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my new hearer, Pompey! If ever I had a full supply of periods, turns, sentiments, tricks of rhetoric, it was on that occasion. Why say more? Shouts of applause! For this was the argument:the firm decision of the Order,-the hearty co-operation of the Knights, the unanimity of Italy, the expiring relics of the conspiracy, the blessings of cheapness and repose. You know the sound of my thunder when I have these materials to work upon: so clear and full was it, that I am now all the briefer, because I suppose that its distant echoes reached you in Epirus." Such is the vivid picture of a debate in the Roman Senate, which we owe to the freedom of Cicero's correspondence with Atticus.*

While Pompey was preparing for his splendid triumph, the attention of Rome was concentrated upon the affair of Clodius; and it is curious to observe how all the party leaders kept out of that vortex, except Cicero, who evidently hoped to crush Clodius like another Catiline. Not content with giving decisive evidence against Clodius, who called him to prove an alibi, he pelted him with unmerciful sarcasms in the Senate, and thus confirmed the enmity of which he soon felt the force. We must be content to refer to Cicero's letters for a graphic account of the trial, which resulted in the acquittal of Clodius by unblushing bribery of the Judices.† Cicero records his conviction that by this trial the Republic had slipped out of the hands that had just saved it; but he consoles himself with his rhetorical triumphs over Clodius and the outward union with the great chief which, however hollow, was so ostentatious, that the young nobles of the Clodian party nicknamed Pompey-doubtless to his great disgust-Cneius Cicero. The growing discredit of the Knights-to the causes of which allusion has been made before—was felt by Cicero as a bitter disappointment; and his annoyance was completed by the election to the consulship of Afranius, a creature of Pompey, whose conduct in putting such a man forward he stigmatizes as disgraceful.

This letter furnishes an excellent example of the manner in which Cicero's semiironical frankness about himself, in the confidence of close intimacy, has given a handle to the detractors who persist in putting the most literal, not to say the most mischievous interpretation upon every jest of his exuberant playfulness. No man ever, both alive and dead, paid dearer for his jokes.

Ad Att. i. 14, 16. A passage in the former letter shows that universal suffrage and vote by ballot could be manipulated in Rome, as in other times and countries. When the vote was to be taken in the Comitia on the Bill of the Senate for the selection of the Judices, there was a difficulty in obtaining tickets inscribed with AYE (V.R., i.e., uti rogas). In more recent times, the scarcity is said to have been the other way.

On the 29th of September, B.C. 61-the same day on which he reached the age of forty-five-Pompey entered the Capitol in the most magnificent triumph that Rome had ever seen. It lasted two days amongst the train of captives, 324 princes walked before his triumphal car: and besides all the spoils that glittered before their eyes, the imagination of the spectators was excited by tablets announcing the gains that Pompey had won for the Republic:-1000 fortresses, 900 towns, and 800 ships taken :-39 cities founded:-20,000 talents brought into the public treasury; -and 26,000,000 of sesterces added to the revenue of the state. As this day was the climax, so it may perhaps be called the last, of the truly glorious period of Pompey's life; and almost the last praise that the historian has to bestow upon him is this: -that he did not now abuse his military supremacy. "He took no improper advantage of the senseless honours which were paid to him, and appeared only once in his triumphal robe in the Circensian games; although, on the whole, he showed himself mean and miserable during the time of peace, and certainly did not deserve the name of the Great, which had been given to him by Sulla." (Niebuhr.) He was evidently uncertain which party to adopt, and had not the decision to strike out a course of his own. His personal enmities with Crassus and Lucullus severed him from the aristocratic party, even had he been disposed to forget that all his popularity and recent success had begun with his reversal of Sulla's acts. Whether he had as yet formed the scheme of using the party of Clodius to humble Cicero, may be doubted. His immediate object was to obtain the ratification of the acts he and the political settlements he had made in Asia. he had promoted the election of Afranius; and the Senate's resentment at his success brought their jealousy to a climax. They refused the required ratification; and the first half of the year B.C. 60 was spent in an unseemly contest, which drove Pompey back upon the popular party.

had performed With this view

It was at this crisis that Cæsar returned from Spain, where he had achieved brilliant successes, especially against the mountaineers of Lusitania and Gallæcia. His troops saluted him Imperator, and the Senate voted a thanksgiving in his honour. He was now strong enough to take his place as the leader of the popular party; and he had also a measure of his own to carry-one still more distasteful to the Senate than the ratification of Pompey's acts the division of the public land of Campania as a means of rewarding the soldiers, and securing the support of the poorer

citizens. On him, too, the Senate put a personal affront by refusing him leave to stand for the consulship while he was detained outside the city, waiting for his triumph. With characteristic decision, he renounced the triumph, and presented himself in the Forum as a candidate. His election was secure from the first; and the Senate could only succeed in clogging him with M. Calpurnius Bibulus as a colleague. The great events of the succeeding year may be anticipated, so far as Bibulus is concerned, by a single word. After a vain attempt to withstand the measures of the triumvirs, he withdrew altogether from the Comitia, and gave the wits of Rome occasion to say that the consuls of the year were Julius and Cæsar.

