Of all the base creatures who found a profit in the massacres and plunderings which Sulla commanded or permitted, not one was baser than Caius Verres. The crimes that he committed would be beyond our belief if it were not for the fact that he never denied them. He betrayed his friends, he perverted justice, he plundered a temple with as little scruple as he plundered a private house, he murdered a citizen as boldly as he murdered a foreigner; in fact, he was the most audacious, the most cruel, the most shameless of men. And yet he rose to high office at home and abroad, and had it not been for the courage, sagacity, and eloquence of one man, he might have risen to the very highest. What Roman citizens had sometimes, and Roman subjects, it is to be feared, very often to endure may be seen from the picture which we are enabled to draw of aRoman magistrate.
Roman politicians began public life as quaestors. (A quaestor was an official who managed money matters for higher magistrates. Every governor of a province had one or more quaestors under him. They were elected at Rome, and their posts were assigned to them by lot.) Verres was quaestor in Gaul and embezzled the public money; he was quaestor in Cilicia with Dolabella, a like-minded governor, and diligently used his opportunity. This time it was not money only, but works of art, on which he laid his hands; and in these the great cities, whether in Asia or in Europe, were still rich. The most audacious, perhaps, of these robberies was perpetrated in the island of Delos. Delos was known all over the world as the island of Apollo. The legend was that it was the birthplace of the god. None of his shrines was more frequented or more famous. Verres was indifferent to such considerations. He stripped the temple of its finest statues, and loaded a merchant ship which he had hired with the booty. But this time he was not lucky enough to secure it. The islanders, though they had discovered the theft, did not, indeed, venture to complain. They thought it was the doing of the governor, and a governor, though his proceedings might be impeached after his term of office, was not a person with whom it was safe to remonstrate. But a terrible storm suddenly burst upon the island. The governor's departure was delayed. To set sail in such weather was out of the question. The sea was indeed so high that the town became scarcely habitable. Then Verres' ship was wrecked, and the statues were found cast upon the shore. The governor ordered them to be replaced in the temple, and the storm subsided as suddenly as it had arisen.
On his return to Rome Dolabella was impeached for extortion. With characteristic baseness Verres gave evidence against him, evidence so convincing as to cause a verdict of guilty. But he thus secured his own gains, and these he used so profusely in the purchase of votes that two or three years afterwards he was elected praetor. The praetors performed various functions which were assigned to them by lot. Chance, or it may possibly have been contrivance, gave to Verres the most considerable of them all. He was made "Praetor of the City;" that is, a judge before whom a certain class of very important causes were tried. Of course he showed himself scandalously unjust. One instance of his proceedings may suffice.
A certain Junius had made a contract for keeping the temple of Castor in repair. When Verres came into office he had died, leaving a son under age. There had been some neglect, due probably to the troubles of the times, in seeing that the contracts had been duly executed, and the Senate passed a resolution that Verres and one of his fellow-praetors should see to the matter. The temple of Castor came under review like the others, and Verres, knowing that the original contractor was dead, inquired who was the responsible person. When he heard of the son under age he recognized at once a golden opportunity. It was one of the maxims which he had laid down for his own guidance, and which he had even been wont to give out for the benefit of his friends, that much profit might be made out of the property of wards. It had been arranged that the guardian of the young Junius should take the contract into his own hands, and, as the temple was in excellent repair, there was no difficulty in the way. Verres summoned the guardian to appear before him. "Is there any thing," he asked, "that your ward has not made good, and which we ought to require of him?" "No," said he, "every thing is quite right; all the statues and offerings are there, and the fabric is in excellent repair." From the praetor's point of view this was not satisfactory; and he determined on a personal visit. Accordingly he went to the temple, and inspected it. The ceiling was excellent; the whole building in the best repair. "What is to be done?" he asked of one of his satellites. "Well," said the man, "there is nothing for you to meddle with here, except possibly to require that the columns should be restored to the perpendicular." "Restored to the perpendicular? what do you mean?" said Verres, who knew nothing of architecture. It was explained to him that it very seldom happened that a column was absolutely true to the perpendicular. "Very good," said Verres; "we will have the columns made perpendicular." Notice accordingly was sent to the lad's guardians. Disturbed at the prospect of indefinite loss to their ward's property, they sought an interview with Verres. One of the noble family of Marcellus waited upon him, and remonstrated against the iniquity of the proceeding. The remonstrance was in vain. The praetor showed no signs of relenting. There yet remained one way, a way only too well known to all who had to deal with him, of obtaining their object. Application must be made to his mistress (a Greek freedwoman of the name of Chelidon or "The Swallow"). If she could be induced to take an interest in the case something might yet be done. Degrading as such a course must have been to men of rank and honor, they resolved, in the interest of their ward, to take it. They went to Chelidon's house. It was thronged with people who were seeking favors from the praetor. Some were begging for decisions in their favor; some for fresh trials of their cases. "I want possession," cried one. "He must not take the property from me," said another. "Don't let him pronounce judgment against me," cried a third. "The property must be assigned to me," was the demand of a fourth. Some were counting out money; others signing bonds. The deputation, after waiting awhile, were admitted to the presence. Their spokesman explained the case, begged for Chelidon's assistance, and promised a substantial consideration. The lady was very gracious. She would willingly do what she could, and would talk to the praetor about it. The deputation must come again the next day and hear how she had succeeded. They came again, but found that nothing could be done. Verres felt sure that a large sum of money was to be got out of the proceeding, and resolutely refused any compromise.
They next made an offer of about two thousand pounds. This again was rejected. Verres resolved that he would put up the contract to auction, and did his best that the guardians should have no notice of it. Here, however, he failed. They attended the auction and made a bid. Of course the lowest bidder ought to have been accepted, so long as he gave security for doing the work well. But Verres refused to accept it. He knocked down the contract to himself at a price of more than five thousand pounds, and this though there were persons willing to do it for less than a sixth of that sum. As a matter of fact very little was done. Four of the columns were pulled down and built up again with the same stones. Others were whitewashed; some had the old cement taken out and fresh put in.[1] The highest estimate for all that could possibly be wanted was less than eight hundred pounds.
[Footnote 1: "Pointed," I suppose.]
