Now that a long war was more or less certain, Caesar’s interest in Cicero shifted from his potentially useful role as mediator to his value as a propaganda asset. He wanted to attract as many senior figures to his side as possible, in order to legitimize his authority, and Cicero would be a great prize. Stressing his policy of clemency and their ties of amicitia (it is not known whether Cicero had yet been able to pay back Caesar’s loan), he tried to persuade the reluctant statesman to come to Rome. Caesar’s plan was to visit the city briefly to meet the remnants of the Senate, after which he would go to Spain and deal with Pompey’s legions there. On March 28, on his journey back from Brundisium, Caesar stopped off at Formiae for an encounter which Cicero had been dreading for some time.
Caesar was not in an accommodating mood. He complained that Cicero was passing judgment against him and that “the others would be slower to come over” to his side if he refused to do so. Cicero replied that they were in a different position. A long discussion followed, which Cicero recorded for Atticus. It went badly.
“Come along then [to a Senate meeting called for April 1] and work for peace,” Caesar said.
“At my own discretion?”
“Naturally, who am I to lay down the rules for you?”
“Well, I shall take the line that the Senate does not approve of an expedition to Spain or of the transport of armies into Greece, and I shall have much to say in commiseration of Pompey.”
“This is not the kind of thing I want said.”
“So I supposed, but that is just why I don’t want to be present. Either I must speak in that strain or stay away—and much else besides which I could not possibly suppress if I was there.”
Caesar closed the conversation by asking Cicero to think matters over. He added menacingly as he left: “If I cannot make use of your advice, I will take it where I can find it. I will stop at nothing.” He meant that if moderates like Cicero would not work with him, his only alternative would be to seek help from revolutionaries.
The encounter was decisive, for both parties. Caesar must have realized that he could not push an obviously unhappy man any further. He now proceeded to Rome, where he spent a few uncomfortable days in discussion with a reluctant and much-thinned Senate. He broke into the Treasury at the Temple of Saturn and removed its contents: 15,000 bars of gold, 30,000 of silver and 30 million sesterces—a move for which he paid with the total collapse of his popularity. Then he hurried away to fight in Spain, leaving the Tribune Mark Antony in charge of Italy and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus in charge of Rome.
AS for Cicero, the conversation and the behavior of Caesar’s raffish entourage—he nicknamed them the “underworld”—persuaded him that, for all his reservations, he had to side with those who were (if only ostensibly) fighting for the Republic. He could do this only by leaving Italy. But when should he set off and how? And where should he go? He thought of Athens or, somewhere completely off the beaten track, Malta. Soon he realized he was being watched by Caesar’s spies.
The time had come for Marcus’s coming-of-age ceremony and the family moved to the ancestral home of Arpinum for the purpose. It was a melancholy trip: everyone they met was in low spirits and, as a result of Caesar’s levies, men were being led off to winter quarters. On his return to Formiae, Cicero made a most unpalatable discovery. Quintus, now seventeen, had made off to Rome, claiming that he wanted to see his mother. He had written to Caesar and perhaps even obtained an interview with him (or one of his lieutenants), in which he revealed that his uncle was disaffected and intended to leave the country. The elder Quintus was beside himself with misery. In a hierarchical society where a paterfamilias had theoretically unlimited power over his children, it was an almost unbelievable betrayal. Although Cicero was upset, he seems to have taken the affair in stride. After a few days he calmed down, deciding that the boy had acted out of greed rather than hatred. The runaway was brought back, and his uncle decided that “severity” was the best policy.
Curio called. Caesar had given him a commission to secure the corn supply in Sicily (where he was to face, and face down, Cato) before going on to the province of Africa. He hurried off on political business before returning, on the following day, for a longer conversation.
