The Life of Cicero Volume II Part 7

He procured, or said that he procured, a decree to be pa.s.sed confirming by law all Caesar's written purposes. Such a decree he could use to any extent to which he could carry with him the sympathies of the people. He did use it to a great extent, and seems at this period to have contemplated the a.s.sumption of dictatorial power in his own hands.

Antony was nearly being one of the greatest rascals the world has known.

The desire was there, and so was the intellect, had it not been weighted by personal luxury and indulgence.

Now young Octavius came upon the scene. He was the great-nephew of Caesar, whose sister Julia had married one Marcus Atius. Their daughter Atia had married Caius Octavius, and of that marriage Augustus was the child. When Octavius, the father, died, Atia, the widow, married Marcius Philippus, who was Consul B.C. 56. Caesar, having no nearer heir, took charge of the boy, and had, for the last years of his life, treated him as his son, though he had not adopted him. At this period the youth had been sent to Apollonia, on the other side of the Adriatic, in Macedonia, to study with Apollodorus, a Greek tutor, and was there when he heard of Caesar's death. He was informed that Caesar had made him his heir and at once crossed over into Italy with his friend Agrippa. On the way up to Rome he met Cicero at one of his southern villas, and in the presence of the great orator behaved himself with becoming respect. He was then not twenty years old, but in the present difficulty of his position conducted himself with a caution most unlike a boy. He had only come, he said for what his great-uncle had left him; and when he found that Antony had spent the money, does not appear to have expressed himself immediately in anger. He went on to Rome, where he found that Antony and Dolabella and Marcus Brutus and Decimus Brutus and Ca.s.sius were scrambling for the provinces and the legions. Some of the soldiers came to him, asking him to avenge his uncle's death; but he was too prudent as yet to declare any purpose of revenge.

Not long after Caesar's death Cicero left Rome, and spent the ensuing month travelling about among his different villas. On the 14th of April he writes to Atticus, declaring that whatever evil might befall him he would find comfort in the ides of March. In the same letter he calls Brutus and the others "our heroes," and begs his friend to send him news--or if not news, then a letter without news.[180] In the next he again calls them his heroes, but adds that he can take no pleasure in anything but in the deed that had been done. Men are still praising the work of Caesar, and he laments that they should be so inconsistent.

"Though they laud those who had destroyed Caesar, at the same time they praise his deeds."[181] In the same letter he tells Atticus that the people in all the villages are full of joy. "It cannot be told how eager they are--how they run out to meet me, and to hear my accounts of what was done. But the Senate pa.s.ses no decree!"[182] He speaks of going into Greece to see his son--whom he never lived to see again--telling him of letters from the lad from Athens, which, he thinks, however, may be hypocritical, though he is comforted by finding their language to be clear. He has recovered his good-humor, and can be jocose. One Cluvius has left him a property at Puteoli, and the house has tumbled down; but he has sent for Chrysippus, an architect. But what are houses falling to him? He can thank Socrates and all his followers that they have taught him to disregard such worldly things. Nevertheless, he has deemed it expedient to take the advice of a certain friend as to turning the tumble-down house into profitable shape.[183] A little later he expresses his great disgust that Caesar, in the public speeches in Rome, should be spoken of as that "great and most excellent man."[184] And yet he had said, but a few months since, in his oration for King Deiotarus, in the presence of Caesar, "that he looked only into his eyes, only into his face--that he regarded only him." The flattery and the indignant reprobation do, in truth, come very near upon each other, and induce us to ask whether the fact of having to live in the presence of royalty be not injurious to the moral man. Could any of us have refused to speak to Caesar with adulation--any of us whom circ.u.mstances compelled to speak to him? Power had made Caesar desirous of a mode of address hardly becoming a man to give or a man to receive. Does not the etiquette of to-day require from us certain courtesies of conversation, which I would call abject were it not that etiquette requires them? Nevertheless, making the best allowance that I can for Cicero, the difference of his language within a month or two is very painful. In the letter above quoted Octavius comes to him, and we can see how willing was the young aspirant to flatter him.

