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Title: Roman life in the days of Cicero

Author: Alfred J[ohn] Church

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   Roman Life in the
   Days of Cicero
   By the
   REV. ALFRED J. CHURCH, M.A.

Author of "Stories from Homer"

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

New York



TO OCTAVIUS OGLE, IN REMEMBRANCE OF A LONG FRIENDSHIP THIS BOOK IS
DEDICATED.

CONTENTS.

CHAP.

I. A ROMAN BOY

II. A ROMAN UNDERGRADUATE

III. IN THE DAYS OF THE DICTATOR

IV. A ROMAN MAGISTRATE

V. A GREAT ROMAN CAUSE

VI. COUNTRY LIFE

VII. A GREAT CONSPIRACY

VIII. CAESAR

IX. POMPEY

X. EXILE

XI. A BRAWL AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

XII. CATO, BRUTUS, AND PORCIA

XIII. A GOVERNOR IN HIS PROVINCE

XIV. ATTICUS

XV. ANTONY AND AUGUSTUS




PREFACE.


This book does not claim to be a life of Cicero or a history of the last
days of the Roman Republic. Still less does it pretend to come into
comparison with such a work as Bekker's _Gallus_, in which on a slender
thread of narrative is hung a vast amount of facts relating to the
social life of the Romans. I have tried to group round the central
figure of Cicero various sketches of men and manners, and so to give my
readers some idea of what life actually was in Rome, and the provinces
of Rome, during the first six decades--to speak roughly--of the first
century B.C. I speak of Cicero as the "central figure," not as judging
him to be the most important man of the time, but because it is from
him, from his speeches and letters, that we chiefly derive the
information of which I have here made use. Hence it follows that I give,
not indeed a life of the great orator, but a sketch of his personality
and career. I have been obliged also to trespass on the domain of
history: speaking of Cicero, I was obliged to speak also of Caesar and
of Pompey, of Cato and of Antony, and to give a narrative, which I have
striven to make as brief as possible, of their military achievements and
political action. I must apologize for seeming to speak dogmatically on
some questions which have been much disputed. It would have been
obviously inconsistent with the character of the book to give the
opposing arguments; and my only course was to state simply conclusions
which I had done my best to make correct.

I have to acknowledge my obligations to Marquardt's _Privat-Leben der
Romer_, Mr. Capes' _University Life in Ancient Athens_, and Mr. Watson's
_Select Letters of Cicero_, I have also made frequent use of Mr. Anthony
Trollope's _Life of Cicero_, a work full of sound sense, though
curiously deficient in scholarship.

The publishers and myself hope that the illustrations, giving as there
is good reason to believe they do the veritable likenesses of some of
the chief actors in the scenes described, will have a special interest.
It is not till we come down to comparatively recent times that we find
art again lending the same aid to the understanding of history.

Some apology should perhaps be made for retaining the popular title of
one of the illustrations. The learned are, we believe, agreed that the
statue known as the "Dying Gladiator" does not represent a gladiator at
all. Yet it seemed pedantic, in view of Byron's famous description, to
let it appear under any other name.

ALFRED CHURCH.

HADLEY GREEN _October_ 8, 1883.



   ROMAN LIFE
   IN THE DAYS OF CICERO.



CHAPTER I.

A ROMAN BOY.


A Roman father's first duty to his boy, after lifting him up in his arms
in token that he was a true son of the house, was to furnish him with a
first name out of the scanty list (just seventeen) to which his choice
was limited. This naming was done on the eighth day after birth, and was
accompanied with some religious ceremonies, and with a feast to which
kinsfolk were invited. Thus named he was enrolled in some family or
state register. The next care was to protect him from the malignant
influence of the evil eye by hanging round his neck a gilded _bulla_, a
round plate of metal. (The _bulla_ was of leather if he was not of
gentle birth.) This he wore till he assumed the dress of manhood. Then
he laid it aside, possibly to assume it once more, if he attained the
crowning honor to which a Roman could aspire, and was drawn in triumph
up the slope of the Capitol. He was nursed by his mother, or, in any
case, by a free-born woman. It was his mother that had exclusive charge
of him for the first seven years of his life, and had much to say to the
ordering of his life afterwards. For Roman mothers were not shut up like
their sisters in Greece, but played no small part in affairs--witness
the histories or legends (for it matters not for this purpose whether
they are fact or fiction) of the Sabine wives, of Tullia, who stirred up
her husband to seize a throne, or Veturia, who turned her son Coriolanus
from his purpose of besieging Rome. At seven began the education which
was to make him a citizen and a soldier. Swimming, riding, throwing the
javelin developed his strength of body. He learned at the same time to
be frugal, temperate in eating and drinking, modest and seemly in
behavior, reverent to his elders, obedient to authority at home and
abroad, and above all, pious towards the gods. If it was the duty of
the father to act as priest in some temple of the State (for the
priests were not a class apart from their fellow-citizens), or to
conduct the worship in some chapel of the family, the lad would act as
_camillus_ or acolyte. When the clients, the dependents of the house,
trooped into the hall in the early morning hours to pay their respects
to their patron, or to ask his advice and assistance in their affairs,
the lad would stand by his father's chair and make acquaintance with his
humble friends. When the hall was thrown open, and high festival was
held, he would be present and hear the talk on public affairs or on past
times. He would listen to and sometimes take part in the songs which
celebrated great heroes. When the body of some famous soldier or
statesman was carried outside the walls to be buried or burned, he would
be taken to hear the oration pronounced over the bier.

At one time it was the custom, if we may believe a quaint story which
one of the Roman writers tells us, for the senators to introduce their
young sons to the sittings of their assembly, very much in the same way
as the boys of Westminster School are admitted to hear the debates in
the Houses of Parliament. The story professes to show how it was that
one of the families of the race of Papirius came to bear the name of
_Praetextatus_, i.e., clad in the _praetexta_ (the garb of boyhood), and
it runs thus:--"It was the custom in the early days of the Roman State
that the senators should bring their young sons into the Senate to the
end that they might learn in their early days how great affairs of the
commonwealth were managed. And that no harm should ensue to the city, it
was strictly enjoined upon the lads that they should not say aught of
the things which they had heard within the House. It happened on a day
that the Senate, after long debate upon a certain matter, adjourned the
thing to the morrow. Hereupon the son of a certain senator, named
Papirius, was much importuned by his mother to tell the matter which had
been thus painfully debated. And when the lad, remembering the command
which had been laid upon him that he should be silent about such
matters, refused to tell it, the woman besought him to speak more
urgently, till at the last, being worn out by her importunities, he
contrived this thing. 'The Senate,' he said, 'debated whether something
might not be done whereby there should be more harmony in families than
is now seen to be; and whether, should it be judged expedient to make
any change, this should be to order that a husband should have many
wives, or a wife should have more husbands than one.' Then the woman,
being much disturbed by the thing which she had heard, hastened to all
the matrons of her acquaintance, and stirred them up not to suffer any
such thing. Thus it came to pass that the Senate, meeting the next day,
were astonished beyond measure to see a great multitude of women
gathered together at the doors, who besought them not to make any
change; or, if any, certainly not to permit that a man should have more
wives than one. Then the young Papirius told the story how his mother
had questioned him, and how he had devised this story to escape from her
importunity. Thereupon the Senate, judging that all boys might not have
the same constancy and wit, and that the State might suffer damage from
the revealing of things that had best be kept secret, made this law,
that no sons of a senator should thereafter come into the House, save
only this young Papirius, but that he should have the right to come so
long as he should wear the _praetexta_."

While this general education was going on, the lad was receiving some
definite teaching. He learned of course to read, to write, and to
cypher. The elder Cato used to write in large characters for the benefit
of his sons portions of history, probably composed by himself or by his
contemporary Fabius, surnamed the "Painter" (the author of a chronicle
of Italy from the landing of Aeneas down to the end of the Second Punic
War). He was tempted to learn by playthings, which ingeniously combined
instruction and amusement. Ivory letters--probably in earlier times a
less costly material was used--were put into his hands, just as they are
put into the hands of children now-a-days, that he might learn how to
form words. As soon as reading was acquired, he began to learn by heart.
"When we were boys," Cicero represents himself as saying to his brother
Quintus, in one of his Dialogues, "we used to learn the 'Twelve
Tables.'" The "Twelve Tables" were the laws which Appius of evil fame
and his colleagues the decemvirs had arranged in a code. "No one," he
goes on to say, "learns them now." Books had become far more common in
the forty years which had passed between Cicero's boyhood and the time
at which he is supposed to be speaking; and the tedious lesson of his
early days had given place to something more varied and interesting.

Writing the boy learned by following with the pen (a sharp-pointed
_stylus_ of metal), forms of letters which had been engraved on tablets
of wood. At first his hand was held and guided by the teacher. This was
judged by the experienced to be a better plan than allowing him to shape
letters for himself on the wax-covered tablet. Of course parchment and
paper were far too expensive materials to be used for exercises and
copies. As books were rare and costly, dictation became a matter of much
importance. The boy wrote, in part at least, his own schoolbooks. Horace
remembers with a shudder what he had himself written at the dictation of
his schoolmaster, who was accustomed to enforce good writing and
spelling with many blows. He never could reconcile himself to the early
poets whose verse had furnished the matter of these lessons.

Our Roman boy must have found arithmetic a more troublesome thing than
the figures now in use (for which we cannot be too thankful to the Arabs
their inventors) have made it. It is difficult to imagine how any thing
like a long sum in multiplication or division could have been done with
the Roman numerals, so cumbrous were they. The number, for instance,
which we represent by the figures 89 would require for its expression no
less than _nine_ figures, LXXXVIIII. The boy was helped by using the
fingers, the left hand being used to signify numbers below a hundred,
and the right numbers above it. Sometimes his teacher would have a
counting-board, on which units, tens, and hundreds would be represented
by variously colored balls. The sums which he did were mostly of a
practical kind. Here is the sample that Horace gives of an arithmetic
lesson. "The Roman boys are taught to divide the penny by long
calculations. 'If from five ounces be subtracted one, what is the
remainder?' At once you can answer, 'A third of a penny.' 'Good, you
will be able to take care of your money. If an ounce be added what does
it make?' 'The half of a penny.'"

While he was acquiring this knowledge he was also learning a language,
the one language besides his own which to a Roman was worth
knowing--Greek. Very possibly he had begun to pick it up in the nursery,
where a Greek slave girl was to be found, just as the French _bonne_ or
the German nursery-governess is among our own wealthier families. He
certainly began to acquire it when he reached the age at which his
regular education was commenced. Cato the Elder, though he made it a
practice to teach his own sons, had nevertheless a Greek slave who was
capable of undertaking the work, and who actually did teach, to the
profit of his very frugal master, the sons of other nobles. Aemilius,
the conqueror of Macedonia, who was a few years younger than Cato, had
as a tutor a Greek of some distinction. While preparing the procession
of his triumph he had sent to Athens for a scene-painter, as we should
call him, who might make pictures of conquered towns wherewith to
illustrate his victories. He added to the commission a stipulation that
the artist should also be qualified to take the place of tutor. By good
fortune the Athenians happened to have in stock, so to speak, exactly
the man he wanted, one Metrodorus. Cicero had a Greek teacher in his own
family, not for his son indeed, who was not born till later, but for his
own benefit. This was one Diodotus, a Stoic philosopher. Cicero had been
his pupil in his boyhood, and gave him a home till the day of his death,
"I learned many things from him, logic especially." In old age he lost
his sight. "Yet," says his pupil, "he devoted himself to study even more
diligently than before; he had books read to him night and day. These
were studies which he could pursue without his eyes; but he also, and
this seems almost incredible, taught geometry without them, instructing
his learners whence and whither the line was to be drawn, and of what
kind it was to be." It is interesting to know that when the old man died
he left his benefactor about nine thousand pounds.

Of course only wealthy Romans could command for their sons the services
of such teachers as Diodotus; but any well-to-do-household contained a
slave who had more or less acquaintance with Greek. In Cicero's time a
century and more of conquests on the part of Rome over Greek and
Greek-speaking communities had brought into Italian families a vast
number of slaves who knew the Greek language, and something, often a
good deal, of Greek literature. One of these would probably be set apart
as the boy's attendant; from him he would learn to speak and read a
language, a knowledge of which was at least as common at Rome as is a
knowledge of French among English gentlemen.