His year of office ended, Verres was sent as governor to Sicily. By rights he should have remained there twelve months only, but his successor was detained by the Servile war in Italy, and his stay was thus extended to nearly three years, three years into which he crowded an incredible number of cruelties and robberies. Sicily was perhaps the wealthiest of all the provinces. Its fertile wheat-fields yielded harvests which, now that agriculture had begun to decay in Italy, provided no small part of the daily bread of Rome. In its cities, founded most of them several centuries before by colonists from Greece, were accumulated the riches of many generations. On the whole it had been lightly treated by its Roman conquerors. Some of its states had early discerned which would be the winning side, and by making their peace in time had secured their privileges and possessions. Others had been allowed to surrender themselves on favorable terms. This wealth had now been increasing without serious disturbance for more than a hundred years. The houses of the richer class were full of the rich tapestries of the East, of gold and silver plate cunningly chased or embossed, of statues and pictures wrought by the hands of the most famous artists of Greece. The temples were adorned with costly offerings and with images that were known all over the civilized world. The Sicilians were probably prepared to pay something for the privilege of being governed by Rome. And indeed the privilege was not without its value. The days of freedom indeed were over; but the turbulence, the incessant strife, the bitter struggles between neighbors and parties were also at an end. Men were left to accumulate wealth and to enjoy it without hindrance. Any moderate demands they were willing enough to meet. They did not complain, for instance, or at least did not complain aloud, that they were compelled to supply their rulers with a fixed quantity of corn at prices lower than could have been obtained in the open market. And they would probably have been ready to secure the good will of a governor who fancied himself a connoisseur in art with handsome presents from their museums and picture galleries. But the exactions of Verres exceeded all bounds both of custom and of endurance. The story of how he dealt with the wheat-growers of the province is too tedious and complicated to be told in this place. Let it suffice to say that he enriched himself and his greedy troop of followers at the cost of absolute ruin both to the cultivators of the soil and to the Roman capitalists who farmed this part of the public revenue. As to the way in which he laid his hands on the possessions of temples and of private citizens, his doings were emphatically summed up by his prosecutor when he came, as we shall afterwards see, to be put upon his trial. "I affirm that in the whole of Sicily, wealthy and old-established province as it is, in all those towns, in all those wealthy homes, there was not a single piece of silver plate, a single article of Corinthian or Delian ware, a single jewel or pearl, a single article of gold or ivory, a single picture, whether on panel or on canvas, which he did not hunt up and examine, and, if it pleased his fancy, abstract. This is a great thing to say, you think. Well, mark how I say it. It is not for the sake of rhetorical exaggeration that I make this sweeping assertion, that I declare that this fellow did not leave a single article of the kind in the whole province. I speak not in the language of the professional accuser but in plain Latin. Nay, I will put it more clearly still: in no single private house, in no town; in no place, profane or even sacred; in the hands of no Sicilian, of no citizen of Rome, did he leave a single article, public or private property, of things profane or things religious, which came under his eyes or touched his fancy."
Some of the more remarkable of these acts of spoliation it may be worth while to relate. A certain Heius, who was at once the wealthiest and most popular citizen of Messana, had a private chapel of great antiquity in his house, and in it four statues of the very greatest value. There was a Cupid by Praxiteles, a replica of a famous work which attracted visitors to the uninteresting little town of Thespiae in Boeotia; a Hercules from the chisel of Myro; and two bronze figures, "Basket-bearers," as they were called, because represented as carrying sacred vessels in baskets on their heads. These were the work of Polyclitus. The Cupid had been brought to Rome to ornament the forum on some great occasion, and had been carefully restored to its place. The chapel and its contents was the great sight of the town. No one passed through without inspecting it. It was naturally, therefore, one of the first things that Verres saw, Messana being on his route to the capital of his province. He did not actually take the statues, he bought them; but the price that he paid was so ridiculously low that purchase was only another name for robbery. Something near sixty pounds was given for the four. If we recall the prices that would be paid now-a-days for a couple of statues by Michael Angelo and two of the masterpieces of Raphael and Correggio, we may imagine what a monstrous fiction this sale must have been, all the more monstrous because the owner was a wealthy man, who had no temptation to sell, and who was known to value his possessions not only as works of art but as adding dignity to his hereditary worship.
A wealthy inhabitant of Tyndaris invited the governor to dinner. He was a Roman citizen and imagined that he might venture on a display which a provincial might have considered to be dangerous. Among the plate on the table was a silver dish adorned with some very fine medallions. It struck the fancy of the guest, who promptly had it removed, and who considered himself to be a marvel of moderation when he sent it back with the medallions abstracted.
His secretary happened one day to receive a letter which bore a noteworthy impression on the composition of chalk which the Greeks used for sealing. It attracted the attention of Verres, who inquired from what place it had come. Hearing that it had been sent from Agrigentum, he communicated to his agents in that town his desire that the seal-ring should be at once secured for him. And this was done. The unlucky possessor, another Roman citizen, by the way, had his ring actually drawn from his finger.
A still more audacious proceeding was to rob, not this time a mere Sicilian provincial or a simple Roman citizen, but one of the tributary kings, the heir of the great house of Antiochus, which not many years before had matched itself with the power of Rome. Two of the young princes had visited Rome, intending to prosecute their claims to the throne of Egypt, which, they contended, had come to them through their mother. The times were not favorable to the suit, and they returned to their country, one of them, Antiochus, probably the elder, choosing to take Sicily on his way. He naturally visited Syracuse, where Verres was residing, and Verres at once recognized a golden opportunity. The first thing was to send the visitor a handsome supply of wine, olive-oil, and wheat. The next was to invite him to dinner. The dining-room and table were richly furnished, the silver plate being particularly splendid. Antiochus was highly delighted with the entertainment, and lost no time in returning the compliment. The dinner to which he invited the governor was set out with a splendor to which Verres had nothing to compare. There was silver plate in abundance, and there were also cups of gold, these last adorned with magnificent gems.
Conspicuous among the ornaments of the table was a drinking vessel, all in one piece, probably of amethyst, and with a handle of gold. Verres expressed himself delighted with what he saw. He handled every vessel and was loud in its praises. The simple-minded King, on the other hand, heard the compliment with pride. Next day came a message. Would the King lend some of the more beautiful cups to his excellency? He wished to show them to his own artists. A special request was made for the amethyst cup. All was sent without a suspicion of danger.
But the King had still in his possession something that especially excited the Roman's cupidity. This was a candelabrum of gold richly adorned with jewels. It had been intended for an offering to the tutelary deity of Rome, Jupiter of the Capitol. But the temple, which had been burned to the ground in the civil wars, had not yet been rebuilt, and the princes, anxious that their gift should not be seen before it was publicly presented, resolved to carry it back with them to Syria. Verres, however, had got, no one knew how, some inkling of the matter, and he begged Antiochus to let him have a sight of it. The young prince, who, so far from being suspicious, was hardly sufficiently cautious, had it carefully wrapped up, and sent it to the governor's palace. When he had minutely inspected it, the messengers prepared to carry it back. Verres, however, had not seen enough of it. It clearly deserved more than one examination. Would they leave it with him for a time? They left it, suspecting nothing.
