_THE PHILIPPICS._
[Sidenote: B.C. 44, aetat. 63.]
Cicero was soon driven by the violence of Antony's conduct to relinquish
the idea of moderate language, and was ready enough to pick up the
gauntlet thrown down for him. From this moment to the last scene of his
life it was all the fury of battle and the shout of victory, and then
the scream of despair. Antony, when he read Cicero's speech, the first
Philippic, the language of which was no doubt instantly sent to him,
seems to have understood at once that he must either vanquish Cicero or
be vanquished by him. He appreciated to the letter the ironically
cautious language in which his conduct was exposed. He had not chosen to
listen to Cicero, but was most anxious to get Cicero to listen to him.
Those "advocates" of whom Cicero had spoken would be around him, and at
a nod, or perhaps without a nod, would do to Cicero as Brutus and
Cassius had done to Caesar. The last meeting of the Senate had been on
the 2d of September. When it was over, Antony, we are told, went down to
his villa at Tivoli, and there devoted himself for above a fortnight to
the getting up of a speech by which he might silence, or at any rate
answer Cicero. Nor did he leave himself to his own devices, but took to
himself a master of eloquence who might teach him when to make use of
his arms, where to stamp his feet, and in what way to throw his toga
about with a graceful passion. He was about forty at this time,[201] and
in the full flower of his manhood, yet, for such a purpose, he did not
suppose himself to know all that lessons would teach him in the art of
invective. There he remained, mouthing out his phrases in the presence
of his preceptor, till he had learned by heart all that the preceptor
knew. Then he summoned Cicero to meet him in the Senate on the 19th.
This Cicero was desirous of doing, but was prevented by his friends, who
were afraid of the "advocates." There is extant a letter from Cicero to
Cassius in which he states it to be well known in Rome that Antony had
declared that he, Cicero, had been the author of Caesar's death, in order
that Caesar's old soldiers might slay him.[202] There were other
Senators, he says, who did not dare to show themselves in the
Senate-house--Piso, and Servilius, and Cotta. Antony came down and made
his practised oration against Cicero. The words of his speech have not
been preserved, but Cicero has told us the manner of it, and some of the
phrases which he used. The authority is not very good, but we may
imagine from the results that his story is not far from the truth. From
first to last it was one violent tirade of abuse which he seemed to
vomit forth from his jaws, rather than to "speak after the manner of a
Roman Consular." Such is Cicero's description.
It has been said of Antony that we hear of him only from his enemies. He
left behind him no friend to speak for him, and we have heard of him
certainly from one enemy; but the tidings are of a nature to force upon
us belief in the evil which Cicero spoke of him. Had he been a man of
decent habits of life, and of an honest purpose, would Cicero have dared
to say to the Romans respecting him the words which he produced, not
only in the second Philippic, which was unspoken, but also in the twelve
which followed? The record of him, as far as it goes, is altogether bad.
Plutarch tells us that he was handsome, and a good soldier, but
altogether vicious. Plutarch is not a biographer whose word is to be
taken as to details, but he is generally correct in his estimate of
character. Tacitus tells us but little about him as direct history, but
mentions him ever in the same tone. Tacitus knew the feeling of Rome
regarding him. Paterculus speaks specially of his fraud, and breaks out
into strong repudiation of the murder of Cicero.[203] Valerius Maximus,
in his anecdotes, mentions him slightingly, as an evil man is spoken of
who has forced himself into notice. Virgil has stamped his name with
everlasting ignominy. "Sequiturque nefas Egyptia conjux." I can think of
no Roman writer who has named him with honor. He was a Roman of the
day--what Rome had made him--brave, greedy, treacherous, and
unpatriotic.
Cicero again was absent from the Senate, but was in Rome when Antony
attacked him. We learn from a letter to Cornificius that Antony left the
city shortly afterward, and went down to Brundisium to look after the
legions which had come across from Macedonia, with which Cicero asserts
that he intends to tyrannize over them all in Rome.[204] He then tells
his correspondent that young Octavius has just been discovered in an
attempt to have Antony murdered, but that Antony, having found the
murderer in his house, had not dared to complain. He seems to think that
Octavius had been right! The state of things was such that men were used
to murder; but this story was probably not true. He passes on to declare
in the next sentence that he receives such consolation from philosophy
as to be able to bear all the ills of fortune. He himself goes to
Puteoli, and there he writes the second Philippic. It is supposed to be
the most violent piece of invective ever produced by human ingenuity and
human anger. The readers of it must, however, remember that it was not
made to be spoken--was not even written, as far as we are aware, to be
shown to Antony, or to be published to the world. We do not even know
that Antony ever saw it. There has been an idea prevalent that Antony's
anger was caused by it, and that Cicero owed to it his death; but the
surmise is based on probability--not at all on evidence. Cicero, when he
heard what Antony had said of him, appears to have written all the evil
he could say of his enemy, in order that he might send it to Atticus. It
contained rather what he could have published than what he did intend to
publish. He does, indeed, suggest, in the letter which accompanied the
treatise when sent to Atticus, in some only half-intelligible words,
that he hopes the time may come when the speech "shall find its way
freely even into Sica's house;"[205] but we gather even from that his
intention that it should have no absolutely public circulation. He had
struggled to be as severe as he knew how, but had done it, as it were,
with a halter round his neck; and for Antony's anger--the anger which
afterward produced the proscription--there came to be cause enough
beyond this. Before that day he had endeavored to stir up the whole
Empire against Antony, and had all but succeeded.
It has been alleged that Cicero again shows his cowardice by writing
and not speaking his oration, and also by writing it only for private
distribution. If he were a coward, why did he write it at all? If he
were a coward, why did he hurry into this contest with Antony? If he be
blamed because his Philippic was anonymous, how do the anonymous writers
of to-day escape? If because he wrote it, and did not speak it, what
shall be said of the party writers of to-day? He was a coward, say his
accusers, because he avoided a danger. Have they thought of the danger
which he did run when they bring those charges against him? of what was
the nature of the fight? Do they remember how many Romans in public life
had been murdered during the last dozen years? We are well aware how far
custom goes, and that men became used to the fear of violent death.
Cicero was now habituated to that fear, and was willing to face it. But
not on that account are we to imagine that, with his eyes open, he was
to be supposed always ready to rush into immediate destruction. To write
a scurrilous attack, such as the second Philippic, is a bad exercise for
the ingenuity of a great man; but so is any anonymous satire. It is so
in regard to our own times, which have received the benefit of all
antecedent civilization. Cicero, being in the midst of those heartless
Romans, is expected to have the polished manners and high feelings of a
modern politician! I have hardly a right to be angry with his critics
because by his life he went so near to justify the expectation.
He begins by asking his supposed hearers how it has come to pass that
during the last twenty years the Republic had had no enemy who was not
also his enemy. "And you, Antony, whom I have never injured by a word,
why is it that, more brazen-faced than Catiline, more fierce than
Clodius, you should attack me with your maledictions? Will your enmity
against me be a recommendation for you to every evil citizen in Rome?
* * * Why does not Antony come down among us to-day?" he says, as though
he were in the Senate and Antony were away. "He gives a birthday fete in
his garden: to whom, I wonder? I will name no one. To Phormio, perhaps,
or Gnatho, or Ballion? Oh, incredible baseness; lust and impudence not
to be borne!" These were the vile knaves of the Roman comedy--the Nyms.
