_CAESAR'S DEATH._
[Sidenote: B.C. 44, aetat. 63.]
After the dinner-party at Puteoli, described in the last chapter, Cicero
came up to Rome, and was engaged in literary pursuits. Caesar was now
master and lord of everything. In January Cicero wrote to his friend
Curio, and told him with disgust of the tomfooleries which were being
carried on at the election of Quaestors. An empty chair had been put
down, and was declared to be the Consul's chair. Then it was taken away,
and another chair was placed, and another Consul was declared. It wanted
then but a few hours to the end of the consular year--but not the less
was Caninius, the new Consul, appointed, "who would not sleep during his
Consulship," which lasted but from mid-day to the evening. "If you saw
all this you would not fail to weep," says Cicero![168] After this he
seems to have recovered from his sorrow. We have a correspondence with
Poetus which always typifies hilarity of spirits. There is a
discussion, of which we have but the one side, on "double entendre" and
plain speaking. Poetus had advocated the propriety of calling a spade
a spade, and Cicero shows him the inexpediency. Then we come suddenly
upon his letter to Atticus, written on the 7th of April, three weeks
after the fall of Caesar.
Mommsen endeavors to explain the intention of Caesar in the adoption of
the names by which he chose to be called, and in his acceptance of those
which, without his choosing, were imposed upon him.[169] He has done it
perhaps with too great precision, but he leaves upon our minds a correct
idea of the resolution which Caesar had made to be King, Emperor,
Dictator, or what not, before he started for Macedonia, B.C. 49,[170]
and the disinclination which moved him at once to proclaim himself a
tyrant. Dictator was the title which he first assumed, as being
temporary, Roman, and in a certain degree usual. He was Dictator for an
indefinite period, annually, for ten years, and, when he died, had been
designated Dictator for life. He had already been, for the last two
years, named "Imperator" for life; but that title--which I think to have
had a military sound in men's ears, though it may, as Mommsen says,
imply also civil rule--was not enough to convey to men all that it was
necessary that they should understand. Till the moment of his triumph
had come, and that "Veni, vidi, vici" had been flaunted in the eyes of
Rome--till Caesar, though he had been ashamed to call himself a king, had
consented to be associated with the gods--Brutus, Cassius, and those
others, sixty in number we are told, who became the conspirators, had
hardly realized the fact that the Republic was altogether at an end. A
bitter time had come upon them; but it was softened by the personal
urbanity of the victor. But now, gradually, the truth was declaring
itself, and the conspiracy was formed. I am inclined to think that
Shakspeare has been right in his conception of the plot. "I do fear the
people choose Caesar for their king," says Brutus. "I had as lief not be,
as live to be in awe of such a thing as I myself," says Cassius.[171] It
had come home to them at length that Caesar was to be king, and therefore
they conspired.
It would be a difficult task in the present era to recommend to my
readers the murderers of Caesar as honest, loyal politicians, who did
for their country, in its emergency, the best that the circumstances
would allow. The feeling of the world in regard to murder has so changed
during the last two thousand years, that men, hindered by their sense of
what is at present odious, refuse to throw themselves back into the
condition of things a knowledge of which can have come to them only from
books. They measure events individually by the present scale, and refuse
to see that Brutus should be judged by us now in reference to the
judgment that was formed of it then. In an age in which it was
considered wise and fitting to destroy the nobles of a barbarous
community which had defended itself, and to sell all others as slaves,
so that the perpetrator simply recorded the act he had done as though
necessary, can it have been a base thing to kill a tyrant? Was it
considered base by other Romans of the day? Was that plea ever made even
by Caesar's friends, or was it not acknowledged by them all that "Brutus
was an honorable man," even when they had collected themselves
sufficiently to look upon him as an enemy? It appears abundantly in
Cicero's letters that no one dreamed of regarding them as we regard
assassins now, or spoke of Caesar's death as we look upon assassination.
"Shall we defend the deeds of him at whose death we are rejoiced?" he
says: and again, he deplores the feeling of regret which was growing in
Rome on account of Caesar's death, "lest it should be dangerous to those
who have slain the tyrant for us."[172] We find that Quintilian, among
his stock lessons in oratory, constantly refers to the old established
rule that a man did a good deed who had killed a tyrant--a lesson which
he had taken from the Greek teachers.[173] We are, therefore, bound to
accept this murder as a thing praiseworthy according to the light of the
age in which it was done, and to recognize the fact that it was so
regarded by the men of the day.
