# Cicero And The Fall Of The Roman Republic/Chapter 13

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CHAPTER XIII.
CICERO AND ANTONY.
44-43 B.C.
ITH the assassination of Cæsar on the Ides of March in the year 44 B.C. begins the last act in the drama of Cicero's life. One year and three quarters still remained to him before he too met his death, and these months, though full of cruel anxieties, and bitter disappointments, are the most glorious in his whole career. For the first time since the coalition of Cæsar and Pompey, seventeen years before, he sees the path of duty clear, he feels the 44 B.C. power to act and to speak freely in the cause of the commonwealth, and for the sake of that cause he is willing cheerfully to lay down his life. This consciousness puts every thought of self aside and gives rigour and dignity to all his words and actions.
After the assassination the Liberators retired to ​the Capitol, where they were joined later in the day by Cicero and by Dolabella, who took March 15.up the consulship which had been decreed to him in succession to Cæsar. Antony, the other consul, seized on Cæsar's treasury at the temple of Ops, and Cæsar's State papers were also committed to him by Calpurnia, the widow of the Dictator. Lepidus, the Master of the Horse, who had under his command a legion encamped on the island of the Tiber, transferred his troops to the left bank of the river, and occupied the Campus Martius. Next day negotiations took place between the several parties March 16.which resulted in a meeting of the Senate in the temple of Earth on the 17th, two days after the assassination.
At this meeting Cicero proposed that, as at Athens after the tyranny of the Thirty, a general Act of Oblivipn should be passed. The assassins March 17.of Cæsar were relieved from all pains and penalties for their deed, but on the other hand all the Acts of Cæsar were confirmed. This confirmation led to much awkwardness and many confusions, but the thing was absolutely necessary. Lepidus' veteran legion was there in arms, and the soldiers could only be kept quiet by a guaranty that the scheme under which Cæsar had provided lands for them should not be disturbed. A public funeral was also granted for Cæsar's body.
This compromise, put forward as a basis of reconciliation, was really only the beginning of a fresh ​complication of intrigues and disturbances. It is impossible to trace any consistent policy in the actions of the leaders of the Cæsarian party. We find Antony one day agreeing to a general amnesty, and the next day making inflammatory speeches at Cæsar's funeral; then with an equally sudden change proposing that the office of Dictator should be forever abolished, as if the very name had been defiled by having been made the title of the despotism. Immediately after this he is found making a circuit among the veterans, urging them to swear to the maintenance of Cæsar's Acts; but this does not prevent his making overtures to Sextus Pompeius later on. These negotiations with Sextus were conducted through Lepidus, who after obtaining the office of Pontifex Maximus, as a reward of his services to Antony, had assumed the command of Northern Spain and the southern portion of Transalpine Gaul. His legions thus occupied the passes both of the Pyrenees and of the Maritime Alps, and by this commanding position Lepidus exercised an important influence on the issue of the coming struggle. Pollio, the governor of Southern Spain, and Plancus who held Northern Gaul with five legions, waited on events along with Lepidus. They were eager in their protestations of loyalty to the Senate, but turned without scruple in favour of Antony the moment his cause appeared the stronger. Dolabella showed himself at first vigorous on the Republican side. When a riotous mob, largely composed of slaves, attempted to raise a column and to offer sacrifices on the spot where Cæsar's body had ​
COIN OF CÆSAR.
(Cohen.)
COIN OF BRUTUS.
(Cohen.)
ANTONY AND CÆSAR.
(Cohen.)
COIN OF SEXTUS POMPEIUS.
(Babelon.)
There were, however, more honest Cæsarians, who sincerely mourned their lost chief, and were unwilling that his death should go unavenged. Among these were Cicero's friends, Balbus, Oppius, Postumius, and Matius, and in the same category must be counted the consuls-elect Hirtius and Pansa, who, however, were brought later on in the interests of the commonwealth to renounce the prospect of vengeance. Men of this type generally followed the lead of Octavian, as soon as he was able to assert himself. Meanwhile their language was threatening and gave much anxiety to Cicero. Cicero visited Marius early in April, and found him maintaining, "that the entanglement is hopeless: if Cæsar with all his genius could not find a solution, who is to do so now?" "He protested," continues Cicero, "that all is ruined, in which he is very likely right: but he rejoiced at it, and declared that there will be an invasion of Gauls within twenty days. . . . To conclude, he said, 'the matter could not end here.' ​Our friend Oppius is more modest; he laments for Cæsar as much as the other, but says not a word that can offend the loyalists." "Can I," writes Matius himself a little later, "can I, who wished the lives of all to be spared, fail to be indignant, when that man is slain from whom I gained the fulfilment of my wish? . . . What right have they to be angry with me, if my desire is that they shall repent what they have done? I wish that Cæsar's death should be a bitter thing to everyone." Cicero had good reason to observe, "You see our bald friend has no mind for peace; in other words, no mind for Brutus." Of Balbus he writes much in the same tone. "Heavens! how clear it was that he disliked the idea of peace; and you know the man, how circumspect he is." Hirtius, too, as late as the 11th of May, appears of the same mind: "These fellows make no secret of their intentions; my pupil for instance, who is to dine with me to-day, dearly loves him whom Brutus pierced. If you ask what they are after, I see clearly enough that they do not wish for peace: the burden of their discourse is, that a great man has been murdered, that by his fall the whole commonwealth has been thrown into confusion; that all his Acts will be set aside so soon as the pressure of fear is removed from us: that his clemency ruined him; if it had not been for that, nothing of the kind could have happened to him."
​Such were the feelings of Cæsar's friends with regard to his assassination. It proved in the end that these feelings were shared by the veteran soldiers, with whom lay the last word in the contest; but the public opinion of the great body of the Romans was on the other side. As regards the dwellers in the city itself we have very conflicting accounts. Shakespeare's picture of the "first, second, and third citizens," who after applauding Brutus' speech are forthwith roused by Mark Antony to mutiny for the dead Dictator, is only a dramatic exaggeration of what really occurred. The veterans mingled with the multitude at Cæsar's funeral, and the Liberators found it necessary to barricade themselves in their own houses. On the other hand, the attempt to raise a column and altar to Cæsar's memory seems to have attracted no general sympathy, and Dolabella's stern and even cruel suppression of the movement was applauded by all classes. At public games, either side could command a sympathetic audience. Those given by the agents of Octavian in honour of his adoptive father were a great success, but so were those which Brutus provided as prætor. A few months later, Cicero's harangues were even more effective with the people than with the Senate.
