DURATION OF TIME
the remainder of the year of the 5th dictatorship of C.Iulius Caesar with M. Aemilius Lepidus, Master of the Horse, and of his 5th consulship with Marcus Antonius.
(B.C. 44 = a.u. 710.)[1]
[B.C. 44 (a.u.710)]
[-1-] This was Antony's course of procedure.--Gaius Octavius Copia,--this
was the name of the son of Caesar's niece, Attia,--came from Velitrae in
the Volscian country, and having been left without a protector by the
death of his father Octavius he was brought up in the house of his mother
and her husband, Lucius Philippus, but on attaining maturity spent his
time with Caesar. The latter, who was childless, based great hopes upon
him and was devoted to him, intending to leave him as successor to his
name, authority, and supremacy. He was influenced largely by Attia's
explicit affirmation that the youth had been engendered by Apollo. While
sleeping once in his temple, she said, she thought she had intercourse
with a serpent, and through this circumstance at the end of the allotted
time bore a son. Before he came to the light of day she saw in a dream
her womb lifted to the heavens and spreading out over all the earth; and
the same night Octavius thought the sun rose from her vagina. Hardly
had the child been born when Nigidius Figulus, a senator, straightway
prophesied for him sole command of the realm. [2]
He could distinguish most accurately of his contemporaries the order of
the firmament and the mutations of the stars, what they accomplished
by separation and what by conjunctions, in their associations and
retirements, and for this reason had incurred the charge of practicing
some kind of forbidden pursuits. He accordingly met on that occasion
Octavius, who was somewhat tardy in reaching the senate on account of the
birth of the child,--there happened to be a meeting of the senate that
day,--and asked him why he was late. On learning the cause he cried out:
"You have begotten a master over us." [3] At that Octavius was alarmed and
wished to destroy the infant, but Nigidius restrained him, saying that
it was impossible for it to suffer any such fate. [-2-] This was the
conversation at that time. While the boy was growing up in the country an
eagle snatched from his hands a loaf of bread, and after soaring aloft
flew down and gave it back to him.[4] When he was a lad and staying in
Rome Cicero dreamed that the boy was let down by golden chains to the
summit of the Capitol and received a whip from Jupiter.[5] He did not
know who the youth was, but meeting him the next day on the Capitol
itself he recognized him, and told the vision to the bystanders. Catulus,
who had likewise never seen Octavius, beheld in a vision all the noble
children on the Capitol at the termination of a solemn procession to
Jupiter, and in the course of the ceremony the god cast what looked like
an image of Rome into that child's lap. Startled at this he went up into
the Capitol to offer prayers to the god, and finding there Octavius, who
had ascended the hill for some other reason, he compared his appearance
with the dream and was satisfied of the truth of the vision. When later
he had become a young man and was about to reach maturity, he was putting
on the dress of an adult when his tunic was rent on both sides from his
shoulders and fell to his feet. This event of itself not only had
no significance as forecasting any good fortune, but displeased the
spectators considerably because it had happened in his first putting on
the garb of a man: it occurred to Octavius to say: "I shall put the whole
senatorial dignity beneath my feet"; and the outcome proved in accordance
with his words. Caesar founded great hopes upon him as a result of
this, introduced him into the class of patricians and trained him for
rulership. In everything that is proper to come to the notice of one
destined to control so great a power well and worthily he educated him
with care. The youth was trained in oratorical speeches, not only in the
Latin but in this language [Greek], labored persistently in military
campaigns, and received minute instruction in politics and the science of
government.
[-3-] Now this Octavius chanced at the time that Caesar was murdered to
be in Apollonia near the Ionic Gulf, pursuing his education. He had been
sent thither in advance to look after his patron's intended campaign
against the Parthians. When he learned of the event he was naturally
grieved, but did not dare at once to take any radical measures. He had
not yet heard that he had been made Caesar's son or heir, and moreover the
first news he received was to the effect that the people were of one mind
in the affair. When, however, he had crossed to Brundusium and had been
informed about the will and the people's second thought, he made no
delay, particularly because he had considerable money and numerous
soldiers who had been sent on under his charge, but he immediately
assumed the name of Caesar, succeeded to his estate, and began to busy
himself with the situation. [-4-] At the time he seemed to some to have
acted recklessly and daringly in this, but later as a result of his
good fortune and the successes he achieved he acquired a reputation for
bravery. In many instances in history men who were wrong in undertaking
some project have been famed for wisdom because they proved fortunate in
it: others who used the best possible judgment have had to stand a charge
of folly because they did not attain their ends. He, too, acted in a
blundering and dangerous way; he was only just past boyhood,--eighteen
years of age,--and saw that the succession to the inheritance and the
family was sure to provoke jealousy and censure: yet he started in
pursuit of objects that had led to Caesar's murder, and no punishment
befell him, and he feared neither the assassins nor Lepidus and Antony.
Yet he was not thought to have planned poorly, because he became
successful. Heaven, however, indicated not obscurely all the upheaval
that would result from it. As he was entering Rome a great variegated
iris surrounded the whole sun.
[-5-] In this way he that was formerly called Octavius, but already at
this time Caesar, and subsequently Augustus, took charge of affairs and
settled them and brought them to a successful close more vigourously than
any mature man, more prudently than any graybeard. First he entered the
city as if for the sole purpose of succeeding to the inheritance, and as
a private citizen with only a few attendants, without any ostentation.
Still later he did not utter any threat against any one nor show that he
was displeased at what had occurred and would take vengeance for it. So
far from demanding of Antony any of the money that he had previously
plundered, he actually paid court to him although he was insulted and
wronged by him. Among the other injuries that Antony did him by both word
and deed was his action when the lex curiata was proposed, according to
which the transfer of Octavius into Caesar's family was to take place:
Antony himself, of course, was active to have it passed, but through some
tribunes he secured its postponement in order that the young man being
not yet Caesar's child according to law might not meddle with the property
and might be weaker in all other ways. [-6-] Caesar was restive under this
treatment, but as he was unable to speak his mind freely he bore it until
he had won over the crowd, by whose members he understood his father had
been raised to honor. He knew that they were angry at the latter's death
and hoped they would be enthusiastic over him as his son and perceived
that they hated Antony on account of his having been master of the horse
and also for his failure to punish the murderers. Hence he undertook to
become tribune as a starting point for popular leadership and to secure
the power that would result from it; and he accordingly became a
candidate for the place of Cinna, which was vacant. Though hindered
by Antony's clique he did not desist and after using persuasion upon
Tiberius Cannutius, a tribune, he was by him brought before the populace.
He took as an excuse the gift bequeathed by Caesar and in his speech
touched upon all the important points, promising that he would discharge
this debt at once, and gave them cause to hope for much besides. After
this came the festival appointed in honor of the completion of the temple
of Venus, which some, while Caesar was alive, had promised to celebrate,
but were now holding in, slight regard as they did the horse-race
connected with the Parilia;[6] and to win the favor of the populace he
provided for it at his private expense on the ground that it concerned
him because of his family. At this time out of fear of Antony he brought
into the theatre neither Caesar's gilded chair nor his crown set with
precious stones, though it was permitted by decree. [-7-] When, however,
a certain star through all those days appeared in the north toward
evening, some called it a comet, and said that it indicated the usual
occurrences; but the majority, instead of believing this, ascribed it
to Caesar, interpreting it to mean that he had become a god and had been
included in the number of the stars. Then Octavius took courage and set
up in the temple of Venus a bronze statue of him with a star above his
head. Through fear of the populace no one prevented this, and then, at
last, some of the earlier decrees in regard to honors to Caesar were put
into effect. They called one of the months July after him and in the
course of certain triumphal religious festivals they sacrificed during
one special day in memory of his name. For these reasons the soldiers
also, and particularly since some of them received largesses of money,
readily took the side of Caesar.
Rumors accordingly went abroad, and it seemed likely that something
unusual would take place. This idea gained most headway for the reason
that when Octavius was somewhat anxious to show himself in court in an
elevated and conspicuous place, as he had been wont to do in his father's
lifetime, Antony would not allow it, but had his lictors drag him down
and drive him out. [-8-] All were exceedingly vexed, and especially
because Caesar with a view to casting odium upon his rival and arousing
the multitude would no longer even frequent the Forum. So Antony became
terrified, and in conversation with the bystanders one day remarked
that he harbored no anger against Caesar, but on the contrary owed him
affection, and felt inclined to dispel the entire cloud of suspicion. The
statement was reported to the other, they held a conference, and some
thought they had become reconciled. As a fact they understood each
other's dispositions accurately, and, thinking it inopportune at that
time to put them to the test, they came to terms by making a few mutual
concessions. For some days they were quiet; then they began to suspect
each other afresh as a result of either some really hostile action
or some false report of hostility,--as regularly happens under such
conditions,--and were again at variance. When men become reconciled after
a great enmity they are suspicious of many acts that contain no malice
and of many chance occurrences. In brief, they regard everything, in the
light of their former hostility, as done on purpose and for an evil
end. While they are in this condition those who stand on neutral ground
aggravate the trouble, irritating them still more by bearing reports to
and fro under the pretence of devotion. There is a very large element
which is anxious to see all those who have power at variance with one
another,--an element which consequently takes delight in their enmity and
joins in plots against them. And the party which has previously suffered
from calumny is very easy to deceive with words adapted to the purpose
by a band of friends whose attachment is not under suspicion. This also
accounts for the fact that these men, who did not trust each other
previously, became now even more estranged.
[-9-] Antony seeing that Caesar was gaining ground attempted to attract
the populace by various baits, to see if he could detach the people from
his rival and number them among his own forces. Hence through Lucius
Antonius, his brother, who was tribune, he introduced a measure that
considerable land be opened for settlement, among the parcels being the
region of the Pontine marshes, which he stated had already been filled
and were capable of cultivation. The three Antonii, who were brothers,
all held office at the same time. Marcus was consul, Lucius tribune, and
Gaius praetor. Therefore they could very easily remove those who were
temporarily rulers of their allies and subjects (except the majority of
the assassins and some others whom they regarded as loyal) and choose
others in place of them: they could also grant some the right to hold
office for an unusually long term, contrary to the laws established by
Caesar. Also Macedonia, which fell to Marcus by lot, was appropriated
by his brother Gaius, but Marcus himself with the legions previously
despatched into Apollonia laid claim to Gaul on this side of the Alps, to
which Decimus Brutus had been assigned; the reason was that it seemed to
be very strong in resources of soldiers and money. After these measures
had been passed the immunity granted to Sextus Pompey by Caesar, as to all
the rest, was confirmed: he had already considerable influence. It was
further resolved that whatever moneys of silver or gold the public
treasury had taken from his ancestral estate should be restored. As
for the lands belonging to it Antony held the most of them and made no
restoration.
[-10-] This was the business in which they were engaged. But I shall now
go on to describe how Sextus had fared. When he had fled from Corduba, he
first came to Lacetania and concealed himself there. He was pursued, to
be sure, but eluded discovery through the fact that the natives were
kindly disposed to him out of regard for his father's memory. Later, when
Caesar had started for Italy and only a small army was left behind in
Baetica, he was joined both by the native inhabitants and by those who
escaped from the battle, and with them he came again into Baetica, because
he thought it more suitable for the carrying on of war. There he gained
possession of soldiers and cities, particularly after Caesar's death, some
voluntarily and some by violence; the commandant in charge of them, Gaius
Asinius Pollio, held a force that was far from strong. He next set out
against Spanish Carthage, but since in his absence Pollio made an attack
and did some damage, he returned with a large force, met his opponent,
and routed him. After that the following accident enabled him to startle
and conquer the rest, as well, who were contending fiercely. Pollio had
cast off his general's cloak, in order to suffer less chance of detection
in his flight, and another man of the same name, a brilliant horseman,
had fallen. The soldiers, hearing the name of the latter, who was lying
there, and seeing the garment which had been captured, were deceived, and
thinking that their general had perished surrendered. In this way Sextus
conquered and held possession of nearly that entire region. When he was
now a powerful factor, Lepidus arrived to govern the adjoining portion of
Spain, and persuaded him to enter into an agreement on condition that he
should recover his father's estate. Antony, influenced by his friendship
for Lepidus and by his hostility toward Caesar, caused such a decree to be
passed.