Antiochus, on his part, had no apprehensions. When some days had passed and the candelabrum was not returned, he sent to ask for it. The governor begged the messenger to come again the next day. It seemed a strange request; still the man came again and was again unsuccessful. The King himself then waited on the governor and begged him to return it. Verres hinted, or rather said plainly, that he should very much like it as a present. "This is impossible," replied the prince, "the honor due to Jupiter and public opinion forbid it. All the world knows that the offering is to be made, and I cannot go back from my word." Verres perceived that soft words would be useless, and took at once another line. The King, he said, must leave Sicily before nightfall. The public safety demanded it. He had heard of a piratical expedition which was on its way from Syria to the province, and that his departure was necessary. Antiochus had no choice but to obey; but before he went he publicly protested in the market-place of Syracuse against the wrong that had been done. His other valuables, the gold and the jewels, he did not so much regret; but it was monstrous that he should be robbed of the gift that he destined for the altar of the tutelary god of Rome.
The Sicilian cities were not better able to protect their possessions than were private individuals. Segesta was a town that had early ranged itself on the side of the Romans, with whom its people had a legendary relationship. (The story was that Aeneas on his way to Italy had left there some of his followers, who were unwilling any longer to endure the hardships of the journey.) In early days it had been destroyed by the Carthaginians, who had carried off all its most valuable possessions, the most precious being a statue of Diana, a work of great beauty and invested with a peculiar sacredness. When Carthage fell, Scipio its conqueror restored the spoils which had been carried off from the cities of Sicily. Among other things Agrigentum had recovered its famous bull of brass, in which the tyrant Phalaris had burned, it was said, his victims. Segesta was no less fortunate than its neighbors, and got back its Diana. It was set on a pedestal on which was inscribed the name of Scipio, and became one of the most notable sights of the island. It was of a colossal size, but the sculptor had contrived to preserve the semblance of maidenly grace and modesty. Verres saw and coveted it. He demanded it of the authorities of the town and was met with a refusal. It was easy for the governor to make them suffer for their obstinacy. All their imposts were doubled and more than doubled. Heavy requisitions for men and money and corn were made upon them. A still more hateful burden, that of attending the court and progresses of the governor was imposed on their principal citizens. This was a contest which they could not hope to wage with success. Segesta resolved that the statue should be given up. It was accordingly carried away from the town, all the women of the town, married and unmarried, following it on its journey, showering perfumes and flowers upon it, and burning incense before it, till it had passed beyond the borders of their territory.
If Segesta had its Diana, Tyndaris had its Mercury; and this also Verres was resolved to add to his collection. He issued his orders to Sopater, chief magistrate of the place, that the statue was to betaken to Messana. (Messana being conveniently near to Italy was the place in which he stored his plunder.) Sopater refusing was threatened with the heaviest penalties if it was not done without delay, and judged it best to bring the matter before the local senate. The proposition was received with shouts of disapproval. Verres paid a second visit to the town and at once inquired what had been done about the statue. He was told that it was impossible. The senate had decreed the penalty of death against any one that touched it. Apart from that, it would be an act of the grossest impiety. "Impiety?" he burst out upon the unlucky magistrates; "penalty of death! senate! what senate? As for you, Sopater, you shall not escape. Give me up the statue or you shall be flogged to death." Sopater again referred the matter to his townsmen and implored them with tears to give way. The meeting separated in great tumult without giving him any answer. Summoned again to the governor's presence, he repeated that nothing could be done. But Verres had still resources in store. He ordered the lictors to strip the man, the chief magistrate, be it remembered, of an important town, and to set him, naked as he was, astride on one of the equestrian statues that adorned the market-place. It was winter; the weather was bitterly cold, with heavy rain. The pain caused by the naked limbs being thus brought into close contact with the bronze of the statue was intense. So frightful was his suffering that his fellow-townsmen could not bear to see it. They turned with loud cries upon the senate and compelled them to vote that the coveted statue should be given up to the governor. So Verres got his Mercury.
We have a curious picture of the man as he made his progresses from town to town in his search for treasures of art. "As soon as it was spring—and he knew that it was spring not from the rising of any constellation or the blowing of any wind, but simply because he saw the roses—then indeed he bestirred himself. So enduring, so untiring was he that no one ever saw him upon horseback. No—he was carried in a litter with eight bearers. His cushion was of the finest linen of Malta, and it was stuffed with roses. There was one wreath of roses upon his head, and another round his neck, made of the finest thread, of the smallest mesh, and this, too, was full of roses. He was carried in this litter straight to his chamber; and there he gave his audiences."
When spring had passed into summer even such exertions were too much for him. He could not even endure to remain in his official residence, the old palace of the kings of Syracuse. A number of tents were pitched for him at the entrance of the harbor to catch the cool breezes from the sea. There he spent his days and nights, surrounded by troops of the vilest companions, and let the province take care of itself.
Such a governor was not likely to keep his province free from the pirates who, issuing from their fastnesses on the Cilician coast and elsewhere, kept the seaboard cities of the Mediterranean in constant terror. One success, and one only, he seems to have gained over them. His fleet was lucky enough to come upon a pirate ship, which was so overladen with spoil that it could neither escape nor defend itself. News was at once carried to Verres, who roused himself from his feasting to issue strict orders that no one was to meddle with the prize. It was towed into Syracuse, and he hastened to examine his booty. The general feeling was one of delight that a crew of merciless villains had been captured and were about to pay the penalty of their crimes. Verres had far more practical views. Justice might deal as she pleased with the old and useless; the young and able bodied, and all who happened to be handicraftsmen, were too valuable to be given up. His secretaries, his retinue, his son had their share of the prize; six, who happened to be singers, were sent as a present to a friend at Rome. As to the pirate captain himself, no one knew what had become of him. It was a favorite amusement in Sicily to watch the sufferings of a pirate, if the government had had the luck but to catch one, while he was being slowly tortured to death. The people of Syracuse, to whom the pirate captain was only too well known, watched eagerly for the day when he was to be brought out to suffer. They kept an account of those who were brought out to execution, and reckoned them against the number of the crew, which it had been easy to conjecture from the size of the ship. Verres had to correct the deficiency as best he could. He had the audacity to fill the places of the prisoners whom he had sold or given away with Roman citizens, whom on various false pretenses he had thrown into prison. The pirate captain himself was suffered to escape on the payment, it was believed, of a very large sum of money.