Meanwhile the appearance of Cæsar upon the scene made an almost magic change in the positions of the chief actors. Cicero began to feel that, instead of discussing whether he was to be the first or second man in Rome, he should have enough to do to save his head from Clodius, and he now finds no hope for the state but in the republican purity of Cato. For a mind like Pompey's it was a hard struggle to admit even the equality of Cæsar's superior genius, his jealousy of which was doomed to be his torment for the rest of his career. But a coalition was the only alternative to save him from at once sinking to the second place; and they bound themselves by a mutual engagement, Cæsar to obtain the ratification of Pompey's acts, Pompey to support the agrarian law of Cæsar. Their success was ensured by a master-stroke of Cæsar's policy, in gaining over Crassus, whose position as one of the most influential leaders of the aristocratic party was due to his wealth rather than to any steady political principle. Even from his first connection with Sulla, he had never been a regular adherent of the party, and he was bound by close personal relations to Cæsar, who knew the kind of bait that would secure him. The fascination which Cæsar exerted over his friends was powerful enough to overcome the bitter jealousy that Crassus had felt towards Pompey ever since their consulship, and to effect a reconciliation. From the analogy of the constitutional commissions, permanent or occasional, for the discharge of public duties by an appointed number of persons, this coalition obtained, by a sort of parody, the name of the FIRST TRIUMVIRATE. But the title is first recognized in that which is usually called the Second Triumvirate, of Octavian, Antony, and Lepidus, who were appointed for five years as TRIUMVIRI REIPUBLICE CONSTITUENDÆ.

CHAPTER XXXV.

THE FIRST TRIUMVIRATE AND THE GREAT CIVIL WAR FROM THE FIRST CONSULSHIP TO THE DEATH

LATE

OF CESAR. BC. 59 TO B.C. 44.

"Motum ex Metello consule civicum,

Bellique causas, et vitia, et modos,
Ludumque Fortunæ, gravesque
Principum amicitias, et arma

"Nondum expiatis uncta cruoribus,
Periculos plenum opus aleæ,
Tractas, et incedis per ignes
Suppositos cineri doloso.

"Audire magnos jam videor duces
Non indecoro pulvere sordidos,

Et cuncta terrarum subacta,

Præter atrocem animum Catonis."

HORAT. Carm. ii. 1.

ORIGIN OF THE CIVIL WAR FROM THE CONSULSHIP OF METELLUS-ITS CAUSES AND CHA RACTER-FIRST CONSULSHIP OF CÆSAR-MEASURES OF THE TRIUMVIRS-PROCONSUOF CÆSAR-POSITION OF CICERO-CLODIUS ELECTED TRIBUNE-CICERO'S BANISHMENT AND RECAL-CLODIUS QUARRELS WITH POMPEY-RIOTS OF MILO AND CLODIUS-MEETING OF THE TRIUMVIRS AT LUCCA-PARTITION OF THE PROVINCES SECOND CONSULSHIP OF POMPEY AND CRASSUS-DEDICATION OF POMPEY'S THEATREPOMPEY REMAINS AT ROME-CRASSUS DEPARTS FOR SYRIA-OMENS