Pistols, and Bobadils. "Your Consulship no doubt will be salutary; but
mine did only evil! You talk of my verses," he says--Antony having
twitted him with the "cedant arma togae." "I will only say that you do
not understand them or any other. Clodius was killed by my counsels--was
he? What would men have said had they seen him running from you through
the Forum--you with your drawn sword, and him escaping up the stairs of
the bookseller's shop?[206] * * * It was by my advice that Caesar was
killed! I fear, O conscript fathers, lest I should seem to have employed
some false witness to flatter me with praises which do not belong to me.
Who has ever heard me mentioned as having been conversant with that
glorious affair? Among those who did do the deed, whose name has been
hidden--or, indeed, is not most widely known? Some had been inclined to
boast that they were there, though they were absent; but not one who was
present has ever endeavored to conceal his name."
"You deny that I have had legacies? I wish it were true, for then my
friends might still be living. But where have you learned that, seeing
that I have inherited twenty million sesterces?[207] I am happier in
this than you. No one but a friend has made me his heir. Lucius Rubrius
Cassinas, whom you never even saw, has named you." He here refers to a
man over whose property Antony was supposed to have obtained control
fraudulently. "Did he know of you whether you were a white man or a
negro? * * * Would you mind telling me what height Turselius stood?"
Here he names another of whose property Antony is supposed to have
obtained possession illegally. "I believe all you know of him is what
farms he had. * * * Do you bear in mind," he says, "that you were a
bankrupt as soon as you had become a man? Do you remember your early
friendship with Curio, and the injuries you did his father?" Here it is
impossible to translate literally, but after speaking as he had done
very openly, he goes on: "But I must omit the iniquities of your private
life. There are things I cannot repeat here. You are safe, because the
deeds you have done are too bad to be mentioned. But let us look at the
affairs of your public life. I will just go through them;" which he
does, laying bare as he well knew how to do, every past act. "When you
had been made Quaestor you flew at once to Caesar. You knew that he was
the only refuge for poverty, debt, wickedness, and vice. Then, when you
had gorged upon his generosity and your plunderings--which indeed you
spent faster than you got it--you betook yourself instantly to the
Tribunate. * * * It is you, Antony, you who supplied Caesar with an
excuse for invading his country." Caesar had declared at the Rubicon that
the Tribunate had been violated in the person of Antony. "I will say
nothing here against Caesar, though nothing can excuse a man for taking
up arms against his country. But of you it has to be confessed that you
were the cause. * * * He has been a very Helen to us Trojans. * * * He
has brought back many a wretched exile, but has forgotten altogether his
own uncle"--Cicero's colleague in the Consulship, who had been banished
for plundering his province. "We have seen this Tribune of the people
carried through the town on a British war-chariot. His lictors with
their laurels went before him. In the midst, on an open litter, was
carried an actress. When you come back from Thessaly with your legions
to Brundisium you did not kill me! Oh, what a kindness! * * * You with
those jaws of yours, with that huge chest, with that body like a
gladiator, drank so much wine at Hippea's marriage that in the sight of
all Rome you were forced to vomit.* * * When he had seized Pompey's
property he rejoiced like some stage-actor who in a play is as poor as
Poverty, and then suddenly becomes rich. All his wine, the great weight
of silver, the costly furniture and rich dresses, in a few days where
were they all? A Charybdis do I call him? He swallowed them all like an
entire ocean!" Then he accuses him of cowardice and cruelty in the
Pharsalian wars, and compares him most injuriously with Dolabella. "Do
you remember how Dolabella fought for you in Spain, when you were
getting drunk at Narbo? And how did you get back from Narbo? He has
asked as to my return to the city. I have explained to you, O conscript
fathers, how I had intended to be here in January, so as to be of some
service to the Republic. You inquire how I got back. In daylight--not in
the dark, as you did; with Roman shoes on and a Roman toga--not in
barbaric boots and an old cloak.* * * When Caesar returned from Spain you
again pushed yourself into his intimacy--not a brave man, we should say,
but still strong enough for his purposes. Caesar did always this--that if
there were a man ruined, steeped in debt, up to his ears in poverty--a
base, needy, bold man--that was the man whom he could receive into his
friendship." This as to Caesar was undoubtedly true. "Recommended in this
way, you were told to declare yourself Consul." Then he describes the
way in which he endeavored to prevent the nomination of Dolabella to the
same office. Caesar had said that Dolabella should be Consul, but when
Caesar was dead this did not suit Antony. When the tribes had been called
in their centuries to vote, Antony, not understanding what form of words
he ought to have used as augur to stop the ceremony, had blundered.
"Would you not call him a very Laelius?" says Cicero. Laelius had made for
himself a name among augurs for excellence.
"Miserable that you are, you throw yourself at Caesar's feet asking only
permission to be his slave. You sought for yourself that state of
slavery which it has ever been easy for you to endure. Had you any
command from the Roman people to ask the same for them? Oh, that
eloquence of yours; when naked you stood up to harangue the people! Who
ever saw a fouler deed than that, or one more worthy scourges?" "Has
Tarquin suffered for this; have Spurius Cassius, Melius, and Marcus
Manlius suffered, that after many ages a king should be set up in Rome
by Marc Antony?" With abuse of a similar kind he goes on to the end of
his declamation, when he again professes himself ready to die at his
post in defence of the Republic. That he now made up his mind so to die,
should it become necessary, we may take for granted, but we cannot bring
ourselves to approve of the storm of abuse under which he attempted to
drown the memory and name of his antagonist. So virulent a torrent of
words, all seeming, as we read them, to have been poured out in rapid
utterances by the keen energy of the moment, astonish us, when we
reflect that it was the work of his quiet moments. That he should have
prepared such a task in the seclusion of his closet is marvellous. It
has about it the very ring of sudden passion; but it must be
acknowledged that it is not palatable. It is more Roman and less English
than anything we have from Cicero--except his abuse of Piso, with whom
he was again now half reconciled.
But it was solely on behalf of his country that he did it. He had
grieved when Caesar had usurped the functions of the government; but in
his grief he had respected Caesar, and had felt that he might best carry
on the contest by submission. But, when Caesar was dead, and Antony was
playing tyrant, his very soul rebelled. Then he sat down to prepare his
first instalment of keen personal abuse, adding word to word and phrase
to phrase till he had built up this unsavory monument of vituperation.
It is by this that Antony is now known to the world. Plutarch makes no
special mention of the second Philippic. In his life of Antony he does
not allude to these orations at all, but in that of Cicero he tells us
how Antony had ordered that right hand to be brought to him with which
Cicero had written his Philippics.
The "young Octavius" of Shakespeare had now taken the name of
Octavianus--Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus--and had quarrelled to the
knife with Antony. He had assumed that he had been adopted by Caesar, and
now demanded all the treasures his uncle had collected as his own.