We are told now that Cicero "hated" Caesar. There was no such hatred as
the word implies. And we are told of "assassins," with an intention to
bring down on the perpetrators of the deed the odium they would have
deserved had the deed been done to-day; but the word has, I think, been
misused. A king was abominable to Roman ears, and was especially
distasteful to men like Cicero, Brutus, and the other "optimates" who
claimed to be peers. To be "primus inter pares" had been Cicero's
ambition--to be the leading oligarch of the day. Caesar had gradually
mounted higher and still higher, but always leaving some
hope--infinitesimally small at last--that he might be induced to submit
himself to the Republic. Sulla had submitted. Personally there was no
hatred; but that hope had almost vanished, and therefore, judging as a
Roman, when the deed was done, Cicero believed it to have been a
glorious deed. There can be no doubt on that subject. The passages in
which he praises it are too numerous for direct quotation; but there
they are, interspersed through the letters and the Philippics. There was
no doubt of his approval. The "assassination" of Caesar, if that is to be
the word used, was to his idea a glorious act done on behalf of
humanity. The all-powerful tyrant who had usurped dominion over his
country had been made away with, and again they might fall back upon the
law. He had filched the army. He had run through various provinces, and
had enriched himself with their wealth. He was above all law; he was
worse than a Marius or a Sulla, who confessed themselves, by their open
violence, to be temporary evils. Caesar was creating himself king for all
time. No law had established him. No plebiscite of the nation had
endowed him with kingly power. With his life in his hands, he had dared
to do it, and was almost successful. It is of no purpose to say that he
was right and Cicero was wrong in their views as to the government of so
mean a people as the Romans had become. Cicero's form of government,
under men who were not Ciceros, had been wrong, and had led to a state
of things in which a tyrant might for the time be the lesser evil; but
not on that account was Cicero wrong to applaud the deed which removed
Caesar. Middleton in his life (vol. ii, p. 435) gives us the opinion of
Suetonius on this subject, and tells us that the best and wisest men in
Rome supposed Caesar to have been justly killed. Mr. Forsyth generously
abstains from blaming the deed, as to which he leaves his readers to
form their own opinion. Abeken expresses no opinion concerning its
morality, nor does Morabin. It is the critics of Cicero's works who have
condemned him without thinking much, perhaps, of the judgment they have
given.
But Cicero was not in the conspiracy, nor had he even contemplated
Caesar's death. Assertions to the contrary have been made both lately and
in former years, but without foundation. I have already alluded to some
of these, and have shown that phrases in his letters have been
misinterpreted. A passage was quoted by M. Du Rozoir--Ad Att., lib. x.,
8--"I don't think that he can endure longer than six months. He must
fall, even if we do nothing." How often might it be said that the murder
of an English minister had been intended if the utterings of such words
be taken as a testimony! He quotes again--Ad Att., lib. xiii., 40--"What
good news could Brutus hear of Caesar, unless that he hung himself?" This
is to be taken as meditating Caesar's death, and is quoted by a French
critic, after two thousand years, in proof of Cicero's fatal
ill-will![174] The whole tenor of Cicero's letters proves that he had
never entertained the idea of Caesar's destruction.
How long before the time the conspiracy may have been in existence we
have no means of knowing; but we feel that Cicero was not a man likely
to be taken into the plot. He would have dissuaded Brutus and Cassius.
Judging from what we know of his character, we think that he would have
distrusted its success. Though he rejoiced in it after it was done, he
would have been wretched while burdened with the secret. At any rate, we
have the fact that he was not so burdened. The sight of Caesar's
slaughter, when he saw it, must have struck him with infinite surprise,
but we have no knowledge of what his feelings may have been when the
crowd had gathered round the doomed man. Cicero has left us no
description of the moment in which Caesar is supposed to have gathered
his toga over his face so that he might fall with dignity. It certainly
is the case that when you take your facts from the chance correspondence
of a man you lose something of the most touching episodes of the day.
The writer passes these things by, as having been surely handled
elsewhere. It is always so with Cicero. The trial of Milo, the passing
of the Rubicon, the battle of the Pharsalus, and the murder of Pompey
are, with the death of Caesar, alike unnoticed. "I have paid him a visit
as to whom we spoke this morning. Nothing could be more forlorn."[175]
It is thus the next letter begins, after Caesar's death, and the person
he refers to is Matius, Caesar's friend; but in three weeks the world had
become used to Caesar's death. The scene had passed away, and the
inhabitants of Rome were already becoming accustomed to his absence. But
there can be no doubt as to Cicero's presence at Caesar's fall. He says
so clearly to Atticus.[176] Morabin throws a doubt upon it. The story
goes that Brutus, descending from the platform on which Caesar had been
seated, and brandishing the bloody dagger in his hand, appealed to
Cicero. Morabin says that there is no proof of this, and alleges that
Brutus did it for stage effect. But he cannot have seen the letter above
quoted, or seeing it, must have misunderstood it.[177]
It soon became evident to the conspirators that they had scotched the
snake, and not killed it. Cassius and others had desired that Antony
also should be killed, and with him Lepidus. That Antony would be
dangerous they were sure. But Marcus Brutus and Decimus overruled their
counsels. Marcus had declared that the "blood of the tyrant was all that
the people required."[178] The people required nothing of the kind. They
were desirous only of ease and quiet, and were anxious to follow either
side which might be able to lead them and had something to give away.
