The Life of Cicero. Volume II.

"I had consoled myself with this," he says, "that when these ambassadors had been sent and had returned despised, and had told the Senate that not only had Antony refused to leave Gaul but was besieging Mutina, and would not let them even see Decimus – that then, in our passion and our rage, we should have gone forth with our arms, and our horses, and our men, and at once have rescued our General. But we – since we have seen the audacity, the insolence, and the pride of Antony – we have become only more cowardly than before." Then he gives his opinion about the amnesty: "Let any of those who are now with Antony, but shall leave him before the ides of March and pass to the armies of the Consuls, or of Decimus, or of young Cæsar, be held to be free from reproach. If one should quit their ranks through their own will, let them be rewarded and honored as Hirtius and Pansa, our Consuls, may think proper." This was the eighth Philippic, and is perhaps the finest of them all. It does not contain the bitter invective of the second, but there is in it a true feeling of patriotic earnestness. The ninth also is very eloquent, though it is rather a pæan sung on behalf of his friend Sulpicius, who in bad health had encountered the danger of the journey, and had died in the effort, than one of these Philippics which are supposed to have been written and spoken with the view of demolishing Antony. It is a specimen of those funereal orations delivered on behalf of a citizen who had died in the service of his country which used to be common among the Romans.

The tenth is in praise of Marcus Junius Brutus. Were I to attempt to explain the situation of Brutus in Macedonia, and to say how he had come to fill it, I should be carried away from my purpose as to Cicero's life, and should be endeavoring to write the history of the time. My object is simply to illustrate the life of Cicero by such facts as we know. In the confusion which existed at the time, Brutus had obtained some advantages in Macedonia, and had recovered for himself the legions of which Caius Antonius had been in possession, and who was now a prisoner in his hands. At this time young Marcus Cicero was his lieutenant, and it is told us how one of those legions had put themselves under his command. Brutus had at any rate written home letters to the Senate early in March, and Pansa had called the Senate together to receive them.

Again he attacks Fufius Calenus, Pansa's father-in-law, who was the only man in the Senate bold enough to stand up against him; though there were doubtless many of those foot Senators – men who traversed the house backward and forward to give their votes – who were anxious to oppose him. He thanks Pansa for calling them so quickly, seeing that when they had parted yesterday they had not expected to be again so soon convoked. We may gather from this the existence of a practice of sending messengers round to the Senators' houses to call them together. He praises Brutus for his courage and his patience. It is his object to convince his hearers, and through them the Romans of the day, that the cause of Antony is hopeless. Let us rise up and crush him. Let us all rise, and we shall certainly crush him. There is nothing so likely to attain success as a belief that the success has been already attained. "From all sides men are running together to put out the flames which he has lighted. Our veterans, following the example of young Cæsar, have repudiated Antony and his attempts. The 'Legio Martia' has blunted the edge of his rage, and the 'Legio Quarta' has attacked him. Deserted by his own troops, he has broken through into Gaul, which he has found to be hostile to him with its arms and opposed to him in spirit. The armies of Hirtius and of young Cæsar are upon his trail; and now Pansa's levies have raised the heart of the city and of all Italy. He alone is our enemy, although he has along with him his brother Lucius, whom we all regret so dearly, whose loss we have hardly been able to endure! What wild beast do you know more abominable than that, or more monstrous – who seems to have been created lest Marc Antony himself should be of all things the most vile?" He concludes by proposing the thanks of the Senate to Brutus, and a resolution that Quintus Hortensius, who had held the province of Macedonia against Caius Antonius, should be left there in command. The two propositions were carried.