Antony, who had already stolen them, declared that they belonged to the
State. At any rate there was cause enough for quarrelling among them,
and they were enemies. Each seems to have brought charges of murder
against the other, and each was anxious to obtain possession of the
soldiery. Seen as we see now the period in Rome of which we are
writing--every safeguard of the Republic gone, all law trampled under
foot, Consuls, Praetors, and Tribunes not elected but forced upon the
State, all things in disorder, the provinces becoming the open prey of
the greediest plunderer--it is apparent enough that there could be no
longer any hope for a Cicero. The marvel is that the every-day affairs
of life should have been carried on with any reference to the law. When
we are told that Antony stole Caesar's treasures and paid his debts with
them, we are inclined to ask why he had paid his debts at all. But
Cicero did hope. In his whole life there is nothing more remarkable than
the final vitality with which he endeavored to withstand the coming
deluge of military despotism. Nor in all history is there anything more
wonderful than the capacity of power to re-establish itself, as is shown
by the orderly Empire of Augustus growing out of the disorder left by
Caesar. One is reminded by it of the impotency of a reckless heir to
bring to absolute ruin the princely property of a great nobleman brought
together by the skill of many careful progenitors. A thing will grow to
be so big as to be all but indestructible. It is like that tower of
Caecilia Metella against which the storms of twenty centuries have beaten
in vain. Looking at the state of the Roman Empire when Cicero died, who
would not declare its doom? But it did "retrick its beams," not so much
by the hand of one man, Augustus, as by the force of the concrete power
collected within it--"Quod non imber edax non aquilo impotens Possit
diruere."[208] Cicero with patriotic gallantry thought that even yet
there might be a chance for the old Republic--thought that by his
eloquence, by his vehemence of words, he could turn men from fraud to
truth, and from the lust of plundering a province to a desire to
preserve their country. Of Antony now he despaired, but he still hoped
that his words might act upon this young Caesar's heart. The youth was as
callous as though he had already ruled a province for three years. No
Roman was ever more cautious, more wise, more heartless, more able to
pick his way through blood to a throne, than the young Augustus. Cicero
fears Octavian--as we must now call him--and knows that he can only be
restrained by the keeping of power out of his hands. Writing to Atticus
from Arpinum, he says, "I agree altogether with you. If Octavian gets
power into his hands he will insist upon the tyrant's decrees much more
thoroughly than he did when the Senate sat in the temple of Tellus.
Everything then will be done in opposition to Brutus. But if he be
conquered, then see how intolerable would be the dominion of
Antony."[209] In the same letter he speaks of the De Officiis, which he
has just written. In his next and last epistle to his old friend he
congratulates himself on having been able at last to quarrel with
Dolabella. Dolabella had turned upon him in the end, bought by Antony's
money. He then returns to the subject of Octavian, and his doubts as to
his loyalty. He has been asked to pledge himself to Octavian, but has
declined till he shall see how the young man will behave when Casea
becomes candidate for the Tribunate. If he show himself to be Casea's
enemy, Casea having been one of the conspirators, Cicero will know that
he is not to be trusted. Then he falls into a despairing mood, and
declares that there is no hope. "Even Hippocrates was unwilling to
bestow medicine on those to whom it could avail nothing." But he will go
to Rome, into the very jaws of the danger. "It is less base for such as
I am to fall publicly than privately." With these words, almost the last
written by him to Atticus, this correspondence is brought to an end: the
most affectionate, the most trusting, and the most open ever published
to the world as having come from one man to another. No letters more
useful to the elucidation of character were ever written; but when read
for that purpose they should be read with care, and should hardly be
quoted till they have been understood.
[Sidenote: B.C. 44, aetat. 63.]
The struggles for the provinces were open and acknowledged. Under Caesar,
Decimus Brutus had been nominated for Cisalpine Gaul, Marcus Brutus for
Macedonia, and Cassius for Syria. It will be observed that these three
men were the most prominent among the conspirators. Since that time
Antony and Dolabella had obtained votes of the people to alter the
arrangement. Antony was to go to Macedonia, and Dolabella to Syria. This
was again changed when Antony found that Decimus had left Rome to take
up his command. He sent his brother Caius to Macedonia, and himself
claimed to be Governor of Cisalpine Gaul. Hence there were two Roman
governors for each province; and in each case each governor was
determined to fight for the possession. Antony hurried out of Rome
before the end of the year with the purpose of hindering Decimus from
the occupation of the north of Italy, and Cicero went up to Rome,
determined to take a part in the struggle which was imminent. The Senate
had been summoned for the 19th of December, and attended in great
numbers. Then it was that he spoke the third Philippic, and in the
evening of the same day he spoke the fourth to the people. It should be
understood that none of these speeches were heard by Antony. Cicero had
at this time become the acknowledged chief of the Republican party,
having drifted into the position which Pompey had so long filled. Many
of Caesar's friends, frightened by his death, or rather cowed by the
absence of his genius, had found it safer to retreat from the Caesarean
party, of which the Antonys, with Dolabella, the cutthroats and
gladiators of the empire, had the command. Hirtius and Pansa, with
Balbus and Oppius, were among them. They, at this moment, were powerful
in Rome. The legions were divided--some with Antony, some with Octavian,
and some with Decimus Brutus. The greater number were with Antony, whom
they hated for his cruelty; but were with him because the mantle of
Caesar's power had fallen on to his shoulders. It was felt by Cicero that
if he could induce Octavian to act with him the Republic might be again
established. He would surely have influence enough to keep the lad from
hankering after his great uncle's pernicious power. He was aware that
the dominion did in fact belong to the owner of the soldiers, but he
thought that he could control this boy-officer, and thus have his
legions at the command of the Republic.
The Senate had been called together, nominally for the purpose of
desiring the Consuls of the year to provide a guard for its own safety.
Cicero makes it an occasion for perpetuating the feeling against Antony,
which had already become strong in Rome. He breaks out into praise of
Octavian, whom he calls "this young Caesar--almost a boy;" tells them
what divine things the boy had already done, and how he had drawn away
from the rebels those two indomitable legions, the Martia and the
Fourth. Then he proceeds to abuse Antony. Tarquinius, the man whose name
was most odious to Romans, had been unendurable as a tyrant, though
himself not a bad man; but Antony's only object is to sell the Empire,
and to spend the price. Antony had convoked the Senate for November,
threatening the Senators with awful punishments should they absent
themselves; but, when the day came, Antony, the Consul, had himself
fled. He not only pours out the vials of his wrath but of his ridicule
upon Antony's head, and quotes his bungling words. He gives instances of
his imprudence, and his impotence, and of his greed. Then he again
praises the young Caesar, and the two Consuls for the next year, and the
two legions, and Decimus Brutus, who is about to fight the battle of the
Republic for them in the north of Italy, and votes that the necessary
guard be supplied. In the same evening he addresses the people in his
fourth Philippic. He again praises the lad and the two legions, and
again abuses Antony. No one can say after this day that he hid his
anger, or was silent from fear. He congratulates the Romans on their
patriotism--vain congratulations--and encourages them to make new
efforts. He bids them rejoice that they have a hero such as Decimus
Brutus to protect their liberties, and, almost, that they have such an
enemy as Antony to conquer. It seems that his words, few as they
were--perhaps because they were so few--took hold of the people's
imaginations; so that they shouted to him that he had on that day a
second time saved his country, as he reminds them afterward.[210]
From this time forward we are without those intimate and friendly
letters which we have had with us as our guide through the last
twenty-one years of Cicero's life. For though we have a large body of
correspondence written during the last year of his life, which are
genuine, they are written in altogether a different style from those
which have gone before. They are for the most part urgent appeals to
those of his political friends to whom he can look for support in his
views--often to those to whom he looked in vain. They are passionate
prayers for the performance of a public duty, and as such are altogether
to the writer's credit. His letters to Plancus are beautiful in their
patriotism, as are also those to Decimus Brutus. When we think of his
age, of his zeal, of his earnestness, and of the dangers which he ran,
we hardly know how sufficiently to admire the public spirit with which
at such a crisis he had taken on himself to lead the party. But our
guide to his inner feelings is gone. There are no further letters to
tell us of every doubt at his heart. We think of him as of some stalwart
commander left at home to arrange the affairs of the war, while the less
experienced men were sent to the van.
