Cicero - Anthony Everitt [54]
A few years later Caesar was captured by pirates, who were endemic in the Mediterranean; while waiting for his ransom to arrive he got onto friendly terms with his captors, but warned them that he would return and have them crucified. They thought he was joking. They were not the last to underestimate Caesar’s determination and regret it. AS soon as he was free, he raised a squadron on his own initiative, tracked down the pirates and executed them, just as he had promised.
The fact that he was a nephew of Marius impeded his political progress under the Sullan constitution and the dominant Senatorial establishment. However, he had displayed traits which seemed clearly to promise future success: courage, rapidity of reaction, a refusal to let emotion control his decisions, absolute loyalty to friends, pride in race and an easy sociability which gave way, when necessary, to an equally easy ruthlessness.
Above all, his powers of observation and analysis enabled him to see more quickly than other politicians what was possible and what was not. Caesar pulled away from the impulsive Catilina, who plunged down a path that was bound to lead to disaster. Even if he did succeed in overthrowing the Senate with the help of his scented youngsters, it would be a brief victory: Catilina was hardly likely to survive Pompey’s return to Italy. Caesar realized that the popularis cause would succeed only if the great general was won over or at least neutralized. It was to this purpose that he turned his mind in the coming years.
AS spring turned into summer and the election for the following year’s Consulship approached, there was a concentration of minds among the governing classes in Rome. After careful consideration and despite their distaste for New Men, the optimates decided to back Cicero as the best of the evils on offer. In fact, the more observant of them could see that the Senate’s obstinate passivity was counterproductive and that Cicero would take a thoughtful and active approach to promoting its interests. However, an awkward matter presented itself. Cicero had neither the means nor the will to buy victory. So it may have been no accident that shortly before the vote the Senate decided to tighten up the rules against corruption at the polls; this would be necessary if Cicero was to compete effectively with Catilina and Antonius, both of whose campaigns were apparently being bankrolled by Crassus.
Cicero was particularly uneasy about Catilina. At one point he thought of taking on his defense against the impending extortion charges in return for cooperation over his candidacy. “We have the jury we want,” he told Atticus sardonically, “with the full cooperation of the prosecution. If he is acquitted, I hope he will be more inclined to work with me in the campaign.” This is one of the very few occasions when we see Cicero on record as willing to aid and abet corruption, a sign of his desperation to win. In the end, though, he gave up the idea and Catilina proceeded to secure a rigged acquittal without Cicero’s help.
Cicero’s other main rival, Antonius, was a much more malleable character. He had little aptitude for leadership in any direction, good or bad; Quintus said that “he was frightened of his own shadow.” However, he was happy enough to give additional support to someone who took the lead, a quality Cicero was to make the most of later.
Cicero decided to play to his own strength: he would use his skills as a public speaker to blacken his opponents. This would be a safer tactic than setting out policies which would be bound to offend the People whose votes he needed or the Senate on whose patronage he depended. He delivered a ferocious speech against Catilina and Antonius, citing the possibly nonexistent conspiracy of the previous year and attacking their political and private records. Both men had dirtied their hands during the proscription. Of Catilina, Cicero asked: