полная версия

Napoleon III
History of Julius Caesar Vol. 1 of 2

The activity of the consul did not confine itself to internal reforms; it extended to questions which were raised abroad. The condition of Egypt was precarious: King Ptolemy Auletes, natural son of Ptolemy Lathyrus, was afraid lest, in virtue of a forged will of Ptolemy Alexander, or Alexas, to whose fall he had contributed, his kingdom might be incorporated with the Roman Empire.¹¹³⁴ Auletes, perceiving his authority shaken in Alexandria, had sought the support of Pompey during the war in Judæa, and had sent him presents, and a large sum of money, to engage him to maintain his cause before the Senate.¹¹³⁵ Pompey had offered himself as his advocate; and Cæsar, whether from policy, or from a wish to please his son-in-law, caused Ptolemy Auletes to be declared a friend and ally of Rome.¹¹³⁶ At his demand, the same favour was granted to Ariovistus, king of the Germans, who, after having made war upon the Ædui, had withdrawn from their country at the invitation of the Senate, and had expressed a desire to become an ally of Rome. It was entirely the interest of the Republic to conciliate the Germans, and send them to the other bank of the Rhine, whatever might be the views of the consul regarding his future command in Gaul.¹¹³⁷ Next, he conferred some privileges on certain municipia and satisfied many ambitions; “for,” says Suetonius, “he granted everything that was asked of him: no man dared oppose him, and, if any one attempted, he knew how to intimidate him.”¹¹³⁸

Among the cares of the consul was the nomination of tribunes devoted to him, since it was they generally who proposed the laws for the people to ratify.

Clodius, on account of his popularity, was one of the candidates who could be most useful to him; but his rank of patrician obliged him to pass by adoption into a plebeian family before he could be elected, and that he could only do in virtue of a law. Cæsar hesitated in bringing it forward; for if, on the one hand, he sought to conciliate Clodius himself, on the other, he knew his designs of vengeance against Cicero, and was unwilling to put into his hands an authority which he might abuse. But when, towards the month of March, at the trial of C. Antonius, charged with disgraceful conduct in Macedonia, Cicero, in defending his former colleague, indulged in a violent attack upon those in power, on that same day Clodius was received into the ranks of the plebeians,¹¹³⁹ and soon afterwards became, together with Vatinius, tribune-elect.¹¹⁴⁰ There was a third tribune, whose name is unknown, but who was equally won over to the interests of the consul.¹¹⁴¹

Thus Cæsar, as even Cicero admits, was alone more powerful already than the Republic.¹¹⁴² Of some he was the hope; of others, the terror; of all, master irrevocably. The inactivity of Bibulus had only served to increase his power.¹¹⁴³ Thus it was said in Rome, as a jest, that men knew of no other consulship than that of Julius and Caius Cæsar, making two persons out of a single name; and the following verses were handed about: —

“Non Bibulo quidquam nuper sed Cæsare factum est:

Nam Bibulo fieri consule nil memini.”¹¹⁴⁴

And as popular favour, when it declares itself in favour of a man in a conspicuous position, sees something marvellous in everything that concerns his person, the populace drew a favourable augury from the existence of an extraordinary horse born in his stables. Its hoofs were forked, and shaped like fingers. Cæsar was the only man who could tame this strange animal, the docility of which, it was said, foreboded to him the empire of the world.¹¹⁴⁵

During his first consulship, Cæsar caused a number of laws to be passed, the greater part of which have not descended to us. Some valuable fragments, however, of the most important ones have been preserved, and among others, the modifications in the sacerdotal privileges. The tribune Labienus, as we have seen, in order to secure Cæsar’s election to the office of pontiff, had granted the right of election to seventeen tribes selected by lot. Although this law seemed to authorise absentees to become candidates for the priesthood, the people and the priests disputed the right of those who did not solicit the dignity in person. Endless quarrels and disturbances were the result. To put an end to these, Cæsar, while confirming the law of Labienus, announced that not only those candidates who appeared in person, but those at a distance also, who had any title whatever to that honour, might offer themselves as candidates.¹¹⁴⁶

He turned his attention next to the provinces, whose condition had always excited his sympathy. The law intended to reform the vices of the administration (De provinciis ordinandis) is of uncertain date; it bears the same title as that of Sylla, and resembles it considerably. Its provisions guaranteed the inhabitants against the violence, the arbitrary conduct, and the corruption of the proconsuls and proprætors, and fixed the allotments to which these were entitled.¹¹⁴⁷