The public opinion of the Romans of Italy was from the first clearly pronounced, and never wavered ​until it was overborne by armed force. "In the country-towns," writes Cicero just a month after the assassination, "people rejoice to their heart's content. I cannot describe how delighted they are, how they throng around me, and beg me to tell them the story, how the deed was done." "Nothing," he writes, some months later, "can be firmer or better than the temper shown by the people and by the whole of Italy." We find the corporations of the country-towns offering men and money and passing decrees of ignominy and deprivation against anyone who should refuse to enlist. Even the newly enfranchised Transpadanes received Decimus Brutus heartily, and enrolled themselves under his standard. The first taste of despotism had been bitter to the Roman people, and we hear no more of that apathy which had been so conspicuous in the struggle between Cæsar and Pompey (see p. 327). "This much I must write," says Cicero to Decimus Brutus in the following January, "that the Senate and people of Rome take the deepest interest not only in your safety but in your glory. I am much struck to see how precious your name is held, and how notable is the affection which all the citizens have for you. All hope and trust that as once you rid the State of the despot, so now you will rid her of the despotism. At Rome and throughout all Italy we are raising a conscription, if it be right to ​call that a conscription, where everyone comes forward of his own accord; men's minds are all ablaze with a craving for liberty and with hatred of the slavery we have borne so long." The legions of recruits thus raised find constant mention during the course of the war around Mutina. The consul Pansa had four of them under his command, and Decimus Brutus at least as many more. Cicero himself placed only too much confidence in them. "For my own part, Senators, if I may speak my mind, I think that instead of looking only to the veterans, we should rather ask, what will the young soldiers, the flower of Italy, the newly levied legions who have come forward so readily to defend the State, what will the whole of Italy think of the firmness of your action? For nothing remains forever at its best; one generation succeeds another. For many years the legions of Cæsar were in their prime; now the same is true of the legions of Pansa, of Hirtius, of Octavian, and of Plancus. They are superior to the others in numbers, they are superior by reason of their time of life, and above all superior in the goodness of their cause." Cicero's reliance on the new levies proved to be ill-placed, but their forwardness is a sure token of the depth of republican feeling which had survived Cæsar's victory. The hypocritical utterances of Pollio, show clearly enough what were the thoughts of honest and loyal citizens whose language he strives ​to imitate. He complains that though he had no choice but to obey Cæsar's commands, this has not shielded him from the blame of his fellow-citizens. "The unpopularity which attached to my conduct, most undeserved though it was, gave me a lesson how delightful liberty is, and how wretched a life passed under the dominion of another. Therefore if the question is of the revival of the absolute power of one man, whosoever that man may be, I profess myself his enemy."
The conspirators during the first weeks after the assassination seem to have been without any intelligent plan of action. Decimus Brutus writes at the beginning of April as if there were no resource for them but exile, and Marcus Brutus and Cassius were thankful to accept a commission to look after the corn-supply as a pretext for retirement. Trebonius seems to have gone at his leisure to the East. Cicero himself is perplexed and baffled. Arguing from the precedents of Greek politics, the free State ought to have resumed its life on the removal of the despot, but on the contrary he has to "grieve over a fate which has never befallen any nation before, to have rid ourselves of our master, and yet not to have restored the Republic."
Antony, whom the chance of the Dictator's dispositions had left as consul, squandered the treasures ​of Cæsar and used the validity accorded to his Acts as a sanction for any forgery which he chose to insert in the dead man's notebooks. Shakespeare has hit the mark when he makes Antony say:
"Fortune is merry, And in this mood will give us anything."
Laws, immunities, decrees, kingdoms were all to be bought from the new master of the State. "He sometimes makes one wish," writes Cicero, "that we had Cæsar back again." It seemed at one moment as if the inheritance of Cæsar's despotism had really fallen to this shallow-brained soldier. in presence of this danger the Liberators soon recovered their presence of mind and set to work with energy to raise forces for the inevitable conflict. By the middle of April Decimus Brutus had entered his province of Cisalpine Gaul, where he was received by three legions as their lawful commander. He made these the nucleus of a rapidly collected army, and was soon in condition to stand his ground. Marcus Brutus and Cassius were slower to act, but they too exerted themselves to provide a base of military operations in the provinces. By the end of the year almost all the troops quartered in the East had joined their standard, and by active enlistment among the Romans living in the provinces they organised the army which was destined to strike the last blow for the commonwealth at the battle of Philippi. Two young Romans who were pursuing their studies at ​the moment in Athens became officers in Brutus' army, the poet Horace and Marcus son of Cicero. It was a proud moment for his father when he had to announce to the Senate amongst other good news from the East, "the legion which was commanded by Lucius Piso, one of Antony's lieutenants, has gone over to my son Cicero, and placed itself at his disposal."
Though despondent as to the future and bitterly disappointed at the result of a deed which "has taken away the despot but not the despotism," Cicero is absolutely fixed in his moral acceptance of the assassination. Looking back on Cæsar's career as a whole, he now made no question that he was a "tyrant" in the Greek sense of the word, that he had destroyed a free State, and that he meant his own domination to be permanent. This granted, the rest was clear. The Greek philosophers and historians, the recognised expounders of morality, spoke with no uncertain sound of the despot and his fate. The slayer of the "tyrant" was a hero and a public benefactor; honour and gratitude were his due at the hands of every free man. Not only in his public utterances, where we might suspect him of a desire to make the best of the actions of his political allies, but in his most confidential expressions to Atticus, Cicero never wavers in his approval of the deed and in his admiration for the Liberators. "Their name will be glorious as heroes or rather as gods. Though the deed may be barren of good results for the rest of us, yet for themselves ​there is a mighty consolation in the consciousness of a great and splendid action." In the darkest moments of Antony's domination Cicero looks forward with calmness to the end of life. Personal fears have no longer any place in his mind. "If I remain in Italy," he writes, "I see that I shall run some risks, but I cannot help thinking that it may lie in my power to do some good for the State." When Atticus suggests that in the end he will have to submit to whichever side may prove the stronger, he sets his friend's counsel quietly aside—"not I indeed; I know a better way than that,"—and again, "Brutus seems to think of retiring into exile. For my part I look to another haven which lies handier to my time of life; all I wish is that I could reach it, leaving Brutus in prosperity and the Republic established." Happily for Cicero he was to have the opportunity of selling his life dearly. He might well say with Macbeth,
"Why should I play the Roman fool
And die on my own sword? while I see foes,
The gashes look better upon them."
In the month of August Cicero was contemplating a visit to his son at Athens. There seemed no place for him in Rome while Antony was consul; and all that he could hope was that a return by the end of ​the year might bring him to the post of duty at a moment when his exertions would be of use. He crossed to Sicily and had actually set sail from Syracuse, when an adverse wind, to which he declares his profound gratitude, compelled him to touch again on the Italian coast. This happy accident enabled him to receive a letter from Atticus which convinced him that the crisis would come sooner than he expected and that to retire now would be to forsake his post. Brutus, whom he met a few days later, confirmed him in his resolve, and he set his face steadily towards Rome.
On the 2d of September Cicero appeared in the Senate and delivered the speech preserved to us under the title of the First Philippic. The tone of this oration is firm but conciliatory. He inveighs against the policy of Antony, but still urges peace, and holds out offers of compromise. The speech was, however, sufficient to rouse the deadly hostility of the consul; he threatened riot or assassination, and Cicero found it necessary to retire for a while from the city.
During the next weeks events followed thick and fast. Antony had forced through a decree for an exchange of provinces, by which he was himself to have command in Cisalpine Gaul, and Decimus Brutus was to be removed to Macedonia. Meanwhile he had ordered that four veteran legions which Cæsar had stationed in Macedonia should cross over into Italy. On the 6th of October he declared his policy in a speech in which he asserted that while he lived there should be no place for Cæsar's assassins in the ​State. Three days later he proceeded to meet the four legions at Brundisium with the intention of bringing them down on Rome. But he had to reckon with an unexpected adversary.
Caius Octavius, destined afterwards to rule the world under the name of Augustus, was the grandson of Cæsar's sister Julia, and was adopted by the Dictator's Will as his son and heir. At the moment of his uncle's assassination he was residing at Apollonia in Epirus. He forthwith assumed the name of Cæsar Octavianus and came to Italy to claim his inheritance. He arrived at Naples on the 17th of April and was met by Balbus, Hirtius, and Pansa. Next day he had an interview with Cicero at Cumæ. He professed the greatest devotion, and treated Cicero with all possible respect and friendliness. "I maintain, however," writes Cicero, "that he cannot possibly be a loyal citizen; he has around him so many who threaten death to our friends." On arriving at Rome, Octavian found that his inheritance was usurped by Antony, who had no inclination to share his wealth and power with a lad of eighteen, and who treated his claims with contempt. The first object of the young Cæsar was to bring Antony to reason, and to this end he proceeded to ally himself with the Republicans. Already in the month of June he had almost persuaded Cicero of his sincerity"—Octavian has, I perceive, ​abundance of talent and abundance of courage. He seems to me to be disposed as I should wish towards our champions. But it is a matter for grave consideration how far we can trust him, at his age, with his name, with such an inheritance and such instructors."
