by Cicero
But as for everyone else—immortal gods!—how numerous they are, how determined they are, and how nobly they have united in defence of our common safety and honour! Do I of all people* have to remind you at this point of the Roman equestrians? While they yield to you the first place in rank and deliberation, they are your rivals in their love for their country. Now, after many years of conflict, this day and this issue unite them with you, calling them back into alliance and harmony with this order.* And if we can make this national unity, forged in my consulship, permanent, then I can promise you that no internal civil disturbance will ever again affect any part of our national life. I see that the treasury tribunes have courageously come forward with no less determination to defend the country. I see also that the entire body of scribes,* who happen to have come to the treasury today in considerable numbers, have turned their attention from the allotment of their posts to the national security. [16] All the free-born citizens are here, even the poorest of them, in one vast crowd. In fact, is there a single person here who does not regard these temples, the sight of our city, the possession of freedom, and indeed this light of day and the very soil of our shared homeland as not just dear to him, but a source of joy and delight? It is worth your while, too, conscript fathers, to take note of the feelings of the freedmen. They by their own merit have obtained the rights of citizens, and sincerely consider this their home—while certain others who were born here, and born to the best families, have thought of it not as their homeland, but as an enemy city. But why do I mention these orders and individuals when their private fortunes, their common political interest, and—what is sweetest of all—their very freedom has roused them to defend their country in its hour of danger? There is no slave, so long as his existence is at least endurable, who does not shudder at the criminality of citizens, who does not wish Rome to remain standing, and who does not apply himself as hard as he dares and as hard as he can to preserve the national security.
[17] So if any of you happen to be worried by what people are saying, that a particular pimp of Lentulus’ is going round the shops hoping that he can use money to corrupt the minds of the poor and naive, then let me tell you that the man did indeed try this and make the attempt. But he failed to find anyone so down at heel or so criminally inclined as not to wish to preserve his work-place, job, and livelihood, his couch and his bed, and the easy routine of his life. On the contrary, the vast majority of shopkeepers, in fact the entire class (it must be said) is absolutely committed to peace. All their capital, employment, and profits are dependent on a supply of customers, and rely on peaceful conditions. If their profits fall when their shops are closed, what will be the effect on those profits, do you think, when their shops have been set on fire?
[18] Conscript fathers, that is how the matter stands.* The support of the Roman people does not fail you: so you make sure that you do not appear to be failing the Roman people. You have a consul who has been allowed to escape from a great many dangers and plots and from the jaws of death not for the sake of his own life, but to ensure your safety. All the orders are united in heart, mind, determination, courage, and voice to save our country. Beset by the torches and weapons of a diabolical conspiracy, our common homeland stretches her suppliant hands to you. To you she commends herself, to you she commends the lives of all her citizens, to you she commends the citadel and the Capitol, to you she commends the altars of her household gods, to you she commends yonder eternal fire of Vesta,* to you she commends the temples and shrines of all the gods, and to you she commends the walls and houses of the city. And it is on your own lives, on those of your wives and children, on your property, on your homes, and on your hearths that you must today reach your decision.
[19] You have a leader who is thinking of you and not of himself—something you do not always have. You have a situation in which all the orders, all men, and the entire Roman people are all of one mind—something which, on a domestic issue, we have never seen before today. Just think what enormous effort was involved in creating our empire, what valour in establishing our freedom, what divine favour in increasing and building up our prosperity—and how a single night* almost destroyed all of this. Your task today is to make sure that such a thing can never again be contemplated, let alone brought off, by citizens. And the reason I have said this is not to rally you—indeed, you have almost overtaken me in determination—but simply so that my voice, which ought to be the chief voice in the state, will be seen to have fulfilled its consular duty.
[20] Now before I ask you once again for your views, I should like to say a word about myself. You can see for yourselves how many people are members of this conspiracy—a great many. And I can see for myself how many personal enemies I have made—the same number. I believe, however, that these people are base, weak, contemptible, and craven. But if that gang should ever again be stirred up by the insanity of some criminal, and succeed in overpowering your authority and that of the state, I shall never, conscript fathers, regret the actions and the line I have taken. Death they may threaten me with; but we are all going to die. In life, on the other hand, no one has ever received such honours as you have voted me in your decrees. Others have received your thanks for having served the country well—but I alone for having saved it.
