The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 | Page 9

of Tiberius Gracchus had been ex post facto
approved by the senate in B.C. 133-2. In the case of Gaius Gracchus, in
B.C. 121, the senate had voted uti consul Opimius rempublicam
defenderet, and in virtue of that the consul had authorized the killing of
Gaius and his friends: thus for the first time exercising imperium sine
provocatione. Opimius had been impeached after his year of office, but
acquitted, which the senate might claim as a confirmation of the right,
in spite of the lex of Gaius Gracchus, which confirmed the right of
provocatio in all cases. In B.C. 100 the tribune Saturninus and the
prætor Glaucia were arrested in consequence of a similar decree, which
this time joined the other magistrates to the consuls as authorized to
protect the Republic: their death, however, was an act of violence on
the part of a mob. Its legality had been impugned by Cæsar's
condemnation of Rabirius, as duovir capitalis, but to a certain extent
confirmed by the failure to secure his conviction on the trial of his
appeal to the people. In B.C. 88 and 83 this decree of the senate was
again passed, in the first case in favour of Sulla against the tribune
Sulpicius, who was in consequence put to death; and in the second case
in favour of the consuls (partisans of Marius) against the followers of
Sulla. Again in B.C. 77 the decree was passed in consequence of the
insurrection of the proconsul Lepidus, who, however, escaped to
Sardinia and died there.
In every case but one this decree had been passed against the popular
party. The only legal sanction given to the exercise of the imperium

sine provocatione was the acquittal of the consul Opimius in B.C. 120.
But the jury which tried that case probably consisted entirely of
senators, who would not stultify their own proceedings by condemning
him. To rely upon such precedents required either great boldness (never
a characteristic of Cicero), or the most profound conviction of the
essential righteousness of the measure, and the clearest assurance that
the safety of the state--the supreme law--justified the breach of every
constitutional principle. Cicero was not left long in doubt as to whether
there would be any to question his proceeding. On the last day of the
year, when about to address the people, as was customary, on laying
down his consulship, the tribune Q. Cæcilius Metellus Nepos forbade
him to speak, on the express ground that he "had put citizens to death
uncondemned"--quod cives indemnatos necavisset. Cicero consoled
himself with taking the required oath as to having observed the laws,
with an additional declaration that he had "saved the state."
Nevertheless, he must have felt deeply annoyed and alarmed at the
action of Metellus, for he had been a legatus of Pompey, and was
supposed to represent his views, and it was upon the approbation and
support of Pompey, now on the eve of his return from the East, that
Cicero particularly reckoned.
[Sidenote: Letters after B.C. 63.]
The letters in our collection now recommence. The first of the year
(B.C. 62) is one addressed to Pompey, expressing some discontent at
the qualified manner in which he had written on recent events, and
affirming his own conviction that he had acted in the best interests of
the state and with universal approval. But indeed the whole
correspondence to the end of Cicero's exile is permeated with this
subject directly or indirectly. His quarrel with Metellus Nepos brought
upon him a remonstrance from the latter's brother (or cousin), Metellus
Celer (Letters XIII, XIV), and when the correspondence for B.C. 61
opens, we find him already on the eve of the quarrel with Publius
Clodius which was to bring upon him the exile of B.C. 58.
[Sidenote: Publius Clodius Pulcher.]
P. CLODIUS PULCHER was an extreme instance of a character not

uncommon among the nobility in the last age of the Republic. Of high
birth, and possessed of no small amount of ability and energy, he
belonged by origin and connexion to the Optimates; but he regarded
politics as a game to be played for his personal aggrandizement, and
public office as a means of replenishing a purse drained by boundless
extravagance and self-indulgence. His record had been bad. He had
accompanied his brother-in-law Lucullus, or had joined his staff, in the
war with Mithridates, and had helped to excite a mutiny in his army in
revenge for some fancied slight. He had then gone to Cilicia, where
another brother-in-law, Q. Marcus Rex, was proprætor, and while
commanding a fleet under him had fallen into the hands of pirates, and
when freed from them had gone--apparently in a private capacity--to
Antioch, where he again excited a mutiny of Syrian troops engaged in a
war against the Arabians (B.C.