He sees already that, in spite of the promised amnesty, there must be internecine feud. "I shall have to go into the camp with young s.e.xtus"--s.e.xtus Pompeius--"or perhaps with Brutus, a prospect at my years most odious." Then he quotes two lines of Homer, altering a word: "To you, my child, is not given the glory of war; eloquence, charming eloquence, must be the weapon with which you will fight." We hear of his contemplated journey into Greece, under the protection of a free legation. He was going for the sake of his son; but would not people say that he went to avoid the present danger? and might it not be the case that he should be of service if he remained?[185] We see that the old state of doubt is again falling upon him. [Greek: Aideomai Troas.]

Otherwise he could go and make himself safe in Athens. There is a correspondence between him and Antony, of which he sends copies to Atticus. Antony writes to him, begging him to allow s.e.xtus Clodius to return from his banishment. This s.e.xtus had been condemned because of the riot on the death of his uncle in Milo's affair, and Antony wishes to have him back. Cicero replies that he will certainly accede to Antony's views. It had always been a law with him, he says, not to maintain a feeling of hatred against his humbler enemies. But in both these letters we see the subtilty and caution of the writers. Antony could have brought back s.e.xtus without Cicero, and Cicero knew that he could do so. Cicero had no power over the law. But it suited Antony to write courteously a letter which might elicit an uncivil reply. Cicero, however, knew better, and answered it civilly.

He writes to Tiro telling him that he has not the slightest intention of quarrelling with his old friend Antony, and will write to Antony, but not till he shall have seen him, Tiro; showing on what terms of friendship he stands with his former slave, for Tiro had by this time been manumitted.[186] He writes to Tiro quite as he might have written to a younger Atticus, and speaks to him of Atticus with all the familiarity of confirmed friendship. There must have been something very sweet in the nature of the intercourse which bound such a man as Cicero to such another as Tiro.

Atticus applies to him, desiring him to use his influence respecting a certain question of importance as to Buthrotum. Buthrotum was a town in Epirus opposite to the island of Corcyra, in which Atticus had an important interest. The lands about the place were to be divided, and to be distributed to Roman soldiers--much, as we may suppose to the injury of Atticus. He has earnestly begged the interference of Cicero for the protection of the Buthrotians, and Cicero tells him that he wishes he could have seen Antony on the subject, but that Antony is too much busied looking after the soldiers in the Campagna. Cicero fails to have the wishes of Atticus carried out, and shortly the subject becomes lost in the general confusion. But the discussion shows of how much importance at the present moment Cicero's interference with Antony is considered. It shows also that up to this period, a few months previous to the envenomed hatred of the second Philippic, Antony and Cicero were presumed to be on terms of intimate friendship.

The worship of Caesar had been commenced in Rome, and an altar had been set up to him in the Forum as to a G.o.d. Had Caesar, when he perished, been said to have usurped the sovereign authority, his body would have been thrown out as unworthy of n.o.ble treatment. Such treatment the custom of the Republic required. It had been allowed to be buried, and had been honored, not disgraced. Now, on the spot where the funeral pile had been made, the altar was erected, and crowds of men clamored round it, worshipping. That this was the work of Antony we cannot doubt. But Dolabella, Cicero's repudiated son-in-law, who in furtherance of a promise from Caesar had seized the Consulship, was jealous of Antony and caused the altar to be thrown down and the worshippers to be dispersed.

Many were killed in the struggle--for, though the Republic was so jealous of the lives of the citizens as not to allow a criminal to be executed without an expression of the voice of the entire people, any number might fall in a street tumult, and but little would be thought about it. Dolabella destroyed the altar, and Cicero was profuse in his thanks.[187] For though Tullia had been divorced, and had since died, there was no cause for a quarrel. Divorces were so common that no family odium was necessarily created. Cicero was at this moment most anxious to get back from Dolabella his daughter's dowry. It was never repaid.

Indeed, a time was quickly coming in which such payments were out of the question, and Dolabella soon took a side altogether opposed to the Republic--for which he cared nothing. He was bought by Antony, having been ready to be bought by any one. He went to Syria as governor before the end of the year, and at Smyrna, on his road, he committed one of those acts of horror on Trebonius, an adverse governor, in which the Romans of the day would revel when liberated from control. Ca.s.sius came to avenge his friend Trebonius, and Dolabella, finding himself worsted, destroyed himself. He had not progressed so far in corruption as Verres, because time had not permitted it--but that was the direction in which he was travelling. At the present moment, however, no praise was too fervid to be bestowed upon him by Cicero's pen. That turning of Caesar into a G.o.d was opposed to every feeling of his heart, both, as to men and as to G.o.ds.