It released the free states, liberæ civitates, from dependence upon governors, and authorised them to govern themselves by their own laws and their own magistrates.¹¹⁴⁸ Cicero himself considered this measure as the guarantee of the liberty of the provinces;¹¹⁴⁹ for, in his speech against Piso, he reproaches him with having violated it by including free nations in his government of Macedonia.¹¹⁵⁰ Lastly, a separate proviso regulated the responsibility and expenses of the administration, by requiring that on going out of office the governors should deliver, at the end of thirty days, an account explaining their administration and their expenses, of which three copies were to be deposited, one in the treasury (ærarium) at Rome, and the others in the two principal towns of the province.¹¹⁵¹ The proprætors were to remain one year, and the proconsuls two, at the head of their governments.¹¹⁵²

The generals were in the habit of burdening the people they governed with exorbitant exactions. They extorted from them crowns of gold (aurum coronarium), of considerable value, under pretence of the triumph, and obliged the countries through which they passed to bear the expenses of themselves and their attendants. Cæsar remedied these abuses, by forbidding the proconsuls to demand the crown before the triumph had been decreed,¹¹⁵³ and by subjecting to the most rigorous restrictions the contributions in kind which were to be furnished.¹¹⁵⁴ We may judge how necessary these regulations were from the fact that Cicero, whose government was justly considered an honest one, admits that he drew large sums from his province of Cilicia eight years after the passing of the law Julia.¹¹⁵⁵

The same law forbad all governors to leave their provinces, or to send their troops out of them to interfere in the affairs of any neighbouring State, without permission of the Senate and the people,¹¹⁵⁶ or to extort any money from the inhabitants of the provinces.¹¹⁵⁷

The law by similar provisions diminished the abuse of free legations (legationes liberæ). This was the name given to the missions of senators, who, travelling into the provinces on their own affairs, obtained by an abuse the title of envoy of the Roman people, to which they had no right, in order to be defrayed the expenses and costs of travelling. These missions, which were for an indefinite time, were the subject of incessant¹¹⁵⁸ complaints. Cicero had limited them to a year: Cæsar prescribed a still narrower limit, but its exact length is unknown.¹¹⁵⁹

As a supplement to the preceding measures he brought in a law (De pecuniis repetundis), the provisions of which have often been confounded with those of the law De provinciis ordinandis. Cicero boasts of its perfection¹¹⁶⁰ and justice. It contained a great number of sections. In a letter from Cœlius to Cicero, the 101st chapter of the law is referred to. Its object was to meet all cases of peculation, out of Italy as well as in Rome. Persons who had been wronged could demand restitution before a legal tribunal of the sums unjustly collected.¹¹⁶¹ Though the principal provisions of it were borrowed from the law of Sylla on the same subject, the penalty was more severe and the proceedings more expeditious. For instance, as the rich contrived, by going into voluntary exile before the verdict, to elude the punishment, it was provided that in that case their goods should be confiscated, in part or wholly, according to the nature of the crime.¹¹⁶² If the fortune of the defendant was not sufficient for the repayment of the money claimed, all those who had profited by the embezzlement were sought out and jointly condemned.¹¹⁶³ Finally, corruption was attacked in all its forms,¹¹⁶⁴ and the law went so far as to watch over the honesty of business transactions. One article deserves special remark, that which forbad a public work to be accepted as completed if it were not absolutely finished. Cæsar had doubtless in mind the process which he had unsuccessfully instituted against Catulus for his failure to complete the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus.

We may for the most part consider as Cæsar’s laws those which were passed at his instigation, whether by the tribune P. Vatinius, or the prætor Q. Fufius Calenus.¹¹⁶⁵

One of the laws of the former authorised the accuser in a suit, as well as the accused, to challenge for once all the judges: down to this time they had only been permitted to challenge a certain number.¹¹⁶⁶ Its object was to give to all the same guarantee which Sylla had reserved exclusively to the senators, since for the knights and plebeians he limited the challenge to three.¹¹⁶⁷ Vatinius had also conferred on five thousand colonists, established at Como (Novum Comum), the rights of a Roman city. This measure¹¹⁶⁸ flattered the pride of Pompey, whose father, Pompeius Strabo, had rebuilt the town of Comum; and it offered to other colonists the hope of obtaining the qualification of Roman citizens, which Cæsar subsequently granted to them.¹¹⁶⁹

