GERMAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OCERG, CLODIUS and MiLO. ROMAN POLITICAL LIFE IN THE FIRST CENTURY,, B. G. A LECTURE DELIVEREP BEFORE THE HARVARD CLASSICAL CLUB, APRIL 25, 1900; ' BY Horace White, LL D. NEW YORK : The Evsning Post Job Printing House, 156 Fuj-ton Stekbt. 1900. . The original of tliis book is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031287455 Cicero, Clodius and Milo. ROMAN POLITICAL LIFE IN THE FIRST CENTURY, B. C. C 5 ^ V- •■■■ ■( f A LECTURE DELIVERED BEFORE THE HARVARD ^^ :'' « CLASSICAL CLUB, APRIL 25, 1900, BY Horace White, LL. D. NEW YORK ! Thb EvBNmc Post Job Printing House, 156 Fm.TON Street. 1900. ^ Q CICERO, CLODIUS AND MILO. Ladies and Gentlemen : I shall invite your attention to an episode in ancient history which brings into view the decline and fall of the Roman republic. This is, to my mind, the most instructive chapter in the annals of ancient tixnes, since it shows how a great people became a prey to their own vices and follies, and after conquer- ing the world surrendered their liberty to men whom they had armed to take away the liberty of others. The historian Sallust dates the decline of the re- public from the destruction of Carthage, " from which time," he says, "the manners of our forefathers de- generated, not as before, gradually, but with the down- ward rush of a torrent." Having no longer a rival that she need fear, Rome began to plunder the provinces, not merely by a tribute of fixed amount, but by military governors practically irresponsible, who were chiefly engaged in robbing the provincials and dividing the plunder with those who were able to shield them from punishment. The whole industrial system rested on slavery, which was robbery in a more aggravated form. Three or four hundred men ruled the world in this manner. Their appetites grew with what they fed on, and, since the amount of plunder was not tmlimited, they fell to quarreling over it. The quarrels of the nobles gave opportunities to demagogues to rise by espousing the interests of the plebs. Such a condition was sure to produce the gang and the boss in due time. Factions, and street fighting to control the elections, came on apace, and these contests widened into civil wars, proscriptions, confiscation and government by terror, until monarchy became the least evil of the 4 ROMAN POLITICAL LIFE time. Beginning with the murder of Tiberius Gracchus, the Roman republic, like an uneasy volcano, began to spout fire and mud, and the eruptions continued until the whole mass fell inward. About one hundred years were filled with this long agony. The republic was a government by great families bestriding a mass of inferiors who were yet free citizens possessed of intelligence, bravery and numbers, cruelly oppressed, smarting under the sense of inferiority, and ever struggling to get a greater share of the govern- ment, and the emoluments thereof. Cicero, in his De Officiis (ii, 21), quotes a saying of the tribune Marcius Philippus in the year 104, "that there were not two thousand Roman citizens who possessed any property." Cicero neither affirms nor denies this statement. He alludes to it merely to deprecate it as having a leveling tendency, leading to a demand for a division of property. An extract from a speech of Tiberius Gracchus, pre- served for us by Plutarch, pictures the condition of the common soldiers of his time, about the year 133 B. C. : " The wild beasts of Italy had their dens and holes and hiding-places, while the men who fought and died in defense of Italy enjoyed, indeed, the air and light, but nothing else. Houseless, and without a spot of ground to rest upon, they wander about with their wives and children, while their commanders, with a lie in their mouths, exhort the soldiers in battle to defend their tombs and temples against the enemy ; but out of so many Romans not one has a family altar, or an ancestral tomb, and they fight to maintain the luxury and wealth of others, and they die, with the title of lords of the earth, but without possessing a single clod to call their own." The office of tribune of the plebs was created in the 3'ear 494, b. c, to protect the plebeians against the tyranny and injustice of the higher magistrates and of the patricians. The word tribune means tribe man, or chief of the tribe. There had been military tribunes IN THE FIRST CENTURY, B. C. 5 or tribe men, from the earliest times. The new officers were tribe men with different functions. At first their powers were confined to the protection of the plebeians against the arbitrary acts of the patricians. In order that the tribunes might not be interfered with in these functions, their office and their persons were declared to be sacred, and inviolable. Only a plebeian could be elected a tribune of the plebs. The tribunician power grew by degrees till it became the greatest in the State, although not the highest dignity. A tribune could even imprison a consul in certain cases. There are some such instances recorded. The tribunes had authority to convene the comitia tributa, or general assembly of the people, and to propose laws for enact- ment by them. The influence of the tribunes was nearly omnipotent in passing any measure which they might bring forward. So great did the tribune's power become that patricians themselves sought the office. The only way they could obtain it was by procuring adoption into a plebeian family. Let us imagine, if we can, the American Republic governed at New York by a popular assembly, meeting in Union Square and passing laws at the instigation of anybody who could command the hearing of a mob swayed by passion and restrained only by the social influence or the bribes of a few hundred rich but un- principled men. This was the kind of government that Rome had in the time of the Gracchi. It went from bad to worse, and from one revolution to another. Battles were fought in the streets over laws for the settlement of colonies and for distributions of corn to the poor. On a measure of the former kind, proposed by the tribune Saturninus, two battles were fought in one day, and Saturninus perished as the Gracchi had perished before him. We, looking backward, can see that Roman liberty 6 ROMAN POLITICAL LIFE was perishing, although Sulla had not yet marched his legions into the city. The sabre, as Mommsen ob- serves, had not yet interfered with the constitutional rule of the bludgeon, but it was sure to do so, as a superior tool always displaces an inferior one sooner or later. The republic was thoroughly corrupt. Uncon- trollable forces had been let loose within it. The good men, upon whose united strength Cicero relied to save the state, were hurried along with the torrent. Their influence was slight except in the presence of some startling crime like the conspiracy of Catiline, or some overmastering peril like the approach of the Cimbri and Teutones from the North. As soon as the imme- diate danger was past, the oligarchy returned to their plundering and their unbridled vices, the mob to their gladiatorial shows, their street fights and the selling of their votes in the elections. Into this kind of society Marcus TuUius Cicero was bom in the year io6 b. c, and Julius Caesar was born four years later. We shall see with what different eyes these two men looked Upon the world in which their lot was cast. When they had arrived at years of re- sponsibility Sulla was Dictator of Rome and monarch of the world. He had reached this place without the motive of personal ambition. An aristocrat, a dillet- tante, a voluptuary, not naturally cruel, but a man without scruples and of iron will, Sulla found himself in this weltering mass. He came to the front because ' he was the ablest soldier of his day. The Roman army was no longer composed of Roman burgesses having homes to return to at the end of a campaign. It consisted of the proletariate of Italy and of recruits from Gaiil, Spain, Africa and other prov- inces, men whose sole motive in fighting was pay and plunder. On the first occasion when a hostile Roman army took possession of Rome itself the question in dis- IN THE FIRST CENTURY, B. C. 1 pute was whether Marius or Sulla should have