[21] Let Scipio have his fame,* since by his intelligence and courage he forced Hannibal to leave Italy and return to Africa; let the second Africanus be showered with the highest praise for destroying the two cities most hostile to this empire of ours, Carthage and Numantia; let Paullus be judged outstanding, since his triumph was adorned by the most noble and once the most powerful of kings, Perseus; let Marius have everlasting glory for twice liberating Italy from occupation and the prospect of slavery; and let Pompeius be rated higher than all of these, since his achievements and merits are bounded by the same borders and limits as the course of the sun. But amid the praise due to these men there will surely be some space left for my own glory—unless perhaps it is a greater achievement to open up provinces for us to go out to than to ensure that those who have gone out to them have a country to which they can return in triumph.*
[22] In one respect, however, a victory abroad is preferable to one at home: foreign enemies either are crushed and turned into subjects or are admitted* and consider themselves bound by ties of gratitude. But once citizens have been corrupted by some kind of lunacy and have become traitors to their country, you may be able to stop them destroying the state, but you can never constrain them by force or conciliate them by kindness. It is obvious to me, therefore, that the war that I have undertaken against traitors must be unending. I trust, however, that with your help and that of all loyal citizens, and with the recollection of the terrible dangers to which we have been exposed—a recollection which will always be retained not only among our own people who have themselves been saved, but in the minds and conversation of people of all nations—I and those who are with me shall easily drive back the forces that assault us. Certainly, there is no force that is strong enough to subvert and undermine the bond between yourselves and the Roman equestrians, and the absolute unanimity that exists among all loyal citizens.
[23] Since that is how the matter stands, instead of a command, instead of an army, instead of the province I have given up,* instead of a triumph and the other marks of honour that I have forfeited in order to keep guard over Rome and your own safety, instead of the new friends and clients that I would have acquired in a province (although in my work at Rome I devote just as much effort to maintaining my existing connections as I do to acquiring new ones), instead of all these benefits that would otherwise come to me, and in return for the exceptional efforts I have made on your behalf, and in return also for this conscientiousness with which, as you can see, I have protected the country, I ask you for nothing whatsoever—except that you hold on to the memory of this moment and of my whole consulship. As long as that memory remains fixed in your minds, I shall feel that I am defended by the strongest of walls. B
ut if the power of traitors deceives and triumphs over my hopes, then I commend my little son* to you: he will surely receive the protection necessary to ensure not just his survival, but his standing in the state—just so long as you remember that his father was a man who saved Rome at his own unique personal cost.
[24] Therefore on the survival of yourselves and the Roman people, on your wives and children, on your altars and hearths, on your shrines and temples, on the houses and homes of all of the city, on your dominion and freedom, on the safety of Italy, and on the entire state you must now make your decision carefully, as you have begun to do, and courageously. You have a consul who will not hesitate to obey whatever you decree, and who will defend your decision, and answer for it personally, for the rest of his days.
PRO MARCELLO (‘FOR MARCELLUS’)
In In Catilinam IV we saw a free exchange of views taking place in the senate in a free republic, with Cicero presiding as consul. Pro Marcello was also delivered in the senate—but we have moved forward in time to 46 BC. In that year, the free republic had fallen, and Caesar was dictator for ten years. The republicans, led by Pompey, had been defeated at Pharsalus (9 August 48), and Pompey was dead. Most of the surviving republicans had then either made their peace with Caesar or gone on to suffer defeat at Thapsus (6 February 46). Cato, true to his Stoic principles, had committed suicide rather than submit to a tyrant—thus winning for himself eternal glory as a republican martyr. The senate was packed with Caesar’s supporters, and pardoned Pompeians were careful what they said. Cicero himself, pardoned in 47 after a year’s anxious wait, attended the senate only in order not to appear to be refusing to recognize its legitimacy, and did not speak. (His main preoccupation during this period was not politics, but literature: he completed the Brutus, a history of Roman oratory, early in 46, and the Orator, a discussion of oratorical style, by about September of the same year.) He had not spoken in public for nearly six years, since his successful prosecution of his enemy Titus Munatius Plancus Bursa (a tribune of 52) in, probably, January 51. The speech Pro Marcello, delivered in the senate in mid-September of 46, was the speech in which he finally broke his silence.