So Sextus, in this way and on these conditions, held aloof from Spain
proper. [-11-] Caesar and Antony in all their acts opposed each other, but
had not fallen out openly, and whereas in reality they were alienated
they tried to disguise the fact so far as appearances went. As a result
all other interests in the city were in a most undecided state and
condition of turmoil. People were still at peace and yet already at war.
Liberty led but a shadow existence, and the deeds done were the deeds
of royalty. To a casual observer Antony, since he held the consulship,
seemed to be getting the best of it, but the enthusiasm of the masses was
for Caesar. This was partly on his father's account, partly on account of
the hopes he held out to them, but above all because they were displeased
at the considerable power of Antony and were inclined to assist Caesar
while he was yet devoid of strength. Neither man had their affection, but
they were always eager for a change of administration, and it was their
nature to try to overthrow every superior force and to help any party
that was being oppressed. Consequently they made use of the two to suit
their own desires. After they had at this period humbled Antony through
the instrumentality of Caesar they next undertook to destroy the latter
also. Their irritation toward the men temporarily in power and their
liking for the weaker side made them attempt to overthrow the former.
Later they became estranged from the weaker also. Thus they showed
dislike for each of them in turn and the same men experienced their
affection and their hatred, their support and their active opposition.
[-12-] While they were maintaining the above attitude toward Caesar and
Antony, the war began as follows. Antony had set out for Brundusium to
meet the soldiers who had crossed over from Macedonia. Caesar sent some
persons to that city with money, who were to arrive there before Antony
and win over the men, and himself went to Campania, where he collected
a large crowd of men, chiefly from Capua because the people there had
received their land and city from his father, whom he said he was
avenging. He made them many promises and gave them on the spot five
hundred denarii apiece. These men usually constituted the corps of
evocati, whom one might term in Greek "the recalled", because having
ended their service they have been recalled to it again. Caesar took
charge of them, hastened to Rome before Antony could make his way back,
and came before the people, who had been made ready for him by Cannutius.
There he called to their minds in detail all the excellent works his
father had done, made a considerable, though moderate, defence of
himself, and brought accusations against Antony. He also praised
the soldiers who had accompanied him, saying that they were present
voluntarily to lend aid to the city, that they had elected him to preside
over the State and that through his mouth they made known these facts to
all. For this speech he received the approbation of his following and of
the throng that stood by, after which he departed for Etruria with a view
to obtaining an accession to his forces from that country.
[-13-] While he was doing this Antony had been at first kindly received
in Brundusium by the soldiers, because they expected they would secure
more from him than was offered them by Caesar. This belief was based
on the idea that he had possession of much more than his rival. When,
however, he promised to give each of them a hundred denarii, they raised
an outcry, but he reduced them to submission by ordering centurions as
well as others to be slain before the eyes of himself and his wife. For
the time being the soldiers were quiet, but on the way toward Gaul when
they arrived opposite the capital they revolted, and many of them,
despising the lieutenants that had been set over them, arrayed themselves
on Caesar's side. The so-called Martian and the fourth legion went over to
him in a body. He took charge of them and won their attachment by giving
money to all alike,--an act which added many more to his troops. He also
captured all the elephants of Antony, by confronting the train suddenly
as they were being conducted along. Antony stopped in Rome only long
enough to arrange a few affairs and to bind by oath all the rest of the
soldiers and the senators who were in their company; then he set out for
Gaul, fearing that that country too might indulge in an uprising. Caesar
without delay followed behind him.
[-14-] Decimus Brutus was at this time governor of that province, and
Antony set great hopes upon him, because he had been a slayer of Caesar.
But it turned out as follows. Decimus did not look askance particularly
at Caesar, for the latter had uttered no threats against the assassins: on
the other hand, he saw that Antony was no more formidable a foe than his
rival, or, indeed, than himself or any of the rest who were in power as
a result of natural acquisitiveness; therefore he refused to give ground
before him. Caesar, when he heard this decision, was for some time at a
loss what course to adopt. The young man hated both Decimus and Antony
but saw no way in which he could contend against them both at once. He
was by no means yet a match for either one of the two, and he was further
afraid that if he risked such a move he should throw them into each
other's arms and face the united opposition of the two. After stopping to
reflect that the struggle with Antony was already begun and was urgent,
but that it was not yet a fitting season for taking vengeance for his
father, he decided to make a friend of Decimus. He understood well that
he should find no great difficulty in fighting against the latter, if
with his aid he could first overcome his adversaries, but that Antony
would be a powerful antagonist on any subsequent occasion. So much did
they differ from each other. [-15-] Accordingly he sent a messenger to
Decimus, proposing friendship and promising alliance, if he would refuse
to receive Antony. This proposal caused the people in the city likewise
to join in expressing their gratitude to Caesar. Just at this time the
year was drawing to a close and no consul was on the ground, Dolabella
having been previously sent by Antony to Syria. Eulogies, however, were
delivered in the senate by the members themselves and by the soldiers who
had abandoned Antony,--with the concurrence also of the tribunes. When
they entered upon the new year they decided, in order that they might
discuss freely existing conditions, to employ a guard of soldiers
at their meetings. This pleased nearly all who were in Rome at the
time,--for they cordially detested Antony,--but particularly Cicero. He,
on account of his bitter and long-standing hostility toward the man, paid
court to Caesar, and so far as he could, by speech and action, strove to
assist him in every way and to injure Antony. It was for this reason
that, when he had left the city to escort his son to Athens for the
benefit of his education, he had returned on ascertaining that the two
were publicly estranged.
[-16-] Besides these events which took place that year Servilius
Isauricus died at a very advanced age. I have mentioned him both for that
fact and to show how the Romans of that period respected men who were
prominent through merit and hated those who behaved insolently, even on
the very slightest grounds. This Servilius while walking had once met on
the road a man on horseback, who so far from dismounting on his approach
spurned him violently aside. Later he recognized the fellow in a
defendant of a case in court, and when he mentioned the affair to the
judge, they paid no further attention to the man's plea, but unanimously
condemned him.
[B.C. 43 (a.u. 711)]
[-17-] In the consulship of Aldus Hirtius (who was now appointed consul
in spite of the fact that his father's name had been posted on the
tablets of Sulla), with his colleague Gaius Vibius, a meeting of the
senate was held and votes were taken for three successive days, including
the first of the month itself. As a result of the war which was upon them
and the portents, very numerous and extremely unfavorable, which took
place, they were so excited that they failed to pass over these _dies
nefasti_ on which they ought not to deliberate on any matter touching
their interests. Ominous had been the falling of great numbers of
thunderbolts, some of which descended on the shrine sacred to Capitoline
Jupiter, that stood in the temple of Victory. Also a great wind arose
which snapped and scattered the columns erected about the temple of
Saturn and the shrine of Fides, and likewise knocked down and shattered
the statue of Minerva the Protectress, which Cicero had set up on the
Capitol before his exile. This portended, of course, the death of Cicero
himself. Another thing that frightened the rest of the population was
a great earthquake which occurred, and the fact that a bull which was
sacrificed on account of it in the temple of Vesta leaped up after the
ceremony. In addition to these clear indications of danger a flash darted
across from the place of the rising sun to the place of its setting and a
new star was seen for several days. Then the light of the sun seemed to
be diminished and even extinguished, and at times to appear in three
circles, one of which was surmounted by a fiery crown of sheaves. This,
if anything, proved as clear a sign as possible to them. For three men
were in power,--I mean Caesar and Lepidus and Antony,--and of them Caesar
subsequently secured the victory. At the same time that these things
occurred all sorts of oracles tending to the downfall of the democracy
were recited. Crows, moreover, flew into the temple of the Dioscuri and
pecked out the names of the consuls and of Antony and of Dolabella, which
were inscribed there somewhere on a tablet. And by night dogs in large
numbers gathered throughout the city and especially near the house of the
high priest, Lepidus, and set up howls. Again, the Po, which had flooded
a large portion of the surrounding territory, suddenly receded and left
behind on the dry land a vast number of snakes. Countless fish were cast
up from the sea on the shore near the mouth of the Tiber. Succeeding
these terrors a plague spread over nearly the whole of Italy in a
malignant form, and in view of this the senate voted that the Curia
Hostilia[7] should be rebuilt and the spot where the naval battle had
taken place be filled up. However, the curse did not appear disposed to
rest even at this point, especially when during Vibius's conduct of the
initial sacrifices on the first of the month one of his lictors suddenly
fell down and died. Because of these events many men in the course of
those days took one side or the other in their speeches and advice, and
among the deliverances was the following, of Cicero:--[-18-] "You have
heard recently, Conscript Fathers, when I made a statement to you about
the matter, why I made preparations for my departure as if I were going
to be absent from the city a very long time and then returned rapidly
with the idea that I could benefit you greatly. I would not endure an
existence under a sovereignty or a tyranny, since under such forms of
government I can not enjoy the rights of free[8] citizenship nor speak
my mind safely nor die in a way that is of service to you; and again, if
opportunity is afforded to obey any of duty's calls, I would not shrink
from action, though it involved danger. I deem it the task of an upright
man equally to keep watch over himself for his country's interests
(guarding himself that he may not perish uselessly), and in this course
of action not to fail to say or do whatever is requisite, even if it be
necessary to suffer some harm in preserving his native land.
[-19-] "These assumptions granted, a large degree of safety was afforded
by Caesar both to you and to me for the discussion of pressing questions.
And since you have further voted to assemble under guard, we must frame
all our words and behavior this day in such a fashion as to establish
the present state of affairs and provide for the future, that we may
not again be compelled to decide in a similar way about it. That our
condition is difficult and dangerous and requires much care and attention
you yourselves have made evident, if in no other way, at least by this
measure. For you would not have voted to keep the senate-house under
guard, if it had been possible for you to deliberate at all with your
accustomed orderliness, and in quiet, free from fear. It is necessary for
us even on account of the presence of the soldiers to accomplish some
measure of importance, that we may not incur the disgrace that would
certainly follow from asking for them as if we feared somebody, and then
neglecting affairs as if we were liable to no danger. We shall appear to
have acquired them only nominally in behalf of the city against Antony,
but to have given them in reality to him against our own selves, and it
will look as if in addition to the other legions which he gathers against
his country he needed to acquire these very men and so prevent your
passing any vote against him even to-day.
[-20-] "Yet some have attained such a height of shamelessness as to dare
to say that he is not warring against the State and have credited you
with so great folly as to think that they will persuade you to attend to
their words rather than to his acts. But who would choose to desist from
regarding his performances and the campaign which he has made against our
allies without any orders from the senate or the people, the countries
which he is overrunning, the cities which he is besieging, and the hopes
upon which he is building in his entire course,--who would distrust, I
say, the evidence of his own eyes, and to his ruin yield credence to the
words of these men and their false statements, by which they put you off
with pretexts and excuses?
I myself am far from asserting that in doing this he is carrying out any
legal act of administration. On the contrary, because he has abandoned
the province of Macedonia, which was assigned to him by lot, and because
he chose instead the province of Gaul, which in no way pertained to him,
and because he assumed control of the legions which Caesar had sent ahead
against the Parthians, keeping them about him though no danger threatens
Italy, and because he has left the city during the period of his
consulship to go about pillaging and injuring the country,--for all these
reasons I declare that he has long been an enemy of us all. [-21-] If you
did not perceive it immediately at the start or experience vexation
at each of his actions, he deserves to be hated all the more on
this account, in that he does not cease injuring you, who are so
long-suffering. He might perchance have obtained pardon for the errors
which he committed at first, but now by his perseverance in evil he has
reached such a pitch of knavery that he ought to be brought to book for
his former offences as well. And you ought to be especially careful in
regard to the situation, noticing and considering this point,--that the
man who has so often despised you in such weighty matters cannot submit
to be corrected by the same gentleness and kindliness that you have
shown, but must now against his will, even though never previously, be
chastised by force of arms.
