Cicero

4

POLITICS AND FOREIGN POSTINGS

Cicero Enters the Ring: 77–63 BC

During his childhood and youth Cicero had watched with horror as Rome set about dismantling itself. If he had a mission as an adult, it was to recall the Republic to order. The image that came to his mind when describing its constitution was of a musical concert.

Just as in the music of harps and flutes or in the voices of singers a certain harmony of the different tones must be maintained … so also a state is made harmonious by agreement among dissimilar elements. This is brought about by a fair and reasonable blending of the upper, middle and lower classes, just as if they were musical tones. What musicians call harmony in song is concord in a state.

These words were written late in life, but, even if his political thinking as a young man was not yet fully formed, Cicero’s experience of Roman politics and his philosophical explorations would already have confirmed his conservative cast of mind. It became his self-ordained duty to conduct the orchestra of all the classes and train it to play in tune again.

Cicero campaigned vigorously and won his election as Quaestor for 75 without apparent difficulty. It may be imagined that he and his family called in every favor and exploited every connection in order to ensure a good turnout. Doubtless many citizens of Arpinum took the trouble to travel to Rome to vote for their local boy. The fact that he was a New Man meant that the outcome would not have looked at all certain.

A Quaestor had no political or military authority. He and his colleagues assisted the Consuls by supervising the collection of taxes and authorizing payments. They were responsible for the management of the Treasury in the Temple of Saturn and had a small, permanent staff to conduct day-to-day business. Since Sulla’s recent reforms the really important feature of the post was that it gave the holder automatic membership in the Senate.

Some Quaestors were given foreign postings and Cicero was allocated one of the two Quaestorships based in Sicily, reporting directly to the governor. Wives did not accompany Romans on official business abroad, and so, once again, Terentia was left behind in Italy, where she doubtless spent much of her time with little Tullia.

With the decline of Italian agriculture and the provision of subsidized corn for the urban masses in the capital, Sicily was Rome’s most important provider of cereals and it was essential to ensure stability of its supply and price. The oldest of Rome’s provinces, the island had been won from the Carthaginians in 241 and, as tribute, its communities were required to export gratis 10 percent of their corn harvest to Rome. If more was needed, it could be acquired by compulsory purchase. It was the Quaestors’ job to calculate the price and the quantity of extra corn to be bought.

In carrying out this task Cicero showed a talent for competent and fair administration. To counteract an inflation of the corn price in Rome, he made an assessment of additional need and negotiated a fair rate with the suppliers. When the Sicilians received payment, he made sure that his office did not deduct the usual, but illegal, commission. This behavior made him very popular.

Cicero believed in honesty in public affairs, but it was also in his personal interest to win over local opinion. If his career was to progress, he would have to build up political support and his stay in Sicily was an excellent opportunity to expand his client list. Cicero won the backing of many equites, some of whom he represented in court in front of the governor. This class included Roman tax farmers and traders and also, since the enfranchisement of Italy and Sicily after the War of the Allies ten years earlier, local aristocracies across the peninsula. It was a substantial new constituency of Roman citizens, still largely untapped, and someone like Cicero whose roots were non-Roman and provincial was well placed to appeal to it. Although his ambition was to join the ruling elite in Rome, he never forgot where his political backing really lay—among the Italian middle classes.

In his leisure hours Cicero was an indefatigable tourist. Sicily had a long and colorful history: originally colonized by the Greek states during their heyday, it contained many wealthy and beautiful cities, with fine temples and works of art by great sculptors and painters. Carthage had dominated the west of the island for many years and, although that was now long in the past, something of the exotic character of her culture survived. Cicero’s headquarters were at Lilybaeum (now Marsala), a wealthy town at Sicily’s western extremity.

The Roman heritage attracted Cicero’s prime loyalty and his deepest feelings, but he was also fascinated by the legacy of other people’s pasts. He sought out and rediscovered the lost grave of Archimedes, the great scientist and geometer, a citizen of Syracuse who had been killed during the Roman siege more than one hundred years before. The exploit demonstrated detective skills and inquisitiveness which he put to good use in his legal career, and he recalled it with pride:

When I was Quaestor, I tracked down his grave; the Syracusans not only had no idea where it was, they denied it even existed. I found it surrounded and covered by brambles and thickets. I remembered that some lines of doggerel I had heard were inscribed on his tomb to the effect that a sphere and a cylinder had been placed on its top. So I took a good look around (for there are a lot of graves at the Agrigentine Gate cemetery) and noticed a small column rising a little way above some bushes, on which stood a sphere and a cylinder. I immediately told the Syracusans (some of their leading men were with me) that I thought I had found what I was looking for. Slaves were sent in with scythes to clear the ground and once a path had been opened up we approached the pedestal. About half the lines of the epigram were still legible although the rest had worn away. So, you see, one of the most celebrated cities of Greece, once upon a time a great seat of learning too, would have been ignorant of the grave of one of its most intellectually gifted citizens—had it not been for a man from Arpinum who pointed it out to them.

