letters. But I must tell you one thing which I would fain have kept from you above all men. I am tormented, my dearest brother, tormented by the thought that the Republic is no more; that there is no law; that I who at my time of life ought to be in the zenith of a dignified senatorial career, am harassed with forensic toil, or kept alive by literature; that the darling motto of my whole life from boyhood— πολλὴν ἀριστεύειν καὶ ὑπείροχον ἔμμεναι ἄλλων, should be a thing of the past; that my enemies should be unassailed by me, or even defended; that my feelings, that even my indignation, should be held in a leash; that there should be but onee-Caesar—to give me the love I want -or perhaps I should say, to want to love me.' But, again, in writing to his brother (160, 1), he comments on the acquittal of Gabinius in a tone more like that which he had used to Atticus : 'The shameful and disastrous issue of the trial I view with very little concern. I have one clear gain from it. The wrongs of the State and the effrontery that goes unchecked used to make me burst with rage; now I do not even feel them. Nothing could be more desperate than the state to which society has come.' The year 701 (53) began without any magistrates. The only resource was an interregnum, and this lasted for six months. The government thus changed hands every five days. Everything seemed to point to a dictatorship.* But Pompey would not *The first account we have of the proposal that Pompey should be dictator-for, of course, Pompey was the only man for the office-was in October, 700 (54). Cicero, writing to Atticus (144, 3), says, 'There is some inkling (odor) of a dictatorship, certainly much talk about it, which has helped Gabinius with certain weak-kneed jurymen.' In November Cicero writes to Quintus (159, 4):--The talk about the dictatorship is displeasing to the aristocrats; but I am still less pleased at what they say. However, the whole matter is viewed with alarm, and is flagging. Pompey declares plainly that he doesn't want it; some time ago he did not, in conversation with me, deny that he wished it. Hirrus is likely to be the proposer. Gods! how fatuous Pompey is! how single and concentrated is his adoration of himself! ... Whether he really wishes for it or not it is difficult to say. However, if Hirrus makes the proposal, he will not be able to convince people that he does not wish it. No other matter in politics is now being talked about; certainly nothing else is being done.' The matter still was hanging fire in December, when Cicero wrote to Quintus (160, 3):—' En passant: nothing has, after all, been done about the dictatorship up to the present. Pompey is away, Appius confusing things, Hirrus preparing, a number of tribunes counted on to veto, the people indifferent, the aristocrats opposed, declare his desire for it, or rather distinctly affirmed that he did not covet the position, though he had owned privately to Cicero that he did (159, 5). Hirrus made a proposal to confer the dictatorship on Pompey. This was so resolutely opposed by Cato, that Pompey thought it wise to throw over Hirrus, and disavow that he had authorised the proposal. In July Calvinus and Messalla were elected to the consulship. Hardly had the new consuls entered on office when the news came of the disaster at Carrhae, and the death of Crassus. This untoward event must have forced on Pompey the reflection that it behoved him to strengthen his position. And circumstances lent themselves to him, as they often did. The death of Clodius deprived Milo of his chance of the consulate in the following year, and thus was paralyzed a great deal of influence which would have been used against the lawless designs of Pompey. But names In the early part of the year Bibulus proposed in the Senate that Pompey should be made consul, without a colleague. The proposal was accepted, being supported even by Cato. Pompey was now invested with almost as absolute power as he might have achieved by a crime after the Mithradatic War. His position was altogether unconstitutional. The Senate had no right to confer it. It was a dictatorship in everything except name. have great weight with men like Pompey. He seems hardly to have understood the position in which he was placed. The Senate put him there to do the work of Sulla. He used his power merely to punish private enemies. His senatus consultum against bribery was made retrospective; and the