There is also a book of letters published as having passed between
Cicero and Junius Brutus. The critics have generally united in
condemning them as spurious. They are at, any rate, if genuine, cold and
formal in their language.
[Sidenote: B.C. 43, aetat. 64.]
Antony had proceeded into Cisalpine Gaul to drive out of the province
the Consul named by the people to govern it. The nomination of Decimus
had in truth been Caesar's nomination; but the right of Decimus to rule
was at any rate better than that of any other claimant. He had been
appointed in accordance with the power then in existence, and his
appointment had been confirmed by the decree of the Senate sanctioning
all Caesar's acts. It was, after all, a question of simple power, for
Caesar had overridden every legal form. It became necessary, however,
that they who were in power in Rome should decide. The Consuls Hirtius
and Pansa had been Caesar's friends, and had also been the friends of
Antony. They had not the trust in Antony which Caesar had inspired; but
they were anxious to befriend him--or rather not to break with him. When
the Senate met, they called on one Fufius Calenus--who was Antony's
friend and Pansa's father-in-law--first to offer his opinion. He had
been one of Caesar's Consuls, appointed for a month or two, and was now
chosen for the honorable part of first spokesman, as being a Consular
Senator. He was for making terms with Antony, and suggested that a
deputation of three Senators should be sent to him with a message
calling upon him to retire. The object probably was to give Antony time,
or rather to give Octavian time, to join with Antony if it suited him.
Others spoke in the same sense, and then Cicero was desired to give his
opinion. This was the fifth Philippic. He is all for war with Antony--or
rather he will not call it war, but a public breach of the peace which
Antony has made. He begins mildly enough, but warms with his subject as
he goes on: "Should they send ambassadors to a traitor to his country?
* * * Let him return from Mutina." I keep the old Latin name, which is
preserved for us in that of Modena. "Let him cease to contend with
Decimus. Let him depart out of Gaul. It is not fit that we should send
to implore him to do so. We should by force compel him. * * * We are not
sending messengers to Hannibal, who, if Hannibal would not obey, might
be desired to go on to Carthage. Whither shall the men go if Antony
refuses to obey them?" But it is of no use. With eloquent words he
praises Octavian and the two legions and Decimus. He praises even the
coward Lepidus, who was in command of legions, and was now Governor of
Gaul beyond the Alps and of Northern Spain, and proposes that the people
should put up to him a gilt statue on horseback--so important was it to
obtain, if possible, his services. Alas! it was impossible that such a
man should be moved by patriotic motives. Lepidus was soon to go with
the winning side, and became one of the second triumvirate with Antony
and Octavian.
Cicero's eloquence was on this occasion futile. At this sitting the
Senate came to no decision, but on the third day afterward they decreed
that the Senators, Servius Sulpicius, Lucius Piso, and Lucius Philippus,
should be sent to Antony. The honors which he had demanded for Lepidus
and the others were granted, but he was outvoted in regard to the
ambassadors. On the 4th of January Cicero again addressed the people in
the Forum. His task was very difficult. He wished to give no offence to
the Senate, and yet was anxious to stir the citizens and to excite them
to a desire for immediate war. The Senate, he told them, had not behaved
disgracefully, but had--temporized. The war, unfortunately, must be
delayed for those twenty days necessary for the going and coming of the
ambassadors. The ambassadors could do nothing. But still they must wait.
In the mean time he will not be idle. For them, the Roman people, he
will work and watch with all his experience, with diligence almost above
his strength, to repay them for their faith in him. When Caesar was with
them they had had no choice but obedience--so much the times were out of
joint. If they submit themselves to be slaves now, it will be their own
fault. Then in general language he pronounces an opinion--which was the
general Roman feeling of the day: "It is not permitted to the Roman
people to become slaves--that people whom the immortal gods have willed
to rule all nations of the earth."[211] So he ended the sixth Philippic,
which, like the fourth, was addressed to the people. All the others were
spoken in the Senate.
He writes to Decimus at Mutina about this time a letter full of hope--of
hope which we can see to be genuine. "Recruits are being raised in all
Italy--if that can be called recruiting which is in truth a spontaneous
rushing into arms of the entire population."[212] He expects letters
telling him what "our Hirtius" is doing, and what "my young Caesar."
Hirtius and Pansa, the Consuls of the year, though they had been Caesar's
party, and made Consuls by Caesar, were forced to fight for the Republic.
They had been on friendly terms with Cicero, and they doubted Antony.
Hirtius had now followed the army, and Pansa was about to do so. They
both fell in the battle that was fought at Mutina, and no one can now
accuse them of want of loyalty. But "my Caesar," on whose behalf Cicero
made so many sweet speeches, for whose glory he was so careful, whose
early republican principles he was so anxious to direct, made his terms
with Antony on the first occasion. At that time Cicero wrote to Plancus.
Consul elect for the next year, and places before his eyes a picture of
all that he can do for the Republic. "Lay yourself out--yes, I pray
you, by the immortal gods--for that which will bring you to the height
of glory and renown."[213]
At the end of January or beginning of February he again addressed the
Senate on the subject of the embassy--a matter altogether foreign from
that which it had been convoked to discuss. To Cicero's mind there was
no other subject at the present moment fit to occupy the thoughts of a
Roman Senator. "We have met together to settle something about the
Appian Way, and something about the coinage. The mind revolts from such
little cares, torn by greater matters." The ambassadors are expected
back--two of them at least, for Sulpicius had died on his road. He
cautions the Senate against receiving with quiet composure such an
answer as Antony will probably send them. "Why do I--I who am a man of
peace--refuse peace? Because it is base, because it is full of
danger--because peace is impossible." Then he proceeds to explain that
it is so. "What a disgrace would it be that Antony, after so many
robberies, after bringing back banished comrades, after selling the
taxes of the State, putting up kingdoms to auction, shall rise up on the
consular bench and address a free Senate! * * * Can you have an assured
peace while there is an Antony in the State--or many Antonys? Or how can
you be at peace with one who hates you as does he; or how can he be at
peace with those who hate him as do you? * * * You have such an
opportunity," he says at last, "as never fell to the lot of any. You are
able, with all senatorial dignity, with all the zeal of the knights,
with all the favor of the Roman people, now to make the Republic free
from fear and danger, once and forever." Then he thus ends his speech.
"About those things which have been brought before us, I agree with
Servilius." That is the seventh Philippic.
In February the ambassadors returned, but returned laden with bad
tidings. Servius Sulpicius, who was to have been their chief spokesman,
died just as they reached Antony. The other two immediately began to
treat with him, so as to become the bearers back to Rome of conditions
proposed by him. This was exactly what they had been told not to do.