When Cicero’s Quaestorship came to an end in 74, he made his way back to Rome. He was feeling very pleased with himself. He had proved his worth as a public official. He had been able to practice and perfect his advocacy techniques in a more relaxed setting than the Forum. He had begun the process of attracting a political following. Above all, he seems to have had a good time. Nevertheless, the episode was a distraction from his true vocation and he avoided further foreign postings. For him, the real point of the Quaestorship was that it gave him entry to the Senate. After years of preparation the serious work of his life was, at last, beginning.

He told an amusing story against himself about an incident on his journey home, a reminder that his thirst for recognition was redeemed by an endearing sense of the ridiculous. “I was filled with the notion that the Roman People would fall over themselves to honor and promote me,” he recalled. He arrived at the seaside resort of Puteoli at the height of the tourist season and had his nose put out of joint when an acquaintance asked if he’d just come from Rome and what was the news. No, Cicero replied, he was on his way back from his province. “Of course,” said the man, “you’ve been in Africa.” No, Cicero observed huffily, Sicily.

Another member of the group, trying to show off his knowledge while smoothing over the misunderstanding, intervened. “Don’t you know that our friend was Quaestor in Syracuse?” With this final inaccuracy (for his headquarters in Lilybaeum had been at the other end of the island), Cicero gave up and decided to act as if he were a holidaymaker like everybody else and had gone only for the bathing.

On reflection he thought he had learned a useful lesson. “Once I had realized that the Roman People was rather deaf, but sharp-eyed, I stopped worrying about what the world heard about me. From that day on, I took care to be seen in person every day. I lived in the public eye and was always in the Forum. I would not allow my concierge, nor the lateness of the hour, to close the door on any visitor.” He trained himself to remember names and liked as far as possible to do without the services of a nomenclator, a slave with a good memory who accompanied a public figure when he went out and whispered in his ear the name of anyone important he was about to meet. Cicero made sure he knew exactly where well-known people lived, where they had their country houses, who their friends and neighbors were. On whatever road he happened to be traveling he could name the owners of the estates he was passing.

Cicero returned to Rome with a growing fortune, a wife and daughter and a bright future. He resumed the pattern of life common to all upper-class Romans of the period. Although he seldom troubled to describe the daily round in his correspondence, there is no reason to suppose that he deviated from the habits and conventions of his friends and peers.

The waking day lasted little longer than the hours of daylight. At dawn Cicero would have risen from his bed in a tiny, barely furnished bedroom and dressed. Traditionalists wore only a loincloth under their togas, but by the first century BC many also put on a tunic, no doubt especially during the winter months. The toga, a remarkably incommodious garment, was a large length of unbleached woolen cloth, cut in a rough circle as much as three meters in diameter. Putting it on was an art and the rich employed a trained slave to arrange its complicated folds. It was draped over the body in such a way that the right arm was free but the left covered. Drafty in winter and stickily hot in summer, it had few practical advantages to recommend it and took continual care and attention to keep in place. But, however uncomfortable, the toga was a Roman’s uniform and a powerful visual symbol of citizenship.

The day’s work began at once. Breakfast was a glass of water or, at most, bread dunked in wine and served with cheese, honey or olives. Cicero’s front door was opened to all comers but especially his clients or followers, who came to pay their respects and accompany him to the Forum when political or legal business took him there. Otherwise, the first half of the day was devoted to work in his study.

AS a rule Romans were clean-shaven. They paid a visit every day or so to a barber’s shop, a center of gossip and chatter, unless they owned a domestic slave who had the necessary skill with a razor. In the absence of soap, barbers used only water and considerable dexterity was required if the customer was to survive the experience without smarting eyes and cut skin. Young men delayed as long as possible before removing the down on their faces (as so often with the Romans, this was the occasion for a religious ceremony, the depositio barbae).

The afternoon was a time for a siesta or at least for winding down. There might be a public entertainment to attend; holidays were frequent and often marked by gladiatorial shows, chariot races, boxing matches or theatrical spectacles. Going to the public baths was the most important, or at least the most regular, of a Roman’s relaxations. These were similar to today’s Turkish baths, with steam rooms for washing and scraping the body, tepidaria for cooling off and cold plunges. The wealthy built small bathhouses in their own homes.

Cicero would take a light lunch or snack if he wished but did not have to wait long for the main meal of the day, dinner, which was taken in the mid- to late afternoon. For a man who liked company, as he did, this was the ideal occasion for entertainment and, witty and well-informed, he was at the top of many guest lists. The food served was as sumptuous as could be afforded and laws were passed in unavailing attempts to limit extravagance. Meals would begin with a gustatio or taster—honeyed wine and canapés. The main courses featured a varied diet of meats—chicken, turbot, boar and (a special delicacy) sows’ udders and vulvas. Fattened game, fowl and pigs were the height of luxury. Finally came dessert, for which only the lightest food was served—not only fruit but also shellfish.

