Cicero - Anthony Everitt [81]
Cicero was not impressed by Bibulus’s behavior. He became more and more depressed by the course of events and could only wait and watch from the sidelines as Pompey’s settlement in the east was at last ratified, in the end with little trouble. Crassus’s tax farmers had the price of their contracts reduced by a third, but he could not claim any of the credit.
In March Cicero defended his former fellow Consul, Antonius, on a corruption charge, without success. After Antonius’s conviction, flowers were laid on Catilina’s grave and a celebratory banquet was held. Audaciously Cicero used his speech for a strong attack on the First Triumvirate. He soon saw that this was a serious mistake. Caesar made no public comment, but he acted at once to bring Cicero into line by letting Clodius off his leash. On the afternoon of the day Cicero made his comments, Caesar approved an application by Clodius for a change in status from Patrician to Plebeian. This was no mere technicality: only a Plebeian could be elected Tribune—a post Clodius coveted, for (among other things) it would enable him to get his long meditated revenge. AS part of the procedure to change his social status, Clodius had to be adopted by a Plebeian man; to show his disregard for social norms, he chose as his “father” a youth of twenty.
Alongside covert threats, various blandishments were offered to Cicero during the spring and summer, including a seat on the commission that had been set up to implement the land-reform laws and an assignment as special envoy to the Egyptian Pharaoh. He turned them all down. Seeing that Caesar would use fair means or foul to gag him, he silently admitted defeat and for the time being withdrew from public life, leaving Rome for a tour of his villas.
Cicero was planning to write a book on geography but could not concentrate on it. He preferred to work instead on a candid memoir of his life and times, in which he denounced his enemies and attacked the First Triumvirate. This Secret History (De consiliis suis) was well-known in antiquity but is now lost; it was unpublishable in Cicero’s lifetime and he gave it to young Marcus with the instruction not to issue it until after his death. In April 59, he told Atticus: “I have taken so kindly to idleness that I can’t tear myself away from it. So either I amuse myself with books, of which I have a good stock at Antium, or I count the waves—the weather is unsuitable for mackerel fishing.… And my sole form of political activity is to hate the rascals, and even that I do without anger.” This did not mean he had lost his appetite for news and gossip. He depended on his friend for a reliable flow. “When I read a letter of yours I feel I am in Rome, hearing one thing one minute and another the next, as one does when big events are toward.” At about the same time, he wrote: “I have so lost my manly spirit that I prefer to be tyrannized over in peace and quiet.”
Curio paid an unexpected visit. No longer a “little Miss” but now “my young friend,” he brought the welcome news that his circle was unhappy with the regime but also reported, less agreeably, that Clodius was definitely standing as Tribune for 58. Cicero could see this only as an ominous development.
In Rome matters went from bad to worse for the optimates. AS the months passed, the existence of an explicit alliance among the three became public knowledge. Pompey’s marriage in April to Caesar’s dearly loved daughter, Julia, was a sign that it was not a temporary expedient but a permanent arrangement. Pompey’s private life seems to have been remarkably free from scandal. Attractive to women, he had some affairs, but usually acted