ÆT. 51. DEFENCE OF CŒLIUS. 243 "I am anxious to see first the fashionable youths who are the friends of this rich and noble lady; and next the brave men who were posted by their female commander in the ambuscade and garrison of the baths. I will ask them in what manner and where they lay hid-whether it was in a Trojan horse which concealed so many invincible heroes carrying on a woman's war. But I will compel them to answer how it was that so many and such kind of men did not either seize as he stood, or catch as he fled, this one individual who was alone, and defenceless as you now see him. They will assuredly never be able to make good their story if they get into that witness-box (si istum in locum processerint), however witty and talkative they may be at feasts,—and sometimes even eloquent over their wine. The forum is one thing, the dining-room another; the benches of a court of justice are not the couches of a saloon; the presence of jurymen is not the same as the presence of boon companions; the light of the sun is very different from the light of torches or of lamps. If, therefore, they come forward I will sift them to the uttermost. But if they will listen to me I advise them to take to another trade, win favour in another way, and display themselves in another fashion. Let them be cherished by that woman for their good looks, let them command her purse, let them cling to her lie at her feet and be her slaves; but let them spare the life and fortunes of an innocent man." He appealed to the jury not to suffer a law of which Catulus was the author at a time when the state was in imminent danger, and which was directed against state offences, to be perverted to gratify a woman's lust and feminine revenge. He concluded by a sketch of Cœlius's past life, showing how unlikely it was that he should be guilty of so great a crime. He had faults, but they were the faults of youth, and such as time would cure. state. "Preserve therefore," he exclaimed, appealing to the jury, "preserve to the republic a citizen of virtuous pursuits and good qualities, and the friend of good men. This I promise you and guarantee to the state, that his mode of life will not differ from mine-if I may speak of myself as having done good service to the When you think upon his youth, think also on the age of his unhappy father who is before you, and who leans for support upon this his only son. Consent not that the one, whose sun is already setting in the course of nature, shall be crushed by a blow from you sooner than by his own destiny; or that the other, now for the first time blossoming with the leaves of hope, and when the stem of virtue is growing strong, shall be overthrown as it were by a whirlwind or a tempest. Preserve the son to the parent, the parent to the son, lest it should be thought that you despised old age in its despair, or crushed instead of saving youth when it was full of the greatest promise. If you do preserve him for yourselves, his friends, and the republic, you will have him devoted to you and to your children, and you, above all others, will reap the rich and lasting fruits of his industry and exertions." Whatever we may think of the argument of this speech, it had the merit of success. Coelius was acquitted, and the prediction of his advocate was fulfilled. He became afterwards a distinguished man. Domitius Ahenobarbus was one of the candidates for the consulships of the ensuing year, and he made no secret of his intention, if he succeeded, to use all the influence of his office to deprive Cæsar of his command in Gaul. Cæsar therefore took measures to prevent his election. After gaining the series of victories which are related by him in the third book of his Commentaries, he came to Italy and sent for Pompey and Crassus to have an interview with him at Lucca. We may feel surprise at finding these two men, who had lately been so hostile to each other, again acting together; but they both seem to have been overawed by the genius of Cæsar, whose energy and strength of will they were unable to resist. He persuaded them to become candidates for the consulship, each for the second time, in order to baffle Domitius. But the difficulty was, that they had not declared themselves sufficiently soon to be elected this year. It was, however, adroitly got over by employing the tribune Cato and others to prevent any consular comitia from being held, so that no consuls could be elected within the required period. This led to what was called an interregnum, during which candidates might come forward and be elected at once. Pompey and Crassus were thus able to obtain the office, and the new year opened with their consulship. S LETTERS FROM THE COUNTRY-ATTACK ON PISO-GOSSIP -DEFENCE OF PLANCIUS-POLITICAL APOLOGY-DISTRACTED STATE OF ROME. Æt. 55. B.C. 52. CICERO passed a considerable part of the next year in the country, at one or other of his favourite villas, amusing himself with his books, or employing his leisure time in literary composition. We will follow him there, and see him occu pied in more congenial pursuits