A little farther on[188] we find him complaining of the state of things very grievously: "That we should have feared this thing, and not have feared the other!"--meaning Caesar and Antony. He declares that he must often read, for his own consolation, his treatise on old age, then just written and addressed to Atticus. "Old age is making me bitter," he says; "I am annoyed at everything. But my life has been lived. Let the young look to the future." We here meet the name of Caerellia in a letter to his friend. She had probably been sent to make up the quarrel between him and his young wife Publilia. Nothing came of it, and it is mentioned only because Caerellia's name has been joined so often with that of Cicero by subsequent writers. In the whole course of his correspondence with Atticus I do not remember it to occur, except in one or two letters at this period. I imagine that some story respecting the lady was handed down, and was published by Dio Ca.s.sius when the Greek historian found that it served his purpose to abuse Cicero.

On June 22nd he sent news to Atticus of his nephew. Young Quintus had written home to his father to declare his repentance. He had been in receipt of money from Antony, and had done Antony's dirty work. He had been "Antoni dextella"--"Antony's right hand"--according to Cicero, and had quarrelled absolutely with his father and his uncle. He now expresses his sorrow, and declares that he would come himself at once, but that there might be danger to his father. And there is money to be expected if he will only wait. "Did you ever hear of a worse knave?"

Cicero adds. Probably not; but yet he was able to convince his father and his uncle, and some time afterward absolutely offered to prosecute Antony for stealing the public money out of the treasury. He thought, as did some others, that the course of things was going against Antony. As a consequence of this he was named in the proscriptions, and killed, with his father. In the same letter Cicero consults Atticus as to the best mode of going to Greece. Brundisium is the usual way, but he has been told by Tiro that there are soldiers in the town.[189] He is now at Arpinum, on his journey, and receives a letter from Brutus inviting him back to Rome, to see the games given by Brutus. He is annoyed to think that Brutus should expect this. "These shows are now only honorable to him who is bound to give them," he says; "I am not bound to see them, and to be present would be dishonorable."[190] Then comes his parting with Atticus, showing a demonstrative tenderness foreign to the sternness of our northern nature. "That you should have wept when you had parted from me, has grieved me greatly. Had you done it in my presence, I should not have gone at all."[191] "Nonis Juliis!"[192] he exclaims. The name of July had already come into use--the name which has been in use ever since--the name of the man who had now been destroyed!

The idea distresses him. "Shall Brutus talk of July?" It seems that some advertis.e.m.e.nt had been published as to his games in which the month was so called.

Writing from one of his villas in the south, he tells Atticus that his nephew has again been with him, and has repented him of all his sins. I think that Cicero never wrote anything vainer than this: "He has been so changed," he says, "by reading some of my writings which I happened to have by me, and by my words and precepts, that he is just such a citizen as I would have him."[193] Could it be that he should suppose that one whom he had a few days since described as the biggest knave he knew should be so changed by a few words well written and well p.r.o.nounced?

Young Quintus must in truth have been a clever knave. In the same letter Cicero tells us that Tiro had collected about seventy of his letters with a view to publication. We have at present over seven hundred written before that day.

Just as he is starting he gives his friend a very wide commission: "By your love for me, do manage my matters for me. I have left enough to pay everything that I owe. But it will happen, as it often does, that they who owe me will not be punctual. If anything of that kind should happen, only think of my character. Put me right before the world by borrowing, or even by selling, if it be necessary."[194] This is not the language of a man in distress, but of one anxious that none should lose a shilling by him. He again thinks of starting from Brundisium, and promises, when he has arrived there, instantly to begin a new work. He has sent his De Gloria to Atticus; a treatise which we have lost. We should be glad to know how he treated this most difficult subject. We are astonished at his fecundity and readiness. He was now nearly sixty-three, and, as he travels about the country, he takes with him all the adjuncts necessary for the writing of treatises such as he composed at this period of his life! His Topica, containing Aristotelian instructions as to a lawyer's work, he put together on board ship, immediately after this, for the benefit of Trebatius, to whom it had been promised.