During the late Republic a fashion grew for collecting fish, which sold for very high prices in the markets. Well-heeled gourmets had fishponds of their own where they bred eels, bream and lampreys. One was sold by a contemporary of Cicero for the astonishingly high price of 40,000 sesterces and the mentor of his adolescence, Crassus, was supposed to have gone into mourning when a lamprey of his died.

Diners, lying on couches, were provided with knives, spoons and toothpicks; forks were unknown and much use was made of fingers. Slaves went around with water jugs and towels so that guests could wash their hands course by course. Wine was served during the meal (rich and heavy, it was usually diluted with water), but the real drinking began once the food had been cleared away. This was the commissatio—a ceremonial drinking competition at which goblets had to be drained in a single gulp. Healths were drunk. This was the time for conversation and debate, which might last well into the evening, and was the Roman equivalent to the Greek symposium.

Unless out at a late-night party, most people were safely back at home by sunset, when public life shut down; at this hour Senate meetings were adjourned and the baths closed. For most people bedtime was early, although Cicero admitted to writing speeches or books and reading papers at night (there was a Latin word for it, lucubrare—to work by lamplight).

Sulla’s reforms promised a return to order. Traditionalists were back in charge and, despite a brief, unsuccessful insurrection by a popularis ex-Consul in 77, the Senate’s authority had been greatly enhanced. But two major new threats called for urgent attention. Spain, in the hands of a general who had fought under Marius, was in revolt. Then, in 73, a small band of gladiators escaped from their barracks in Padua, set up camp for a time on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius, marched to the cattle ranches of the south and freed thousands of slaves. The gladiators were led by a Thracian named Spartacus, who not only was physically brave and aggressive but was an educated and cultured man. He also had an instinct for generalship and defeated four Roman armies sent out to dispose of him.

Two of Sulla’s former protégés rose to the occasion. The first was thirty-three-year-old Cnaeus Pompeius (our Pompey), who put down the Spanish rebellion with some difficulty. He was a delightful man to look at. According to Plutarch, “his hair swept back in a kind of wave from the forehead, and the configuration of his face around the eyes gave him a melting look, so that he was supposed (although the resemblance was not a close one) to resemble statues of Alexander the Great.” His appearance belied a vigorous organizational energy. A decade previously, on Sulla’s return from his eastern wars, he had raised (entirely against the law) an army of his own from the district of Picenum, northeast of Rome, where his family had estates. At the scandalously early age of twenty-three he had appointed himself its commander and been active in wiping out opposition from the defeated popularis regime. He had acted so ruthlessly that he had been nicknamed the Butcher Boy (adulescens carnifex). It was in these early campaigns that he won the formal, and much politer, cognomen of Magnus, the Great—a not altogether deserved compliment, but another link with the memory of Alexander.

Sulla, duly grateful and impressed, promoted Pompey and married him to his stepdaughter. But he soon grew alarmed by his young general’s growing prestige and their relationship cooled. In fact, success failed to go to the young man’s head. He enjoyed recognition and liked to be busy, but he had no intention of following in his patron’s footsteps and taking over the state.

The second of Sulla’s former lieutenants to distinguish himself was Marcus Licinius Crassus, a distant relative of the old orator under whom Cicero had trained in his student days. Probably about forty, Crassus was able, affable and unscrupulous. His father and brother had been killed by populares when Marius was in power and Crassus had escaped to Spain, where his family had connections. He spent eight months hiding in a cave (friends supplied him with food and a couple of attractive slave girls to while away the time) and came out only on Sulla’s return to Rome. However, despite his experiences he developed no particular political convictions and was happy to support populares in the future whenever it suited him.

Crassus made his fortune from the proscription, buying up on the cheap the property of those who had been killed. Like Chrysogonus, he was rumored to have inserted an innocent man into the list in order to get hold of his money. He noticed that jerry-built apartment blocks had a tendency to collapse or catch fire and, whenever this happened, he purchased adjacent buildings at knockdown prices—sometimes even while fires were still blazing. He trained teams of slaves as architects and builders and became one of the wealthiest property developers in Rome. He owned silver mines and landed estates and would say that no one could claim to be rich unless he could afford to pay an army’s wages.

Crassus lived modestly but his house was open to everyone; guests at his dinner parties were usually ordinary people rather than members of the great families. He lent freely to all and sundry, although he was pitiless when it came to repayment. In the street he was polite and unaffected and was good at flattering people and getting them on his side. He liked to be well-liked and generally was.