If the Roman boy of whom we are speaking belonged to a very wealthy and
distinguished family, he would probably receive his education at home.
Commonly he would go to school. There were schools, girls' schools as
well as boys' schools, at Rome in the days of the wicked Appius
Claudius. The schoolmaster appears among the Etruscans in the story of
Camillus, when the traitor, who offers to hand over to the Roman general
the sons of the chief citizen of Falerii, is at his command scourged
back into the town by his scholars. We find him again in the same story
in the Latin town of Tusculum, where it is mentioned as one of the signs
of a time of profound peace (Camillus had hurriedly marched against the
town on a false report of its having revolted), that the hum of scholars
at their lessons was heard in the market-place. At Rome, as time went
on, and the Forum became more and more busy and noisy, the schools were
removed to more suitable localities. Their appliances for teaching were
improved and increased. Possibly maps were added, certainly reading
books. Homer was read, and, as we have seen, the old Latin play-writers,
and, afterwards, Virgil. Horace threatens the book which willfully
insists on going out into the world with this fate, that old age will
find it in a far-off suburb teaching boys their letters. Some hundred
years afterwards the prophecy was fulfilled. Juvenal tells us how the
schoolboys stood each with a lamp in one hand and a well-thumbed Horace
or sooty Virgil in the other. Quintilian, writing about the same time,
goes into detail, as becomes an old schoolmaster. "It is an admirable
practice that the boy's reading should begin with Homer and Virgil. The
tragic writers also are useful; and there is much benefit to be got from
the lyric poets also. But here you must make a selection not of authors
only, but a part of authors." It is curious to find him banishing
altogether a book that is, or certainly was, more extensively used in
our schools than any other classic, the Heroides of Ovid.

These, and such as these, then, are the books which our Roman boy would
have to read. Composition would not be forgotten. "Let him take," says
the author just quoted, "the fables of Aesop and tell them in simple
language, never rising above the ordinary level. Then let him pass on to
a style less plain; then, again, to bolder paraphrases, sometimes
shortening, sometimes amplifying the original, but always following his
sense." He also suggests the writing of themes and characters. One
example he gives is this, "Was Crates the philosopher right when, having
met an ignorant boy, he administered a beating to his teacher?" Many
subjects of these themes have been preserved. Hannibal was naturally
one often chosen. His passage of the Alps, and the question whether he
should have advanced on the city immediately after the battle of Cannae,
were frequently discussed. Cicero mentions a subject of the speculative
kind. "It is forbidden to a stranger to mount the wall. A. mounts the
wall, but only to help the citizens in repelling their enemies. Has A.
broken the law?"

To make these studies more interesting to the Roman boy, his
schoolmaster called in the aid of emulation. "I feel sure," says
Quintilian, "that the practice which I remember to have been employed by
my own teachers was any thing but useless. They were accustomed to
divide the boys into classes, and they set us to speak in the order of
our powers; every one taking his turn according to his proficiency. Our
performances were duly estimated; and prodigious were the struggles
which we had for victory. To be the head of one's class was considered
the most glorious thing conceivable. But the decision was not made once
for all. The next month brought the vanquished an opportunity of
renewing the contest. He who had been victorious in the first encounter
was not led by success to relax his efforts, and a feeling of vexation
impelled the vanquished to do away with the disgrace of defeat. This
practice, I am sure, supplied a keener stimulus to learning than did all
the exhortations of our teachers, the care of our tutors, and the wishes
of our parents." Nor did the schoolmaster trust to emulation alone. The
third choice of the famous Winchester line, "Either learn, or go: there
is yet another choice--to be flogged," was liberally employed. Horace
celebrates his old schoolmaster as a "man of many blows," and another
distinguished pupil of this teacher, the Busby or Keate of antiquity,
has specified the weapons which he employed, the ferule and the thong.
The thong is the familiar "tawse" of schools north of the Border. The
ferule was a name given both to the bamboo and to the yellow cane, which
grew plentifully both in the islands of the Greek Archipelago and in
Southern Italy, as notably at Cannae in Apulia, where it gave a name to
the scene of the great battle. The _virga_ was also used, a rod
commonly of birch, a tree the educational use of which had been already
discovered. The walls of Pompeii indeed show that the practice of Eton
is truly classical down to its details.

As to the advantage of the practice opinions were divided. One
enthusiastic advocate goes so far as to say that the Greek word for a
cane signifies by derivation, "the sharpener of the young" (_narthex,
nearous thegein_), but the best authorities were against it. Seneca is
indignant with the savage who will "butcher" a young learner because he
hesitates at a word--a venial fault indeed, one would think, when we
remember what must have been the aspect of a Roman book, written as it
was in capitals, almost without stops, and with little or no distinction
between the words. And Quintilian is equally decided, though he allows
that flogging was an "institution."

As to holidays the practice of the Roman schools probably resembled that
which prevails in the Scotch Universities, though with a less
magnificent length of vacation. Every one had a holiday on the "days of
Saturn" (a festival beginning on the seventeenth of December), and the
schoolboys had one of their own on the "days of Minerva," which fell in
the latter half of March; but the "long vacation" was in the summer.
Horace speaks of lads carrying their fees to school on the fifteenth of
the month for eight months in the year (if this interpretation of a
doubtful passage is correct). Perhaps as this was a country school the
holidays were made longer than usual, to let the scholars take their
part in the harvest, which as including the vintage would not be over
till somewhat late in the autumn. We find Martial, however, imploring a
schoolmaster to remember that the heat of July was not favorable to
learning, and suggesting that he should abdicate his seat till the
fifteenth of October brought a season more convenient for study. Rome
indeed was probably deserted in the later summer and autumn by the
wealthier class, who were doubtless disposed to agree in the poet's
remark, a remark to which the idlest schoolboy will forgive its Latin
for the sake of its admirable sentiment:

     "Aestate pueri si valent satis discunt." "In summer boys learn
     enough, if they keep their health."

Something, perhaps, may be said of the teachers, into whose hands the
boys of Rome were committed. We have a little book, of not more than
twoscore pages in all, which gives us "lives of illustrious
schoolmasters;" and from which we may glean a few facts. The first
business of a schoolmaster was to teach grammar, and grammar Rome owed,
as she owed most of her knowledge, to a Greek, a certain Crates, who
coming as ambassador from one of the kings of Asia Minor, broke his leg
while walking in the ill-paved streets of Rome, and occupied his leisure
by giving lectures at his house. Most of the early teachers were Greeks.
Catulus bought a Greek slave for somewhat more than fifteen hundred
pounds, and giving him his freedom set him up as a schoolmaster; another
of the same nation received a salary of between three and four hundred
pounds, his patron taking and probably making a considerable profit out
of the pupils' fees. Orbilius, the man of blows, was probably of Greek
descent. He had been first a beadle, then a trumpeter, then a trooper in
his youth, and came to Rome in the year in which Cicero was consul. He
seems to have been as severe on the parents of his pupils as he was in
another way on the lads themselves, for he wrote a book in which he
exposed their meanness and ingratitude. His troubles, however, did not
prevent him living to the great age of one hundred and three. The author
of the little book about schoolmasters had seen his statue in his native
town. It was a marble figure, in a sitting posture, with two writing
desks beside it. The favorite authors of Orbilius, who was of the
old-fashioned school, were, as has been said, the early dramatists.
Caecilius, a younger man, to whom Atticus the friend and correspondent
of Cicero gave his freedom, lectured on Virgil, with whom, as he was
intimate with one of Virgil's associates, he probably had some
acquaintance. A certain Flaccus had the credit of having first invented
prizes. He used to pit lads of equal age against each other, supplying
not only a subject on which to write, but a prize for the victor. This
was commonly some handsome or rare old book. Augustus made him tutor to
his grandsons, giving him a salary of eight hundred pounds per annum.
Twenty years later, a fashionable schoolmaster is said to have made
between three and four thousands.

These schoolmasters were also sometimes teachers of eloquence, lecturing
to men. One Gnipho, for instance, is mentioned among them, as having
held his classes in the house of Julius Caesar (Caesar was left an
orphan at fifteen); and afterwards, when his distinguished pupil was
grown up, in his own. But Cicero, when he was praetor, and at the very
height of his fame, is said to have attended his lectures. This was the
year in which he delivered the very finest of his non-political
speeches, his defence of Cluentius. He must have been a very clever
teacher from whom so great an orator hoped to learn something.

These teachers of eloquence were what we may call the "Professors" of
Rome. A lad had commonly "finished his education" when he put on the
"man's gown;" but if he thought of political life, of becoming a
statesman, and taking office in the commonwealth, he had much yet to
learn. He had to make himself a lawyer and an orator. Law he learned by
attaching himself, by becoming the pupil, as we should say, of some
great man that was famed for his knowledge. Cicero relates to us his own
experience: "My father introduced me to the Augur Scaevola; and the
result was that, as far as possible and permissible, I never left the
old man's side. Thus I committed to memory many a learned argument of
his, many a terse and clever maxim, while I sought to add to my own
knowledge from his stores of special learning. When the Augur died I
betook myself to the Pontiff of the same name and family." Elsewhere we
have a picture of this second Scaevola and his pupils. "Though he did
not undertake to give instruction to any one, yet he practically taught
those who were anxious to listen to him by allowing them to hear his
answers to those who consulted him." These consultations took place
either in the Forum or at his own house. In the Forum the great lawyer
indicated that clients were at liberty to approach by walking across the
open space from corner to corner. The train of young Romans would then
follow his steps, just as the students follow the physician or the
surgeon through the wards of a hospital. When he gave audience at home
they would stand by his chair. It must be remembered that the great man
took no payment either from client or from pupil.

But the young Roman had not only to learn law, he must also learn how to
speak-learn, as far as such a thing can be learned, how to be eloquent.
What we in this country call the career of the public man was there
called the career of the orator. With us it is much a matter of chance
whether a man can speak or not. We have had statesmen who wielded all
the power that one man ever can wield in this country who had no sort of
eloquence. We have had others who had this gift in the highest degree,
but never reached even one of the lower offices in the government.
Sometimes a young politician will go to a professional teacher to get
cured of some defect or trick of speech; but that such teaching is part
of the necessary training of a statesman is an idea quite strange to us.
A Roman received it as a matter of course. Of course, like other things
at Rome, it made its way but slowly. Just before the middle of the
second century b.c. the Senate resolved: "Seeing that mention has been
made of certain philosophers and rhetoricians, let Pomponius the praetor
see to it, as he shall hold it to be for the public good, and for his
own honor, that none such be found at Rome." Early in the first century
the censors issued an edict forbidding certain Latin rhetoricians to
teach. One of these censors was the great orator Crassus, greatest of
all the predecessors of Cicero. Cicero puts into his mouth an apology
for this proceeding: "I was not actuated by any hostility to learning or
culture. These Latin rhetoricians were mere ignorant pretenders,
inefficient imitators of their Greek rivals, from whom the Roman youth
were not likely to learn any thing but impudence." In spite of the
censors, however, and in spite of the fashionable belief in Rome that
what was Greek must be far better than what was of native growth, the
Latin teachers rose into favor. "I remember," says Cicero, "when we were
boys, one Lucius Plotinus, who was the first to teach eloquence in
Latin; how, when the studious youth of the capital crowded to hear him
it vexed me much, that I was not permitted to attend him. I was checked,
however, by the opinion of learned men, who held that in this matter the
abilities of the young were more profitably nourished by exercises in
Greek." We are reminded of our own Doctor Johnson, who declared that
he would not disgrace the walls of Westminster Abbey by an epitaph in
English.

The chief part of the instruction which these teachers gave was to
propose imaginary cases involving some legal difficulty for their pupils
to discuss. One or two of these cases may be given.

One day in summer a party of young men from Rome made an excursion to
Ostia, and coming down to the seashore found there some fishermen who
were about to draw in a net. With these they made a bargain that they
should have the draught for a certain sum. The money was paid. When the
net was drawn up no fish were found in it, but a hamper sewn with thread
of gold. The buyers allege this to be theirs as the draught of the net.
The fishermen claim it as not being fish. To whom did it belong?

Certain slave-dealers, landing a cargo of slaves at Brundisium, and
having with them a very beautiful boy of great value, fearing lest the
custom-house officers should lay hands upon him, put upon him the
_bulla_ and the purple-edged robe that free-born lads were wont to wear.
The deceit was not discovered. But when they came to Rome, and the
matter was talked of, it was maintained that the boy was really free,
seeing that it was his master who of his own free will had given him the
token of freedom.

I shall conclude this chapter with a very pretty picture, which a Roman
poet draws of the life which he led with his teacher in the days when he
was first entering upon manhood. "When first my timid steps lost the
guardianship of the purple stripe, and the _bulla_ of the boy was hung
up for offering to the quaint household gods; when flattering comrades
came about me, and I might cast my eyes without rebuke over the whole
busy street under the shelter of the yet unsullied gown; in the days
when the path is doubtful, and the wanderer knowing naught of life comes
with bewildered soul to the many-branching roads--then I made myself
your adopted child. You took at once into the bosom of another Socrates
my tender years; your rule, applied with skillful disguise, straightens
each perverse habit; nature is molded by reason, and struggles to be
subdued, and assumes under your hands its plastic lineaments. Ay, well I
mind how I would wear away long summer suns with you, and pluck with you
the bloom of night's first hours. One work we had, one certain time for
rest, and at one modest table unbent from sterner thoughts."

It accords with this charming picture to be told that the pupil, dying
in youth, left his property to his old tutor, and that the latter handed
it over to the kinsfolk of the deceased, keeping for himself the books
only.




CHAPTER II.

A ROMAN UNDERGRADUATE.