July had come, and at last he resolved to sail from Pompeii and to coast round to Sicily. He lands for a night at Velia, where he finds Brutus, with whom he has an interview. Then he writes a letter to Trebatius, who had there a charming villa, bought no doubt with Gallic spoils. He is reminded of his promise, and going on to Rhegium writes his Topica, which he sends to Trebatius from that place. Thence he went across to Syracuse, but was afraid to stay there, fearing that his motions might be watched, and that Antony would think that he had objects of State in his journey. He had already been told that some attributed his going to a desire to be present at the Olympian games; but the first notion seems to have been that he had given the Republic up as lost, and was seeking safety elsewhere. From this we are made to perceive how closely his motions were watched, and how much men thought of them. From Syracuse he started for Athens--which place, however, he was doomed never to see again. He was carried back to Leucopetra on the continent; and though he made another effort, he was, he says, again brought back. There, at the villa of his friend Valerius, he learned tidings which induced him to change his purpose, and hurry off to Rome. Brutus and Ca.s.sius had published a decree of the Senate, calling all the Senators, and especially the Consulares, to Rome. There was reason to suppose that Antony was willing to relax his pretensions. They had strenuously demanded his attendance, and whispers were heard that he had fled from the difficulties of the times. "When I heard this, I at once abandoned my journey, with which, indeed, I had never been well pleased."[195]

Then he enters into a long disquisition with Atticus as to the advice which had been given to him, both by Atticus and by Brutus, and he says some hard words to Atticus. But he leaves an impression on the reader's mind that Brutus had so disturbed him by what had pa.s.sed between them at Velia, that from that moment his doubts as to going, which had been always strong, had overmastered him. It was not the winds at Leucopetra that hindered his journey, but the taunting words which Brutus had spoken. It was suggested to him that he was deserting his country. The reproach had been felt by him to be heavy, for he had promised to Atticus that he would return by the first of January; yet he could not but feel that there was something in it of truth. The very months during which he would be absent would be the months of danger. Indeed, looking out upon the political horizon then, it seemed as though the nearest months, those they were then pa.s.sing, would be the most dangerous. If Antony could be got rid of, be made to leave Italy, there might be something for an honest Senator to do--a man with consular authority--a something which might not jeopardize his life. When men now call a politician of those days a coward for wishing to avoid the heat of the battle, they hardly think what it is for an old man to leave his retreat and rush into the Forum, and there encounter such a one as Antony, and such soldiers as were his soldiers. Cicero, who had been brave enough in the emergencies of his career, and had gone about his work sometimes regardless of his life, no doubt thought of all this. It would be pleasant to him again to see his son, and to look upon the rough doings of Rome from amid the safety of Athens; but when his countrymen told him that he had not as yet done enough--when Brutus, with his cold, bitter words, rebuked him for going--then his thoughts turned round on the quick pivot on which they were balanced, and he hurried back to the fight.

He travelled at once up to Rome, which he reached on the last of August, and there received a message from Antony demanding his presence in the Senate on the next day. He had been greeted on his journey once again by the enthusiastic welcome of his countrymen, who looked to receive some especial advantage from his honesty and patriotism. Once again he was made proud by the clamors of a trusting people. But he had not come to Rome to be Antony's puppet. Antony had some measure to bring before the Senate in honor of Caesar which it would not suit Cicero to support or to oppose. He sent to say that he was tired after his journey and would not come. Upon this the critics deal hardly with him, and call him a coward.

"With an incredible pusillanimity," says M. Du Rozoir, "Cicero excused himself, alleging his health and the fatigue of his voyage." "He pretended that he was too tired to be present," says Mr Long. It appears to me that they who have read Cicero's works with the greatest care have become so enveloped by the power of his words as to expect from them an unnatural weight. If a politician of to-day, finding that it did not suit him to appear in the House of Commons on a certain evening, and that it would best become him to allow a debate to pa.s.s without his presence, were to make such an excuse, would he be treated after the same fashion? Pusillanimity, and pretence, in regard to those Philippics in which he seems to have courted death by every harsh word that he uttered! The reader who has begun to think so must change his mind, and be prepared, as he progresses, to find quite another fault with Cicero.

Impetuous, self-confident, rash; throwing down the gage with internecine fury; striving to crush with his words the man who had the command of the legions of Rome; sticking at nothing which could inflict a blow; forcing men by his descriptions to such contempt of Antony that they should be induced to leave the stronger party, lest they too should incur something of the wrath of the orator--that they will find to be the line which Cicero adopted, and the demeanor he put on during the next twelve months! He thundered with his Philippics through Rome, addressing now the Senate and now the people with a hardihood which you may condemn as being unbecoming one so old, who should have been taught equanimity by experience; but pusillanimity and pretence will not be the offences you will bring against him.