In the following weeks, Cicero referred from time to time to a mysterious, top-secret plan which he code-named “Caelius.” It is not known what he had in mind, but there has been speculation that it might have been a scheme to take over Africa and use it as a base from which to launch a new peace initiative. Caelius can hardly have been involved himself since he was with Caesar in Spain and perhaps the name was employed jokily for what was fundamentally a madcap project. One wonders if it originated in the lengthy discussions with Curio. If Curio was complicit, it would suggest either that he was willing to detach himself from Caesar or, more deviously, that the “Caelian business” could have been a device to lure Cicero away from Greece and Pompey into a safely Caesarian zone of influence. In that case, Cicero was lucky that he did not proceed with the matter, for the militarily inexperienced Curio quickly fell afoul of King Juba of Numidia, an ally of Pompey, was routed in battle and killed with the loss of all his forces. The project, whatever it was, soon vanishes from the correspondence.
It did not call for great acumen on anyone’s part to sense Cicero’s misery and to guess at his intention to escape from Italy. During April and early May pressure was brought to bear on him from all sides, advising him not to leave the country but to stay where he was. Caesar wrote to him from Massilia making the point. It would appear, he observed, that “you have disapproved some action of mine, which is the worst blow you could deal me. I appeal to you in the name of our friendship not to do this.” On May 1 Mark Antony sent him a warning letter whose surface cordiality concealed menace. “I cannot believe that you mean to go abroad, considering how fond you are of Dolabella and that most admirable young lady your daughter and how fond we all are of you.… I have specially sent Calpurnius, my intimate friend, so that you may know how deeply I care for your personal safety and position.” Caelius also argued strongly that he should not stir, writing that Caesar’s clemency would not last. If he abandoned Italy, Caelius said, Cicero would be risking ruin for himself and his family, not to mention blighting the careers of friends such as himself and Dolabella.
Members of his family also disapproved of his apparent determination to leave the country. Young Marcus and Quintus were in tears, if we can believe Cicero, when they read Caelius’s letter. The heavily pregnant Tullia (she gave birth prematurely a few weeks later to a sickly child who did not survive) begged him to await the result of the Spanish campaign before making up his mind.
Cicero appealed to Mark Antony to give him formal permission to leave the country and received a cool, brief response, in which he was advised to ask Caesar directly. He wrote to Atticus in May:
Do you think that if Spain is lost, Pompey will drop his weapons? No, his entire plan is Themistoclean [Themistocles was the Athenian statesman who had defeated the invading Persians by abandoning Athens and fighting at sea]. He reckons that whoever holds the sea is sure to be master. For that reason he was never interested in holding the Spanish provinces for their own sake; his main concern was always to outfit a navy. So when the time comes, he will put to sea with huge fleets and land in Italy.
What was somewhat less obvious was the nature of Cicero’s likely contribution to the Republican cause once in Greece. His military advice would not be wanted. All that he could offer would be the publicity of his name. Moderate public opinion, however, would be impressed by his choice of sides.
To discourage speculation about his imminent departure, Cicero decided to spend a few days at his elegant town house in Pompeii. AS soon as he arrived, though, he received an embarrassing surprise. Centurions from the three cohorts stationed there invited him to take charge of the soldiers and occupy the town. What use were three cohorts? he asked himself. Anyway, it could be a trap. Unnerved, he left the
town secretly before dawn and returned home.
Quietly, the necessary travel arrangements were made and a reliable ship was found. “I hope my plan won’t involve any risk,” Cicero remarked, as ever nervous of physical danger and travel by sea. Bad weather caused a delay but on June 7 he was on board and writing a farewell letter to Terentia. At long last, he set sail for Greece with Marcus, his dissident nephew and the inevitable lictors. At this point the correspondence with Atticus ends and is not resumed for a year, either because communications were impossible or because it was too risky to write frankly. For a time Cicero recedes into the background—a powerless, disconsolate figure almost lost among tremendous events.
Cicero arrived at Pompey’s camp at the port of Dyrrachium in Greece to find that the Commander-in-Chief had retained all his organizational skills and had spent the interval while Caesar was in Spain gathering his forces. Nine legions were assembled, five of which had been brought across from Italy and the others from various parts of the Empire. (Cicero’s two understrength Cilician legions were among them, now merged into a single unit.) He had also recruited archers and a 7,000-strong force of cavalry. Through his large fleet, he maintained command of the seas, although the lack of senior military talent at his disposal is illustrated by the fact that he appointed Bibulus his admiral.