In the month of October Octavian who had now just completed his nineteenth year, took a bold step forward. His agents stirred up the legions at Brundisium to resist Antony, and he himself meanwhile summoned to his standard the veterans from his adoptive father's army, who were settled on their lands in Campania. Two of the legions from Macedonia (the 2d and 35th) sided with Antony: he had force enough to put to military execution a number of disaffected centurions of the Martian legion, and the rest sullenly submitted for the moment. But as soon as Antony had returned to Rome, the Martian legion, which was now on its way westward, declared for Octavian, and its example was followed by the 4th legion. Octavian took up his position with his small but formidable army at Alba, protecting the city of Rome from any armed attack on the part of Antony.
Thus threatened, Antony changed his plan. On the 20th of November he left the city, collected all the troops which still remained faithful to him, and pressed northward hoping to surprise and crush Decimus Brutus. Decimus' army of recruits, though probably superior to that of Antony in numbers, was not to be trusted to meet the veteran ​
THE YOUNG AUGUSTUS.
FROM THE BUST IN THE VATICAN.
(Baumeister.)
In all these proceedings the young Cæsar had been acting in concert with Cicero. "Every day," writes Cicero on the 5th of November, "come letters from Octavian urging me to take up the cause, to save the commonwealth a second time, above all things to go to Rome immediately. . . . The country-towns are wonderfully enthusiastic for the lad. In his progress towards Samnium he came to Cales and stayed at Teanum. The crowds that go forth to meet and encourage him are marvellous. Could you have believed this possible? On this account I shall be in Rome earlier than I intended." There were still grave reasons for distrust, and these Atticus seems to have urged on his friend with much force. Cicero contented himself, however, with informing Oppius, who pressed him to throw himself heart and soul into the cause of Octavian ​and the veterans, that he could not do so unless he were "satisfied that he would not only renounce all enmity against the tyrannicides but frankly accept their friendship." This Oppius assures him that Cæsar will do.
A permanent reconciliation was in truth impossible; yet Octavian's action had for the present saved Rome from Antony, and now the one thing needful was that he should be willing to rescue Decimus Brutus. Whatever doubts may have presented themselves, it was clearly Cicero's duty to accept the situation, and make what use he could of the army, which Octavian placed for the moment at his disposal. As soon then as the danger of falling into Antony's hands was removed, Cicero again proceeded to Rome, where he arrived on the 9th of December.
He immediately struck the key-note of the opposition to Antony by the publication of the Second Philippic Oration, which he had been carefully preparing during the last two months. This great impeachment is thrown into the form of a speech, supposed to be delivered in the Senate in answer to one which Antony had actually uttered after Cicero's retirement in the previous September. In reality the Second Philippic is not a spoken oration at all, but the most famous and effective of all political pamphlets. Cicero pursues Antony with fiery invective through the whole course of his life, from his dissolute boyhood onward. Antony's persistent ​veto as tribune was, he says, the occasion of the Civil War; Antony was the only man who could be found base enough to bid for the confiscated property of Pompey the Great, and insolent enough to occupy his house. "Alas! alas! for the fate of those walls and that roof-tree. What had that house ever witnessed but actions pure and excellent and of good report? Its old master, as you, Senators, know full well, was alike great in the field and admirable at home, worthy of praise for his exploits abroad, and no less worthy for his habits in private life. It is in that man's house that the chambers are turned into stews, and the halls into taverns." But the inexpiable sin of Antony was that he had attempted to set up a King in Rome by the offer of the diadem to Cæsar at the Lupercalia. "You set the diadem on his head, and the people groaned; he put it aside, and they shouted applause. You then, villain, were the only man to give your voice for Kingship, to declare that you wished to take for your master the man who by law was your fellow-consul, and to make experiment of how much the Roman People could tolerate or suffer. Aye, and you would entreat his pity; you flung yourself at his feet in supplication. What was your petition? That you might be permitted to be a slave? Nay, you should have begged the boon for yourself alone, you who have submitted to all indignities from your boyhood, so that slavery comes easy to you; from us and from the Roman People you had ​no such commission. . . . I fear lest I may seem to be casting a slight on the glorious action of our great champions, but anger moves me, and I must speak. I say that it is foul shame that the man who set on the crown should be permitted to live, when all agree that the man who set it aside was righteously put to death." In reverting at the end of his speech to the same note of warning, Cicero takes occasion to eulogise by way of contrast the great qualities of the Dictator. The passage may well find a place here as Cicero's last word respecting Cæsar.
"Is that a life worth living, to be in fear day and night of your associates? Do you suppose that you have bound your satellites by any claims stronger than those which he had on some of the men who slew him, or do you presume to mate yourself with him? In Cæsar there was genius, reasoning, memory, culture, perseverance, reflection, and energy. His achievements in war had been disastrous indeed to the commonwealth, but they had been great. After pondering for many years how to win the throne, at the cost of much toil and much peril he had accomplished his design; he had allured the ignorant multitude by his shows, his buildings, his largesses; he had bound his followers to him by great rewards, and his adversaries by fair-seeming clemency. In a word, he had brought a State, free till then, to acquiesce, partly through fear, partly through torpor, in the practice of subjection. I may liken you to him in your lust for dominion, but ​in all other respects how unlike you are! Many are the ills which Cæsar has stamped on the commonwealth, but this good has accrued, that the Roman People has learned what reliance it may place on each of us, into whose hands it may trust its fortunes, against whom it must be on its guard. Do you never think on this? Do you not comprehend that for brave men it is sufficient to have learned the lesson once for all, how noble an action, how acceptable a boon, how famous a record is the slaying of a tyrant? We could not bear him, and do you suppose that we are going to endure you. Believe me, men will hasten to such deeds in future, and there will be no tarrying. Turn and think, I entreat you, Mark Antony, at this eleventh hour think for the commonwealth. Forget those with whom you associate, and remember those from whom you are sprung. Be friends again—with me, as you please—only be friends with the State. But you must look to yourself. My part is simple. I defended the Republic when I was young, I will not desert her now that I am old; I despised the daggers of Catiline, I will not quail before yours. Nay, I offer my body willingly, if at the price of my life the freedom of Rome may be purchased. Long has the indignation of the Roman People been in labour; Heaven grant that at length it may bring forth. For myself, twenty years ago I said in this very temple that death could never come untimely to the consular; now I may say that it cannot come untimely to the old man. Death is a thing that I can wish for, now that I have served my time and ​done my work. Two things alone ! crave, first, that dying I may leave the Romans a free people—that is the greatest boon which Heaven can grant me,—and next that as each has earned his recompense from the commonwealth so he may receive."
Cicero's first business in Rome was to come to an understanding with Hirtius and Pansa, who were to enter on their consulship on the 1st of January. He found them excellently disposed, willing cordially to accept the Act of Oblivion, which had been passed nine months before, and to labour for the re-establishment of the commonwealth. For the moment the most pressing need was the conduct of the war around Mutina, and the relief of Decimus Brutus. Much might be done in Rome itself to further these ends. Advantage must be taken of the general feeling against Antony to press on the work of arming Italy; the Senate must be induced to declare its policy unmistakably, to give an utterance to the will of the nation, to uphold the action of Octavian, to use all the power of its name and authority to induce the commanders of the other armies to follow his example, and to make it clear to all the world that war was being waged between Antony and the united Roman People. The office of guide and leader in this movement was one which Cicero was eminently qualified to fill, and he consented without hesitation to undertake the task.
