Pompey and Crassus were then brought forward to speak, an unusual step for they were private citizens and had no official status. They made the point that the law could well be afforded, seeing that the eastern campaign had filled the state’s coffers. In fact, it would even be possible to acquire land for the veterans of an earlier war, a measure which the Senate had approved at the time but never acted on.
Bibulus now started to “watch the heavens daily”—a religious device for halting public business and, to make assurance double sure, declared all the remaining days of the year on which the General Assembly could be legally held to be holidays. This did not deter Caesar from formally convening the General Assembly to pass the bill—a good example of the Consul’s sweeping powers, even when wielded against his coequal colleague. The result of the vote could not be in any doubt, but Caesar was taking no risks. Crowds of veterans occupied the Forum the night before it was to be taken. Bibulus, with a crowd of followers, turned up during the middle of a speech Caesar was giving from the Temple of the Castors. He was let through, partly out of respect for his office and partly because no one imagined he would continue to maintain his opposition. But that was just what he did. When he tried to announce a veto, he was thrown down the Temple steps. He was showered with filth, his fasces—the rods and axes of office—were smashed and he and some Tribunes who supported him were lucky to escape with their lives. After being beaten up and wounded, they made their escape as best they could.
The optimates had little choice but to give way under duress and the bill was passed. Insultingly it included a clause obliging Senators to sign a statement agreeing to abide by the legislation. Cato was persuaded only with the greatest difficulty to do so.
With every new development, each side raised the stakes. Not long afterwards, Caesar introduced a second land bill, this time much harsher in its terms. Its purpose was to redistribute publicly owned land in Campania (a fertile territory in the Naples area) to Roman citizens with more than three children. At present it was rented out, so the reform would severely reduce an important stream of state revenue. AS Cicero noted, nothing could be better designed to inflame “better class sentiment.” An ancient Senator, Lucius Gellius, declared that the bill would not be implemented for as long as he lived. “Let us wait then,” said Cicero, “since Gellius is not asking us to postpone things for long.” Despite Senatorial opposition, this measure too was pushed through the General Assembly.
Bibulus withdrew to his house, where he stayed for the rest of the year. He tried to halt all public business, including elections, by continually declaring bad omens. Because they had been unable to stop Caesar, the optimates were laying the ground for a move, after the Consulship was over, to declare all his measures unlawful. Powerless, Bibulus resorted to insult: dredging up the old story about King Nicomedes, he described Caesar in an edict as “the Queen of Bithynia … who once wanted to sleep with a king but now wants to be one.” On the streets people laughingly spoke of the Consulship of Julius and Caesar.
Cicero was not impressed by Bibulus’s behavior. He became more and more depressed by the course of events and could only wait and watch from the sidelines as Pompey’s settlement in the east was at last ratified, in the end with little trouble. Crassus’s tax farmers had the price of their contracts reduced by a third, but he could not claim any of the credit.
In March Cicero defended his former fellow Consul, Antonius, on a corruption charge, without success. After Antonius’s conviction, flowers were laid on Catilina’s grave and a celebratory banquet was held. Audaciously Cicero used his speech for a strong attack on the First Triumvirate. He soon saw that this was a serious mistake. Caesar made no public comment, but he acted at once to bring Cicero into line by letting Clodius off his leash. On the afternoon of the day Cicero made his comments, Caesar approved an application by Clodius for a change in status from Patrician to Plebeian. This was no mere technicality: only a Plebeian could be elected Tribune—a post Clodius coveted, for (among other things) it would enable him to get his long meditated revenge. AS part of the procedure to change his social status, Clodius had to be adopted by a Plebeian man; to show his disregard for social norms, he chose as his “father” a youth of twenty.
Alongside covert threats, various blandishments were offered to Cicero during the spring and summer, including a seat on the commission that had been set up to implement the land-reform laws and an assignment as special envoy to the Egyptian Pharaoh. He turned them all down. Seeing that Caesar would use fair means or foul to gag him, he silently admitted defeat and for the time being withdrew from public life, leaving Rome for a tour of his villas.
Cicero was planning to write a book on geography but could not concentrate on it. He preferred to work instead on a candid memoir of his life and times, in which he denounced his enemies and attacked the First Triumvirate. This Secret History (De consiliis suis) was well-known in antiquity but is now lost; it was unpublishable in Cicero’s lifetime and he gave it to young Marcus with the instruction not to issue it until after his death. In April 59, he told Atticus: “I have taken so kindly to idleness that I can’t tear myself away from it. So either I amuse myself with books, of which I have a good stock at Antium, or I count the waves—the weather is unsuitable for mackerel fishing.… And my sole form of political activity is to hate the rascals, and even that I do without anger.” This did not mean he had lost his appetite for news and gossip. He depended on his friend for a reliable flow. “When I read a letter of yours I feel I am in Rome, hearing one thing one minute and another the next, as one does when big events are toward.” At about the same time, he wrote: “I have so lost my manly spirit that I prefer to be tyrannized over in peace and quiet.”
Curio paid an unexpected visit. No longer a “little Miss” but now “my young friend,” he brought the welcome news that his circle was unhappy with the regime but also reported, less agreeably, that Clodius was definitely standing as Tribune for 58. Cicero could see this only as an ominous development.
In Rome matters went from bad to worse for the optimates. AS the months passed, the existence of an explicit alliance among the three became public knowledge. Pompey’s marriage in April to Caesar’s dearly loved daughter, Julia, was a sign that it was not a temporary expedient but a permanent arrangement. Pompey’s private life seems to have been remarkably free from scandal. Attractive to women, he had some affairs, but usually acted with great caution in questions of the heart. A courtesan, Flora, used to recall that she never left his bed without carrying the marks of his teeth and he is reported to have slept with the wife of a favorite freedman of his. In fact, he was uxorious by nature and tended to fall in love with his wives. This was certainly the case with Julia. He adored her and was criticized for spending too much time on holiday with her at Italian resorts when he should have been attending to public business. For her part, despite a considerable difference in age, she developed a genuine affection for her middle-aged husband and was a crucial, emollient and reconciling link between him and her father in Gaul.
Cicero told Atticus that “Sampsiceramus,” his nickname for Pompey (after an oriental potentate), “is out for trouble. We can expect anything. He is confessedly working for absolute power.… They would never have come so far if they were not paving their way to other and disastrous objectives.” He noticed that the uninhibited freedom of speech which marked political life in the Republic was giving way to caution at social gatherings and across dinner tables. Despite the fact that there was no official censorship, he agreed on a simple code with Atticus for sensitive parts of their correspondence.