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A LOST LETTER OF ANCIENT ROME.

TO THE EDITOR OF 'BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.'

SIR, A collection of ancient MSS. recently came-it matters not how-into my possession. On examining them, I found that they were letters written by eminent people in the last days of the Roman Republic, and dealt with different aspects of the contemporary political situation. Among them was a letter from Cicero to Atticus, which, rendered into the plain manner of Swift's metrical Epistles, might, as it seemed to me, be of interest even to-day to such readers of 'Maga' as are familiar with the history of that period. I accordingly submit it to your judgment.-Yours respectfully,

A STUDENT.

M. TULLIUS CICERO TO T. POMPONIUS ATTICUS.

WHILE, happy man, afar from home,
Through Athens' porticoes you roam,
And hunt all day in secret nooks
For lurking debtors and old books,
His hours, dear Attious, your friend
Must in the chattering Senate spend
On talk and trifles without end;
Tied to the Forum, watch the tricks
Of tribunician politics;

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Or waste a world of art and patience
On fruitless party combinations.

"Why"-with your serious face you ask-
"Engage then in a hopeless task?
And, as an Optimate, why not
With Cato's self cast in your lot?
Some time you needs must intervene;
And his the cause to which you lean."
Well, first by circumstance I'm tied:
I started on the other side.

Marius, my grand old countryman,
Who these mad practices began,1
Led me, and with so strong a will
I find I'm half his follower still.
Then there's this Consulship of mine:
I can't forget friend Catiline.
No decent Party would deny
I saved my country; who but I?
And yet these Nobles' grudging spirit
Will but allow me half the merit.
Besides-it is an ancient trouble!—
In civil conflicts I see double;
And if the Parties can't agree
To things that might, but will not, be,
I stand aloof, inert and wise,

To view the warfare I despise,

Because the fools won't-compromise.

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You know how stiffly our good Knights
Fought for their old judicial rights,
Which Sulla did so late retrench,

And for his friends swept clean the Bench:2
I laboured long with voice and pen

To reinstate the moneyed men,

And from the Senate gained thus much;
But when I'd brought the two in touch,
Our Cato must of course proscribe
Each juror who'd received a bribe;
So, when defaulters were dismissed,
I found myself with half a list.
Contractors, too, he tied, like Fate,
To their strict bargains with the State.
In short, the Knights believed their class
Insulted-and myself, an Ass! 3

Well! since it quite beyond my art is
To reconcile in gross the Parties,
Let us through all our "Statesmen

As individuals, one by one:

run,

1 Cicero and Marius were natives of Arpinum, and Cicero began his political career in connection with the Marian or Democratic party.

2 Sulla deprived the Knights, who represented the moneyed middle-class, of the judicial powers which they had acquired under the Gracchi, and he restored these to the Senate.

3 See Cicero to Atticus, i. 17. 8; ii. 1. 8.

Judge you my possible allies,

And when you have adjudged, advise.

Pompey the Great! Our natural Leader?
Pompey's the Party's Special Pleader.
None, with so fair a show of right,
Can make the Party black look white;
None then so fit, it may be said,
To be the Party's Figure-Head.
Let Pompey be but Head in name,

To Pompey it is all the same

Which cause he pleads; he'll choose for Figure
The side that makes him look the bigger!
Not long ago I hoped that he

Would for the Empire work with me.
Full praise I deemed he'd, sure, assign
To all I'd done with Catiline.

Would you believe? the other day,
When, in the House, there was a way
The fitting compliments to pay,
Praising my energy and skill,
The shabby fellow sat quite still:
He scarce alluded to the thing;
And all the official buttering,
All the superlative degrees,
He left to-Crassus, if you please.1

Pompey, when angling for the Knights,
Would talk for ever of their "Rights."
His words were full of milk and honey;
None need be scared about their money:
But when he found himself the neighbour
Of Clodius and his Guilds of Labour,2
His "nay" was changed at once to "yea":
The bully Tribune had his way.