But Verres had not yet done with the pirates. It was necessary that some show, at least, of coping with them should be made. There was a fleet, and the fleet must put to sea. A citizen of Syracuse, who had no sort of qualification for the task, but whom Verres was anxious to get out of the way, was appointed to the command. The governor paid it the unwonted attention of coming out of his tent to see it pass. His very dress, as he stood upon the shore, was a scandal to all beholders. His sandals, his purple cloak, his tunic, or under-garment, reaching to his ankles, were thought wholly unsuitable to the dignity of a Roman magistrate. The fleet, as might be expected, was scandalously ill equipped. Its men for the most part existed, as the phrase is, only "on paper." There was the proper complement of names, but of names only. The praetor drew from the treasury the pay for these imaginary soldiers and marines, and diverted it into his own pocket. And the ships were as ill provisioned as they were ill manned. After they had been something less than five days at sea they put into the harbor of Pachynus. The crews were driven to satisfy their hunger on the roots of the dwarf palm, which grew, and indeed still grows, in abundance on that spot. Cleomenes meanwhile was following the example of his patron. He had his tent pitched on the shore, and sat in it drinking from morning to night. While he was thus employed tidings were brought that the pirate fleet was approaching. He was ill prepared for an engagement. His hope had been to complete the manning of his ships from the garrison of the fort. But Verres had dealt with the fort as he had dealt with the fleet. The soldiers were as imaginary as the sailors. Still a man of courage would have fought. His own ship was fairly well manned, and was of a commanding size, quite able to overpower the light vessels of the pirates; and such a crew as there was was eager to fight. But Cleomenes was as cowardly as he was incompetent. He ordered the mast of his ship to be hoisted, the sails to be set, and the cable cut, and made off with all speed. The rest of his fleet could do nothing but follow his example. The pirates gave chase, and captured two of the ships as they fled. Cleomenes reached the port of Helorus, stranded his ship, and left it to its fate. His colleagues did the same. The pirate chief found them thus deserted and burned them. He had then the audacity to sail into the inner harbor of Syracuse, a place into which, we are told, only one hostile fleet, the ill-fated Athenian expedition, three centuries and a half before, had ever penetrated. The rage of the inhabitants at this spectacle exceeded all bounds, and Verres felt that a victim must be sacrificed. He was, of course, himself the chief culprit. Next in guilt to him was Cleomenes. But Cleomenes was spared for the same scandalous reason which had caused his appointment to the command. The other captains, who might indeed have shown more courage, but who were comparatively blameless, were ordered to execution. It seemed all the more necessary to remove them because they could have given inconvenient testimony as to the inefficient condition of the ships.
The cruelty of Verres was indeed as conspicuous as his avarice. Of this, as of his other vices, it would not suit the purpose of this book to speak in detail. One conspicuous example will suffice. A certain Gavius had given offense, how we know not, and had been confined in the disused stone quarries which served for the public prison of Syracuse. From these he contrived to escape, and made his way to Messana. Unluckily for himself, he did not know that Messana was the one place in Sicily where it would not be safe to speak against the governor. Just as he was about to embark for Italy he was heard to complain of the treatment which he had received, and was arrested and brought before the chief magistrate of the town. Verres happened to come to the town the same day, and heard what had happened. He ordered the man to be stripped and flogged in the market-place. Gavius pleaded that he was a Roman citizen and offered proof of his claim. Verres refused to listen, and enraged by the repetition of the plea, actually ordered the man to be crucified. "And set up," he said to his lictors, "set up the cross by the straits. He is a Roman citizen, he says, and he will at least be able to have a view of his native country." We know from the history of St. Paul what a genuine privilege and protection this citizenship was. And Cicero exactly expresses the feeling on the subject in his famous words. "It is a crime to put a Roman citizen in irons; it is positive wickedness to inflict stripes upon him; it is close upon parricide to put him to death; as to crucifying him there is no word for it." And on this crowning act of audacity Verres had the recklessness to venture.
After holding office for three years Verres came back to Rome. The people of Messana, his only friends in the islands, had built a merchantman for him, and he loaded it with his spoils. He came back with a light heart. He knew indeed that the Sicilians would impeach him. His wrong-doings had been too gross, too insolent, for him to escape altogether. But he was confident that he had the means in his hands for securing an acquittal. The men that were to judge him were men of his own order. The senators still retained the privilege which Sulla had given them. They, and they alone, furnished the juries before whom such causes were tried. Of these senators not a few had a fellow-feeling for a provincial governor accused of extortion and wrong. Some had plundered provinces in the past; others hoped to do so in the future. Many insignificant men who could not hope to obtain such promotion were notoriously open to bribes. And some who would have scorned to receive money, or were too wealthy to be influenced by it, were not insensible to the charms of other gifts—to a fine statue or a splendid picture judiciously bestowed. A few, even more scrupulous, who would not accept such presents for their own halls or gardens, were glad to have such splendid ornaments for the games which they exhibited to the people. Verres came back amply provided with these means of securing his safety. He openly avowed—for indeed he was as frank as he was unscrupulous—that he had trebled his extortions in order that, after leaving a sufficiency for himself, he might have wherewith to win the favor of his judges. It soon became evident to him that he would need these and all other help, if he was to escape. The Sicilians engaged Cicero to plead their cause. He had been quaestor in a division of the province for a year six years before, and had won golden opinions by his moderation and integrity. And Cicero was a power in the courts of the law, all the greater because he had never yet prosecuted, but had kept himself to what was held the more honorable task of defending persons accused.[2] Verres secured Hortensius. He too was a great orator; Cicero had chosen him as the model which he would imitate, and speaks of him as having been a splendid and energetic speaker, full of life both in diction and action. At that time, perhaps, his reputation stood higher than that of Cicero himself. It was something to have retained so powerful an advocate; it would be still more if it could be contrived that the prosecutor should be a less formidable person. And there was a chance of contriving this. A certain Caecilius was induced to come forward, and claim for himself, against Cicero, the duty of prosecuting the late governor of Sicily. He too had been a quaestor in the province, and he had quarreled, or he pretended that he had quarreled, with Verres. The first thing there had to be argued before the court, which, like our own, consisted of a presiding judge and a jury, was the question, who was to prosecute, Cicero or Caecilius, or the two together. Cicero made a great speech, in which he established his own claim. He was the choice of the provincials; the honesty of his rival was doubtful, while it was quite certain that he was incompetent. The court decided in his favor, and he was allowed one hundred and ten days to collect evidence. Verres had another device in store. This time a member of the Senate came forward and claimed to prosecute Verres for misdoings in the province of Achaia in Greece. He wanted one hundred and eight days only for collecting evidence. If this claim should be allowed, the second prosecution would be taken first; of course it was not intended to be serious, and would end in an acquittal. Meanwhile all the available time would have been spent, and the Sicilian affair would have to be postponed till the next year. It was on postponement indeed that Verres rested his hopes. In July Hortensius was elected consul for the following year, and if the trial could only be put off till he had entered upon office, nothing was to be feared. Verres was openly congratulated in the streets of Rome on his good fortune. "I have good news for you," cried a friend; "the election has taken place and you are acquitted." Another friend had been chosen praetor, and would be the new presiding judge. Consul and praetor between them would have the appointment of the new jurors, and would take care that they should be such as the accused desired. At the same time the new governor of Sicily would be also a friend, and he would throw judicious obstacles in the way of the attendance of witnesses. The sham prosecution came to nothing. The prosecutor never left Italy. Cicero, on the other hand, employed the greatest diligence. Accompanied by his cousin Lucius he visited all the chief cities of Sicily, and collected from them an enormous mass of evidence. In this work he only spent fifty out of the hundred and ten days allotted to him, and was ready to begin long before he was expected.
[Footnote 2: So Horace compliments a friend on being "the illustrious safeguard of the sad accused."]