OF DISASTERHE CROSSES THE EUPHRATES AND RETIRES EMBASSY FROM THE PARTHIANSCRASSUS ENTERS MESOPOTAMIA-TACTICS OF THE PARTHIANS- THE BATTLE OF CHARRE-DEATH OF THE YOUNGER CRASSUS-RETREAT TO CHARRE-DEATH OF CRASSUS-SEQUEL OF THE PARTHIAN WAR-ANARCHY AT ROME-MURDER OF CLODITS -POMPEY SOLE CONSUL-TRIAL OF MILO: SPEECH OF CICERO-POMPEY JOINS THS OPTIMATES, AND AIMS TO STRENGTHEN HIMSELF AGAINST CESAR-PROROGATION OF HIS COMMAND-CESAR'S GALLIC WAR-FIRST CAMPAIGN: THE HELVETII AND GERMANS-SECOND CAMPAIGN: THE BELGIC TRIBES-THIRD CAMPAIGN: THE ARMORIO NATIONS-FOURTH CAMPAIGN: CESAR CROSSES THE RHINE, AND INVADES BRITAIN— FIFTH CAMPAIGN: SECOND INVASION OF BRITAIN: ATTACKS ON THE WINTER QUARTERS OF THE ROMANS-SIXTH CAMPAIGN: SECOND PASSAGE OF THE RHINE-SEVENTH CAMPAIGN: REVOLT OF GAUL UNDER VERCINGETORIX: SIEGE AND CAPTURE OP ALESIA EIGHTH CAMPAIGN: COMPLETE SUBJECTION OF GAUL-CESAR IN CISALPINE GAUL CICERO'S PROCONSULATE IN CILICIA-MEASURES OF THE SENATE AGAINST CÆSAR HE IS DECLARED A PUBLIC ENEMY-ANTONY AND CASSIUS FLY TO CESAR'S CAMP-CESAR CROSSES THE RUBICON-THE GREAT CIVIL WAR BEGINS FLIGHT OF THE POMPEIANS TO BRUNDISIUM AND GREECE-CESAR MASTER OF ITALYWAR IN SPAIN: DEFEAT OF AFRANIUS AND PETREIUS-CAPTURE OF MASSILIA-CÆSAR DICTATOR FOR ELEVEN DAYS-CESAR IN GREECE: BATTLE OF PHARSALIA-FLIGHT OF POMPEY ΤΟ EGYPT HIS DEATH-CESAR IN EGYPT CLEOPATRA-THE ALEXANDRINE WAR-CESAR IN PONTUS: VENI, VIDI, VICI-HIS RETURN TO ROMEPARDON OF CICERO-AFRICAN WAR: BATTLE OF THAPSUS: SIEGE OF UTICA: DEATH OF CATO TRIUMPH OF CESAR-REFORMATION OF THE CALENDAR-INSURRECTION IN SPAIN CÆSAR DEFEATS THE POMPEIANS AT MUNDA-HIS RETURN TO ROME AS MASTER OF THE EMPIRE-DICTATORSHIP FOR LIFE, AND OTHER HONOURS-HIS GIGANTIC PROJECTS-THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST HIS LIFE-CHARACTER OF BRUTUSTHE IDES OF MARCH-CHARACTER OF CÆSAR-HIS ADMIRERS AND IMITATORS.

POLLIO, who adorned the court of Augustus with qualities not inferior to those of Agrippa and Mæcenas, began his great work

on the Civil Wars of the two Cæsars from their true origin in the consulship of Metellus and Afranius (B.c. 60); and Horace, in addressing his friend upon the undertaking, connects with great accuracy the chief transaction of that year with its fatal consequences. The hollow friendship of the chieftains, pregnant with fruits as yet unforeseen (graves amicitiæ) led inevitably to the "arms" which Horace makes their direct sequel. What one of Cicero's correspondents observed as a fact, was a necessity of their characters and position:-their professions of attachment and their jealous union could not subside again into covert detraction of each other; but the first rupture must needs burst out into a struggle for the mastery.* Nor is the poet less happy in his allusion to the "faults" which Cicero and Cato joined in bitterly lamenting, and in the justice that he does to the one hero of pure patriotism, who still divides with the conqueror the admiration of the world. His warning to Pollio is even now a lesson to the historian. The fires which burnt amidst the recent embers nineteen centuries ago are still ready to burst forth at the summons of that party spirit, which is so eager to fortify itself with analogies often totally inapplicable to modern politics, and to exalt or to stigmatize the characters of men who acted on principles utterly different from those which guide or ought to guide our own leaders, of whatever party. The advance of historical knowledge and political intelligence may in some future age produce the writer, who shall pass unscathed through these treacherous fires, .and do justice to the great qualities on either side, without plunging into the pitfall laid for him by the false show of patriotism made by a selfish aristocracy, or being caught by the fatal flame in which the commonwealth is offered up as a sacrifice to a despot. In avoiding the old errors of making a hero of the vain, selfish, and irresolute Pompey, an ideal patriot of the ungrateful assassin Brutus, and a political martyr of the vindictive and rapacious Cassius, it is not necessary to despise Cicero or disparage Cato; nor does an honest admiration of Cæsar's true greatness require us to offer incense to that despotism, the unflinching hatred of which is in all ages the surest test of fidelity to the principles of liberty, or demand for him a higher political eulogy than this:

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To write the life of Cæsar in a spirit of unqualified admiration is a

Cælius, Epist. ad Div. VIII. 14. § 2:-"Sic illi amores et invidiosa conjunctio non ad occultam recidit obtrectationem, sed ad bellum se erupit.”

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