Though Pompey would by Law become
Lord of the Liberties of Rome,

1 Cicero's vanity and his annoyance with Pompey for not "buttering" his Consulship sufficiently are amusingly illustrated in his Letter to Atticus, i. 14. 3. He did not like Crassus.

2 Clodius organised in his own behalf the Colleges or Guilds of Trades, and with their help maintained a reign of terror in the streets.

He means not, in the execution,
To violate the Constitution.1
To Despotism he fain would rise,
But still by decent party cries;
So, if through him the country fall,
Its end is constitutional.

Used as the "moderate men's" decoy,
Freedom he'll legally destroy,
Slow, timid, calculating tool,

Mad Clodius' butt, and Cæsar's fool.
Clodius by nature is no slug
Like Pompey: dagger, dungeon, drug,
All urge him on his wild career:
He craves excitement, far or near.
Behold him, just from school released,
Playing at soldiers in the East!
From discipline he seeks relief
In mutiny against his Chief.2

More fond of warlike words than blows,
When captured by our Asian foes,3
How cleverly he homeward stole,
And broke his prison and parole!
At home a thousand apish tricks
He plays on Rome's dull politics.
Through the whole party round he'll run;
All sides he joins, and sticks to none;
To-day helps Catiline, for sport;
To-morrow drags him into Court; 1
And-Combination sage and pleasant!-
Is Cæsar's jackal, just at present.
Scarcely had Clodius ceased to be a
Male votary of Bona Dea,

When, client of the injured spouse,"
Though sprung himself of noble House,
He flings abroad a thousand bribes

To woo the Jurymen and Tribes,

1 Plutarch says that Cato undertook to vote for Pompey as sole Consul partly because any government was preferable to anarchy, and partly because Pompey promised, with the protection of the City, a Constitutional Government. Pompey, however, "held it but one step from anarchy to absolute Power."-Life of Cato. 2 Plutarch, Lucullus, 34.

3 Dion, xxxv. 15.

Plutarch, Cicero, 29.

5 Clodius was suspected of an intrigue with Cæsar's wife, Pompeia.

Attacks My Lords with shout and pæan,
And begs to be enrolled "plebeian." 1
Tribune elect, he's now aflame
With patriot rage: I see his game.
I'm marked for his revenge, since I
Exposed his perjured “Alibi.” 2
Nor will his fury cease until
He's either driv'n me by a Bill 3
To exile, or with kicks and cuffs
Despatched me by his banded Roughs.
Agrarian Flavius finds his job,
Like Clodius, with the flattered Mob;
The Treasury's spendthrift, clever fellow!
None with more brazen lungs can bellow
Against the noble pirate band

Who from the People steal the land.
Then, when he's raised the party storm,
He, he alone, can plan "Reform."
Pretty, in a tight situation,
To see him front a Deputation!
So mild, so plausible, so glib;
Flavius, you'd think, can never fib.
Yet, though in specious phrases skilled,
He scarce deceives the Clodian Guild.
"Take heed!"-I overheard one say-
"If we to Flavius grant his way,
We're done! He will as surely gull us
As Pompey's self or rich Lucullus."
Unless I'm much mistaken, I,
He's tuned the party key too high:
Splendid in theory, but in act

I doubt he'll find his fiddle cracked.

1 Patricians could not be elected to the office of Tribune. Clodius, when seeking election to that office, had therefore to be "adopted" into a plebeian House.

2 Clodius, who was prosecuted for intruding himself into the mysteries of Bona Dea, at which only women were allowed to be present, set up an "Alibi" as his defence. Cicero, called as a witness against him, swore that he had seen him in Rome at the time.

3 Clodius passed a Bill through the Comitia Tributa, B.C. 58, providing that "Any one who had put citizens to death without trial should be outlawed." This of course had reference to the execution of Lentulus during the Catilinarian conspiracy, and caused the exile of Cicero.

4 Lucius Flavius, Tribune of the People, author of the Agrarian Law referred to by Cicero in his Letter to Atticus, i. 19. 4. The purchase money was to be provided by revenue flowing into the Treasury from foreign sources.

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