Another devoted partisan of the consul, the prætor Q. Fufius Calenus,¹¹⁷⁰ proposed a law which in judicial deliberations laid the responsibility upon each of the three orders of which the tribunal was composed: the senators, the knights, and the tribunes of the treasury. Instead of pronouncing a collective judgment, they were called upon to express their opinion separately. Dio Cassius explains the law in these terms: “Seeing that in a process all the votes were mixed together, and that each order took to itself the credit of the good decisions, and threw the bad ones to the account of the others, Calenus had a law made that the different orders should vote independently, in order to know thus, not the opinion of individuals, since the vote was secret, but that of each order.”¹¹⁷¹

All the laws of Cæsar were styled “Julian laws;” they received the sanction of the Senate, and were adopted without opposition,¹¹⁷² and even Cato himself did not oppose them; but when he became prætor, and found himself obliged to put them into execution, he was little-minded enough to object to call them by their name.¹¹⁷³

We may be convinced by the above facts, that, during his first consulship, Cæsar was animated by a single motive, the public interest. His ruling thought was to remedy the evils which afflicted the country. His acts, which several historians have impeached as subversive and inspired by boundless ambition, we find, on an attentive examination, to be the result of a wise policy, and the carrying out of a well-known plan, proclaimed formerly by the Gracchi, and recently by Pompey himself. Like the Gracchi, Cæsar desired a distribution of the public domain, the reform of justice, the relief of the provinces, and the extension of the rights of city; like them, he had protected the knightly order, so that he might oppose it to the formidable resistance of the Senate; but he, more fortunate, accomplished that which the Gracchi had been unable to realise. Plutarch, in the life of Crassus,¹¹⁷⁴ pronounces a eulogium on the wisdom of his government, although an intemperate judgment had led that writer, elsewhere, to compare his conduct to that of a factious tribune.¹¹⁷⁵

Following the taste of the age, and especially as a means of popularity, Cæsar gave splendid games, shows, and gladiatorial combats, borrowing from Pompey and Atticus considerable sums to meet his love of display, his profusion, and his largesses.¹¹⁷⁶ Suetonius, ever ready to record, without distinction, the reports, true and false, current at the time, relates that Cæsar had taken from the treasury three thousand pounds of gold, for which he substituted gilt metal; but his high character is sufficient to refute this calumny. Cicero, who had not, at this time, any reason to spare him, makes no mention of it in his letters, where his ill-humour displays itself, nor in his speech against Vatinius, one of Cæsar’s devoted friends. On the other hand, Pliny¹¹⁷⁷ mentions a similar fact which happened during Pompey’s consulate.

Cæsar receives the Government of the Gauls.

IV. Cæsar did not confine his ambition to discharging the functions of a consul and legislator: he desired to obtain a command worthy of the elevation of his genius, to extend the frontiers of the Republic, and to preserve them from the invasion of their most powerful enemies. It will be remembered that at the time of the election of the consuls, the Senate had conferred upon them the superintendence of the woods and public roads. He had, therefore, slender grounds to expect a return of friendly feeling on the part of that assembly, and, if the distribution of governments was vested in them, history offered examples of provinces given by vote of the people. Numidia was assigned to Marius on the proposal of the tribune L. Manlius; and L. Lucullus, having received Cisalpine Gaul from the Senate, obtained Cilicia from the people.¹¹⁷⁸ It was thus that the command of Asia had been conferred upon Pompey. Strong in these precedents, Vatinius proposed to the people to confer upon Cæsar, for five years, the command of Cisalpine Gaul and Illyria, with three legions.¹¹⁷⁹ Pompey supported this proposal with all his influence. The friends of Crassus,¹¹⁸⁰ Claudius¹¹⁸¹ and L. Piso, gave their votes in favour of this law.