"And because he partly persuaded and partly compelled you to vote
him some privileges, do not think that this makes him less guilty or
deserving of less punishment. Quite the reverse,--for this very procedure
in particular he merits the infliction of a penalty: he determined from
the outset to commit many outrages, and after accomplishing some of them
through you, he employed against your own selves the resources which came
from you, which by deception, he forced you to vote to him, though you
neither knew nor foresaw any such result. On what occasion did you
voluntarily abolish the commands given by Caesar or by the lot to each
man, and allow this person to distribute many appointments to his friends
and companions, sending his brother Gaius to Macedonia, and assigning
Gaul to himself with the aid of the legions which he was not by any means
keeping to use in your defence? Do you not remember how, when he found
you startled at Caesar's demise, he carried out all the plans that
he chose, communicating some to you carefully dissimulated and at
inopportune moments, and on his own responsibility executing others that
inflicted injuries, while all his acts were characterized by violence? He
used soldiers, and barbarians at that, against you. And need any one be
surprised that in those days some vote was passed which should not have
been, when even now we have not obtained a free hand to speak and do what
is requisite in any other way than by the aid of a body-guard? If we had
been formerly endued with this power, he would not have obtained what any
one may say he has obtained, nor would he have risen to the prominence
enabling him to do the deeds that were a natural sequence. Accordingly,
let no one retort that the rights which we were seen to give him under
command and compulsion and amid laments were legally and rightfully
bestowed. For, even in private business, that is not considered binding
which a man does under compulsion from another.
[-23-] "And yet all these measures which you are seen to have voted you
will find to be slight and varying but little from established custom.
What was there dreadful in the fact that one man was destined to govern
Macedonia or Gaul in place of another? Or what was the harm if a man
obtained soldiers during his consulship? But these are the facts that are
harmful and abominable,--that your land should be damaged, allied cities
besieged, that our soldiers should be armed against us and our means
expended to our detriment: this you neither voted nor intended. Do not,
merely because you have granted him some privileges, allow him to usurp
what was not granted him; and do not think that just as you have conceded
some points he ought similarly to be permitted to do what has not been
conceded. Quite the reverse: you should for this very reason both hate
and punish him, because he has dared not only in this case but in all
other cases to use the honor and kindness that you bestowed against you.
Look at the matter. Through my influence you voted that there should be
peace and harmony between individuals. This man was ordered to manage the
business, and conducted it in such a way (taking Caesar's funeral as a
pretext) that almost the whole city was burned down and great numbers
were once more slaughtered. You ratified all the grants made to various
persons and all the laws laid down by Caesar, not because they were
all excellent--far from it! ,--but because our mutual and unsuspecting
association, quite free from any disguise, was not furthered by changing
any one of those enactments. This man, appointed to examine into them,
has abolished many of his acts and has substituted many others in the
documents. He has taken away lands and citizenship and exemption from
taxes and many other honors from the possessors,--private individuals,
kings, and cities,--and has given them to men who had not received any,
altering the memoranda of Caesar; from those who were unwilling to give
up anything to his grasp he took away even what had been given them,
and sold this and everything else to such as wished to buy. Yet you,
foreseeing this very possibility, had voted that no tablet should be set
up after Caesar's death which might contain any article given by him to
any person. Notwithstanding, it happened many times after that. He also
said it was necessary for some provisions found in Caesar's papers to be
specially noted and put into effect. You then assigned to him, in company
with the foremost men, the task of making these excerpts; but he, paying
no attention to his colleagues, carried out everything alone according to
his wishes, in regard to the laws, the exiles, and other points which I
enumerated a few moments since. This is the way in which he wishes to
execute all your decrees.
[-24-] "Has he then shown himself such a character only in these affairs,
while managing the rest rightly? In what instance? On what motive? He was
ordered to search for and declare the public money left behind by Caesar,
and did he not seize it, paying some of it to his creditors and spending
some on high living so that he no longer has even any of this left? You
hated the name of dictator on account of Caesar's sovereignty and rejected
it entirely from the constitution: but is it not true that Antony, though
he has avoided adopting it (as if the name in itself could do any harm),
has exhibited the behavior belonging to it and the greed for gain, under
the title of consulship? You assigned to him the duty of promoting
harmony, and has he not on his own responsibility begun this great war,
neither necessary nor sanctioned, against Caesar and Decimus, whom you
approve? Innumerable cases might be mentioned, if one wished to go into
details, in which you entrusted business to him to manage as consul, and
he has not conducted a single bit of it as the circumstances demanded,
but has done quite the opposite, using against you the authority that you
imparted. Now will you assume to yourself also these errors that he has
committed and say that you yourselves are responsible for all that has
happened, because you assigned to him the management and investigation of
the matters in question? It is ridiculous. If some general or envoy that
had been chosen should fail in every way to do his duty, you who sent him
would not incur the blame for this. It would be a sorry state of things,
if all who are elected to perform some work should themselves receive the
advantages and the honors, but lay upon you the complaints and the blame.
[-25-] Accordingly, there is no sense in paying any heed to him when he
says: 'It was you who permitted me to govern Gaul, you ordered me to
administer the public finances, you gave me the legions from Macedonia.'
Perhaps these measures were voted--yet ought you to put it that way, and
not instead exact punishment from him for his action in compelling you to
make that decision? At any rate, you never at any time gave him the
right to restore the exiles, to add laws surreptitiously, to sell the
privileges of citizenship and exemption from taxes, to steal the public
funds, to plunder the possessions of allies, to abuse the cities, or
to undertake to play the tyrant over his native country. And you never
conceded to any one else all that was desired, though you have granted by
your votes many things to many persons; on the contrary you have always
punished such men so far as you could, as you will also punish him, if
you take my advice. For it is not in these matters alone that he has
shown himself to be such a man as you know and have seen him to be, but
briefly in all undertakings which he has ever attempted to perform for
the commonwealth.
[-26-] "His private life and his private examples of licentiousness
and avarice I shall willingly pass over, not because one would fail to
discover that he had committed many abominable outrages in the course of
them, but because, by Hercules, I am ashamed to describe minutely and
separately--especially to you who know it as well as I--how he conducted
his youth among you who were boys at the time, how he auctioned off
the vigor of his prime, his secret lapses from chastity, his open
fornications, what he let be done to him as long as it was possible, what
he did as early as he could, his revels, his periods of drunkenness, and
all the rest that follows in their train. It is impossible for a person
brought up in so great licentiousness and shamelessness to avoid defiling
his entire life: and so from his private concerns he brought his lewdness
and greed to bear upon public matters. On this I will refrain from
dilating, and likewise by Jupiter on his visit to Gabinius in Egypt
and his flight to Caesar in Gaul, that I may not be charged with going
minutely into every detail; for I feel ashamed for you, that knowing him
to be such a man you appointed him tribune and master of the horse and
subsequently consul. I will at present recite only his drunken insolence
and abuses in these very positions.
[-27-] "Well, then, when he was tribune he first of all prevented you
from settling suitably the work you then had in hand by shouting and
bawling and alone of all the people opposing the public peace of the
State, until you became vexed and because of his conduct passed the vote
that you did. Then, though by law he was not permitted to be absent from
town a single night, he escaped from the city, abandoning the duties of
his office, and, having gone as a deserter to Caesar's camp, guided the
latter back as a foe to his country, drove you out of Rome and all the
rest of Italy, and, in short, became the prime cause of all the civil
disorders that have since taken place among you. Had he not at that time
acted contrary to your wishes, Caesar would never have found an excuse for
the war and could not, in spite of all his shamelessness, have gathered a
competent force in defiance of your resolutions; but he would have
either voluntarily laid down his arms, or been brought to his senses
unwillingly. As it is, this fellow is the man who furnished him with the
excuses, who destroyed the prestige of the senate, who increased the
audacity of the soldiers. He it is who planted the seeds of evils which
sprang up afterward: he it is who has proved the common bane not only of
us, but also of practically the whole world, as, indeed, Heaven rather
plainly indicated. When, that is to say, he proposed those astonishing
laws, the whole air was filled with thunder and lightning. Yet this
accursed wretch paid no attention to them, though he claims to be a
soothsayer, but filled not only the city but the whole world with the
evils and wars which I mentioned.
[-28-] "Now after this is there any need of mentioning that he served as
master of the horse an entire year, something which had never before been
done? Or that during this period also he was drunk and abusive and in the
assemblies would frequently vomit the remains of yesterday's debauch on
the rostra itself, in the midst of his harangues? Or that he went about
Italy at the head of pimps and prostitutes and buffoons, women as well as
men, in company with the lictors bearing festoons of laurel? Or that he
alone of mankind dared to buy the property of Pompey, having no regard
for his own dignity or the great man's memory, but grasping eagerly those
possessions over which we even now as at that time shed a tear? He threw
himself upon this and many other estates with the evident intention of
making no recompense for them. Yet with all his insolence and violence
the price was nevertheless collected, for Caesar took this way of
discountenancing his act. And all that he has acquired, vast in extent
and gathered from every source, he has consumed in dicing, consumed in
harlotry, consumed in feasting, consumed in drinking, like a second
Charybdis.
[-29-] "Of this behavior I shall make no chronicle. But on the subject of
the insults which he offered to the State and the assassinations which
he caused throughout the whole city alike how can any man be silent? Is
memory lacking of how oppressive the very sight of him was to you, but
most of all his deeds? He dared, O thou earth and ye gods, first in
this place, within the wall, in the Forum, in the senate-house, on the
Capitol, at one and the same time to array himself in the purple-bordered
garb, to gird a sword on his thigh, to employ lictors, and to be escorted
by armed soldiers. Next, whereas he might have checked the turmoil of the
citizens, he not only failed to do so, but set you at variance when you
were in concord, partly by his own acts and partly through the medium
of others. Moreover he directed his attention in turn to the latter
themselves, and by now assisting them and now abandoning them[9] incurred
full responsibility for great numbers of them being slain and for the
fact that the entire region of Pontus and of the Parthians was not
subdued at that time immediately after the victory over Pharnaces. Caesar,
being called hither in haste to see what he was doing, did not finish
entirely any of those projects, as he was surely intending.
[-30-] "Even this result did not sober him, but when he was consul he
came naked, naked, Conscript Fathers, and anointed into the Forum, taking
the Lupercalia as an excuse, then proceeded in company with his lictors
to the rostra, and there harangued us from the elevation. From the day
the city was founded no one can point to any one else, even a praetor or
tribune or aedile, let alone a consul, who has done such a thing. To be
sure it was the festival of the Lupercalia, and the Lupercalia had been
put in charge of the Julian College[10]; yes, and Sextus Clodius had
trained him to conduct himself so, upon receipt of two thousand plethra
of the land of Leontini[11]. But you were consul, respected sir (for I
will address you as though you were present), and it was neither proper
nor permissible for you as such to speak in such a way in the Forum, hard
by the rostra, with all of us present, and to cause us both to behold
your remarkable body, so corpulent and detestable, and to hear your
accursed voice, choked with unguent, speaking those outrageous words; for
I will preferably confine my comment to this point about your mouth. The
Lupercalia would not have missed its proper reverence, but you disgraced
the whole city at once,--not to speak a word yet about your remarks on
that occasion. Who is unaware that the consulship is public, the property
of the whole people, that its dignity must be preserved everywhere, and
that its holder must nowhere strip naked or behave wantonly? [-31-] Did
he perchance imitate the famous Horatius of old or Cloelia of bygone
days? But the latter swam across the river with all her clothing, and
the former cast himself with his armor into the flood. It would be
fitting--would it not?--to set up also a statue of this consul, so that
people might contrast the one man armed in the Tiber and the other naked
in the Forum. It was by such conduct as has been cited that those heroes
of yore were wont to preserve us and give us liberty, while he took away
all our liberty from us, so far as was in his power, destroyed the whole
democracy, set up a despot in place of a consul, a tyrant in place of
a dictator over us. You remember the nature of his language when he
approached the rostra, and the style of his behavior when he had ascended
it. But when a man who is a Roman and a consul has dared to name any one
King of the Romans in the Roman Forum, close to the rostra of liberty, in
the presence of the entire people and the entire senate, and straightway
to set the diadem upon his head and further to affirm falsely in the
hearing of us all that we ourselves bade him say and do this, what most
outrageous deed will that man not dare, and from what action, however
revolting, will he refrain? [-32-] Did we lay this injunction upon you,
Antony, we who expelled the Tarquins, who cherished Brutus, who hurled
Capitolinus headlong, who put to death the Spurii?[12] Did we order you
to salute any one as king, when we have laid a curse upon the very name
of monarch and furthermore upon that of dictator as the most similar? Did
we command you to appoint any one tyrant, we who repulsed Pyrrhus from
Italy, who drove back Antiochus beyond the Taurus, who put an end to the
tyranny even in Macedonia? No, by the rods of Valerius and the law of
Porcius, no, by the leg of Horatius and the hand of Mucius, no, by the
spear of Decius and the sword of Brutus! But you, unspeakable villain,
begged and pleaded to be made a slave as Postumius pleaded to be
delivered to the Samnites, as Regulus to be given back to the
Carthaginians, as Curtius to be thrown into the chasm. And where did
you find this recorded? In the same place where you discovered that the
Cretans had been made free after Brutus was their governor, when we voted
after Caesar's death that he should govern them.