command of the war against Mithridates. The command had been given in the regular way to Sulla, and he was preparing to march from Capua when Marius attempted to snatch it from him in an irregular way by a popular vote. Sulla called his army together and told them what had taken place in the city. " They were eager for the war against Mithridates," says Appian, "because it promised much plunder and they feared that Marius would enlist other soldiers instead of themselves." They demanded that Sulla should lead them to Rome, which he did without delay. The Marian faction had not expected such a movement. Sulla entered the city as a con- queror and killed his opponents, or put them to flight. He then marched against Mithridates and overthrew him at the end of a three years' war. His enemies in Rome had meanwhile recovered their lost ground, ob- tained possession of the city and the whole of Italy, had put the friends of Sulla to death, or sent them into banishment, and had sought to murder his wife and children. He returned with a veteran army which was wholly devoted to him and cared nothing for Rome, or for Italy, except for the plunder they contained. Sulla destroyed or dispersed the forces opposed to him, entered the city, massacred the leaders of the Marian faction, confiscated their property and made himself Dictator with legislative and executive powers for an indefinite term. While this blood was flowing Cicero made his first speech in the Forum. He was twenty-six years of age. About the same time Sulla ordered Caesar, then twenty-two years old, to divorce his wife, Cornelia, whose father, Cinna, had been a consul in the Marian faction. Caesar refused to do so, and became for a short time a fugitive from the vengeance of the tyrant. He was saved, however, by the intercession of friends, who 8 ROMAN POLITICAL LIFE were members of the Siallan faction. It is said that when Sulla yielded to their intercession he predicted that this young- man would one day overthrow the party of the nobles. Suetonius refers to this tale, not as a rumor, but as a fact well known {satis constat). I take leave to doubt it, however, for if Sulla had really be- lieved this, Caesar's head would have adorned the forum along with those of the proscribed senators. Until Sulla brought his legions into the city any- body who could command the proletariate could govern Rome. This rabble consisted in part of Roman citizens and in part of foreigners and slaves. The latter classes could not vote, but as they could swell the crowd, and add to the tumult, and join in the fighting, they were by no means a negligible quantity. The rabble required bread which it had not the opportunity to earn, even if it had the willingness. It demanded amusements for its idle time, and these were supplied by the rich in the form of chariot races, and combats of wild beasts and of gladiators. This proletariate was the creation of the upper classes, and I do not see how, in the time of Cicero, it could have been any better than it was. It was bound to give its favor and support to those who gave their support and favor to it, to such men as Gaius Gracchus, Satuminus, Sulpicius, Cinna, Catiline and Clodius. These men were political bosses. They commanded the proletariate by turns. Their several careers, together with that of Sulla, taught the lesson that anybody who could command both the rabble in- side the walls, and a victorious army outside, could be the ruler of the world. A little later it became plain that the commander of the army could dispense with the favor of the rabble, and later still the army found out that it could make and unmake its commanders. The conspiracy of Catiline was overthrown by Ci- cero in the year 63. He was then forty-three years old. IN THE FIRST CENTURY, B. C. 9 He had executed the leaders of the plot, except Cati- line himself, who fell in battle a month later. Among the rising politicians of the time was Publius Clodius Pulcher, a young patrician of dissolute habits, but of engaging manners, energy of character and an elo- quent tongue. Like most of the gilded youth of his time he was overwhelmed with debt, and he looked to a political career as a means of obtaining ofSce and money. LucuUus was his brother-in-law, and he had accompanied the latter in his campaign against Mithri- dates, but had not distinguished himself except by stir- ring up mutiny in the army. Another brother-in-law was Q. Marcius Rex, who had been consul in the year 68, and who was at this time in command of Cilicia. Clodius left LucuUus and joined Rex. While com- manding a fleet under the latter he was captured by pirates, and he applied to Ptolemy, king of Cyprus, for money to procure his ransom. This penurious prince advanced only two talents for the purpose, and Clodius remembered it against him and a little later "got even with him " by promoting the passage of a law at Rome to depose him and confiscate his treasures. He returned to Rome, and we next hear of him as prosecuting Cati- line for extortion and embezzlement in Africa, but he withdrew the accusation for a bribe. Shortly after- ward he obtained an office in Gallia Narbonensis 64 B. C, where he, too, was accused of plundering the pro- vincials. He was back in Rome again in the year 63, and he co-operated with Cicero in putting down the conspiracy of Catiline. When next we hear of him he was detected in violating the mysteries of the Bona Dea, to which only women were admitted. Cicero writes to Atticus in the year 62 : " I imagine you have heard that P. Clodius, the son of Appius, was caught in women's clothes at the house of Gaius Caesar while the religious ceremonies of the 10 ROMAN POLITICAL LIFE people were going on, and that lie was saved and con- ducted out by the hands of a servant girl, and that it is a great scandal, which I know you will be sorry for." Ad Att. i, 12. It was supposed that he had come at the invitation of Caesar's wife, Pompeia. Plutarch gives a long ac- count of the affair, but we need not recapitulate it, nor would it be worth more notice than an ordinary police court item but for the train of consequences that en- sued. Clodius had been elected to the quaestorship just before this adventure. His presence at the sacred mysteries was declared by the college of pontiffs to be' sacrilege, and it became necessary for the senate to take some action upon it, since a man guilty of such an offence could not hold the quaestorship or any other office. There was then no form of proceeding under Roman law for the punishment of sacrilege. So it be- came necessary to enact one. It was first proposed to pass a law providing for a jury to be chosen by the city praetor, although the usual mode of selecting jurors for criminal trials was drawing them by lot from the three classes of eligibles, senators, equites and' tri- buni cerarii, the latter representing the plebeians. A certain number were drawn, and then the prosecution and the accused were allowed a certain number of challenges. The prosecutor in this case was P. Len- tulus Crus, and he had several assistants, among whom was the orator Hortensius. The tribune Fufius in- sisted on following the usual course in selecting the jury. Hortensius, on behalf of the prosecution, yielded to the demand of Fufius because the latter had the power to veto the whole proceeding and also because he (Hortensius) felt perfectly sure of convicting Clodius in either case. He said that he could cut the throat of Clodius with a leaden sword. Cicero, on the other hand, perceived that a mistake had been made. His IN THE FIRST CENTURY, B. C. ii suspicions were confirmed when the challenges on both sides had been exhausted and the jury, 56 in num- ber, stood revealed. " Never," he says, " was a sorrier lot collected around a gaming table." Yet it contained a minority of honest men. Cicero had advocated with ardor the bill providing for the selection of jurors by the praetor, but he took no part in the trial, except as a witness. Clodius attempted to prove an alibi, and he produced witnesses to testify that at the time of the sacrilege he was at Interamna, fifty miles distant from Rome. Cicero testified that Clodius called at his house