trials became embarrassing by their number (182, 4). His subsequent acts of folly which provoked the Civil War need not be noticed here; that crisis in the history of the Republic does not come within the scope of the present volume. But when we learn that Pompey, in violation of his own law, procured an enactment which secured to him for five years more the Government of Spain, that he kept a portion of his army in Italy, and took from the State a myself quiescent.' This is the last we hear in Cicero's letters of the proposal, which was finally carried through to all intents and purposes in 702 (52), when on the 24th of the intercalary month, Pompey, on the motion of Bibulus, seconded by Cato, was elected 'sole consul' (Asconius, 37). thousand talents for its support, we feel that it was little more than chance which decided whether Caesar or Pompey should give the Republic its coup de grâce. In taking a broad view of Cicero's political attitude during this epoch, we must remember that he was drawn to Pompey by old political sympathies and a kind of 'demonic' force (see note to 49, 2), and to Caesar by consistent courtesy and generosity on his part*; and that the Optimates deliberately effaced themselves, and their leaders tried to efface Cicero. Under these circumstances what Cicero really desired was cultured leisure, cum dignitate otium (153, 21). If at this period, through his desire for otium, he sacrificed somewhat of his dignitas, let us remember that after all he was really not so much a politician as a man of letters, forced to take part in politics by reason of the extraordinary and singular position in which his amazing literary gifts placed him, and at a time when the political atmosphere was terribly overcharged. Let us remember, too, that when the cause of Pompey seemed desperate, Cicero's whole heart went out to him. When Pompey left Brundisium and embarked for Greece, Caesar thought it would be a favourable time to secure the allegiance of Cicero. He hastened to communicate to him the news. But Cicero was not a man to espouse the winning side because it was victorious. It was the ruin of Pompey that drew Cicero to him closer than ever. 'I never wanted to share his prosperity; would that I had shared his downfall,' are his words to Atticus at this crisis. And, above all, let us not forget, that if in this *Once Cicero acquiesced in the rule of the Triumvirs, Caesar seems to have shown the utmost courtesy and interest in Cicero and his brother; and Cicero, who was always sensitive to sympathetic kindness, was never tired of singing Caesar's praises' (iam pridem istum canto Caesarem 135, 1): cp. 133, 4; 140, 1; 141, 1–3; 146, 2; 148, 9, 11, 17; 149, 7, 8; 153, 18, 21; 155, 3, 4 (unumque ex omnibus Caesarem esse inventum qui me tantum quantum ego vellem amaret, aut etiam, sicut alii putant, hunc unum esse qui vellet (158, 2; 159, 1–3). Dio Cassius (xliv. 19, 3) notices the courteousness of Caesar εὐπρόσοδος γὰρ καὶ φιλοπροσήγορος ἐν τοῖς μάλιστα ἦν. In addition to Caesar's kindness to Quintus, and to his friendly correspondence with Marcus Cicero, the latter seems to have put himself under obligations to Caesar by accepting loans of money: cp. Att. v. 6, 2 (189), 10, 4 (198); vii. 3, 11 (294), 8, 5 (299); and, possibly, even gifts, Att. vii. 3, 3 (294) nequaquam satis pro meis officiis, pro ipsius in alios effusione illum in me liberalem fuisse. † Att. ix. 12, 4 (368). period of his anxious and troubled life Cicero seems to have sacrificed honour to tranquillity, the time came when he willingly resigned not only a life of ease, but life itself, to save his honour, Cato was not the only Roman in whose eyes the vanquished found more favour than the victorious cause. § 2. THE EGYPTIAN QUESTION. On the death of Ptolemy Soter II. (Lathyrus) in 673 (81), his eldest daughter, Berenice, ruled for six months. After that time her stepson, Ptolemy Alexander II., the prince who had been captured at Cos by Mithradates, and treated by him with the respect due to his princely position, but who had afterwards escaped to Rome, was sent back by Sulla,* and was associated with her in the government and in marriage.