held at Antium, to consider what it was needful to do. Servilia was
there with Porcia, Brutus with Cassius, and a few of the most faithful
friends had been invited, among whom were Favonius and Cicero. Servilia,
more anxious for the safety than the honour of her son, wished him to
withdraw. She had obtained from Antony, who had remained her friend, for
her son and her son-in-law, a _legatio_, that is a commission to go and
collect corn in Sicily. It was a specious and safe pretext for quitting
Italy; but what a disgrace! to leave with a permission signed by Antony,
to accept exile as a favour. Cassius would not consent; he spoke with
passion, he was indignant, he threatened, “one would have said he
breathed only war.” Brutus, on the contrary, calm and resigned,
questioned his friends, being resolved to satisfy them at the risk of
his life. Did they wish him to return to Rome? He was ready to go there.
Every one cried out at this proposition. Rome was full of danger for the
conspirators, and they would not uselessly expose the last hopes of
liberty. What should they do then? They only agreed in bitterly
regretting the course they had followed. Cassius regretted that they had
not killed Antony as he had demanded, and Cicero did not care to
contradict him.
Unfortunately these recriminations were of no use; it was not a question
of complaining of the past, the moment had arrived for regulating the
future, and they did not know what to resolve upon.
Brutus did not immediately decide after this meeting. He persisted in
remaining as long as he could in his villa at Lanuvium, reading and
discussing, under his handsome porticoes, with the Greek philosophers,
his usual society. It was necessary to go away, however. Italy was
becoming less and less safe, the veterans infested the roads and
pillaged the country houses. Brutus went to Velia to join some vessels
that were waiting to conduct him to Greece. He called his departure an
exile, and, by a last illusion, he hoped that it would not be the signal
for war. As Antony accused him of preparing for this, he replied to him
in Cassius’ name and his own, by an admirable letter of which this is
the end: “Do not flatter yourself that you have frightened us, fear is
beneath our character. If other motives were capable of giving us any
leaning towards civil war your letter would not take it from us, for
threats have no power over free hearts; but you well know that we hate
war, that nothing can drag us into it, and you put on a threatening air,
no doubt to make men believe that our resolution is the effect of our
fears. These are our sentiments; we wish to see you live with
distinction in a free state; we do not wish to be your enemies, but we
have more regard for liberty than for your friendship. We therefore pray
the gods to inspire you with counsels salutary for the republic and for
yourself. If not, we desire that your own party may hurt you as little
as possible, and that Rome may be free and glorious!”[362]
At Velia, Brutus was joined by Cicero, who also thought of leaving.
Discouraged by the inaction of his friends, terrified by the threats of
his enemies, he had already attempted to fly to Greece: but the wind had
thrown him back on the coast of Italy. When he learnt that Brutus was
going to leave, he wished to see him again and if possible start with
him. Cicero often spoke with a heartrending accent of the emotions of
this last interview. “I saw him,” he related to the people later, “I saw
him depart from Italy in order not to cause a civil war there. O
sorrowful spectacle, I do not say for men only, but for the waves and
the shores. The saviour of his country was forced to flee, its
destroyers remained all-powerful.”[363]
The last thought of Brutus at this sad moment was still for the public
peace. Notwithstanding so many disappointments he still reckoned upon
the people of Rome; he thought enough had not been done to arouse their
ardour; he could not resign himself to believe that there were no longer
any citizens. He started with the regret that he had not essayed another
struggle by legal means. Doubtless it was not possible for him to return
to Rome and to reappear in the senate; but Cicero was less compromised,
his fame extorted respect; men liked to listen to his words. Could not
he attempt this last struggle? Brutus had always thought so; at this
moment he dared to say so. He pointed out to Cicero a great duty to
accomplish, a great part to play; his advice, his reproaches, his
prayers, determined him to give up his voyage and return to Rome. He
seemed to hear, as he said later, “the voice of his country recalling
him!”[364] And they separated not to meet again.
It was useless, however, for Brutus to resist; the inevitable tendency
of the events against which he had been struggling for six months,
dragged him into civil war. On leaving Italy he had come to Athens,
where he passed his time in hearing the academician Theomnestes and the
peripatetic Cratippus. Plutarch sees a clever dissimulation in this
conduct. “He was preparing for war,” he says, “in secret.” Cicero’s
letters prove that, on the contrary, it was the war that went to seek
him. Thessaly and Macedonia were full of Pompey’s old soldiers, who had
remained there after Pharsalia; the islands of the Aegean, the towns of
Greece, which were regarded as a sort of asylum for the exiles,
contained many malcontents who had refused to submit to Caesar, and
since the Ides of March they were the refuge of all who fled from the
domination of Antony. Athens, in truth, was full of young men of the
greatest families of Rome, republicans by their birth and their age, who
went there to finish their education. They were only waiting for Brutus
in order to take up arms. On his arrival, there was a great and
irresistible movement on all sides, to which he was constrained to give
way himself. Apuleius and Vatinius brought him the troops that they
commanded. The old soldiers of Macedonia assembled under the command of
Q. Hortensius; so many came from Italy, that the consul Pansa at last
complained and threatened to stop the recruits of Brutus on their
passage. The students of Athens, and among them Cicero’s son and the
young Horace, deserted their studies and enrolled themselves under him.
