intercalation, which Caesar had ordered to be made every fourth year (quarto quoque anno), as both Suetonius (Caesar, c. 40) and Macrobius state (Sat. i. 14). The priests, as Macrobius observes, ought to have intercalated the day, which was composed of the four quarter days, after the completion of each fourth year before the fifth year began; but instead of doing this, they intercalated, not on the completion of the fourth year, but at the beginning of it. This error continued six and thirty years, during which twelve days had been intercalated instead of nine (Solinus, c. 3). Augustus Caesar corrected the mistake in B.C. 8. 6 Savigny, System des heutigen Römischen Rechts, vol. iv. Beylage xi., explains that "tertius quisque dies," "quartus quisque annus" and such ordinal numbers were not used by the Romans always in one sense. Sometimes they reckoned both the first day, or the first year, and the last also; and sometimes they did not. He proves both uses by examples. Caesar by his words quarto quoque anno" intended that there should be one intercalation in four years; but the Pontifices, who reckoned the first year of intercalation as one year, made another intercalation in the fourth year, and consequently there was only a period of two years between each intercalation. See Dion 43. c. 26 and his remark that Caesar's Calendar would only require a correction of the intercalation of one day in 1461 years, and the notes in Reimarus. : CHAPTER XXIX. CAESAR AND CICERO. B.C. 46-45. CICERO, as far as we know, took no part in the extraordinary honours which the servile Senate conferred on Caesar before his return from Africa. He was however prepared to submit to the conqueror, and glad to be reconciled to him. He encouraged his friends who were in exile to hope for pardon. He informed Q. Ligarius that Caesar would not treat him harshly the circumstances of the time, public opinion, and, as Cicero said, Caesar's own temper inclined him to mild measures (Ad Fam. vi. 13). He wrote to Caecina that Caesar's disposition was gentle and merciful: his dignity, justice and wisdom were admirable: he never spoke of Pompeius except in the most honourable terms. M. Claudius Marcellus, consul B.C. 51, had been one of Caesar's bitterest enemies, and after the battle of Pharsalia, in which perhaps he was not present, he retired to Mitylene in Lesbos. He took no part in the African War, nor yet did he trust, like Cicero, to the magnanimity of Caesar. Cicero wrote several letters to Marcellus in which he urged him to return to Rome, where he might expect a pardon; but Marcellus was obstinate. On one occasion, when there was a meeting of the Senate, L. Piso, Caesar's father-in-law, brought forward the case of M. Marcellus, C. Marcellus, the cousin of Marcus, threw himself at Caesar's feet, and all the Senate arose and approached Caesar as suppliants. After blaming the peevish temper of Marcellus and speaking highly of the behaviour of Servius Sulpicius, who had been the colleagne of Marcellus in the consulship (B.C. 51), Caesar said that he could not refuse the request of the 381 Senate, and he gave Marcellus permission to return to Rome. Cicero, who had resolved to speak no more in the Senate, as he tells us, was overpowered by Caesar's unexpected generosity, and thanked him at some length. He describes the affair in a letter to his friend Servius Sulpicius, who was then governor of Achaia (Ad Fam. iv. 4). Marcellus thanked Cicero for his services in a dignified letter, but he did not return immediately, and he never saw Rome again. He arrived at the Piraeus in B.C. 45 on his way to Rome, where he met Servius Sulpicius. A few days after he was assassinated by a man, whom Servius calls one of his intimate friends (Ad Fam. iv. 12). There is extant a speech of Cicero in which he thanks Caesar for pardoning Marcellus. F. A. Wolf declared this oration to be spurious, but most critics have believed it to be genuine.' It is certainly a poor composition, and it is possible that it may have been patched up by some Declamator, who used the genuine speech. If we may trust the extant oration, it was delivered after Caesar's triumphs (c. 9). Cicero wrote a second letter to Q. Ligarius (Ad Fam. vi. 14) in which he informed him that at the request of his brothers he had visited Caesar at his house one morning, where he was obliged to submit to the indignity of waiting till the master had time to see him. Cicero elsewhere admits that Caesar had so much business to do that it was difficult to obtain access to him; but Cicero's vanity was offended by being compelled to sit in the antechamber till it was his turn to be called. At this visit to Caesar the brothers and kinsmen of Ligarius lay at the Dictator's feet, and Cicero spoke. He tells Ligarius in his letter that he concludes from Caesar's words and behaviour that he will be pardoned. A difficulty was however interposed by Q. Aelius Tubero, to whose father Lucius in the beginning of the Civil War the province of Africa had been assigned by the Senate; but Lucius had been 1 See Drumann's long note, Tullii, vi. p. 266. 