in Rome three hours before the sacrilege was com- mitted. In a letter to Atticus Cicero says that, when he saw what kind of material the jury was composed of, he drew in his sails and gave no testimony except such as was necessary and was well known to every- body. The prosecutor called for certain slaves of Clodius to be put to the torture, as was the custom, for the purpose of improving the quality of their testi- mony. Five slaves, whose testimony Clodius most feared, were sent away from Rome. The female slaves who attended Pompeia were put on the rack, including the one who brought Clodius into the house. Caesar was called as a witness, but he testified that he knew nothing about the matter. He had meanwhile divorced Pompeia, and when asked why he had done so he replied that Caesar's wife must be above suspicion — a phrase which has passed into the vocabulary of nations. His mother Aurelia and his sister Julia were also ex- amined, but their only testimony, so far as it has reached us, was that they ordered the man to be put out. Clodius had a mob present at the trial to overawe the witnesses, and when Cicero came forward to testify they sought to intimidate him, but he says that the 12 ROMAN POLITICAL LIFE entire jury interposed their persons for his protection. Then he adds : " Our eminent Areopagites exclaimed that they would not come into the court unless an armed guard was assigned them." All the jurymen were asked whether they wanted a guard, and all ex- cept one answered in the affirmative. So the Senate solemnly voted them a guard, and it was now thought that a conviction of Clodius was certain, as the only question was whether he had been present at the cere- mony in Caesar's house, or not. This fact was well established. Nevertheless, 31 of the jurors voted for acquittal, and only 25 for conviction. The wealthy Crassus, who had just become security for Caesar's debts to the amount of a million dollars, advanced money enough to buy a majority of this jury. It was thought that he and Caesar had come to an understand- ing that Clodius might be useful to them hereafter, and was worth saving. At all events he was saved. Jurors in those days were not kept separate and apart from their fellow-citizens. Anybody had access to them, and in this case Cicero says that in two days' time, by the agency of a single slave taken from the school of gladiators, Crassus summoned the corruptible jurors to an interview, made promises, offered security and paid cash down. In this way the 31 votes were obtained. The other 25, though surrounded by the mob of Clo- dius, voted for conviction. The gravity of the verdict was well understood by Cicero. In the letter to Atti- cus, from which we obtain these particulars, he con- tinues thus : " You ask what is the state of public affairs and of my own. That constitution of the republic which you thought had been confirmed by my counsels, and which I thought had been confirmed by Divine Providence — which seemed to be fixed and founded on the union of all good men and the authority of my consulship — has, you may be sure, unless some god takes pity on us. IN THE FIRST CENTURY, B. C. 13 slipped from our hands by this single verdict ; if it can be called a verdict that thirty men, the basest and most worthless of the Roman people, bought with money, should subvert all law and justice, and that Talna and Plautus and Spongia, and other riff raff of that sort, should decide that a thing was not done, which not only all men, but even cattle know was done." Cicero, however, was a man of sanguine tempera- ment. Immediately after writing these words he began to cheer up his colleagues, saying : " Do not. Conscript Fathers, regard yourselves as utterly fallen. Do not faint because you have received one blow. The wound is one which I cannot disguise, but which I feel sure should not be regarded with extreme fear. To fear would show us to be the great- est of cowards, to ignore it the greatest of fools. * * * No fresh mischief has been done ; only what was actually existing has been discovered. In the trial of one scoundrel several others have been found like him." These words were spoken in the presence of Clodius and naturally they did not improve his temper. A sparring match of repartee and rejoinder between him- self and Cicero ensued. Clodius said : " You see the jury did not believe you under oath." " Twenty-five of them credited me," replied Cicero, " But thirty-one did not credit you, for they required their pay in ad- vance." Now it is a saddening fact, that when the senate started an inquiry into the bribery of this jury, with the view of punishing the guilty ones, Cicero turned around and opposed the investigation. We could not believe this on any less testimony than his own. In his next letter to Atticus he says : " I suppose you have heard of our knights being nearly disunited from the Senate. First they took it very ill that a decree of the Senate should have been promulgated to institute an inquiry concerning those who had received bribes as jurors. When this decree was 14 ROMAN POLITICAL LIFE passed I was accidentally absent, but when I found that the equestrian order was very indignant over it, although they did not openly say so, I reproved the senate, as I thought, with great authority, and spoke forcibly and copiously in not the most honorable cause." . It was Cicero's theory that the stability of the con- stitution could be preserved only by keeping the senate and the equestrian order united, and that the rales of morality should not be allowed to interfere with this prime consideration. Cicero was always ready to do a little evil that great good might come. In this instance the good that he expected did not come. In his next letter to Atticus he gives a lugubrious account of Roman politics and public men, and, among other things, he refers to the jury that tried Clodius, and to the movement in the senate for an investigation of the bribery, and says that although no law was passed for this purpose the equestrian order was alienated from the senate in consequence of the attempt to investigate. " So," he adds naively, " One year has undermined two buttresses of the republic, which owe their existence to me and to me alone, for it has at once destroyed the prestige of the senate and broken up the harmony of the orders." In the same letter he refers to a movement on the part of Clodius which had more significance to himself than he was then aware of. Among the items of news that he sends to Atticus he says that " a certain tribune named Herennius is trying to transfer P. Clodius to the plebs., and is actually proposing a law to authorize the whole people to vote on Clodius's affair in the campus." At this time Caesar was consul ; and the first triumvirate of Pompey, Crassus and himself, governed Rome. It was an imperium in imperio. • It had no more legal standing than Tammany Hall has in New York now, but it controlled Rome as completely as IN THE FIRST CENTURY, B. C. 15 Tammany controls New York. It had been instituted by Caesar. Cicero tells us in his oration De Provinciis Consularibus that Caesar invited him to be a member of this private governing body, but that he declined, because it was in derogation of the dignity of the senate and contrary to his own principles. Caesar was the chief man of the triumvirate, although he did not assume to be such. He was the only one of the three who could control the populace and dispose of their votes. He exercised this power frequently during his consulship to pass laws in an unconstitutional manner, using as much mob violence as was necessary, but no more. If Cato became obstreperous in the forum Caesar caused him to be forcibly removed. If Bibulus, his col- league in the consulship, observed lightning in the sky, (which was the religious signal for postponing the business in hand), the phenomenon was not visible to Caesar. When Bibulus persisted he, too, was removed. Clodius was the only man who had anything like Caesar's ability to command the streets, and Clodius was one of his underlings. By refusing to testify against him, and by bringing the money bags of Crassus to his aid, Caesar had saved him