ANTONY AND AUGUSTUS.
There were some things in which Mark Antony resembled Caesar. At the
time it seemed probable that he would play the same part, and even climb
to the same height of power. He failed in the end because he wanted the
power of managing others, and, still more, of controlling himself. He
came of a good stock. His grandfather had been one of the greatest
orators of his day, his father was a kindly, generous man, his mother a
kinswoman of Caesar, a matron of the best Roman type. But he seemed
little likely to do credit to his belongings. His riotous life became
conspicuous even in a city where extravagance and vice were only too
common, and his debts, though not so enormous as Caesar's, were greater,
says Plutarch, than became his youth, for they amounted to about fifty
thousand pounds. He was taken away from these dissipations by military
service in the East, and he rapidly acquired considerable reputation as
a soldier. Here is the picture that Plutarch draws of him: There was
something noble and dignified in his appearance. His handsome beard, his
broad forehead, his aquiline nose, gave him a manly look that resembled
the familiar statues and pictures of Hercules. There was indeed a legend
that the Antonii were descended from a son of Hercules; and this he was
anxious to support by his appearance and dress. Whenever he appeared in
public he had his tunic gired up to the hip, carried a great sword at
his side, and wore a rough cloak of Cilician hair. The habits too that
seemed vulgar to others--his boastfulness, his coarse humor, his
drinking bouts, the way he had of eating in public, taking his meals as
he stood from the soldiers' tables--had an astonishing effect in making
him popular with the soldiers. His bounty too, the help which he gave
with a liberal hand to comrades and friends, made his way to power easy.
On one occasion he directed that a present of three thousand pounds
should be given to a friend. His steward, aghast at the magnitude of the
sum, thought to bring it home to his master's mind by putting the actual
coin on a table. "What is this?" said Antony, as he happened to pass by.
"The money you bade me pay over," was the man's reply. "Why, I had
thought it would be ten times as much as this. This is but a trifle. Add
to it as much more."
When the civil war broke out, Antony joined the party of Caesar, who,
knowing his popularity with the troops, made him his second in command.
He did good service at Pharsalia, and while his chief went on to Egypt,
returned to Rome as his representative. There were afterwards
differences between the two; Caesar was offended at the open scandal of
Antony's manners and found him a troublesome adherent; Antony conceived
himself to be insufficiently rewarded for his services, especially when
he was called upon to pay for Pompey's confiscated property, which he
had bought. Their close alliance, however, had been renewed before
Caesar's death. That event made him the first man in Rome. The chief
instrument of his power was a strange one; the Senate, seeing that the
people of Rome gloved and admired the dead man, passed a resolution that
all the wishes which Caesar had left in writing should have the force of
law--and Antony had the custody of his papers. People laughed, and
called the documents "Letters from the Styx." There was the gravest
suspicion that many of them were forged. But for a time they were a very
powerful machinery for effecting his purpose.
Then came a check. Caesar's nephew and heir, Octavius, arrived at Rome.
Born in the year of Cicero's consulship, he was little more than
nineteen; but in prudence, statecraft, and knowledge of the world he was
fully grown. In his twelfth year he had delivered the funeral oration
over his grandmother Julia. After winning some distinction as a soldier
in Spain, he had returned at his uncle's bidding to Apollonia, a town of
the eastern coast of the Adriatic, where he studied letters and
philosophy under Greek teachers. Here he had received the title of
"Master of the Horse," an honor which gave him the rank next to the
Dictator himself. He came to Rome with the purpose, as he declared, of
claiming his inheritance and avenging his uncle's death. But he knew how
to abide his time. He kept on terms with Antony, who had usurped his
position and appropriated his inheritance, and he was friendly, if not
with the actual murderers of Caesar, yet certainly with Cicero, who made
no secret of having approved their deed.
