Cicero - Anthony Everitt [109]
AS for Caesar, his aims and the precise nature of his relationship with Pompey were equally difficult to fathom. His public line was that he was simply claiming his rights and he used studiedly moderate language in putting them forward. He must have realized that his new preeminence would inevitably lead to a clash with Pompey, but it would seem he anticipated this rather than sought it. What is uncertain is whether the repeated attempts he made at compromise were public relations (that is, he knew they would fail) or whether he genuinely hoped for a peaceful solution.
Of course, there was much more to the origins of the civil war than a clash of individual wills, important as that was. Its inception can be traced much farther back to the long struggle between the optimates and the populares which opened with the attempted reforms of Tiberius Gracchus almost a century before: between those who saw the need to modernize the Republic and those who stood for the established order of things. Marius, Sulla, even Catilina in his desperate way had tried to resolve matters, but they had all failed. Sooner or later a final decision between the contending sides had to be reached.
The new rules on governorships were a tedious irritation to Cicero. Former Consuls were being dragged out of retirement to run the empire. One of these was Cicero and much against his will he accepted the governorship of Cilicia in present-day southern Turkey. He made it clear he would do so for the minimum time possible, twelve months; he would resist any idea of an extension. “My one consolation for this colossal bore,” he told Atticus, “is that I expect it will only last a year.”
Despite his irritation Cicero rose to the challenge. AS during his Quaestorship in Sicily many years before, he was an able, hardworking and fair-minded administrator. Following Crassus’s defeat and death, the region was uneasily anticipating incursions, perhaps a full-scale invasion, by the aroused and victorious Parthians. Since he himself had practically no military experience, he made sure that his Legates, or deputies, did. One of these was his brother, Quintus, whose background both as a governor and as a general in Gaul would make him an invaluable adviser and aide. Another was the able Caius Pomptinus, who had led the ambush at the Milvian Bridge during Cicero’s Consulship and had later efficiently put down a revolt of the Allobroges in Gaul in the wake of Catilina’s conspiracy.
On the domestic as well as the political front, the two brothers were leaving trouble behind them. They spent the May Day holiday, a time of symbolic misrule when servants and slaves were waited on by their masters, at Quintus’s hideaway farm near Arpinum. Pomponia decided to stage a monumental sulk. Her casus belli was Quintus’s continuing fondness for his freedman, Statius—a subject on which in principle she and her brother-in-law agreed. Cicero told Atticus, Pomponia’s brother, what had happened:
When we arrived, Quintus said in the kindest way: “Pomponia, will you ask the women in and I’ll get the boys? [i.e., the slaves and servants].” Both what he said and his intention and manner were perfectly pleasant, at least it seemed so to me. Pomponia however answered in our hearing, “I am a guest here myself.” That, I imagine, was because Statius had gone ahead of us to see to our luncheon. Quintus said to me: “There! This is the sort of thing I have to put up with all the time.” You’ll say, “What is there in that, pray?” A good deal. I myself was quite shocked. Her words and manner were