They had carried the orders of the Senate to their rebellious officer,
and then admitted the authority of that rebel by bringing back his
propositions. They were not even allowed to go into Mutina so as to see
Decimus; but they were, in truth, only too well in accord with the
majority of the Senate, whose hearts were with Antony. Anything to those
lovers of their fish-ponds was more desirable than a return to the
loyalty of the Republic. The Deputies were received by the Senate, who
discussed their embassy, and on the next day they met again, when Cicero
pronounced his eighth Philippic. Why he did not speak on the previous
day I do not know. Middleton is somewhat confused in his account.
Morabin says that Cicero was not able to obtain a hearing when the
Deputies were received. The Senate did on that occasion come to a
decision; against which act of pusillanimity Cicero on the following day
expressed himself very vehemently. They had decided that this was not to
be called a war, but rather a tumult, and seem to have hesitated in
denouncing Antony as a public enemy. The Senate was convoked on the next
day to decide the terms of the amnesty to be accorded to the soldiers
who had followed Antony, when Cicero, again throwing aside the minor
matter, burst upon them in his wrath. He had hitherto inveighed against
Antony; now his anger is addressed to the Senate. "Lucius Caesar," he
said, "has told us that he is Antony's uncle, and must vote as such. Are
you all uncles to Antony?" Then he goes on to show that war is the only
name by which this rebellion can be described. "Has not Hirtius, who has
gone away, sick as he is, called it a war? Has not young Caesar, young as
he is, prompted to it by no one, undertaken it as a war?" He repeats the
words of a letter from Hirtius which could only have been used in war:
"I have taken Claterna. Their cavalry has been put to flight. A battle
has been fought. So many men have been killed. This is what you call
peace!" Then he speaks of other civil wars, which he says have grown
from difference of opinion--"except that last between Pompey and Caesar,
as to which I will not speak. I have been ignorant of its cause, and
have hated its ending." But in this war all men are of one opinion who
are worthy of the name of Romans. "We are fighting for the temples of
our gods, for our walls, our homes, for the abode of the Roman people,
for their Penates, their altars, their hearths for the graves of
ancestors--and we are fighting only against Antony. * * * Fufius Calenus
tells us of peace--as though I of all men did not know that peace was a
blessing. But tell me, Calenus, is slavery peace?" He is very angry with
Calenus. Although he has called him his friend, he was in great wrath
against him. "I am fighting for Decimus and you for Antony. I wish to
preserve a Roman city; you wish to see it battered to the ground. Can
you deny this, you who are creating all means of delays by which Decimus
may be weakened and Antony made strong?"
"I had consoled myself with this," he says, "that when these ambassadors
had been sent and had returned despised, and had told the Senate that
not only had Antony refused to leave Gaul but was besieging Mutina, and
would not let them even see Decimus--that then, in our passion and our
rage, we should have gone forth with our arms, and our horses, and our
men, and at once have rescued our General. But we--since we have seen
the audacity, the insolence, and the pride of Antony--we have become
only more cowardly than before." Then he gives his opinion about the
amnesty: "Let any of those who are now with Antony, but shall leave him
before the ides of March and pass to the armies of the Consuls, or of
Decimus, or of young Caesar, be held to be free from reproach. If one
should quit their ranks through their own will, let them be rewarded and
honored as Hirtius and Pansa, our Consuls, may think proper." This was
the eighth Philippic, and is perhaps the finest of them all. It does not
contain the bitter invective of the second, but there is in it a true
feeling of patriotic earnestness. The ninth also is very eloquent,
though it is rather a paean sung on behalf of his friend Sulpicius, who
in bad health had encountered the danger of the journey, and had died in
the effort, than one of these Philippics which are supposed to have been
written and spoken with the view of demolishing Antony. It is a specimen
of those funereal orations delivered on behalf of a citizen who had died
in the service of his country which used to be common among the Romans.
The tenth is in praise of Marcus Junius Brutus. Were I to attempt to
explain the situation of Brutus in Macedonia, and to say how he had come
to fill it, I should be carried away from my purpose as to Cicero's
life, and should be endeavoring to write the history of the time. My
object is simply to illustrate the life of Cicero by such facts as we
know. In the confusion which existed at the time, Brutus had obtained
some advantages in Macedonia, and had recovered for himself the legions
of which Caius Antonius had been in possession, and who was now a
prisoner in his hands. At this time young Marcus Cicero was his
lieutenant, and it is told us how one of those legions had put
themselves under his command. Brutus had at any rate written home
letters to the Senate early in March, and Pansa had called the Senate
together to receive them.
Again he attacks Fufius Calenus, Pansa's father-in-law, who was the only
man in the Senate bold enough to stand up against him; though there were
doubtless many of those foot Senators--men who traversed the house
backward and forward to give their votes--who were anxious to oppose
him. He thanks Pansa for calling them so quickly, seeing that when they
had parted yesterday they had not expected to be again so soon convoked.
We may gather from this the existence of a practice of sending
messengers round to the Senators' houses to call them together. He
praises Brutus for his courage and his patience. It is his object to
convince his hearers, and through them the Romans of the day, that the
cause of Antony is hopeless. Let us rise up and crush him. Let us all
rise, and we shall certainly crush him. There is nothing so likely to
attain success as a belief that the success has been already attained.
"From all sides men are running together to put out the flames which he
has lighted. Our veterans, following the example of young Caesar, have
repudiated Antony and his attempts. The 'Legio Martia' has blunted the
edge of his rage, and the 'Legio Quarta' has attacked him. Deserted by
his own troops, he has broken through into Gaul, which he has found to
be hostile to him with its arms and opposed to him in spirit. The armies
of Hirtius and of young Caesar are upon his trail; and now Pansa's levies
have raised the heart of the city and of all Italy. He alone is our
enemy, although he has along with him his brother Lucius, whom we all
regret so dearly, whose loss we have hardly been able to endure! What
wild beast do you know more abominable than that, or more monstrous--who
seems to have been created lest Marc Antony himself should be of all
things the most vile?" He concludes by proposing the thanks of the
Senate to Brutus, and a resolution that Quintus Hortensius, who had held
the province of Macedonia against Caius Antonius, should be left there
in command. The two propositions were carried.
As we read this, all appears to be prospering on behalf of the Republic;
but if we turn to the suspected correspondence between Brutus and
Cicero, we find a different state of things. And these letters, though
we altogether doubt their authenticity--for their language is cold,
formal, and un-Ciceronian--still were probably written by one who had
access to those which Cicero had himself penned: "As to what you write
about wanting men and money, it is very difficult to give you advice. I
do not see how you are to raise any except by borrowing it from the
municipalities"--in Macedonia--"according to the decree of the Senate.
As to men, I do not know what to propose. Pansa is so far from sparing
men from his army, that he begrudges those who go to you as volunteers.
Some think that he wishes you to be less strong than you are--which,
however. I do not suspect myself."[214] A letter might fall into the
hands of persons not intended to read it, and Cicero was forced to be on
his guard in communicating his suspicions--Cicero or the pseudo-Cicero.
In the next Brutus is rebuked for having left Antony live when Caesar was
slain. "Had not some god inspired Octavian," he says, "we should have
been altogether in the power of Antony, that base and abominable man.
