One day equivalent to immortality. Plutarch says it was no exaggeration, yea, less than the truth, when Cicero declared that he was carried back to Rome on the shoulders of Italy.55 As he approached the city in September the Senate came to welcome him beyond the walls; he was placed in a gilded chariot waiting to receive him outside the gate; and as he passed through the Forum along the Via Sacra to the Capitol the entire population went out to receive him. To use his own words, "It seemed that all the city was drawn from its foundations to come and salute its liberator." 56 Is it strange that at such a moment a nature so emotional should have cried out: "I do not feel as though I were simply returning from exile; I appear to myself to be mounting to heaven"? Let us heartily enjoy with him that one day equivalent to immortality (immortalitatis instar fuit), when all the popular societies of Rome were pouring congratulatory addresses upon him. Let us banish the thought of hypocrisy; let us not say with Juvenal: Who could endure the Gracchi if they were to rail at the seditious mob? Who could not confound heaven with earth and sea with heaven, if Verres were to pretend to hate a thief, Milo a murderer? if Clodius were to decry adultery, Catiline accuse Cethegus of factious views? if Sulla's three pupils were to declaim against Sulla's proscriptions? 57 Cicero was forced to descend rapidly from his heavenly heights; he was forced to realize that he had made no mistake when he said: As the sea, which is calm when left to itself, is excited and turned up by the fury of the winds, so, too, the Roman people, of itself placable, is as easily roused by the language of demagogues as by the most violent storms.58 Clodius ready to re new the fight. Speech in the Senate, September 5. His remorseless and resourceful enemy Clodius was ready and waiting for him at the head of the rabble that had ruled during the three years of anarchy which followed the seizure by the triumvirate of the government of the Republic. But before he was called upon to renew the fight with Clodius, he appeared in the Senate on September 5, the day after his return, where he offered the profoundest thanks to his friends and the bitterest abuse to his enemies, attacking with special violence Gabinius. and Piso, nominees of Pompey and Caesar, who had been consuls during the preceding year. On the same day he addressed the people in the Forum in a speech (a contio) known as the oration Ad Quirites, expressing the same Oration general line of thought, but in a more moderate vein. The undertone of both discourses was embodied in the assurance that the safety of the Republic which had been endangered by his absence was made secure by his return: Therefore, when I was absent, the Republic was in such a state that you thought that I and it were equally necessary to be restored. But I thought that there was no republic at all in a city in which the Senate had no influence-in which there was impunity for every crime-where there were no courts of justice, but violence and arms bore sway in the Forum-where private men were forced to rely on the protection of the walls of their houses, and not on that of the laws. Therefore, after the Republic was banished, I thought that there was no room for me in this city; and if the Republic was restored, I had no doubt that it would bring me back in its company.59 Ad Quirites. Upon the heels of these orations came the famine The famine riots 6o in which armed and trained bands of desperadoes 60 59 Ad Quirit., 6. 60 There had been a deficiency of grain in the provinces, especially in Sicily, from which Rome drew her main supply. - Ad Att., iv, 1. The streets, even the Forum, were so insecure that Cicero did not dare to stir abroad. riots. Cicero turned tocracy to the triumvirs. led by Clodius went to the Capitol and attacked the senators with stones. In the midst of such scenes Cicero proposed that a law should be submitted to the people giving to Pompey for five years the absolute power to regulate the importation of grain from every part of the world, a measure so enlarged before its adoption as to give the great one unlimited funds, a fleet, an army, and such authority over the provinces as would supersede that of their actual governors.61 In that way Cicero, who began by attempting to steer a from the aris- middle course between his old allies, the aristocracy, and the triumvirs, now turned to the latter, despite the recent cruelties he had suffered at their hands, as he was advised to do by the shrewd Atticus and his brother Quintus. The aristocracy could never forgive him for being a "new man,” a fact emphasized by the coldness with which they had received the enthusiastic demonstrations by which he had been honored upon his return, and by the stingy spirit in which they proposed to compensate him for the losses of his property. He was also made to feel that he was an object of envy; he said "those who have clipped my wings are sorry to see them grow again." In the midst of these mental perplexities Cicero was still pursued by Clodius who, after destroying his house on the Palatine, 62 had hoped to keep the owner out of possession of the ground by building upon it a temple dedicated to Liberty, levelling at the same time the adjoin 61 Ad Att., iv, 1. 