As we read this, all appears to be prospering on behalf of the Republic; but if we turn to the suspected correspondence between Brutus and Cicero, we find a different state of things. And these letters, though we altogether doubt their authenticity – for their language is cold, formal, and un-Ciceronian – still were probably written by one who had access to those which Cicero had himself penned: "As to what you write about wanting men and money, it is very difficult to give you advice. I do not see how you are to raise any except by borrowing it from the municipalities" – in Macedonia – "according to the decree of the Senate. As to men, I do not know what to propose. Pansa is so far from sparing men from his army, that he begrudges those who go to you as volunteers. Some think that he wishes you to be less strong than you are – which, however, I do not suspect myself."214 A letter might fall into the hands of persons not intended to read it, and Cicero was forced to be on his guard in communicating his suspicions – Cicero or the pseudo-Cicero. In the next Brutus is rebuked for having left Antony live when Cæsar was slain. "Had not some god inspired Octavian," he says, "we should have been altogether in the power of Antony, that base and abominable man. And you see how terrible is our contest with him." And he tries to awaken him to the necessity of severity. "I see how much you delight in clemency. That is very well. But there is another place, another time, for clemency. The question for us is whether we shall any longer exist or be put out of the world." These, which are intended to represent his private fears, deal with the affairs of the day in a tone altogether different from that of his public speeches. Doubt, anxiety, occasionally almost despair, are expressed in them. But not the less does he thunder on in the Senate, aware that to attain success he must appear to have obtained it.

The eleventh Philippic was occasioned by the news which had arrived in Rome of the death of Trebonius. Trebonius had been surprised in Smyrna by a stratagem as to which alone no disgrace would have fallen on Dolabella, had he not followed up his success by killing Trebonius. How far the bloody cruelty, of which we have the account in Cicero's words, was in truth executed, it is now impossible to say. The Greek historian Appian gives us none of these horrors, but simply intimates that Trebonius, having been taken in the snare, had his head cut off.215 That Cicero believed the story is probable. It is told against his son-in-law, of whom he had hitherto spoken favorably. He would not have spoken against the man except on conviction. Dolabella was immediately declared an enemy to the Republic. Cicero inveighs against him with all his force, and says that such as Dolabella is, he had been made by the cruelty of Antony. But he goes on to philosophize, and declare how much more miserable than Trebonius was Dolabella himself, who is so base that from his childhood those things had been a delight to him which have been held as disgraceful by other children. Then he turns to the question which is in dispute, whether Brutus should be left in command of Macedonia, and Cassius of Syria – Cassius was now on his way to avenge the death of Trebonius – or whether other noble Romans, Publius Servilius, for instance, or that Hirtius and Pansa, the two Consuls, when they can be spared from Italy, shall be sent there. It is necessary here to read between the lines. The going of the Consuls would mean the withdrawing of the troops from Italy, and would leave Rome open to the Cæsarean faction. At present Decimus and Cicero, and whoever else there might be loyal to the Republic, had to fight by the assistance of other forces than their own. Hirtius and Pansa were constrained to take the part of the Republic by Cicero's eloquence, and by the action of those Senators who felt themselves compelled to obey Cicero. But they did not object to send the Consuls away, and the Consular legions, under the plea of saving the provinces. This they were willing enough to do – with the real object of delivering Italy over to those who were Cicero's enemies but were not theirs. All this Cicero understood, and, in conducting the contest, had to be on his guard, not only against the soldiers of Antony but against the Senators also, who were supposed to be his own friends, but whose hearts were intent on having back some Cæsar to preserve for them their privileges.

Cicero in this matter talked some nonsense. "By what right, by what law," he asks, "shall Cassius go to Syria? By that law which Jupiter sanctioned when he ordained that all things good for the Republic should be just and legal." For neither had Brutus a right to establish himself in Macedonia as Proconsul nor Cassius in Syria. This reference to Jupiter was a begging of the question with a vengeance. But it was perhaps necessary, in a time of such confusion, to assume some pretext of legality, let it be ever so poor. Nothing could now be done in true obedience to the laws. The Triumvirate, with Cæsar at its head, had finally trodden down all law; and yet every one was clamoring for legal rights! Then he sings the praises of Cassius, but declares that he does not dare to give him credit in that place for the greatest deed he had done. He means, of course, the murder of Cæsar.