[-33-] "So then, seeing that you have detected his baneful disposition
in so many and so great enterprises, will you not take vengeance on him
instead of waiting to learn by experience what the man who caused so much
trouble naked will do to you when he is armed? Do you think that he is
not eager for the tyrant's power, that he does not pray to obtain it some
day, or that he will put the pursuit of it out of his thoughts, when he
has once allowed it a resting-place in his mind, and that he will ever
abandon the hope of sole rulership for which he has spoken and acted so
impudently without punishment! What human being who, while master of his
own voice, would undertake to help some one else secure an honor, would
not appropriate it himself when he became powerful? Who that has dared
to nominate another as tyrant over his country and himself at once would
himself refuse to be monarch? [-34-] Hence, even if you spared him
formerly, you must hate him now for these acts. Do not desire to learn
what he will do when his success equals his wishes, but on the basis of
his previous ventures plan beforehand to suffer no further outrages. What
defence could any one make of what took place? That Caesar acted rightly
at that time in accepting neither the name of king nor the diadem? If so,
this man did wrong to offer something which pleased not even Caesar. Or,
on the other hand, that the latter erred in enduring at all to look on at
and listen to such proceedings? If so, and Caesar justly suffered death
for this error, does not this man, admitted in a certain way that he
desired a tyranny, most richly deserve to perish? That this is so is
evident from what I have previously said, but is proved most clearly by
what he did after that. What other end than supremacy had he in mind that
he has undertaken to cause agitation and to meddle in private business,
when he might have enjoyed quiet with safety? What other end, that he has
entered upon campaigns and warfare, when it was in his power to remain at
home without danger? For what reason, when many have disliked to go out
and take charge even of the offices that belonged to them, does he not
only lay claim to Gaul, which pertains to him in not the slightest
degree, but use force upon it because of its unwillingness? For what
reason, when Decimus Brutus is ready to surrender to us himself and
his soldiers and the cities, has this man not imitated him, instead of
besieging and shutting him up? The only interpretation to be put upon it
is that he is strengthening himself in this and every other way against
us, and to no other end.
[-35-] "Seeing this, do we delay and give way to weakness and train up so
monstrous a tyrant against our own selves? Is it not disgraceful that our
forefathers, brought up in slavery, felt the desire for liberty, but we
who have lived under an independent government become slaves of our own
free will? Or again, that we were glad to rid ourselves of the dominion
of Caesar, though we had first received many favors from his hands, and
accept in his stead this man, a self-elected despot, who is far worse
than he; this allegation is proved by the fact that Caesar spared many
after his victories in war, but this follower of his before attaining any
power has slaughtered three hundred soldiers, among them some centurions,
guilty of no wrong, at home, in his own quarters, before the face and
eyes of his wife, so that she too was defiled with blood. What do you
think that the man who treated them so cruelly, when he owed them
care, will refrain from doing to all of you,--aye, down to the utmost
outrage,--if he shall conquer? And how can you believe that the man who
has lived so licentiously even to the present time will not proceed to
all extremes of wantonness, if he shall further secure the authority
given by arms?
[-36-] "Do not, then, wait until you have suffered some such treatment
and begin to rue it, but guard yourselves before you are molested. It is
out of the question to allow dangers to come upon you and then repent of
it, when you might have anticipated them. And do not choose to neglect
the seriousness of the present situation and then ask again for another
Cassius or some more Brutuses. It is ridiculous, when we have the power
of aiding ourselves in time, to seek later on men to set us free. Perhaps
we should not even find them, especially if we handle in such a way
the present situation. Who would privately choose to run risks for the
democracy, when he sees that we are publicly resigned to slavery? It must
be evident to every man that Antony will not rest contented with what
he is now doing, but that in far off and small concerns even he is
strengthening himself against us. He is warring against Decimus and
besieging Mutina for no other purpose than to provide himself, by
conquering and capturing them, with resources against us. He has not been
wronged by them that he can appear to be defending himself, nor does he
merely desire the property that they possess and with this in mind endure
toils and dangers, while ready and willing to relinquish that belonging
to us, who own their property and much beside. Shall we wait for him to
secure the prize and still more, and so become a dangerous foe? Shall we
trust his deception when he says that he is not warring against the City?
[-37-] Who is so silly as to decide whether a man is making war on us or
not by his words rather than by his deeds? I do not say that now for the
first time is he unfriendly to us, when he has abandoned the City and
made a campaign against allies and is assailing Brutus and besieging the
cities; but on the basis of his former evil and licentious behavior, not
only after Caesar's death but even in the latter's lifetime, I decide that
he has shown himself an enemy of our government and liberty and a plotter
against them. Who that loved his country or hated tyranny would have
committed a single one of the many and manifold offences laid to this
man's charge? From every point of view he is proved to have long been an
enemy of ours, and the case stands as follows. If we now take measures
against him with all speed, we shall get back all that has been lost:
but if, neglecting to do this, we wait till he himself admits that he is
plotting against us, we shall lose everything. This he will never do, not
even if he should actually march upon the City, any more than Marius or
Cinna or Sulla did. But if he gets control of affairs, he will not fail
to act precisely as they did, or still worse. Men who are anxious to
accomplish an object are wont to say one thing, and those who have
succeeded in accomplishing it are wont to do quite a different thing. To
gain their end they pretend anything, but having obtained it they deny
themselves the gratification of no desire. Furthermore, the last born
always desire to surpass what their predecessors have ventured: they
think it a small thing to behave like them and do something that has been
effected before, but determine that something original is the only thing
worthy of them, because unexpected.
[-38-] "Seeing this, then, Conscript Fathers, let us no longer delay nor
fall a prey to the indolence that the moment inspires, but let us take
thought for the safety that concerns the future. Surely it is a shame
when Caesar, who has just emerged from boyhood and was recently registered
among those having attained years of discretion, shows such great
interest in the State as to spend his money and gather soldiers for
its preservation that we should neither ourselves perform our duty
nor coöperate with him even after obtaining a tangible proof of his
good-will. Who is unaware that if he had not reached here with the
soldiers from Campania, Antony would certainly have come rushing from
Brundusium instanter, just as he was, and would have burst into our city
with all his armies like a winter torrent?[13] There is, moreover, a
striking inconsistency in our conduct. Men who have long been campaigning
voluntarily have put themselves at your service for the present crisis,
regarding neither their age nor the wounds which they received in past
years while fighting for you, and you both refuse to ratify the war in
which these very men elected to serve, and show yourselves inferior to
them, who are ready to face dangers; for while you praise the soldiers
that detected the defilement of Antony and withdrew from him, though he
was consul, and attached themselves to Caesar, (that is, to you through
him), you shrink from voting for that which you say they were right in
doing. Also we are grateful to Brutus that he did not even at the
start admit Antony to Gaul, and is trying to repel him now that Antony
confronts him with a force. Why in the world do we not ourselves do the
same? Why do we not imitate the rest whom we praise for their sound
judgment? There are only two courses open to us. [-39-] One is to say
that all these men,--Caesar, I mean, and Brutus, the old soldiers, the
legions,--have decided wrongly and ought to submit to punishment, because
without our sanction or that of the people they have dared to offer armed
resistance to their consul, some having deserted his standard, and others
having been gathered against him. The other is to say that Antony by
reason of his deeds has in our judgment long since admitted that he is
our enemy and by public consent ought to be chastised by us all. No one
can be ignorant that the latter decision is not only more just but more
expedient for us. The man neither understands how to handle business
himself (how or by what means could a person that lives in drunkenness
and dicing?) nor has he any companion who is of any account. He loves
only such as are like himself and makes them the confidants of all his
open and secret undertakings. Also he is most cowardly in extreme dangers
and most treacherous even to his intimate friends, neither of which
qualities is suited for generalship or war. [-40-] Who can be unaware
that this very man caused all our internal troubles and then shared the
dangers to the slightest possible degree? He tarried long in Brundusium
through cowardice, so that Caesar was isolated and on account of him
almost failed: likewise he held aloof from all succeeding wars,--that
against the Egyptians, against Pharnaces, the African, and the Spanish.
Who is unaware that he won the favor of Clodius, and after using the
latter's tribuneship for the most outrageous ends would have killed him
with his own hand, if I had accepted this promise from him? Again, in the
matter of Caesar, he was first associated with him as quaestor, when Caesar
was praetor in Spain, next attached himself to him during the tribuneship,
contrary to the liking of us all, and later received from him countless
money and excessive honors: in return for this he tried to inspire his
patron with a desire for supremacy, which led to talk against him and was
more than anything else responsible for Caesar's death.
[-41-] "Yet he once stated that it was I who directed the assassins to
their work. He is so senseless as to venture to invent so great praise
for me. And I for my part do not affirm that he was the actual slayer of
Caesar,--not because he was not willing, but because in this, too, he was
timid,--yet by the very course of his actions I say that Caesar perished
at his hands. For this is the man who provided a motive, so that there
seemed to be some justice in plotting against him, this is he who called
him 'king', who gave him the diadem, who previously slandered him
actually to his friends. Do I rejoice at the death of Caesar, I, who never
enjoyed anything but liberty at his hands, and is Antony grieved, who has
rapaciously seized his whole property and committed many injuries on
the pretext of his letters, and is finally hastening to succeed to his
position of ruler?
[-42-] "But I return to the point that he has none of the qualities of a
great general or such as to bring victory, and does not possess many or
formidable forces. The majority of the soldiers and the best ones have
abandoned him to his fate, and also, by Jupiter, he has been deprived
of the elephants. The remainder have perfected themselves rather in
outraging and pillaging the possessions of the allies than in waging war,
A proof of the sort of spirit that animates them lies in the fact that
they still adhere to him, and of their lack of fortitude in that they
have not taken Mutina, though they have now been besieging it for so long
a time. Such is the condition of Antony and of his followers found to be.
But Caesar and Brutus and those arrayed with them are firmly intrenched
without outside aid; Caesar, in fact, has won over many of his rival's
soldiers, and Brutus is keeping the same usurper out of Gaul: and if you
come to their assistance, first by approving what they have done of their
own motion, next by ratifying their acts, at the same time giving them
legal authority for the future, and next by sending out both the consuls
to take charge of the war, it is not possible that any of his present
associates will continue to aid him. However, even if they should cling
to him most tenaciously, they would not he able to resist all the rest
at once, but he will either lay down his arms voluntarily, as soon as
he ascertains that you have passed this vote, and place himself in your
hands, or he will be captured involuntarily as the result of one battle.