from ruin when he was tried for sacrilege. Appian says that " Caesar now raised Clodius to the tribuneship as a foil to Cicero, who was decrying the triumvirate as tending to mon- archy." This was the truth in a nutshell. For the particulars we are indebted to Cicero himself. Clodius was naturally a demagogue, and in order to make the best use of his talents he must be a tribune of the plebs. To reach this place he must renounce his own rank and secure adoption into a plebeian family. This was a step attended with difficulty in the case of a man who was not under paternal rule, but was sui juris in Roman law. It required the assent of the comitia curiata to transfer a plebeian to the patrician i6 ROMAN POLITICAL LIFE rank, or a patrician to the plebeian. The comitia curiata were now nearly obsolete. They were repre- sented as a matter of form by the thirty lictors. To bring them together the sanction of a consul and of the pontiffs was required, and the presence of an augur to take the auspices. Csesar was both consul anA. pontifex maximus, and Pompey was an augur. Cicero tells us in his oration de Domo that while he was speaking in defense of Gains Antonius, who was charged with mal- administration in Macedonia, he made some complaints about the existing political situation, which were immediately reported with exaggerations to certain eminent citizens, meaning Caesar and Pompey, and that three hours later the same day the legal formalities to make Clodius a plebeian were complied with. Caesar officiated at this ceremony as pontifex maximus, and Pompey as augur. It is probable that Caesar and Clodius had an under- standing that the latter should be elected tribune, and that he should then take such steps as might be neces- sary to close Cicero's mouth. Pompey was not let into this secret, for we find him then and afterwards giving the strongest assurances to Cicero that no harm should come to him through Clodius's election to the tribune- ship. Clodius had motives of revenge to spur him against Cicero. Caesar was about to absent himself from Rome for five years, and he did not want to have Cicero's tongue wagging against the triumvirate while he was far away in Gaul. Clodius accordingly became a candidate for the tribuneship. Cicero first mentions the fact to Atticus in a conteinptuous way, giving Clodius the nickname of Pulchellus or pretty boy. He did not apprehend any consequences to himself from the pretty boy's election, until the latter proclaimed his intention to call Cicero to account for putting Roman citizens to IN THE FIRST CENTURY, B. C. 17 death without trial, referring to the execution of Cati- line's associates. We need not go into the question whether Cicero was justified under Roman law in executing these men or not. That it was a debatable question then is proved by the fact that it has been under debate ever since. Clodius was elected to the tribuneship and entered upon his office in December 59, B. c. The consuls for the ensuing year were Gab- inius, an underling of Pompey, and Piso, the father- in-law of Caesar. Cicero had become apprehensive of Clodius's intentions before the election and had appealed to Pompey for support. The latter had replied that Clodius should pass over his (Pompey's) dead body before any harm should come to Cicero. Yet Clodius did not desist from his purpose. On the contrary, he boasted publicly that his measures had the approval of Caesar, Pompey and Crassus. One of these measures was a law to authorize the formation of political clubs. Such clubs had been suppressed by law six years before. They were bodies of men organ- ized, not to promote political principles, but to parade the streets and use violence in elections and in the passing of laws, and were paid for their services. Even slaves and gladiators were available for this kind of work. As the city had no regular police at that time, the only way a public man could find protection against personal assault was by hiring a similar gang of his own. Dio Cassius says that Clodius caused two other measures to be enacted in preparation for his attack upon Cicero. One was a law forbidding any magistrate to " observe the sky " on the day when the people were assembled to vote upon a law. Observing the sky was a part of the ancient superstition, by virtue of which a magistrate could put a stop temporarily to any public business by saying that the omens were unfavorable. i8 ROMAN POLITICAL LIFE Clodius wanted to avoid any interruption of this kind when the vote should take place on the measure relating to Cicero. A third law brought forward by him was the abolishment of the small remaining charge for the public distributions of corn. The object of this was to add to the popularity of Clodius, and possibly to draw more people to Rome to recruit his street gangs. Having passed his preliminary measures, Clodius brought forward one which provided that anybody who had put Roman citizens to death without trial and the right of appeal should be outlawed. A law, passed at the instance of Caius Gracchus, had provided that no citizen should be put to death without the right of appeal to the people; and the people could set aside the judgment by vote, if they chose to do so. This law was in force when Cicero put the Catilinarians to death. Caesar had meanwhile been invested with a mili- tary command for his Gallic proconsulship, and in this capacity he was outside the walls, but his army was in other parts of Italy. He was in communication with his friends in the city, although he could not himself enter. He now offered Cicero the position of legatus, or lieutenant, under himself in Gaul. This place would have shielded Cicero from the attacks of Clodius, but it would also have removed his troublesome tongue from the forum, and would have put him under obliga- tions to Caesar, neither of which conditions could he endure. So he declined the oifer and resolved to take his chances against Clodius, relying partly on Pompey's friendship and partly on his own supposed popularity. He put on mourning garments, as was the custom of persons under accusation, and his friends did the same, in order to show their sympathy. They accompanied him in this garb through the streets, pelted with mud and stones by the mob of Clodius. Cicero was not per- sonally popular. Even the senators, who voted to put IN THE FIRST CENTURY, B. C. 19 on mourning for him, were not really fond of him. There were few of them who had not been stung by his sarcasms or irritated by his superiority. The populace was an object of loathing to him. In his letters he calls them the " dregs of Romulus " and other oppro- brious names. The populace knew that he was no friend of theirs. This fact Caesar and Clodius had counted on from the beginning. Cicero, on the other hand, thought that the whole of Italy would rush to his support if Clodius should make a movement against him. He so wrote to his brother Quintus in Asia. " All promise me their aid," he said, "the aid of themselves, their friends, clients, freedmen, slaves and money." Clodius proceeded like a man who was sure of his position. Caesar remained outside the gates. He neither denied nor affirmed what Clodius was saying about him, but Cicero was not ignorant of what was in his mind. In his oration pro Sextio, delivered after his recall from exile, he says that Caesar's silence at this time compelled him to believe that he approved of what Clodius was doing. In his private letters and his public speeches, as long as Caesar was alive, Cicero always spoke of him with respect. All of Caesar's acts, and the few letters of his that remain to us, show that he had a sincere admiration and liking for Cicero, and wanted to have him on his side, but was resolved that Cicero should not, with his unrivaled powers of oratory, over- turn the triumvirate and block the road that Caesar had marked out for himself. Here we come to the kernel of the political^ituation at Rome in theyear jS^B. C. ^Cj^cero believed that the senatorial government could be preserved and the republic maintained, and that society could be and ought to be kept going, on the then existing basis. He thought that government could still be