Paterculus tells us that all these things were decreed by the Senate.216 But he is wrong. The decree of the Senate went against Cicero, and on the next day, amid much tumult, he addressed himself to the people on the subject. This he did in opposition to Pansa, who endeavored to hinder him from speaking in the Forum, and to Servilia, the mother-in-law of Cassius, who was afraid lest her son-in-law should encounter the anger of the Consuls. He went so far as to tell the people that Cassius would not obey the Senate, but would take upon himself, on such an emergency, to act as best he could for the Republic.217 There was no moment in this stirring year, none, I think, during Cicero's life, in which he behaved with greater courage than now in appealing from the Senate to the people, and in the hardihood with which he declared that the Senate's decree should be held as going for nothing. Before the time came in which it could be carried out both Hirtius and Pansa were dead. They had fallen in relieving Decimus at Mutina. His address on this occasion to the people was not made public, and has not been preserved.

Then there came up the question of a second embassy, to which Cicero at first acceded. He was induced to do so, as he says, by news which had arrived of altered circumstances on Antony's part. Calenus and Piso had given the Senate to understand that Antony was desirous of peace. Cicero had therefore assented, and had agreed to be one of the deputation. The twelfth Philippic was spoken with the object of showing that no such embassy should be sent. Cicero's condition at this period was most peculiar and most perilous. The Senate would not altogether oppose his efforts, but they hated them. They feared that, if Antony should succeed, they who had opposed Antony would be ruined. Those among them who were the boldest openly reproached Cicero with the danger which they were made to incur in fighting his battles.218 To be rid of Cicero was their desire and their difficulty. He had agreed to go on this embassy – who can say for what motives? To him it would be a mission of especial peril. It was one from which he could hardly hope ever to come back alive. It may be that he had agreed to go with his life in his hand, and to let them know that he at any rate had been willing to die for the Republic. It may be that he had heard of some altered circumstances. But he changed his mind and resolved that he would not go, unless driven forth by the Senate. There seems to have been a manifest attempt to get him out of Rome and send him where he might have his throat cut. But he declined; and this is the speech in which he did so. "It is impossible," says the French critic, speaking of the twelfth Philippic, "to surround the word 'I fear' with more imposing oratorical arguments." It has not occurred to him that Cicero may have thought that he might even yet do something better with the lees and dregs of his life than throw them away by thus falling into a trap. Nothing is so common to men as to fear to die – and nothing more necessary, or men would soon cease to live. To fear death more than ignominy is the disgrace – a truth which the French critic does not seem to have recognized when he twits the memory of Cicero with his scornful sneer, "J'ai peur." Did it occur to the French critic to ask himself for what purpose should Cicero go to Antony's camp, where he would probably be murdered, and by so doing favor the views of his own enemies in Rome? The deputation was not sent; but in lieu of the deputation Pansa, the remaining Consul, led his legions out of Rome at the beginning of April.

b. c. 43, ætat. 64.

Lepidus, who was Proconsul in Gaul and Northern Spain, wrote a letter at this time to the Senate recommending them to make peace with Antony. Cicero in his thirteenth Philippic shows how futile such a peace would be. That Lepidus was a vain, inconstant man, looking simply to his own advantage in the side which he might choose, is now understood; but when this letter was received he was supposed to have much weight in Rome. He had, however, given some offence to the Senate, not having acknowledged all the honors which had been paid to him. The advice had been rejected, and Cicero shows how unfit the man was to give it. This, however, he still does with complimentary phrases, though from a letter written by him to Lepidus about this time the nature of his feeling toward the man is declared: "You would have done better, in my judgment, if you had left alone this attempt at making peace, which approves itself neither to the Senate nor to the people, not to any good man."219 When we remember the ordinary terms of Roman letter-writing, we must acknowledge that this was a plain and not very civil attempt to silence Lepidus. He then goes on in the Philippic to read a letter which Antony had sent to Hirtius and to young Cæsar, and which they had sent on to the Senate. The letter is sufficiently bold and abusive – throwing it in their teeth that they would rather punish the murderer of Trebonius than those of Cæsar. Cicero does this with some wit, but we feel compelled to observe that as much is to be said on the one side as on the other. Brutus, Cassius, with Trebonius and others, had killed Cæsar. Dolabella, perhaps with circumstances of great cruelty, had killed Trebonius. Cicero had again and again expressed his sorrow that Antony had been spared when Cæsar was killed. We have to go back before the first slaughter to resolve who was right and who was wrong, and even afterward can only take the doings of each in that direction as part of the internecine feud. Experience has since explained to us the results of introducing bloodshed into such quarrels. The laws which recognize war are and were acknowledged. But when A kills B because he thinks B to have done evil, A can no longer complain of murder. And Cicero's criticism is somewhat puerile. "And thou, boy," Antony had said in addressing Octavian – "Et te, puer!" "You shall find him to be a man by-and-by," says Cicero. Antony's Latin is not Ciceronian. "Utrum sit elegantius," he asks, putting some further question about Cæsar and Trebonius. "As if there could be anything elegant in this war," demands Cicero. He goes through the letter in the same way, turning Antony into ridicule in a manner which must have riveted in the heart of Fulvia, Antony's wife, who was in Rome, her desire to have that bitter-speaking tongue torn out of his mouth. Such was the thirteenth Philippic.