In the last chapter we had no particular "Roman Boy" in view; but our
"Roman Undergraduate" will be a real person, Cicero's son. It will be
interesting to trace the notices which we find of him in his father's
letters and books. "You will be glad to hear," he writes in one of his
earliest letters to Atticus, "that a little son has been born to me, and
that Terentia is doing well." From time to time we hear of him, and
always spoken of in terms of the tenderest affection. He is his
"honey-sweet Cicero," his "little philosopher." When the father is in
exile the son's name is put on the address of his letters along with
those of his mother and sister. His prospects are the subject of most
anxious thought. Terentia, who had a considerable fortune of her own,
proposes to sell an estate. "Pray think," he writes, "what will happen
to us. If the same ill fortune shall continue to pursue us, what will
happen to our unhappy boy? I cannot write any more. My tears fairly
overpower me; I should be sorry to make you as sad as myself. I will say
so much. If my friends do their duty by me, I shall not want for money;
if they do not, your means will not save me. I do implore you, by all
our troubles, do not ruin the poor lad. Indeed he is ruined enough
already. If he has only something to keep him from want, then modest
merit and moderate good fortune will give him all he wants."

Appointed to the government of Cilicia, Cicero takes his son with him
into the province. When he starts on his campaign against the mountain
tribes, the boy and his cousin, young Quintus, are sent to the court of
Deiotarus, one of the native princes of Galatia. "The young Ciceros," he
writes to Atticus, "are with Deiotarus. If need be, they will be taken
to Rhodes." Atticus, it may be mentioned, was uncle to Quintus, and
might be anxious about him. The need was probably the case of the old
prince himself marching to Cicero's help. This he had promised to do,
but the campaign was finished without him. This was in the year 51 B.C.,
and Marcus was nearly fourteen years old, his cousin being his senior by
about two years. "They are very fond of each other," writes Cicero;
"they learn, they amuse themselves together, but one wants the rein, the
other the spur." (Doubtless the latter is the writer's son.) "I am very
fond of Dionysius their teacher: the lads say that he is apt to get
furiously angry. But a more learned and more blameless man there does
not live." A year or so afterwards he seems to have thought less
favorably of him. "I let him go reluctantly when I thought of him as the
tutor of the two lads, but quite willingly as an ungrateful fellow." In
B.C. 49, when the lad was about half through his sixteenth year, Cicero
"gave him his _toga_." To take the _toga_, that is to exchange the gown
of the boy with its stripe of purple for the plain white gown of the
citizen, marked the beginning of independence (though indeed a Roman's
son was even in mature manhood under his father's control). The ceremony
took place at Arpinum, much to the delight of the inhabitants, who felt
of course the greatest pride and interest in their famous
fellow-townsman. But it was a sad time. "There and every where as I
journeyed I saw sorrow and dismay. The prospect of this vast trouble is
sad indeed." The "vast trouble" was the civil war between Caesar and
Pompey. This indeed had already broken out. While Cicero was
entertaining his kinsfolk and friends at Arpinum, Pompey was preparing
to fly from Italy. The war was probably not an unmixed evil to a lad who
was just beginning to think himself a man. He hastened across the
Adriatic to join his father's friend, and was appointed to the command
of a squadron of auxiliary cavalry. His maneuvers were probably assisted
by some veteran subordinate; but his I seat on horseback, his skill with
the javelin, and his general soldierly qualities were highly praised
both by his chief and by his comrades. After the defeat at Pharsalia he
waited with his father at Brundisium till a kind letter from Caesar
assured him of pardon. In B.C. 46 he was made aedile at Arpinum, his
cousin being appointed at the same time. The next year he would have
gladly resumed his military career. Fighting was going on in Spain,
where the sons of Pompey were holding out against the forces of Caesar;
and the young Cicero, who was probably not very particular on which side
he drew his sword, was ready to take service against the son of his old
general. Neither the cause nor the career pleased the father, and the
son's wish was overruled, just as an English lad has sometimes to give
up the unremunerative profession of arms, when there is a living in the
family, or an opening in a bank, or a promising connection with a firm
of solicitors. It was settled that he should take up his residence at
Athens, which was then the university of Rome, not indeed exactly in the
sense in which Oxford and Cambridge are the universities of England, but
still a place of liberal culture, where the sons of wealthy Roman
families were accustomed to complete their education. Four-and-twenty
years before the father had paid a long visit to the city, partly for
study's sake. "In those days," he writes, "I was emaciated and feeble to
a degree; my neck was long and thin; a habit of body and a figure that
are thought to indicate much danger to life, if aggravated by a
laborious profession and constant straining of the voice. My friends
thought the more of this, because in those days I was accustomed to
deliver all my speeches without any relaxation of effort, without any
variety, at the very top of my voice, and with most abundant
gesticulation. At first, when friends and physicians advised me to
abandon advocacy for a while, I felt that I would sooner run any risk
than relinquish the hope of oratorical distinction. Afterwards I
reflected that by learning to moderate and regulate my voice, and
changing my style of speaking, I might both avert the danger that
threatened my health and also acquire a more self-controlled manner. It
was a resolve to break through the habits I had formed that induced me
to travel to the East. I had practiced for two years, and my name had
become well known when I left Rome. Coming to Athens I spent six months
with Antiochus, the most distinguished and learned philosopher of the
Old Academy, than whom there was no wiser or more famous teacher. At the
same time I practiced myself diligently under the care of Demetrius
Syrus, an old and not undistinguished master of eloquence." To Athens,
then, Cicero always looked back with affection. He hears, for instance,
that Appius is going to build a portico at Eleusis. "Will you think me a
fool," he writes to Atticus, "if I do the same at the Academy? 'I think
so,' you will say. But I love Athens, the very place, much; and I shall
be glad to have some memorial of me there."

The new undergraduate, as we should call him, was to have a liberal
allowance. "He shall have as much as Publilius, as much as Lentulus the
Flamen, allow their sons." It would be interesting to know the amount,
but unhappily this cannot be recovered. All that we know is that the
richest young men in Rome were not to have more. "I will guarantee,"
writes this liberal father, "that none of the three young men [whom he
names] who, I hear, will be at Athens at the same time shall live at
more expense than he will be able to do on those rents." These "rents"
were the incomings from certain properties at Rome. "Only," he adds, "I
do not think he will want a horse."

We know something of the university buildings, so to speak, which the
young Cicero found at Athens. "To seek for truth among the groves of
Academus" is the phrase by which a more famous contemporary, the poet
Horace, describes his studies at Athens. He probably uses it generally
to express philosophical pursuits; taken strictly it would mean that he
attached himself to the sage whose pride it was to be the successor of
Plato. Academus was a local hero, connected with the legend of Theseus
and Helen. Near his grove, or sacred inclosure, which adjoined the road
to Eleusis, Plato had bought a garden. It was but a small spot,
purchased for a sum which maybe represented by about three or four
hundred pounds of our money, but it had been enlarged by the liberality
of successive benefactors. This then was one famous lecture-room.
Another was the Lyceum. Here Aristotle had taught, and after Aristotle,
Theophrastus, and after him, a long succession of thinkers of the same
school. A third institution of the same kind was the garden in which
Epicurus had assembled his disciples, and which he bequeathed to
trustees for their benefit and the benefit of their successors for all
time.

To a Roman of the nobler sort these gardens and buildings must have been
as holy places. It was with these rather than with the temples of gods
that he connected what there was of goodness and purity in his life. To
worship Jupiter or Romulus did not make him a better man, though it
might be his necessary duty as a citizen; his real religion, as we
understand it, was his reverence for Plato or Zeno. Athens to him was
not only what Athens, but what the Holy Land is to us. Cicero describes
something of this feeling in the following passage: "We had been
listening to Antiochus (a teacher of the Academics) in the school called
the Ptolemaeus, where he was wont to lecture. Marcus Piso was with me,
and my brother Quintus, and Atticus, and Lucius Cicero, by relationship
a cousin, in affection a brother. We agreed among ourselves to finish
our afternoon walk in the Academy, chiefly because that place was sure
not to be crowded at that hour. At the proper time we met at Piso's
house; thence, occupied with varied talk, we traversed the six furlongs
that lie between the Double Gate and the Academy; and entering the walls
which can give such good reason for their fame, found there the solitude
which we sought. 'Is it,' said Piso, 'by some natural instinct or
through some delusion that when we see the very spots where famous men
have lived we are far more touched than when we hear of the things that
they have done, or read something that they have written? It is thus
that I am affected at this moment. I think of Plato, who was, we are
told, the first who lectured in this place; his little garden which lies
there close at hand seems not only to remind me of him, but actually to
bring him up before my eyes. Here spake Speusippus, here Xenocrates,
here his disciple Polemo--to Polemo indeed belonged this seat which we
have before us.'" This was the Polemo who had been converted, as we
should say, when, bursting in after a night of revel upon a lecture in
which Xenocrates was discoursing of temperance, he listened to such
purpose that from that moment he became a changed man. Then Atticus
describes how he found the same charms of association in the garden
which had belonged to his own master, Epicurus; while Quintus Cicero
supplies what we should call the classical element by speaking of
Sophocles and the grove of Colonus, still musical, it seems, with the
same song of the nightingale which had charmed the ear of the poet more
than three centuries before.

One or other, perhaps more than one, of these famous places the young
Cicero frequented. He probably witnessed, he possibly took part (for
strangers were admitted to membership) in, the celebrations with which
the college of Athenian youths (Ephebi) commemorated the glories of
their city, the procession to the tombs of those who died at Marathon,
and the boat-races in the Bay of Salamis. That he gave his father some
trouble is only too certain. His private tutor in rhetoric, as we should
call him, was a certain Gorgias, a man of ability, and a writer of some
note, but a worthless and profligate fellow. Cicero peremptorily ordered
his son to dismiss him; and the young man seems to have obeyed and
reformed. We may hope at least that the repentance which he expresses
for his misdoings in a letter to Tiro, his father's freedman, was
genuine. This is his picture of his life in the days of repentance and
soberness: "I am on terms of the closest intimacy with Cratippus, living
with him more as a son than as a pupil. Not only do I hear his lectures
with delight, but I am greatly taken with the geniality which is
peculiar to the man. I spend whole days with him, and often no small
part of the night; for I beg him to dine with me as often as he can.
This has become so habitual with him that he often looks in upon us at
dinner when we are not expecting him; he lays aside the sternness of the
philosopher and jokes with us in the pleasantest fashion. As for
Bruttius, he never leaves me; frugal and strict as is his life, he is
yet a most delightful companion. For we do not entirely banish mirth
from our daily studies in philology. I have hired a lodging for him
close by; and do my best to help his poverty out of my own narrow means.
I have begun to practice Greek declamation with Cassius, and wish to
have a Latin course with Bruttius. My friends and daily companions are
the pupils whom Cratippus brought with him from Mitylene, well-read men,
of whom he highly approves. I also see much of Epicrates, who is the
first man at Athens." After some pleasant words to Tiro, who had bought
a farm, and whom he expects to find turned into a farmer, bringing
stores, holding consultations with his bailiff, and putting by
fruit-seeds in his pocket from dessert, he says, "I should be glad if
you would send me as quickly as possible a copyist, a Greek by
preference. I have to spend much pains on writing out my notes."

A short time before one of Cicero's friends had sent a satisfactory
report of the young man's behavior to his father. "I found your son
devoted to the most laudable studies and enjoying an excellent
reputation for steadiness. Don't fancy, my dear Cicero, that I say this
to please you; there is not in Athens a more lovable young man than your
son, nor one more devoted to those high pursuits in which you would have
him interested."

Among the contemporaries of the young Cicero was, as has been said, the
poet Horace. His had been a more studious boyhood. He had not been taken
away from his books to serve as a cavalry officer under Pompey. In him
accordingly we see the regular course of the studies of a Roman lad.
"It was my lot," he says, "to be bred up at Rome, and to be taught how
much the wrath of Achilles harmed the Greeks. In other words, he had
read his Homer, just as an English boy reads him at Eton or Harrow.
"Kind Athens," he goes on, "added a little more learning, to the end
that I might be able to distinguish right from wrong, and to seek for
truth amongst the groves of Academus." And just in the same way the
English youth goes on to read philosophy at Oxford.

The studies of the two young men were interrupted by the same cause, the
civil war which followed the death of Caesar. They took service with
Brutus, both having the same rank, that of military tribune, a command
answering more or less nearly to that of colonel in our own army. It
was, however, mainly an ornamental rank, being bestowed sometimes by
favor of the general in command, sometimes by a popular vote. The young
Cicero indeed had already served, and he now distinguished himself
greatly, winning some considerable successes in the command of the
cavalry which Brutus afterwards gave him. When the hopes of the party
were crushed at Phillippi, he joined the younger Pompey in Sicily; but
took an opportunity of an amnesty which was offered four years
afterwards to return to Rome. Here he must have found his old
fellow-student, who had also reconciled himself to the victorious party.
He was made one of the college of augurs, and also a commissioner of the
mint, and in B.C. 30 he had the honour of sharing the consulship with
Augustus himself. It was to him that the dispatch announcing the final
defeat and death of Antony was delivered; and it fell to him to execute
the decree which ordered the destruction of all the statues of the
fallen chief. "Then," says Plutarch, "by the ordering of heaven the
punishment of Antony was inflicted at last by the house of Cicero." His
time of office ended, he went as Governor to Asia, or, according to some
accounts, to Syria; and thus disappears from our view.