No important business could be formally completed in the Senate till the new consuls should come into office; but Cicero was impatient for action. The tribunes summoned the Senate on the ​19th of December, and at this meeting Cicero laid before the House a statement of the policy which he was prepared to recommend. He protested that there had been already too much delay, and urged the Senate to pledge itself as soon as possible to a decisive line of conduct. His speech ended with a motion, expressing full approval of the action of Decimus Brutus, of Octavian, and of the soldiers who had supported them, and a resolution to this effect was passed by the House.
Following out this policy to its logical conclusion, Cicero on the 1st of January proposed that Octavian should be invested with the 43 B.C."imperium" of a pro-prætor, necessary to legalise the command he had assumed over his troops. On this occasion he solemnly assured the Senate that the young Cæsar had sacrificed all his private resentments to the good of the commonwealth, and that his loyalty and good faith might be implicitly trusted. "I venture to pledge my word for him to you and to the Roman People. Judge if I have good cause, when I dare to do this without fear lest you should think me rash in hazarding an assertion on a matter of such moment. I promise, I undertake, I go surety, Senators, that Caius Cæsar will always be such a citizen as he shows himself today, that is to say such a one as we should most earnestly desire and hope." This pledge remained unredeemed, but Cicero sealed his words with his ​own blood, and may well plead Prince Henry's great exception:
"If not, the end of life cancels all bonds."
The part which Cicero called upon the Senate to play at this crisis of events may best be stated in his own words: "Antony must be assailed not by arms alone, but likewise by the decrees of this House. Great is the power and awful the majesty of a Senate unanimous in heart and voice. You see how the Forum is thronged, how the Roman People is all astir with the hope of recovering its liberties; now, after so long a space, it sees us once again assembled in our hundreds, and it hopes that it sees us free at last to speak and to act. This is the day for which I have been keeping myself all the time that I screened myself from the accursed weapons of Antony, whilst he thundered against me in my absence, little knowing for what occasion I was reserving myself and husbanding my strength. If I had consented to come and answer him then, when he would fain have inaugurated his massacres with my blood, I should not now have been in case to serve the commonwealth . . . In Heaven's name then I charge you, Senators, grasp this opportunity which is put within your reach, and call to mind at length that you are the peers of the venerable council that keeps watch over the world. Proclaim it to the Roman People that your counsel shall be forthcoming at this hour in which it declares that its manhood shall not be wanting . . . And if, ​which Heaven forbid, but if the death-agony of the commonwealth be indeed upon us, then even as gallant gladiators sink beneath their wounds not ingloriously, so let us, who are at our post in the forefront of the world, and of all its peoples, take thought for this that we should die with honour, but never degrade ourselves to be slaves . . . With our noble consuls for champions and leaders, with Heaven our aid, with ourselves watchful and provident for the time to come, with the Roman People at our back, verily it shall not be long before we are free, and our freedom will be the sweeter for the memory of the servitude that is past."
Thus the great conflict began, and Cicero frankly accepted the post of honour and of danger. The outlook at the moment is described in a letter to Cornificius, the Governor of Africa, who almost alone amongst Cæsar's officers remained staunch to the Republic in its hour of peril. "What is to happen," writes Cicero in the month of December, "I know not. The single hope remains that the Roman People may at last show itself worthy of its ancestors. For my own part I will not be wanting to the State, and whatever happens, so that it be not by my fault, I will bear it with fortitude." A few days later he adds: "As soon as ever opportunity presented, I used my old freedom in defence of the Republic. I offered my services as leader to the Senate and People of Rome, and when once I had taken up the cause of liberty, I did not let slip a moment which ​could be used in defence of the common safety and the common freedom."
On the afternoon of December 19th, and again on the 4th of January, Cicero addressed himself to the Roman People in the Forum. The debate in the Senate on the first days of the new year (43 B.C.) had ended with a disappointment. Instead of at once proclaiming war against Antony, a majority of the Senate resolved first to send envoys, summoning him to desist from his attack on Mutina. Cicero had protested in vain; but in announcing the result to the People he was obliged to make the best of the situation, and to console them by the prospect that after this at any rate no one will have any excuse for hesitation. "Wherefore, Romans, do you await the return of the envoys, and digest the vexation of these few days' delay. If, when they return, they bring peace along with them, then say that I have been too rash; if they bring war, then judge that I have seen further than the rest. Am I not bound to be watchful over my countrymen? Must I not ponder day and night for your liberty and for the safety of the State? Do I not owe my all to you, Romans, whom you have set—me, a man sprung from your ranks—over the heads of the noblest of the nation? Am I ungrateful? Nay, you know that after I had attained my rank I laboured in the law-courts just as I had done when I was striving for it. Am I a novice in the affairs of State? Nay, it is now twenty years that I have served, ever battling against disloyal citizens. ​Therefore, Romans, with such wisdom as I have, and with efforts perhaps beyond such strength a? remains to me, I will keep watch and ward for you. And well I may. Is there any citizen, especially a citizen holding the rank to which you have been pleased to call me, who could so forget your favours, be so unmindful of his country, so indifferent to his honour, that his heart should not stir and kindle at the sight of your resolution? I have addressed, when I was your consul, many great assemblages; I have taken part in many such; but never did I behold such a one as yours to-day. You have one thought and one desire, to ward off the attack of Antony from the commonwealth, to quench his fury, to crush his insolence. The same wish is shared by every rank in the State; on this is set the will of the country-towns, of the colonies, of all Italy. And so the Senate, strong in its own spirit, is made the stronger by your support. The time has come, Romans, later, far later than beseemed the honour of the Roman People; but now it is so ripe that the hour brooks no delay. A fatal spell, if I may so speak, lay on us, which we bore as best we could. Now, if we are to bear, it will be because we choose to bear. Nay, but it is not written that the Roman People shall be in slavery, that people whom the will of Heaven has set to rule over all nations. The supreme hour has come; liberty is at stake. You must conquer, Romans, as you surely shall by virtue of this your devotion and your unanimity, or else you must accept the worst, anything rather than be slaves. Other nations may be able to bear the yoke; the ​Roman People has liberty for its peculiar heritage."
Cicero now stands in the forefront of the battle; his old ideal of "the union of the orders" and the "consent of Italy" is at last realised. From the middle of December onwards his great speeches rapidly succeed one another; he feels that he is giving form and words to the thoughts and aspirations of all that is loyal and true in Rome, and so his eloquence burns free and splendid without reserve or misgiving. Under the Roman constitution, the duty of leading the debates and guiding the counsels of the Senate was not bound up, as it is under our own parliamentary system, with the tenure of executive office. The magistrate might, without any dereliction of duty, confine himself to naming the subject which the Senate was to discuss; it was open to the private Senator to make any motion on the subject in hand, and this motion, if approved by a majority of voices, became a binding instruction to the executive. Thus Cicero, though without any formal office, took the responsibility of the initiative and shaped the policy of the Republic. He was, in fact, prime minister of Rome.