62 The house of Clodius, near to that of Cicero on the Palatine, was more magnificent, having cost, it is said, the enormous sum of 14,800,000 sesterces, or about £130,000. Its owner had adorned it with Greek paintings and statues. Plin., N. H., xxxvi, 24, §2; Cic., Pro Dom., 43. The house of Cicero was a little lower down the hill, a circumstance which explains his threat to increase its height, so as to shut out Clodius from a view of the city: "Tollam altius tectum, non ut ego te despiciam, sed ne tu aspicias, urbem eam, quam detere voluisti." - De Harusp. Res., 15. Domo Sua. Main quesdecided. tion not g portico of Catulus, a monument of his victory over le Cimbrians. As the land had been thus dedicated ad ios usus, a question was made for the decision of the ollege of pontiffs, to which Cicero addressed in Septemer, 57 B.C., the oration known as Pro Domo Sua, which Oration Pro e considered his very best effort-a brilliant retrospect ull of invaluable historical data intermingled with burnng invectives against those who had wronged him. As he main question turned upon the legality of the conseration, the pleader attempted to establish illegality by roving that the illegally elected tribune Clodius could ot consecrate anything. That point of law the college. eft to the Senate by deciding simply that if he who perormed the office of consecration was not legally authorzed to do so, then the area in question should be returned to Cicero,63 who was indemnified by a senatorial decree hat his damage should be born by the state and his house rebuilt at the public expense. When, in January, 56 B.C., the comitia elected aediles, among the winners was Clodius, who was quick to suggest, in a harangue to the people, after the college of soothsayers had declared that some deity had been offended because consecrated places had been devoted to profane uses,64 that the real culprit was Cicero who had pulled down the temple of Liberty on the site upon which his new house was being erected. When the Senate, thus prompted, resolved that the consuls should bring in a bill on the subject of sacred places, Cicero delivered the ora 63 The pontiffs said: "If neither by a command of the free burghers, in a lawful assembly (populi jussu), nor by plebiscite, he who avers that he dedicated the site to religious uses had specific authority given him to do so, and has done it without such authority, we are of opinion that that part of the site which has been so dedicated may, without any violation of religion, be restored to Cicero." - Ad Att., iv, 2. 64 Lange, vol. iii, p. 329. Oration De A critical moment in Caesar's career. Meeting at Cicero. tion known as De Haruspicum Responsis, in which, after tearing to tatters the dreadful past of the brother of the Clodias, he exhorted all citizens of every class to put aside their mutual animosities as the best means of regaining the favor of the gods and their former prosperity. Despite his recent attempt to murder him in the streets, Clodius had not cowed Cicero. He said in the speech in question: But my hatred for Clodius is not greater this day than it was then, when I knew that he was scorched as it were with those holy fires, and that he had escaped in female attire from the house of the Pontifex Maximus, after attempting an act of atrocious licentiousness. That Pontifex Maximus was now Rome's most conspicuous general at the head of legions in Gaul, where he was trying to eclipse the military fame of Pompey by adding vast areas beyond the Alps to the Empire. This was a critical moment in Caesar's career. He had been alarmed by reports that had reached him of the possible repeal of his agrarian law; of a growing feeling of hostility against the coalition; and above all he was eager to have his command renewed for five years. A proposition had been made in the Senate to recall Piso and Gabinius from their proconsular provinces, and that Caesar should also be deprived of the government of the two Gauls which were to be assigned to the new consuls elect. On April 5, Cicero himself had moved that on May 15 the Senate, if there was a full house, should discuss Caesar's Campanian land law. And so, when he met Caesar at Luca, where the alliance between the three selfconstituted rulers of Rome was renewed, the latter expressed his resentment in these terms, which Cicero has preserved for us: |