Pliny the Elder tells us that he was a drunkard, sarcastically observing
that he sought to avenge himself on Antony by robbing him of the
reputation which he had before enjoyed of being the hardest drinker of
the time. As the story which he tells of the younger Cicero being able
to swallow twelve pints of wine at a draught is clearly incredible,
perhaps we may disbelieve the whole, and with it the other anecdote,
that he threw a cup at the head of Marcus Agrippa, son-in-law to the
Emperor, and after him the greatest man in Rome.




CHAPTER III.

IN THE DAYS OF THE DICTATOR.


In November 82 B.C., Cornelius Sulla became absolute master of Rome. It
is not part of my purpose to give a history of this man. He was a great
soldier who had won victories in Africa and Asia over the enemies of
Rome, and in Italy itself over the "allies," as they were called, that
is the Italian nations, who at various times had made treaties with
Rome, and who in the early part of the first century B.C. rebelled
against her, thinking that they were robbed of the rights and privileges
which belonged to them. And he was the leader of the party of the
nobles, just as Marius was the leader of the party of the people. Once
before he had made himself supreme in the capital; and then he had used
his power with moderation. But he was called away to carry on the war in
Asia against Mithridates, the great King of Pontus; and his enemies had
got the upper hand, and had used the opportunity most cruelly. A
terrible list of victims, called the "proscription," because it was
posted up in the forum, was prepared. Fifty senators and a thousand
knights (peers and gentlemen we should call them) were put to death,
almost all of them without any kind of trial. Sulla himself was
outlawed. But he had an army which he had led to victory and had
enriched with prize-money, and which was entirely devoted to him; and he
was not inclined to let his enemies triumph. He hastened back to Italy,
and landed in the spring of 83. In the November of the following year,
just outside the walls of Rome, was fought the final battle of the war.

The opposing army was absolutely destroyed and Sulla had every thing at
his mercy. He waited for a few days outside the city till the Senate had
passed a decree giving him absolute power to change the laws, to fill
the offices of State, and to deal with the lives and properties of
citizens as it might please him. This done, he entered Rome. Then came
another proscription. The chief of his enemies, Marius. was gone. He had
died, tormented it was said by remorse, seventeen days after he had
reached the crowning glory, promised him in his youth by an oracle, and
had been made consul for the seventh time. The conqueror had to content
himself with the same vengeance that Charles II. in our own country
exacted from the remains of Cromwell. The ashes of Marius were taken out
of his tomb on the Flaminian Way, the great North Road of Rome, and were
thrown into the Anio. But many of his friends and partisans survived,
and these were slaughtered without mercy. Eighty names were put on the
fatal list on the first day, two hundred and twenty on the second, and
as many more on the third. With the deaths of many of these victims
politics had nothing to do. Sulla allowed his friends and favorites to
put into the list the names of men against whom they happened to bear a
grudge, or whose property they coveted. No one knew who might be the
next to fall. Even Sulla's own partisans were alarmed. A young senator,
Caius Metellus, one of a family which was strongly attached to Sulla and
with which he was connected by marriage, had the courage to ask him in
public when there would be an end to this terrible state of things.
"We do not beg you," he said, "to remit the punishment of those whom you
have made up your mind to remove; we do beg you to do away with the
anxiety of those whom you have resolved to spare." "I am not yet
certain," answered Sulla, "whom I shall spare." "Then at least," said
Metellus, "you can tell us whom you mean to punish." "That I will do,"
replied the tyrant. It was indeed a terrible time that followed,
Plutarch thus describes it: "He denounced against any who might shelter
or save the life of a proscribed person the punishment of death for his
humanity. He made no exemption for mother, or son, or parent. The
murderers received a payment of two talents (about L470) for each
victim; it was paid to a slave who killed his master, to a son who
killed his father. The most monstrous thing of all, it was thought, was
that the sons and grandsons of the proscribed were declared to be
legally infamous and that their property was confiscated. Nor was it
only in Rome but in all the cities of Italy that the proscription was
carried out. There was not a single temple, not a house but was polluted
with blood. Husbands were slaughtered in the arms of their wives, and
sons in the arms of their mothers. And the number of those who fell
victims to anger and hatred was but small in comparison with the number
who were put out of the way for the sake of their property. The
murderers might well have said: 'His fine mansion has been the death of
this man; or his gardens, or his baths.' Quintus Aurelius, a peaceable
citizen, who had had only this share in the late civil troubles, that he
had felt for the misfortunes of others, coming into the forum, read the
list of the proscribed and found in it his own name. 'Unfortunate that I
am,' he said, 'it is my farm at Alba that has been my ruin;' and he had
not gone many steps before he was cut down by a man that was following
him. Lucius Catiline's conduct was especially wicked. He had murdered
his own brother. This was before the proscription began. He went to
Sulla and begged that the name might be put in the list as if the man
were still alive; and it was so put. His gratitude to Sulla was shown by
his killing one Marius, who belonged to the opposite faction, and
bringing his head to Sulla as he sat in the forum. (This Marius was a
kinsman of the great democratic leader, and was one of the most popular
men in Rome.) This done, he washed his hands in the holy water-basin of
the temple of Apollo."

Forty senators and sixteen hundred knights, and more than as many men of
obscure station, are said to have perished. At last, on the first of
June, 81, the list was closed. Still the reign of terror was not yet at
an end, as the strange story which I shall now relate will amply prove.
To look into the details of a particular case makes us better able to
imagine what it really was to live at Rome in the days of the Dictator
than to read many pages of general description. The story is all the
more impressive because the events happened after order had been
restored and things were supposed to be proceeding in their regular
course.

The proscription came to an end, as has been said, in the early summer
of 81. In the autumn of the same year a certain Sextus Roscius was
murdered in the streets of Rome as he was returning home from dinner.
Roscius was a native of Ameria, a little town of Etruria, between fifty
and sixty miles north of Rome. He was a wealthy man, possessed, it
would seem, of some taste and culture, and an intimate friend of some of
the noblest families at Rome. In politics he belonged to the party of
Sulla, to which indeed in its less prosperous days he had rendered good
service. Since its restoration to power he had lived much at Rome,
evidently considering himself, as indeed he had the right to do, to be
perfectly safe from any danger of proscription. But he was wealthy, and
he had among his own kinsfolk enemies who desired and who would profit
by his death. One of these, a certain Titus Roscius, surnamed Magnus,
was at the time of the murder residing at Rome; the other, who was known
as Capito, was at home at Ameria. The murder was committed about seven
o'clock in the evening. A messenger immediately left Rome with the news,
and made such haste to Ameria that he reached the place before dawn the
next day. Strangely enough he went to the house not of the murdered
man's son, who was living at Ameria in charge of his farms, but of the
hostile kinsman Capito. Three days afterwards Capito and Magnus made
their way to the camp of Sulla (he was besieging Volaterrae, another
Etrurian town). They had an interview with one Chrysogonus, a Greek
freedman of the Dictator, and explained to him how rich a prey they
could secure if he would only help them. The deceased, it seems, had
left a large sum of money and thirteen valuable farms, nearly all of
them running down to the Tiber. And the son, the lawful heir, could
easily be got out of the way. Roscius was a well-known and a popular
man, yet no outcry had followed his disappearance. With the son, a
simple farmer, ignorant of affairs, and wholly unknown to Rome, it would
be easy to deal. Ultimately the three entered into alliance. The
proscription was to be revived, so to speak, to take in this particular
case, and the name of Roscius was included in the list of the condemned.
All his wealth was treated as the property of the proscribed, and was
sold by auction. It was purchased by Chrysogonus. The real value was
between fifty and sixty thousand pounds. The price paid was something
less than eighteen pounds. Three of the finest farms were at once handed
over to Capito as his share of the spoil. Magnus acted as the agent of
Chrysogonus for the remainder. He took possession of the house in which
Roscius the younger was living, laid his hands on all its contents,
among which was a considerable sum of money, and drove out the
unfortunate young man in an absolutely penniless condition.

These proceedings excited great indignation at Ameria. The local senate
passed a resolution to the effect that the committee of ten should
proceed to Sulla's camp and put him in possession of the facts, with the
object of removing the name of the father from the list of the
proscribed, and reinstating the son in his inheritance. The ten
proceeded accordingly to the camp, but Chrysogonus cajoled and
over-reached them. It was represented to them by persons of high
position that there was no need to trouble Sulla with the affair. The
name should be removed from the list; the property should be restored.
Capito, who was one of the ten, added his personal assurance to the same
effect, and the deputation, satisfied that their object had been
attained, returned to Ameria. There was of course no intention of
fulfilling the promises thus made. The first idea of the trio was to
deal with the son as they had dealt with the father. Some hint of this
purpose was conveyed to him, and he fled to Rome, where he was
hospitably entertained by Caecilia, a wealthy lady of the family of
Metellus, and therefore related to Sulla's wife, who indeed bore the
same name. As he was now safe from violence, it was resolved to take the
audacious step of accusing him of the murder of his father. Outrageous
as it seems, the plan held out some promise of success. The accused was
a man of singularly reserved character, rough and boorish in manner, and
with no thoughts beyond the rustic occupations to which his life was
devoted. His father, on the other hand, had been a man of genial temper,
who spent much of his time among the polished circles of the Capitol. If
there was no positive estrangement between them, there was a great
discrepancy of tastes, and probably very little intercourse. This it
would be easy to exaggerate into something like a plausible charge,
especially under the circumstances of the case. It was beyond doubt that
many murders closely resembling the murder of Roscius had been committed
during the past year, committed some of them by sons. This was the
first time that an alleged culprit was brought to trial, and it was
probable that the jury would be inclined to severity. In any case, and
whatever the evidence, it was hoped that the verdict would not be such
as to imply the guilt of a favorite of Sulla. He was the person who
would profit most by the condemnation of the accused, and it was hoped
that he would take the necessary means to secure it.

The friends of the father were satisfied of the innocence of the son,
and they exerted themselves to secure for him an efficient defense.
Sulla was so much dreaded that none of the more conspicuous orators of
the time were willing to undertake the task. Cicero, however, had the
courage which they wanted; and his speech, probably little altered from
the form in which he delivered it, remains.

It was a horrible crime of which his client was accused, and the
punishment the most awful known to the Roman law. The face of the guilty
man was covered with a wolf's skin, as being one who was not worthy to
see the light; shoes of wood were put upon his feet that they might not
touch the earth. He was then thrust into a sack of leather, and with him
four animals which were supposed to symbolize all that was most hideous
and depraved--the dog, a common object of contempt; the cock, proverbial
for its want of all filial affection; the poisonous viper; and the ape,
which was the base imitation of man. In this strange company he was
thrown into the nearest river or sea.

Cicero begins by explaining why he had undertaken a case which his
elders and betters had declined. It was not because he was bolder, but
because he was more insignificant than they, and could speak with
impunity when they could not choose but be silent. He then gives the
facts in detail, the murder of Roscius, the seizure of his property, the
fruitless deputation to Sulla, the flight of the son to Rome, and the
audacious resolve of his enemies to indict him for parricide. They had
murdered his father, they had robbed him of his patrimony, and now they
accused him--of what crime? Surely of nothing else than the crime of
having escaped their attack. The thing reminded him of the story of
Fimbria and Scaevola. Fimbria, an absolute madman, as was allowed by all
who were not mad themselves, got some ruffian to stab Scaevola at the
funeral of Marius. He was stabbed but not killed. When Fimbria found
that he was likely to live, he indicted him. For what do you indict a
man so blameless? asked some one. For what? for not allowing himself to
be stabbed to the heart. This is exactly why the confederates have
indicted Roscius. His crime has been of escaping from their hands.
"Roscius killed his father," you say. "A young man, I suppose, led away
by worthless companions." Not so; he is more than forty years of age.
"Extravagance and debt drove him to it." No; you say yourself that he
never goes to an entertainment, and he certainly owes nothing. "Well,"
you say, "his father disliked him." Why did he dislike him? "That," you
reply, "I cannot say; but he certainly kept one son with him, and left
this Roscius to look after his farms." Surely this is a strange
punishment, to give him the charge of so fine an estate. "But," you
repeat, "he kept his other with him." "Now listen to me," cries Cicero,
turning with savage sarcasm to the prosecutor, "Providence never allowed
you to know who your father was. Still you have read books. Do you
remember in Caecilius' play how the father had two sons, and kept one
with him and left the other in the country? and do you remember that the
one who lived with him was not really his son, the other was true-born,
and yet it was the true-born who lived in the country? And is it such a
disgrace to live in the country? It is well that you did not live in old
times when they took a Dictator from the plow; when the men who made
Rome what it is cultivated their own land, but did not covet the land of
others. 'Ah! but,' you say, 'the father intended to disinherit him.'
Why? 'I cannot say.' Did he disinherit him? 'No, he did not.' Who
stopped him? 'Well, he was thinking of it.' To whom did he say so? 'To
no one.' Surely," cries Cicero, "this is to abuse the laws and justice
and your dignity in the basest and most wanton way, to make charges
which he not only cannot but does not even attempt to establish."