In a few months Brutus was master of all Greece, and had eight legions.
At this moment the republican party seemed to awaken everywhere at once.
Cicero had succeeded better than he had hoped at Rome, and had raised up
enemies to Antony, who had defeated him before Modena. Brutus had just
formed a considerable army in Greece. Cassius went over Asia recruiting
legions on his passage, and all the East had declared for him. Hope
returned to the most timid, and it seemed that everything was to be
hoped for the republic from the co-operation of so many generous
defenders. It was, however, at this very moment, when it was so
necessary to be united, that the most serious disagreement broke out
between Cicero and Brutus. Whatever vexation it may cause us, it must be
told, for it completes our knowledge of both.
Cicero was the first to complain. This man, usually so weak and
hesitating, had become singularly energetic since the death of Caesar.
Prudence, clemency, moderation, great qualities that he appreciated much
and readily practised, seemed no longer suitable to the circumstances of
the time. This great preacher of pacific victories preached war to
everybody; this stern friend of legality asked everybody to overstep it.
“Do not wait for the decrees of the senate,”[365] he said to one. “Be
your own senate,”[366] he wrote to another. To gain his ends, all means,
even the most violent, seemed good to him; all alliances pleased him,
even that of men whom he did not esteem. Brutus, on the contrary, even
while deciding to take up arms, remained scrupulous and hesitating, and
continued to dislike violence. Although his name has become famous
chiefly through an assassination, blood was repugnant to him. He spared
his enemies when they were in his power, in opposition to those inhuman
laws, accepted by everybody, which delivered up the vanquished
unreservedly to the will of the victor. He had just given an instance,
by sparing the life of Antony’s brother after having conquered him.
Although he was a bad man, who had shown his gratitude by attempting to
corrupt the soldiers who guarded him, Brutus had persisted in treating
him with kindness. We should not consider this a great crime,
nevertheless they were very much irritated about it at Rome. The furious
threats of Antony, from whom they had just escaped with so much
difficulty, the remembrance of the terrors they had endured, and the
terrible alternations they had passed through for six months, had
exasperated the most peaceable. Nothing is more violent than the anger
of moderate men when they are driven to extremities. They wish to make
an end at any price and as soon as possible. They recalled the
repugnance and slowness with which Brutus had begun the war. Seeing him
so yielding, so clement, they were afraid of seeing him fall back into
his hesitation, and still further defer the moment of vengeance and
security. Cicero undertook to let Brutus know of their discontent. In
his letter, which we still possess, he enumerates with much force the
mistakes that had been made since the death of Caesar; he recalls all
the weaknesses and hesitations that had discouraged resolute men, and,
what must have especially wounded Brutus, the absurdity of wishing to
establish public tranquillity by speeches. “Are you ignorant,” said he,
“what is in question at this moment? A band of scoundrels and wretches
threatens even the temples of the gods, and it is our life or death that
is at stake in this war. Whom are we sparing? What are we doing? Is it
wise to treat gently men who, if they are conquerors, will wipe out the
very traces of our existence?”[367]
These reproaches provoked Brutus, and he answered with recriminations.
He also was discontented with the senate and Cicero. Whatever admiration
he may have felt for the eloquence of the _Philippics_, many things must
have annoyed him in them. The general tone of these speeches, their
bitter personalities, their fiery invectives, could not be pleasing to a
man who, in striking down Caesar, had wished to appear passionless, and
rather the enemy of a principle than of a man. Now, if there is a great
love of liberty in the _Philippics_, there is also a violent personal
hatred. We feel that this enemy of the country is, at the same time, a
private and personal adversary. He had attempted to enslave Rome, but he
had also taken the liberty of quizzing the weaknesses of the old
consular in a very amusing speech. Cicero’s irritable vanity was roused
when he read this invective: “he took the bit between his teeth,”[368]
according to the expression of a contemporary. The generous hatred he
felt against a public enemy was inflamed by private rancour; a mortal
struggle began, followed up with increasing energy through fourteen
orations. “I am resolved,” said he, “to overwhelm him with invectives,
and to give him over dishonoured to the eternal contempt of
posterity;”[369] and he kept his word. This passionate persistence, this
impetuous and violent tone must have annoyed Brutus. Cicero’s flatteries
were no less displeasing to him than his anger. He bore him a grudge for
the exaggerated eulogies that he gave to men who little deserved them,
to those generals who had served every cause, to those statesmen who had
submitted to every government, to those men of ambition and intrigue of
every sort, whom Cicero had united with so much trouble, to form what he
called the party of the honest men; he was specially vexed at seeing him
lavish praises on the young Octavius, and lay the republic at his feet;
and when he heard him call him “a divine young man, sent by the gods for
the defence of the country,” he could scarcely contain his anger.