To his relief, Cicero, who made a large loan to Pompey to boost his war chest, was greeted warmly on his arrival and an effort was made to put him at ease. At the outset, although wracked with worry and in poor health, he was hopeful of the future. He wrote to Atticus: “You ask me about the war news. You will be able to learn it from Isidorus [the letter carrier]. It looks as if what remains won’t be too difficult. Do please see to what you know I have most at heart [Terentia was in financial difficulty], as you say you will do and are doing. I am eaten up with anxiety, which has made me seriously ill. When I am better, I shall join the man in charge who is full of optimism.” However, with typical contrariness, Cato took Cicero aside and said that his coming to Greece was a bad mistake. He would be much more use to his country and his friends if he stayed at home and reacted to events as they occurred. AS he had agonized over his decision, this was the last thing Cicero wanted to hear and he was distinctly put out. He had expected the standard-bearer of constitutionalism to praise him. Not only had Cato not done so, but he gave the impression of having little confidence in Pompey’s prospects.
After being nearly trapped by floods, Caesar brilliantly outmaneuvered his opponents in Spain and in August 49 enforced a surrender without bloodshed in a campaign that lasted only forty days. In his absence he arranged for a Praetor to have him appointed Dictator, which would empower him to hold elections. He hurried back to Italy where he confronted a mutiny among his troops, which he settled with bold inflexibility.
During this second flying visit to Rome he was elected to the second Consulship for which he had spent so many years struggling and intriguing. The onset of civil war had brought financial activity in Italy to an almost complete standstill and a debt crisis was creating serious social unease. Throughout the century revolutionaries such as Catilina had promoted a policy of total cancellation of debts and many expected that this was what Caesar would do. But he was too intelligent and responsible a politician not to realize that this cure would be far worse than the disease. He issued a well-considered decree which obliged creditors to accept land at prewar values as repayment and allowed up to a quarter of the value of a debt to be set off against previous interest payments.
It was on this issue that Caelius surprisingly broke with his new master in the following year. Praetor for 48, he tried to bounce an uncertain and edgy government into more radical measures after Caesar left Rome again for Greece in pursuit of Pompey. In January 48 he was in a cocky frame of mind when he wrote his final surviving letter to Cicero. Critical of Pompey’s strategy of masterly inactivity in Greece, he promised that his own dash and drive would rescue the Republican cause. “I’ll make you win in spite of yourselves. Cato and company will be smiling on me yet. You lot are fast asleep.” However, he was quickly dismissed from office and driven to taking up arms. He called Cicero’s old friend Milo back to Italy because he owned some gladiators he could make use of. Also, unforgivably in Roman eyes, he armed some slaves. But the revolt was easily quashed by Caesar’s troops and both Caelius and Milo were killed.
Brilliant, amusing and attractive, Caelius was disabled by a refusal to take serious things seriously. He threw his life away pointlessly. By opposing Caesar this late in the game, he ignored the advice he had himself given Cicero. “To go against him now in the hour of his victory … is the acme of folly,” he had said. So it was.
Caesar joined his army at Brundisium at the end of the year. He was determined to retain the initiative and had no intention of waiting for Pompey to invade Italy. Despite the fact that it was now winter, when sailing was unsafe, he decided to cross over to Greece as soon as possible, whatever the risk. On January 4, 48, he sailed unobserved to the coast of Epirus with part of his army, evading Bibulus’s naval blockade. However, bad weather and Bibulus’s unwillingness to be caught napping a second time meant that it was not until early April that his remaining troops under Mark Antony were able to join him. For a while Caesar had had too few forces to match Pompey and had been in serious danger, but now he went on the offensive. At the same time, in a continuing effort to retain the moral high ground, he launched another abortive peace initiative, but his opponents, filled with optimism, were having none of it.