And you see how terrible is our contest with him." And he tries to
awaken him to the necessity of severity. "I see how much you delight in
clemency. That is very well. But there is another place, another time,
for clemency. The question for us is whether we shall any longer exist
or be put out of the world." These, which are intended to represent his
private fears, deal with the affairs of the day in a tone altogether
different from that of his public speeches. Doubt, anxiety, occasionally
almost despair, are expressed in them. But not the less does he thunder
on in the Senate, aware that to attain success he must appear to have
obtained it.
The eleventh Philippic was occasioned by the news which had arrived in
Rome of the death of Trebonius. Trebonius had been surprised in Smyrna
by a stratagem as to which alone no disgrace would have fallen on
Dolabella, had he not followed up his success by killing Trebonius. How
far the bloody cruelty, of which we have the account in Cicero's words,
was in truth executed, it is now impossible to say. The Greek historian
Appian gives us none of these horrors, but simply intimates that
Trebonius, having been taken in the snare, had his head cut off.[215]
That Cicero believed the story is probable. It is told against his
son-in-law, of whom he had hitherto spoken favorably. He would not have
spoken against the man except on conviction. Dolabella was immediately
declared an enemy to the Republic. Cicero inveighs against him with all
his force, and says that such as Dolabella is, he had been made by the
cruelty of Antony. But he goes on to philosophize, and declare how much
more miserable than Trebonius was Dolabella himself, who is so base that
from his childhood those things had been a delight to him which have
been held as disgraceful by other children. Then he turns to the
question which is in dispute, whether Brutus should be left in command
of Macedonia, and Cassius of Syria--Cassius was now on his way to avenge
the death of Trebonius--or whether other noble Romans, Publius
Servilius, for instance, or that Hirtius and Pansa, the two Consuls,
when they can be spared from Italy, shall be sent there. It is necessary
here to read between the lines. The going of the Consuls would mean the
withdrawing of the troops from Italy, and would leave Rome open to the
Caesarean faction. At present Decimus and Cicero, and whoever else there
might be loyal to the Republic, had to fight by the assistance of other
forces than their own. Hirtius and Pansa were constrained to take the
part of the Republic by Cicero's eloquence, and by the action of those
Senators who felt themselves compelled to obey Cicero. But they did not
object to send the Consuls away, and the Consular legions, under the
plea of saving the provinces. This they were willing enough to do--with
the real object of delivering Italy over to those who were Cicero's
enemies but were not theirs. All this Cicero understood, and, in
conducting the contest, had to be on his guard, not only against the
soldiers of Antony but against the Senators also, who were supposed to
be his own friends, but whose hearts were intent on having back some
Caesar to preserve for them their privileges.
Cicero in this matter talked some nonsense. "By what right, by what
law," he asks, "shall Cassius go to Syria? By that law which Jupiter
sanctioned when he ordained that all things good for the Republic should
be just and legal." For neither had Brutus a right to establish himself
in Macedonia as Proconsul nor Cassius in Syria. This reference to
Jupiter was a begging of the question with a vengeance. But it was
perhaps necessary, in a time of such confusion, to assume some pretext
of legality, let it be ever so poor. Nothing could now be done in true
obedience to the laws. The Triumvirate, with Caesar at its head, had
finally trodden down all law; and yet every one was clamoring for legal
rights! Then he sings the praises of Cassius, but declares that he does
not dare to give him credit in that place for the greatest deed he had
done. He means, of course, the murder of Caesar.
Paterculus tells us that all these things were decreed by the
Senate.[216] But he is wrong. The decree of the Senate went against
Cicero, and on the next day, amid much tumult, he addressed himself to
the people on the subject. This he did in opposition to Pansa, who
endeavored to hinder him from speaking in the Forum, and to Servilia,
the mother-in-law of Cassius, who was afraid lest her son-in-law should
encounter the anger of the Consuls. He went so far as to tell the people
that Cassius would not obey the Senate, but would take upon himself, on
such an emergency, to act as best he could for the Republic.[217] There
was no moment in this stirring year, none, I think, during Cicero's
life, in which he behaved with greater courage than now in appealing
from the Senate to the people, and in the hardihood with which he
declared that the Senate's decree should be held as going for nothing.
Before the time came in which it could be carried out both Hirtius and
Pansa were dead. They had fallen in relieving Decimus at Mutina. His
address on this occasion to the people was not made public, and has not
been preserved.
Then there came up the question of a second embassy, to which Cicero at
first acceded. He was induced to do so, as he says, by news which had
arrived of altered circumstances on Antony's part. Calenus and Piso had
given the Senate to understand that Antony was desirous of peace. Cicero
had therefore assented, and had agreed to be one of the deputation. The
twelfth Philippic was spoken with the object of showing that no such
embassy should be sent. Cicero's condition at this period was most
peculiar and most perilous. The Senate would not altogether oppose his
efforts, but they hated them. They feared that, if Antony should
succeed, they who had opposed Antony would be ruined. Those among them
who were the boldest openly reproached Cicero with the danger which they
were made to incur in fighting his battles.[218] To be rid of Cicero was
their desire and their difficulty. He had agreed to go on this
embassy--who can say for what motives? To him it would be a mission of
especial peril. It was one from which he could hardly hope ever to come
back alive. It may be that he had agreed to go with his life in his
hand, and to let them know that he at any rate had been willing to die
for the Republic. It may be that he had heard of some altered
circumstances. But he changed his mind and resolved that he would not
go, unless driven forth by the Senate. There seems to have been a
manifest attempt to get him out of Rome and send him where he might have
his throat cut. But he declined; and this is the speech in which he did
so. "It is impossible," says the French critic, speaking of the twelfth
Philippic, "to surround the word 'I fear' with more imposing oratorical
arguments." It has not occurred to him that Cicero may have thought
that he might even yet do something better with the lees and dregs of
his life than throw them away by thus falling into a trap. Nothing is so
common to men as to fear to die--and nothing more necessary, or men
would soon cease to live. To fear death more than ignominy is the
disgrace--a truth which the French critic does not seem to have
recognized when he twits the memory of Cicero with his scornful sneer.
"J'ai peur." Did it occur to the French critic to ask himself for what
purpose should Cicero go to Antony's camp, where he would probably be
murdered, and by so doing favor the views of his own enemies in Rome?
The deputation was not sent; but in lieu of the deputation Pansa, the
remaining Consul, led his legions out of Rome at the beginning of April.
[Sidenote: B.C. 43, aetat. 64.]
Lepidus, who was Proconsul in Gaul and Northern Spain, wrote a letter at
this time to the Senate recommending them to make peace with Antony.
Cicero in his thirteenth Philippic shows how futile such a peace would
be. That Lepidus was a vain, inconstant man, looking simply to his own
advantage in the side which he might choose, is now understood; but when
this letter was received he was supposed to have much weight in Rome. He
had, however, given some offence to the Senate, not having acknowledged
all the honors which had been paid to him. The advice had been rejected,
and Cicero shows how unfit the man was to give it. This, however, he
still does with complimentary phrases, though from a letter written by
him to Lepidus about this time the nature of his feeling toward the man
is declared: "You would have done better, in my judgment, if you had
left alone this attempt at making peace, which approves itself neither
to the Senate nor to the people, not to any good man."[219] When we
remember the ordinary terms of Roman letter-writing, we must acknowledge
that this was a plain and not very civil attempt to silence Lepidus. He
then goes on in the Philippic to read a letter which Antony had sent to
Hirtius and to young Caesar, and which they had sent on to the Senate.