carried on by opinion. Caesar thought otherwise. " The republic is 20 ROMAN POLITICAL LIFE nothing but a name, without substance or reality," he said. And he added that "Sulla did not know his A B C's when he laid down the dictatorship." We can see that Cassar was right. The government consisted of an irresponsible and incompetent oligarchy contend- ing with each other and with a brutal mob for the spoils of a devastated world. It was carried on, not by opinion, but by force. The very fact that a man of Cicero's genius, his services, his character, could be outlawed and driven from honje was proof of this, and also of the fact that the republic was rotten to the core. Nor can we regret that the battle, eventually, went against his party, since its continuance in. power im- plied the prolonged agony of eighty millions of people, the victims of every form of injustice known to human misery. It is true that Caesar trampled on all moral laws, that he robbed Spain and Gaul of millions of money which he distributed as bribes in Rome, and that he waded to supreme power through an ocean of blood. Yet this was the price that had to be paid for a better organization of mankind and for the eventual repose of the world. Was it Caesar's aim to bring this blessing to the nations, or was he merely following the behest of his own vaulting ambition ? Each student must answer this question for himself, but it is impos- sible to deny that a change of opinion favorable to Caesar has been spreading over the world during the past half century. We will now return to the machinations of Clodius. Caesar could not enter the city, but Clodius called an assembly of the people at the Flaminion Circus outside the gates, at which he was present. There he was asked whether he approved of Clodius's proposed inter- dict or not. He replied that his opinion of the execu- tion of Lentulus and Cethegus was known to all. He did not think it was right, he had voted against it, but TN THE FIRST CENTURY, B. C. 21 he did not think it best to go back to that affair now. He preferred to let by-gones be by-gones. In this way he washed his hands of the business and left Clodius free to proceed. As the day for the voting drew near Cicero became alarmed and applied to the consuls for protection. Piso said that Gabinius was in debt and must have a province or he would be a ruined man, and that with the help of Clodius he (Piso) could get one for him. He reminded Cicero that he had himself done the same service for his colleague Antonius when he was consul. This was a " centre shot." It shows that although Piso may have been a bad man, he was not a dull one. Somewhat later he said that Cicero was not banished for the acts of his consulship, but on account of the bad poems he wrote about them. Cicero repaid him by the oration in Pisonem, one of the choicest collections of billingsgate in all literature. He says that when he and his son-in-law sought Piso for the purpose named, he found him in a low drinking shop, that he came out of it arrayed in a nightcap and slippers, that his breath was fetid, and that he apologized for his appearance by saying that he was in bad health, and that he was taking wine as a medicine, " and when we had admitted this pretence," he says " (for what else could we do ?), we stood there a little while amid the fumes and smell of your debauchery till you drove us away by filthy lan- guage and still more filthy behavior." As for Gabinius Cicero says that when the whole senate voted to put on mourning in token of their sym- pathy with him (Cicero), Gabinius fled from it with a mind and countenance only less agitated than it would have been if he had fallen in with a crowd of his creditors ; and that when a respectable citizen, Lucius Lamia, dared to present a petition in Cicero's behalf, Gabinius banished him to a distance of two hundred 22 ROMAN POLITICAL LIFE miles from Rome and actually expelled him from the city without any lawful authority to do so. Finally Cicero applied in person to Pompey for assistance. He tells Atticus, in a letter written some years later, that he prostrated himself at Pompey's feet, but that Pom- pey did not so much as raise him up, but said coldly that he could do nothing against the wishes of Caesar. To friends of Cicero, of high rank, who interceded for him, Pompey said that he, as a private individual, could not enter into a contest with a tribune who had an armed rabble at his heels, but that if the consuls and the senate should direct him to raise an army he would do so — a safe answer, seeing that the consuls were on the side of Clodius. It was now necessary for Cicero to decide upon some course of action for himself. He took counsel with his friends. LucuUus advised him to stay and fight it out. Cato, Hortensius and Atticus advised him to retire from Rome, assuring him that he would be speedily recalled. He decided to follow this advice. He afterwards said in his oration pro Sextto that he retired from Rome in order to avert civil war. "I call you to witness," he said, "you, my country, and you, O household gods, and gods of my country, that it was for the sake of your abodes and temples, that it was on account of the safety of my fellow-citizens, which has always been dearer to me than my own life, that I avoided combat and blood- shed." This had a fine Ciceronian ring, but that it was an afterthought is proved by letters he wrote in exile in which he laments that he did not stay and fight it out, regardless of the danger to the abodes and temples of the gods. On the 2oth of March Cicero left Rome by the Ca- puan gate and proceeded southward along the Appian way. The same day his enemy Clodius procured the passage of a law declaring that Cicero had been out- IN THE FIRST CENTURY, B. C. 23 lawed, and prohibiting him from remaining within 400 miles of the city, and confiscating his property. Clo- dius forthwith demolished his houses in city and coun- try, and dedicated the ground on the Palatine, where his house stood, to the goddess of Liberty, so that it might never be restored to him. Cicero was at first doubtful whither he should go, but finally he decided upon Thessalonica where his friend Plancius was quaestor. The latter received him with tenderness, and did everything for his comfort and consolation. We will pass over the hysterical let- ters that he wrote while in exile, filled with moans and tears, with unmanly lamentations of his fate and un- grateful chiding of his friends, some of whom he re- proaches for advising him not to stay and fight, others for advising him not to commit suicide. We pass them over because they are tedious in themselves and are unworthy of one who has held so great a place in the world's literature for two thousand years. His vanity , approached the sublime, and was therefore only one step from the ridiculous. Now the blow given to his inordinate self-esteem almost drove him crazy. Csesar marched to Gaul, leaving Pompey the first citizen of Rome. Pompey had none of the qualities of a politician. He, too, was puffed up with vanity. His success had been so great that he expected homage without ceasing, and without doing anything more to earn it. He had been allowed to wear his triumphal robe on all public occasions, and Cicero says that he was always studying the. pattern of it. Clodius, on the other hand, was a man of action, and as soon as Caesar's back was turned he began to strike out for himself. He had a high disregard for Pompey. One of his earliest acts was to set free the son of Tigranes, King of Ar- menia, who had been brought as a prisoner to Rome by Pompey and was in the custody of the praetor Flavius. 