But Antony had been spared; and though cowed at the moment by the death
of Caesar, and by the assumption of a certain dignified forbearance on
the part of the conspirators, was soon ready again to fight the battle
for the Caesareans. It is singular to see how completely he was cowed,
and how quickly he recovered himself.
Mommsen finishes his history with a loud paean in praise of Caesar, but
does not tell us of his death. His readers, had they nothing else to
inform them, might be led to suppose that he had gone direct to heaven,
or at any rate had vanished from the world, as soon as he had made the
Empire perfect. He seems to have thought that had he described the work
of the daggers in the Senate-house he would have acknowledged the
mortality of his godlike hero. We have no right to complain of his
omissions. For research, for labor, and for accuracy he has produced a
work almost without parallel. That he should have seen how great was
Caesar because he accomplished so much, and that he should have thought
Cicero to be small because, burdened with scruples of justice, he did so
little, is in the idiosyncrasy of the man. A Caesar was wanted,
impervious to clemency, to justice, to moderation--a man who could work
with any tools. "Men had forgotten what honesty was. A person who
refused a bribe was regarded not as an upright man but as a personal
foe."[179] Caesar took money, and gave bribes, when he had the money to
pay them, without a scruple. It would be absurd to talk about him as
dishonest. He was above honesty. He was "supra grammaticam." It is well
that some one should have arisen to sing the praises of such a man--some
two or three in these latter days. To me the character of the man is
unpleasant to contemplate, unimpressionable, very far from divine. There
is none of the human softness necessary for love; none of the human
weakness needed for sympathy.
On the 15th of March Caesar fell. When the murder had been effected.
Brutus and the others concerned in it went out among the people
expecting to be greeted as saviors of their country. Brutus did address
the populace, and was well received; but some bad feeling seems to have
been aroused by hard expressions as to Caesar's memory coming from one of
the Praetors. For the people, though they regarded Caesar as a tyrant, and
expressed themselves as gratified when told that the would-be king had
been slaughtered, still did not endure to hear ill spoken of him. He had
understood that it behooved a tyrant to be generous, and appealed among
them always with full hands--not having been scrupulous as to his mode
of filling them. Then the conspirators, frightened at menacing words
from the crowd, betook themselves to the Capitol. Why they should have
gone to the Capitol as to a sanctuary I do not think that we know. The
Capitol is that hill to a portion of which access is now had by the
steps of the church of the Ara Coeli in front, and from the Forum in
the rear. On one side was the fall from the Tarpeian rock down which
malefactors were flung. On the top of it was the temple to Jupiter,
standing on the site of the present church. And it was here that Brutus
and Cassius and the other conspirators sought for safety on the evening
of the day on which Caesar had been killed. Here they remained for the
two following days, till on the 18th they ventured down into the city.
On the 17th Dolabella claimed to be Consul, in compliance with Caesar's
promise, and on the same day the Senate, moved by Antony, decreed a
public funeral to Caesar. We may imagine that the decree was made by
them with fainting hearts. There were many fainting hearts in Rome
during those days, for it became very soon apparent that the
conspirators had carried their plot no farther than the death of Caesar.
Brutus, as far as the public service was concerned, was an unpractical,
useless man. We know nothing of public work done by him to much purpose.
He was filled with high ideas as to his own position among the
oligarchs, and with especial notions as to what was due by Rome to men
of his name. He had a fierce conception of his own rights--among which
to be Praetor, and Consul, and Governor of a province were among the
number. But he had taken early in life to literature and philosophy, and
eschewed the crowd of "Fish-ponders," such as were Antony and Dolabella,
men prone to indulge the luxury of their own senses. His idea of liberty
seems to have been much the same as Cicero's--the liberty to live as one
of the first men in Rome; but it was not accompanied, as it was with
Cicero, by an innate desire to do good to those around him. To maintain
the Praetors, Consuls, and Governors so that each man high in position
should win his way to them as he might be able to obtain the voices of
the people, and not to leave them to be bestowed at the call of one man
who had thrust himself higher than all--that seems to have been his
_beau ideal_ of Roman government. It was Cicero's also--with the
addition that when he had achieved his high place he should serve the
people honestly. Brutus had killed Caesar, but had spared Antony,
thinking that all things would fall into their accustomed places when
the tyrant should be no more. But he found that Caesar had been tyrant
long enough to create a lust for tyranny; and that though he might
suffice to kill a king, he had no aptitude for ruling a people.