Verres had still one hope left; and this, strangely enough, sprang out of the very number and enormity of his crimes. The mass of evidence was so great that the trial might be expected to last for a long time. If it could only be protracted into the next year, when his friends would be in office, he might still hope to escape. And indeed there was but little time left. The trial began on the fifth of August. In the middle of the month Pompey was to exhibit some games. Then would come the games called "The Games of Rome," and after this others again, filling up much of the three months of September, October, and November. Cicero anticipated this difficulty. He made a short speech (it could not have lasted more than two hours in delivering), in which he stated the case in outline. He made a strong appeal to the jury. They were themselves on their trial. The eyes of all the world were on them. If they did not do justice on so notorious a criminal they would never be trusted any more. It would be seen that the senators were not fit to administer the law. The law itself was on its trial. The provincials openly declared that if Verres was acquitted, the law under which their governors were liable to be accused had better be repealed. If no fear of a prosecution were hanging over them, they would be content with as much plunder as would satisfy their own wants. They would not need to extort as much more wherewith to bribe their judges. Then he called his witnesses. A marvelous array they were. "From the foot of Mount Taurus, from the shores of the Black Sea, from many cities of the Grecian mainland, from many islands of the Aegean, from every city and market-town of Sicily, deputations thronged to Rome. In the porticoes, and on the steps of the temples, in the area of the Forum, in the colonnade that surrounded it, on the housetops and on the overlooking declivities, were stationed dense and eager crowds of impoverished heirs and their guardians, bankrupt tax-farmers and corn merchants, fathers bewailing their children carried off to the praetor's harem, children mourning for their parents dead in the praetor's dungeons, Greek nobles whose descent was traced to Cecrops or Eurysthenes, or to the great Ionian and Minyan houses, and Phoenicians, whose ancestors had been priests of the Tyrian Melcarth, or claimed kindred with the Zidonian Jah."[3] Nine days were spent in hearing this mass of evidence. Hortensius was utterly overpowered by it. He had no opportunity for displaying his eloquence, or making a pathetic appeal for a noble oppressed by the hatred of the democracy. After a few feeble attempts at cross-examination, he practically abandoned the case. The defendant himself perceived that his position was hopeless. Before the nine days, with their terrible impeachment, had come to an end he fled from Rome.
[Footnote 3: Article in "Dictionary of Classical Biography andMythology," by William Bodham Donne.]
The jury returned an unanimous verdict of guilty, and the prisoner was condemned to banishment and to pay a fine. The place of banishment (which he was apparently allowed to select outside certain limits) was Marseilles. The amount of the fine we do not know. It certainly was not enough to impoverish him.
Much of the money, and many of the works of art which he had stolen were left to him. These latter, by a singularly just retribution, proved his ruin in the end. After the death of Cicero, Antony permitted the exiles to return. Verres came with them, bringing back his treasures of art, and was put to death because they excited the cupidity of the masters of Rome.
There were various courts at Rome for persons accused of various crimes. One judge, for instance, used to try charges of poisoning; another, charges of murder; and, just as is the case among us, each judge had a jury, who gave their verdict on the evidence which they had heard. But this verdict was not, as with us, the verdict of the whole jury, given only if all can be induced to agree, but of the majority. Each juryman wrote his opinion on a little tablet of wood, putting A. (absolvo, "I acquit") if he thought the accused innocent, K. (condemno, "I condemn") if he thought him guilty, and N.L. (non liquet, "It is not clear") if the case seemed suspicious, though there was not enough evidence to convict.
In the year 66 B.C. a very strange trial took place in the Court of Poison Cases. A certain Cluentius was accused of having poisoned his step-father, Oppianicus, and various other persons. Cicero, who was praetor that year (the praetor was the magistrate next in rank to the consul), defended Cluentius, and told his client's whole story.
Cluentius and his step-father were both natives of Larinum, a town in Apulia, where there was a famous temple of Mars. A dispute about the property of this temple caused an open quarrel between the two men, who had indeed been enemies for some years. Oppianicus took up the case of some slaves, who were calledServants of Mars, declaring that they were not slaves at all, but Roman citizens. This he did, it would seem, because he desired to annoy his fellow-townsmen, with whom he was very unpopular. The people of Larinum, who were very much interested in all that concerned the splendor of their temple services, resisted the claim, and asked Cluentius to plead their case. Cluentius consented. While the cause was going on, it occurred to Oppianicus to get rid of his opponent by poison. He employed an agent, and the agent put the matter into the hands of his freedman, a certain Scamander. Scamander tried to accomplish his object by bribing the slave of the physician who was attending Cluentius. The physician was a needy Greek, and his slave had probably hard and scanty fare; but he was an honest man, and as clever as he was honest. He pretended to accept the offer, and arranged for a meeting. This done, he told the whole matter to his master the physician, and the physician told it again to his patient. Cluentius arranged that certain friends should be present in concealment at the interview between the slave and his tempter. The villain came, and was seized with the poison and a packet of money, sealed with his master's seal, upon him.
Cluentius, who had put up with many provocations from his mother's husband, now felt that his life was in danger, and determined to defend himself. He indicted Scamander for an attempt to poison. The man was found guilty. Scamander's patron (as they used to call a freedman's old master) was next brought to trial, and with the same result. Last of all Oppianicus, the chief criminal, was attacked. Scamander's trial had warned him of his danger, and he had labored to bring about the man's acquittal. One vote, and one only, he had contrived to secure. And to the giver of this vote, a needy and unprincipled member of the Senate, he now had recourse. He went, of course, with a large sum in his hand—something about five thousand six hundred pounds of our money. With this the senator—Staienus by name—was to bribe sixteen out of the thirty-two jurymen. They were to have three hundred and fifty pounds apiece for their votes, and Staienus was to have as much for his own vote (which would give a majority), and something over for his trouble. Staienus conceived the happy idea of appropriating the whole, and he managed it in this way. He accosted a fellow-juror, whom he knew to be as unprincipled as himself. "Bulbus," he said, "you will help me in taking care that we sha'n't serve our country for nothing." "You may count on me," said the man. Staienus went on, "The defendant has promised three hundred and fifty pounds to every juror who will vote 'Not Guilty.' You know who will take the money. Secure them, and come again to me." Nine days after, Bulbus came with beaming face to Staienus. "I have got the sixteen in the matter you know of; and now, where is the money?" "He has played me false," replied the other; "the money is not forthcoming. As for myself, I shall certainly vote 'Guilty.'"
The trial came to an end, and the verdict was to be given. The defendant claimed that it should be given by word of mouth, being anxious to know who had earned their money. Staienus and Bulbus were the first to vote. To the surprise of all, they voted "Guilty." Rumors too of foul play had spread about. The two circumstances caused some of the more respectable jurors to hesitate. In the endfivevoted for acquittal,tensaid "Not Proven," and seventeen "Guilty." Oppianicus suffered nothing worse than banishment, a banishment which did not prevent him from living in Italy, and even in the neighborhood of Rome. The Romans, though they shed blood like water in their civil strife, were singularly lenient in their punishments. Not long afterwards he died.
