‘Conspirata’ by Robert Harris   (2010) – 334 pages

At the beginning of ‘Conspirata’, Cicero has been elected as consul, the highest office in the Roman republic.  He shares the office with Gaius Antonius Hybrida who plays a minor role.

Being the most powerful man in the Roman republic, Cicero has powerful enemies.  Soon he finds out that Catilina, a Roman Senator, is attempting to overthrow the Roman republic and is leading a conspiracy to murder Cicero.  Five traitors are captured and sentenced to death.  Although Julius Caesar is involved in the conspiracy behind the scenes, he survives.

“They may not all plot together but they all see an opportunity in chaos.  Some are willing to kill to bring chaos about, and others just desire to stand back and watch chaos take hold.  They are like boys with fire, and Caesar is the worst of the lot.  It’s a kind of madness – there’s madness in the state.”   

After breaking up this conspiracy to destroy the republic, Cicero is hailed as “the savior of Rome” and “the father of his country”.

The trouble is that all this praise went to Cicero’s head.   When his consulship ended, he took up writing heroic poems about himself.  He bought an expensive mansion from the wealthy Crassus that he can’t afford, but arranges to get some of the money by defending one of the traitors.  The rest he borrows from moneylenders.  Pride goes before a fall, as Cicero’s faithful assistant Tiro points out:

“But I fear there is in all men who achieve their life’s ambition only a narrow line between dignity and vanity, confidence and delusion.  Instead of staying in his seat and disavowing such praise, Cicero rose and made a long speech agreeing with Crassus’s every word, while beside him Pompey gently cooked in a stew of jealousy and resentment.” 

Yes, the two most powerful military leaders in Rome, Pompey and Julius Caesar, are also receiving an acclaim which threatens the republic.  Whereas Cicero is willing to control his drive in order to save the republic, the ambitions of Pompey and Julius Caesar have no limits.  In order to achieve their goals, they make Cicero’s enemy Clodius, “a man of great ambition and boundless stupidity, two qualities which in politics often go together”, a tribune.

Robert Harris has written this trilogy of Cicero as an object lesson on the threats to a republic’s checks and balances which keep any one person, whether it is king or emperor or dictator, from getting too much power.  Cicero fought for the rule of law and statute against some powerful enemies.  Danger comes from all sides.  The rich aristocrats can use their money to buy a government which unfairly gives them even more power.  On the other side, unscrupulous politicians can enflame the mob by using racism and patriotism.

It is a huge accomplishment for a nation to keep a rational set of legal checks and balances protecting the rights of the less rich or powerful or fortunate and not succumb to dictatorship.

Grade: A- 

‘Imperium’ by Robert Harris  (2006) – 305 pages

The Cicero trilogy by Robert Harris is the second major fiction I have read about ancient Rome.  The first was ‘I, Claudius’ by Robert Graves.  ‘I Claudius’ was wild, wacky, and preposterous, much like those early Roman emperors who were presented so unforgettably by Graves.  The Cicero trilogy, on the other hand, is solid, workmanlike, invigorating, and intelligent, befitting Cicero, the lawyer and orator and defender of the Roman republic.

The entire Cicero trilogy is told by Cicero’s slave Tiro.  We do not know if Tiro was actually white or black or some color in between, since a slave in ancient Rome could be of any nationality.  Tiro was very much a remarkable man himself.  He invented a shorthand system which allowed him to exactly transcribe Cicero’s speeches word for word while they were spoken, and thus the speeches were saved for posterity.  After Cicero was killed, Tiro worked to save as many of the words of Cicero as possible up until his own death at age 99. Tiro also wrote a book on the life of Cicero which unfortunately was lost.

The first novel of the trilogy, ‘Imperium’, covers the significant events of Cicero’s early career as a lawyer.  The first half of the book deals with the prosecution and trial of Verres, the magistrate of Sicily, who robbed temples and private houses of their works of art.  Verres had many friends in the aristocracy which allowed him to steal from other rich Sicilians with impunity.  When finally Verres was arrested and taken to court, it was Cicero who was assigned to prosecute the case against him.