It was now that those scenes took place which Shakspeare has described
with such accuracy--the public funeral, Antony's oration, and the rising
of the people against the conspirators. Antony, when he found that no
plan had been devised for carrying on the government, and that the men
were struck by amazement at the deed they had themselves done, collected
his thoughts and did his best to put himself in Caesar's place. Cicero
had pleaded in the Senate for a general amnesty, and had carried it as
far as the voice of the Senate could do so. But the amnesty only
intended that men should pretend to think that all should be forgotten
and forgiven. There was no forgiving, as there could be no forgetting.
Then Caesar's will was brought forth. They could not surely dispute his
will or destroy it. In this way Antony got hold of the dead man's
papers, and with the aid of the dead man's private secretary or
amanuensis, one Fabricius, began a series of most unblushing forgeries.
He procured, or said that he procured, a decree to be passed confirming
by law all Caesar's written purposes. Such a decree he could use to any
extent to which he could carry with him the sympathies of the people. He
did use it to a great extent, and seems at this period to have
contemplated the assumption of dictatorial power in his own hands.
Antony was nearly being one of the greatest rascals the world has known.
The desire was there, and so was the intellect, had it not been weighted
by personal luxury and indulgence.
Now young Octavius came upon the scene. He was the great-nephew of
Caesar, whose sister Julia had married one Marcus Atius. Their daughter
Atia had married Caius Octavius, and of that marriage Augustus was the
child. When Octavius, the father, died, Atia, the widow, married Marcius
Philippus, who was Consul B.C. 56. Caesar, having no nearer heir, took
charge of the boy, and had, for the last years of his life, treated him
as his son, though he had not adopted him. At this period the youth had
been sent to Apollonia, on the other side of the Adriatic, in Macedonia,
to study with Apollodorus, a Greek tutor, and was there when he heard of
Caesar's death. He was informed that Caesar had made him his heir and at
once crossed over into Italy with his friend Agrippa. On the way up to
Rome he met Cicero at one of his southern villas, and in the presence
of the great orator behaved himself with becoming respect. He was then
not twenty years old, but in the present difficulty of his position
conducted himself with a caution most unlike a boy. He had only come, he
said for what his great-uncle had left him; and when he found that
Antony had spent the money, does not appear to have expressed himself
immediately in anger. He went on to Rome, where he found that Antony and
Dolabella and Marcus Brutus and Decimus Brutus and Cassius were
scrambling for the provinces and the legions. Some of the soldiers came
to him, asking him to avenge his uncle's death; but he was too prudent
as yet to declare any purpose of revenge.
Not long after Caesar's death Cicero left Rome, and spent the ensuing
month travelling about among his different villas. On the 14th of April
he writes to Atticus, declaring that whatever evil might befall him he
would find comfort in the ides of March. In the same letter he calls
Brutus and the others "our heroes," and begs his friend to send him
news--or if not news, then a letter without news.[180] In the next he
again calls them his heroes, but adds that he can take no pleasure in
anything but in the deed that had been done. Men are still praising the
work of Caesar, and he laments that they should be so inconsistent.
"Though they laud those who had destroyed Caesar, at the same time they
praise his deeds."[181] In the same letter he tells Atticus that the
people in all the villages are full of joy. "It cannot be told how eager
they are--how they run out to meet me, and to hear my accounts of what
was done. But the Senate passes no decree!"[182] He speaks of going into
Greece to see his son--whom he never lived to see again--telling him of
letters from the lad from Athens, which, he thinks, however, may be
hypocritical, though he is comforted by finding their language to be
clear. He has recovered his good-humor, and can be jocose. One Cluvius
has left him a property at Puteoli, and the house has tumbled down; but
he has sent for Chrysippus, an architect. But what are houses falling to
him? He can thank Socrates and all his followers that they have taught
him to disregard such worldly things. Nevertheless, he has deemed it
expedient to take the advice of a certain friend as to turning the
tumble-down house into profitable shape.[183] A little later he
expresses his great disgust that Caesar, in the public speeches in Rome,
should be spoken of as that "great and most excellent man."[184] And yet
he had said, but a few months since, in his oration for King Deiotarus,
in the presence of Caesar, "that he looked only into his eyes, only into
his face--that he regarded only him." The flattery and the indignant
reprobation do, in truth, come very near upon each other, and induce us
to ask whether the fact of having to live in the presence of royalty be
not injurious to the moral man. Could any of us have refused to speak to
Caesar with adulation--any of us whom circumstances compelled to speak to
him? Power had made Caesar desirous of a mode of address hardly becoming
a man to give or a man to receive. Does not the etiquette of to-day
require from us certain courtesies of conversation, which I would call
abject were it not that etiquette requires them? Nevertheless, making
the best allowance that I can for Cicero, the difference of his language
within a month or two is very painful. In the letter above quoted
Octavius comes to him, and we can see how willing was the young aspirant
to flatter him.