than politics, of which he was weary, and in which he met with little but vexation and disappointment. His first letter to Atticus is dated from Antium, where he was attended by his friend's faithful and intelligent freedman, Dionysius, who assisted him in his studies.1 We next 1 It was a pleasant memento of their friendship that Dionysius, on his manumission, assumed a name from each of See ad Att. them, and was called in future Marcus find him at his villa near Puteoli (Pozzuolo), in the Bay of Naples. He describes himself as devouring the library of Faustus, a son of Sylla the dictator, and son-in-law of Pompey, who inherited an immense collection of books which his father had got together when he plundered Athens, and these he kept at his country-seat near Puteoli. Cicero jokingly adds, that perhaps Atticus thought he was devouring the good things of Puteoli and Lucrinum, which was famous for its oysters. But in the present state of public affairs, he said he had lost all taste for other enjoyments except his books, which refreshed and delighted him; and he says he would rather sit with Atticus on the seat in his library beneath the bust of Aristotle than in their curule chair (meaning of course the triumvirate, although he is too cautious to name them), and would rather walk with him than with the man (Pompey) with whom he saw he must walk. But as to that walk chance must determine, or Providence, if there was such a Being who cared about it.1 He begs Atticus to look after his gallery and vapour-bath, and all that his architect, Cyrus, had engaged to do, and press the contractor to use despatch with the building of his house at Rome. He then mentions that Pompey had come to his villa at Cuma to pay him a visit, and had immediately sent to inquire after him. He was going to see him next morning. The interview took place, and they discussed the state of public affairs. Pompey was dissatisfied with himself; and the private correspondence of Cicero reveals his real opinion. of him, which we look for in vain in the fulsome compliments he paid him in the senate-house. He, as I have before said, never really trusted Pompey, although he undoubtedly liked him, and looked upon him as the chief stay of the aristocratic or conservative party, to which he was himself so strongly attached. He struggled hard to believe that Pompey was the man for the time, but he constantly disap 1 Sed de illâ ambulatione fors viderit, aut si qui est qui curet Deus.—Ad Att. iv. 10. This might seem as if Cicero were a convert to the Epicurean philosophy of his friend. But most probably he said it only in jest; for there can be no doubt that he believed in the existence of Providence and a future state. See, amongst other proofs, ad Att. vii. 1; de Divin. i. 51; de Legg. ii. 7; de Senect. 23. ÆT. 55. AFFECTION FOR HIS BROTHER. 247 pointed him. And yet there was no one else of sufficient mark to be the leader whom Cicero was prepared to follow. In a letter to Atticus on the 28th of April, on his way to his villa near Pompeii, he writes that Pompey was dissatisfied with himself," as he said (for so we must speak of the man), professing to despise the idea of having Syria for a province, and vaunting the advantages of Spain. Here also I must put in as he said:' and whenever we speak of him we must always add, as was said by the Greek poet of his verses —and this too is by Phocylides.'' It was a sign of the times that Porcius Cato was this year defeated in a contest for the prætorship, and Vatinius, the worthless creature of Cæsar, whom Cicero had severely handled in his defence of Sextius, was elected in his stead. But a still more painful circumstance was, that a law was actually passed on the 13th of May, on the motion of Afranius, enacting that it should not be punishable to have carried a prætorian election by bribery! Cicero alludes to this in a letter to Quintus, and says that the law caused great grief to the Senate. He adds that the consuls, Pompey and Crassus, supported Afranius, and threw Cato overboard altogether. In the present disheartening state of affairs Quintus had called his brother's attention to his poem on his own consulship, and begged him to remember the speech he had put into the mouth of Jupiter in the book called Urania. Cicero promised to do this, and said that he had written the passage more for his own sake than the sake of others. It is pleasant to notice the terms of affectionate intimacy on which the two brothers were. Cicero seems to have loved Quintus with a love passing the love of woman. His letters to him form some of the most charming portions of his correspondence, full of playful allusions, the point of which is, however, dimmed, and in many cases lost, by the lapse of nearly two thousand years. In his next letter to him he tells him that no musestricken poet takes more delight in hearing his own verses read, than he does in reading his brother's letters on every subject, public or private, and whether full of the gossip of 1 Ne qui præturam per ambitum cepisset, ei propterea fraudi esset. |