Shortly after comes a lively description of the prosecutor's demeanor.
"It was really worth while, if you observed, gentlemen, the man's utter
indifference as he was conducting his case. I take it that when he saw
who was sitting on these benches, he asked whether such an one or such
an one was engaged for the defense. Of me he never thought, for I had
never spoken before in a criminal case. When he found that none of the
usual speakers were concerned in it, he became so careless that when the
humor took him, he sat down, then walked about, sometimes called a
servant, to give him orders, I suppose, for dinner, and certainly
treated this court in which you are sitting as if it were an absolute
solitude. At last he brought his speech to an end. I rose to reply. He
could be seen to breathe again that it was I and no one else. I noticed,
gentlemen, that he continued to laugh and be inattentive till I
mentioned Chrysogonus. As soon as I got to him my friend roused himself
and was evidently astonished. I saw what had touched him, and repeated
the name a second time, and a third. From that time men have never
ceased to run briskly backwards and forwards, to tell Chrysogonus, I
suppose, that there was some one in the country who ventured to oppose
his pleasure, that the case was being pleaded otherwise than as he
imagined it would be; that the sham sale of goods was being exposed, the
confederacy grievously handled, his popularity and power disregarded,
that the people were giving their whole attention to the cause, and that
the common opinion was that the transaction generally was disgraceful.

"Then," continued the speaker, "this charge of parricide, so monstrous
is the crime, must have the very strongest evidence to support it. There
was a case at Tarracina of a man being found murdered in the chamber
where he was sleeping, his two sons, both young men, being in the same
room. No one could be found, either slave or free man, who seemed likely
to have done the deed; and as the two sons, grown up as they were,
declared that they knew nothing about it, they were indicted for
parricide. What could be so suspicious? Suspicious, do I say? Nay,
worse. That neither knew any thing about it? That any one had ventured
into that chamber at the very time when there were in it two young men
who would certainly perceive and defeat the attempt? Yet, because it was
proved to the jury that the young men had been found fast asleep, with
the door wide open, they were acquitted. It was thought incredible that
men who had just committed so monstrous a crime could possibly sleep.
Why, Solon, the wisest of all legislators, drawing up his code of laws,
provided no punishment for this crime; and when he was asked the reason
replied that he believed that no one would ever commit it. To provide a
punishment would be to suggest rather than prevent. Our own ancestors
provided indeed a punishment, but it was of the strangest kind, showing
how strange, how monstrous they thought the crime. And what evidence do
you bring forward? The man was not at Rome. That is proved. There-fore
he must have done it, if he did it at all, by the hands of others. Who
were these others? Were they free men or slaves? If they were free men
where did they come from, where live? How did he hire them? Where is
the proof? You haven't a shred of evidence, and yet you accuse him of
parricide. And if they were slaves, where, again I ask, are they? There
_were_ two slaves who saw the deed; but they belonged to the confederate
not to the accused. Why do you not produce them? Purely because they
would prove your guilt.

"It is there indeed that we find the real truth of the matter. It was
the maxim of a famous lawyer, Ask: _who profited by the deed_? I ask it
now. It was Magnus who profited. He was poor before, and now he is rich.
And then he was in Rome at the time of the murder; and he was familiar
with assassins. Remember too the strange speed with which he sent the
news to Ameria, and sent it, not to the son, as one might expect, but to
Capito his accomplice; for that he was an accomplice is evident enough.
What else could he be when he so cheated the deputation that went to
Sulla at Volaterrae?"

Cicero then turned to Chrysogonus, and attacked him with a boldness
which is surprising, when we remember how high he stood in the favor of
the absolute master of Rome, "See how he comes down from his fine
mansion on the Palatine. Yes, and he has for his own enjoyment a
delightful retreat in the suburbs, and many an estate besides, and not
one of them but is both handsome and conveniently near. His house is
crowded with ware of Corinth and Delos, among them that famous
self-acting cooking apparatus, which he lately bought at a price so high
that the passers-by, when they heard the clerk call out the highest bid,
supposed that it must be a farm which was being sold. And what
quantities, think you, he has of embossed plate, and coverlets of
purple, and pictures, and statues, and colored marbles! Such quantities,
I tell you, as scarce could be piled together in one mansion in a time
of tumult and rapine from many wealthy establishments. And his
household--why should I describe how many it numbers, and how varied are
its accomplishments? I do not speak of ordinary domestics, the cook, the
baker, the litter-bearer. Why, for the mere enjoyment of his ears he has
such a multitude of men that the whole neighborhood echoes again with
the daily music of singers, and harp-players, and flute-players, and
with the uproar of his nightly banquets. What daily expenses, what
extravagance, as you well know, gentlemen, there must be in such a life
as this! how costly must be these banquets! Creditable banquets, indeed,
held in such a house--a house, do I say, and not a manufactory of
wickedness, a place of entertainment for every kind of crime? And as for
the man himself--you see, gentlemen, how he bustles every where about
the forum, with his hair fashionably arranged and dripping with
perfumes; what a crowd of citizens, yes, of citizens, follow him; you
see how he looks down upon every one, thinks no one can be compared to
himself, fancies himself the one rich and powerful man in Rome?"

The jury seems to have caught the contagion of courage from the
advocate. They acquitted the accused. It is not known whether he ever
recovered his property. But as Sulla retired from power in the following
year, and died the year after, we may hope that the favorites and the
villains whom he had sheltered were compelled to disgorge some at least
of their gains.




CHAPTER IV.

A ROMAN MAGISTRATE.


Of all the base creatures who found a profit in the massacres and
plunderings which Sulla commanded or permitted, not one was baser than
Caius Verres. The crimes that he committed would be beyond our belief if
it were not for the fact that he never denied them. He betrayed his
friends, he perverted justice, he plundered a temple with as little
scruple as he plundered a private house, he murdered a citizen as boldly
as he murdered a foreigner; in fact, he was the most audacious, the most
cruel, the most shameless of men. And yet he rose to high office at home
and abroad, and had it not been for the courage, sagacity, and eloquence
of one man, he might have risen to the very highest. What Roman citizens
had sometimes, and Roman subjects, it is to be feared, very often to
endure may be seen from the picture which we are enabled to draw of a
_Roman magistrate_.

Roman politicians began public life as quaestors. (A quaestor was an
official who managed money matters for higher magistrates. Every
governor of a province had one or more quaestors under him. They were
elected at Rome, and their posts were assigned to them by lot.) Verres
was quaestor in Gaul and embezzled the public money; he was quaestor in
Cilicia with Dolabella, a like-minded governor, and diligently used his
opportunity. This time it was not money only, but works of art, on which
he laid his hands; and in these the great cities, whether in Asia or in
Europe, were still rich. The most audacious, perhaps, of these robberies
was perpetrated in the island of Delos. Delos was known all over the
world as the island of Apollo. The legend was that it was the birthplace
of the god. None of his shrines was more frequented or more famous.
Verres was indifferent to such considerations. He stripped the temple of
its finest statues, and loaded a merchant ship which he had hired with
the booty. But this time he was not lucky enough to secure it. The
islanders, though they had discovered the theft, did not, indeed,
venture to complain. They thought it was the doing of the governor, and
a governor, though his proceedings might be impeached after his term of
office, was not a person with whom it was safe to remonstrate. But a
terrible storm suddenly burst upon the island. The governor's departure
was delayed. To set sail in such weather was out of the question. The
sea was indeed so high that the town became scarcely habitable. Then
Verres' ship was wrecked, and the statues were found cast upon the
shore. The governor ordered them to be replaced in the temple, and the
storm subsided as suddenly as it had arisen.

On his return to Rome Dolabella was impeached for extortion. With
characteristic baseness Verres gave evidence against him, evidence so
convincing as to cause a verdict of guilty. But he thus secured his own
gains, and these he used so profusely in the purchase of votes that two
or three years afterwards he was elected praetor. The praetors performed
various functions which were assigned to them by lot. Chance, or it may
possibly have been contrivance, gave to Verres the most considerable of
them all. He was made "Praetor of the City;" that is, a judge before
whom a certain class of very important causes were tried. Of course he
showed himself scandalously unjust. One instance of his proceedings may
suffice.

A certain Junius had made a contract for keeping the temple of Castor in
repair. When Verres came into office he had died, leaving a son under
age. There had been some neglect, due probably to the troubles of the
times, in seeing that the contracts had been duly executed, and the
Senate passed a resolution that Verres and one of his fellow-praetors
should see to the matter. The temple of Castor came under review like
the others, and Verres, knowing that the original contractor was dead,
inquired who was the responsible person. When he heard of the son under
age he recognized at once a golden opportunity. It was one of the maxims
which he had laid down for his own guidance, and which he had even been
wont to give out for the benefit of his friends, that much profit might
be made out of the property of wards. It had been arranged that the
guardian of the young Junius should take the contract into his own
hands, and, as the temple was in excellent repair, there was no
difficulty in the way. Verres summoned the guardian to appear before
him. "Is there any thing," he asked, "that your ward has not made good,
and which we ought to require of him?" "No," said he, "every thing is
quite right; all the statues and offerings are there, and the fabric is
in excellent repair." From the praetor's point of view this was not
satisfactory; and he determined on a personal visit. Accordingly he went
to the temple, and inspected it. The ceiling was excellent; the whole
building in the best repair. "What is to be done?" he asked of one of
his satellites. "Well," said the man, "there is nothing for you to
meddle with here, except possibly to require that the columns should be
restored to the perpendicular." "Restored to the perpendicular? what do
you mean?" said Verres, who knew nothing of architecture. It was
explained to him that it very seldom happened that a column was
absolutely true to the perpendicular. "Very good," said Verres; "we will
have the columns made perpendicular." Notice accordingly was sent to
the lad's guardians. Disturbed at the prospect of indefinite loss to
their ward's property, they sought an interview with Verres. One of the
noble family of Marcellus waited upon him, and remonstrated against the
iniquity of the proceeding. The remonstrance was in vain. The praetor
showed no signs of relenting. There yet remained one way, a way only too
well known to all who had to deal with him, of obtaining their object.
Application must be made to his mistress (a Greek freedwoman of the name
of Chelidon or "The Swallow"). If she could be induced to take an
interest in the case something might yet be done. Degrading as such a
course must have been to men of rank and honor, they resolved, in the
interest of their ward, to take it. They went to Chelidon's house. It
was thronged with people who were seeking favors from the praetor. Some
were begging for decisions in their favor; some for fresh trials of
their cases. "I want possession," cried one. "He must not take the
property from me," said another. "Don't let him pronounce judgment
against me," cried a third. "The property must be assigned to me," was
the demand of a fourth. Some were counting out money; others signing
bonds. The deputation, after waiting awhile, were admitted to the
presence. Their spokesman explained the case, begged for Chelidon's
assistance, and promised a substantial consideration. The lady was very
gracious. She would willingly do what she could, and would talk to the
praetor about it. The deputation must come again the next day and hear
how she had succeeded. They came again, but found that nothing could be
done. Verres felt sure that a large sum of money was to be got out of
the proceeding, and resolutely refused any compromise.

They next made an offer of about two thousand pounds. This again was
rejected. Verres resolved that he would put up the contract to auction,
and did his best that the guardians should have no notice of it. Here,
however, he failed. They attended the auction and made a bid. Of course
the lowest bidder ought to have been accepted, so long as he gave
security for doing the work well. But Verres refused to accept it. He
knocked down the contract to himself at a price of more than five
thousand pounds, and this though there were persons willing to do it for
less than a sixth of that sum. As a matter of fact very little was
done. Four of the columns were pulled down and built up again with the
same stones. Others were whitewashed; some had the old cement taken out
and fresh put in.[1] The highest estimate for all that could possibly be
wanted was less than eight hundred pounds.

[Footnote 1: "Pointed," I suppose.]

