Political Speeches (Oxford World's Classics) (45 page)

On
c
. 18 May, Antony returned to Rome with a large bodyguard of Caesar’s veterans; Octavian asked him to hand Caesar’s property over to him, but he refused. On 1 June, Antony convened a meeting of the senate, but the senators were intimidated by his soldiers and few attended. Next (on 2 or 3 June), he went to the assembly and carried laws—illegally, since no notice had been given—to extend his and Dolabella’s governorships of Macedonia and Syria respectively from two to five years (even though two years had been the limit set by Caesar for such appointments). Finally, he exchanged his province of Macedonia for Gaul, while nevertheless retaining command of five legions which had been sent to Macedonia in preparation for the Parthian campaign. For him, the advantages of Gaul were, first, that it would allow him to take over three legions which were under the command of Decimus Brutus and, secondly, that he would then be in a position, like Caesar in 49, to cross the Rubicon and invade Italy, should he feel the need to do so.

Brutus and Cassius, meanwhile, were eager to return to Rome and resume their duties as praetors. On 5 June, Antony, who wanted the pair kept out of political life, persuaded the senate to appoint them to a grain commission, to be held in Asia and Sicily respectively; considering this demeaning, they at once began lobbying to have the commission repealed. For himself, on the other hand, Antony secured the establishment of a powerful Board of Seven, charged with distributing public land in Italy among Caesar’s veterans and the poor; he, his brother Lucius Antonius, and Dolabella (whose allegiance, of course, he had bought) were all to be members.

On 6–13 July, Brutus sponsored the Apollinarian Games, although he did not dare attend (nor did Cicero, though Brutus wanted him to). The games earned him considerable popularity, as he had hoped—but this popularity lasted scarcely longer than the games themselves. On 17 July, Cicero, despairing of the political situation, started out on a voyage to visit his son, who was studying in Athens; he intended to return to Rome only when Antony’s consulship was over. Towards the end of the month, Octavian held his promised games in Caesar’s honour, despite the fact that
Antony had not allowed him access to the funds he needed to pay for them; he was forced to borrow the money instead. During the games, a comet appeared for seven days, and was interpreted as a sign of Caesar’s divinity. The popularity which Octavian acquired from these games, and from the legacies which he started to pay to the Roman people (again, with borrowed money), caused relations between him and Antony to deteriorate so much that their soldiers, fearing civil war, forced them to meet on the Capitol and be publicly reconciled to one another.

On 1 August, Antony convened the senate. Brutus and Cassius had counted on opposition to him being expressed, but only Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, the consul of 58 and Caesar’s father-in-law, spoke out. Antony and Brutus and Cassius then issued edicts attacking each other. At around this time, Brutus and Cassius were assigned new provinces, Crete and Cyrene respectively (hardly prestigious appointments, but an improvement on the grain commission), and set sail for the east. Cicero, meanwhile, had attempted to sail to Greece, and had actually got as far as Syracuse, but had been forced back by contrary winds to Leucopetra (six miles south of Regium). There he heard that the situation in Rome had apparently improved, and that his absence was being criticized; so he changed his plans and turned back towards the capital. On 17 August, he met Brutus at Velia (on the coast between Naples and Regium), and learned from him more accurate news of the situation in Rome. Each of them then continued on their way, never to meet again.

On 1 September, Cicero arrived back in Rome, and was welcomed by enthusiastic crowds. But he soon learned that the senate was meeting that day in order to vote honours to Caesar: Antony was proposing to add an extra day in the dictator’s honour to all the festivals of thanksgiving to the gods. Cicero therefore sent his apologies, explaining that he was tired after his journey. Antony responded by attacking him in the senate and threatening to destroy his house. The next day Cicero attended the senate (this time Antony was absent), and delivered the speech which came to be known as the
First Philippic
. This was outwardly respectful and conciliatory, but nevertheless enumerated the illegalities committed by Antony as consul. The result was that Antony made a public declaration of hostility to Cicero, and then set to work preparing an invective against him, demanding his presence in the senate on-19 September (the next day on which the senate could meet). When the appointed day came, Cicero judged it too dangerous for him to attend, and stayed away. The meeting was held in the temple of Concord (in which Cicero had held the famous debate on the Catilinarian conspirators nineteen years earlier): Antony brought in armed men, locked the doors, and delivered the invective that he had prepared. In that speech, which does not not survive, he accused
Cicero of ingratitude and unfriendly behaviour towards himself, and went on to criticize Cicero’s consulship and whole career, blaming him for, among other things, the murder of Clodius, the Civil War, and Caesar’s assassination. It was a comprehensive attack: he even found space in it to ridicule Cicero’s poetry.