The letter is sufficiently bold and abusive--throwing it in their teeth
that they would rather punish the murderer of Trebonius than those of
Caesar. Cicero does this with some wit, but we feel compelled to observe
that as much is to be said on the one side as on the other. Brutus,
Cassius, with Trebonius and others, had killed Caesar. Dolabella, perhaps
with circumstances of great cruelty, had killed Trebonius. Cicero had
again and again expressed his sorrow that Antony had been spared when
Caesar was killed. We have to go back before the first slaughter to
resolve who was right and who was wrong, and even afterward can only
take the doings of each in that direction as part of the internecine
feud. Experience has since explained to us the results of introducing
bloodshed into such quarrels. The laws which recognize war are and were
acknowledged. But when A kills B because he thinks B to have done evil.
A can no longer complain of murder. And Cicero's criticism is somewhat
puerile. "And thou, boy," Antony had said in addressing Octavian--"Et
te, puer!" "You shall find him to be a man by-and-by," says Cicero.
Antony's Latin is not Ciceronian. "Utrum sit elegantius," he asks,
putting some further question about Caesar and Trebonius. "As if there
could be anything elegant in this war," demands Cicero. He goes through
the letter in the same way, turning Antony into ridicule in a manner
which must have riveted in the heart of Fulvia, Antony's wife, who was
in Rome, her desire to have that bitter-speaking tongue torn out of his
mouth. Such was the thirteenth Philippic.
On the 21st of April was spoken the fourteenth and the last. Pansa early
in the month had left Rome, and marched toward Mutina with the intention
of relieving Decimus. Antony, who was then besieging Mutina after such a
fashion as to prevent all egress or ingress, and had all but brought
Decimus to starvation, finding himself about to be besieged, put his
troops into motion, and attacked those who were attacking him. Then was
fought the battle in which Antony was beaten, and Pansa, one of the
Consuls, so wounded that he perished soon afterward. Antony retreated to
his camp, but was again attacked by Hirtius and Octavian, and by
Decimus, who sallied out of the town. He was routed, and fled, but
Hirtius was killed in the battle. Suetonius tells us that in his time a
rumor was abroad that Augustus, then Octavian, had himself killed
Hirtius with his own hands in the fight--Hirtius having been his
fellow-general, and fighting on the same side; and that he had paid
Glyco, Pansa's doctor, to poison him while dressing his wounds.[220]
Tacitus had already made the story known.[221] It is worth repeating
here only as showing the sort of conduct which a grave historian and a
worthy biographer were not ashamed to attribute to the favorite Emperor
of Rome.
It was on the receipt of the news in Rome of the first battle, but
before the second had been fought, that the last Philippic was spoken.
Pansa was not known to have been mortally wounded, nor Hirtius killed,
nor was it known that Decimus had been relieved; but it was understood
that Antony had received a check. Servilius had proposed a supplication,
and had suggested that they should put away their saga and go back to
their usual attire. The "sagum" was a common military cloak, which the
early Romans wore instead of the toga when they went out to war. In
later days, when the definition between a soldier and a civilian became
more complete, they who were left at home wore the sagum, in token of
their military feelings, when the Republic was fighting its battles near
Rome. I do not suppose that when Crassus was in Parthia, or Caesar in
Gaul, the sagum was worn. It was not exactly known when the distant
battles were being fought. But Cicero had taken care that the sagum
should be properly worn, and had even put it on himself--to do which as
a Consular was not required of him. Servilius now proposed that they
should leave off their cloaks, having obtained a victory; but Cicero
would not permit it. Decimus, he says, has not been relieved, and they
had taken to their cloaks as showing their determination to succor their
General in his distress. And he is discontented with the language used:
"You have not even yet called Antony a 'public enemy.'" Then he again
lashes out against the horror of Antony's proceedings: "He is waging
war, a war too dreadful to be spoken of, against four Roman Consuls"--he
means Hirtius and Pansa, who were already Consuls, and in truth already
dead, and Decimus and Plancus, who were designated as Consuls for the
next year. Plancus, however, joined his legions afterward with those of
Antony, and insisted in establishing the Second Triumvirate. "Rushing
from one scene of slaughter to another, he causes wherever he goes
misery, desolation, bloodshed, and agony." The language is so fine that
it is worth our while to see the words.[222] "Is he not responsible for
the horrors of Dolabella? What he would do in Rome, were it not for the
protection of Jupiter, may be seen from the miseries which his brother
has inflicted on those poor men of Parma--that Lucius, whom all men
hate, and the gods too would hate, if they hated as they ought. In what
city was Hannibal as cruel as Antony at Parma; and shall we not call him
an enemy?" Servilius had asked for a supplication, but had only asked
for one of moderate length. And Servilius had not called the generals
Imperatores. Who should be so called but they who have been valiant, and
lucky, and successful? Cicero forgets the meaning of the title, and that
even Bibulus had been called Imperator in Syria. Here he runs off from
his subject, and at some length praises himself. It seems that Rome was
in a tumult at the time, and that Antony's enemies did all they could to
support him, and also to turn his head. He had been carried into the
Senate-house in triumph, and had been thanked by the whole city. After
lauding the different generals, and calling them all Imperatores, he
desires the Senate to decree them a supplication for fifty days. Fifty
days are to be devoted to thanksgiving to the gods, though it had
already been declared how very little they have done for which to be
thankful, as Decimus had not yet been liberated.
Fifty days are granted for the battle of Mutina, which as yet was
supposed to have been but half fought. When we hear the term
"supplicatio" first mentioned in Livy one day was granted. It had grown
to twenty when the gods were thanked for the victory over Vercingetorix.
Now for this half-finished affair fifty was hardly enough. When the time
was over, Antony and Lepidus had joined their forces triumphantly. Pansa
and Hirtius were dead, and Decimus Brutus had fled, and had probably
been murdered. Nothing increases so out of proportion to the occasion as
the granting of honors. Stars, when they fall in showers, pale their
brilliancy, and turn at last to no more than a cloud of dust. Honors are
soon robbed of all their honor when once the first step downward has
been taken. The decree was passed, and Cicero finished his last speech
on so poor an occasion. But though the thing itself then done be small
and trivial to us now, it was completed in magnificent language.[223]
The passage of which I give the first words below is very fine in the
original, though it does not well bear translation. Thus he ended his
fourteenth Philippic, and the silver tongue which had charmed Rome so
often was silent forever.
We at least have no record of any further speech; nor, as I think, did
he again take the labor of putting into words which should thrill
through all who heard them, not the thoughts but the passionate feelings
of the moment.
I will venture to quote from a contemporary his praise of the
Philippics. Mr. Forsyth says: "Nothing can exceed the beauty of the
language, the rhythmical flow of the periods, and the harmony of the
style. The structure of the Latin language, which enables the speaker or
writer to collocate his words, not, as in English, merely according to
the order of thought, but in the manner best calculated to produce
effect, too often baffles the powers of the translator who seeks to give
the force of the passage without altering the arrangement. Often again,
as is the case with all attempts to present the thoughts of the ancient
in a modern dress, a periphrasis must be used to explain the meaning of
an idea which was instantly caught by the Greek or Roman ear. Many
allusions which flashed like lightning upon the minds of the Senators
must be explained in a parenthesis, and many a home-thrust and caustic
sarcasm are now deprived of their sting, which pierced sharply at the
moment of their utterance some twenty centuries ago.
