The Senate under the Monarchy
Cicero and the Majority

The humbled senate had to submit to its position whether it would or not.  The leader of the compliant majority continued to be Marcus Cicero.  He was useful on account of his lawyer’s talent of finding reasons, or at any rate words, for everything; and there was a genuine Caesarian irony in employing the man, by means of whom mainly the aristocracy had conducted their demonstrations against the regents, as the mouthpiece of servility.  Accordingly they pardoned him for his brief desire to kick against the pricks, not however without having previously assured themselves of his submissiveness in every way.  His brother had been obliged to take the position of an officer in the Gallic army to answer in some measure as a hostage for him; Pompeius had compelled Cicero himself to accept a lieutenant-generalship under him, which furnished a handle for politely banishing him at any moment.  Clodius had doubtless been instructed to leave him meanwhile at peace, but Caesar as little threw off Clodius on account of Cicero as he threw off Cicero on account of Clodius; and the great saviour of his country and the no less great hero of liberty entered into an antechamber-rivalry in the headquarters of Samarobriva, for the befitting illustration of which there lacked, unfortunately, a Roman Aristophanes.  But not only was the same rod kept in suspense over Cicero’s head, which had once already descended on him so severely; golden fetters were also laid upon him.  Amidst the serious embarrassment of his finances the loans of Caesar free of interest, and the joint overseership of those buildings which occasioned the circulation of enormous sums in the capital, were in a high degree welcome to him; and many an immortal oration for the senate was nipped in the bud by the thought of Caesar’s agent, who might present a bill to him after the close of the sitting.  Consequently he vowed “in future to ask no more after right and honour, but to strive for the favour of the regents,” and “to be as flexible as an ear-lap.”  They used him accordingly as—­what he was good for—­ an advocate; in which capacity it was on various occasions his lot to be obliged to defend his very bitterest foes at a higher bidding, and that especially in the senate, where he almost regularly served as the organ of the dynasts and submitted the proposals “to which others probably consented, but not he himself”; indeed, as recognized leader of the majority of the compliant, he obtained even a certain political importance.  They dealt with the other members of the governing corporation accessible to fear, flattery, or gold in the same way as they had dealt with Cicero, and succeeded in keeping it on the whole in subjection.

Cato and the Minority