His year of office ended, Verres was sent as governor to Sicily. By
rights he should have remained there twelve months only, but his
successor was detained by the Servile war in Italy, and his stay was
thus extended to nearly three years, three years into which he crowded
an incredible number of cruelties and robberies. Sicily was perhaps the
wealthiest of all the provinces. Its fertile wheat-fields yielded
harvests which, now that agriculture had begun to decay in Italy,
provided no small part of the daily bread of Rome. In its cities,
founded most of them several centuries before by colonists from Greece,
were accumulated the riches of many generations. On the whole it had
been lightly treated by its Roman conquerors. Some of its states had
early discerned which would be the winning side, and by making their
peace in time had secured their privileges and possessions. Others had
been allowed to surrender themselves on favorable terms. This wealth had
now been increasing without serious disturbance for more than a hundred
years. The houses of the richer class were full of the rich tapestries
of the East, of gold and silver plate cunningly chased or embossed, of
statues and pictures wrought by the hands of the most famous artists of
Greece. The temples were adorned with costly offerings and with images
that were known all over the civilized world. The Sicilians were
probably prepared to pay something for the privilege of being governed
by Rome. And indeed the privilege was not without its value. The days of
freedom indeed were over; but the turbulence, the incessant strife, the
bitter struggles between neighbors and parties were also at an end. Men
were left to accumulate wealth and to enjoy it without hindrance. Any
moderate demands they were willing enough to meet. They did not
complain, for instance, or at least did not complain aloud, that they
were compelled to supply their rulers with a fixed quantity of corn at
prices lower than could have been obtained in the open market. And they
would probably have been ready to secure the good will of a governor who
fancied himself a connoisseur in art with handsome presents from their
museums and picture galleries. But the exactions of Verres exceeded all
bounds both of custom and of endurance. The story of how he dealt with
the wheat-growers of the province is too tedious and complicated to be
told in this place. Let it suffice to say that he enriched himself and
his greedy troop of followers at the cost of absolute ruin both to the
cultivators of the soil and to the Roman capitalists who farmed this
part of the public revenue. As to the way in which he laid his hands on
the possessions of temples and of private citizens, his doings were
emphatically summed up by his prosecutor when he came, as we shall
afterwards see, to be put upon his trial. "I affirm that in the whole of
Sicily, wealthy and old-established province as it is, in all those
towns, in all those wealthy homes, there was not a single piece of
silver plate, a single article of Corinthian or Delian ware, a single
jewel or pearl, a single article of gold or ivory, a single picture,
whether on panel or on canvas, which he did not hunt up and examine,
and, if it pleased his fancy, abstract. This is a great thing to say,
you think. Well, mark how I say it. It is not for the sake of rhetorical
exaggeration that I make this sweeping assertion, that I declare that
this fellow did not leave a single article of the kind in the whole
province. I speak not in the language of the professional accuser but in
plain Latin. Nay, I will put it more clearly still: in no single private
house, in no town; in no place, profane or even sacred; in the hands of
no Sicilian, of no citizen of Rome, did he leave a single article,
public or private property, of things profane or things religious, which
came under his eyes or touched his fancy."

Some of the more remarkable of these acts of spoliation it may be worth
while to relate. A certain Heius, who was at once the wealthiest and
most popular citizen of Messana, had a private chapel of great antiquity
in his house, and in it four statues of the very greatest value. There
was a Cupid by Praxiteles, a replica of a famous work which attracted
visitors to the uninteresting little town of Thespiae in Boeotia; a
Hercules from the chisel of Myro; and two bronze figures,
"Basket-bearers," as they were called, because represented as carrying
sacred vessels in baskets on their heads. These were the work of
Polyclitus. The Cupid had been brought to Rome to ornament the forum on
some great occasion, and had been carefully restored to its place. The
chapel and its contents was the great sight of the town. No one passed
through without inspecting it. It was naturally, therefore, one of the
first things that Verres saw, Messana being on his route to the capital
of his province. He did not actually take the statues, he bought them;
but the price that he paid was so ridiculously low that purchase was
only another name for robbery. Something near sixty pounds was given for
the four. If we recall the prices that would be paid now-a-days for a
couple of statues by Michael Angelo and two of the masterpieces of
Raphael and Correggio, we may imagine what a monstrous fiction this sale
must have been, all the more monstrous because the owner was a wealthy
man, who had no temptation to sell, and who was known to value his
possessions not only as works of art but as adding dignity to his
hereditary worship.

A wealthy inhabitant of Tyndaris invited the governor to dinner. He was
a Roman citizen and imagined that he might venture on a display which a
provincial might have considered to be dangerous. Among the plate on the
table was a silver dish adorned with some very fine medallions. It
struck the fancy of the guest, who promptly had it removed, and who
considered himself to be a marvel of moderation when he sent it back
with the medallions abstracted.

His secretary happened one day to receive a letter which bore a
noteworthy impression on the composition of chalk which the Greeks used
for sealing. It attracted the attention of Verres, who inquired from
what place it had come. Hearing that it had been sent from Agrigentum,
he communicated to his agents in that town his desire that the seal-ring
should be at once secured for him. And this was done. The unlucky
possessor, another Roman citizen, by the way, had his ring actually
drawn from his finger.

A still more audacious proceeding was to rob, not this time a mere
Sicilian provincial or a simple Roman citizen, but one of the tributary
kings, the heir of the great house of Antiochus, which not many years
before had matched itself with the power of Rome. Two of the young
princes had visited Rome, intending to prosecute their claims to the
throne of Egypt, which, they contended, had come to them through their
mother. The times were not favorable to the suit, and they returned to
their country, one of them, Antiochus, probably the elder, choosing to
take Sicily on his way. He naturally visited Syracuse, where Verres was
residing, and Verres at once recognized a golden opportunity. The first
thing was to send the visitor a handsome supply of wine, olive-oil, and
wheat. The next was to invite him to dinner. The dining-room and table
were richly furnished, the silver plate being particularly splendid.
Antiochus was highly delighted with the entertainment, and lost no time
in returning the compliment. The dinner to which he invited the governor
was set out with a splendor to which Verres had nothing to compare.
There was silver plate in abundance, and there were also cups of gold,
these last adorned with magnificent gems.

Conspicuous among the ornaments of the table was a drinking vessel, all
in one piece, probably of amethyst, and with a handle of gold. Verres
expressed himself delighted with what he saw. He handled every vessel
and was loud in its praises. The simple-minded King, on the other hand,
heard the compliment with pride. Next day came a message. Would the King
lend some of the more beautiful cups to his excellency? He wished to
show them to his own artists. A special request was made for the
amethyst cup. All was sent without a suspicion of danger.

But the King had still in his possession something that especially
excited the Roman's cupidity. This was a candelabrum of gold richly
adorned with jewels. It had been intended for an offering to the
tutelary deity of Rome, Jupiter of the Capitol. But the temple, which
had been burned to the ground in the civil wars, had not yet been
rebuilt, and the princes, anxious that their gift should not be seen
before it was publicly presented, resolved to carry it back with them to
Syria. Verres, however, had got, no one knew how, some inkling of the
matter, and he begged Antiochus to let him have a sight of it. The young
prince, who, so far from being suspicious, was hardly sufficiently
cautious, had it carefully wrapped up, and sent it to the governor's
palace. When he had minutely inspected it, the messengers prepared to
carry it back. Verres, however, had not seen enough of it. It clearly
deserved more than one examination. Would they leave it with him for a
time? They left it, suspecting nothing.

Antiochus, on his part, had no apprehensions. When some days had passed
and the candelabrum was not returned, he sent to ask for it. The
governor begged the messenger to come again the next day. It seemed a
strange request; still the man came again and was again unsuccessful.
The King himself then waited on the governor and begged him to return
it. Verres hinted, or rather said plainly, that he should very much like
it as a present. "This is impossible," replied the prince, "the honor
due to Jupiter and public opinion forbid it. All the world knows that
the offering is to be made, and I cannot go back from my word." Verres
perceived that soft words would be useless, and took at once another
line. The King, he said, must leave Sicily before nightfall. The public
safety demanded it. He had heard of a piratical expedition which was on
its way from Syria to the province, and that his departure was
necessary. Antiochus had no choice but to obey; but before he went he
publicly protested in the market-place of Syracuse against the wrong
that had been done. His other valuables, the gold and the jewels, he did
not so much regret; but it was monstrous that he should be robbed of the
gift that he destined for the altar of the tutelary god of Rome.

The Sicilian cities were not better able to protect their possessions
than were private individuals. Segesta was a town that had early ranged
itself on the side of the Romans, with whom its people had a legendary
relationship. (The story was that Aeneas on his way to Italy had left
there some of his followers, who were unwilling any longer to endure the
hardships of the journey.) In early days it had been destroyed by the
Carthaginians, who had carried off all its most valuable possessions,
the most precious being a statue of Diana, a work of great beauty and
invested with a peculiar sacredness. When Carthage fell, Scipio its
conqueror restored the spoils which had been carried off from the cities
of Sicily. Among other things Agrigentum had recovered its famous bull
of brass, in which the tyrant Phalaris had burned, it was said, his
victims. Segesta was no less fortunate than its neighbors, and got back
its Diana. It was set on a pedestal on which was inscribed the name of
Scipio, and became one of the most notable sights of the island. It was
of a colossal size, but the sculptor had contrived to preserve the
semblance of maidenly grace and modesty. Verres saw and coveted it. He
demanded it of the authorities of the town and was met with a refusal.
It was easy for the governor to make them suffer for their obstinacy.
All their imposts were doubled and more than doubled. Heavy requisitions
for men and money and corn were made upon them. A still more hateful
burden, that of attending the court and progresses of the governor was
imposed on their principal citizens. This was a contest which they
could not hope to wage with success. Segesta resolved that the statue
should be given up. It was accordingly carried away from the town, all
the women of the town, married and unmarried, following it on its
journey, showering perfumes and flowers upon it, and burning incense
before it, till it had passed beyond the borders of their territory.

If Segesta had its Diana, Tyndaris had its Mercury; and this also Verres
was resolved to add to his collection. He issued his orders to Sopater,
chief magistrate of the place, that the statue was to betaken to
Messana. (Messana being conveniently near to Italy was the place in
which he stored his plunder.) Sopater refusing was threatened with the
heaviest penalties if it was not done without delay, and judged it best
to bring the matter before the local senate. The proposition was
received with shouts of disapproval. Verres paid a second visit to the
town and at once inquired what had been done about the statue. He was
told that it was impossible. The senate had decreed the penalty of
death against any one that touched it. Apart from that, it would be an
act of the grossest impiety. "Impiety?" he burst out upon the unlucky
magistrates; "penalty of death! senate! what senate? As for you,
Sopater, you shall not escape. Give me up the statue or you shall be
flogged to death." Sopater again referred the matter to his townsmen and
implored them with tears to give way. The meeting separated in great
tumult without giving him any answer. Summoned again to the governor's
presence, he repeated that nothing could be done. But Verres had still
resources in store. He ordered the lictors to strip the man, the chief
magistrate, be it remembered, of an important town, and to set him,
naked as he was, astride on one of the equestrian statues that adorned
the market-place. It was winter; the weather was bitterly cold, with
heavy rain. The pain caused by the naked limbs being thus brought into
close contact with the bronze of the statue was intense. So frightful
was his suffering that his fellow-townsmen could not bear to see it.
They turned with loud cries upon the senate and compelled them to vote
that the coveted statue should be given up to the governor. So Verres
got his Mercury.

We have a curious picture of the man as he made his progresses from town
to town in his search for treasures of art. "As soon as it was
spring--and he knew that it was spring not from the rising of any
constellation or the blowing of any wind, but simply because he saw the
roses--then indeed he bestirred himself. So enduring, so untiring was he
that no one ever saw him upon horseback. No--he was carried in a litter
with eight bearers. His cushion was of the finest linen of Malta, and it
was stuffed with roses. There was one wreath of roses upon his head, and
another round his neck, made of the finest thread, of the smallest mesh,
and this, too, was full of roses. He was carried in this litter straight
to his chamber; and there he gave his audiences."

When spring had passed into summer even such exertions were too much for
him. He could not even endure to remain in his official residence, the
old palace of the kings of Syracuse. A number of tents were pitched for
him at the entrance of the harbor to catch the cool breezes from the
sea. There he spent his days and nights, surrounded by troops of the
vilest companions, and let the province take care of itself.

Such a governor was not likely to keep his province free from the
pirates who, issuing from their fastnesses on the Cilician coast and
elsewhere, kept the seaboard cities of the Mediterranean in constant
terror. One success, and one only, he seems to have gained over them.
His fleet was lucky enough to come upon a pirate ship, which was so
overladen with spoil that it could neither escape nor defend itself.
News was at once carried to Verres, who roused himself from his feasting
to issue strict orders that no one was to meddle with the prize. It was
towed into Syracuse, and he hastened to examine his booty. The general
feeling was one of delight that a crew of merciless villains had been
captured and were about to pay the penalty of their crimes. Verres had
far more practical views. Justice might deal as she pleased with the old
and useless; the young and able bodied, and all who happened to be
handicraftsmen, were too valuable to be given up. His secretaries, his
retinue, his son had their share of the prize; six, who happened to be
singers, were sent as a present to a friend at Rome. As to the pirate
captain himself, no one knew what had become of him. It was a favorite
amusement in Sicily to watch the sufferings of a pirate, if the
government had had the luck but to catch one, while he was being slowly
tortured to death. The people of Syracuse, to whom the pirate captain
was only too well known, watched eagerly for the day when he was to be
brought out to suffer. They kept an account of those who were brought
out to execution, and reckoned them against the number of the crew,
which it had been easy to conjecture from the size of the ship. Verres
had to correct the deficiency as best he could. He had the audacity to
fill the places of the prisoners whom he had sold or given away with
Roman citizens, whom on various false pretenses he had thrown into
prison. The pirate captain himself was suffered to escape on the
payment, it was believed, of a very large sum of money.