On the 21st of April was spoken the fourteenth and the last. Pansa early in the month had left Rome, and marched toward Mutina with the intention of relieving Decimus. Antony, who was then besieging Mutina after such a fashion as to prevent all egress or ingress, and had all but brought Decimus to starvation, finding himself about to be besieged, put his troops into motion, and attacked those who were attacking him. Then was fought the battle in which Antony was beaten, and Pansa, one of the Consuls, so wounded that he perished soon afterward. Antony retreated to his camp, but was again attacked by Hirtius and Octavian, and by Decimus, who sallied out of the town. He was routed, and fled, but Hirtius was killed in the battle. Suetonius tells us that in his time a rumor was abroad that Augustus, then Octavian, had himself killed Hirtius with his own hands in the fight – Hirtius having been his fellow-general, and fighting on the same side; and that he had paid Glyco, Pansa's doctor, to poison him while dressing his wounds.220 Tacitus had already made the story known.221 It is worth repeating here only as showing the sort of conduct which a grave historian and a worthy biographer were not ashamed to attribute to the favorite Emperor of Rome.

It was on the receipt of the news in Rome of the first battle, but before the second had been fought, that the last Philippic was spoken. Pansa was not known to have been mortally wounded, nor Hirtius killed, nor was it known that Decimus had been relieved; but it was understood that Antony had received a check. Servilius had proposed a supplication, and had suggested that they should put away their saga and go back to their usual attire. The "sagum" was a common military cloak, which the early Romans wore instead of the toga when they went out to war. In later days, when the definition between a soldier and a civilian became more complete, they who were left at home wore the sagum, in token of their military feelings, when the Republic was fighting its battles near Rome. I do not suppose that when Crassus was in Parthia, or Cæsar in Gaul, the sagum was worn. It was not exactly known when the distant battles were being fought. But Cicero had taken care that the sagum should be properly worn, and had even put it on himself – to do which as a Consular was not required of him. Servilius now proposed that they should leave off their cloaks, having obtained a victory; but Cicero would not permit it. Decimus, he says, has not been relieved, and they had taken to their cloaks as showing their determination to succor their General in his distress. And he is discontented with the language used: "You have not even yet called Antony a 'public enemy.'" Then he again lashes out against the horror of Antony's proceedings: "He is waging war, a war too dreadful to be spoken of, against four Roman Consuls" – he means Hirtius and Pansa, who were already Consuls, and in truth already dead, and Decimus and Plancus, who were designated as Consuls for the next year. Plancus, however, joined his legions afterward with those of Antony, and insisted in establishing the Second Triumvirate. "Rushing from one scene of slaughter to another, he causes wherever he goes misery, desolation, bloodshed, and agony." The language is so fine that it is worth our while to see the words.222 "Is he not responsible for the horrors of Dolabella? What he would do in Rome, were it not for the protection of Jupiter, may be seen from the miseries which his brother has inflicted on those poor men of Parma – that Lucius, whom all men hate, and the gods too would hate, if they hated as they ought. In what city was Hannibal as cruel as Antony at Parma; and shall we not call him an enemy?" Servilius had asked for a supplication, but had only asked for one of moderate length. And Servilius had not called the generals Imperatores. Who should be so called but they who have been valiant, and lucky, and successful? Cicero forgets the meaning of the title, and that even Bibulus had been called Imperator in Syria. Here he runs off from his subject, and at some length praises himself. It seems that Rome was in a tumult at the time, and that Antony's enemies did all they could to support him, and also to turn his head. He had been carried into the Senate-house in triumph, and had been thanked by the whole city. After lauding the different generals, and calling them all Imperatores, he desires the Senate to decree them a supplication for fifty days. Fifty days are to be devoted to thanksgiving to the gods, though it had already been declared how very little they have done for which to be thankful, as Decimus had not yet been liberated.