"I give you this advice, and, if it had been my lot to be consul, I
should have certainly carried it out, as I did in former days when I
defended you against Catiline and Lentulus (a relative of this very man),
who had formed a conspiracy. [-43-] Perhaps some one of you regards these
statements as well put, but thinks we ought first to despatch envoys to
him, then, after learning his decision, in case he will voluntarily give
up his arms and submit himself to you, to take no action, but if he
sticks to the same principles, then to declare war upon him: this is the
advice which I hear some persons wish to give you. This policy is very
attractive in theory, but in fact it is disgraceful and dangerous to the
city. Is it not disgraceful that you should employ heralds and embassies
to citizens? With foreign nations it is proper and necessary to treat by
heralds in advance, but upon citizens who are at all guilty you should
inflict punishment straightway, by trying them in court if you can get
them under the power of your votes, and by warring against them if you
find them in arms. All such are slaves of you and of the people and of
the laws, whether they wish it or not; and it is not fitting either to
coddle them or to put them on an equal footing with the highest class of
free persons, but to pursue and chastise them like runaway servants, with
a feeling of your own superiority. [-44-] Is it not a disgrace that he
should not delay to wrong us, but we delay to defend ourselves? Or again,
that he should for a long time, weapons in hand, have been carrying on
the entire practice of war, while we waste time in decrees and embassies,
and that we should retaliate only with letters and phrases upon the man
whom we have long since discovered by his deeds to be a wrongdoer? What
do we expect? That he will some day render us obedience and pay us
respect? How can this prove true of a man who has come into such a
condition that he would not be able, even should he wish it, to be an
ordinary citizen with you under a democratic government? If he were
willing to conduct his life on fair and equitable principles, he would
never have entered in the first place upon such a career as his: and if
he had done it under the influence of folly or recklessness, he would
certainly have given it up speedily of his own accord. As the case
stands, since he has once overstepped the limits imposed by the laws and
the government and has acquired some power and authority by this action,
it is not conceivable that he would change of his own free will or heed
any one of our resolutions, but it is absolutely requisite that such a
man should be chastised with those very weapons with which he has dared
to wrong us. [-45-] And I beg you now to remember particularly a sentence
which this man himself once uttered, that it is impossible for you to be
saved, unless you conquer. Hence those who bid you send envoys are doing
nothing else than planning how you may be dilatory and the body of your
allies become as a consequence more feeble and dispirited; while he, on
the other hand, will be doing whatever he pleases, will destroy Decimus,
storm Mutina, and capture all of Gaul: the result will be that we can no
longer find means to deal with him, but shall be under the necessity of
trembling before him, paying court to him, worshiping him. This one thing
more about the embassy and I am done:--that Antony also gave you no
account of what business he had in hand, because he intended that you
should do this.
"I, therefore, for these and all other reasons advise you not to delay
nor to lose time, but to make war upon him as quickly as possible. You
must reflect that the majority of enterprises owe their success rather to
an opportune occasion than to their strength; and you should by all means
feel perfectly sure that I would never give up peace if it were really
peace, in the midst of which I have most influence and have acquired
wealth and reputation, nor have urged you to make war, did I not think it
to your advantage.
[-46-] And I advise you, Calenus, and the rest who are of the same mind
as you, to be quiet and allow the senate to vote the requisite measures
and not for the sake of your private good-will toward Antony recklessly
betray the common interests of all of us. Indeed, I am of the opinion,
Conscript Fathers, that if you heed my counsel I may enjoy in your
company and with thorough satisfaction freedom and preservation, but that
if you vote anything different, I shall choose to die rather than to
live. I have, in general, never been afraid of death as a consequence of
my outspokenness, and now I fear it least of all. That accounts, indeed,
for my overwhelming success, the proof of which lies in the fact that
you decreed a sacrifice and festival in memory of the deeds done in my
consulship,--an honor which had never before been granted to any one,
even to one who had achieved some great end in war. Death, if it befell
me, would not be at all unseasonable, especially when you consider that
my consulship was so many years ago; yet remember that in that very
consulship I uttered the same sentiment, to make you feel that in any
and all business I despised death. To dread any one, however, that was
against you, and in your company to be a slave to any one would prove
exceedingly unseasonable to me. Wherefore I deem this last to be the ruin
and destruction not only of the body, but of the soul and reputation,
by which we become in a certain sense immortal. But to die speaking and
acting in your behalf I regard as equivalent to immortality.
[-47-] "And if Antony, also, felt the force of this, he would never have
entered upon such a career, but would have even preferred to die like his
grandfather rather than to behave like Cinna who killed him. For, putting
aside other considerations, Cinna was in turn slain not long afterward
for this and the other sins that he had committed; so that I am surprised
also at this feature in Antony's conduct, that, imitating his works as
he does, he shows no fear of some day falling a victim to a similar
disaster: the murdered man, however, left behind to this very descendant
the reputation of greatness. But the latter has no longer any claim to
be saved on account of his relatives, since he has neither emulated his
grandfather nor inherited his father's property. Who is unaware of the
fact that in restoring many who were exiled in Caesar's time and later, in
accordance forsooth with directions in his patron's papers, he did not
aid his uncle, but brought back his fellow-gambler Lenticulus, who was
exiled for his unprincipal life, and cherishes Bambalio, who is notorious
for his very name, while he has treated his nearest relatives as I have
described and as if he were half angry at them because he was born into
that family. Consequently he never inherited his father's goods, but has
been the heir of very many others, some whom he never saw or heard
of, and others who are still living. That is, he has so stripped and
despoiled them that they differ in no way from dead men."
DURATION OF TIME
one year, in which there were the following magistrates
here enumerated:
C. Vibius C. filius Pansa Capronianus, Aulus Hirtius Auli filius
(B.C. 43
= a.u. 711).
[B.C. 43 (a.u. 711) ]
[-1-] When Cicero had finished speaking in this vein, Quintus Fufius
Calenus arose and said:--"Ordinarily I should not have wished either to
say anything in defence of Antony or to assail Cicero. I really do not
think it proper in such discussions as is the present to do either of
these things, but simply to make known what one's opinion is. The
former method belongs to the courtroom, whereas this is a matter of
deliberation. Since, however, he has undertaken to speak ill of Antony on
account of the enmity that exists between them, instead of sending him a
summons, as he ought, if Antony were guilty of any wrong, and since he
has further mentioned me in a calumnious fashion, as if he could not have
exhibited his cleverness without heedlessly insulting one or two persons,
it behooves me also to set aside the imputation against Antony and to
bring counter-charges against the speaker. I would not have his innate
impudence fail of a response nor let my silence aid him by incurring the
suspicion of a guilty conscience; nor would I have you, deceived by what
he said, come to a less worthy decision by accepting his private spleen
against Antony in exchange for the common advantage. [-2-] He wishes
to effect nothing else than that we should abandon looking out for the
safest course for the commonwealth and fall into discord again. It is not
the first time that he has done this, but from the outset, ever since he
had to do with politics, he has been continually causing disturbance one
way or the other.
"Is he not the one who embroiled Caesar with Pompey and prevented Pompey
from becoming reconciled with Caesar? The one who persuaded you to pass
that vote against Antony by which he irritated Caesar, and persuaded
Pompey to leave Italy and transfer his quarters to Macedonìa? This proved
the chief cause of all the evils which befell us subsequently. Is not he
the one who killed Clodius by the hand of Milo, and slew Caesar by the
hand of Brutus? The one who made Catiline hostile to us and despatched
Lentulus without a trial? [-3-] Hence I should be very much surprised
at you, seeing that you then changed your mind about his conduct just
mentioned and made him pay the penalty for it, if you should now heed him
again, when his talk and actions are similar. Do you not see, too, that
after Caesar's death when our affairs were settled in a most tranquil way
by Antony, as not even his accuser can deny, the latter left town because
he deemed our life of harmony to be alien and dangerous to him? That when
he perceived that turmoil had again arisen, he bade a long farewell to
his son and to Athens, and returned? That he insults and abuses Antony,
whom he was wont to say he loved, and coöperates with Caesar, whose father
he killed? And if chance so favor, he will ere long attack Caesar also.
For the fellow is naturally distrustful and turbulent and has no ballast
in his soul, and he is always stirring things up and twisting about,
turning more ways than the sea-passage to which he fled and got the title
of deserter for it, asking all of you to take that man for friend or foe
whom he bids.
[-4-] "For these reasons be on your guard against man. He is a juggler
and imposter and grows rich and strong from the ills of others,
blackmailing, dragging, tearing the innocent, as do dogs; but in the
midst of public harmony he is embarrassed and withers away. It is not
friendship or good-will among us that can support this kind of orator.
From what other source do you think he has become rich or from what other
source great? Certainly neither family nor wealth was bequeathed him by
his father the fuller, who was always trading in grapes and olives, a man
who was glad to make both ends meet by this and by his washing, and whose
time was taken up every day and night with the vilest occupations. The
son, having been brought up in them, not unnaturally tramples and dowses
his superiors, using a species of abuse invented in the workshops and on
the street corners.
[-5-] "Now being of such an origin yourself, and after growing up naked
among your naked companions, picking up pig manure and sheep dung and
human excrement, have you dared, O most accursed wretch, first to slander
the youth of Antony who had the advantage of pedagogues and teachers as
his rank demanded, and next to impugn him because in celebrating the
Lupercalia, an ancestral festival, he came naked into the Forum? But I
ask you, you that always used all the clothes of others on account
of your father's business and were stripped by whoever met you and
recognized them, what ought a man who was not only priest but also leader
of his fellow priests to have done? Not to conduct the procession, not to
celebrate the festival, not to sacrifice according to ancestral custom,
not to appear naked, not to anoint himself? 'But it is not for that that
I censure him,' he answers, 'but because he delivered a speech and
that kind of speech naked in the Forum.' Of course this man has become
acquainted in the fuller's shop with all minute matters of etiquette,
that he should detect a real mistake and be able to rebuke it properly.
[-6-] "In regard to this matter I will say later all that needs to be
said, but just now I want to ask the speaker a question or two. Is it
not true that you for your part were nourished by the ills of others and
educated in the misfortunes of your neighbors and for this reason are
acquainted with no liberal branch of knowledge, that you have established
a kind of association here and are always waiting, like the harlots, for
a man who will give something, and that having many men in your pay to
attract profit to you you pry into people's affairs to find out who has
wronged (or seems to have wronged) whom, who hates whom, and who is
plotting against whom? With these men you make common cause, and through
these men you are supported, selling them the hopes that chance bestows,
trading in the decisions of the jurors, deeming him alone a friend who
gives more and more, and all those enemies who furnish you no business or
employ some other advocate, while you pretend not even to know those who
are already in your clutch and affect to be bored by them, but fawn upon
and giggle at those just approaching, like the mistresses of inns?
[-7-] How much better it were that you too should have been born
Bambalio,--if this Bambalio really exists,--than to have taken up such a
livelihood, in which it is absolutely inevitable that you should either
sell your speech in behalf of the innocent, or else preserve the guilty.
Yet you can not do even this effectively, though you wasted three years
in Athens. On what occasion? By what help? Why, you always come trembling
up to court as if you were going to fight in armor and after speaking a
few words in a low and half-dead voice you go away, not remembering a
word of the speech you practiced at home before you came, and without
finding anything to say on the spur of the moment. In making affirmations
and promises you surpass all mankind in audacity, but in the contests
themselves beyond uttering some words of abuse and defamation you are
most weak and cowardly. Do you think any one is ignorant of the fact that
you never delivered one of those wonderful speeches of yours that you
have published, but wrote them all up afterward, like persons who form
generals and masters-of-horse out of day? If you feel doubtful of this
point, remember how you accused Verres,--though, to be sure, you only
gave him an example of your father's trade, when you made water.
[-8-] "But I hesitate, for fear that in saying precisely what fits your
case I may seem to be uttering words that are unfitting for myself.[14]
This I will pass over; and further, by Jupiter, also the affairs of
Gabinius, against whom, you prepared accusers and then pled his cause in
such a way that he was condemned; and the pamphlets which you compose
against your friends, in regard to which you feel yourself so guilty
that you do not dare to make them public. Yet it is a most miserable and
pitiable state to be in, not to be able to deny these charges which are
the most disgraceful conceivable to admit. But I will leave these to one
side and bring forward the rest. Well, though we did grant the trainer,
as you say, two thousand plethra of the ager Leontinus, we still learned
nothing adequate from it.[15] But who should not admire your system of
instruction? And what is it? You are ever jealous of your superiors,
you always toady to the prominent man, you slander him who has attained
distinction, you inform against the powerful and you hate equally all the
excellent, and you pretend love only for those through whom you may do
some mischief. This is why you are always inciting the younger against
their elders and lead those who trust you even in the slightest into
dangers, where you desert them. [-9-] A proof of this is, that you have
never accomplished any achievement worthy of a distinguished man either
in war or in peace. How many wars have we won under you as praetor and
what kind of territory did we acquire with you as consul? Your private
activity all these years has consisted in continually deceiving some of
the foremost men and winning them to your side and managing everything
you like, while publicly you have been shouting and bawling out at random
those detestable phrases,--'I am the only one that loves you,' or, if it
should so chance, 'And what's-his-name, all the rest, hate you,' and 'I
alone am friendly to you, all the rest are engaged in plots,' and other
such stuff by which you fill some with elation and conceit, only to
betray them, and scare the rest so that you gain their attachment. If any
service is rendered by any one whomsoever of the whole people, you lay
claim to it and write your own name upon it, repeating: 'I moved it, I
proposed it, it was through me that this was done so.' But if anything
happens that ought not to have occurred, you take yourself out of the way
and censure all the rest, saying: 'You see I wasn't praetor, you see
I wasn't envoy, you see I wasn't consul.' And you abuse everybody
everywhere all the time, setting more store by the influence which
comes from appearing to speak your mind boldly than by saying what duty
demands: and you exhibit no important quality of an orator. [-10-] What
public advantage has been preserved or established by you? Who that
was really harming the city have you indicted, and who that was really
plotting against us have you brought to light? To neglect the other
cases,--these very charges which you now bring against Antony are of such
a nature and so many that no one could ever suffer any adequate penalty
for them. Why, then, if you saw us being wronged by him at the start, as
you assert, did you never attack or accuse him at the time, instead of
telling us now all the transgressions he committed when tribune, all his
irregularities when master of horse, all his villanies when consul? You
might at once, at the time, in each specific instance, have inflicted the
appropriate penalty upon him, if you had wanted to show yourself in very
deed a patriot, and we could have imposed the punishment in security
and safety during the course of the offences themselves. One of two
conclusions is inevitable,--either that you believed this to be so at the
time and renounced the idea of a struggle in our behalf, or else that you
could not prove any of your charges and are now engaged in a reckless
course of blackmail.