Crassus was given the command against Spartacus. The former slave had turned out to be a first-rate general and posed a growing threat. He was in negotiation with the Republic’s great opponent in the eastern provinces, Mithridates, King of Pontus, and it was feared he might even march on Rome. But Crassus too was an effective campaigner and in 71 he defeated the slave army in a decisive and bloody battle, during which Spartacus and more than twelve thousand of his companions lost their lives. Crassus crucified six thousand of the survivors in rows along the Appian Way all the way from Capua, where the revolt had started, to the walls of Rome. He won his victory in the nick of time. Pompey had been recalled from Spain to help dispose of the slaves and arrived with his army just as the battle was coming to an end. There was nothing more to do than help mop up the fugitives, but much to Crassus’s irritation, his rival managed to gain a good deal of the credit for a success in which he had played only a minor role.

In fact, the one thing that most upset Crassus throughout his life was Pompey’s predominance. Once when someone said, “Pompey the Great is coming,” he laughed and asked, “AS great as what?” AS a rule Crassus did not bear grudges. This was not because he had a good heart but because other people rarely engaged his emotions. He had little difficulty in dropping friends or making up quarrels as occasion served. Cicero, whose view of friendship was different, had a very low opinion of him.

The two generals deserved the state’s gratitude for their military accomplishments, but the Senate regarded them as serious threats to the status quo. Yet despite the fact that Pompey was underage, had not yet become a Senator nor yet been elected to any of the magistracies, it proved impossible to stop him from standing as candidate with Crassus for the Consulship in 70. They stood out from the common run of their contemporaries, and had no trouble getting elected.

Pompey and Crassus were on very poor personal terms, and neither wished to be put at a disadvantage vis-à-vis the other. AS a result, they hesitated for some time before disbanding their armies; but they could see that if they did not hold firm as partners in the face of Senatorial opposition, they would be picked off separately. Pompey’s glamour made him popular with the voters and there was general relief at the winding up of the slave revolt. The candidates added to their appeal by announcing a program of reforms that did away with many of the key components of Sulla’s constitution; in particular, they revived the powers of the Tribunes. This was not a disinterested measure, for it gave powerful generals a handy mechanism for bullying or bypassing the Senate.

Another reform under consideration at this time was of particular interest to Cicero. Sulla had transferred the right to sit on juries from the equites to the Senate. The result had been judgment by peers at its most debased. Senators were often charged with corruption and there had been a long line of scandalous acquittals, due to bribery and the unwillingness of jurors to condemn their friends and colleagues. In extortion cases in particular it seemed next to impossible to secure a conviction.

The problem came into sharp focus when a group of leading Sicilians decided to sue their former governor, Caius Verres, who had served an unusually long term of three years, thanks to the demands that Spartacus had made on the time of his appointed successor. During this period Verres had behaved with a greed and ruthlessness that was unusual even by Roman standards.

The chain of events that led to the complaint went back a couple of years. Verres got to know Sthenius, a distinguished Sicilian from the town of Thermae. Both men were art lovers and collectors and for a while they had been on good terms. The governor had persuaded his new friend to part with much of his collection. But when he also demanded some of the city’s unique heritage of Greek sculpture (including a sixth-century BC statue of the poet Stesichorus), it was too much for Sthenius, who convinced the local council to say no.

An enraged Verres contrived to have Sthenius taken to court to face a false accusation of forgery. Deeming discretion the better part of valor, the Sicilian fled abroad and was given a heavy fine of 500,000 sesterces in absentia. This was not good enough for Verres, who then arranged to have a capital charge laid against him. Sthenius soon appeared in Rome, where he had many connections, to air his grievance. An official complaint was to be put before the Senate, but Verres’s father arranged for it to be withdrawn after giving assurances that his son would be persuaded to relent. In spite of this, Verres went ahead with his case and brought in a conviction.

Such was the situation in late 71 when the delegation from Sicily called on Pompey, then Consul-Elect, to ask for his help. They also made contact with Cicero, who now counted Sicilians on his client list, and asked him to bring a case of extortion against Verres. This was the only legal remedy available to them, for they were not allowed to plead in court themselves and were obliged to find a Roman lawyer to act on their behalf. The young Quaestor’s friendliness and lack of bias were not forgotten—nor the forensic skills he had demonstrated during his Sicilian posting. Although not yet acknowledged as the leader of his profession, he was an obviously rising star and seemed a sound choice.

Throughout his career Cicero usually represented the defense; this was one of the rare occasions when he prosecuted. The conventions of clientship gave him little option but to agree to do so. He may have calculated that his involvement in such a high-profile event would do no harm to his chances when he stood for Aedile in the summer of 70, the next lap in the Honors Race. Aediles reported to the Consuls, on whose behalf they exercised various administrative duties in Rome; these included looking after the grain supply, the control of markets, streets and traffic and the prosecution of offenders against moneylending laws. They were also responsible for staging public shows and games. (There were two kinds of Aedile: Plebeian, open only to the popular classes, and Curule, for which both Plebeians and Patricians were entitled to stand; Cicero probably ran for the former.)