He succeeded, though not without difficulty and delay, in carrying the Senate with him. A state of war was proclaimed, and the citizens assumed their war-cloaks as in a time of imminent danger; Antony's acts were cancelled; votes of confidence and thanks were passed in favour of his adversaries, and each promise of support from the provincial governors ​was met by an appropriate acknowledgment, and an intimation that if they wished well to the State they must stand firm against Antony. When the news arrived that Dolabella had murdered Trebonius, he was declared a public enemy, and Brutus and Cassius were invested with full powers in the East. All this was not accomplished without some opposition. "We have a brave Senate," Cicero writes, "but all the courage seems to be on the lower benches." The consulars were "partly timid and partly ill-disposed." Cicero's policy was too straightforward and decided for them. "They pose as far-seeing citizens and earnest Senators. They say that I have sounded the trumpet for war. They are advocates of peace. They argue, 'It will not do to rouse Antony's displeasure; he is a dangerous man and a bold one; there are many disloyal persons, and we must be cautious of them.' Well, they say the truth here; and, if they wish to count up those persons, they may begin with themselves who utter words like these." Cicero would fain stimulate them to action worthy of their high station. "Heavens! what a task it is to support with dignity the character of a chief of the Roman commonwealth; those who bear it should shrink from offending not only the minds but the eyes of their fellow-citizens. When they receive the envoy of our enemies at their houses, admit him to their chambers, even draw him apart in ​conversation, I say that they think too little of their dignity and too much of their danger. But what is this danger after all? If the greatest hazard must be run, it is but liberty that awaits us if we win and death if we lose; the one is to be welcomed, the other is that which we can no one of us avoid."
The position of "princeps," or prime minister, to which Cicero justly lays claim, implied in this hour of peril not only the duties of a parliamentary leader, but other labours which belong rather to the functions of a diplomatist. While the armies of the Republic under Decimus Brutus, Hirtius, Pansa, and Octavian stood face to face with Antony beneath the walls of Mutina, the ring was kept by the legions of Spain and Gaul under the command of Pollio, Lepidus, and Plancus. It was obvious that these armies might come to have a deciding vote in the conflict, and their attitude and that of their generals was dubious and alarming. The despatches which passed between these commanders and Cicero as the virtual head of the government in Rome form the best comment on the progress of events. Cicero's letters to these almost independent powers are admirable in their force and dignity. Not even in the Philippics is the tone more sturdy and uncompromising. "You recommend peace," he writes to Plancus, "while your colleague is besieged by a gang of rebels. If they want peace, they should lay down their arms and beg for it; if they demand it by force of arms, then we must win our way to peace through victory, not through negotiation. . . . Show yourself worthy; sever yourself from an ill​assorted union with bad citizens; next offer yourself as a guide, chief, and leader to the Senate and to all honest men; lastly believe that peace consists not in laying down arms, but in flinging off the fear of arms and of slavery. If you will act and think as I say, then you shall be not only consul and consular, but a great consul and a great consular; if otherwise, in the splendid titles of your station there will be no dignity, but only a pre-eminence in ignominy."
To Lepidus he writes still more sternly: "I am glad to hear that you profess yourself desirous of promoting peace between citizens. If you connect that peace with liberty, you will do good service to the State and to your own reputation. But if your peace is to restore a traitor to the possession of an unbridled tyranny, then let me tell you that all true men have made up their minds to accept death rather than servitude. You will therefore act more wisely, to my judgment, if you decline to meddle with projects of accommodation which do not commend themselves to the Senate or to the People or to any loyal man."
Cicero's efforts seemed at one moment likely to be successful. Lepidus and Pollio promised their assistance; and though it was clear enough that they were sure to range themselves on the strongest side, yet even a feigned and temporary adherence was of some use in encouraging the efforts of the Romans and in giving them time for preparation. Plancus seems ​really to have intended to cast in his lot with the Republic, though his wavering faith failed him in the moment of danger.
Meantime the war before Mutina was approaching its crisis. Early in January (43 B.C.) Hirtius had joined Octavian in Cisalpine Gaul, and some weeks later the two advanced as far as Bononia. The other consul, Pansa, remained for a time in Rome, but about the end of March he led four newly levied legions northwards and joined his colleagues. On the 15th of April the first battle was fought at Forum Gallorum. Antony was worsted by the combined forces of the consuls and Octavian, and retired during the night to his camp before Mutina. In this encounter Pansa received a wound, from the effects of which he died about a fortnight later. While Pansa still lived, a second engagement took place before Mutina. This time Antony's forces were entirely defeated, his best troops were cut to pieces, and he was driven to a precipitate retreat. Hirtius was killed in the act of storming the enemy's camp.
With the relief of Decimus Brutus and the flight of Antony Rome believed that the war was at an end. The multitude thronged to Cicero's house, as soon as the news of the first battle arrived, and conducted him in triumph to the Capitol, where he returned solemn thanks to the gods for the salvation of the Republic. The Fourteenth Philippic Oration, the last which Cicero ever published, was delivered the same day in the Senate, and records the votes of honours to the commanders and rewards to the ​soldiers, the tributes to the memory of the fallen, "who had conquered in their death," and the great public Thanksgiving ordered for the victory. But this festival, the last decreed by a free Republic in Rome, was destined never to be celebrated. Almost from this moment the tide of events began to turn.
The altered situation was due to the action first of the veteran legions and secondly to Octavian. The weak point in the policy of the Liberators now became apparent. A military despotism, resting on standing army, is not to be overthrown by the assassination of the despot. If the Republicans could have possessed their souls in patience until the natural end of Cæsar's life, it is possible that his army might have acquiesced, as Cromwell's army did, in the will of the nation. As it was, the death of Cæsar consecrated a martyr for the cause of the soldiers, and the cry for vengeance gave them an excuse for domination. The conspirators hoped that they had created the Republic anew; in truth they had only removed one representative of the new ruling caste. The real masters of the State had only to decide who should be their delegate in the future and to initiate that system of government by pronunciamento, which was the curse of the world during the next four centuries, just as it is in South America at the present day.
​The essential mischief, the predominance of the professional soldiers in the commonwealth, was not touched. It was of no avail that Italy declared herself with enthusiasm for the cause of the Republic and sent her sons by tens of thousands to fight for freedom. It was now too late to prepare for danger. A nation which will be free, must not trust its defence solely in the hands of a professional soldiery; in spite of the irksomeness and the comparative inefficiency of a short-service system, it must at all risks train the mass of the citizens to the use of arms. This necessity was even more urgent in the ancient than in the modern world, for the use of the rifle can be taught far more rapidly than the use of the shield, the sword, and the javelin; a few highly practised soldiers could in those days put to the rout whole regiments of half-trained men. In all the civil wars of Rome there is only one instance in which short-service men won a battle from veterans. The exception is the engagement in the lines of Dyrrachium in 48 B.C. (see p. 339), and in that case the credit rests rather with the commander than with the troops. The victory was due to the consummate skill with which Pompey took advantage of Cæsar's rashness in attempting to cover an extent of ground too great for his forces.
​The Italian temperament seems to have been peculiarly susceptible to the effects of long training and peculiarly in need of it. Cæsar has given us a lively picture of the panic which affected his own army, while still young, at the prospect of meeting the Germans. Even the officers "could not keep their countenance, nor sometimes refrain even from tears; they buried themselves in their tents bemoaning the common danger along with their friends. Throughout the camp men were making their wills. . . . Some even reported to Cæsar that, if he ordered an advance, the soldiers would refuse obedience and not dare to go forward with the colours." The tables were now turned; Cæsar had fashioned these unpromising recruits into invincible warriors, and they in turn would face without hesitation double their number of raw soldiers. In the account of the first battle at Forum Gallorum, written to Cicero by an officer who took part in it, we find Antony hastening to take the initiative in attack with two of his legions "because he thinks that he has only four legions of recruits opposed to him." The unexpected intervention of the veteran "Martian" legion turns the scale against him.