† But the union was opposed to the wishes of Berenice; and the result was that Alexander murdered her nineteen days after his arrival, and was presently murdered himself by the indignant household troops. Prior to the departure from Rome of this Alexander, he is stated to have made a will bequeathing his country to the Roman people, after the example of Attalus of Pergamus and Ptolemy Apion of Cyrene. That this will was not a regular will we may safely assume, for it was never produced; and Cicero certainly had not much belief in it (see the passage quoted below, p. xxxii). Appian Mithr. 23; Bell. Civ. i. 102. ... + Doubtless with the approval of the Alexandrians, though against the will of Berenice; for Porphyrius of Tyre (Frag. Hist. Graec., iii., p. 722, ed. Müller) says :— οὗτος δὲ υἱὸς μὲν ἦν τοῦ νεωτέρου Πτολεμαίου τοῦ καὶ ̓Αλεξάνδρου καταμένων δὲ ἐν Ῥώμῃ τῆς ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ δυναστείας ἀνδρῶν ἐρήμου γενομένης μετάκλητος ἦλθεν εἰς τὴν ̓Αλεξανδρείαν καὶ γήμας τὴν προειρημένην Κλεοπάτραν [he should have said Βερενίκην] παραλαβών τε παρ' ἀκούσης [so Letronne corrected ἑκούσης of the mss from the Latin version invitaque muliere] τὴν ἐξουσίαν ἐννεακαίδεκα διαγενομένων ἡμερῶν ἀνεῖλεν αὐτὴν καὶ αὐτὸς ὑπὸ τῶν ἐνόπλων ἐν τῷ γυμνασίῳ διὰ τὴν μιαιφονίαν συνεχό μevos à¤wλeтo. Cp. Cicero, De Rege Alexandrino, Frag. 9, ed. C. F. W. Müller. Trogus (xxxix. 5) seems to say he was expelled; but his account is very brief and confused. M. Bouché-Leclercq* is probably right (p. 245) in supposing that Alexander II. may have signed at Rome, before becoming king, an engagement which the jurists knew well to be invalid in law, if it implied anything more than a promise of money. But whatever the document may have been (if it ever existed), it was useful that the idea should become prevalent that the Romans had a right to occupy Egypt, so that they could intervene when necessary. Meanwhile the optimates at Rome might be able to use it as a means to extort money from the occupant of the Egyptian throne. But the actual treasure which Alexander II. left behind him-it was at Tyre; he had not time to transport it to Alexandria, as he was killed a few weeks after his arrival there -this actual treasure the Romans at once appropriated.† * In two interesting articles in the Revue Historique for 1902, vol. lxxix., pp. 241265, and vol. lxxx., pp. 1-24, "La Question d'Orient dans le temps de Cicéron." It has been argued by some writers, e.g. Clinton (Fasti Hellenici, iii. 392), Orelli (ad Schol. Bob., p. 351), and Cless (in Pauly, vi. 226), that the Alexander who bequeathed Egypt to the Romans was not Alexander II., but another Alexander, whom they call Alexander III., a natural son of Alexander I.; and that this Alexander III. was set up as a rival of Ptolemy Auletes about 688 (66), and died at Tyre in 687 (65). This view seems to rest mainly on Suet. Iul. 11 Conciliato populi favore temptavit per partem tribunorum ut sibi Aegyptus provincia plebi scito daretur, nanctus extraordinarii imperii occasionem, quod Alexandrini regem suum socium atque amicum a senatu appellatum expulerant, resque vulgo improbabatur. Nec obtinuit adversante optimatium factione. The contention is that we must suppose some other than Auletes to be referred to in this passage, as it deals with the year 690 (64), the date of Caesar's aedileship; and Auletes was not declared a friend and ally of the Roman people until Caesar's consulship in 695 (59). But it is better to suppose that Suetonius made a mistake, and ante-dated the notorious affair of Auletes to the year 690 (64)—especially as, about that time, Egypt was distinctly an object of political interest to the democrats (cp. Cic. Leg. Agr., ii. 44)—rather than assume a king of whom we do not hear elsewhere. Nor need we lay much stress on nuper in the Schol. Bob. (p. 350, Orelli) on a Fragment of Cicero's oration de Rege Alexandrino, which scholion runs as follows:-Ac primo quidem illo tempore quo pecunia repetita esse ab Tyro et advecta Romam videbatur, seposita iam nuper ab Alexa rege, when we remember what an elastic word nuper is. That oration, as far as we can judge from the obscure fragments, is more likely to have been composed in 689 (65), as Mommsen (R. H. iv. 166 Eng. Trans.) holds, than in 698 (56), as Clinton (1.c.), Lange (iii. 320), and Rauschen (p. 36) maintain: see esp. Frag. 7, ed. C. F. W. Müller. In Cicero's speeches on the Agrarian Law the king who is stated to have made the will is at one time (i. 1) called Alexander, and at another Alexa (ii. 41); cp. Schol. Bob. quoted above. But nothing can be argued from this, because Alexa was a familiar abbreviation of Alexander (see Wilmann's Exempla |