But Verres had not yet done with the pirates. It was necessary that some
show, at least, of coping with them should be made. There was a fleet,
and the fleet must put to sea. A citizen of Syracuse, who had no sort of
qualification for the task, but whom Verres was anxious to get out of
the way, was appointed to the command. The governor paid it the unwonted
attention of coming out of his tent to see it pass. His very dress, as
he stood upon the shore, was a scandal to all beholders. His sandals,
his purple cloak, his tunic, or under-garment, reaching to his ankles,
were thought wholly unsuitable to the dignity of a Roman magistrate. The
fleet, as might be expected, was scandalously ill equipped. Its men for
the most part existed, as the phrase is, only "on paper." There was the
proper complement of names, but of names only. The praetor drew from the
treasury the pay for these imaginary soldiers and marines, and diverted
it into his own pocket. And the ships were as ill provisioned as they
were ill manned. After they had been something less than five days at
sea they put into the harbor of Pachynus. The crews were driven to
satisfy their hunger on the roots of the dwarf palm, which grew, and
indeed still grows, in abundance on that spot. Cleomenes meanwhile was
following the example of his patron. He had his tent pitched on the
shore, and sat in it drinking from morning to night. While he was thus
employed tidings were brought that the pirate fleet was approaching. He
was ill prepared for an engagement. His hope had been to complete the
manning of his ships from the garrison of the fort. But Verres had dealt
with the fort as he had dealt with the fleet. The soldiers were as
imaginary as the sailors. Still a man of courage would have fought. His
own ship was fairly well manned, and was of a commanding size, quite
able to overpower the light vessels of the pirates; and such a crew as
there was was eager to fight. But Cleomenes was as cowardly as he was
incompetent. He ordered the mast of his ship to be hoisted, the sails to
be set, and the cable cut, and made off with all speed. The rest of his
fleet could do nothing but follow his example. The pirates gave chase,
and captured two of the ships as they fled. Cleomenes reached the port
of Helorus, stranded his ship, and left it to its fate. His colleagues
did the same. The pirate chief found them thus deserted and burned them.
He had then the audacity to sail into the inner harbor of Syracuse, a
place into which, we are told, only one hostile fleet, the ill-fated
Athenian expedition, three centuries and a half before, had ever
penetrated. The rage of the inhabitants at this spectacle exceeded all
bounds, and Verres felt that a victim must be sacrificed. He was, of
course, himself the chief culprit. Next in guilt to him was Cleomenes.
But Cleomenes was spared for the same scandalous reason which had caused
his appointment to the command. The other captains, who might indeed
have shown more courage, but who were comparatively blameless, were
ordered to execution. It seemed all the more necessary to remove them
because they could have given inconvenient testimony as to the
inefficient condition of the ships.

The cruelty of Verres was indeed as conspicuous as his avarice. Of this,
as of his other vices, it would not suit the purpose of this book to
speak in detail. One conspicuous example will suffice. A certain Gavius
had given offense, how we know not, and had been confined in the
disused stone quarries which served for the public prison of Syracuse.
From these he contrived to escape, and made his way to Messana.
Unluckily for himself, he did not know that Messana was the one place in
Sicily where it would not be safe to speak against the governor. Just as
he was about to embark for Italy he was heard to complain of the
treatment which he had received, and was arrested and brought before the
chief magistrate of the town. Verres happened to come to the town the
same day, and heard what had happened. He ordered the man to be stripped
and flogged in the market-place. Gavius pleaded that he was a Roman
citizen and offered proof of his claim. Verres refused to listen, and
enraged by the repetition of the plea, actually ordered the man to be
crucified. "And set up," he said to his lictors, "set up the cross by
the straits. He is a Roman citizen, he says, and he will at least be
able to have a view of his native country." We know from the history of
St. Paul what a genuine privilege and protection this citizenship was.
And Cicero exactly expresses the feeling on the subject in his famous
words. "It is a crime to put a Roman citizen in irons; it is positive
wickedness to inflict stripes upon him; it is close upon parricide to
put him to death; as to crucifying him there is no word for it." And on
this crowning act of audacity Verres had the recklessness to venture.

After holding office for three years Verres came back to Rome. The
people of Messana, his only friends in the islands, had built a
merchantman for him, and he loaded it with his spoils. He came back with
a light heart. He knew indeed that the Sicilians would impeach him. His
wrong-doings had been too gross, too insolent, for him to escape
altogether. But he was confident that he had the means in his hands for
securing an acquittal. The men that were to judge him were men of his
own order. The senators still retained the privilege which Sulla had
given them. They, and they alone, furnished the juries before whom such
causes were tried. Of these senators not a few had a fellow-feeling for
a provincial governor accused of extortion and wrong. Some had
plundered provinces in the past; others hoped to do so in the future.
Many insignificant men who could not hope to obtain such promotion were
notoriously open to bribes. And some who would have scorned to receive
money, or were too wealthy to be influenced by it, were not insensible
to the charms of other gifts--to a fine statue or a splendid picture
judiciously bestowed. A few, even more scrupulous, who would not accept
such presents for their own halls or gardens, were glad to have such
splendid ornaments for the games which they exhibited to the people.
Verres came back amply provided with these means of securing his safety.
He openly avowed--for indeed he was as frank as he was unscrupulous--that
he had trebled his extortions in order that, after leaving a sufficiency
for himself, he might have wherewith to win the favor of his judges. It
soon became evident to him that he would need these and all other help,
if he was to escape. The Sicilians engaged Cicero to plead their cause.
He had been quaestor in a division of the province for a year six years
before, and had won golden opinions by his moderation and integrity. And
Cicero was a power in the courts of the law, all the greater because he
had never yet prosecuted, but had kept himself to what was held the more
honorable task of defending persons accused.[2] Verres secured Hortensius.
He too was a great orator; Cicero had chosen him as the model which he
would imitate, and speaks of him as having been a splendid and energetic
speaker, full of life both in diction and action. At that time, perhaps,
his reputation stood higher than that of Cicero himself. It was something
to have retained so powerful an advocate; it would be still more if it
could be contrived that the prosecutor should be a less formidable person.
And there was a chance of contriving this. A certain Caecilius was induced
to come forward, and claim for himself, against Cicero, the duty of
prosecuting the late governor of Sicily. He too had been a quaestor in the
province, and he had quarreled, or he pretended that he had quarreled, with
Verres. The first thing there had to be argued before the court, which,
like our own, consisted of a presiding judge and a jury, was the
question, who was to prosecute, Cicero or Caecilius, or the two
together. Cicero made a great speech, in which he established his own
claim. He was the choice of the provincials; the honesty of his rival
was doubtful, while it was quite certain that he was incompetent. The
court decided in his favor, and he was allowed one hundred and ten days
to collect evidence. Verres had another device in store. This time a
member of the Senate came forward and claimed to prosecute Verres for
misdoings in the province of Achaia in Greece. He wanted one hundred and
eight days only for collecting evidence. If this claim should be
allowed, the second prosecution would be taken first; of course it was
not intended to be serious, and would end in an acquittal. Meanwhile all
the available time would have been spent, and the Sicilian affair would
have to be postponed till the next year. It was on postponement indeed
that Verres rested his hopes. In July Hortensius was elected consul for
the following year, and if the trial could only be put off till he had
entered upon office, nothing was to be feared. Verres was openly
congratulated in the streets of Rome on his good fortune. "I have good
news for you," cried a friend; "the election has taken place and you are
acquitted." Another friend had been chosen praetor, and would be the
new presiding judge. Consul and praetor between them would have the
appointment of the new jurors, and would take care that they should be
such as the accused desired. At the same time the new governor of Sicily
would be also a friend, and he would throw judicious obstacles in the
way of the attendance of witnesses. The sham prosecution came to
nothing. The prosecutor never left Italy. Cicero, on the other hand,
employed the greatest diligence. Accompanied by his cousin Lucius he
visited all the chief cities of Sicily, and collected from them an
enormous mass of evidence. In this work he only spent fifty out of the
hundred and ten days allotted to him, and was ready to begin long before
he was expected.

[Footnote 2: So Horace compliments a friend on being "the illustrious
safeguard of the sad accused."]

Verres had still one hope left; and this, strangely enough, sprang out
of the very number and enormity of his crimes. The mass of evidence was
so great that the trial might be expected to last for a long time. If it
could only be protracted into the next year, when his friends would be
in office, he might still hope to escape. And indeed there was but
little time left. The trial began on the fifth of August. In the middle
of the month Pompey was to exhibit some games. Then would come the games
called "The Games of Rome," and after this others again, filling up much
of the three months of September, October, and November. Cicero
anticipated this difficulty. He made a short speech (it could not have
lasted more than two hours in delivering), in which he stated the case
in outline. He made a strong appeal to the jury. They were themselves on
their trial. The eyes of all the world were on them. If they did not do
justice on so notorious a criminal they would never be trusted any more.
It would be seen that the senators were not fit to administer the law.
The law itself was on its trial. The provincials openly declared that if
Verres was acquitted, the law under which their governors were liable to
be accused had better be repealed. If no fear of a prosecution were
hanging over them, they would be content with as much plunder as would
satisfy their own wants. They would not need to extort as much more
wherewith to bribe their judges. Then he called his witnesses. A
marvelous array they were. "From the foot of Mount Taurus, from the
shores of the Black Sea, from many cities of the Grecian mainland, from
many islands of the Aegean, from every city and market-town of Sicily,
deputations thronged to Rome. In the porticoes, and on the steps of the
temples, in the area of the Forum, in the colonnade that surrounded it,
on the housetops and on the overlooking declivities, were stationed
dense and eager crowds of impoverished heirs and their guardians,
bankrupt tax-farmers and corn merchants, fathers bewailing their
children carried off to the praetor's harem, children mourning for their
parents dead in the praetor's dungeons, Greek nobles whose descent was
traced to Cecrops or Eurysthenes, or to the great Ionian and Minyan
houses, and Phoenicians, whose ancestors had been priests of the Tyrian
Melcarth, or claimed kindred with the Zidonian Jah."[3] Nine days were
spent in hearing this mass of evidence. Hortensius was utterly
overpowered by it. He had no opportunity for displaying his eloquence,
or making a pathetic appeal for a noble oppressed by the hatred of the
democracy. After a few feeble attempts at cross-examination, he
practically abandoned the case. The defendant himself perceived that his
position was hopeless. Before the nine days, with their terrible
impeachment, had come to an end he fled from Rome.

[Footnote 3: Article in "Dictionary of Classical Biography and
Mythology," by William Bodham Donne.]

The jury returned an unanimous verdict of guilty, and the prisoner was
condemned to banishment and to pay a fine. The place of banishment
(which he was apparently allowed to select outside certain limits) was
Marseilles. The amount of the fine we do not know. It certainly was not
enough to impoverish him.

Much of the money, and many of the works of art which he had stolen were
left to him. These latter, by a singularly just retribution, proved his
ruin in the end. After the death of Cicero, Antony permitted the exiles
to return. Verres came with them, bringing back his treasures of art,
and was put to death because they excited the cupidity of the masters of
Rome.




CHAPTER V.

A GREAT ROMAN CAUSE.


There were various courts at Rome for persons accused of various
crimes. One judge, for instance, used to try charges of poisoning;
another, charges of murder; and, just as is the case among us, each
judge had a jury, who gave their verdict on the evidence which they had
heard. But this verdict was not, as with us, the verdict of the whole
jury, given only if all can be induced to agree, but of the majority.
Each juryman wrote his opinion on a little tablet of wood, putting A.
(_absolvo_, "I acquit") if he thought the accused innocent, K.
(_condemno_, "I condemn") if he thought him guilty, and N.L. (_non
liquet_, "It is not clear") if the case seemed suspicious, though there
was not enough evidence to convict.

In the year 66 B.C. a very strange trial took place in the Court of
Poison Cases. A certain Cluentius was accused of having poisoned his
step-father, Oppianicus, and various other persons. Cicero, who was
praetor that year (the praetor was the magistrate next in rank to the
consul), defended Cluentius, and told his client's whole story.

Cluentius and his step-father were both natives of Larinum, a town in
Apulia, where there was a famous temple of Mars. A dispute about the
property of this temple caused an open quarrel between the two men, who
had indeed been enemies for some years. Oppianicus took up the case of
some slaves, who were called _Servants of Mars_, declaring that they
were not slaves at all, but Roman citizens. This he did, it would seem,
because he desired to annoy his fellow-townsmen, with whom he was very
unpopular. The people of Larinum, who were very much interested in all
that concerned the splendor of their temple services, resisted the
claim, and asked Cluentius to plead their case. Cluentius consented.
While the cause was going on, it occurred to Oppianicus to get rid of
his opponent by poison. He employed an agent, and the agent put the
matter into the hands of his freedman, a certain Scamander. Scamander
tried to accomplish his object by bribing the slave of the physician who
was attending Cluentius. The physician was a needy Greek, and his slave
had probably hard and scanty fare; but he was an honest man, and as
clever as he was honest. He pretended to accept the offer, and arranged
for a meeting. This done, he told the whole matter to his master the
physician, and the physician told it again to his patient. Cluentius
arranged that certain friends should be present in concealment at the
interview between the slave and his tempter. The villain came, and was
seized with the poison and a packet of money, sealed with his master's
seal, upon him.