Which of the two was right? Brutus assuredly if we think of the end. We
see clearly that Octavius could not be anything but an ambitious man and
a traitor. The name he bore was an irresistible temptation for him; to
deliver the republic to him was to destroy it. Brutus was right in
thinking that Octavius was more to be dreaded than Antony, and his
hatred did not mislead him, when he foresaw in this _divine young man_,
who was so much praised by Cicero, the future master of the empire, the
heir and successor of him whom he had slain. Was it really Cicero who
was to blame, or only the circumstances? When he accepted the aid of
Octavius was he at liberty to refuse it? The republic had not, at that
time, a single soldier to oppose Antony, they had to take those of
Octavius or to perish. After he had saved the republic, it would have
been ungracious to haggle with him over thanks and dignities. Besides,
his veterans demanded them in a way that did not brook refusal, and
often gave them to him in advance. The senate sanctioned everything as
quickly as possible, for fear that they would do without its assent.
“Circumstances,” says Cicero somewhere, “gave him the command, we have
only added the fasces.”[370] Thus, before blaming Cicero’s compliance,
or complaining of his weakness, they should have thought of the
difficulties of his position. He tried to re-establish the republic by
the help of men who had fought against it and did not love it. What
reliance could he place on Hirtius, the framer of a severe law against
the Pompeians, on Plancus and Pollio, old lieutenants of Caesar, on
Lepidus and Octavius, each of whom wished to take his place? and yet he
had no other support than they. To that great and ambitious man who, on
the morrow of the Ides of March, wished to make himself master, he could
only oppose a coalition of inferior or concealed ambitions. Nothing was
more difficult than to steer one’s way in the midst of all these open or
secret rivalries. It was necessary to curb one by the other, to flatter
them in order to lead them, to content them in part in order to keep
them within bounds. Hence those lavish grants or promises of honours,
that profusion of praises and titles, and those exaggerated official
thanks. This was a necessity imposed by the circumstances; instead of
considering it a crime in Cicero to have submitted to it, they should
have drawn this conclusion, namely, that to attempt another struggle by
legal means, to return to Rome to arouse the ardour of the populace, to
trust again in the force of memories, and the supreme power of oratory,
was to expose oneself to useless dangers and certain disappointment.
Cicero knew this well. Sometimes, no doubt, in the heat of combat, he
might allow himself to be carried away by the triumphs of his eloquence,
as on that day, when he wrote naïvely to Cassius: “If one could speak
oftener it would not be very difficult to re-establish the republic and
liberty.”[371] But this illusion never lasted long. The momentary
intoxication over, he was not long in recognizing the impotence of
oratory, and was the first to say they could only place their hopes on
the republican army. He never changed that opinion. “You tell me,” he
wrote to Atticus, “that I am wrong in thinking that the republic depends
entirely upon Brutus; nothing is more certainly true. If it can be saved
at all, it can only be by him and his friends.”[372] Cicero had
undertaken this last enterprise without illusions and without hope, and
solely to yield to the wishes of Brutus, who persisted in his love of
constitutional resistance and pacific struggles. Brutus, then, had less
right than any one to reproach him with having succumbed. Cicero was
right in often recalling that interview at Velia, when his friend
persuaded him, notwithstanding his hesitation, to return to Rome. This
recollection was his defence; it should have prevented Brutus uttering
any bitter word against him, whom he had himself led into a useless
enterprise.
