The Historians' History of the World 05

From the early days of his boyhood Cato had unremittingly trained himself in the austere pattern of the ancient manners, already becoming obsolete in the time of the censor. Inured to frugality and the simplest tastes, he raised himself above the temptations of his class to rapine and extortion. Enrolling himself in the priesthood of the god Apollo, he acknowledged perhaps a divine call to the practice of bodily self-denial, in which, in the view of the ancients, the religious life mainly consisted. He imbibed the doctrines of the stoic philosophy, the rigidity of which was congenial to his temper, and strove under their guidance to square his public conduct by the strictest rules of private integrity. If he failed, it was through the infirmity of nature, not the inconsistency of vanity or caprice; but, doubtless, the exigencies of public affairs drove him, as well as other men of less eminent pretensions, to many a sordid compromise with his own principles, while in private life the strength to which he aspired became the source of manifold weakness. It made him proud of his own virtues, confident in his judgments, inaccessible to generous impulses, caustic in his remarks on others, a blind observer of forms, and a slave to prejudices. A party composed of such men as Cato would have been ill-matched with the ranks of crafty intriguers opposed to them on every side; but when the selfish, indolent, and unprincipled chose themselves a champion of a character so alien from their own, the hollowness of the alliance and the hopelessness of the cause became sufficiently manifest.

[67 B.C.]

During the progress of the intrigues for the appointment of Pompey to his maritime command, his creatures had not ceased to worry the senate by the advocacy of fresh measures for the reformation of administrative abuses. In the year 67, a certain C. Cornelius, formerly quæstor to the great imperator, proposed, being at the time tribune, an enactment to limit the usury which the wealthy nobles demanded for the loans negotiated with them at Rome by the agents of the provinces. Laws indeed already existed for regulating this practice, but the wants of the needy and the cupidity of the capitalists had combined to disregard them, and the senate had ventured to assume the prerogative of the people in dispensing with their provisions in favour of personages of its own order. This daring encroachment Cornelius offered at the same time to repress. His measure was both popular and just. The senators could not oppose it by argument, but they gained one of the tribunes to intercede against it. But Cornelius was supported by the people, who encouraged him to persist in reading the terms of his rogation in spite of the official veto. A tumult ensued in the comitium, and, terrified by the sound of blows, Pompey, we may presume, engaged his instrument to desist from the direct attack, and allow the matter to be compromised. The senate acquiesced, but the offence was deeply resented, and speedily punished. No sooner had Cornelius quitted his functions as tribune, than he was accused of majestas for having disregarded the veto of a colleague. The crime was manifest, and the culprit might despair of defending himself against the powerful influences arrayed against him, when Manilius, the same who had devoted himself to the service of Pompey, caused the tribunal to be surrounded by bands of armed ruffians, and the accusers to be threatened with violence unless they desisted from their suit. The consuls interfered with a military force and gave them the means of escaping over the roofs of the neighbouring houses. In the following year the process was renewed, and Cicero, as the mouthpiece of Pompey, was retained to defend the criminal. The advocate pleaded the favour with which his client was regarded by Pompey himself, and either this consideration or the fear of further violence, or perhaps the cooling down of men’s passions after so long an interval, gained him an acquittal. But the attempt, only too successful, of Manilius to overawe by force the administration of justice, deserves to be remarked for its fatal significance. From henceforth we shall find it repeated day by day with aggravated violence. Consuls and tribunes will vie with one another to destroy the foundation of all social confidence. Already the senate and the people are committed to a struggle, which must eventually involve the interference of a power paramount to both. Far-sighted men see already the shadows of monarchy advancing upon them, which the mission of Pompey to the East, long, distant, and perilous, seems the readiest means of retarding, and possibly of averting.