Naturally enough, perhaps, Cicero immediately began work on a written rebuttal—the
Second Philippic
. This was essentially the speech that he would have given in reply to Antony had he been able to: it is written exactly as if delivered in the senate on 19 September, and scrupulously avoids reference to events that happened later. At the end of October, Cicero sent a draft of it to his friend Atticus: it was to be shown only to people who would be sympathetic, and was not to be given a wider circulation until such time as the republic had been restored. Cicero was fully aware that it would have been folly to publish it under the conditions then existing. In public, he did not dignify Antony’s attack on him with a reply.

While Cicero was thus engaged, relations between Antony and Octavian were rapidly worsening. Early in October, Antony accused Octavian of plotting to assassinate him. When Antony then went to Brundisium to take command of the five legions which were being transferred to him from Macedonia, Octavian raised an army from Caesar’s veterans and, on 9 November, briefly occupied Rome. Antony quickly returned to the city; but when two of his Macedonian legions defected to Octavian, he nominated a new set of provincial governors and then set out for Cisalpine Gaul early on 29 November. On 20 December, the senate received a letter from Decimus Brutus, the governor of Cisalpine Gaul, in which he announced his refusal to hand over his province, with its three legions, to Antony. Cicero therefore delivered the
Third Philippic
, in which he persuaded the senate to approve Decimus Brutus’ action and to rule that all the existing governors should retain control of their provinces until further notice. The
Fourth Philippic
, delivered before the people on the same day, contained further praise of Decimus Brutus and argued that Antony was now in effect a public enemy. It was probably at this point, when he was irrevocably committed to a course of opposition to Antony, that he released the
Second Philippic
into public circulation.

So began Cicero’s ‘finest hour’, in which, through the remaining
Philippics
(January to April 43), he directed the senate in its war against Antony. Decimus Brutus, after being besieged and relieved at Mutina, was eventually killed by Antony. Dolabella was declared a public enemy, was besieged by Crassus in Syria, and committed suicide. Octavian marched on Rome, seized the consulship (aged 19), and revoked the amnesty that had been granted to Caesar’s assassins—thus unleashing the further civil war in which Brutus and Cassius would perish. Finally, in November 43,
Antony, Octavian, and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (Master of the Horse at the time of Caesar’s assassination, and governor of Narbonese Gaul and Nearer Spain) came together to form the ‘second triumvirate’, thus effectively ending the republic. Their proscription lists, agreed in advance, were immediately published; and Cicero was murdered on 7 December. His head and hands—the hand that had written the
Philippics
—were displayed, on Antony’s orders, on the rostra at Rome. There people saw, according to Plutarch (
Cic
. 49.2), ‘not the face of Cicero, but an image of Antony’s soul’.

[1] To what fate of mine, conscript fathers, should I attribute the fact that, over the past twenty years,
*
there has not been a single enemy of the state who did not at the same time declare war on me also? I need not name names: you will recall them yourselves. Those enemies paid me penalties greater than I would have wished: I am surprised, Antonius, that when you copy their deeds you do not also shudder at their ends. I was less surprised in the case of the others. After all, none of them set out to become my enemy: in each case, it was because they attacked the state that they encountered my opposition. You, on the other hand, though I had never said so much as a word against you, attacked me with unprovoked abuse—so you could present yourself as more reckless than Catiline, more demented than Clodius; and you calculated that your alienation from me would serve as a recommendation for you in the eyes of disloyal citizens.