24 ROMAN POLITICAL LIFE Clodius contrived to have the young man brought to his own house and refused to give him up when he was de- manded by Flavins, and also by Pompey. Clodius sent the young man out of Rome. Flavins endeavored to seize him. A fight ensued on the Appian road m which several persons were killed, including a Roman knight named Papirius, a friend of Pompey. Flavins himself escaped with difficulty. The son of Tigranes was spir- ited away. This was a flagrant insult to Pompey and a defiance of law as well as of the triumvirate. Pompey held no public oifice now, and as he had no army he was exposed to the insults and violence of Clodius' mob. He appealed to the consuls, Piso and Gabinius, for protection. Gabinius, who had been elevated to the consulship as his man, tried to curb Clodius, and the result was daily street fighting between two bands of ruffians, one led by a consul and the other by a tribune. Pompey withdrew to the country, but before doing so he took steps to secure the recall of Cicero, " hoping," says Appian, "that when Cicero should come back, mindful of what he had suffered, he would no longer speak against the existing government but would make trouble for Clodius and bring him to punishment." All of these expectations were fulfilled. Pompey wrote to Caesar in reference to the recall of Cicero, and Caesar gave his consent. Clodius went out of office in December. Of the ten new tribunes elected all but two were in favor of the recall of Cicero. Among them was Titus Annius Milo, a man of resolution and a bitter enemy of Clodius. He began a prosecution against Clodius for using violence in the streets. Of the two consuls elected for the ensu- ing year one (Cornelius Lentulus) was a warm friend of Cicero. The other (Metellus Nepos), although for- merly hostile, was now willing to co-operate for his recall. IN THE FIRST CENTURY, B. C. aj On the first day of his consulship Lentulus proposed a senatus consultum for Cicero's recall, and eight of the tribunes supported it. At the suggestion of Pompey the method of procedure was changed, and it was de- cided that the resolution should be submitted to the assembly of the people. This was done on the 25th of January. Clodius had taken possession of the place of meeting before daylight with a body of armed men, slaves and gladiators, who attacked the friends of Cicero when they came upon the ground. A bloody fight took place in the forum. Cicero's brother, Quintus, was nearly killed. There were heaps of corpses left on the ground and the bloodshed was so profuse that it had to be wiped up with sponges. The dead bodies were thrown into the Tiber. The scene in the forum, Cicero says, was like that after a gladiatorial show provided by some wealthy praetor. Of course no other business was transacted that day. Pompey now exerted himself to bring a crowd of voters together who could be depended upon. He went into the Italian towns and made speeches in conjunc- tion with the consul Lentulus, urging the people to come to the city and vote for the recall of Cicero. Milo provided an armed force to defend them against a fresh attack by Clodius. The voting took place in the Campus Martins, which was crowded with people from all parts of Italy. The resolution of the senate was confirmed. Cicero was then at Brundusium. As soon as he received the news, he set out for Rome. His journey was a tri- umphal march, and when he approached the city by the same road that he had taken on his sorrowful departure sixteen months before, he was welcomed enthusiastically by all the citizens of Rome whose good opinion was worth having. There was a controversy over the question whether the ground where Cicero's house stood had been actu- 26 ROMAN POLITICAL LIFE ally dedicated to religious uses or not. It was referred to the College of Pontiffs. Cicero made a speech on the subject. They decided that a dedication was not valid unless the person making it had been invested by name with authority to do so, by a vote of the people. There had been no such formality in this case. So the senate voted to restore his house to Cicero and to rebuild it at the public cost. Work was begun and was consider- ably advanced when Clodius, on the 3d of November, made an assault upon the contractor and his men, drove them away and set fire to the adjoining house of Quintus Cicero. A few days later he attacked the house of Milo in broad daylight, but was beaten off with the loss of several of his braves. Milo now recruited a band of his own, consisting in large part of trained gladiators, and avowed the intention of killing Clodius if he should meet him in a riot. Cicero thought that Clodius had made Catiline a model of respectability by con- trast. Six years had passed since the conspiracy had been crushed and there had been a marked deteriora- tion of social order, a marked increase of lawlessness in the city. Nobody of importance could now walk out of his house safely without an armed guard. Cicero tells us how he and his guard were set upon by the Clodians on the nth of November. "There were shouts, stone-throwing, brandishing of clubs and swords, and all this without a moment's warning." Cicero and his party were saved by stepping into the vestibule of a friend's house. He says that Clodius might have been killed then and there but that he (Cicero) " was tired of surgery and wanted to starve out the disease." Cicero was soon to learn that although the opti- mates had voted for his return, they were not fonder of him than they had been before. He was still a novus homo to them. He did not belong to their set. Clodius did IN THE FIRST CENTURY, B. C. 27 belong to it, although he had voluntarily gone out of it. They winked at these outrages and put obstacles in the way of Milo, when he tried to bring Clodius to trial. Finally, when a member of his gang named Sextus Clodius, was prosecuted for violence, all the senatorial members of the jury voted for his acquittal, although there was still a majority of three for con- viction. The nobles were equally pleased with the attacks of Clodius on Pompey, who was also, in their estimation, an upstart. Cicero rebuked them in his oration de Haruspicum Responsis. " I am not surprised at Clodius," he said. " He does after his kind. But I am astonished at those men of sense and character, first, that they listen so readily when they hear a great citizen and a noble servant of the commonwealth tra- duced by the tongue of a scoundrel ; next, that they hold a doctrine most contrary to their own interests, that the glory and dignity of any man are at the mercy of the insults of a rascal, bankrupt in fortune and reputation ; , lastly, that they do not appreciate, though I fancy they must have some suspicion of it, that these same wild and whirling words may one day be directed against themselves." The next scene in this strange eventful history is Cicero's submission to the triumvirate. Shortly after his recall from exile he wrote to Atticus, that those who fancied they had clipped his wings would find that they were growing again. In order to vindicate his inde- pendence he must needs go back a few years and try to repeal a law passed by Caesar for the colonization of the public lands in Campania. Cicero had been bit- terly opposed to this act, and he maintained that it was no law, because it had been passed in an unconstitu- tional manner. This was probably true. It was the cus- tomary way of passing laws during Caesar's consulship. Cicero moved in the senate to reopen the question, and 28 ROMAN POLITICAL LIFE made a speech on it, which has not come down to u& Pompey was present and did not object, but when the news reached Caesar at Luca, in Cisalpine Gaul, a mes- sage from him conveyed through Pompey to Cicero's brother Quintus, led the great orator, not only to drop the Campanian land question, but to abandon the con- stitutional party and become the humble servant of the triumvirate. He became Caesar's most fulsome eulo- gist, although it is perfectly evident that he hated and feared him all the time he was heaping praises on him. The arguments he employed in letters and speeches to reconcile his former position with his later one — his real principles with his assumed ones — are very hollow. There were some depths of humiliation, how- ever, that he might have avoided and ought to have been spared, such as a defense of Gabinius, when the latter was tried for all sorts of crinres""as proconsul of Syria. Gabinius had been one of the vilest tools of the triumvirate in procuring Cicero's banishment, and had been lashed in public speeches in Cicero's most effective style. Yet when this degraded wretch was brought to the bar of justice Cicero was chosen by the