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Updated: June 16, 2025
It was he who was called by the Optimates the "private dictator"; it was before him that Cicero prostrated himself in vain; against him were directed the sharpest sarcasms in the wall-placards of Bibulus, and the most envenomed arrows of the talk in the saloons of the opposition. This was only to be expected.
This opinion appeared strange from such a person, when Cato rising for the purpose as it was expected of speaking against Bibulus, as soon as there was silence, said that for his part he would not have introduced the proposed measure, but as it was introduced by another he advised that it should be adopted, for he preferred any government to no government, and he thought that nobody would administer affairs better than Pompeius at a time of such disorder.
The condition of Rome must have been very low when such a one as Bibulus thought that no order was possible except by putting absolute power into the hands of him who had so lately been the partner of Cæsar in the conspiracy which had not even yet been altogether brought to an end. That Bibulus acted under constraint is no doubt true.
Bibulus, Cæsar's colleague, found it useless to oppose Cæsar's measures, and he and Cato several times narrowly escaped with their lives in the Forum, whereupon Bibulus shut himself up at home for the remainder of his consulship.
The tribunician veto was interposed; Caesar contented himself with disregarding it. Bibulus and Cato sprang to the rostra, harangued the multitude, and instigated the usual riot; Caesar ordered that they should be led away by lictors from the Forum, and took care that otherwise no harm should befall them it was for his interest that the political comedy should remain such as it was.
If the laws were invalidated by the disregard of Bibulus and the signs of the sky, then the Cyprus mission had been invalid also, and Cato's fine performance void. Caesar's grand victories, the news of which was now coming in, made it inopportune to press the matter farther; and just then another subject rose, on which the optimates ran off like hounds upon a fresh scent.
We know that the ready wit of the surrounding world has taken up these affairs of the moment and turned them into ridicule then as they do now. We discount the "Hierosolymarius." We do not quite believe that Bibulus never left the house while an enemy was to be seen; but we think that a man may be expected to tell the truth of himself; at any rate, to tell no untruth against himself.
For Bibulus, at Corcyra, being informed of Caesar's approach, hoped to fall in with some part of our ships, with their cargoes, but found them empty; and having taken about thirty, vented on them his rage at his own remissness, and set them all on fire: and, with the same flames, he destroyed the mariners and masters of the vessels, hoping by the severity of the punishment to deter the rest.
Marcellus was even under an ill report, not only because he had failed in his first battle, but further, because while Hannibal was going wherever he pleased throughout Italy, he had led his troops to Venusia in the midst of summer to lodge in houses. Caius Publicius Bibulus, a tribune of the people, was hostile to him.
The son served under his father in B.C. 83 against Mithridates. It is not likely that short-hand writing was invented for the occasion, as Plutarch says. Bibulus is M. Calpurnius Bibulus, the colleague of Cæsar in his consulship B.C. 59. He had three sons by Porcia, Cato's daughter by Atilia. This transfer of Marcia is oddly told by Plutarch.
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