At first, it appeared strange that the proposal of the tribune only included Cisalpine Gaul, without reference to the other side of the Alps, which alone offered chances of acquiring glory. But, on reflection, we discover how skilful and politic was this manner of putting the question. To solicit at the same time the government of both the Gauls might have seemed exorbitant, and likely to expose him to failure. To demand the government of Gaul proper was dangerous, for if he had obtained it without Cisalpine Gaul, which would have devolved upon another proconsul, Cæsar would have found himself completely separated from Italy, inasmuch as it would have been impossible for him to repair thither during the winter, and so preserve continuous relations with Rome. The proposal of Vatinius, on the contrary, having for its object only Cisalpine Gaul and Illyria, they could scarcely refuse a command limited to the ordinary bounds, and Cæsar acquired thereby a solid basis for operations in the midst of devoted populations, where his legions could be easily recruited. As to the province beyond the Alps, it was probable that some fortuitous circumstance, or new proposal, would place it under his orders. This happened sooner than he expected, for the Senate, by a skilful, but at this time unusual, determination, added to his command a third province, Gallia Comata, or Transalpine, and a fourth legion. The Senate thus obtained for itself the credit of an initiative, which the people would have taken of itself had it not been anticipated.¹¹⁸²

Transported with joy at this news, Cæsar, according to Suetonius, exclaimed in the full Senate, that now, having succeeded to the utmost of his desire in spite of his enemies, he would march over their heads.¹¹⁸³ This story is not probable. He was too prudent to provoke his enemies in their face at the moment he was going to a distance from Rome. “Always master of himself,” says an old writer, “he never needlessly ran against anybody.”¹¹⁸⁴

Opposition of the Patricians.

V. Whilst, contending with the most serious difficulties, Cæsar endeavoured to establish the Republic on the securest foundations, the aristocratic party consoled itself for its successive defeats by a petty war of sarcasm and chicanery. At the theatre they applauded all the injurious allusions of Pompey, and received Cæsar with coldness.¹¹⁸⁵ Bibulus, the son-in-law of Cato, published libels containing the grossest attacks. He renewed the accusation of plotting against the Republic, and of the pretended shameful relations with Nicomedes.¹¹⁸⁶ People rushed to read and copy these insulting placards. Cicero gladly sent them to Atticus.¹¹⁸⁷ The party, too, to which Bibulus belonged, extolled him to the skies, and made him a great man.¹¹⁸⁸ His opposition, however, had only succeeded in postponing the consular comitia until the month of October. This prorogation was made in the hope of preventing the election of consuls friendly to the triumvirs. Cæsar, on this occasion, attacked him in a violent speech, and Vatinius proposed to arrest him. Pompey, on his part, moved by invectives to which he was unaccustomed, complained to the people of the animosity of which he was the object; but his speech does not appear to have been attended with much success.

It is sad to see the accomplishment of great things often thwarted by the little passions of short-sighted men, who only know the world in the small circle to which their life is confined. By seconding Cæsar, Bibulus might have obtained an honourable reputation. He preferred being the hero of a coterie, and sought to obtain the interested applause of a few selfish senators, rather than, with his colleague, to merit public gratitude. Cicero, on his part, mistook for a true expression of opinion the clamours of a desperate faction. He was, moreover, one of those who find that all fares well while they are themselves in power, and that everything is endangered when they are out. In his letters to Atticus he speaks of the general hatred to these new kings, predicts their approaching fall, and exclaims,¹¹⁸⁹ “What murmurs! what irritation! what hatred against our friend Pompey! His name of great is growing old like that of rich Crassus.”¹¹⁹⁰

He explains, with a perfect naïveté, the consolation which his self-love finds in the abasement of him who was formerly the object of his admiration. “I was tormented with fear that the services which Pompey rendered to our country should hereafter appear greater than mine. I have quite recovered from it. He is so low, so very low, that Curius himself appears to me a giant beside him.”¹¹⁹¹ And he adds, “Now there is nothing more popular than to hate the popular men; they have no one on their side. They know it, and it is this which makes me fear a resort to violence. I cannot think without shuddering of the explosions which are inevitable.”¹¹⁹² The hatred which he bore to Clodius and Valerius misled his judgment.

Whilst Cæsar laboriously pursued the course of his destiny, the genius of Cicero, instead of understanding the future and hastening progress by his co-operation, resisted the general impulse, denied its evidence, and could not perceive the greatness of the cause through the faults of certain adherents to power.