Verres and his friends in the Senate were uneasy. His counsel was the best that could be found: Quintus Hortensius Hortalus. Eight years older than Cicero, he was a virtuoso of an elaborate “Asiatic” (as it was called) style of oratory, and the most celebrated member of the Roman bar. In case this was not enough to win an acquittal, steps were taken to sabotage the proceedings in various ways. First, an attempt was made to prevent Cicero from appearing at all. There being no state prosecution service, anyone could bid to take on a case; a friend of Verres, who had once been his Quaestor, volunteered to prosecute him—with the clear intention of pulling his punches and so reducing the risk of conviction. Also, if possible, he would drag out the trial till the following year, when a number of Verres’s friends would probably be assuming important official positions. (Hortensius, for example, was running for Consul.)

So a preliminary hearing had to be held to determine which of the competing advocates had priority. Cicero won the decision and then asked for a stay of trial for 110 days so that he could collect evidence and recruit witnesses. He traveled to Sicily with his cousin Lucius in the depths of an unusually harsh winter and began his investigations. The current governor of Sicily was Lucius Caecilius Metellus, a friend of Verres and a member of one of Rome’s most aristocratic clans. His good offices, supplemented by the recycling of some of Verres’s ill-gotten gains back to Sicily in the form of bribes, hindered Cicero’s detective work. Local communities were unexpectedly reluctant to appoint delegations to attend the trial. Although Cicero was entitled to ask for documents, they were not always produced. Witnesses became mysteriously unavailable for questioning.

Cicero was undeterred, tracking people down to remote cottages or fields where they were working at the plow. He completed his inquiries in fifty days and, after a trying, storm-tossed voyage in a small boat, was back in Rome for the summer well before his deadline was up.

An unpleasant surprise awaited him. The case had been delayed by the specious interposition of another trial and was now unlikely to take place before August. This was a serious blow, for there were very few fasti days between August and mid-November when trials could be heard. This was partly because of the large number of regular holidays and festivals, but also because Pompey was planning some additional games to celebrate his Spanish victory.

Worse was to come. Hortensius and Quintus Caecilius Metellus Creticus, Verres’s patron, won the Consular elections for the following year, 69, and a few days later yet another Metellus was elected Praetor, with responsibility for the extortion court before which Cicero would be appearing. On top of that, a fourth Metellus was appointed to follow his brother as governor of Sicily. The only good news was that an attempt to prevent Cicero from being elected as Aedile was decisively thwarted. In fact, he scored a notable success, leading his competitors by a large majority.

From Verres’s point of view, the battle seemed to be won before it started. Taken overall, the election results were almost as good as an acquittal and congratulations began to pour in. Of course, it would be necessary to put up with the formality of trial, but a formality was all it was expected to be. When proceedings opened in the Forum on August 4, the accused man had reason to feel optimistic.

Cicero thought hard about the tactics he should use in court. He knew that the evidence he had assembled was detailed and robust, but he had to find a way of preventing the case from trickling desultorily through the autumn into the new year. He decided to launch a surprise attack. Roman trials usually began with long addresses by the advocates. With permission from the presiding Praetor, Cicero gave up the opportunity for time-consuming oratorical display and, after a brief introduction detailing Verres’s delaying tactics, proceeded directly to the evidence itself. He showed methodically, and with full reference to witnesses and documents, that during his three years in Sicily Verres had amassed the enormous sum of 40 million sesterces.

“Today the eyes of the world are upon you,” Cicero told the jurors, fearing that they would allow themselves to be suborned. “This man’s case will establish whether a jury composed exclusively of Senators can possibly convict someone who is very guilty—and very rich. Let me add that because the defendant is the kind of man who is distinguished by nothing except his criminality and his wealth, the only imaginable explanation for an acquittal will be the one that brings the greatest discredit to you. No one will believe that anybody likes Verres, or that he is related to any of you, or that he has behaved well in other aspects of his life, no, nor even that he is moderate in his faults. No such excuses can extenuate the number and scale of his offenses.”

It was crucial that Cicero finish his presentation before the court went into recess with the opening of Pompey’s games on August 16. In the event, he managed to set out his material expeditiously as well as comprehensively. On August 13 he rested his case.

Cicero’s coup was devastating for the defense and had immediate consequences. Clearly, it was no longer feasible for Verres and his friends to try to keep the trial going indefinitely. Far more serious, though, was Hortensius’s reaction. He was appalled by what he had heard and his sense of having been ambushed by Cicero magnified the impact of the evidence. He withdrew from the case without saying a word in response. Verres drew the inevitable conclusion and left at once for Massilia (in Transalpine Gaul) and a lifetime of exile. He was able to take his fortune with him, for he was as yet unconvicted, and so did not have to sacrifice his extorted comforts.