For Cicero also had now returned to public life. For some time past,
both before Caesar's death and after it, he had devoted himself to
literature.[12] Now there seemed to him a chance that something might yet
be done for the republic, and he returned to Rome, which he reached on
the last day of August. The next day there was a meeting of the Senate,
at which Antony was to propose certain honors to Caesar. Cicero,
wearied, or affecting to be wearied, by his journey, was absent, and was
fiercely attacked by Antony, who threatened to send workmen to dig him
out of his house.
[Footnote 12: To the years 46-44 belong nearly all his treatises on
rhetoric and philosophy.]
The next day Cicero was in his place, Antony being absent, and made a
dignified defense of his conduct, and criticised with some severity the
proceedings of his assailant. Still so far there was no irreconcilable
breach between the two men. "Change your course," says the orator, "I
beseech you: think of those who have gone before, and so steer the
course of the Commonwealth that your countrymen may rejoice that you
were born. Without this no man can be happy or famous." He still
believed, or professed to believe, that Antony was capable of
patriotism. If he had any hopes of peace, these were soon to be crushed.
After a fortnight or more spent in preparation, assisted, we are told,
by a professional teacher of eloquence, Antony came down to the Senate
and delivered a savage invective against Cicero. The object of his
attack was again absent. He had wished to attend the meeting, but his
friends hindered him, fearing, not without reason, actual violence from
the armed attendants whom Antony was accustomed to bring into the
senate-house.
The attack was answered in the famous oration which is called the second
Philippic[13]. If I could transcribe this speech (which, for other
reasons besides its length, I cannot do) it would give us a strange
picture of "Roman Life." It is almost incredible that a man so shameless
and so vile should have been the greatest power in a state still
nominally free. I shall give one extract from it. Cicero has been
speaking of Antony's purchase of Pompey's confiscated property. "He was
wild with joy, like a character in a farce; a beggar one day, a
millionaire the next. But, as some writer says, 'Ill gotten, ill kept.'
It is beyond belief, it is an absolute miracle, how he squandered this
vast property--in a few months do I say?--no, in a few days. There was a
great cellar of wine, a very great quantity of excellent plate, costly
stuffs, plenty of elegant and even splendid furniture, just as one might
expect in a man who was affluent without being luxurious. And of all
this within a few days there was left nothing. Was there ever a
Charybdis so devouring? A Charybdis, do I say? no--if there ever was
such a thing, it was but a single animal. Good heavens! I can scarcely
believe that the whole ocean could have swallowed up so quickly
possessions so numerous, so scattered, and lying at places so distant.
Nothing was locked up, nothing sealed, nothing catalogued. Whole
store-rooms were made a present of to the vilest creatures. Actors and
actresses of burlesque were busy each with plunder of their own. The
mansion was full of dice players and drunkards. There was drinking from
morning to night, and that in many places. His losses at dice (for even
he is not always lucky) kept mounting up. In the chambers of slaves you
might see on the beds the purple coverlets which had belonged to the
great Pompey. No wonder that all this wealth was spent so quickly.
Reckless men so abandoned might well have speedily devoured, not only
the patrimony of a single citizen, however ample--and ample it was--but
whole cities and kingdoms."
[Footnote 13: The orations against Antony--there are fourteen of
them--are called "Philippics," a name transferred to them from, the
great speeches in which Demosthenes attacked Philip of Macedon. The name
seems to have been in common use in Juvenal's time (_circa_ 110 A.D.)]
The speech was never delivered but circulated in writing. Toward the end
of 44, Antony, who found the army deserting him for the young Octavius,
left Rome, and hastened into northern Italy, to attack Decimus Brutus.
Brutus was not strong enough to venture on a battle with him, and shut
himself up in Mutina. Cicero continued to take the leading part in
affairs at Rome, delivering the third and fourth Philippics in December,
44, and the ten others during the five months of the following year. The
fourteenth was spoken in the Senate, when the fortunes of the falling
republic seem to have revived. A great battle had been fought at Mutina,
in which Antony had been completely defeated; and Cicero proposed
thanks to the commanders and troops, and honors to those who had fallen.