Cæsar bore uneasily the attacks of Cicero; but, like all who are guided by great political views, superior to resentment, he conciliated everything which might exercise an ascendency over people’s minds; and the eloquence of Cicero was a power. Dio Cassius thus explains the conduct of Cæsar: “He did not wound Cicero either by his words or his acts. He said that often many men designedly throw vain sarcasm against those who are above them in order to drive them to dispute, in the hope of appearing to have some resemblance to them, and be put in the same rank if they succeed in being abused in return. Cæsar therefore judged that he ought not to enter the lists with anybody. Such was his rule of conduct towards those who insulted him, and, as he saw very well that Cicero sought less to offend him than to provoke him to make some injurious reply, from the desire which he had to be looked upon as his equal, he took no notice of him, made no account of what he said, and even allowed Cicero to insult him as he liked, and to praise himself beyond measure. However, he was far from despising him, but, naturally gentle, his anger was not easily aroused. He had much to punish, as must be the case with one mixed up with great affairs, but he never yielded to passion.”¹¹⁹³

An incident occurred which showed all the animosity of a certain party. L. Vettius, an old spy of Cicero’s in the Catiline conspiracy, punished for having falsely accused Cæsar, was arrested on suspicion of wishing to attempt his life, as well as that of Pompey. A poniard was found upon him; and, being interrogated before the Senate, he denounced, as the instigators of his crime, the young Curio, Cæpio, Brutus, Lentulus, Cato, Lucullus, Piso, son-in-law of Cicero, Cicero himself, M. Laterensis, and others. He also named Bibulus, which removed all air of probability from his accusations, Bibulus having already warned Pompey to be on his guard.¹¹⁹⁴ Historians, such as Dio Cassius, Appian, and Plutarch, treat this plot seriously; the first maintains expressly that Cicero and Lucullus had armed the hand of the assassin. Suetonius, on the contrary, reproaches Cæsar with having suborned Vettius in order to throw the blame upon his adversaries.

In face of these contradictory informations, it is best, as in the case of an ordinary lawsuit, to estimate the worth of the charge according to the previous character of the accused. Now, Cicero, notwithstanding his instability, was too honest to have a hand in a plot for assassination, and Cæsar had too elevated a character and too great a consciousness of his power to lower himself so far as to seek, in a miserable intrigue, the means of augmenting his influence. A senatus-consultum caused Vettius to be thrown into prison; but Cæsar, interested in, and resolved on, the discovery of the truth, referred the matter to the people, and forced Vettius to mount the tribune of the orators. He, with a suspicious versatility, denounced those whom he had before acquitted, and cleared those whom he had denounced, and among others, Brutus. With regard to the latter, it was pretended that this change was due to Cæsar’s connection with his mother. Vettius was remanded to prison, and found dead next day. Cicero accused Vatinius of killing him;¹¹⁹⁵ but, according to others, the true authors of his death were those who had urged him into this disgraceful intrigue, and were in fear of his revelations.¹¹⁹⁶

The comparison of these various accounts leads us to conclude that this obscure agent of dark intrigues had made himself the instigator of a plot, in order to have the merit of revealing it, and to attract the favour of Cæsar by pointing to his political adversaries as accomplices. Nevertheless, the event turned to the profit of Cæsar, and the people permitted him to take measures for his personal safety.¹¹⁹⁷ It was doubtless at this period that the ancient custom was re-established of allowing a consul, during the month when he had not the fasces, the right of being preceded by a beadle (accensus) and followed by lictors.¹¹⁹⁸

Without changing the fundamental laws of the Republic, Cæsar had obtained a great result: he had replaced anarchy by an energetic power, ruling at the same time the Senate and the comitia; by the mutual understanding between the three most important men, he had substituted for personal rivalries a moral authority which enabled him to establish laws conducive to the prosperity of the empire. But it was essential that his departure should not entail the fall of the edifice so laboriously raised. He was not ignorant of the number and power of his enemies; he knew that if he abandoned to them the forum and the curia, not only would they reverse his enactments, but they would even deprive him of his command. If there was any doubt of the degree of hatred of which he was the object, it would be sufficient to be reminded, that a year afterwards Ariovistus confessed to him, in an interview on the banks of the Rhine, that many of the important nobles of Rome had designs against his life.¹¹⁹⁹ Against such animosities he had the task, no easy one, of directing the elections. The Roman constitution caused new candidates to spring up every year for honours; and it was indispensable to have partisans amongst the two consuls, the eight prætors, and the ten tribunes named in the comitia. At all epochs, even at the time when the aristocracy exercised the greatest influence, it could not prevent its opponents from introducing themselves into the public offices. Moreover, the three who had made common cause had reason to fear the ambition and ingratitude of the men whom they had raised, and who would soon seek to become their equals. There was still a last danger, and perhaps the most serious: it was the impatience and want of discipline of the democratic party, of which they were the chiefs.