Fifty days are granted for the battle of Mutina, which as yet was supposed to have been but half fought. When we hear the term "supplicatio" first mentioned in Livy one day was granted. It had grown to twenty when the gods were thanked for the victory over Vercingetorix. Now for this half-finished affair fifty was hardly enough. When the time was over, Antony and Lepidus had joined their forces triumphantly. Pansa and Hirtius were dead, and Decimus Brutus had fled, and had probably been murdered. Nothing increases so out of proportion to the occasion as the granting of honors. Stars, when they fall in showers, pale their brilliancy, and turn at last to no more than a cloud of dust. Honors are soon robbed of all their honor when once the first step downward has been taken. The decree was passed, and Cicero finished his last speech on so poor an occasion. But though the thing itself then done be small and trivial to us now, it was completed in magnificent language.223 The passage of which I give the first words below is very fine in the original, though it does not well bear translation. Thus he ended his fourteenth Philippic, and the silver tongue which had charmed Rome so often was silent forever.

We at least have no record of any further speech; nor, as I think, did he again take the labor of putting into words which should thrill through all who heard them, not the thoughts but the passionate feelings of the moment.

I will venture to quote from a contemporary his praise of the Philippics. Mr. Forsyth says: "Nothing can exceed the beauty of the language, the rhythmical flow of the periods, and the harmony of the style. The structure of the Latin language, which enables the speaker or writer to collocate his words, not, as in English, merely according to the order of thought, but in the manner best calculated to produce effect, too often baffles the powers of the translator who seeks to give the force of the passage without altering the arrangement. Often again, as is the case with all attempts to present the thoughts of the ancient in a modern dress, a periphrasis must be used to explain the meaning of an idea which was instantly caught by the Greek or Roman ear. Many allusions which flashed like lightning upon the minds of the Senators must be explained in a parenthesis, and many a home-thrust and caustic sarcasm are now deprived of their sting, which pierced sharply at the moment of their utterance some twenty centuries ago.

"But with all such disadvantages I hope that even the English reader will be able to recognize in these speeches something of the grandeur of the old Roman eloquence. The noble passages in which Cicero strove to force his countrymen for very shame to emulate the heroic virtues of their forefathers, and urged them to brave every danger and welcome death rather than slavery in the last struggle for freedom, are radiant with a glory which not even a translation can destroy. And it is impossible not to admire the genius of the orator whose words did more than armies toward recovering the lost liberty of Rome."

His words did more than armies, but neither could do anything lasting for the Republic. What was one honest man among so many? We remember Mommsen's verdict: "On the Roman oligarchy of this period no judgment can be passed save one of inexorable and remorseless condemnation." The farther we see into the facts of Roman history in our endeavors to read the life of Cicero, the more apparent becomes its truth. But Cicero, though he saw far toward it, never altogether acknowledged it. In this consists the charm of his character, though at the same time the weakness of his political aspirations; his weakness – because he was vain enough to imagine that he could talk men back from their fish-ponds; its charm – because he was able through it all to believe in honesty. The more hopeless became the cause, the sweeter, the more impassioned, the more divine, became his language. He tuned his notes to still higher pitches of melody, and thought that thus he could bring back public virtue. Often in these Philippics the matter is small enough. The men he has to praise are so little; and Antony does not loom large enough in history to have merited from Cicero so great a meed of vituperation! Nor is the abuse all true, in attributing to him motives so low. But Cicero was true through it all, anxious, all on fire with anxiety to induce those who heard him to send men to fight the battles to which he knew them, in their hearts, to be opposed.