[-11-] "That this is so I will show you clearly, Conscript Fathers, by
going over each point in detail. Antony did say some words during his
tribuneship in Caesar's behalf: Cicero and some others spoke in behalf of
Pompey. Why now does he accuse him of preferring one man's friendship,
but acquit himself and the rest who warmly embraced the opposite cause?
Antony, to be sure, hindered at that time some measures adverse to Caesar
from being passed: and Cicero hindered practically everything that was
known to be favorable to Caesar. 'But Antony obstructed,' he replies, 'the
public judgment of the senate.' Well, now, in the first place, how could
one man have had so much power? Second, if he had been condemned for
this, as is said, how could he have escaped punishment? 'Oh, he fled, he
fled to Caesar and got out of the way.' Of course you, Cicero, did not
'leave town' just now, but you fled, as in your former exile.[16] Don't
be so ready to apply your own shame to all of us. To flee is what you
did, in fear of the court, and pronouncing condemnation on yourself
beforehand. Yes, to be sure, an ordinance was passed for your recall; how
and for what reasons I do not say, but at any rate it was passed, and you
did not set foot in Italy before the recall was granted. But Antony both
went away to Caesar to inform him what had been done and returned, without
asking for any decree, and finally effected peace and friendship with him
for all those that were found in Italy. And the rest, too, would have had
a share in it, if they had not taken your advice and fled. [-12-] Now in
view of those circumstances do you dare to say he led Caesar against his
country and stirred up the civil war and became more than any one else
responsible for the subsequent evils that befell us? Not so, but you,
who gave Pompey legions that belonged to others and the command, and
undertook to deprive Caesar even of those that had been given him: it was
you, who agreed with Pompey and the consuls not to accept the offers made
by Caesar, but to abandon the city and the whole of Italy: you, who did
not see Caesar even when he entered Rome, but had run off to Pompey
and into Macedonia. Not even to him, however, did you prove of any
assistance, but you neglected what was going on, and then, when he met
with misfortune, you abandoned him. Therefore you did not aid him at the
outset on the ground that he had the juster cause, but after setting
in motion the dispute and embroiling affairs you lay in wait at a safe
distance for a favorable turn; you at once deserted the man who failed,
as if that somehow proved him guilty, and went over to the victor, as if
you deemed him more just. And in addition to your other defects you are
so ungrateful that not only are you not satisfied to have been preserved
by him, but you are actually displeased that you were not made master of
the horse.
[-13-] "Then with this on your conscience do you dare to say that Antony
ought not to have held the office of master of the horse for a year, and
that Caesar ought not to have remained dictator for a year? But whether it
was wise or necessary for these measures to be framed, at any rate they
were both passed, and they suited us and the people. Censure these men,
Cicero, if they have transgressed in any particular, but not, by Jupiter,
those whom they have chosen to honor for showing themselves worthy of
so great a reward. For if we were forced by the circumstances that then
surrounded us to act in this way and contrary to good policy, why do you
now lay this upon Antony's shoulders, and why did you not oppose it then
if you were able? Because, by Jupiter, you were afraid. Then shall you,
who were at that time silent, obtain pardon for your cowardice, and shall
he, because he was preferred before you, submit to penalties for his
excellence? Where did you learn that this was just, or where did you read
that this was lawful?
[-14-] "'But he did not rightly use his position as master of horse.'
Why? 'Because,' he answers, 'he bought Pompey's possessions.' How many
others are there who purchased numberless articles, no one of whom
is blamed? That was the purpose in confiscating certain articles and
exposing them in the market and proclaiming them by the voice of the
public crier, to have somebody buy them. 'But Pompey's goods ought not to
have been sold.' Then it was we who erred and did wrong in confiscating
them; or (to clear your skirts and ours) it was at least Caesar who acted
irregularly, he who ordered this to be done: yet you did not censure him
at all. I maintain that in this charge he is proven to be absolutely
beside himself. He has brought against Antony two quite opposite
accusations,--one, that after helping Caesar in very many ways and
receiving in return vast gifts from him he was then required under
compulsion to surrender the price of them, and the second, that he
inherited naught from his father, spent all that he had like Charybdis
(the speaker is always bringing in some comparison from Sicily, as if we
had forgotten that he had been exiled there), and paid the price of all
that he purchased.
[-15-] "So in these charges this remarkable orator is convicted of
violently contradicting himself and, by Jupiter, again in the following
statements. At one time he says that Antony took part in everything
that was done by Caesar and by this means became more than any one else
responsible for all our internal evils, and again he charges him with
cowardice, reproaching him with not having shared in any other exploits
than those performed in Thessaly. And he makes a complaint against him to
the effect that he restored some of the exiles and finds fault with him
because he did not secure the recall of his uncle; as if any one believes
that he would not have restored him first of all, if he had been able to
recall whomsoever he pleased, since there was no grievance on either side
between them, as this speaker himself knows. Indeed, though he told many
wretched lies about Antony, he did not dare to say anything of that kind.
But he is utterly reckless about letting slip anything that comes to his
tongue's end, as if it were mere breath.
[-16-] "Why should one follow this line of refutation further? Turning
now to the fact that he goes about with such a tragic air, and has but
this moment said in the course of his remarks that Antony rendered the
sight of the master of the horse most oppressive by using everywhere
and under all circumstances the sword, the purple, the lictors, and the
soldiers at once, let him tell me clearly how and in what respect we have
been wronged by this. He will have no statement to make; for if he had
had, he would have sputtered it out before anything else. Quite the
reverse of his charge is true. Those who were quarreling at that time
and causing all the trouble were Trebellius and Dolabella: Antony did no
wrong and was active in every way in our behalf, so much so that he was
entrusted by us with guarding the city against those very men, and not
only did this remarkable orator not oppose it (he was there) but even
approved it. Else let him show what syllable he uttered on seeing the
licentious and accursed fellow (to quote from his abuse), besides doing
nothing that the occasion required, securing also so great authority from
you. He will have nothing to show. So it looks as if not a word of what
he now shouts aloud was ventured at that time by this great and patriotic
orator, who is everywhere and always saying and repeating: 'I alone am
contending for freedom, I alone speak freely for the democracy; I cannot
be restrained by favor of friends or fear of enemies from looking out for
your advantage; I, even if it should be my lot to die in speaking in your
behalf, will perish very gladly.' And his silence was very natural, for
it occurred to him to reflect that Antony possessed the lictors and the
purple-bordered vesture in accordance with the customs of our ancestors
in regard to masters of horse, and that he was using the sword and the
soldiers perforce against the rebels. For what most excessive outrages
would they not have committed but for his being hedged about with these
protections, when some of them so despised him as it was?
[-17-] "That these and all his other acts were correct and most
thoroughly in accord with Caesar's intention the facts themselves show.
The rebellion went no further, and Antony, far from paying a penalty for
his course, was subsequently appointed consul. Notice, I beg of you, how
he administered this office of his. You will find, if you scrutinize the
matter minutely, that its tenure proved of great value to the city.
His traducer, knowing this, could not endure his jealousy but dared to
slander him for those deeds which he would have longed to do himself.
That is why he introduced the matter of his stripping and anointing and
those ancient fables, not because there was any pertinence in them now,
but in order to obscure by external noise his opponent's consummate skill
and success. Yet this same Antony, O thou earth, and ye gods (I shall
call louder than you and invoke them with greater justice), saw that the
city was already in reality under a tyranny through the fact that all
the legions obeyed Caesar and all the people together with the senate
submitted to him to such an extent that they voted among other measures
that he should be dictator for life and use the appurtenances of a king.
Then he showed Caesar his error most convincingly and restrained him most
prudently, until the latter, abashed and afraid, would not accept either
the name of king or the diadem, which he had in mind to bestow upon
himself even against our will. Any other man would have declared that
he had been ordered to do it by his master, and putting forward the
compulsion as an excuse would have obtained pardon for it,--yes, indeed,
he would, when you think of what kind of votes we had passed at that time
and what power the soldiers had secured. Antony, however, because he was
thoroughly acquainted with Caesar's disposition and accurately aware of
all he was preparing to do, by great good judgment succeeded in turning
him aside from his course and retarding his ambitions. The proof of it
is that afterward he no longer behaved in any way like a monarch, but
mingled publicly and unprotected with us all; and that accounts most of
all for the possibility of his meeting the fate that he did.
[-18-] "This is what was done, O Cicero or Cicerulus or Ciceracius or
Ciceriscus or Graeculus[17] or whatever you like to be called, by the
uneducated, the naked, the anointed man: and none of it was done by you,
the clever, the wise, the user of much more olive oil than wine, you who
let your clothing drag about your ankles not, by Jupiter, as the dancers
do, who teach you intricacies of reasoning by their poses, but in order
to hide the ugliness of your legs. Oh no, it's not through modesty that
you do this, you who delivered that long screed about Antony's habits.
Who is there that does not see these soft clothes of yours? Who does not
scent your carefully combed gray locks? Who is there unaware that you put
away your first wife who had borne you two children, and at an advanced
age married another, a mere girl, in order that you might pay your debts
out of her property? And you did not even retain her, to the end that you
might keep Caerellia fearlessly, whom you debauched when she was as much
older than yourself as the maiden you married was younger, and to whom
you write such letters as a jester at no loss for words would write if
he were trying to get up an amour with a woman seventy years old.
This, which is not altogether to my taste, I have been induced to say,
Conscript Fathers, in the hope that he should not go away without getting
as good as he sent in the discussion. Again, he has ventured to reproach
Antony for a little kind of banquet, because he, as he says, drinks
water, his purpose being to sit up at night and compose speeches against
us,--though he brings up his son in such drunkenness that the latter is
sober neither night nor day. Furthermore he undertook to make derogatory
remarks about Antony's mouth, this man who has shown so great
licentiousness and impurity throughout his entire life that he would not
keep his hands off even his closest kin, but let out his wife for hire
and deflowered his daughter.
[-18-] "These particulars I shall leave as they stand and return to the
point where I started. That Antony against whom he has inveighed, seeing
Caesar exalted over our government, caused him by granting what seemed
personal favors to a friend not to put into effect any of the projects
that he had in mind. Nothing so diverts persons from objects which they
may attain without caring to secure them righteously, as for those who
fear such results to appear to endure the former's conduct willingly.
These persons in authority have no regard for their own consciousness of
guilt, but if they think they have been detected, they are ashamed and
afraid: thereafter they usually take what is said to them as flattery and
believe the opposite, and any action which may result from the words as
a plot, being suspicious in the midst of their shame. Antony knew
this thoroughly, and first of all he selected the Lupercalia and that
procession in order that Caesar in the relaxation of his spirit and the
fun of the affair might be rebuked with immunity, and next he selected
the Forum and the rostra that his patron might be shamed by the very
places. And he fabricated the commands from the populace, in order that
hearing them Caesar might reflect not on what Antony was saying at the
time, but on what the Roman people would order a man to say. How could
he have believed that this injunction had really been laid upon any one,
when he knew that the people had not voted anything of the kind and did
not hear them shouting out. But it was right for him to hear this in the
Roman Forum, where we had often joined in many deliberations for freedom,
and beside the rostra from which we had sent forth thousands and
thousands of measures in behalf of the democracy, and at the festival of
the Lupercalia, in order that he should remember Romulus, and from the
mouth of the consul that he might call to mind the deeds of the early
consuls, and in the name of the people, that he might ponder the fact
that he was undertaking to be tyrant not over Africans or Gauls or
Egyptians, but over very Romans. These words made him turn about; they
humiliated him. And whereas if any one else had offered him the diadem,
he might have taken it, he was then stopped short by that speech and felt
a shudder of alarm.