[2] So what am I to make of this? Should I conclude that he despises me? But I cannot see anything in my private life, in my reputation, in my record, or in these moderate abilities of mine that would merit the contempt of—Antonius! Or was it that he thought the senate the place where I could most easily be disparaged? Yet this is a body which has borne testimony in the case of many illustrious citizens that they served their country well—but in my case alone that I saved it.
*
Or did he wish to vie with me in oratory? How kind of him! After all, what richer or more rewarding theme could I possibly have than to speak both for myself and against Antonius? No, the only possible conclusion is this—that he felt he had no chance of convincing those like himself that he really was an enemy of his country unless he were also an enemy of mine.

[3] Before I reply to his other points, I want to say a few words about the friendship which he accused me of having violated, since I consider this a charge of the utmost seriousness.

He complained that at some time or other I appeared in court against his interests. Was I really not free to appear in opposition to a stranger on behalf of an extremely close friend?
*
Not free to appear in opposition to influence that had been acquired not by the prospect of virtue, but by pretty-boy looks? Not free to appear in opposition to
an injustice which he
*
had contrived by securing an utterly scandalous veto in his favour, instead of by a praetor’s judgement? But I think you brought up this matter in order to recommend yourself to the dregs of society, since everyone would remember that you were the son-in-law of a freedman, and that your children were the grandchildren of a freedman, Quintus Fadius.
*

But you had been my pupil, you said, and a regular visitor at my house. If this were true, it would have been better for your reputation, better for your morals! But it is not true, and even had you been desperate to come to me, Gaius Curio
*
would not have let you out of his sight.

[4] You said that you had declined to stand for the augurate
*
as a favour to me. What astonishing effrontery, what outrageous cheek! At the time when Gnaeus Pompeius and Quintus Hortensius, at the request of the entire college, put my name forward (no one was permitted to have more than two sponsors), you were bankrupt and saw no way out for yourself except through revolution. Besides, could you have stood for the augurate at a time when Curio was not in Italy, or, when you were later elected, could you have carried a single tribe without Curio’s backing? Friends of his were actually convicted of violence for being over-zealous on your behalf.

[5] But I was done a favour by you. And what favour was that? As it happens, I have always openly acknowledged what it is you are referring to: I have preferred to say that I am in your debt than let people who do not know any better suppose me ungrateful. But what was the favour? That you did not kill me at Brundisium?
*
Could you in fact have killed a man whom the victor himself—who, as you used to boast, had made you the chief of his band of brigands—had wanted kept unharmed, and had actually ordered to go to Italy in the first place? Suppose you could have. How else can brigands confer a favour, conscript fathers, except by asserting that they have granted life to those from whom they have not taken it away? But if this were truly a favour, those who assassinated the man who had saved them,
*
men whom you yourself were in the habit of calling ‘illustrious’, would never have won the glory they did. And what sort of ‘favour’ is it to have refrained from committing a horrific crime? Under the circumstances, I should not have been so much pleased at not having been killed by you as dismayed that it was within your power to do so with impunity.

[6] But let us agree to call it a favour, since brigands cannot grant anything greater: where can you say I have been ungrateful? Are you really saying that I should not have complained at the destruction of the state, in case I appeared to show you ingratitude? Yet in that complaint,
*
sorrowful and grief-stricken as it was—but also necessary for me to make, in view of this rank in which the senate and people of Rome have placed me—did I say anything offensive, did I say anything intemperate, did I say anything unfriendly? What self-control it required, when complaining about Marcus Antonius, to refrain from abuse—particularly when you had scattered to the winds the last remnants of the state; when at your house everything was up for sale in the most disgraceful of markets;
*
when you admitted that laws that had never been promulgated had been enacted both by yourself and in your own interest;
*
when as augur you had abolished the auspices, and as consul the right of veto; when to your shame you were going around with an armed escort;
*
and when, worn out with wine and fornication, you daily indulged, within that shameless house of yours, in every type of perversion. [7] But I behaved instead as if my quarrel were with Marcus Crassus,
*
with whom I have had many serious disagreements in my time, rather than with a supremely worthless gladiator: I made a deeply felt complaint about the state, but said not a word about the man. For this reason I will make him understand today how great was the favour that he on that occasion received from me.