Pro Marcello is a speech of thanks to Caesar for agreeing to pardon his most die-hard republican enemy, Marcus Claudius Marcellus, the consul of 51. It is in fact misnamed: the title Pro Marcello (‘For Marcellus’) leads one to expect a forensic speech, a defence of Marcellus in a court of law. Instead this is an epideictic (display) speech, a speech in praise of Caesar (technically, a panegyric), and would more correctly be called De Marcello (‘On Marcellus’), the title it is given by two Latin writers of the fourth century AD, Arusianus Messius and Servius. But the manuscripts of the speech call it Pro Marcello, and scholars (with one recent exception) have not seen fit, or dared, to alter that title. We do not know what title, if any, Cicero gave it.
Marcus Claudius Marcellus, although not a patrician, belonged to one of Rome’s most noble and aristocratic families. The most famous member of that family had been the Marcus Claudius Marcellus who held the consulship five times, won the spolia opima (‘spoils of honour’) in 222 BC for killing a Gallic chief in single combat, and went on in 211 to capture Syracuse from the Carthaginians after a two-and-a-half-year siege. The family maintained its distinction in our period too: the subject of this speech held the consulship in 51, his cousin Gaius Marcellus held it in 50, and his (Marcus’) brother Gaius Marcellus held it in 49. The consul of 50 was married to Octavian’s sister Octavia; their son Marcus Marcellus was to be Augustus’ successor of choice before dying in 23 BC and being immortalized by Virgil in the Aeneid.
Little is known, however, of the early career of our Marcellus. Twelve years younger than Cicero, he held the quaestorship in 64, and supported him during the Catilinarian conspiracy. We know of his involvement in four court cases in the 50s, always on the same side as Cicero: in 56, when he supported Titus Annius Milo against Publius Clodius Pulcher; in 54, when he spoke for Marcus Aemilius Scaurus (Cicero’s Pro Scauro survives); and in 52, when he supported Milo after the murder of Clodius, both in the preliminary summons of Milo’s slaves and in Milo’s actual trial. In the Brutus (248–50), the interlocutor Brutus is made to speak highly of Marcellus’ oratory, emphasizing its similarity to that of Cicero himself; since the Brutus otherwise deals, with the sole exception of Caesar, only with orators no longer living, Marcellus’ inclusion in that work is, like that of Caesar, an exceptional compliment.
In 51, then, Marcellus held the consulship. His colleague was Cicero’s close friend Servius Sulpicius Rufus, the brilliant jurist who is patronized so entertainingly in Pro Murena (63 BC), and whose obituary is the Ninth Philippic (43 BC). Sulpicius had had a long wait for the consulship (his first attempt had been in 63); in the election, he had defeated Cato, his partner in the Murena trial.
In 51, Caesar was coming to the end of his conquest of Gaul, and at Rome the most pressing political issue was whether and under what circumstances he could be induced to give up his command, which he had held since 58. The ‘first triumvirate’ had come to an end in 53 with the death of Crassus. That left just two men dominating the political scene, Pompey and Caesar; but they had become estranged, with Pompey increasingly (since his third consulship in 52) siding with the senate. Caesar was vulnerable to prosecution, since the laws of his consulship in 59 had been passed by violence; but he was exempt from prosecution so long as he held an official command. His aim was therefore to hold on to his command in Gaul until he had fully settled the new province, and then step straight from his command to a second consulship (to enable him to do this, a ‘law of the ten tribunes’ in 52 had given him permission to stand for the consulship in absence; but a later law in the same year had left its status doubtful). Caesar’s enemies, on the other hand, were determined to prevent him from having his way by removing him from his command at the earliest opportunity, and then prosecuting him. These men, who were generally the most hardline of republicans (and who included aristocrats like the Marcelli), saw Pompey as a means of countering him, but would have preferred ideally to be rid of both men—then the supremacy of the senate would be assured. Cicero, by contrast, like the vast majority of senators, was prepared to appease Caesar in order to prevent the very real danger of civil war. The date at which Caesar’s command was supposed to end is uncertain, and may never have been made explicit (this has been one of the big questions of Roman historical scholarship). But a law had been passed in Pompey’s second consulship in 55 to the effect that the question of a successor to Caesar should not be raised in the senate before 1 March 50 (alternatively, the law may have specified that as the terminal date of his command).
