a second joint consulship in 55 (they had held the consulship together in 70), with
commands for each of them to follow afterwards. Caesar’s command in Gaul was extended for a further five years.

Cicero now realized that resistance to the triumvirs would be futile, and in any case he needed their protection against Clodius’ continuing attacks; he also felt that the conservatives in the senate, such as Hortensius, were failing to give him their full support. He therefore publicly declared his allegiance to the triumvirs: in
De provinciis consularibus
(‘On the consular provinces’, 56) he lavishes praise on Caesar and advocates the extension of his Gallic command.

The later 50s were unhappy years for Cicero. In 54 he had to defend Vatinius; although he won, he apparently chose not to publish his defence. Soon afterwards (in 54 or 53) he was compelled to defend Gabinius, the consul of 58 who had allowed Clodius to exile him; at least this time he had the satisfaction of losing. In his private moments he consoled himself by starting to write a series of philosophical treatises in which he explained the various philosophical systems of the Greeks (he was the first person to do this in Latin; the work involved formulating a Latin philosophical vocabulary, which then became standard). At the same time he began a series of treatises on oratory and rhetoric; some of these works also explore, in theoretical terms, his own political philosophy. In 53 (or 52) he was gratified to receive, on Hortensius’ nomination, an important political honour: he was elected to a place in the College of Augurs, in succession to Crassus’ son, who had been killed with his father at Carrhae.

Clodius during these years had become a powerful independent force in Rome with a large popular following. He had assembled a gang of thugs and used it to attack his enemies, most of all Cicero, and to terrorize the city. His chief opponent was Titus Annius Milo, who used similar tactics against him in return. The increasing willingness of politicians to resort to violence to achieve their ends was a symptom of the collapse of the republic; in the next decade, urban violence would be superseded by civil war. Clodius and Milo had fought numerous battles against each other, Milo defending Cicero’s interests; and in one such battle outside Rome on 18 January 52 Clodius was accidentally wounded, and then killed on Milo’s orders. Cicero must have been overjoyed. Amid the chaotic scenes which followed, Clodius’ supporters cremated his body in the senate-house, which was burned down. Pompey was appointed sole consul
to restore order (the violence in Rome had prevented the elections for 52 from taking place), and Milo was put on trial and defended by Cicero. The evidence for his guilt was unimpeachable, and Pompey wanted him removed from public life, so Cicero’s defence stood no chance of success: he was convicted, and went into exile at Massilia (Marseilles). But later in the year public opinion swung against Pompey and the Clodians, and in Milo’s favour. Milo’s accomplices were tried and acquitted, whereas Clodius’ supporters, who were put on trial for the burning of the senate-house, were convicted. Cicero, who had played a leading part in these trials, now regarded himself and Milo as having been vindicated, and he wrote and published a new, more confident version of his unsuccessful defence. This is our
Pro Milone
(‘For Milo’), which has always been accepted as the oratorical masterpiece that Cicero intended it to be.

During his consulship in 52 Pompey had legislation passed which ruled that consuls and praetors should have to wait at least five years before going out to govern their provinces (the purpose of the law was to discourage electoral bribery by delaying the period at which a magistrate would be able to recoup the money he had spent when standing for office). This created a short-term shortage of provincial governors, and as Cicero had not previously held a provincial governorship he was made to serve for a year (51–50) as governor of Cilicia, on the south-east coast of Asia Minor (the province also included Cyprus). He was very distressed at having to be away from the political scene at Rome: his governorship seemed like a second exile, and his greatest fear was that his term of office might be extended. But he resolved to make the best of the situation by acting as a model provincial governor—no easy matter, when fairness to the provincials ran directly counter to the financial interests of prominent men at Rome. He also led a successful campaign against the brigands of the interior; but on his return to Rome the impending civil war prevented him from obtaining the triumph he had hoped for.

At the outbreak of the Civil War in 49 Cicero agonized over what to do. He was put in charge of the Campanian coast, but, being unable to raise recruits in any number, soon gave up and retired to one of his villas. Caesar repeatedly tried to win him over to his side, even coming to visit him at home: to win the endorsement of such a senior republican would serve to legitimize his position. But Cicero could not in conscience give his support to a man who had invaded
Italy and declared war on his country. On the other hand, he had little confidence in Pompey, the man into whose hands the republic had been placed: Pompey’s decision to abandon Italy and cross over to Greece seemed to Cicero a catastrophic misjudgement, and he was disgusted by the motives and behaviour of Pompey’s followers. Eventually he concluded, despairingly, that his duty was to join Pompey in Greece. He crossed over to him in June 49; but once in Pompey’s camp he declined to accept a command, and irritated the Pompeian leaders with his criticisms. He was not present at Pompey’s defeat at Pharsalus in August 48, and after Pompey’s flight and murder he was invited to assume command of the surviving republican forces, but declined. In October 48 he returned to Brundisium in Italy, but it was not until September 47 that he was pardoned by Caesar and allowed to move on to Rome.