He sees already that, in spite of the promised amnesty, there must be
internecine feud. "I shall have to go into the camp with young
Sextus"--Sextus Pompeius--"or perhaps with Brutus, a prospect at my
years most odious." Then he quotes two lines of Homer, altering a word:
"To you, my child, is not given the glory of war; eloquence, charming
eloquence, must be the weapon with which you will fight." We hear of his
contemplated journey into Greece, under the protection of a free
legation. He was going for the sake of his son; but would not people say
that he went to avoid the present danger? and might it not be the case
that he should be of service if he remained?[185] We see that the old
state of doubt is again falling upon him. [Greek: Aideomai Troas.]
Otherwise he could go and make himself safe in Athens. There is a
correspondence between him and Antony, of which he sends copies to
Atticus. Antony writes to him, begging him to allow Sextus Clodius to
return from his banishment. This Sextus had been condemned because of
the riot on the death of his uncle in Milo's affair, and Antony wishes
to have him back. Cicero replies that he will certainly accede to
Antony's views. It had always been a law with him, he says, not to
maintain a feeling of hatred against his humbler enemies. But in both
these letters we see the subtilty and caution of the writers. Antony
could have brought back Sextus without Cicero, and Cicero knew that he
could do so. Cicero had no power over the law. But it suited Antony to
write courteously a letter which might elicit an uncivil reply. Cicero,
however, knew better, and answered it civilly.
He writes to Tiro telling him that he has not the slightest intention of
quarrelling with his old friend Antony, and will write to Antony, but
not till he shall have seen him, Tiro; showing on what terms of
friendship he stands with his former slave, for Tiro had by this time
been manumitted.[186] He writes to Tiro quite as he might have written
to a younger Atticus, and speaks to him of Atticus with all the
familiarity of confirmed friendship. There must have been something very
sweet in the nature of the intercourse which bound such a man as Cicero
to such another as Tiro.
Atticus applies to him, desiring him to use his influence respecting a
certain question of importance as to Buthrotum. Buthrotum was a town in
Epirus opposite to the island of Corcyra, in which Atticus had an
important interest. The lands about the place were to be divided, and to
be distributed to Roman soldiers--much, as we may suppose to the injury
of Atticus. He has earnestly begged the interference of Cicero for the
protection of the Buthrotians, and Cicero tells him that he wishes he
could have seen Antony on the subject, but that Antony is too much
busied looking after the soldiers in the Campagna. Cicero fails to have
the wishes of Atticus carried out, and shortly the subject becomes lost
in the general confusion. But the discussion shows of how much
importance at the present moment Cicero's interference with Antony is
considered. It shows also that up to this period, a few months previous
to the envenomed hatred of the second Philippic, Antony and Cicero were
presumed to be on terms of intimate friendship.
The worship of Caesar had been commenced in Rome, and an altar had been
set up to him in the Forum as to a god. Had Caesar, when he perished,
been said to have usurped the sovereign authority, his body would have
been thrown out as unworthy of noble treatment. Such treatment the
custom of the Republic required. It had been allowed to be buried, and
had been honored, not disgraced. Now, on the spot where the funeral pile
had been made, the altar was erected, and crowds of men clamored round
it, worshipping. That this was the work of Antony we cannot doubt. But
Dolabella, Cicero's repudiated son-in-law, who in furtherance of a
promise from Caesar had seized the Consulship, was jealous of Antony and
caused the altar to be thrown down and the worshippers to be dispersed.
Many were killed in the struggle--for, though the Republic was so
jealous of the lives of the citizens as not to allow a criminal to be
executed without an expression of the voice of the entire people, any
number might fall in a street tumult, and but little would be thought
about it. Dolabella destroyed the altar, and Cicero was profuse in his
thanks.[187] For though Tullia had been divorced, and had since died,
there was no cause for a quarrel. Divorces were so common that no family
odium was necessarily created. Cicero was at this moment most anxious to
get back from Dolabella his daughter's dowry. It was never repaid.