2 This visit was made "a. d. v (or II) Kal. intercalares priores," a mode of reckoning made necessary by the intercalation of the two months in B.C. 46 between November and December. The real time therefore was at the close of the month which preceded the first, as some suppose, of the intercalary months of this year of reformation. See Ed. Var. prevented from landing in Africa by Attius Varus, or by Q. Ligarius who acted under his orders (p. 37). Both of the Tuberones, father and son, were opposed to Caesar; and when they were driven from Africa by Varus, who belonged to their own party, they went to Pompeius in Macedonia, The reason of Q. Tubero's opposition to the recall of Ligarius from exile was only personal hostility. Both he and Ligarius had fought against Caesar: Tubero at Pharsalia, and Ligarius in Africa; but Ligarius in conjunction with the Numidians and the barbarian king Juba. The case of Ligarius was not a prosecution. The question simply was whether Caesar, who had the power, would allow Q. Ligarius to return to Rome; and Q. Tubero, who was himself a pardoned man, opposed the restoration. The case was heard before the Dictator in the Forum, and Cicero spoke for Q. Ligarius. This was Cicero's first speech in the Forum since B.C. 52. The orator states (c. 1) that Q. Ligarius was the legatus of C. Considius, the governor of Africa, and that when Considius quitted the province, at the close of B.C. 50 or the beginning of B.C. 49, he left Ligarius in charge of it. When Attius Varus, a former governor of the province, fled from Auximum in B.C. 49, he went to Africa, and at the invitation of the Provincials, accepted the command of the province. Ligarius acted under Varus, and remained in Africa till Caesar took him in Adrumetum and spared his life, but ordered him, as we may assume, to keep away from Italy (p. 361). Cicero admitted all the facts charged by Tubero, for he could not deny them; but he contended that as Ligarius was in Africa when the war broke out, he was compelled to stay, though it was reasonable to suppose that he would have preferred being at Rome with his brothers, whom he loved, than with Varus at Utica. This is the substance of Cicero's defence of Ligarius. He dexterously covered that part of the conduct of Ligarius which offended Caesar most, his resistance to Caesar to the end of the African War. The rest of the speech is an artful panegyric on Caesar for his clemency to Cicero himself and others who had been in arms against Caesar. He affirms that the case of Ligarius is better than that of Tubero, or even as Tubero states it, quite as good, for Tubero wished to land in Africa, where he would have been an enemy to Caesar, and Ligarius, who was in Africa when the Civil War began, could not get away. Cicero often reminds Caesar of his merciful behaviour to his enemies : he says that if the causes of both the leaders in the Civil War might be considered equally good at first, that must now be considered the better cause which had received the aid of the gods; "and" he adds "since we have experienced your clemency, who would not be satisfied with a victory in which no man perished except those who died with arms in their hands?" He reminds Caesar that he used to say that the Pompeian party considered all persons to be their enemies who were not on their side; Caesar considered all to be his friends who were not opposed to him. Suetonius (Caesar, 75) makes the same statement, and it is confirmed by Cicero's letters, for he says that Pompeius, if he had been victorious, would have proscribed and massacred all who did not join him. Cicero handles Tubero with much delicacy, for Tubero's father Lucius was Cicero's schoolfellow and comrade in the Marsic War, and was connected, perhaps by marriage, with Cicero's family. He allows Tubero the merit of consistency in adhering to the Pompeian party, but he blames him now for attempting to prevent Caesar from exercising his usual clemency. At the close of his speech Cicero tells Caesar, and he tells the truth, though it was flattery, that Caesar forgot nothing except the wrongs done to him. This is, as Pomponius says, an excellent speech; and it is one of Cicero's best. Caesar pardoned Ligarius, who repaid him by afterwards being one of his assassins. The Dictator Sulla got rid of his enemies and died a natural death. Caesar was not inferior to Sulla in sagacity, and he must have known that no generosity could win a man of a malignant temper; but he was fearless, and he preferred the risk of pardoning his enemies to shedding Roman blood. This is his great glory, and the eternal opprobrium of his enemies, and of Cicero among the rest. We know that Caesar knew that Cicero did not like him, but Caesar still used him for his own |