Cicero must have deeply felt these reproaches, yet his friendship for
Brutus remained unaltered by them. He still looks to him, he calls upon
him, when all seems lost in Italy. Nothing is more touching than his
last cry of alarm: “We are the sport, my dear Brutus, of the licence of
the soldiers and the insolence of their leader. Every one wishes to have
as much authority in the republic as he has force. Men no longer know
reason, measure, law, nor duty; they no longer care for public opinion
or the judgment of posterity. Come, then, and give at length to the
republic that liberty which you have gained for it by your courage, but
which we cannot yet enjoy. Every one will press around you; liberty has
no refuge but in your tents. This is our position at this moment; would
that it might become better! If it chances otherwise I shall only weep
for the republic; it ought to be immortal. As for myself, I have but a
little time to live!”[373]
A very few months afterwards, Lepidus, Antony, and Octavius, triumvirs
to reconstitute the republic, as they called themselves, assembled near
Bologna. They knew each other too well not to be aware that they were
capable of anything, consequently they had taken minute precautions
against each other. The interview took place on an island, and they
arrived with an equal number of troops who were not to lose sight of
them. For still greater security, and for fear that any one should carry
a hidden dagger, they went so far as to search each other. After having
thus reassured themselves, they held a long conference. There was no
longer any question of reconstituting the republic; what occupied their
attention most, besides the division of power, was vengeance, and they
carefully drew up a list of those who were to be slain. Dio Cassius
remarks that, as they detested each other profoundly, a man was sure, if
he was closely connected with one of them, to be the mortal enemy of the
other two, so that each demanded precisely the heads of the best friends
of his new allies. But this difficulty did not stop them; their
gratitude was much less exacting than their hatred, and in purchasing
the death of an enemy with that of a few friends or even relations, they
thought they made a good bargain. Thanks to these mutual concessions,
they soon came to an agreement, and the list was drawn up. Cicero was
not forgotten in it, as we can well understand; Antony urgently demanded
him, and it is not probable, whatever the writers of the empire may say,
that Octavius defended him with much zeal; he would have constantly
recalled to him a troublesome gratitude and a glaring act of perjury.
With the death of Cicero we have reached the end of this work, since we
only proposed to study the relations of Cicero and Brutus. If we wished
to carry it further, and to know Brutus’ end as well, it would suffice
to read the admirable narrative of Plutarch. I should be afraid of
spoiling it by abridging it. In it we see that Brutus felt intense
sorrow on learning that Cicero had perished. He regretted more than a
friend that with him he had lost a cherished hope, which he had been
unwilling to surrender. This time, however, he was bound to acknowledge
that there were no longer citizens at Rome, and to despair of that base
populace who thus allowed its defenders to perish. “If they are slaves,”
said he sadly, “it is their own fault rather than that of their
tyrants.” No confession could have cost him more. Since he had killed
Caesar, his life had been nothing but a series of disappointments, and
events seemed to play with all the plans he had formed. His scruples
about legality had caused him to lose the opportunity of saving the
republic; his horror of civil war had only served to make him begin it
too late. It was not enough that he found himself forced, in spite of
himself, to violate the law and fight against his fellow-citizens, he
was constrained to acknowledge, to his great regret, that in expecting
too much of men he was mistaken. He had a good opinion of them when he
studied them from a distance with his beloved philosophers. His opinions
changed when he came to deal closely with them, when he had to be a
witness of the debasement of character, to detect the secret greed, the
senseless hatreds, the cowardly fears of those whom he regarded as the
bravest and most honest! He was so deeply grieved that, on learning of
the last weaknesses of Cicero, he came to doubt of philosophy itself,
his favourite science, which had been the delight of his life. “Of what
use has it been to him,” said he, “to have written with so much
eloquence for the liberty of his country, upon honour, death, exile, or
poverty? In truth, I begin to have no more confidence in those studies
in which Cicero was so much occupied.”[374] In reading these bitter
words, we think of those which he spoke before his death; the one
explains the other, and each is a symptom of the same internal trouble,
which becomes great in proportion as the experience of public affairs
disenchants him more and more with men and with life. He hesitated about
philosophy, when he saw the weakness of those who had studied it most
deeply; when he saw the party of the proscribers triumphing, he doubted
of virtue.
It was fitting that thus should perish this man of thought, who had
reluctantly become a man of action, and who was thrown by the force of
events out of his natural element.
OCTAVIUS
THE POLITICAL TESTAMENT OF AUGUSTUS
Cicero liked young men; he willingly frequented their society and
readily became young again with them. Just after he had been praetor and
consul, we see him surrounding himself with promising young men like
Caelius, Curio, and Brutus, whom he took with him to the Forum and
taught to plead at his side. Later, when the defeat of Pharsalia had
removed him from the government of his country, he began to live
familiarly with those light-hearted young men who had followed the party
of the conqueror, and even consented, as a pastime, to give them lessons
in oratory. “They are my pupils in the art of speaking well,” he merrily
wrote, “and my masters in the art of dining well.”[375] After the death
of Caesar events brought him into connection with a still younger
generation, which then began to appear in political life. Plancus,
Pollio, Messala, whom fate destined to become high dignitaries of a new
government, sought his friendship, and the founder of the empire called
him father.