Cicero’s last major work is Duties (De officiis); written in autumn 44, it takes the form of a letter to Marcus, who was making heavy weather of his philosophical studies in Athens at this time. Complementing the theoretical discussions in On Supreme Good and Evil, it is based on the work of a Stoic philosopher, Panaetius, who was a member of the circle of Scipio Aemilianus, Cicero’s great hero from the second century (and the protagonist of his dialogue On the State). It has a practical cast and reflects the experience of the author’s own lifetime. Composed at a time when Cicero was returning to public life, it condemns citizens who abstain from political activity.
The work opens with a discussion of the cardinal virtues—wisdom, justice, fortitude and temperance—and goes on to set out the specific duties that follow from adherence to them. Cicero’s central concern is the contradiction between virtue and the inevitable expediencies that divert human agents from the path of right conduct. Giving many examples from Roman history, he argues that often the contradiction is only apparent, although sometimes it is difficult to establish what is really right. The primary duty, transcending all others, is loyalty to the state and Cicero takes the opportunity to review the record of his contemporaries. The behavior of various politicians of his day—the avaricious Crassus and Caesar, who has gone to the lengths of destroying the state—is compared with this principle and found wanting.
This body of work kept Cicero’s name in the public eye for the brief remainder of his lifetime as a man of principle and thoughtful reflection. For posterity it became a primary vehicle by which the achievements of Greco-Roman philosophy were communicated to the early Christian Church, which regarded him as a virtuous pagan, and offered essential models to the thinkers and poets of the Renaissance and those who in the following centuries were concerned with the revival of Republican ideas of governance and the reassertion of humanistic principles.
Caesar may well have laughed with everyone else when all those years ago the boastful ex-Consul had written the much-ridiculed sentence “Cedant arma togae,” “Let the soldier yield precedence to the civilian.” But now, with his customary clarity and generosity of mind, he well understood the nature of the “glory” Cicero had won for himself. Sometime towards the end of his life, Caesar remarked that Cicero had won greater laurels than those worn by a general in his Triumph, for it meant more to have extended the frontiers of Roman genius than of its empire.
13
“WHY, THIS IS VIOLENCE!”
Plots and Conspiracies: January–March 44 BC
From the moment the civil war finally ended in 45, respectable opinion agreed that Caesar’s duty was to restore the constitution. From his policy of pardoning his enemies whenever they fell into his hands and recruiting former Pompeians to his government it looked, in the early days of victory, as if this was what he would do. His clemency had few precedents, for previous generals who had used military force to take over the state had massacred their opponents. Most people thought it meant that Caesar had a clear vision of a reconciled society after his victory.
He probably did. But he was also convinced that a strong executive authority should replace the incompetent competitive cockpit of Senatorial government. He had the means with which to impose his will. However, minimum cooperation from the political class was necessary if any solution he devised was to last. To begin with, he thought that he had gained it. But former enemies—such as Marcus Junius Brutus, the dead Cato’s son-in-law and half-nephew, and Caius Cassius Longinus, Praetor for 44 and hungry for a senior military command that Caesar never gave him—were willing to work with him only as long as they believed that he would bring back the Republic. AS it became clear he had no intention of doing so, they lost confidence in him and withdrew their support. The more powerful he became, the more isolated he felt.
Despite the smiles and adulation, the Dictator knew he was unpopular in leading circles. Once, when Cicero called to see him but was not shown in at once, he remarked: “I should be an idiot to suppose that even so easygoing an individual as Cicero is my friend when he has to sit waiting for my convenience all this time.”
The first signs of the conspiracy against Caesar can be detected almost exactly one year before the Ides of March 44—after the last battle of the civil war at Munda. AS soon as news reached Rome of the outcome of the battle, all kinds of people—entrepreneurs, politicians and young men on the make—left Rome to meet the returning army en route and catch the eye of the Republic’s undisputed master. At Narbo in Transalpine Gaul, Mark Antony, one of Caesar’s principal lieutenants, fell in with another of his supporters, who had recently been a governor in Spain, Caius Trebonius.
Trebonius had a very curious deal to propose. He wanted to know if Antony would join a plot to kill Caesar. Antony did not respond to the tentative sounding. What was sinister about the conversation was less that it took place than that Antony did not report it. The fact that Caesar’s closest political partner saw no cause to warn him is strong evidence of the disaffection of the ruling class.
Nothing came of this démarche, but at some point in the months that followed individuals began meeting in small groups in one another’s houses and discussed various ideas of how and where the murder should be committed. Perhaps he could be attacked on the Holy Way, the street that led into the Forum. Or he could be ambushed during an election on the Field of Mars. Voters had to pass along a narrow bridge over a stream where the ballots were counted. Perhaps Caesar could be pushed off the bridge and pounced upon. The trouble with these schemes was that they would take place in public and there was always a risk that the assassins would themselves be assaulted or killed. For the time being these quiet conversations led nowhere and were overshadowed by the hyperactivity of the regime.
One of the leading conspirators was Caius Cassius Longinus. AS Quaestor he had taken charge of Syria after Crassus met his end at Carrhae and had scored a military success against the Parthians in 51, when Cicero had been governor of the neighboring province of Cilicia. An irascible man, he did not easily forget a grudge and fell out for a time with Brutus when the latter won a promotion at his expense. His contemporaries took the view that he opposed Caesar for personal reasons rather than on principle. According to Plutarch, he was furious when, during the civil war, Caesar came across a number of lions Cassius had acquired for use at some Games he was due to stage in Rome and confiscated them for his own purposes.
Yet there is also evidence that Cassius had a long-standing deeply felt aversion to arbitrary government: as a boy he had gone to the same school as Sulla’s son, Faustus. When Faustus bragged about his all-powerful father, Cassius lost his temper and beat him up. The two boys were questioned about the matter by Pompey, at the time one of Sulla’s lieutenants, and Cassius is reported to have been unrepentant. He said to Faustus: “Come on, Faustus, you dare repeat in front of this man what you said before, which made me angry, and I’ll smash your face in again!”