The
ambition of my boyhood--
Aye to be first, and chief among my peers--
is all departed. Of my enemies, I have left some unassailed, and some I
even defend. Not only I may not think as I like, but I may not hate as I
like,[12] and Caesar is the only person who loves me as I should wish to
be loved, or, as some think, who desires to love me." [13]
[Sidenote: B.C. 53.]
The position was the more piteous, because Cicero could not tell how
events would fall out after all. Crassus was in the East, with uncertain
prospects there. Caesar was in the midst of a dangerous war, and might be
killed or might die. Pompey was but a weak vessel; a distinguished
soldier, perhaps, but without the intellect or the resolution to control a
proud, resentful, and supremely unscrupulous aristocracy. In spite of
Caesar's victories, his most envenomed enemy, Domitius Ahenobarbus, had
succeeded after all in carrying one of the consulships for the year 54.
The popular party had secured the other, indeed; but they had returned
Appius Claudius, Clodius's brother, and this was but a poor consolation.
In the year that was to follow, the conservatives had bribed to an extent
which astonished the most cynical observers. Each season the elections
were growing more corrupt; but the proceedings on both sides in the fall
of 54 were the most audacious that had ever been known, the two reigning
consuls taking part, and encouraging and assisting in scandalous bargains.
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