"These, then are the deeds of Antony: he did not uselessly break a leg,
in order himself to escape, nor burn off a hand, in order to frighten
Porsenna, but by his cleverness and consummate skill he put an end to
the tyranny of Caesar better than any spear of Decius and better than the
sword of Brutus. [-20-] But you, Cicero, what did you effect in your
consulship, not to mention wise and good things, that was not deserving
of the greatest punishment? Did you not throw our city into uproar and
party strife when it was quiet and harmonious, and fill the Forum and
Capitol with slaves, among others, that you had called to your aid? Did
you not ruin miserably Catiline, who was overanxious for office, but
otherwise guilty of no violence? Did you not pitiably destroy Lentulus
and his followers, who were not guilty, not tried, and not convicted, in
spite of the fact that you are always and everywhere prating interminably
about the laws and about the courts? If any one should take these phrases
from your speeches, there is nothing left. You censured Pompey because
he conducted the trial of Milo contrary to legalized precedent: yet you
afforded Lentulus no privilege great or small that is enjoined in these
cases, but without a speech or trial you cast him into prison, a man
respectable, aged, whose ancestors had given many great pledges that he
would be friendly to his country, and who by reason of his age and his
character had no power to do anything revolutionary. What trouble did he
have that would have been cured by the change of condition? What blessing
did he possess that would not certainly be jeopardized by rebellion? What
arms had he collected, what allies had he equipped, that a man who had
been consul and was praetor should be so pitilessly and impiously cast
into a cell without being allowed to say a word of defence or hear a
single charge, and die there like the basest criminals? For this is what
this excellent Tullius most of all desired,--that in [the Tullianum,] the
place that bears his name, he might put to death the grandson of that
Lentulus once became the head of the senate. [-21-] What would he
have done if he had obtained authority to bear arms, seeing that he
accomplished so many things of such a nature by his words alone? These
are your brilliant achievements, these are your great exhibitions of
generalship; and not only were you condemned for them by the rest, but
you were so ready to vote against your own self in the matter that you
fled before your trial came on. Yet what greater demonstration of your
bloodguiltiness could there be than that you came in danger of perishing
at the hands of those very persons in whose behalf you pretended you had
done this, that you were afraid of the very ones whom you said you had
benefited by these acts, and that you did not wait to hear from them or
say a word to them, you clever, you extraordinary man, you aider of other
people, but secured your safety by flight as if from a battle? And you
are so shameless that you have undertaken to write a history of these
events that I have related, whereas you ought to have prayed that no
other man even should give an account of any of them: then you might at
least derive this advantage, that your doings should die with you and no
memory of them be transmitted to posterity. Now, gentlemen, if you want
to laugh, listen to his clever device. He set himself the task of writing
a history of the entire existence of the city (for he pretends to be a
sophist and poet and philosopher and orator and historian), and he began
not from the founding of it, like the rest are similarly busied, but from
his own consulship, so that he might proceed backwards, making that the
beginning of his account, and the kingdom of Romulus the end.
[-22-] "Tell me now, you who write such things and do such things, what
the excellent man ought to say in popular address and do in action: for
you are better at advising others about any matter whatsoever than at
doing your own duty, and better at rebuking others than at reforming
yourself. Yet how much better it were for you instead of reproaching
Antony with cowardice to lay aside yourself that effeminacy both of
spirit and of body, instead of bringing a charge of disloyalty against
him to cease yourself from doing anything disloyal or playing the
deserter, instead of accusing him of ingratitude to cease yourself from
wronging your benefactors! For this, I must tell you, is one of his
inherent defects, that he hates above all those who have done him any
favor, and is always fawning upon somebody else but plotting against
these persons. To leave aside other instances, he was pitied and
preserved by Caesar and enrolled among the patricians, after which he
killed him,--no, not with his own hand (he is too cowardly and womanish),
but by persuading and making ready others who should do it. The men
themselves showed that I speak the truth in this. When they ran out into
the Forum with their naked blades, they invoked him by name, saying
'Cicero!' repeatedly, as you all heard. His benefactor, Caesar, then, he
slew, and as for Antony from whom he obtained personally safety and
a priesthood when he was in danger of perishing at the hands of the
soldiers in Brundusium, he repays him with this sort of thanks, by
accusing him for deeds with which neither he himself nor any one else
ever found any fault and attacking him for conduct which he praises in
others. Yet he sees this Caesar, who has not attained the age yet to hold
office or have any part in politics and has not been chosen by you, sees
him equipped with power and standing as the author of a war without our
vote or orders, and not only has no blame to bestow, but pronounces
laudations. So you perceive that he investigates neither what is just
with reference to the laws nor what is useful with reference to the
public weal, but simply manages everything to suit his own will,
censuring in some what he extols in others, spreads false reports against
you, and calumniates you gratuitously.[-23-] For you will find that all
of Antony's acts after Caesar's demise were ordered by you. To speak about
the disposition of the funds and the examination of the letters I deem to
be superfluous. Why so? Because first it would be the business of the one
who inherited his property to look into the matter, and second, if there
was any truth in the charge of malfeasance, it ought to have been
stopped then on the moment. For none of the transactions was carried on
underhandedly, Cicero, but they were all recorded on tablets, as you
yourself affirm. If Antony committed his many wrongs so openly and
shamelessly as you say, and plundered the whole of Crete on the pretext
that in accord with Caesar's letters it had been left free after the
governorship of Brutus, though the latter was later given charge of it by
us, how could you have kept silent and how could any one else have borne
it? But these matters, as I said, I shall pass over; for the majority of
them have not been mentioned individually, and Antony is not present,
who could inform you exactly of what he has done in each instance. As to
Macedonia and Gaul and the remaining provinces and legions, yours are
the decrees, Conscript Fathers, according to which you assigned to the
various governors their separate charges and delivered to Antony Gaul,
together with the soldiers. This is known also to Cicero. He was there
and helped vote for all of them just like you. Yet how much better it
would have been for him then to speak in opposition, if any item of
business was not going as it should, and to instruct you in these matters
that are now brought forward, than to be silent at the time and allow
you to make mistakes, and now nominally to censure Antony but really to
accuse the senate!
[-24-] "Any sensible person could not assert, either, that Antony forced
you to vote these measures. He himself had no band of soldiers so as to
compel you to do anything contrary to your inclinations, and further the
business was done for the good of the city. For since the legions had
been sent ahead and united, there was fear that when they heard of
Caesar's assassination they might revolt, put some inferior man at their
head, and begin to wage war again: so it seemed good to you, taking a
proper and excellent course, to place in command of them Antony the
consul, who was charged with the promotion of harmony, who had rejected
the dictatorship entirely from the system of government. And that is the
reason that you gave him Gaul in place of Macedonia, that he should stay
here in Italy, committing no harm, and do at once whatever errand was
assigned him by you.
[-25-] "This I have said to you that you may know that you decided
rightly. For Cicero that other point of mine was sufficient,--namely,
that he was present during all these proceedings and helped us to pass
the measures, though Antony had not a soldier at the time and could not
have brought to bear on us pressure in the shape of any terror that would
have made us neglect a single point of our interest. But even if you were
then silent, tell us now at least: what ought we to have done under the
circumstances? Leave the legions leaderless? Would they have failed
to fill both Macedonia and Italy with countless evils? Commit them to
another? And whom could we have found more closely related and suited
to the business than Antony, the consul, the director of all the city's
affairs, the one who had taken such good care of harmony among us, the
one who had given countless examples of his affection for the State? Some
one of the assassins, perhaps? Why, it wasn't even safe for them to live
in the city. Some one of the party opposed to them? Everybody suspected
those people. What other man was there surpassing him in esteem,
excelling him in experience? Or are you vexed that we did not choose you?
What kind of administration would you have given? What would you not have
done when you got arms and soldiers, considering that you occasioned so
many and so great instances of turmoil in your consulship as a result of
these elaborate antitheses, which you have made your specialty, of which
alone you were master. [-26-] But I return to my point that you were
present when it was being voted and said nothing against it, but assented
to all the measures as being obviously excellent and necessary. You did
not lack opportunity to speak; indeed you roared out considerable that
was beside the purpose. Nor were you afraid of anybody. How could you,
who did not fear the armed warrior, have quailed before the defenceless
man? Or how have feared him alone when you do not dread him in the
possession of many soldiers! Yes, you also give yourself airs for
absolutely despising death, as you affirm.
"Since these facts are so, which of the two, senators, seems to be in the
wrong, Antony, who is managing the forces granted him by us, or Caesar,
who is surrounded with such a large band of his own? Antony, who has
departed to take up the office committed to him by us, or Brutus, who
prevents him from setting foot in the country? Antony, who wishes to
compel our allies to obey our decrees, or they, who have not received the
ruler sent them by us but have attached themselves to the man who was
voted against? Antony, who keeps our soldiers together, or the soldiers,
who have abandoned their commander? Antony, who has introduced not one of
these soldiers granted him by us into the city, or Caesar, who by money
persuaded those who had long ago been in service to come here? I think
there is no further need of argument to answer the imputation that he
does not seem to be managing correctly all the duties laid upon him by
us, and to show that these men ought to suffer punishment for what they
have ventured on their own responsibility. Therefore you also secured the
guard of soldiers that you might discuss in safety the present situation,
not on account of Antony, who had caused no trouble privately nor
intimidated you in any way, but on account of his rival, who both had
gathered a force against him and has often kept many soldiers in the city
itself.
[-27-] "I have said so much for Cicero's benefit, since it was he who
began unfair argument against us. I am not generally quarrelsome, as he
is, nor do I care to pry into others' misdeeds, as he continually gives
himself airs for doing. Now I will tell you what advice I have to give,
not favoring Antony at all nor calumniating Caesar or Brutus, but planning
for the common advantage, as is proper. I declare that we ought not yet
to make an enemy of either of these men in arms nor to enquire exactly
what they have been doing or in what way. The present crisis is not
suitable for this action, and as they are all alike our fellow-citizens,
if any one of them fails the loss will be ours, or if any one of them
succeeds his aggrandizement will be a menace to us. Wherefore I believe
that we ought to treat them as friends and citizens and send messengers
to all of them alike, bidding them lay down their arms and put themselves
and their legions in our hands, and that we ought not yet to wage war on
any one of them, but after their replies have come back approve those who
are willing to obey us and fight against the disobedient. This course is
just and expedient for us,--not to be in a hurry or do anything rashly,
but to wait and after giving the leaders themselves and their soldiers an
opportunity to change their minds, then, if in such case there be need of
war, to give the consuls charge of it.
[-28-] "And you, Cicero, I advise not to show a womanish sauciness nor
to imitate Bambalio even in making war[18] nor because of your private
enmity toward Antony to plunge the whole city publicly again into danger.
You will do well if you even become reconciled to him, with whom you have
often enjoyed friendly intercourse. But even if you continue embittered
against him, at least spare us, and do not after acting as the promoter
of friendship among us then destroy it. Remember that day and the speech
which you delivered in the precinct of Tellus, and yield a little to this
goddess of Concord under whose guidance we are now deliberating, and
avoid discrediting those statements and making them appear as if not
uttered from a sincere heart, or by somebody else on that occasion. This
is to the advantage of the State and will bring you most renown. Do not
think that audacity is either glorious or safe, and do not feel sure
of being praised just for saying that you despise death. Such men all
suspect and hate as being likely to venture some deed of evil through
desperation. Those whom they see, however, paying greatest attention to
their own safety they praise and laud, because such would not willingly
do anything that merited death. Do you, therefore, if you honestly
wish your country to be safe, speak and act in such a way as will both
preserve yourself and not, by Jupiter, involve us in your destruction!"
