Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/785

Rh CICERO 771 to combine with him in his canvass, and to undertake his defence on a charge of malversation. Cicero obtained the consulship ; Catiline was defeated, and thereupon betook himself to treasonable machinations. It was the business of his late ally to track these intrigues and defeat them. The vigour and courage with which Cicero conducted himself at this crisis won for him by popular acclamation the title of &quot; Father of his Country,&quot; (63 B.C.) But the nobles ill requited the service he had done them. They now felt themselves secure in their ascendency. They affronted Pompeius, they made light of Cicero, and allowed him to be treated contumeliously by a tribune, who, under pretence that he had condemned citizens unheard, forbade him to make the usual declaration of the services he had performed in his consulship. Cicero, in laying down his office, was only permitted to exclaim &quot; I swear that I have saved the state.&quot; Caesar, at the head of the popular party, counte nanced this affront ; while Pompeius, perhaps a little jealous of the rising statesman, on his return from the East vouchsafed him no cordial support. The real weakness of his position was made painfully manifest to him. He would not consent, however, to remove to a distance, and declining to sue for the government of a province, devoted himself for a time mainly to literary pursuits, composing among other things a poem on the glories of his own con sulship. Meanwhile the enemies he had made became more emboldened. Clodius, a worthless demagogue, assailed him with a formal charge for putting citizens to death summarily without appeal to the people. In vain did he assume the garb of mourning, and traverse the streets as a suppliant. The magnates stood coldly aloof, and the factions arrayed against him did not scruple to menace his scanty defenders with violence. Cicero was obliged to seek safety in flight, and withdrew to Thessa- lonica. Clodius obtained a decree of the people for his banishment 400 miles from the city, and the destruction of his house on the Palatine, the site to be devoted to the erection of a temple of Liberty (58 B.C.) Pompeius and Caesar had suffered Cicero to undergo this humiliation for their own purposes, but they were not disposed to submit to the arrogance of the upstart Clodius, who was now making himself generally obnoxious. In the following year they let it be understood that the persecu tion should cease. The partizans of Clodius raised tumults in the city, but they were speedily put down, and a resolu tion for the exile s recall was carried in the assembly of the people. Cicero had betrayed much weakness under banishment. The exultation with which he triumphed on his return was hardly more dignified. The senate, however, complimented him, by coming forth to meet him, and the state undertook the restoration of his mansion. The armed opposition of Clodius was met by a counter demonstration on the part of Milo, a no less turbulent instrument of the oligarchy. But Cicero now felt himself powerless in the presence of chiefs of armies and leaders of factions. He attached himself more closely to Pompeius, and devoted his eloquence to the defence of his patron s creatures, while he courted more and more the pursuit of literature in retire ment. The attainment of a seat in the college of augurs on the death of Crassus (53 B.C) placed him in a position of dignity well suited to the taste of a constitutional antiquarian. But Caesar, though now absent in Gaul, was rapidly becoming a great power in the state, and Cicero did not fail to pay court to him also, proposing to celebrate his British wars in an epic poem. The death of Clodius (52 B.C.), whose slayer, Milo, he defended, relieved him from the apprehensions he had never yet shaken off. He accepted, though not without reluctance, the lot which assigned him the government of Cilicia for the year following. His conduct in this post seems to have been highly meritorious. He checked the corruption of his officials while he preserved his own purity, and distasteful as warlike affairs were to his studious and quiet temper, he did not shrink from leading his troops against the restless mountaineers. His vanity induced him to pretend to a triumph for his success in these trifling operations ; but in those degenerate days greater victories than his would have failed to secure such an honour, unless backed by the influence of the leaders of party, and neither Pompeius nor Caesar was disposed to indulge him. The civil war between these two rivals was now imminent. Cicero naturally threw himself into the ranks of the sena torial or conservative party, which was blindly following the lead of Pompeius ; but he was coldly received by the violent men who ruled it, to whom his old-fashioned patriot&quot; ism was utterly distasteful. Reluctantly and with much misgiving he quitted Italy in the train of the senate and con sented to set up a shadow of the commonwealth on a foreign shore ; while Caesar attached to himself in the city, as dic tator and consul, both the substance and the forms of con stitutional power. After the disaster of Pharsalia and the rout of the senatorial forces, Cicero quickly threw aside his arms and returned to Italy, where Cresar had left Antonius in command. He was soon relieved from apprehensions for his own safety by kind assurances from the victor, and while Caesar was occupied in Egypt, Africa, and Spain, ho withdrew altogether from public life. With his wifeTerentia he had never lived happily ; but he now took the step of repudiating her, which according to the ideas of the times caused no unfavourable remark, nor was it made matter of reflection upon him that he straightway married again his own ward Publilia, wealthy as well as beautiful. Theyoung bride seems, however, to have contributed nothing to his domestic happiness, and her, too, he soon repudiated for the satisfaction she had seemed to evince at the death of his much-loved daughter Tullia. During this period, however, he abstained from making advances to Cassar, and did himself honour by composing a panegyric upon Cato, to which Caesar condescended to make an ill-tempered reply. But the conqueror s clemency to Marcellus at last won his heart, and now, after the death of Pompeius, Cato, and Scipio, with all the other chiefs of his party, he could not refrain from declaring warmly in favour of the new ruler. Caesar felt the compliment, and repaid it by sparing at his instance the life of Ligarius. The conduct of Cicero at this critical moment was undoubtedly the most truly politic. Other republicans, such as Brutus and Cassius, who had espoused the senatorial cause with feverish zeal or angry fac tiousness, did not scruple to give their actual support to the new government, and to accept office under it, while they secretly chafed against it and threw themselves into a con spiracy against the life of their master. The difference between their spirit and that of Cicero is marked by the fact that in a plot which numbered, it was said, as many as eighty men of public note, Cicero himself was not included. The covert assassins dared not consult with men of true honour. When the deed was done, indeed, Cicero might fairly take part with its perpetrators in the name of the free state which in his sanguine view might still bo restored. When, however, the liberators, as they called themselves, repaired to the provinces to strengthen^their party against the Caesarians, Cicero declined to undertake active service. He remained in Italy, and employed himself in guiding, as he thought, the conduct of the young Octavius, the nephew and heir of the dictator. This crafty dissembler promised well, and Cicero expected to be able to use him as a convenient opponent to Antonius. It must be con fessed that the veteran statesman was himself playing a part, and dissembling with the youth whom he meant eventually to get rid of. It was a game on both sides, and Octaviua