triumvirs to defend him, and did so. It was a still harder task to defend himself for defending Gabinius. Gabinius was nevertheless convicted, fined and ban- ished. This was one of the last triumphs of the god- dess of Justice in republican Rome, and it is an in- stance of the irony of history that it was accomplished in spite of the arguments of the prosecutor of Verres. Cicero's speech on the Consular Provinces was made at this time. He here professes great admiration for Caesar. One of the senators interrupted him to say that Caesar had instigated the men who procured Cicero's banishment. Even if that were true, he replied that he could find abundant precedent for forgiving a man who had performed such noble deeds of arms for the IN THE FIRST CENTURY, B. C. 29 republic. Then he proceeded to extol Caesar's military exploits in Gaul and Britain. At this time and by this very means Caesar was preparing, unconsciously I think, an instrument with which Cicero and the whole sena- torial party were to be swept out of Rome and Italy. Cicero's sense of his own degradation was keen. It is shown in a letter to Atticus (iv, 6), in which he speaks of the death of his friend Lentulus, whom he describes as a good patriot and a great man. Cicero says that he does not mourn his loss, because Lentulus has been snatched away by the special favor of the gods from the conflagration of his country. "For what," he continues, "could be more humil- iating than the life we are living, especially mine ? For, as to yourself, though by nature a statesman, you have yet avoided any servitude peculiar to yourself ; you merely come under a designation common to all of us. But I, who, if I speak as I ought about the republic, am thought mad, if I say what expediency dictates am con- sidered a slave, and if I say nothing am looked upon as crushed and helpless — what must I be suffering? Suffer indeed I do, and all the more keenly that I can- not even show my pain without appearing ungrateful." In the year 53 Clodius was a candidate for the praetorship, and Milo for the consulship. They were sworn enemies. Both of them kept bands of gladiators, with which they traversed Rome and the country round about. Collisions between them were frequent. Cicero regarded the further advancement of Clodius with ter- ror. The only person who could control him was Caesar, who was far away in Gaul. Milo could meet him with his own weapons, and hold him in check by fighting. Accordingly, Cicero promoted the election of Milo to the consulship with all his might. In a letter to C. Scribonius Curio, he urges the latter to use his influence for Milo. He says that it is almost a matter of life and death to him, and that his whole heart and soul are embarked in the endeavor to secure Milo's election. 30 ROMAN POLITICAL LIFE The election did not take place at the usual time. It was postponed on account of the disgusting bribery- employed by the several candidates and by the fre- quent street fights that were taking place between the opposing factions. It became necessary to appoint an interrex. On the 17th of January, 52, there was an accidental meeting of Clodius and Milo and their respect- ive bands on the Appian road, at Bovillse, about ten miles from Rome, and Clodius was killed. An impartial account of this affair is given by Asconius Pedianus, a grammarian of the time of Nero, who composed commentaries on the orations of Cicero. He tells us that Milo was on his way to Lanuvium, which was his birth-place, and of which he was dictator or chief magistrate, in order to appoint a priest. He was in a chariot, and was accompanied by his wife, Fausta, who was a daughter of the Dictator Sulla, and by a friend named Marcus Fusius. Clodius had been visiting Aricia on public business, and, having finished it, was now returning on horseback to Rome. He had about thirty slaves armed with swords. Milo had a much larger number, and among them two rather famous gladiators named .^Eudamius and Birria, who were walking in the rear. The meeting was accidental. Clodius and Milo, who were in the front, merely exchanged hostile scowls and passed on, but the two gladiators found some occasion for quarrel with the servants of Clodius. The latter turned back with a menacing air, and Birria stabbed him through the shoulder with a rapier. "The riot increasing," says Asconius, " Milo's servants ran up to the assistance of their companions ; and, Clodius being wounded, was carried into a tavern near Bovillae. Milo, hearing that Clodius was wounded, and thinking that it might prove dangerous if he should live to resent it, but that his death would give him great satisfaction, even if he IN THE FIRST CENTURY, B. C. 3r should be punished for it, ordered the tavern to be broken open; and Clodius, attempting to conceal him- self, was dragged forth and killed with repeated stabs. His body was left on the highway." The dead bodies of eleven of his slaves were left lying beside him. The keeper of the tavern was killed also. So this man of violence perished by violence, yet we cannot help thinking that he was a better man than his antagonist, although Cicero heaps unbounded praise upon Milo and torrents of abuse upon Clodius. Among the crimes laid at the door of Clodius, he was never accused of following a disabled and bleeding antagonist into a house where he had been carried for shelter, and murdering him in cold blood. We need not wonder that there was tremendous excitement in Rome when the corpse arrived there, and the facts became known. The crowd around Clodius's house, where his body lay, was so dense that several persons were crushed to death. Clodius's wife, Fulvia, the same who was after- wards married to Mark Antony, rent the air with her cries of grief, and exposed her husband's remains in such way as to show the wounds he had received. The next day a great crowd of Clodius's partisans carried his body to the forum and placed it on the Rostra. There speeches were made by two tribunes, after which the crowd made a funeral pile of benches, desks, tables, books, and other combustible matter, on which the body was burned. The fire communicated itself to the Senate house and to the Basilica Porcia, which had been erected by Cato the Censor, and both were consumed simultaneously with the corpse of Clodius. The mob then attacked the house of Milo, who was absent, but they were beaten off. The next demanded that the interrex,' Marcus Lepidus, should immediately order the holding of the comitia for the election of consuls, and when he refused they attacked 32 ROMAN POLITICAL LIFE his house, broke into it, and demolished his ancestral busts and furniture. Appian tells us that rioting con- tinued for several days. " Search was made " (he says) " not for the friends of Mile ; but all who were met with, whether citizens or strangers, were killed, and especially those who wore fine clothes or gold rings. As the government was without order, these ruffians, who were for the most part slaves, and were armed men against unarmed, indulged their rage ; and making an excuse of the tumult that had broken out, they turned to pillage. They abstained from no crime, but broke into houses, looking for any kind of portable property, but pretending to be searching for the friends of Milo. For several days Milo was their excuse for burning, stoning, and every kind of out- rage." The same author tells us that the Senate assembled in consternation, intending to appoint Pompey dictator, but at the suggestion of Cato appointed him consul without a colleague, so that he might have the authority of a dictator, with the responsibility of a consul. He collected a military force and brought it to the city gates. In due time Milo was put on trial for the murder of Clodius, Cicero conducting the defense. The partisans of Clodius surrounded the court in great numbers, in order to intimidate Milo's witnesses and counsel. This they succeeded in doing to such an extent that Pompey was compelled to bring in his soldiers to protect the court. Even then the mob did not desist. Pompey at first ordered his troops to strike the rioters with the flat of their swords, but they only laughed at him, and continued their demonstrations. Then he ordered his soldiers to charge, and they did so, killing and wounding a number of the rioters. In spite of all this, they raised such a menacing shout when Cicero rose to speak that he was disconcerted, and made a complete failure. Milo was convicted, and went into exile at Marseilles. Cicero afterwards com- IN THE FIRST CENTURY, B. C. 33 posed a speech, or wrote out the one that he had intended to make, and sent a copy of it to Milo. Dio Cassius says that Milo wrote him a reply, saying : " It was fortunate for me that you did not make this speech at the trial, for if you had done so I should not now be eating the delicious mullets of Marseilles." Milo stole back to Italy while Caesar was engaged in his campaign against Pompey on the other side of the Adriatic. He attempted to tamper with the loyalty of some of Caesar's soldiers in Campania, and they put him to death. He survived Clodius only four years. Our theme does not carry us beyond Cicero's ora.