[-29-] Such language from Calenus Cicero would not endure. He himself
always spoke his mind intemperately and immoderately to all alike, but he
never thought he ought to get a similar treatment from others. On this
occasion, too, he gave up considering the public interest and set himself
to abusing his opponent until that day was spent, and naturally for
the most part uselessly. On the following day and the third many other
arguments were adduced on both sides, but the party of Caesar prevailed.
So they voted first a statue to the man himself and the right to
deliberate among the ex-quaestors as well as of being a candidate for the
other offices ten years sooner than custom allowed, and that he should
receive from the City the money which he had spent for his soldiers,
because he had equipped them at his own cost for her defence: second,
that both his soldiers and those that had abandoned Antony should have
the privilege of not fighting in any other war and that land should be
given them at once. To Antony they sent an embassy which should order him
to give up the legions, leave Gaul, and withdraw into Macedonia--and to
his followers they issued a proclamation to return home before a given
day or to know that they would occupy the position of enemies. Moreover
they removed the senators who had received from him governorships over
the provinces and resolved that others should be sent in their place.
These measures were ratified at that time. Not long after, before
learning his decision, they voted that a state of rebellion existed,
changed their senatorial garb, gave charge of the war against him to the
consuls and Caesar (a kind of pretorian office), and ordered Lepidus and
Lucius Munatius Plancus, who was governing a portion of Transalpine Gaul,
to render assistance.
[-30-] In this way did they themselves furnish an excuse for hostility
to Antony, who was without this anxious to make war. He was pleased to
receive news of the decrees and forthwith violently reproached the envoys
with not treating him rightly or fairly as compared with the youth
(meaning Caesar). He also sent others in his turn, so as to put the blame
of the war upon the senators, and make some counter-propositions which
saved his face but were impossible of performance by Caesar and those who
sided with him. He intended not to fulfill one of their demands, well
aware that they too would not take up with anything that he submitted. He
promised, however, that he would do all that they had determined, that he
himself might have a refuge in saying that he would have done it, while
at the same time his opponent's party would be before him in becoming
responsible for the war, by refusing the terms he laid before them. In
fine, he said that he would abandon Gaul and disband his legions, if they
would grant these soldiers the same rewards as they had voted to Caesar's
and would elect Cassius and Marcus Brutus consuls. He brought in the
names of these men in his request with the purpose that they should
not harbor any ill-will toward him for his operations against their
fellow-conspirator Decimus.
[-31-] Antony made these offers knowing well that neither of them would
be acted upon. Caesar would never have endured that the murderers of his
father should become consuls or that Antony's soldiers by receiving the
same as his own should feel still more kindly toward his rival. Nor, as a
matter of fact, were his offers ratified, but they again declared war
on Antony and gave notice to his associates to leave him, appointing a
different day. All, even such as were not to take the field, arrayed
themselves in military cloaks, and they committed to the consuls the care
of the city, attaching to the decree the customary clause "to the end
that it suffer no harm." And since there was need of large funds for the
war, they all contributed the twenty-fifth part of the property they
owned and the senators also four asses[19] per tile of all the houses in
the city that they themselves owned or dwelt in belonging to others. The
very wealthy besides donated no little more, while many cities and
many individuals manufactured gratuitously weapons and other necessary
accoutrements for a campaign. The public treasury was at that time so
empty that not even the festivals which were due to fall during that
season were celebrated, except some small ones out of religious scruple.
[-32-] These subscriptions were given readily by those who favored Caesar
and hated Antony. The majority, however, being oppressed by the campaigns
and the taxes at once were irritated, particularly because it was
doubtful which of the two would conquer but quite evident that they would
be slaves of the conqueror. Many of those, therefore, that wished Antony
well, went straight to him, among them tribunes and a few praetors: others
remained in their places, one of whom was Calenus, but did all that they
could for him, some things secretly and other things with an open defence
of their conduct. Hence they did not change their costume immediately,
and persuaded the senate to send envoys again to Antony, among them
Cicero: in doing this they pretended that the latter might persuade him
to make terms, but their real purpose was that he should be removed from
their path. He too reflected on this possibility and becoming alarmed
would not venture to expose himself in the camp of Antony. As a result
none of the other envoys set out either.
[-33-] While this was being done portents of no small moment again
occurred, significant for the City, and for the consul Vibius himself.
In the last assembly before they set out for the war a man with the
so-called sacred disease[20] fell down while Vibius was speaking. Also a
bronze statue of him which stood at the porch of his house turned around
of itself on the day and at the hour that he started on the campaign, and
the sacrifices customary before war could not be interpreted by the seers
by reason of the quantity of blood. Likewise a man who was just then
bringing him a palm slipped in the blood which had been shed, fell, and
defiled the palm. These were the portents in his case. Now if they had
befallen him when a private citizen, they would have pertained to him
alone, but since he was consul they had a bearing on all alike. They
included the following incidents: the figure of the Mother of the Gods on
the Palatine formerly facing the east turned around of its own accord
to the west; that of Minerva held in honor near Mutina, where the most
fighting was going on, sent forth after this a quantity of blood and
milk; furthermore the consuls took their departure just before the Feriae
Latinae; and there is no case where this happened that the forces fared
well. So at this time, too, both the consuls and a vast multitude of the
people perished, some immediately and some later, and also many of the
knights and senators, including the most prominent. For in the first
place the battles, and in the second place the assassinations at home
which occurred again as in the Sullan régime, destroyed all the flower of
them except those actually concerned in the murders.
[-34-] Responsibility for these evils rested on the senators themselves.
For whereas they ought to have set at their head some one man of superior
judgment and to have coöperated with him continuously, they failed to do
this, but made protégés of a few whom they strengthened against the
rest, and later undertook to overthrow these favorites as well, and
consequently they found no one a friend but all hostile. The comparative
attitude of men toward those who have injured them and toward their
benefactors is different, for they remember a grudge even against their
wills but willingly forget to be thankful. This is partly because they
disdain to appear to have been kindly treated by any persons, since
they will seem to be the weaker of the two, and partly because they are
irritated at the idea that they will be thought to have been injured by
anybody with impunity, since that will imply cowardice on their part.
So those senators by not taking up with some one person, but attaching
themselves to one and another in turn, and voting and doing now something
for them, now something against them, suffered much because of them
and much also at their hands. All the leaders had one purpose in the
war,--the abolition of the popular power and the setting up of a
sovereignty. Some were fighting to see whose slaves they should be, and
others to see who should be their master; and so both of them equally
wrought havoc, and each of them won glory according to fortune, which
varied. The successful warriors were deemed shrewd and patriotic, and the
defeated ones were called both enemies of their country and pestilential
fellows.
[-35-] This was the state that the Roman affairs had at that time
reached: I shall now go on to describe the separate events. There seems
to me to be a very large amount of self-instruction possible, when one
takes facts as the basis of his reasoning, investigates the nature of
the former by the latter, and then proves his reasoning true by its
correspondence with the facts.
The precise reason for Antony's besieging Decimus in Mutina was that
the latter would not give up Gaul to him, but he pretended that it was
because Decimus had been one of Caesar's assassins. For since the true
cause of the war brought him no credit, and at the same time he saw the
popular party flocking to Caesar to avenge his father, he put forward this
excuse for the conflict. That it was a mere pretext for getting control
of Gaul he himself made plain in demanding that Cassius and Marcus Brutus
be appointed consuls. Each of these two utterances, of the most opposite
character as they were, he made with an eye to his own advantage. Caesar
had begun a campaign against his rival before the war was granted him by
the vote, but had done nothing worthy of importance. When he learned
of the decrees passed he accepted the honors and was glad, especially
because when he was sacrificing at the time of receiving the distinction
and authority of praetor the livers of all the victims, twelve in number,
were found to be double. He was impatient, to be sure, at the fact that
envoys and proposals had been sent also to Antony, instead of unrelenting
war being declared against him at once, and most of all because he
ascertained that the consuls had forwarded some private despatch to his
rival about harmony, that when some letters sent by the latter to certain
senators had been captured these officials had handed them to the persons
addressed, concealing the transaction from him, and that they were not
carrying on the war zealously or promptly, making the winter their
excuse. However, as he had no means of making known these facts,--for he
did not wish to alienate them, and on the other hand he was unable to use
any persuasion or force,--he stayed quiet himself in winter quarters in
Forum Cornelium, until he became frightened about Decimus. [-36-] The
latter had previously been vigorously fighting Antony off. On one
occasion, suspecting that some men had been sent into the city by him
to corrupt the soldiers, he called all those present together and after
giving them a few hints proclaimed by herald that all the men under arms
should go to one side of a certain place that he pointed out and the
private citizens to the other side of it: in this way he detected and
arrested Antony's followers, who were isolated and did not know which way
to turn. Later he was entirely shut in by a wall; and Caesar, fearing he
might be captured by storm or capitulate through lack of provisions,
compelled Hirtius to join a relief party. Vibius was still in Rome
raising levies and abolishing the laws of Antony. Accordingly, they
started out and without a blow took possession of Bononia, which had been
abandoned by the garrisons, and routed the cavalry who later confronted
them: by reason of the river, however, near Mutina and the guard beside
it they found themselves unable to proceed farther. They wished,
notwithstanding, even so to make known their presence to Decimus, that
he might not in undue season make terms, and at first they tried sending
signals from the tallest trees. But since he did not understand, they
scratched a few words on a thin sheet of lead, and rolling it up like a
piece of paper gave it to a diver to carry across under water by night.
Thus Decimus learned at the same time of their presence and their promise
of assistance, and sent them a reply in the same fashion, after which
they continued uninterruptedly to communicate all their plans to each
other.
[-37-] Antony, therefore, seeing that Decimus was not inclined to yield,
left him to the charge of his brother Lucius, and himself proceeded
against Caesar and Hirtius. The two armies faced each other for a number
of days and a few insignificant cavalry battles occurred, with honors
even. Finally the Celtic cavalry, of whom Caesar had gained possession
along with the elephants, withdrew to Antony's side again. They had
started from the camp with the rest and had gone on ahead as if intending
to engage separately those of the enemy who came to meet them; but after
a little they turned about and unexpectedly attacked those following
behind (who did not stand their ground), killing many of them. After this
some foraging parties on both sides fell to blows and when the remainder
of each party came to the rescue a sharp battle ensued between the two
forces, in which Antony was victorious. Elated by his success and in
the knowledge that Vibius was approaching he assailed the antagonists'
fortification, thinking possibly to destroy it beforehand and make the
rest of the conflict easier. They, in consideration of their disaster and
the hope which Vibius inspired, kept guard but would not come out for
battle. Hence Antony left behind there a certain portion of his army with
orders to come to close quarters with them and so make it appear as much
as possible that he himself was there and at the same time to take
good care that no one should fall upon his rear. After issuing these
injunctions he set out secretly by night against Vibius, who was
approaching from Bononia. By an ambush he succeeded in wounding the
latter severely, in killing the majority of his soldiers and confining
the rest within their ramparts. He would have annihilated them, had
he proceeded to besiege them for any time at all. As it was, after
accomplishing nothing at the first assault he began to be alarmed lest
while he was delaying he should receive some setback from Caesar and the
rest; so he again turned against them. Wearied by the journey both ways
and by the battle he was also in doubt whether he should find that his
opponents had conquered the force hostile to them; and in this condition
he was confronted by Hirtius and suffered a decisive defeat. For when
Hirtius and Caesar perceived what was going on, the latter remained to
keep watch over the camp while the former set out against Antony. [-38-]
Upon the latter's defeat not only Hirtius was saluted as imperator by
the soldiers and by the senate, but likewise Vibius, though he had
fared badly, and Caesar who had done no fighting even. To those who had
participated in the conflict and had perished there was voted a public
burial, and it was resolved that the prizes of war which they had taken
while alive should be restored to their fathers and sons.
Following this official action Pontius Aquila, one of the assassins and
a lieutenant of Decimus, conquered in battle Titus Munatius Plancus, who
opposed him; and Decimus, when a certain senator deserted to Antony,
so far from displaying anger toward him sent back all his baggage and
whatever else he had left behind in Mutina, the result being that the
affection of many of Antony's soldiers grew cool, and some of the nations
which had previously sympathized with him proceeded to rebel: Caesar and
Hirtius, however, were elated at this, and approaching the fortifications
of Antony challenged him to combat; he for a time was alarmed and
remained