The fear of these veteran troops is constantly before the eyes of men, and the need for humouring them is the favourite argument of the trimmers against Cicero's call for vigorous action on the part of the Senate. Sextus Pompeius is anxious to intervene in the war before Mutina, but abstains "for fear ​lest he should offend the minds of the veterans." It is objected to the proposal to recognise Marcus Brutus as commander-in-chief in Macedonia, that "we do not know how the veterans may take it." Cicero replies:" What, in the name of all that is mischievous, do you mean by always putting forward the name of the veterans as an answer to every righteous proposal? Though I may respect their valour, as I do, that is no reason why I should bow to their caprices. Here we are striving to burst the bonds of servitude, and we are to be stopped because some one says that the veterans will not like it! Are not thousands rushing to arms at the call of liberty? Is there no one beside the veteran soldiers, who is stirred by the indignation of a freeman? . . . Finally (for the words of truth and honour will escape from my lips), if the resolutions of this House are to be at the beck of the veterans, if all our deeds and words are to be fashioned to their will, it is better to take refuge in death, which Romans have always preferred to servitude."
Cicero spoke as a prophet. The hard conditions of the time were such that the soldiers could impose the alternative of submission or death. The centre of power had indeed shifted, and now lay with the veterans. The standing army, disciplined by long service in foreign and domestic war, was an admirable fighting engine, before which hastily levied contingents must of necessity go down. But it was also ​essentially a body of mercenary troops, animated by professional feeling, and without civic loyalty or care for the good of the State. The soldiers were attached to the memory of the great general under whom they had fought and conquered; they felt strongly that his death ought to be revenged, and their wills were set against the amnesty which all good citizens desired. Plancus writes that part of Lepidus' army is not less disloyal than Antony's own troops, and he fears that "the 10th legion, which was brought to a proper state of mind by my efforts, may break out again into its old frenzy." Cicero has to inform Decimus Brutus that it is impossible to carry out the arrangement by which he was to take command of the Martian and of the 4th legion after the death of the consuls. "Those who are familiar with those legions say that they could not be induced to join you on any terms." When Plancus comes to count up the tale of Decimus Brutus' force, we find only one veteran legion, one of two years' standing, and eight legions of recruits. "Thus the whole army, though strong in numbers, is very weak in quality. How much reliance can be placed on the recruits in the field we know, alas, too well by experience."
The interests as well as the sentiments of the veterans were against a peaceful solution. Antony had shown them that the task of avenging Cæsar might be made a profitable one. They were not disinclined ​to a civil war, and in the meantime were well pleased to have all sides bidding for their support. Antony, as may be supposed, was not behindhand with promises. "I have three strong legions," writes Pollio; "one of them, the 28th, was solicited by Antony at the beginning of the war with the promise of a donation of 500 denarii to each soldier on the day they arrived in camp, and in case of victory the same rewards as to his own troops, and these no one supposes will be other than unlimited. The troops were most eager to go, and I kept them in check with much difficulty. . . . The other legions were also constantly tempted by letters and boundless promises." It was in vain for Cicero to propose votes of honour in the Senate for the veterans, and to pledge the State to reward them; their instinct told them that more was to be hoped from a usurper than from the Republic.
The temper of the veterans determined the action of Octavian. Claiming as he did to be Cæsar's heir, he was obliged to satisfy the opinion of the army by avenging his father's death, and could not sincerely desire the restoration of the Republic, in which the men who had killed the Dictator would hold a chief place. From a Cæsarian point of view there was reason in the reproaches which Antony addressed to his young rival. "Boy! you who owe your all to ​his name, is this your object that the condemnation of Dolabella shall be ratified? that this other assassin here shall be relieved from my blockade? that Cassius and Brutus shall be all-powerful? . . . It is hardly likely that those who have declared Dolabella an enemy for his most righteous act, will spare me who am heart and soul along with him ! . . . Consider within yourself which is the more proper course, and which the more useful for our side, to avenge the death of Cæsar or the death of Trebonius, and whether it is more right for us to battle with each other that the crushed cause of the Pompeians may revive again, or to come to terms and cease to make sport for our enemies." Antony says that Cicero looks on like a lanista, or trainer, who has set a brace of gladiators to fight, sure to profit whichever falls, and this in fact bluntly represents the real state of the case. The single chance for Cicero and the Senate was that Antony and Octavian should weaken each other and hold each other in check, until the Republic could possess itself of an effective army of its own.
It was obvious then that the young Cæsar's quarrel with Antony admitted of accommodation. So soon as he had compelled Antony to acknowledge his power and to treat with him as an equal, he had no desire to crush him, and their union against the Republic only awaited time and opportunity. The position of Octavian was greatly strengthened by the death of both the consuls in the moment of victory before Mutina; he retained all the veteran troops under his command, and Decimus ​Brutus was left, as he says, "with only starveling recruits." Octavian was in no hurry to throw off the mask, and affected to be on cordial terms with Decimus. But he would not press the pursuit. "If," writes Decimus Brutus, "Cæsar would have listened to me and crossed the Apennines, I could have hemmed in Antony so completely that he would have perished for lack of supplies; but I cannot command Cæsar, and Cæsar cannot command his troops. These are both very ugly facts."
Antony shows at his best in the hour of danger and disaster. He drew off his shattered forces westward with skill and courage. He was still strong in cavalry, but of infantry he had only one legion (the 5th) in tolerable order; of the others only a remnant survived, and many of the men were without arms. But as early as the 5th of May he had reached the coast and approached the Gallic frontier. Here he was joined by Ventidius Bassus at the head of three veteran legions. Ventidius had passed the Apennines from Ancona, doubtless with the connivance of Octavian, and overtook Antony at Vada Sabatia, a little west of Genoa. Decimus Brutus, who had marched in pursuit, lay on May 5th at Dertona, some fifty miles north-east of Antony, and with the Apennines between them. ​An attempt of Antony to throw troops across the range and occupy Pollentia was anticipated by Decimus. Antony now hastened to cross the Maritime Alps and take refuge with Lepidus. He and his army endured great privations in the passage, but by the 11th his advanced May, 43 B.C.guard was at Forum Julii (Fréjus), and he himself arrived there on the 15th. Lepidus had advanced from his headquarters near Avignon, as far as Forum Vocontium, about twenty-four miles from Antony. From this place he wrote on the 21st a letter to the Senate protesting his fidelity. On the 28th he and his army declared for Antony: with their united forces they then turned on Plancus, who had started from his headquarters by the Isara on the 20th to support Lepidus, and was only forty miles off when the reconciliation between Antony and Lepidus occurred. Laterensis, the lieutenant of Lepidus, on the strength of whose assurances Plancus had advanced, killed himself in disgust at the treason of which he had been the unconscious instrument. Plancus made good his retreat again behind the Isara. He writes from thence to Cicero on the 6th of June, and says that he expects Decimus Brutus to join him in three days' time.
Pollio and his powerful army followed the lead of Lepidus, but Plancus held out for some weeks longer. His last letter to Cicero is dated July 27th, and is full of declarations of affection and loyalty. ​It must always be doubtful whether his attitude at this time was merely assumed in order to lure Decimus Brutus to his destruction, or whether Plancus really remained undecided to the last moment. Decimus during the latter half of May occupied Eporedia, Vercellæ, and Pollentia; he thus commanded the entrance both to the pass through the Cottian Alps (Mont Cenis) and to that through the Graian Alps (Little St. Bernard); by either of these he could join hands with Plancus. From a purely military point of view, Decimus' best course would have been to retreat to the north-east of the Cisalpine province, so as to be able to fall back in the last resort through Illyricum on the support of his namesake in Macedonia. But by such a retreat he would have left Plancus unsupported, and would have sadly discouraged the republicans in Rome. He resolved therefore to cross the Alps, and the two armies seem actually to have effected a junction before Plancus finally deserted the cause. This desertion ended the conflict in the West. Decimus' legions of recruits proved, as he had expected, untrustworthy; they were conscious of their inability to face the veterans, and as soon as these were united against them they submitted without a blow. Their commander attempted to escape eastward, but was overtaken and put to death by Antony's orders early in September.