On the following day the jury, despite having been heavily bribed, had no choice but to bring in a guilty verdict. A fine of 3 million sesterces was levied—a derisory figure but probably the maximum that could be legally claimed. Hortensius was persuaded to return to court and speak in mitigation. AS a reward Verres gave him an ivory figurine of a sphinx. In the course of his own address, Cicero made some enigmatic remark and Hortensius interrupted: “I am afraid I’m no good at solving riddles.” “Oh, really,” snapped Cicero. “In spite of having a sphinx at home?”

Although Cicero had done little more than call witnesses and examine them, he had been able to display his eloquence, or at least his wit, in a number of heated exchanges. He had no hesitation in delivering brutal and sometimes tasteless put-downs. When a Jewish freedman named Caecilius (his name suggests he was an ex-slave of the Metelli) tried to push himself forward instead of the Sicilian witnesses, Cicero remarked scornfully: “What can a Jew have to do with a pig?”—“Verres” meaning “uncastrated boar” in Latin. At another point in the proceedings, when Verres attacked Cicero for not having the most virile or healthy of constitutions, he replied: “Virility is something you would do better to discuss with your boys at home.” (One of Verres’s sons was supposed to be promiscuously homosexual.)

Even though their property was not restored, the Sicilians were delighted by the verdict. Cicero’s routing of Hortensius was a professional turning point. He was now beyond dispute the leading advocate of his day. Not wanting to waste the results of his researches, he worked up the documentation he had gathered on Verres into a series of speeches which he might have delivered had he had the chance.

These made a powerful case for reform of the courts and the jury system and also allowed Cicero to demonstrate his mastery of presentation. He spoke explicitly on the subject. “Gentlemen of the jury, you must take thought and make provision for your public credit, for your good name, for your common interest in self-preservation. Your spotless characters make it impossible for you to behave badly, save at the cost of damaging and endangering the state. For if you are unable to arrive at a correct judgment in this case, the Roman People cannot expect that there will be other Senators who can. It will despair of the Senatorial Order as a whole and look around for some other type of man and some other method of administering justice.” Later in the autumn the Senatorial monopoly of juries was rescinded and their share of the membership reduced to one third, the remainder being allocated to equites and others.

On January 1, 69, Cicero took up his duties as Aedile and addressed the task of staging various festivals—that of Ceres with its circus games on or about April 19; ten days or so later, the celebrations in honor of Flora, goddess of flowers, with its program of popular plays and striptease shows; and from September 4 to 19 the great Roman Games (Ludi Romani), which featured drama performances and chariot races. Aediles were expected to supplement the official budget from their own pockets and there was fierce competition to stage the most splendid and extravagant events. Cicero’s resources were limited and he could not afford the kind of conspicuous expenditure with which Julius Caesar would cut a dash when he was Aedile later in the decade. However, his clientela in Sicily apparently made up for any deficiencies by flooding Rome with foodstuffs and so keeping the cost of living artificially low. This won Cicero golden opinions among the urban masses.

He continued to be very busy in the law courts, where his dominance was confirmed by Hortensius’s gradual withdrawal into a luxurious private life. He undertook no further prosecutions. Cicero led the defense in the trial of a provincial governor who faced corruption charges. Although probably a Verres on a small scale, he was presented as being completely innocent, beyond the shadow of a doubt. Cicero’s conscience was clear; he took the view that an advocate’s task was to win, not to uncover the truth. AS he observed towards the end of his life: “It is the judge’s responsibility always to seek the truth in trials; while it is the advocate’s to make out a case for what is probable, even if it doesn’t precisely correspond to the truth.”

In 68 the surviving correspondence with his old school friend Atticus begins. For the first few years only a handful of letters survives (the flood starts in 61), but they provide our first direct insight into Cicero’s personal life. Although Quintus, his younger brother, made no attempt to compete with him as a public speaker, he too set his sights on a political career and served as Quaestor. With Cicero playing matchmaker, Quintus had married Atticus’s sister, Pomponia, a couple of years earlier. Both husband and wife were hot tempered and the relationship was stormy. Sexual chemistry seems to have been lacking. In November 68, Cicero reported to Atticus his attempts to act as marriage counselor. He was anxious that “my brother, Quintus, should feel towards her as a husband ought. Thinking that he was rather out of temper I sent him a letter designed to mollify him as a brother, advise him as my junior and scold him as a man on the wrong track.” His efforts seem to have had some success, for in the following year he reported that Pomponia was pregnant. She gave birth to a son, who, following Roman custom, was named after his father.

In the same letter we meet other members of the family for the first time: Cicero’s wife, Terentia, who “has a bad attack of rheumatism,” and his daughter, “my darling little Tullia,” perhaps now seven or eight years old. In the following year, she was formally engaged to Caius Calpurnius Piso Frugi, great-grandson of a distinguished historian and Consul. This aristocratic link was an important aspect of Cicero’s plan to establish himself as a rising man in public life. The wedding took place some years later, in 62.