In face of these dangers, the triumvirs agreed to cause L. Piso, the father-in-law of Cæsar, and A. Gabinius, the devoted partisan of Pompey, to be elected to the consulship the following year. They were, in fact, designated consuls on the 18th of October, in spite of the efforts of the nobles and the accusation of Cato against Gabinius.

At the end of the year 695, Cæsar and Bibulus ceased their functions. The latter, in reporting his conduct according to custom, endeavoured to paint in the blackest colours the state of the Republic; but Clodius prevented him from speaking.¹²⁰⁰ As for Cæsar, his presentiment of the attacks to which he was to be subjected was only too well founded; for he had hardly quitted office, when the prætor L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, and C. Memmius, friends of Cicero,¹²⁰¹ proposed to the Senate to prosecute him for the acts committed during his consulate, and especially for not having paid attention to the omens. From this proposal the Senate recoiled.¹²⁰² Still, they brought Cæsar’s questor to trial. He himself was cited by the tribune L. Antistius. But the whole college refused to entertain the charge, in virtue of the law Memmia, which forbad an accusation to be entertained against a citizen while absent on the public service.¹²⁰³

Cæsar found himself once more at the gates of Rome, invested with the imperium, and, according to Cicero’s letters,¹²⁰⁴ at the head of numerous troops, composed apparently of veteran volunteers.¹²⁰⁵ He even remained there more than two months, in order to watch that his departure should not become the signal for the overthrow of his work.

Law of Clodius. Exile of Cicero.

VI. During this time, Clodius, a restless and turbulent spirit,¹²⁰⁶ proud of the support which he had lent the triumvirs, as well as of that he had received from them, listened only to his passion, and caused laws to be enacted, some of which, flattering the populace and even the slaves, menaced the State with anarchy. In virtue of these laws, he re-established political associations (collegia), clubs dangerous to public tranquillity,¹²⁰⁷ which Sylla had dissolved, but which were subsequently reorganised to be again suppressed in 690;¹²⁰⁸ he made gratuitous distributions of wheat to the people; took from the censors the right of excluding from the Senate anybody they wished, allowing them only to reject those who were under condemnation;¹²⁰⁹ forbad the magistrates taking omens, or observing the sky on the day of the deliberation of the comitia;¹²¹⁰ and, lastly, he inflicted severe penalties on those who had condemned Roman citizens to death unheard. This last enactment was evidently directed against Cicero, although his name was not mentioned in it. In order to ensure its adoption, its author desired the acquiescence of Cæsar, who was detained at the gates of Rome by the military command, which forbad him to enter. Clodius then convoked the people outside the walls, and when he asked the proconsul his opinion, the latter replied that it was well known by his vote in the affair of the accomplices of Catiline; that, nevertheless, he disapproved of a law which pronounced penalties upon facts which belonged to the past.¹²¹¹

On this occasion the Senate went into mourning, in order to exhibit its discontent to all eyes; but the consuls Gabinius and Piso obliged the Senate to relinquish this ill-timed demonstration.

Cæsar, in order to defend Cicero from the danger which threatened him, offered to take him with him to Gaul as his lieutenant.¹²¹² Cicero rejected the offer, deceiving himself through his confidence in his own influence,¹²¹³ and reckoning, moreover, on the protection of Pompey. It appears positive from this that Clodius exceeded Cæsar’s views, a new proof that such instruments when employed are two-edged swords, which even the most skilful hands find it difficult to direct. It is thus that later, Vatinius, aspiring to become prætor, received from his old patron this strong warning: “Vatinius has done nothing gratuitously during his tribuneship; he who only looks for money ought to dispense with honours.”¹²¹⁴ In fact, Cæsar, whose efforts to re-establish the popular institutions had never slackened, desired neither anarchy nor democratic laws; and just as he had not approved of the proposal of Manilius for the emancipation of the freedmen, so he opposed the reorganisation of the corporations, the gratuitous distributions of wheat, and the projects of vengeance entertained by Clodius, who, however, continually boasted of his support.

Crassus, on his part, desiring to be useful to Cicero without compromising himself,¹²¹⁵ engaged his son to go to his aid. As for Pompey, wavering between fear and friendship, he devised a pretext not to receive Cicero when he came to seek his support. Deprived of this last resource, the great orator abandoned his delusions, and after some show of resistance voluntarily withdrew. Scarcely had he quitted Rome when the law against him was passed without opposition, with the concurrence of those whom Cicero had looked upon as his friends.¹²¹⁶ His goods were confiscated, his house razed, and he was exiled to a distance of four hundred miles.