"But with all such disadvantages I hope that even the English reader
will be able to recognize in these speeches something of the grandeur of
the old Roman eloquence. The noble passages in which Cicero strove to
force his countrymen for very shame to emulate the heroic virtues of
their forefathers, and urged them to brave every danger and welcome
death rather than slavery in the last struggle for freedom, are radiant
with a glory which not even a translation can destroy. And it is
impossible not to admire the genius of the orator whose words did more
than armies toward recovering the lost liberty of Rome."
His words did more than armies, but neither could do anything lasting
for the Republic. What was one honest man among so many? We remember
Mommsen's verdict: "On the Roman oligarchy of this period no judgment
can be passed save one of inexorable and remorseless condemnation." The
farther we see into the facts of Roman history in our endeavors to read
the life of Cicero, the more apparent becomes its truth. But Cicero,
though he saw far toward it, never altogether acknowledged it. In this
consists the charm of his character, though at the same time the
weakness of his political aspirations; his weakness--because he was vain
enough to imagine that he could talk men back from their fish-ponds; its
charm--because he was able through it all to believe in honesty. The
more hopeless became the cause, the sweeter, the more impassioned, the
more divine, became his language. He tuned his notes to still higher
pitches of melody, and thought that thus he could bring back public
virtue. Often in these Philippics the matter is small enough. The men he
has to praise are so little; and Antony does not loom large enough in
history to have merited from Cicero so great a meed of vituperation! Nor
is the abuse all true, in attributing to him motives so low. But Cicero
was true through it all, anxious, all on fire with anxiety to induce
those who heard him to send men to fight the battles to which he knew
them, in their hearts, to be opposed.
The courage, the persistency, and the skill shown, in the attempt were
marvellous. They could not have succeeded, but they seem almost to have
done so. I have said that he was one honest man among many. Brutus was
honest in his patriotism, and Cassius, and all the conspirators. I do
not doubt that Caesar was killed from a true desire to restore the Roman
Republic. They desired to restore a thing that was in itself evil--the
evils of which had induced Caesar to see that he might make himself its
master. But Cicero had conceived a Republic in his own mind--not
Utopian, altogether human and rational--a Republic which he believed to
have been that of Scipio, of Marcellus, and Laelius: a Republic which
should do nothing for him but require his assistance, in which the
people should vote, and the oligarchs rule in accordance with the
established laws. Peace and ease, prosperity and protection, it would
be for the Rome of his dream to bestow upon the provinces. Law and
order, education and intelligence, it would be for her rulers to bestow
upon Rome. In desiring this, he was the one honest man among many. In
accordance with that theory he had lived, and I claim for him that he
had never departed from it. In his latter days, when the final struggle
came, when there had arisen for him the chance of Caesar's death, when
Antony was his chief enemy, when he found himself in Rome with authority
sufficient to control legions, when the young Caesar had not
shown--probably had not made--his plans, when Lepidus and Plancus and
Pollio might still prove themselves at last true men, he was once again
alive with his dream. There might yet be again a Scipio, or a Cicero as
good as Scipio, in the Republic; one who might have lived as gloriously,
and die--not amid the jealousies but with the love of his countrymen.
It was not to be. Looking back at it now, we wonder that he should have
dared to hope for it. But it is to the presence within gallant bosoms of
hope still springing, though almost forlorn, of hope which has in its
existence been marvellous, that the world is indebted for the most
beneficial enterprises. It was not given to Cicero to stem the tide and
to prevent the evil coming of the Caesars; but still the nature of the
life he had led, the dreams of a pure Republic, those aspirations after
liberty have not altogether perished. We have at any rate the record of
the great endeavors which he made.
Nothing can have been worse managed than the victory at Mutina. The two
Consuls were both killed; but that, it may be said, was the chance of
war. Antony with all his cavalry was allowed to escape eastward toward
the Cottian Alps. Decimus Brutus seems to have shown himself deficient
in all the qualities of a General, except that power of endurance which
can hold a town with little or no provision. He wrote to Cicero saying
that he would follow Antony. He makes a promise that Antony shall not
be allowed to remain in Italy. He beseeches Cicero to write to that
"windy fellow Lepidus," to prevent him from joining the enemy. Lepidus
will never do what is right unless made to do so by Cicero. As to
Plancus, Decimus has his doubts, but he thinks that Plancus will be true
to the Republic now that Antony is beaten.[224] In his next letter he
speaks of the great confusion which has come among them from the death
of the two Consuls. He declares also how great has been Antony's energy
in already recruiting his army. He has opened all the prisons and
workhouses, and taken the men he found there. Ventidius has joined him
with his army, and he still fears Lepidus. And young Caesar, who is
supposed to be on their side, will obey no one, and can make none obey
him. He, Decimus, cannot feed his men. He has spent all his own money
and his friends'. How is he to support seven legions?[225] On the next
day he writes again, and is still afraid of Plancus and of Lepidus and
of Pollio. And he bids Cicero look after his good name: "Stop the evil
tongues of men if you can."[226] A few days afterward Cicero writes him
a letter which he can hardly have liked to receive. What business had
Brutus to think the senate cowardly?[227] Who can be afraid of Antony
conquered who did not fear him in his strength? How should Lepidus doubt
now when victory had declared for the Republic? Though Antony may have
collected together the scrapings of the jails, Decimus is not to forget
that he, Decimus, has the whole Roman people at his back.
Cicero was probably right to encourage the General, and to endeavor to
fill him with hope. To make a man victorious you should teach him to
believe in victory. But Decimus knew the nature of the troops around
him, and was aware that every soldier was so imbued with an idea of the
power of Caesar that, though Caesar was dead, they could fight with only
half a heart against soldiers who had been in his armies. The name and
authority and high office of the two Consuls had done something with
them, and young Caesar had been with the Consuls. But both the Consuls
had been killed--which was in itself ominous--and Antony was still full
of hope, and young Caesar was not there, and Decimus was unpopular with
the men. It was of no use that Cicero should write with lofty ideas and
speak of the spirit of the Senate. Antony had received a severe check,
but the feeling of military rule which Caesar had engendered was still
there, and soldiers who would obey their officers were not going to
submit themselves to "votes of the people." Cicero in the mean time had
his letters passing daily between himself and the camps, thinking to
make up by the energy of his pen for the weakness of his party. Lepidus
sends him an account of his movements on the Rhone, declaring how he was
anxious to surround Antony. Lepidus was already meditating his
surrender. "I ask from you, my Cicero, that if you have seen with what
zeal I have in former times served the Republic, you should look for
conduct equal to it, or surpassing it for the future; and, that you
should think me the more worthy of your protection, the higher are my
deserts."[228] He was already, when writing that letter, in treaty with
Antony. Plancus writes to him at the same time apologizing for his
conduct in joining Lepidus. It was a service of great danger for him.
Plancus, but it was necessary for Lepidus that this should be done. We
are inclined to doubt them all, knowing whither they were tending.
Lepidus was false from the beginning. Plancus doubled for a while, and
then yielded himself.
The reader, I think, will have had no hope for Cicero and the Republic
since the two Consuls were killed; but as he comes upon the letters
which passed between Cicero and the armies he will have been altogether
disheartened.