The revival of the war which they had believed to be ended was a bitter disappointment for the Republicans of Rome. Cicero remained at his post as leader of the House and practical head of the central ​government, and he was still supported by the Senate. On the last day of June Lepidus was declared an enemy by a unanimous vote. The news from the East was uniformly good. Cicero did all that man could do to avert the impending ruin. He adopted every suggestion in favour of the soldiers who still remained loyal. He procured supplies of money for Decimus Brutus, who was in sore need, and summoned Cornificius from Africa and Marcus Brutus and Cassius from the East, to bring their forces to bear on the critical point in northern Italy. The last letter of Cicero which is preserved to us is one addressed to Cassius very early in July, and only one later than this (that of Plancus on July 27th) remains from a correspondent of Cicero. Thus the light of contemporary evidence which we have enjoyed so long, fails us, and for the remaining months we have nothing to guide us but the untrustworthy accounts of later authors. We know, however, that Cornificius, Marcus Brutus, and Cassius never arrived, and the fate of Italy was left to be determined by the armies of the West.
Meanwhile the policy of Octavian was being rapidly revealed. As early as the 17th of June, Cicero had written to Decimus "Of Marcus Brutus we have no certain news; I never cease urging him in private letters to come, as you have suggested, and ​bear his part in the war. Would that he were here already! we should then have less to fear on account of the mischief at home, which is no light matter." This "mischief at home" is the claim which Octavian was already making to be appointed consul for the remaining months of the year.
Plutarch asserts that Octavian proposed to Cicero that he should join him in the movement, and that the two should be consuls together on the understanding that he would defer in all things to Cicero's advice. Plutarch even gives us to understand that Cicero was caught by the bait, and favoured the young Cæsar's candidature. All this is very improbable. What is certain is that Octavian's request was refused by the Senate. The leader of a deputation of centurions, who had been sent to press his claim, thereupon struck his hand upon his sword-hilt and said, "If you will not give it, this shall give it." His words proved true, Octavian left August, 43 B.C.Decimus Brutus to shift for himself and marched with his army upon Rome.
The city was without defence except for a few soldiers who had been sent from Africa, and these went over to Octavian. He was elected consul on the 19th of August, and at once seized on the Treasury, the contents of which he divided among his soldiers. He likewise established a court for the trial of his father's assassins, who were all condemned in their absence. He then set forth again with his army to meet Lepidus and Antony. There can be little doubt that he had long been in secret ​communication with them. Plancus had written to Cicero in July: "That Antony is alive to-day, that Lepidus has joined him, that they have formidable armies, that they are full of hope and daring—you may set all this down to Cæsar." It seems probable that Lepidus had not received Antony without first coming to an understanding with him as to a reconciliation with Octavian. Toward the end of October the three chiefs met in an island of the river near Bononia, and the bargain was soon struck. It was agreed to have a Proscription even more bloody than that of Sulla, and Cicero was to be the first victim. Plutarch tells us that Octavian contended for two days for the life of Cicero. On the third day each of the three surrendered his own friends to the animosity of his colleagues. Shakespeare has made the scene live before us:
| Ant. | These many then shall die, their names are pricked; Your brother too must die; consent you, Lepidus? |
| Lep. | I do consent—— |
| Oct. | Prick him down, Antony. |
| Lep. | Upon condition Publius shall not live, Who is your sister's son, Mark Antony. |
| Ant. | He shall not live, look with a spot I damn him. |
We hear nothing of Cicero during Octavian's presence in Rome. Now that military force had overpowered the commonwealth, the statesman must have felt that he had received his discharge. Plutarch says that he was in his villa at Tusculum when he received tidings of his proscription. He made a faint attempt to escape by sea, but landed again and ​returned to another villa at Caieta. "Let me die," Livy reports that he said, "in the country which I have so often saved." Next day on the urgency of his attendants he allowed himself once more to be borne in a litter towards the sea; but the assassins, sent by Antony, overtook him on the way. His faithful slaves would fain have fought for him to the last, but he forbade all resistance and commanded them to set the litter on the ground. Sitting there with his chin resting on his left hand, an attitude, says Plutarch, which was habitual to him, he quietly awaited the stroke. His head and the hand which had penned the Second Philippic were hung on the Rostra in the Roman Forum.
A year and a half before the end, in counting up the chances to his friend Atticus, Cicero had said: "Must I then take refuge in a camp? It were better to die a thousand times. I have lived long enough." He was saved at least from another Civil War in which he could only have been a helpless spectator. Cicero's work was indeed over, and the tragedy of his death was the natural outcome of his splendid failure. He had staked all on one cast. The policy of the State during the brief months while he was at the helm had been vigorous, straightforward, and unhesitating. He had protested against all haif-measures and scorned all ambiguous words. He accepted the internecine conflict between the Republic of the Liberators and the revived Cæsarism of Antony. There was no door of escape, no place left in the State for him and Antony together.
​What manner of man Cicero was, I have attempted to show from his own mouth. Happily the materials for a judgment, which I have been able present to my readers, are copious; else it would be impossible to appreciate the lights and shadows of a career so varied, or to estimate at its true value a temperament so sensitive, a character so many-sided, a will so much determined by human sympathies and human weakness. We may contrast Cicero in this respect with his great contemporaries, Cato and Cæsar. Cato knew no guide of action except his own stern conception of duty. He was unalterably faithful to the Republic, and was ready to make any sacrifice for it, except the sacrifice of that inopportune rigidity which prevented his ideal being realised in practice. Cæsar pursued no ideals but only practical objects. Whatever means, good or bad, he found ready to his hand from time to time, he used them with consummate skill, in the first place to further his own ambition to be absolute master, and in the next place to suppress certain crying evils and to realise certain definite improvements in administration. He secured Italy from the most pressing danger on her frontier, and he elicited a strong, humane, and orderly government from the confusions of the Civil War. For the sake of these objects, without scruple or remorse, he renounced as unattainable all the nobler fruits of statesmanship, and inexorably crushed out all the possibilities of a worthier future for his nation and for the world. Cato and Cæsar are each of them thorough, positive, one-sided; they act, rightly or wrongly, without ​hesitation and without misgiving; their intentions and their motives are sufficiently obvious from their actions.
But the character of Cicero eludes any such precise definition. He had personal ambitions, though they were not unlimited like those of Cæsar. He was no less loyal to the Republic than was Cato, loyal with all the passionate attachment of an enthusiastic nature to the great ideals of liberty and patriotism. But he aspired to be a practical statesman, to adapt his principles to the necessities of the time, and to modify his action so as to secure the greatest possible amount of good under the given circumstances. There were times in Cicero's life, when the requirements of a sage and patriotic opportunism and those of fidelity to principle seemed irreconcilable. At such times the infinite perplexities of the political situation bewildered him; and who might not have shared his bewilderment? He had not the power of shutting his eyes to all considerations but one; on the contrary, his vivid imagination presented every possible aspect of a problem to his mind, and he was always trying to view a question from a dozen sides at once. This habit led sometimes to confusion or inconsistency of statement, sometimes, again, to hesitancy in action.