In 65 Cicero’s second and last child, Marcus, was born. Cicero’s father probably died at about this time, and so did his dearly loved cousin, Lucius, who had been with him in Greece and had helped him collect evidence against Verres. They had been very close. Cicero was deeply upset and told Atticus: “All the pleasure that one human being’s kindness and charm can give another I had from him.”

The letters between the two friends show a growing interest in property investment. Atticus bought an estate near the town of Buthrotum in Epirus, across the strait from the island of Corcyra. Here he raised sheep, cattle and horses on a large scale. Cicero was not interested in farming; what he wanted was a country retreat, or more precisely a growing number of them, where he could refresh himself and renew his energies away from the noise and ceaseless social demands of Rome. He acquired a villa at Formiae, a fashionable seaside resort, and another at Tusculum, in the Alban Hills southeast of the city, which had once belonged to Sulla. Although the exact number is uncertain, Cicero ultimately owned at least nine villas and other real estate.

Of all his properties Tusculum was, and remained, his favorite. “I am delighted with my place at Tusculum, so much so that I feel content with myself when, and only when, I get there.” He spent large amounts of money on decoration and sculpture; he knew he was being extravagant, but could not stop himself. A hundred years later a citrus table of his was still in existence, which was reputed to have cost him the fabulous sum of 500,000 sesterces. He was always pestering Atticus in Greece to look out for any suitable objets d’art, and he used his uncomplaining friend as purchaser, shipping agent and artistic adviser. Contemporary taste favored the masterpieces of Greek art, whether copies or, more expensively, originals.

It is an interesting question how Cicero made his money. He inherited land and property from his father and Terentia’s dowry had been handsome. But, as a Senator, he was not allowed to engage in trade or to invest money for interest; although many of his colleagues cheated or bent the rules, there is no evidence he did so. It was not the done thing to profit from book sales and his record as a public administrator suggests that he resisted bribes. He was not allowed to charge legal fees. However, those whom he defended in the courts were expected to find ways of expressing their gratitude and many named him in their wills. Looking back at the end of his career, Cicero estimated that he had grossed 20 million sesterces in legacies, a very substantial sum, which would make him a multimillionaire by today’s standards.

Cicero was becoming a man to reckon with in the Senate, as well as in the law courts. His provincial origins remained an obstacle in aristocratic circles, where he was looked down on as a pushy nobody. The time was approaching when he would be eligible for senior office and he could count on opposition from the great families. However, Cicero was not to be deterred. His dominance as a public speaker made him a household name and he could depend on support from his growing clientela among the commercial and mercantile class.

In the first permissible year he was elected at the age of forty to the Praetorship, taking office in 66. There was nothing to prevent public officials from accepting briefs in the courts and Cicero remained much in demand as an advocate. From this time on he stopped appearing in civil suits and specialized exclusively in the criminal law; he developed a particular expertise in two offenses which had political implications: improper influencing of voters (ambitus) and extortion in government (crimen repetundarum).

During his year as Praetor, Cicero appeared in an extraordinarily complicated multiple murder case, which threw a lurid light on vice and corruption in provincial society. He defended Aulus Cluentius Habitus, who was accused of poisoning his stepfather, Statius Albius Oppianicus. Most of his speech concentrated on a series of trials eight years earlier, when Cluentius had successfully prosecuted Oppianicus for attempting to murder him. Public opinion was on Oppianicus’s side and Cicero had to show that the original verdict had been right. He took the jury step by step through Oppianicus’s bizarre career, showing how, for personal gain, he had systematically killed eleven members either of his own family or of others into which he had married. Cicero made no effort to simplify the narrative and was happy to concede that, in the interests of his client, he had “wrapped the jury in darkness.”

The case also gave Cicero the opportunity to score a political point. During his defense of Cluentius he reinforced his reputation as a supporter of the equites by making flattering references to their importance as a class. Now that he was within sight of the Consulship, the apex of government, it was important to assure himself of their backing. A newcomer to the charmed circle of Roman politics, he had to maximize his support across the political spectrum if his candidacy was to have a chance of success. This meant somehow keeping on good terms with both the populares and the optimates, the radicals in the Assembly Ground and the diehards in the Senate. “You know the game I am playing,” he confided to Atticus, “and how vital I think it not only to keep old friends but to win new ones.”

The most sensitive issue of the hour concerned the future role of Pompey, whose name was being put forward to take over the command of the Roman army in Asia Minor. In the years following Sulla’s death, Mithridates of Pontus had gradually rebuilt his forces and raised the standard of revolt for a second time.

