Dio's Rome, Volume 3

[-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 them9 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 College10; yes, and Sextus Clodius had trained him to conduct himself so, upon receipt of two thousand plethra of the land of Leontini11. 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.