Indeed, a time was quickly coming in which such payments were out of the
question, and Dolabella soon took a side altogether opposed to the
Republic--for which he cared nothing. He was bought by Antony, having
been ready to be bought by any one. He went to Syria as governor before
the end of the year, and at Smyrna, on his road, he committed one of
those acts of horror on Trebonius, an adverse governor, in which the
Romans of the day would revel when liberated from control. Cassius came
to avenge his friend Trebonius, and Dolabella, finding himself worsted,
destroyed himself. He had not progressed so far in corruption as Verres,
because time had not permitted it--but that was the direction in which
he was travelling. At the present moment, however, no praise was too
fervid to be bestowed upon him by Cicero's pen. That turning of Caesar
into a god was opposed to every feeling of his heart, both, as to men
and as to gods.
A little farther on[188] we find him complaining of the state of things
very grievously: "That we should have feared this thing, and not have
feared the other!"--meaning Caesar and Antony. He declares that he must
often read, for his own consolation, his treatise on old age, then just
written and addressed to Atticus. "Old age is making me bitter," he
says; "I am annoyed at everything. But my life has been lived. Let the
young look to the future." We here meet the name of Caerellia in a letter
to his friend. She had probably been sent to make up the quarrel between
him and his young wife Publilia. Nothing came of it, and it is mentioned
only because Caerellia's name has been joined so often with that of
Cicero by subsequent writers. In the whole course of his correspondence
with Atticus I do not remember it to occur, except in one or two letters
at this period. I imagine that some story respecting the lady was handed
down, and was published by Dio Cassius when the Greek historian found
that it served his purpose to abuse Cicero.
On June 22nd he sent news to Atticus of his nephew. Young Quintus had
written home to his father to declare his repentance. He had been in
receipt of money from Antony, and had done Antony's dirty work. He had
been "Antoni dextella"--"Antony's right hand"--according to Cicero, and
had quarrelled absolutely with his father and his uncle. He now
expresses his sorrow, and declares that he would come himself at once,
but that there might be danger to his father. And there is money to be
expected if he will only wait. "Did you ever hear of a worse knave?"
Cicero adds. Probably not; but yet he was able to convince his father
and his uncle, and some time afterward absolutely offered to prosecute
Antony for stealing the public money out of the treasury. He thought, as
did some others, that the course of things was going against Antony. As
a consequence of this he was named in the proscriptions, and killed,
with his father. In the same letter Cicero consults Atticus as to the
best mode of going to Greece. Brundisium is the usual way, but he has
been told by Tiro that there are soldiers in the town.[189] He is now at
Arpinum, on his journey, and receives a letter from Brutus inviting him
back to Rome, to see the games given by Brutus. He is annoyed to think
that Brutus should expect this. "These shows are now only honorable to
him who is bound to give them," he says; "I am not bound to see them,
and to be present would be dishonorable."[190] Then comes his parting
with Atticus, showing a demonstrative tenderness foreign to the
sternness of our northern nature. "That you should have wept when you
had parted from me, has grieved me greatly. Had you done it in my
presence, I should not have gone at all."[191] "Nonis Juliis!"[192] he
exclaims. The name of July had already come into use--the name which has
been in use ever since--the name of the man who had now been destroyed!
The idea distresses him. "Shall Brutus talk of July?" It seems that some
advertisement had been published as to his games in which the month was
so called.
Writing from one of his villas in the south, he tells Atticus that his
nephew has again been with him, and has repented him of all his sins. I
think that Cicero never wrote anything vainer than this: "He has been so
changed," he says, "by reading some of my writings which I happened to
have by me, and by my words and precepts, that he is just such a citizen
as I would have him."[193] Could it be that he should suppose that one
whom he had a few days since described as the biggest knave he knew
should be so changed by a few words well written and well pronounced?
Young Quintus must in truth have been a clever knave. In the same letter
Cicero tells us that Tiro had collected about seventy of his letters
with a view to publication. We have at present over seven hundred
written before that day.
Just as he is starting he gives his friend a very wide commission: "By
your love for me, do manage my matters for me. I have left enough to pay
everything that I owe. But it will happen, as it often does, that they
who owe me will not be punctual. If anything of that kind should happen,
only think of my character. Put me right before the world by borrowing,
or even by selling, if it be necessary."[194] This is not the language
of a man in distress, but of one anxious that none should lose a
shilling by him. He again thinks of starting from Brundisium, and
promises, when he has arrived there, instantly to begin a new work. He
has sent his De Gloria to Atticus; a treatise which we have lost. We
should be glad to know how he treated this most difficult subject. We
are astonished at his fecundity and readiness. He was now nearly
sixty-three, and, as he travels about the country, he takes with him all
the adjuncts necessary for the writing of treatises such as he composed
at this period of his life! His Topica, containing Aristotelian
instructions as to a lawyer's work, he put together on board ship,
immediately after this, for the benefit of Trebatius, to whom it had
been promised.