Cicero made many mistakes as a politician. His forecast is often wrong; he is often taken by surprise; sometimes by the over-refining of his own subtle intellect, sometimes by applying the casuistry of his Greek book-learning too readily to the ​practical conduct of affairs, he allows himself to be led astray, where a man of less discursive mind might have shaped his course better. But we must never forget that during the greater part of his political life he had no choice before him but a choice of evils. The critics who have blamed him most bitterly would find it hard to define how, believing as he believed, Cicero ought to have acted. Cicero accepted it as the first axiom of politics, that "some sort of Free State" is the necessary condition of a noble and honourable existence; and that it is the last calamity for a people permanently to renounce this ideal and to substitute for it the slave's ideal of a good master. Englishmen and Americans, worthy of their birthright, are not likely to disagree with Cicero's judgment. If this be indeed the cardinal doctrine of the political faith, then Cicero was sound in the faith. At any rate this was the creed in which he lived, and to maintain this he laid down his life. For such a man to accept as sufficient the solution which Cæsar attempted to force on the world, would have been treason against the best light of his soul and conscience. But it was no less true, that to accept in its fulness the doctrine and policy of Cato was to court defeat and to take refuge in mere counsels of despair. Can we wonder, and shall we withhold our sympathy, if an honest man in so inextricable a situation was the prey of doubts and scruples? if he halted between two opinions and was sometimes at a loss to discover where the path of honour and duty lay? Cicero sought that path diligently, and when at last it was made clear to him, ​he pursued it, in spite of danger and suffering, to its goal on the beach of Caieta.
The weaknesses and inconsistencies of Cicero lie on the surface of his character, and they are pitilessly displayed before us by the preservation of his most secret letters. In his case the veil is withdrawn which for most of us shrouds from the eyes of the world the multiplicities of our motives, the perplexities of our judgment, the delusions of our anticipations, and the inconsecutiveness of our action. His memory has thus been subjected to a test of unprecedented sharpness. Nevertheless the faithful friends who resolved to present to the world his confidential utterances, unspoiled by editorial garbling, have not only earned our gratitude by the gift of a unique historical monument, but have judged most nobly and most truly what was due to the reputation of Cicero. As it was in his life-time, so it has been with his memory: those who have known him most intimately have commonly loved him best. The reader must judge whether he rightly claims a place as a "hero of his nation"; at least he was the exponent of its best thoughts and noblest aspirations, its faithful servant in life and its constant martyr in death.
The calm retrospective judgment, perhaps not untinged with remorse, of Cæsar Augustus sums up fairly and honestly the story of Cicero's life. "It happened many years after," writes Plutarch, "that Augustus once found one of his grandsons with a work of Cicero's in his hands. The boy was ​frightened and hid the book under his gown; but Cæsar took it from him, and standing there motionless he read through a great part of the book; then he gave it back to the boy, and said: 'This was a great orator, my child; a great orator, and a man who loved his country well.'"
* ↑ Ad Att., xiv., 14, 2.
* ↑ Ad Att., xiv., 18, 1.
* ↑ Ad Att., xiv., 1.
* ↑ Ad Fam., xi., 28, 3.
* ↑ Ad Att., xiv., 2, 3.
* ↑ Ad Att., xiv., 21, 2.
* ↑ Ad Att., xiv., 22, 1.
* ↑ Ad Att., xiv., 5, 2.
* ↑ Ad Att., xiv., 16, 2, and Phil., i., 12, 30.
* ↑ Suetonius, Jul., 84.
* ↑ Phil., x., 4, 8, and Ad Att., xvi., 2, 3; cf. also xiv., 2, 1.
* ↑ Ad Att., xiv., 6, 2 (reading "ea de re").
* ↑ Ad Fam., xii., 4, 1.
* ↑ Phil., vii., 8, 23.
* ↑ Ad Fam., xi., 8.
* ↑ Ad Fam., x., 30, 1.
* ↑ Phil., xi., 15, 39.
* ↑ Ad Fam., x., 31, 3.
* ↑ Ad Fam., xi., 1.
* ↑ There is a letter (Ad Fam., xii., 16) of his dated May 24th, from Athens.
* ↑ Ad Att., xiv., 4, 1.
* ↑ Ad Att., xiv., 13, 6.
* ↑ Phil., v., 13, 36.
* ↑ Phil., x., 6, 13.
* ↑ Ad Att., xiv., 11, 1.
* ↑ Ad Att., xiv., 13, 4.
* ↑ Ad Att., xv., 3, 1.
* ↑ Ad Att., xiv., 19, 1.
* ↑ Ad Fam., xii., 23, 3.
* ↑ Ad Att., xiv, 10, 3.
* ↑ Ad Att., xiv., 11, 2.
* ↑ Ad Att., xiv., 12, 2.
* ↑ Ad Att., xv., 12, 2.
* ↑ He was at Spoletium in Umbria on January 7th; compare Inscription, Orelli, 2489, with Pliny, Ilist Nat., xi., 37, 190, and see Mommsen's note, Corp. Inscr. Lat., vol. i., p. 383.
* ↑ Ad Att., xvi., 11, 6.
* ↑ Ad Att., xvi., 15, 3.
* ↑ These arguments are clearly put by Cicero in a letter to Trebonius, Ad Fam., x., 28, 3.
* ↑ Phil., ii., 28, 69.
* ↑ Phil., ii., 34, 85.
* ↑ Phil., ii., 45, 116.
* ↑ The Third Philippic Oration.
* ↑ Phil., v., 18, 51.
* ↑ Phil., iii., 13, 32.
* ↑ Ad Fam., xii., 22, 2.
* ↑ Ad Fam., xii., 24, 2.
* ↑ Philippics, iv. and vi.
* ↑ Phil., vi., 6, 17 seq.
* ↑ Ad Fam., xii., 4, 1.
* ↑ Ad Fam., x., 28, 3.
* ↑ Phil., vii., 1, 3.
* ↑ Phil., viii., 10, 29.
* ↑ Ad Fam., x., 6.
* ↑ Ad Fam., x., 27.
* ↑ "It is on opinion only that government is founded; and the maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and popular. The Soldan of Egypt, or the Emperor of Rome, might drive his harmless subjects, like brute beasts, against their inclination; but he must at least have led his mamelukes, or prætorian bands, like men, by their opinion."—Hume.
* ↑ "Dans nos combats d'aujourd'hui un particulier n'a guère de confiance qu'en la multitude; mais chaque Romain, plus robuste et plus aguerri que son ennemi, comptait toujours sur lui-même; il avant naturellement du courage, c'est à dire de cette vertu qui est la sentiment de ses propres forces."—Montesquieu, Grandeur des Romains, ch. ii.
* ↑ Servius Sulpicius Galba, one of the assassins of Cæsar, and an ancestor of the future emperor. Ad Fam., x., 30.
* ↑ Phil., xiii., 6, 13.
* ↑ Phil., x., 7, 15.
* ↑ Phil., x., 9, 18.
* ↑ Ad Fam., x., 11, 2.
* ↑ Ad Fam., xi., 14, 2.
* ↑ Ad Fam., x., 24, 3.
* ↑ Ad Fam., x., 32, 4.
* ↑ About £20.
* ↑ Phil., xii., 12, 29, "credunt improbis, credunt turbulentis, credunt suis.
* ↑ Phil., xiii., 11 seq.
* ↑ Ad Fam., xi., 13, 1.
* ↑ Ad Fam., xi., 10, 4.
* ↑ Ad Fam., x., 34, a, 1.
* ↑ The number is uncertain, but Antony's letter (Phil., viii., 8, 25 claims rewards for six legions.
* ↑ Ad Fam., xi., 10, 3.
* ↑ Ad Fam., x., 34, a, 1.
* ↑ Ad Fam., xi., 13.
* ↑ He describes himself (Ad Fam., x., 34) as marching "ab confluente Rhodano" i.e., from where the Durance joins the Rhone.
* ↑ Ad Fam., xii., 10, 1.
* ↑ Ad Fam., xi., 21, 5.
* ↑ Ad Fam., xi., 24, 2.
* ↑ Ad Fam., xi., 14 and 25; xii., 9.
* ↑ Ad Fam., xi., 25, 2.
* ↑ Plutarch, Cic., 45 and 46.
* ↑ Ad Fam., x., 24, 6.
* ↑ Ad Att., xiv., 22, 2.
* ↑ Plutarch, Cic., 49.