Cicero - Anthony Everitt [95]
So Cicero was enlisted to give a major address on this subject. He spoke in extravagant praise of Caesar, who (he argued) should be allowed to complete the good work he had started. He would probably need an extension of only two years and, as it was what he wanted, it should not be ruled out by allowing his provinces to be allocated at this stage. The conquest of Long-haired Gaul was vital to Italy’s security and, as Caesar was in winning form, there was no doubt that it would be accomplished expeditiously. When Atticus inquired why he had not as usual received an advance copy of the speech, Cicero wrote back contritely:
Come on! Do you really think there is anyone I would sooner have read and approve my compositions than you? So why did I send this one to anybody else first? Because the person [probably Pompey] to whom I did send it was pressing me for it and I did not have two copies. There was also the fact (I might as well stop nibbling at what has to be swallowed) that I was not exactly proud of my recantation hymn. But good night to principle, sincerity and honor!
Cicero’s frame of mind shifted uneasily from one mood to another, but at heart he was depressed. He could not help despising himself for doing Caesar’s bidding. Now fifty years old, he felt that his political career was over. He confided to his brother: “These years of my life which ought to be passing in the plenitude of Senatorial dignity are spent in the hurly-burly of forensic practice or rendered tolerable by my studies at home.”
Over the next few years Caesar’s gang of three made extensive use of Cicero’s legal services as a number of friends trooped through the law courts under his care. One of them was Balbus, the rich Spaniard who had become Caesar’s confidential agent and who was accused of having illegally acquired his Roman citizenship. Cicero’s defense rested on the plausible proposition that the case was really intended as an indirect attack on the First Triumvirate. This was a fruitless exercise, he argued cogently, and the prosecution would be well advised to think again and let the matter drop. Cicero won the case and Balbus was acquitted.
After defending one of Pompey’s supporters, Cicero complained to a friend that he was becoming disillusioned with the law. “I was weary of it even in the days when youth and ambition spurred me forward, and when moreover I was at liberty to refuse a case I did not care for. But now life is simply not worth living.” His correspondence reveals his continuing uncertainty, even feelings of guilt, about his conduct. “After all, what could be more humiliating than our lives today, and especially mine?” he confided to Atticus. “For you, though you are a political animal by nature, have not actually lost your freedom.… But so far as I am concerned, people think I have left my senses if I speak on politics as I ought, and a powerless prisoner if I say nothing. So how am I expected to feel?”
The judgment of history has been as harsh on Cicero as he was on himself. On the face of it, his decision to go along with the wishes of the First Triumvirate was weakly self-interested. It was certainly interpreted as being so. He was much criticized and all the old charges were exhumed—the laughable epic on his Consulship, the self-important letter to Pompey in 63 and the unmanly behavior during his exile.
But it is hard to see what else Cicero could have done if he was not to retire into silence and country living. This was not his most glorious hour, but he was taking the only action likely to keep him in the game. His own view that he was uniquely placed to mediate among the conflicting forces on the political scene was not entirely unreasonable. Although the First Triumvirate had reasserted its authority in no uncertain terms, he remained convinced that the alliance would not last forever. Caesar