Cicero had to decide what line he was going to take about the proposed appointment. The optimates in the Senate were vehemently opposed. They had not forgiven Pompey for dismantling Sulla’s reforms during his Consulship. It was not only this that annoyed traditionalists but his unstoppable subsequent progress as a general and administrator. In 67, in the face of furious Senatorial opposition, Pompey had been given a special command with wide-ranging powers covering all coastal regions to rid the Mediterranean of the growing scourge of piracy. The appointment had been so popular that the price of corn in Rome had immediately fallen. The operation had been expected to take some time, but through efficient organization Pompey had accomplished the task in three months.

Everyone could see that the crisis in Asia Minor called for military talent of the highest order. Since 74, an able general, Lucius Licinius Lucullus, had been campaigning against Mithridates with considerable success. Unfortunately, Lucullus had infuriated the Roman tax farmers by lowering taxation and now his soldiers, losing patience after eight years in the field, were in a state of mutiny. Despite his achievements, Lucullus clearly had to be replaced and Pompey was the obvious successor. With the victory over the pirates still ringing in everyone’s ears, the Senate would be hard put to resist yet another special commission. But this was unlikely to stop it from trying.

Cicero decided to support Pompey. In 66, making the first political speech of his career, he addressed the General Assembly in favor of the appointment. His tone was fawning. Listing Pompey’s achievements, he said: “Such is his unbelievable, superhuman genius as a commander. A little while back I was beginning to speak of his other qualities as well; and they too are as superlative as they are numerous.” The Praetor and would-be Consul was walking a tricky line. His fundamental position was conservative, but, in light of growing social and political divisions, he recognized the urgent need for reconciliation. His real opinion of Pompey at this point is uncertain. The great commander had been often abroad and, although the two men were of the same age, Cicero had been too junior a figure until recently to have been worth cultivating.

The special command against Mithridates was not something Cicero would have cared much about in itself. Rather, the controversy gave him an opportunity to do two things: first, to establish himself as a man who could bring the different classes together and resolve their differences or, to use his musical metaphor, make the orchestra of Roman society play in tune; and second, to attract a broad base of support for his eventual candidacy for the Consulship. This meant winning the attention and the approval of the People while at the same time not unduly offending the Senate. At this point it was in his interest to present himself as something of a popularis, but he took great care to be polite to leading optimates. The speech was an early, unacknowledged opening of his election campaign.

The sincerity of Cicero’s populism at this stage in his political development is hard to gauge. He was perfectly willing to support reforms but tended to see them as concessions to avert discontent rather than as desirable in their own right. Like many politicians before and after him, he was rather more open to radical ideas when campaigning for votes than he was when he no longer had to run for office.

Cicero’s attempts to keep all sides happy nearly went adrift. It so happened that a number of populares appeared on various charges before his Praetorian court, and he did not want to spoil his credentials with the People by presiding over guilty verdicts. In one case that we know of, he managed to effect a condemnation without offending public opinion. He commented to Atticus: “My handling of C. Macer’s case has won popular approval to a really quite extraordinary degree. Though I was favorably disposed to him, I gained far more from popular sentiment by his conviction than I should have gained from his gratitude if he had been acquitted.”

He found himself in more serious trouble at the end of his year as Praetor. Cicero decided to postpone the trial of a Tribune who had recruited street gangs and intimidated the courts until after he left office. From his point of view, acquittal or conviction would be equally dangerous. The former would infuriate the Senate and the latter the People. However, the postponement backfired. At a public meeting voices from the crowd called him a “turncoat.” Taken aback, Cicero promised that he would defend the Tribune himself. Luckily, for some reason, the trial never took place.

In 65 he again braved Senatorial disapproval when he agreed to defend a former Tribune, Caius Cornelius, on a charge of treason—no doubt largely because he was a supporter of Pompey, whom Cicero wished to please. The trial was a cause célèbre and attracted much attention. Cicero’s speech on Cornelius’s behalf was a success and he was acquitted by a decisive majority. With great skill Cicero managed to ensure, as he told Atticus, “both that he did not assault the standing of his distinguished opponents and that he did not let the defendant be undermined by their influence.”

The Senate was not greatly perturbed. Cornelius was essentially a moderate and Cicero had few serious worries about helping him. However, he was openly suspicious of extremists and he took care to make this clear. Pompey and his supporters were one thing, the unscrupulous circle of radical politicians that had gathered around the multimillionaire Crassus was quite another. Cicero sided firmly with the optimates when Crassus proposed the annexation of Egypt, which had been left to Rome by the will of its last king. The richest man in Rome was also the greediest and had his eye on the fabulous riches of the Pharaohs. Cicero agreed with his fellow Senators that Crassus had to be stopped and spoke out vigorously against his insatiable pursuit of wealth. No action was taken to claim a bequest the Egyptians were certain to resist.

Cicero distrusted and disliked Crassus and his criticism of him was sincere; but it also conveniently enabled him to demonstrate that there was a point beyond which he would not go in his flirtation with popularis sentiment. He wanted the Senate to know that he could be trusted and that he was a conservative at heart.