Cluentius, who had put up with many provocations from his mother's
husband, now felt that his life was in danger, and determined to defend
himself. He indicted Scamander for an attempt to poison. The man was
found guilty. Scamander's patron (as they used to call a freedman's old
master) was next brought to trial, and with the same result. Last of all
Oppianicus, the chief criminal, was attacked. Scamander's trial had
warned him of his danger, and he had labored to bring about the man's
acquittal. One vote, and one only, he had contrived to secure. And to
the giver of this vote, a needy and unprincipled member of the Senate,
he now had recourse. He went, of course, with a large sum in his
hand--something about five thousand six hundred pounds of our money.
With this the senator--Staienus by name--was to bribe sixteen out of the
thirty-two jurymen. They were to have three hundred and fifty pounds
apiece for their votes, and Staienus was to have as much for his own
vote (which would give a majority), and something over for his trouble.
Staienus conceived the happy idea of appropriating the whole, and he
managed it in this way. He accosted a fellow-juror, whom he knew to be
as unprincipled as himself. "Bulbus," he said, "you will help me in
taking care that we sha'n't serve our country for nothing." "You may
count on me," said the man. Staienus went on, "The defendant has
promised three hundred and fifty pounds to every juror who will vote
'Not Guilty.' You know who will take the money. Secure them, and come
again to me." Nine days after, Bulbus came with beaming face to
Staienus. "I have got the sixteen in the matter you know of; and now,
where is the money?" "He has played me false," replied the other; "the
money is not forthcoming. As for myself, I shall certainly vote
'Guilty.'"

The trial came to an end, and the verdict was to be given. The defendant
claimed that it should be given by word of mouth, being anxious to know
who had earned their money. Staienus and Bulbus were the first to vote.
To the surprise of all, they voted "Guilty." Rumors too of foul play had
spread about. The two circumstances caused some of the more respectable
jurors to hesitate. In the end _five_ voted for acquittal, _ten_ said
"Not Proven," and seventeen "Guilty." Oppianicus suffered nothing worse
than banishment, a banishment which did not prevent him from living in
Italy, and even in the neighborhood of Rome. The Romans, though they
shed blood like water in their civil strife, were singularly lenient in
their punishments. Not long afterwards he died.

His widow saw in his death an opportunity of gratifying the unnatural
hatred which she had long felt for her son Cluentius. She would accuse
him of poisoning his step-father. Her first attempt failed completely.
She subjected three slaves to torture, one of them her own, another
belonged to the younger Oppianicus, a third the property of the
physician who had attended the deceased in his last illness. But the
cruelties and tortures extorted no confession from the men. At last the
friends whom she had summoned to be present at the inquiry compelled her
to desist. Three years afterwards she renewed the attempt. She had taken
one of the three tortured slaves into high favor, and had established
him as a physician at Larinum. The man committed an audacious robbery in
his mistress's house, breaking open a chest and abstracting from it a
quantity of silver coin and five pounds weight of gold. At the same time
he murdered two of his fellow-slaves, and threw their bodies into the
fish-pond. Suspicion fell upon the missing slaves. But when the chest
came to be closely examined, the opening was found to be of a very
curious kind. A friend remembered that he had lately seen among the
miscellaneous articles at an auction a circular saw which would have
made just such an opening. It was found that this saw had been bought by
the physician. He was now charged with the crime. Thereupon a young lad
who had been his accomplice came forward and told the story. The bodies
were found in the fish-pond. The guilty slave was tortured. He confessed
the deed, and he also confessed, his mistress declared, that he had
given poison to Oppianicus at the instance of Cluentius. No opportunity
was given for further inquiry. His confession made, the man was
immediately executed. Under strong compulsion from his step-mother, the
younger Oppianicus now took up the case, and indicted Cluentius for
murder. The evidence was very weak, little or nothing beyond the very
doubtful confession spoken of above; but then there was a very violent
prejudice against the accused. There had been a suspicion--perhaps more
than a suspicion--of foul play in the trial which had ended in the
condemnation of Oppianicus. The defendant, men said, might have
attempted to bribe the jury, but the plaintiff had certainly done so. It
would be a fine thing if he were to be punished even by finding him
guilty of a crime which he had not committed.

In defending his client, Cicero relied as much upon the terrible list
of crimes which had been proved against the dead Oppianicus as upon any
thing else. Terrible indeed it was, as a few specimens from the
catalogue will prove.

Among the wealthier inhabitants of Larinum was a certain Dinaea, a
childless widow. She had lost her eldest son in the Social War (the war
carried on between Rome and her Italian allies), and had seen two others
die of disease. Her only daughter, who had been married to Oppianicus,
was also dead. Now came the unexpected news that her eldest son was
still alive. He had been sold into slavery, and was still working among
a gang of laborers on a farm in Gaul. The poor woman called her kinsfolk
together and implored them to undertake the task of recovering him. At
the same time she made a will, leaving the bulk of her property to her
daughter's son, the younger Oppianicus, but providing for the missing
man a legacy of between three and four thousand pounds. The elder
Oppianicus was not disposed to see so large a sum go out of the family.
Dinaea fell ill, and he brought her his own physician. The patient
refused the man's services; they had been fatal, she said, to all her
kinsfolk. Oppianicus then contrived to introduce to her a traveling
quack from Ancona. He had bribed the man with about seventeen pounds of
our money to administer a deadly drug. The fee was large, and the fellow
was expected to take some pains with the business; but he was in a
hurry; he had many markets to visit; and he gave a single dose which
there was no need to repeat.

Meanwhile Dinaea's kinsfolk had sent two agents to make inquiries for
the missing son. But Oppianicus had been beforehand with them. He had
bribed the man who had brought the first news, had learned where he was
to be found, and had caused him to be assassinated. The agents wrote to
their employers at Larinum, saying that the object of their search could
not be found, Oppianicus having undoubtedly tampered with the person
from whom information was to be obtained. This letter excited great
indignation at Larinum; and one of the family publicly declared in the
market-place that he should hold Oppianicus (who happened to be present)
responsible if any harm should be found to have happened to the missing
man. A few days afterwards the agents themselves returned. They had
found the man, but he was dead. Oppianicus dared not face the burst of
rage which this news excited, and fled from Larinum. But he was not at
the end of his resources. The Civil War between Sulla and the party of
Marius (for Marius himself was now dead) was raging, and Oppianicus fled
to the camp of Metellus Pius, one of Sulla's lieutenants. There he
represented himself as one who had suffered for the party. Metellus had
himself fought in the Social War, and fought against the side to which
the murdered prisoner belonged. It was therefore easy to persuade him
that the man had deserved his fate, and that his friends were unworthy
persons and dangerous to the commonwealth. Oppianicus returned to
Larinum with an armed force, deposed the magistrates whom the
towns-people had chosen, produced Sulla's mandate for the appointment of
himself and three of his creatures in their stead, as well as for the
execution of four persons particularly obnoxious to him. These four
were, the man who had publicly threatened him, two of his kinsfolk, and
one of the instruments of his own villainies, whom he now found it
convenient to get out of the way.

The story of the crimes of Oppianicus, of which only a small part has
been given, having been finished, Cicero related the true circumstances
of his death. After his banishment he had wandered about for a while
shunned by all his acquaintances. Then he had taken up his quarters in a
farmhouse in the Falernian country. From these he was driven away by a
quarrel with the farmer, and removed to a small lodging which he had
hired outside the walls of Rome. Not long afterwards he fell from his
horse, and received a severe injury in his side. His health was already
weak, fever came on, he was carried into the city and died after a few
days' illness.

Besides the charge of poisoning Oppianicus there were others that had to
be briefly dealt with. One only of these needs to be mentioned.
Cluentius, it was said, had put poison into a cup of honey wine, with
the intention of giving it to the younger Oppianicus. The occasion, it
was allowed, was the young man's wedding-breakfast, to which, as was
the custom at Larinum, a large company had been invited. The prosecutor
affirmed that one of the bridegroom's friends had intercepted the cup on
its way, drunk off its contents, and instantly expired. The answer to
this was complete. The young man had not instantly expired. On the
contrary, he had died after an illness of several days, and this illness
had had a different cause. He was already out of health when he came to
the breakfast, and he had made himself worse by eating and drinking too
freely, "as," says the orator, "young men will do." He then called a
witness to whom no one could object, the father of the deceased. "The
least suspicion of the guilt of Cluentius would have brought him as a
witness against him. Instead of doing this he gives him his support.
Read," said Cicero to the clerk, "read his evidence. And you, sir,"
turning to the father, "stand up a while, if you please, and submit to
the pain of hearing what I am obliged to relate. I will say no more
about the case. Your conduct has been admirable; you would not allow
your own sorrow to involve an innocent man in the deplorable calamity of
a false accusation."

Then came the story of the cruel and shameful plot which the mother had
contrived against her son. Nothing would content this wicked woman but
that she must herself journey to Rome to give all the help that she
could to the prosecution. "And what a journey this was!" cried Cicero.
"I live near some of the towns near which she passed, and I have heard
from many witnesses what happened. Vast crowds came to see her. Men, ay,
and women too, groaned aloud as she passed by. Groaned at what? Why,
that from the distant town of Larinum, from the very shore of the Upper
Sea, a woman was coming with a great retinue and heavy money-bags,
coming with the single object of bringing about the ruin of a son who
was being tried for his life. In all those crowds there was not a man
who did not think that every spot on which she set her foot needed to be
purified, that the very earth, which is the mother of us all, was
defiled by the presence of a mother so abominably wicked. There was not
a single town in which she was allowed to stay; there was not an inn of
all the many upon that road where the host did not shun the contagion
of her presence. And indeed she preferred to trust herself to solitude
and to darkness rather than to any city or hostelry. And now," said
Cicero, turning to the woman, who was probably sitting in court, "does
she think that we do not all know her schemes, her intrigues, her
purposes from day to day? Truly we know exactly to whom she has gone, to
whom she has promised money, whose integrity she has endeavored to
corrupt with her bribes. Nay, more: we have heard all about the things
which she supposes to be a secret, her nightly sacrifice, her wicked
prayers, her abominable vows."

He then turned to the son, whom he would have the jury believe was as
admirable as the mother was vile. He had certainly brought together a
wonderful array of witnesses to, character. From Larinum every grown-up
man that had the strength to make the journey had come to Rome to
support their fellow-townsman. The town was left to the care of women
and children. With these witnesses had come, bringing a resolution of
the local senate full of the praises of the accused, a deputation of the
senators. Cicero turned to the deputation and begged them to stand up
while the resolution was being read. They stood up and burst into tears,
which indeed are much more common among the people of the south than
among us, and of which no one sees any reason to be ashamed. "You see
these tears, gentlemen," cried the orator to the jury. "You may be sure,
from seeing them, that every member of the senate was in tears also when
they passed this resolution." Nor was it only Larinum, but all the chief
Samnite towns that had sent their most respected citizens to give their
evidence for Cluentius. "Few," said Cicero, "I think, are loved by me as
much as he is loved by all these friends."

Cluentius was acquitted. Cicero is said to have boasted afterwards that
he had blinded the eyes of the jury. Probably his client had bribed the
jury in the trial of his step-father. That was certainly the common
belief, which indeed went so far as to fix the precise sum which he
paid. "How many miles is your farm from Rome?" was asked of one of the
witnesses at a trial connected with the case. "Less than fifty-three,"
he replied. "Exactly the sum," was the general cry from the spectators.
The point of the joke is in the fact that the same word stood in Latin
for the _thousand_ paces which made a mile and the _thousand_ coins by
which sums of money were commonly reckoned. Oppianicus had paid forty
thousand for an acquittal, and Cluentius outbid him with fifty thousand
("less than fifty-three") to secure a verdict of guilty. But whatever we
may think of the guilt or innocence of Cluentius, there can be no doubt
that the cause in which Cicero defended him was one of the most
interesting ever tried in Rome.




CHAPTER VI.

COUNTRY LIFE.


A Roman of even moderate wealth--for Cicero was far from being one of
the richest men of his time--commonly possessed more country-houses than
belong even to the wealthiest of English nobles. One such house at least
Cicero inherited from his father. It was about three miles from Arpinum,
a little town in that hill country of the Sabines which was the
proverbial seat of a temperate and frugal race, and which Cicero
describes in Homeric phrase as

   "Rough but a kindly nurse of men."

In his grandfather's time it had been a plain farmhouse, of the kind
that had satisfied the simpler manners of former days--the days when
Consuls and Dictators were content, their time of office ended, to plow
their own fields and reap their own harvests. Cicero was born within its
walls, for the primitive fashion of family life still prevailed, and the
married son cont