Caesar's account of the Civil War makes
him out to be a great benefactor, bringing justice and peace to a
society crippled by decades of conflict. He forgives his enemies, he
is just in his rulings, returns exiled citizens and does it all with
a glad smile on his face. However, Cicero, I found your letters to
one Marcus Claudius Marcellus, and within that story lies a window to
the truth of what Caesar was really like.
You wrote to Marcellus in September of
46BCE, concerning his reasons for self imposed exile, and of your
common feelings about the war. (Letter CCCLXXXIV)
“...But I was conscious of this –
that you were not satisfied with the policy of the civil war, not
with Pompey's forces, nor the nature of his army, and were always
deeply distrustful of it: in which sentiment I think you remember
that I also shared. Accordingly, you did not take much part in
active service, and I always strove not to do so. For we were not
fighting with the weapons with which we might have prevailed –
deliberation, weight of character, and the righteousness of our
cause, in all of which we had the superiority – but with muscles
and brute force, in which we were not his equals.
...However, even if you had already
made up your mind, that you preferred being absent from Rome to
seeing what was repugnant to your feelings, yet you ought to have
reflected that, wherever you were, you would be in the power of the
man from whom you were fleeing. And even if he were likely to make
no difficulty about allowing you to live in peace while deprived of
property and country, you ought yet to have reflected whether you
preferred living at Rome and in your own house, whatever the state of
affairs, to living at Mytilene or Rhodes. But seeing that the power
of the man whom we fear is so widely extended, that it has embraced
the whole world, do you not prefer to being in your own house without
danger, to being in another man's with danger? For my part, if I
must face death, I would rather do so at home and in my native
country, than in a foreign and alien land.”
Then in your next letter to him, you
continue to exhort him to consider returning to Rome, even though it
would mean living under the rule of a tyrant.
CCCCLXXXV
“...But – you object – you
will yourself be obliged to say something you do not feel, or to do
something you do no approve. To begin with, to yield to
circumstances, that is to submit to necessity, has ever been held the
part of a wise man : in the next place, things are no – as matters
now stand at least – quite so bad as that. You may not be able,
perhaps, to say what you think : you may certainly hold your tongue.
For authority of every kind has been committed to one man. He
consults nobody but himself, not even his friends. There would not
have been much difference if he whom we followed were master of the
Republic...
...Everything in civil war is
wretched; of which our ancestors never once had experience, while our
generation has known it repeatedly : but nothing, after all, is more
wretched than victory itself, which, even if it fall to the better
men, yet renders them more savage and ruthless so that, even if they
are not such by nature, they are compelled to become so by the
necessity of the case. For a conqueror is forced, at the beck of
those who won him his victory, to do many things even against his
inclination...
...Finally, if it was the sign of
high spirit not to be a supplicant to the victor, is it not perhaps a
sign of pride to spurn his kindness? If it was the act of a wise man
to absent himself from his country, is it not perhaps a proof of
insensibility not to regret her?... The crowning argument is this :
even if your present mode of life is more convenient, you must
reflect whether it is not less safe. The sword owns no law : but in
a foreign land there is even less scruple as to committing a
crime...”
What a grim prophecy those last words
of yours were to him, Cicero. For you succeeded in convincing the
Senate, and Caesar to pardon Marcellus. The speech you gave on that
day is a rather stark contrast with the image Caesar paints of
himself as a leader of tolerance, clemency and wisdom. This speech,
Pro Marcello, seems delivered in a state of terror, before a
man still reeking of the spilt blood of his many enemies.
“This day, O conscript fathers,
has brought with it an end to the long silence in which I have of
late indulged; not out of any fear, but partly from sorrow, partly
from modesty; and at the same time it has revived in me my ancient
habit of saying what my wishes and opinions are. For I cannot by any
means pass over in silence such great humanity, such unprecedented
and unheard-of clemency, such moderation in the exercise of supreme
and universal power, such incredible and almost godlike wisdom. For
now that Marcus Marcellus, O conscript fathers, has been restored to
you and the republic, I think that not only his voice and authority
are preserved and restored to you and to the republic, but my own
also.”
Julius Caesar
If there were any lingering doubt as to
the power of a tyrant, it should fade now in the greasy light of this
speech of yours Cicero. You debase yourself in giving thanks and
divine praise to Caesar, you all but declare him to be a god more
wonderful than Fortune herself for his act of forgiving Marcellus and
allowing him to return to Rome, and to the Republic.
“But in this glory, O Caius
Caesar, which you have just earned, you have no partner. The whole of
this, however great it may be- and surely it is as great as possible-
the whole of it, I say, is your own. The centurion can claim for
himself no share of that praise, neither can the prefect, nor the
battalion, nor the squadron. Nay, even that very mistress of all
human affairs, Fortune herself, cannot thrust herself into any
participation in that glory; she yields to you; she confesses that it
is all your own, your peculiar private desert. For rashness is never
united with wisdom, nor is chance ever admitted to regulate affairs
conducted with prudence.”
I am ashamed for you Cicero.
*
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