- tion pro Milone. It has been my aim to present a view of the conditions and methods of political life in Rome at the period shortly before the final catastrophe, which took place under the second triumvirate. It is related by Polybius, who was present, that the younger Scipio, when he beheld the smoking ruins of Carthage, which he had just destroyed, burst into tears, and repeated the lines with which Hector had foretold the downfall of Ilium : " The day shall come in which our sacred Troy, And Priam and the people over whom, Spear'bearing Priam rules, shall perish all." When asked by Polybius what he meant by using these words, he said that he was thinking of the possible fate of his own country when he reflected upon the mu- tability of human affairs. Yet Scipio could never have imagined the kind of fate that actually overtook his country a little more than a century later. He was thinking of some enemy rising up in some part of the world to conquer Rome, as Hannibal had sought to do, and as he (Scipio) had conquered Carthage, throwing down its walls, burning its houses, demolishing its temples and tombs. The actual fate of Rome was worse. It was unimaginable 34 ROMAN POLITICAL LIFE to him and is scarcely credible to us now, and yet it was only the external sign of inward decay. Her own soldiers turned her out of house and home, and butchered the proscribed citizens with no more pity than they would have shown to Gallic or Thracian peasants. Scipio permitted all the inhabitants of Carthage to depart unharmed who desired to do so. No such pity was shown to Romans of the noblest blood, the highest reputation, the most unblemished lives. Nor were the decrees of the second triumvirate restricted to their own enemies, or to the opposite political party. They inscribed on the list of their victims the names of rich men and of infant children, merely because they were rich, and they selected eighteen flourishing and unoffending Italian cities for general confiscation, as rewards for their troops. These towns were designated beforehand (before the war which ended with the battle of Philippi), to stimulate the zeal of the soldiers. If these things could have been foreseen by Scipio, he would not have been repeat- ing Greek hexameters over the smoking ruins of Car- thage. He would have been speechless with horror. Now, may not the greatest of modern republics draw some lesson of value from the experience of the greatest of ancient ones ? " If there be one lesson which history clearly teaches," says Mr. Froude in his sketch of Caesar, " it is this, that free nations cannot govern subject provinces. If they are unable or un- willing to admit their dependencies to share their own constitution, the constitution itself will fall in pieces from mere incompetence for its duties." These words are not more appropriate to our pres- ent circumstances than those which Thucydides puts in the mouth of Cleon, the son of Cleaenetus, viz. : " I have remarked again and again that a democracy cannot govern an empire. * * * You [men of Athens] IN THE FIRST CENTURY, B. C. 35 should remember that your empire is a despotism ex- ercised over unwillihg subjects, who are always con- spiring against you. They do not obey in return for any kindness which you do them, to your own injury, but only in so far as you are their masters ; they have no love for you but are held down by force. Be- sides, what can be more detestable than to be forever changing our minds." [Thuc. Ill, 37.J O, prophetic son of Cleaenetus ! What can be more detestable than advocating free trade with Porto Rico to-day and a tariff on Porto Rican goods to-morrow ? What more detestable than promising citizenship and equal rights to a people when we are asking them to come under the American flag, and afterwards denying them the privileges common to all other citizens ? We are receiving news of debauchery in our new colonies, committed by officials sent from Washington, This is galling to our pride. Yet the facts ought not surprise anybody who is familiar with the old pro- consular system. Officials were appointed to govern people to whom they were not responsible. The ap- pointments were made, not in pursuance of any rule to secure fitness for the office, but to gratify senators and men of influence in Rome. These places were ac- counted the spoils of politics. They were a part of the boss system of that day. Honest officials were the ex- ceptions and dishonest ones the rule, because the sys- tem itself was wrong. It devoured the provinces and then it turned and devoured Rome itself. The proconsular system was the fertile source of the corruption in Rome and of the civil dissensions of which we have here had a glimpse. The plunder of the provinces was sent back as bribes to corrupt juries and to buy votes in the elections. Irresponsible power, and the taste for blood acquired in the provinces, came back to the city, dominated her streets and struck down liberty in the forum. Conquest, robbery and corruption 36 ROMAN POLITICAL LIFE went hand in hand, and nowhere more ruthlessly than in Gaul under the proconsulship of Csesar. The ques- tion is often asked : Did not Caesar enter upon the Gallic war in order to train an army with which to overthrow the government of his own country. I think he did not look so far ahead as that. He saw that the republic was governed by force, and he undoubtedly intended that nobody should be stronger than himself. The Gallic proconsulship was exactly fitted for the overthrow of the government whenever the govern- ment was ready to be overthrown. That time had come. Roman liberty was ready to be extinguished. Its spirit had long departed. If it had not been so, Caesar could not have extinguished it. Some time after Caesar's death Cicero exclaimed in a tone of despair : " How wonderful it is that although the tyrant is dead the tyranny lives." These words stamp him as a short- sighted statesman. He could not read the signs of his own time. He did not know that if Caesar were removed Cicero himself would fall into the hands of Antony — out of the frying-pan into the fire. Perhaps we should not have been more discerning than Cicero if we had lived then, but we ought to be better able to read the signs of our own times by the light of his experience. Do I expect that some successful general will bring a victorious army from a conquered province to subvert American liberty ? I do not expect anything in par- ticular. I know that some direful result must come from a deadening of the love of liberty in the hearts of the people. If the spirit of commercialism outweighs the doctrine of equal rights — if provinces and peoples are to be grabbed and held for the money that can be made out of them — we are already under the tyranny of avarice and shall be the proper subjects of any other tyrant who crosses our pathway. Words much like these were spoken by Abraham Lincoln in my hearing IN THE FIRST CENTURY, B. C. 37 forty-two years ago, and it was my privilege to put them in print to be read by successive generations of his countrymen. There never was a time when they were fitter to be heeded than to-day. arV17427^''™" ""'"'^'"y "-fbfary olin.anx 3 1924 031 287 455