Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/788

Rh 764 ROME [HISTORY. ment of the Appian Way. But it is characteristic of Caesar and of his time that these measures were with him only means to the further end of creating for himself a position such as that which Pompey had already won; and this ulterior aim he pursued with a skill, and with an audacious indifference to constitutional forms and usages, unsur- passed even by Sulla. His coalition with Crassus, soon after Pompey's departure, secured him an ally whose colossal wealth and wide financial connexions were of inestimable value, and whose vanity and inferiority of intellect rendered him a willing tool. The story of his 1. but it is evident that by the beginning of 63 he was bent on reaping the reward of his exertioas by obtaining from the people an extraordinary command abroad, which should secure his position before Pompey's return ; and the agrarian law proposed early that year by the tribune Rullus had for its real object the creation, in favour of Caesar and Crassus, of a commission with powers so wide as to place its members almost on a level with Pompey himself. 2 It was at this moment, when all seemed going well, that Caesar's hopes were dashed to the ground by Catiline's desperate outbreak, which not only discredited every one connected with the popular party, but directed the suspicions of the well-to-do classes against Caesar him- self, as a possible accomplice in Catiline's revolutionary schemes. 3 cero. The same wave of indignation and suspicion which for the moment checked Caesar's rise carried Marcus Tullius Cicero to the height of his fortunes. Cicero, as a poli- tician, has been equally misjudged by friends and foes. That he was deficient in courage, that he was vain, and that he attempted the impossible, may be admitted at once. But he was neither a brilliant and unscrupulous adventurer nor an aimless trimmer, nor yet a devoted champion merely of senatorial ascendency. 4 He was a representative man, with a numerous following, and a policy which was naturally suggested to him by the cir- cumstances of his birth, connexions, and profession, and which, impracticable as it proved to be, was yet consistent, intelligible, and high-minded. Born at Arpinum, he cherished like all Arpinates the memory of his great fellow- townsman Marius, the friend of the Italians, the saviour of Italy, and the irreconcilable foe of Sulla and the nobles. A " municipal " himself, his chosen friends and his warmest supporters were found among the well-to-do classes in the Italian towns. 5 Unpopular with the Roman aristocracy, who despised him as a " peregrinus," 6 and with the Roman populace, he was the trusted leader of the Italian middle class, " the true Roman people," as he proudly styles them. It was they who carried his election for the consulship 7 >1, 696. (63), who in 58 insisted on his recall from exile, 8 and it was his influence with them which made Caesar so anxious 15. to win him over in 49. He represented their antipathy alike to socialistic schemes and to aristocratic exclusive- ness, and their old-fashioned simplicity of life in contrast 1 The story is so told by Suetonius, Jul., 8. In Sallust, Cat., 18, it appears as an intrigue originating with Catiline, and Caesar's name is omitted. constituerentur." 3 That Csesar and Crassns had supported Catiline for the consulship in 65 is certain, and they were suspected naturally enough of favour- ing his designs in 63, but their complicity is in the highest degree improbable. 4 Monimsen is throughout unfair to Cicero, as also are Drumann nnd Prof. Beesly. The best estimate of Cicero's political position known to the present writer is that given by Prof. Tyrrell in the Introduction to his edition of Cicero's Letters. 6 Cic. AdAtt., i. 191, "locupletes. . . noster exercitus." 6 Cic. Pro Sulla, 7 ; Sail., Cat., 31, "inquilinus urbia Romae." 7 See the De Petitions Consvlatus, passim. 8 De Domo, 28 ; Pro Plancio, 97. with the cosmopolitan luxury of the capital. 9 By birth, too, he belonged to the equestrian order, the foremost re- presentatives of which were indeed still the publicani and negotiatores, but which since the enfranchisement of Italy included also the substantial burgesses of the Italian towns and the smaller " squires " of the country districts. With them, too, Cicero was at one in their dread of demo- cratic excesses and their social and political jealousy of the " nobiles." 10 Lastly, as a lawyer and a scholar, he was passionately attached to the ancient constitution. His political ideal was the natural outcome of these circum- stances of his position. He advocated the maintenance of the old constitution, but not as it was understood by the extreme politicians of the right and left. The senate was to be the supreme directing council, 11 but the senate of Cicero's dreams was not an oligarchic assemblage of nobles, but a body freely open to all citizens, and representing the worth of the community. 12 The magistrates, while deferring to the senate's authority, were to be at once vigorous and public-spirited ; and the assembly itself which elected the magistrates and passed the laws was to consist, not of the " mob of the forum," but of the true Roman people throughout Italy. 13 For the realization of this ideal he looked, above all things, to the establishment of cordial relations between the senate and nobles in Rome and the great middle class of Italy represented by the equestrian order, between the capital and the country towns and dis- tricts. This was the " concordia ordinum," the " consensus Italiae," for which he laboured. 14 He failed because his ideal was impracticable. The inveterate selfishness and exclusiveness of the nobles, the indifference of the Italians to constitutional questions, and their suspicious dislike of Roman politicians, above all the incompetency of the old machinery, even if reformed as he would have had it reformed, to govern the empire and control the proconsuls and the army, were insuperable obstacles in his way. Cicero's election to the consulship for 63 over the heads The of Caesar's nominees, Antonius and Catiline, was mainly con - the work of the Italian middle class, already rendered un- easy both by the rumours which were rife of revolutionary schemes and of Caesar's boundless ambition, and by the numerous disquieting signs of disturbance noticeable in Italy. The new consul vigorously set himself to discharge the trust placed in him. He defeated the insidious pro- posals of Rullus for Caesar's aggrandizement, and assisted in quashing the prosecution of Rabirius. But with the consular elections in the autumn of 63 a fresh danger arose from a different quarter. The " conspiracy 15 of Catiline " (see CATILINE) was not the work of the popular party, and still less was it an unselfish attempt at reform ; L. Sergius Catilina himself was a patrician, who had held high office, and possessed considerable ability and courage ; but he was bankrupt in character and in purse, and two successive defeats in the consular elections had rendered him desperate. To retrieve his broken fortunes by violence was a course which was only too readily suggested by the history of the last forty years, and materials for a conflagration abounded on all sides. The danger to be feared from his intrigues lay in the state of Italy, which made a revolt against society and the estab- lished government only too likely if once a leader pre- sented himself, and it was such a revolt that Catiline 9 Cic. Pro Quinctio, 31 ; Pro Cluentio, 46, 153. 10 Cic. In Verr., ii. 73 ; De Pet. Cons., i. He shared with them their dislike to Sulla, as the foe of their order ; Pro Cluentio, 55. 11 De Rep., ii. 36 ; De Legg., iii. 12. 12 ProSestio, 65 ; De Legg., iii. 4. 13 Pro Sestio, 49. 14 Ad Alt., i. 18. 15 For Catiline's conspiracy, see Sallust, Catiline ; Cicero In Cati- linam; Plut., Cicero ; Mommsen, R. (?., iii. 164 sq. ; and especially C. John, Entsiehung d. Catilinarischen Verschicorunff (Leipsic, 1876).
 * 9. attempted coup tfetat in January 65 is probably false, 1
 * Cic., Lex Agr., ii. 6, "nihil aliud actum nisi ut decem reges