His widow saw in his death an opportunity of gratifying the unnatural hatred which she had long felt for her son Cluentius. She would accuse him of poisoning his step-father. Her first attempt failed completely. She subjected three slaves to torture, one of them her own, another belonged to the younger Oppianicus, a third the property of the physician who had attended the deceased in his last illness. But the cruelties and tortures extorted no confession from the men. At last the friends whom she had summoned to be present at the inquiry compelled her to desist. Three years afterwards she renewed the attempt. She had taken one of the three tortured slaves into high favor, and had established him as a physician at Larinum. The man committed an audacious robbery in his mistress's house, breaking open a chest and abstracting from it a quantity of silver coin and five pounds weight of gold. At the same time he murdered two of his fellow-slaves, and threw their bodies into the fish-pond. Suspicion fell upon the missing slaves. But when the chest came to be closely examined, the opening was found to be of a very curious kind. A friend remembered that he had lately seen among the miscellaneous articles at an auction a circular saw which would have made just such an opening. It was found that this saw had been bought by the physician. He was now charged with the crime. Thereupon a young lad who had been his accomplice came forward and told the story. The bodies were found in the fish-pond. The guilty slave was tortured. He confessed the deed, and he also confessed, his mistress declared, that he had given poison to Oppianicus at the instance of Cluentius. No opportunity was given for further inquiry. His confession made, the man was immediately executed. Under strong compulsion from his step-mother, the younger Oppianicus now took up the case, and indicted Cluentius for murder. The evidence was very weak, little or nothing beyond the very doubtful confession spoken of above; but then there was a very violent prejudice against the accused. There had been a suspicion—perhaps more than a suspicion—of foul play in the trial which had ended in the condemnation of Oppianicus. The defendant, men said, might have attempted to bribe the jury, but the plaintiff had certainly done so. It would be a fine thing if he were to be punished even by finding him guilty of a crime which he had not committed.
In defending his client, Cicero relied as much upon the terrible list of crimes which had been proved against the dead Oppianicus as upon any thing else. Terrible indeed it was, as a few specimens from the catalogue will prove.
Among the wealthier inhabitants of Larinum was a certain Dinaea, a childless widow. She had lost her eldest son in the Social War (the war carried on between Rome and her Italian allies), and had seen two others die of disease. Her only daughter, who had been married to Oppianicus, was also dead. Now came the unexpected news that her eldest son was still alive. He had been sold into slavery, and was still working among a gang of laborers on a farm in Gaul. The poor woman called her kinsfolk together and implored them to undertake the task of recovering him. At the same time she made a will, leaving the bulk of her property to her daughter's son, the younger Oppianicus, but providing for the missing man a legacy of between three and four thousand pounds. The elder Oppianicus was not disposed to see so large a sum go out of the family. Dinaea fell ill, and he brought her his own physician. The patient refused the man's services; they had been fatal, she said, to all her kinsfolk. Oppianicus then contrived to introduce to her a traveling quack from Ancona. He had bribed the man with about seventeen pounds of our money to administer a deadly drug. The fee was large, and the fellow was expected to take some pains with the business; but he was in a hurry; he had many markets to visit; and he gave a single dose which there was no need to repeat.
Meanwhile Dinaea's kinsfolk had sent two agents to make inquiries for the missing son. But Oppianicus had been beforehand with them. He had bribed the man who had brought the first news, had learned where he was to be found, and had caused him to be assassinated. The agents wrote to their employers at Larinum, saying that the object of their search could not be found, Oppianicus having undoubtedly tampered with the person from whom information was to be obtained. This letter excited great indignation at Larinum; and one of the family publicly declared in the market-place that he should hold Oppianicus (who happened to be present) responsible if any harm should be found to have happened to the missing man. A few days afterwards the agents themselves returned. They had found the man, but he was dead. Oppianicus dared not face the burst of rage which this news excited, and fled from Larinum. But he was not at the end of his resources. The Civil War between Sulla and the party of Marius (for Marius himself was now dead) was raging, and Oppianicus fled to the camp of Metellus Pius, one of Sulla's lieutenants. There he represented himself as one who had suffered for the party. Metellus had himself fought in the Social War, and fought against the side to which the murdered prisoner belonged. It was therefore easy to persuade him that the man had deserved his fate, and that his friends were unworthy persons and dangerous to the commonwealth. Oppianicus returned to Larinum with an armed force, deposed the magistrates whom the towns-people had chosen, produced Sulla's mandate for the appointment of himself and three of his creatures in their stead, as well as for the execution of four persons particularly obnoxious to him. These four were, the man who had publicly threatened him, two of his kinsfolk, and one of the instruments of his own villainies, whom he now found it convenient to get out of the way.
The story of the crimes of Oppianicus, of which only a small part has been given, having been finished, Cicero related the true circumstances of his death. After his banishment he had wandered about for a while shunned by all his acquaintances. Then he had taken up his quarters in a farmhouse in the Falernian country. From these he was driven away by a quarrel with the farmer, and removed to a small lodging which he had hired outside the walls of Rome. Not long afterwards he fell from his horse, and received a severe injury in his side. His health was already weak, fever came on, he was carried into the city and died after a few days' illness.
Besides the charge of poisoning Oppianicus there were others that had to be briefly dealt with. One only of these needs to be mentioned. Cluentius, it was said, had put poison into a cup of honey wine, with the intention of giving it to the younger Oppianicus. The occasion, it was allowed, was the young man's wedding-breakfast, to which, as was the custom at Larinum, a large company had been invited. The prosecutor affirmed that one of the bridegroom's friends had intercepted the cup on its way, drunk off its contents, and instantly expired. The answer to this was complete. The young man had not instantly expired. On the contrary, he had died after an illness of several days, and this illness had had a different cause. He was already out of health when he came to the breakfast, and he had made himself worse by eating and drinking too freely, "as," says the orator, "young men will do." He then called a witness to whom no one could object, the father of the deceased. "The least suspicion of the guilt of Cluentius would have brought him as a witness against him. Instead of doing this he gives him his support. Read," said Cicero to the clerk, "read his evidence. And you, sir," turning to the father, "stand up a while, if you please, and submit to the pain of hearing what I am obliged to relate. I will say no more about the case. Your conduct has been admirable; you would not allow your own sorrow to involve an innocent man in the deplorable calamity of a false accusation."