On becoming consul, Marcellus announced that he intended to raise the question of a successor to Caesar in Gaul. But his colleague Sulpicius opposed such provocation. Then Marcellus went further. One of the laws passed during Caesar’s consulship in 59 had set up a colony of Roman citizens at Novum Comum (modern Como) in Transpadane Gaul. In order to make the point that he did not recognize the law—or, more importantly, the lex Vatinia of the same year under which Caesar had been appointed to his Gallic command—Marcellus had a citizen of the place flogged (a punishment which could not legally be inflicted on Roman citizens), telling him to go and show his wounds to Caesar. (There was some doubt as to whether or not the man was an ex-magistrate of his town, as he may have claimed; if he was, then the punishment was illegal even if the claim of the people of Novum Comum to Roman citizenship was not valid.) In a letter to his friend Atticus, Cicero called Marcellus’ action ‘ugly’ (Att. 5.11.2). The threatened debate on the question of a successor to Caesar finally took place after much delay at the end of September, and it was decided to put the matter on the senate’s agenda for the following 1 March. If Caesar were removed from his command on that day, it would then be impossible for him to step straight from his command to a consulship.
When 1 March came, the proposed debate was vetoed. Meanwhile, the new consul
Gaius Marcellus continued his cousin’s policy of active hostility to Caesar. In December, a proposal that Caesar and Pompey should each give up their commands (Pompey had a command in Spain, which he governed through legates) was approved by the senate by a large majority (370 to 22), but not acted upon. The consul Marcellus then tried and failed to have Caesar declared a public enemy, after which both consuls went to Pompey and formally instructed him to take command of the forces of the state. On 1 January 49—the day on which Marcellus’ brother Gaius became consul—a proposal arrived from Caesar that he and Pompey should each give up their commands simultaneously: if this were not accepted, Caesar would resort to force. The proposal was not put to a vote; instead, Pompey’s father-in-law, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica, proposed that if Caesar did not lay down his arms by a certain date, he should be declared a public enemy. This proposal was carried but then vetoed; and on 7 January the hard-liners persuaded the senate to pass the emergency decree (senatus consultum ultimum or ‘SCU’). On 10 or 11 January Caesar then crossed the frontier of his province, the Rubicon, and invaded Italy.
Once the Civil War had begun, those who were not committed to Caesar had to consider what they should do. Cicero, who had returned to Rome from his governorship of Cilicia only at the beginning of 49—too late to try to prevent the war—delayed in Italy until June, before reluctantly deciding to join Pompey in Greece. Gaius Marcellus, the consul of 50, remained in Italy, and succeeded in obtaining Caesar’s pardon. The brothers Marcus and Gaius, on the other hand, both joined Pompey—more out of fear of Caesar than commitment to his opponent (Att. 9.1.4). Gaius, the consul of 49, was put in command of the Rhodian section of Pompey’s fleet, but seems to have died by the time of Pharsalus. After Pharsalus, Cicero (who was not present at the battle) returned to Italy to wait for Caesar’s pardon, but Marcus Marcellus would do nothing so humiliating. Instead, he retired to Mytilene, on the island of Lesbos, where he took lessons from Cratippus of Pergamum, a leading Peripatetic philosopher. (Pompey also visited Mytilene after Pharsalus, and complained to Cratippus at the turn fortune had taken.)