July had come, and at last he resolved to sail from Pompeii and to coast
round to Sicily. He lands for a night at Velia, where he finds Brutus,
with whom he has an interview. Then he writes a letter to Trebatius, who
had there a charming villa, bought no doubt with Gallic spoils. He is
reminded of his promise, and going on to Rhegium writes his Topica,
which he sends to Trebatius from that place. Thence he went across to
Syracuse, but was afraid to stay there, fearing that his motions might
be watched, and that Antony would think that he had objects of State in
his journey. He had already been told that some attributed his going to
a desire to be present at the Olympian games; but the first notion seems
to have been that he had given the Republic up as lost, and was seeking
safety elsewhere. From this we are made to perceive how closely his
motions were watched, and how much men thought of them. From Syracuse he
started for Athens--which place, however, he was doomed never to see
again. He was carried back to Leucopetra on the continent; and though he
made another effort, he was, he says, again brought back. There, at the
villa of his friend Valerius, he learned tidings which induced him to
change his purpose, and hurry off to Rome. Brutus and Cassius had
published a decree of the Senate, calling all the Senators, and
especially the Consulares, to Rome. There was reason to suppose that
Antony was willing to relax his pretensions. They had strenuously
demanded his attendance, and whispers were heard that he had fled from
the difficulties of the times. "When I heard this, I at once abandoned
my journey, with which, indeed, I had never been well pleased."[195]
Then he enters into a long disquisition with Atticus as to the advice
which had been given to him, both by Atticus and by Brutus, and he says
some hard words to Atticus. But he leaves an impression on the reader's
mind that Brutus had so disturbed him by what had passed between them at
Velia, that from that moment his doubts as to going, which had been
always strong, had overmastered him. It was not the winds at Leucopetra
that hindered his journey, but the taunting words which Brutus had
spoken. It was suggested to him that he was deserting his country. The
reproach had been felt by him to be heavy, for he had promised to
Atticus that he would return by the first of January; yet he could not
but feel that there was something in it of truth. The very months during
which he would be absent would be the months of danger. Indeed, looking
out upon the political horizon then, it seemed as though the nearest
months, those they were then passing, would be the most dangerous. If
Antony could be got rid of, be made to leave Italy, there might be
something for an honest Senator to do--a man with consular authority--a
something which might not jeopardize his life. When men now call a
politician of those days a coward for wishing to avoid the heat of the
battle, they hardly think what it is for an old man to leave his retreat
and rush into the Forum, and there encounter such a one as Antony, and
such soldiers as were his soldiers. Cicero, who had been brave enough in
the emergencies of his career, and had gone about his work sometimes
regardless of his life, no doubt thought of all this. It would be
pleasant to him again to see his son, and to look upon the rough doings
of Rome from amid the safety of Athens; but when his countrymen told him
that he had not as yet done enough--when Brutus, with his cold, bitter
words, rebuked him for going--then his thoughts turned round on the
quick pivot on which they were balanced, and he hurried back to the
fight.
He travelled at once up to Rome, which he reached on the last of August,
and there received a message from Antony demanding his presence in the
Senate on the next day. He had been greeted on his journey once again by
the enthusiastic welcome of his countrymen, who looked to receive some
especial advantage from his honesty and patriotism. Once again he was
made proud by the clamors of a trusting people. But he had not come to
Rome to be Antony's puppet. Antony had some measure to bring before the
Senate in honor of Caesar which it would not suit Cicero to support or to
oppose. He sent to say that he was tired after his journey and would not
come. Upon this the critics deal hardly with him, and call him a coward.
"With an incredible pusillanimity," says M. Du Rozoir, "Cicero excused
himself, alleging his health and the fatigue of his voyage." "He
pretended that he was too tired to be present," says Mr Long. It appears
to me that they who have read Cicero's works with the greatest care have
become so enveloped by the power of his words as to expect from them an
unnatural weight. If a politician of to-day, finding that it did not
suit him to appear in the House of Commons on a certain evening, and
that it would best become him to allow a debate to pass without his
presence, were to make such an excuse, would he be treated after the
same fashion? Pusillanimity, and pretence, in regard to those Philippics
in which he seems to have courted death by every harsh word that he
uttered! The reader who has begun to think so must change his mind, and
be prepared, as he progresses, to find quite another fault with Cicero.