Then came the story of the cruel and shameful plot which the mother had contrived against her son. Nothing would content this wicked woman but that she must herself journey to Rome to give all the help that she could to the prosecution. "And what a journey this was!" cried Cicero. "I live near some of the towns near which she passed, and I have heard from many witnesses what happened. Vast crowds came to see her. Men, ay, and women too, groaned aloud as she passed by. Groaned at what? Why, that from the distant town of Larinum, from the very shore of the Upper Sea, a woman was coming with a great retinue and heavy money-bags, coming with the single object of bringing about the ruin of a son who was being tried for his life. In all those crowds there was not a man who did not think that every spot on which she set her foot needed to be purified, that the very earth, which is the mother of us all, was defiled by the presence of a mother so abominably wicked. There was not a single town in which she was allowed to stay; there was not an inn of all the many upon that road where the host did not shun the contagion of her presence. And indeed she preferred to trust herself to solitude and to darkness rather than to any city or hostelry. And now," said Cicero, turning to the woman, who was probably sitting in court, "does she think that we do not all know her schemes, her intrigues, her purposes from day to day? Truly we know exactly to whom she has gone, to whom she has promised money, whose integrity she has endeavored to corrupt with her bribes. Nay, more: we have heard all about the things which she supposes to be a secret, her nightly sacrifice, her wicked prayers, her abominable vows."
He then turned to the son, whom he would have the jury believe was as admirable as the mother was vile. He had certainly brought together a wonderful array of witnesses to, character. From Larinum every grown-up man that had the strength to make the journey had come to Rome to support their fellow-townsman. The town was left to the care of women and children. With these witnesses had come, bringing a resolution of the local senate full of the praises of the accused, a deputation of the senators. Cicero turned to the deputation and begged them to stand up while the resolution was being read. They stood up and burst into tears, which indeed are much more common among the people of the south than among us, and of which no one sees any reason to be ashamed. "You see these tears, gentlemen," cried the orator to the jury. "You may be sure, from seeing them, that every member of the senate was in tears also when they passed this resolution." Nor was it only Larinum, but all the chief Samnite towns that had sent their most respected citizens to give their evidence for Cluentius. "Few," said Cicero, "I think, are loved by me as much as he is loved by all these friends."
Cluentius was acquitted. Cicero is said to have boasted afterwards that he had blinded the eyes of the jury. Probably his client had bribed the jury in the trial of his step-father. That was certainly the common belief, which indeed went so far as to fix the precise sum which he paid. "How many miles is your farm from Rome?" was asked of one of the witnesses at a trial connected with the case. "Less than fifty-three," he replied. "Exactly the sum," was the general cry from the spectators. The point of the joke is in the fact that the same word stood in Latin for thethousandpaces which made a mile and thethousandcoins by which sums of money were commonly reckoned. Oppianicus had paid forty thousand for an acquittal, and Cluentius outbid him with fifty thousand ("less than fifty-three") to secure a verdict of guilty. But whatever we may think of the guilt or innocence of Cluentius, there can be no doubt that the cause in which Cicero defended him was one of the most interesting ever tried in Rome.
A Roman of even moderate wealth—for Cicero was far from being one of the richest men of his time—commonly possessed more country-houses than belong even to the wealthiest of English nobles. One such house at least Cicero inherited from his father. It was about three miles from Arpinum, a little town in that hill country of the Sabines which was the proverbial seat of a temperate and frugal race, and which Cicero describes in Homeric phrase as
"Rough but a kindly nurse of men."
In his grandfather's time it had been a plain farmhouse, of the kind that had satisfied the simpler manners of former days—the days when Consuls and Dictators were content, their time of office ended, to plow their own fields and reap their own harvests. Cicero was born within its walls, for the primitive fashion of family life still prevailed, and the married son continued to live in his father's house. After the old man's death, when the old-fashioned frugality gave way to a more sumptuous manner of life, the house was greatly enlarged, one of the additions being a library, a room of which the grandfather, who thought that his contemporaries were like Syrian slaves, "the more Greek they knew the greater knaves they were," had never felt the want; but in which his son, especially in his later days, spent most of his time. The garden and grounds were especially delightful, the most charming spot of all being an island formed by the little stream Fibrenus. A description put into the mouth of Quintus, the younger son of the house, thus depicts it: "I have never seen a more pleasant spot. Fibrenus here divides his stream into two of equal size, and so washes either side. Flowing rapidly by he joins his waters again, having compassed just as much ground as makes a convenient place for our literary discussions. This done he hurries on, just as if the providing of such a spot had been his only office and function, to fall into the Liris. Then, like one adopted into a noble family, he loses his own obscurer name. The Liris indeed he makes much colder. A colder stream than this indeed I never touched, though I have seen many. I can scarce bear to dip my foot in it. You remember how Plato makes Socrates dip his foot in Ilissus." Atticus too is loud in his praises. "This, you know, is my first time of coming here, and I feel that I cannot admire it enough. As to the splendid villas which one often sees, with their marble pavements and gilded ceilings, I despise them. And their water-courses, to which they give the fine names of Nile or Euripus, who would not laugh at them when he sees your streams? When we want rest and delight for the mind it is to nature that we must come. Once I used to wonder—for I never thought that there was any thing but rocks and hills in the place—that you took such pleasure in the spot. But now I marvel that when you are away from Rome you care to be any where but here." "Well," replied Cicero, "when I get away from town for several days at a time, I do prefer this place; but this I can seldom do. And indeed I love it, not only because it is so pleasant, so healthy a resort, but also because it is my native land, mine and my father's too, and because I live here among the associations of those that have gone before me."
Other homes he purchased at various times of his life, as his means permitted. The situation of one of them, at Formiae near Cape Caista, was particularly agreeable to him, for he loved the sea; it amused him as it had amused, he tells us, the noble friends, Scipio and Laelius, before him, to pick up pebbles on the shore. But this part of the coast was a fashionable resort. Chance visitors were common; and there were many neighbors, some of whom were far too liberal of their visits. He writes to Atticus on one occasion from his Formian villa: "As to composition, to which you are always urging me, it is absolutely impossible. It is a public-hall that I have here, not a country-house, such a crowd of people is there at Formiae. As to most of them nothing need be said. After ten o'clock they cease to trouble me. But my nearest neighbor is Arrius. The man absolutely lives with me, says that he has given up the idea of going to Rome because he wants to talk philosophy with me. And then, on the other side, there is Sebosus, Catulus' friend, as you will remember. Now what am I to do? I would certainly be off to Arpinum if I did not expect to see you here." In the next letter he repeats the complaints: "Just as I am sitting down to write in comes our friend Sebosus. I had not time to give an inward groan, when Arrius says, 'Good morning.' And this is going away from Rome! I will certainly be off to
'My native hills, the cradle of my race.'"
Still, doubtless, there was a sweetness, the sweetness of being famous and sought after, even in these annoyances. He never ceased to pay occasional visits to Formiae. It was a favorite resort of his family; and it was there that he spent the last days of his life.