Cicero is the leader of a small group of honest people fighting massive corruption among the rich aristocratic ruling classes of Rome.  His is a thankless task, and he will need all his eloquence and intelligence to defeat his powerful rotten foes.  This is the classic battle of the underdog against a relentless ruthless enemy.  I read this bracing story with always a smile as they battle the forces of evil and corruption much like Robin Hood and his Merry Men, except instead of physical prowess they use rhetoric and reason in the battle.

“If you must do something unpopular, you might as well do it wholeheartedly, for in politics there is no credit to be won by timidity.”

Cicero fought the patrician aristocracy in this trial but later he will join forces with some of the patricians in battles against the plebian masses.  Of his many gifts, a talent for friendship was not the least.

Robert Harris also has put some humor into the proceedings which makes ‘Imperium’ easy to enjoy.  He has a lot of  fun with Cicero’s wife Terentia who apparently ruled their household.

“Terentia regarded her husband – arguably the greatest orator and the cleverest Senator in Rome at that time – with the kind of look a matron might reserve for a child who has made a puddle on the drawing room floor.”

In the second half of ‘Imperium’ we meet two of the major figures of the time, Pompey and Julius Caesar.  Both are popular military heroes who have hugely increased the size of the Roman republic as well as its treasury and thus are worshipped by the masses.  Later Cicero will have to defend the republic from power grabs by these two war superstars.

Grade: A-     

The Cicero Trilogy by Robert Harris

I have decided that my first real project for 2016 will be to read and discuss the Cicero Trilogy of novels by Robert Harris ( ’Imperium’, ‘Conspirata’, and ‘Dictator’).  I will devote an article to each of these invigorating historical novels, but first I want to discuss Cicero, the Roman leader and humanist.  No person in human history has been as profound a force for good as Cicero, and today we need his reasoned guidance more than ever.

Perhaps the toughest of all battles in law and politics involve fighting corruption within the ruling aristocracy.  This is as true today as it was in ancient Rome and throughout history. Cicero fought hard and died in defense of the Roman republic against tyrants, only to be followed by a series of wild and wacky and vicious Roman emperor / dictators.  He devoted his life to reason, humanism, and education.

Early Christian scholars studied Cicero’s writings in Latin, and he has been praised for creating the language of the civilized world.  The Italian Petrarch’s rediscovery of Cicero’s letters in the 14th century is often credited with starting the European Renaissance.  Cicero’s writings were also the guiding light of the Age of Enlightenment in the 18^th century which had the goals of liberty, progress, reason, tolerance, and fraternity.  The founding fathers of the United States incorporated the principles of Cicero into the US Constitution to provide the necessary checks and balances in government to maintain the country as a republic.   Two cities in the United States named after Cicero in New York and Illinois are an indication of his influence. Thomas Jefferson called Cicero as a writer the first master of the world.

Marcus Tullius Cicero expressed principles that became the bedrock of liberty in the modern world.  He believed in natural law, that certain rights or values are inherent by virtue of human nature and human reason. He believed the purpose of positive laws is to provide for “the safety of citizens, the preservation of states, and the tranquility and happiness of human life.”  Perhaps we can best understand Cicero through a few of his quotes:

“Not for ourselves alone are we born.”

“What is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage. The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious.”

“It is not by muscle, speed, or physical dexterity that great things are achieved, but by reflection, force of character, and judgment.”

“We must not say every mistake is a foolish one.”

“The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.”

Even today our republic must contend with the same enemies that Cicero fought against over two thousand years ago. Rich citizens buy politicians wholesale, and these bought politicians are little more than automatons who always do their financiers’ bidding at the expense of everyone else.  Overly ambitious politicians take wild and reckless and vicious positions to fire up the masses to vote for them.   Theirs is a naked grab for power, dressed up as patriotic necessity.  Those qualities which Cicero admired including sound reasoning, moderation, and tolerance mixed with respect for others seem to be in short supply today.   Above all, Cicero was saying ‘Be Reasonable’, yet today we appear to be living in an age of unreason.

So in the following few weeks I will be exploring this Cicero trilogy of novels by Robert Harris.  There may be other articles interspersed between these Cicero ones, but Cicero will remain on my mind.  Today we need Cicero more than ever.