Impetuous, self-confident, rash; throwing down the gage with internecine
fury; striving to crush with his words the man who had the command of
the legions of Rome; sticking at nothing which could inflict a blow;
forcing men by his descriptions to such contempt of Antony that they
should be induced to leave the stronger party, lest they too should
incur something of the wrath of the orator--that they will find to be
the line which Cicero adopted, and the demeanor he put on during the
next twelve months! He thundered with his Philippics through Rome,
addressing now the Senate and now the people with a hardihood which you
may condemn as being unbecoming one so old, who should have been taught
equanimity by experience; but pusillanimity and pretence will not be the
offences you will bring against him.
Antony, not finding that Cicero had come at his call, declared in the
Senate that he would send his workmen to dig him out from his house.
Cicero alludes to this on the next day without passion.[196] Antony was
not present, and in this speech he expresses no bitterness of anger. It
should hardly have been named one of the Philippics, which title might
well have been commenced with the second. The name, it should be
understood, has been adopted from a jocular allusion by Cicero to the
Philippics of Demosthenes, made in a letter to Brutus. We have at least
the reply of Brutus, if indeed the letter be genuine, which is much to
be doubted.[197] But he had no purpose of affixing his name to them. For
many years afterward they were called Antonianae, and the first general
use of the term by which we know them has probably been comparatively
modern. The one name does as well as another, but it is odd that
speeches from Demosthenes should have given a name to others so well
known as these made by Cicero against Antony. Plutarch, however,
mentions the name, saying that it had been given to the speeches by
Cicero himself.
In this, the first, he is ironically reticent as to Antony's violence
and unpatriotic conduct. Antony was not present, and Cicero tells his
hearers with a pleasant joke that to Antony it may be allowed to be
absent on the score of ill-health, though the indulgence had been
refused to him. Antony is his friend, and why had Antony treated him so
roughly? Was it unusual for Senators to be absent? Was Hannibal at the
gate, or were they dealing for peace with Pyrrhus, as was the case when
they brought the old blind Appius down to the House? Then he comes to
the question of the hour, which was, nominally, the sanctioning as law
those acts of Caesar's which he had decreed by his own will before his
death. When a tyrant usurps power for a while and is then deposed, no
more difficult question can be debated. Is it not better to take the law
as he leaves it, even though the law has become a law illegally, than
encounter all the confusion of retrograde action? Nothing could have
been more iniquitous than some of Sulla's laws, but Cicero had opposed
their abrogation. But here the question was one not of Caesar's laws, but
of decrees subsequently made by Antony and palmed off upon the people as
having been found among Caesar's papers. Soon after Caesar's death a
decision had been obtained by Antony in favor of Caesar's laws or acts,
and hence had come these impudent forgeries under the guise of which
Antony could cause what writings he chose to be made public. "I think
that Caesar's acts should be maintained," says Cicero, "not as being in
themselves good, for that no one can assert. I wish that Antony were
present here without his usual friends," he adds, alluding to his armed
satellites. "He would tell us after what manner he would maintain those
acts of Caesar's. Are they to be found in notes and scraps and small
documents brought forward by one witness, or not brought forward at all
but only told to us? And shall those which he engraved in bronze, and
which he wished to be known as the will of the people and as perpetual
laws--shall they go for nothing?"[198] Here was the point in dispute.
The decree had been voted soon after Caesar's death, giving the sanction
of the Senate to his laws. For peace this had been done, as the best way
out of the difficulty which oppressed the State. But it was intolerable
that, under this sanction, Antony should have the power of bringing
forth new edicts day after day, while the very laws which Caesar had
passed were not maintained. "What better law was there, or more often
demanded in the best days of the Republic, than that law," passed by
Caesar, "under which the provinces were to be held by the Praetors only
for one year, and by the Consuls for not more than two? But this law is
abolished. So it is thus that Caesar's acts are to be maintained?"[199]
Antony, no doubt, and his friends, having an eye to the fruition of the
provinces, had found among Caesar's papers--or said they had found--some
writing to suit their purpose. All things to be desired were to be found
among Caesar's papers. "The banished are brought back from banishment,
the right of citizenship is given not only to individuals but to whole
nations and provinces, exceptions from taxations are granted, by the
dead man's voice."[200] Antony had begun, probably, with some one or two
more modest forgeries, and had gone on, strengthened in impudence by his
own success, till Caesar dead was like to be worse to them than Caesar
living. The whole speech is dignified, patriotic, and bold, asserting
with truth that which he believed to be right, but never carried into
invective or dealing with expressions of anger. It is very short, but I
know no speech of his more closely to its purpose. I can see him now,
with his toga round him, as he utters the final words: "I have lived
perhaps long enough--both as to length of years and the glory I have
won. What little may be added, shall be, not for myself, but for you and
for the Republic." The words thus spoken became absolutely true.