Caesar decided to surround Pompey’s camp near Dyrrachium with a fifteen-mile fortified line and besiege him. Pompey responded by building his own fortifications and then launched a major breakout. For a moment Caesar faced total defeat, but the advantage was not followed through. Caesar observed dismissively of his opponent: “He has no idea how to win a war.” Short of supplies, Caesar cut his losses and marched away south to the more fertile region of Thessaly, with the enemy in pursuit.
It was typical of his tirelessness and attention to detail that, in the press of business, he remembered Cicero. In May he asked Dolabella, who was on his staff, to write a friendly letter to his father-in-law, which he duly did. After itemizing the humiliations and reverses that Pompey had suffered, he advised: “Consult your own best interests and at long last be your own friend rather than anybody else’s.” If there was anything Caesar could do to protect and maintain Cicero’s dignitas, his honor or status, he had only to ask.
This was a well-aimed, and possibly well-informed, intervention. Cicero was not at all happy with his present circumstances. Could Cato have been right, after all? He made little secret of the fact that he now regretted having come to Greece. He could not resist making sarcastic comments and jokes about his colleagues and companions in arms and wandered about the camp looking so glum that he became something of a figure of fun. He criticized Pompey’s plans behind his back and ridiculed the faith he and his supporters placed in prophecies and oracles. Above all, he went on arguing for peace and believed he might have won Pompey over if his confidence had not been boosted by the success at Dyrrachium.
Looking back a couple of years afterwards he summed up his opinions:
I came to regret my action, not so much because of the risk to my personal safety as of the appalling situation which confronted me on arrival. To begin with, our forces were too small and had poor morale. Second, with the exception of the Commander-in-Chief and a handful of others (I am talking about the leading figures), everyone was greedy to profit from the war itself and their conversation was so bloodthirsty that I shuddered at the prospect of victory. What’s more, people of the highest rank were up to their ears in debt. In a word, nothing was right except the cause we were fighting for.
There was talk of a proscription and, shockingly, Atticus had been marked down, perhaps because of his wealth, as a candidate for liquidation.
The climax of the campaign took place on August 9 on a plain near the t
own of Pharsalus in central Greece. Against his better judgment, although his army was much the larger of the two (perhaps 50,000 strong as compared with Caesar’s force of about 30,000), Pompey at last offered battle. His plan was to outflank and roll up Caesar’s right wing with a strong troop of horses, but Caesar guessed his intentions and placed some cohorts out of sight behind his center. His wing retreated in good order, as it had been instructed to do, and Pompey’s onrushing cavalry was attacked from the side and routed. It was now Caesar’s turn to outflank the enemy center and the rest of the engagement was a massacre. Pompey’s soldiers stood their ground and died patiently, but the non-Roman allies put up no resistance and fled, shouting, “We’ve lost.” Caesar recorded 200 fatalities while some 15,000 of Pompey’s men were killed and 23,000 captured.
When Pompey saw how the battle was going, he withdrew to his camp where he sat speechless and stunned. Nothing in his long, cloudless career had prepared him for such a disaster. He changed out of his uniform and made his escape on horseback. His camp presented a remarkable spectacle. In his history of the war, Caesar described what he found: “[There] could be seen artificial arbors, a great weight of silver plate laid out, tents spread with fresh turf, those of Lucius Lentulus and several others covered with ivy, and many other indications of extravagant indulgence and confidence in victory.” Inspecting the corpses on the battlefield, he remarked bitterly of the optimates: “They insisted on it.”
Cicero was not present at Pharsalus, although it is possible that Quintus was, together with the seventeen-year-old Marcus, who had been given command of a troop of horses in Pompey’s army and was doubtless enjoying the break from his studies in Athens. Being in poor health (whether genuinely or expediently), Cicero stayed behind at Dyrrachium with Cato, who commanded the town’s garrison. Cicero was as annoyingly sarcastic as ever. When someone said optimistically that there was hope yet, for they had seven Eagles left (the legionary standards), he joked bitterly: “Excellent, if we were fighting jackdaws.”
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