But the country-house which he loved best of all was his villa at Tusculum, a Latin town lying on the slope of Mount Algidus, at such a height above the sea[4] as would make a notable hill in England. Here had lived in an earlier generation Crassus, the orator after whose model the young Cicero had formed his own eloquence; and Catulus, who shared with Marius the glory of saving Rome from the barbarians; and Caesar, an elder kinsman of the Dictator. Cicero's own house had belonged to Sulla, and its walls were adorned with frescoes of that great soldier's victories. For neighbors he had the wealthy Lucullus, and the still more wealthy Crassus, one of the three who ruled Rome when it could no longer rule itself, and, for a time at least, Quintus, his brother. "This," he writes to his friend Atticus, "is the one spot in which I can get some rest from all my toils and troubles."
[Footnote 4: 2200 feet.]
Though Cicero often speaks of this house of his, he nowhere describes its general arrangements. We shall probably be not far wrong if we borrow our idea of this from the letter in which the younger Pliny tells a friend about one of his own country seats.
"The courtyard in front is plain without being mean. From this you pass into a small but cheerful space inclosed by colonnades in the shape of the letter D. Between these there is a passage into an inner covered court, and out of this again into a handsome hall, which has on every side folding doors or windows equally large. On the left hand of this hall lies a large drawing-room, and beyond that a second of a smaller size, which has one window to the rising and another to the setting sun. Adjoining this is another room of a semicircular shape, the windows of which are so arranged as to get the sun all through the day: in the walls are bookcases containing a collection of authors who cannot be read too often. Out of this is a bedroom which can be warmed with hot air. The rest of this side of the house is appropriated to the use of the slaves and freedmen; yet most of the rooms are good enough to put my guests into. In the opposite wing is a most elegant bedroom, another which can be used both as bedroom and sitting-room, and a third which has an ante-room of its own, and is so high as to be cool in summer, and with walls so thick that it is warm in winter. Then comes the bath with its cooling room, its hot room, and its dressing chamber. And not far from this again the tennis court, which gets the warmth of the afternoon sun, and a tower which commands an extensive view of the country round. Then there is a granary and a store-room."
This was probably a larger villa than Cicero's, though it was itself smaller than another which Pliny describes. We must make an allowance for the increase in wealth and luxury which a century and a half had brought. Still we may get some idea from it of Cicero's country-house, one point of resemblance certainly being that there was but one floor.
What Cicero says about his "Tusculanum" chiefly refers to its furnishing and decoration, and is to be found for the most part in his letters to Atticus. Atticus lived for many years in Athens and had therefore opportunities of buying works of art and books which did not fall in the way of the busy lawyer and statesman of Rome. But the room which in Cicero's eyes was specially important was one which we may call the lecture-room, and he is delighted when his friend was able to procure some appropriate ornaments for it. "YourHermathena" he writes (theHermathenawas a composite statue, or rather a double bust upon a pedestal, with the heads of Hermes and Athene, the Roman Mercury and Minerva) "pleases me greatly. It stands so prettily that the whole lecture-room looks like a votive chapel of the deity. I am greatly obliged to you." He returns to the subject in another letter. Atticus had probably purchased for him another bust of the same kind. "What you write about theHermathenapleases me greatly. It is a most appropriate ornament for my own little 'seat of learning.' Hermes is suitable every where, and Minerva is the special emblem of a lecture-room. I should be glad if you would, as you suggest, find as many more ornaments of the same kind for the place. As for the statues that you sent me before, I have not seen them. They are at my house at Formiae, whither I am just now thinking of going. I shall remove them all to my place at Tusculum. If ever I shall find myself with more than enough for this I shall begin to ornament the other. Pray keep your books. Don't give up the hope that I may be able to make them mine. If I can only do this I shall be richer than Crassus." And, again, "If you can find any lecture-room ornaments do not neglect to secure them. My Tusculum house is so delightful to me that it is only when I get there that I seem to be satisfied with myself." In another letter we hear something about the prices. He has paid about one hundred and eighty pounds for some statues from Megara which his friend had purchased for him. At the same time he thanks him by anticipation for some busts of Hermes, in which the pedestals were of marble from Pentelicus, and the heads of bronze. They had not come to hand when he next writes: "I am looking for them," he says, "most anxiously;" and he again urges diligence in looking for such things. "You may trust the length of my purse. This is my special fancy." Shortly after Atticus has found another kind of statue, double busts of Hermes and Hercules, the god of strength; and Cicero is urgent to have them for his lecture-room. All the same he does not forget the books, for which he is keeping his odds and ends of income, his "little vintages," as he calls them—possibly the money received from a small vineyard attached to his pleasure-grounds. Of books, however, he had an ample supply close at home, of which he could make as much use as he pleased, the splendid library which Lucullus had collected. "When I was at my house in Tusculum," he writes in one of his treatises, "happening to want to make use of some books in the library of the young Lucullus, I went to his villa, to take them out myself, as my custom was. Coming there I found Cato (Cato was the lad's uncle and guardian), of whom, however, then I knew nothing, sitting in the library absolutely surrounded with books of the Stoic writers on philosophy."
When Cicero was banished, the house at Tusculum shared the fate of the rest of his property. The building was destroyed. The furniture, and with it the books and works of art so diligently collected, were stolen or sold. Cicero thought, and was probably right in thinking, that the Senate dealt very meanly with him when they voted him something between four and five thousand pounds as compensation for his loss in this respect. For his house at Formiae they gave him half as much. We hear of his rebuilding the house. He had advertised the contract, he tells us in the same letter in which he complains of the insufficient compensation. Some of his valuables he recovered, but we hear no more of collecting. He had lost heart for it, as men will when such a disaster has happened to them. He was growing older too, and the times were growing more and more troublous. Possibly money was not so plentiful with him as it had been in earlier days. But we have one noble monument of the man connected with the second of his two Tusculum houses. He makes it the scene of the "Discussions of Tusculum," one of the last of the treatises in the writing of which he found consolation for private and public sorrows. He describes himself as resorting in the afternoon to his "Academy," and there discussing how the wise man may rise superior to the fear of death, to pain and to sorrow, how he may rule his passions, and find contentment in virtue alone. "If it seems," he says, summing up the first of these discussions, "if it seems the clear bidding of God that we should quit this life [he seems to be speaking of suicide, which appeared to a Roman to be, under certain circumstances, a laudable act], let us obey gladly and thankfully. Let us consider that we are being loosed from prison, and released from chains, that we may either find our way back to a home that is at once everlasting and manifestly our own, or at least be quit forever of all sensation and trouble. If no such bidding come to us, let us at least cherish such a temper that we may look on that day so dreadful to others as full of blessing to us; and let us look on nothing that is ordered for us either by the everlasting gods or by nature, our common mother, as an evil. It is not by some random chance that we have been created. There is beyond all doubt some mighty Power which watches over the race of man, which does not produce a creature whose doom it is, after having exhausted all other woes, to fall at last into the unending woe of death. Rather let us believe that we have in death a haven and refuge prepared for us. I would that we might sail thither with widespread sails; if not, if contrary winds shall blow us back, still we must needs reach, though it may be somewhat late, the haven where we would be. And as for the fate which is the fate of all, how can it be the unhappiness of one?"