The joy with which these tidings had been received was but very brief.
Of the three generals named in the vote of thanks the two who had been
loyal to the republic were dead; the third, the young Octavius, had
found the opportunity for which he had been waiting of betraying it. The
soldiers were ready to do his bidding, and he resolved to seize by their
help the inheritance of power which his uncle had left him. Antony had
fled across the Alps, and had been received by Lepidus, who was in
command of a large army in that province, Lepidus resolved to play the
part which Crassus had played sixteen years before. He brought about a
reconciliation between Octavius and Antony, as Crassus had reconciled
Pompey and Caesar, and was himself admitted as a third into their
alliance. Thus was formed the Second Triumvirate.
The three chiefs who had agreed to divide the Roman world between them
met on a little island near Bononia (the modern Bonogna) and discussed
their plans. Three days were given to their consultations, the chief
subject being the catalogue of enemies, public and private, who were to
be destroyed. Each had a list of his own; and on Antony's the first name
was Cicero. Lepidus assented, as he was ready to assent to all the
demands of his more resolute colleagues; but the young Octavius is said
to have long resisted, and to have given way only on the last day. A
list of between two and three thousand names of senators and knights was
drawn up. Seventeen were singled out for instant execution, and among
these seventeen was Cicero. He was staying at his home in Tusculum with
his brother Quintus when the news reached him. His first impulse was to
make for the sea-coast. If he could reach Macedonia, where Brutus had a
powerful army, he would, for a time at least, be safe. The two brothers
started. But Quintus had little or nothing with him, and was obliged to
go home to fetch some money. Cicero, who was himself but ill provided,
pursued his journey alone. Reaching the coast, he embarked. When it came
to the point of leaving Italy his resolution failed him. He had always
felt the greatest aversion for camp life. He had had an odious
experience of it when Pompey was struggling with Caesar for the mastery.
He would sooner die, he thought, than make trial of it again. He landed,
and traveled twelve miles towards Rome. Some afterwards said that he
still cherished hopes of being protected by Antony; others that it was
his purpose to make his way into the house of Octavius and kill himself
on his hearth, cursing him with his last breath, but that he was
deterred by the fear of being seized and tortured. Any how, he turned
back, and allowed his slaves to take him to Capua. The plan of taking
refuge with Brutus was probably urged upon him by his companions, who
felt that this gave the only chance of their own escape. Again he
embarked, and again he landed. Plutarch tells a strange story of a flock
of ravens that settled on the yardarms of his ship while he was on
board, and on the windows of the villa in which he passed the night. One
bird, he says, flew upon his couch and pecked at the cloak in which he
had wrapped himself. His slaves reproached themselves at allowing a
master, whom the very animals were thus seeking to help, to perish
before their eyes. Almost by main force they put him into his litter and
carried him toward the coast. Antony's soldiers now reached the villa,
the officer in command being an old client whom Cicero had successfully
defended on a charge of murder. They found the doors shut and burst them
open. The inmates denied all knowledge of their master's movements, till
a young Greek, one of his brother's freedmen, whom Cicero had taken a
pleasure in teaching, showed the officer the litter which was being
carried through the shrubbery of the villa to the sea. Taking with him
some of his men, he hastened to follow. Cicero, hearing their steps,
bade the bearers set the litter on the ground. He looked out, and
stroking his chin with his left hand, as his habit was, looked
steadfastly at the murderers. His face was pale and worn with care. The
officer struck him on the neck with his sword, some of the rough
soldiers turning away while the deed was done. The head and hands were
cut off by order of Antony, and nailed up in the Forum.
Many years afterwards the Emperor Augustus (the Octavius of this
chapter), coming unexpectedly upon one of his grandsons, saw the lad
seek to hide in his robe a volume which he had been reading. He took it,
and found it to be one of the treatises of Cicero. He returned it with
words which I would here repeat; "He was a good man and a lover of his
country."
THE END.