Antony, not finding that Cicero had come at his call, declared in the Senate that he would send his workmen to dig him out from his house.

Cicero alludes to this on the next day without pa.s.sion.[196] Antony was not present, and in this speech he expresses no bitterness of anger. It should hardly have been named one of the Philippics, which t.i.tle might well have been commenced with the second. The name, it should be understood, has been adopted from a jocular allusion by Cicero to the Philippics of Demosthenes, made in a letter to Brutus. We have at least the reply of Brutus, if indeed the letter be genuine, which is much to be doubted.[197] But he had no purpose of affixing his name to them. For many years afterward they were called Antonianae, and the first general use of the term by which we know them has probably been comparatively modern. The one name does as well as another, but it is odd that speeches from Demosthenes should have given a name to others so well known as these made by Cicero against Antony. Plutarch, however, mentions the name, saying that it had been given to the speeches by Cicero himself.

In this, the first, he is ironically reticent as to Antony's violence and unpatriotic conduct. Antony was not present, and Cicero tells his hearers with a pleasant joke that to Antony it may be allowed to be absent on the score of ill-health, though the indulgence had been refused to him. Antony is his friend, and why had Antony treated him so roughly? Was it unusual for Senators to be absent? Was Hannibal at the gate, or were they dealing for peace with Pyrrhus, as was the case when they brought the old blind Appius down to the House? Then he comes to the question of the hour, which was, nominally, the sanctioning as law those acts of Caesar's which he had decreed by his own will before his death. When a tyrant usurps power for a while and is then deposed, no more difficult question can be debated. Is it not better to take the law as he leaves it, even though the law has become a law illegally, than encounter all the confusion of retrograde action? Nothing could have been more iniquitous than some of Sulla's laws, but Cicero had opposed their abrogation. But here the question was one not of Caesar's laws, but of decrees subsequently made by Antony and palmed off upon the people as having been found among Caesar's papers. Soon after Caesar's death a decision had been obtained by Antony in favor of Caesar's laws or acts, and hence had come these impudent forgeries under the guise of which Antony could cause what writings he chose to be made public. "I think that Caesar's acts should be maintained," says Cicero, "not as being in themselves good, for that no one can a.s.sert. I wish that Antony were present here without his usual friends," he adds, alluding to his armed satellites. "He would tell us after what manner he would maintain those acts of Caesar's. Are they to be found in notes and sc.r.a.ps and small doc.u.ments brought forward by one witness, or not brought forward at all but only told to us? And shall those which he engraved in bronze, and which he wished to be known as the will of the people and as perpetual laws--shall they go for nothing?"[198] Here was the point in dispute.

The decree had been voted soon after Caesar's death, giving the sanction of the Senate to his laws. For peace this had been done, as the best way out of the difficulty which oppressed the State. But it was intolerable that, under this sanction, Antony should have the power of bringing forth new edicts day after day, while the very laws which Caesar had pa.s.sed were not maintained. "What better law was there, or more often demanded in the best days of the Republic, than that law," pa.s.sed by Caesar, "under which the provinces were to be held by the Praetors only for one year, and by the Consuls for not more than two? But this law is abolished. So it is thus that Caesar's acts are to be maintained?"[199]

Antony, no doubt, and his friends, having an eye to the fruition of the provinces, had found among Caesar's papers--or said they had found--some writing to suit their purpose. All things to be desired were to be found among Caesar's papers. "The banished are brought back from banishment, the right of citizenship is given not only to individuals but to whole nations and provinces, exceptions from taxations are granted, by the dead man's voice."[200] Antony had begun, probably, with some one or two more modest forgeries, and had gone on, strengthened in impudence by his own success, till Caesar dead was like to be worse to them than Caesar living. The whole speech is dignified, patriotic, and bold, a.s.serting with truth that which he believed to be right, but never carried into invective or dealing with expressions of anger. It is very short, but I know no speech of his more closely to its purpose. I can see him now, with his toga round him, as he utters the final words: "I have lived perhaps long enough--both as to length of years and the glory I have won. What little may be added, shall be, not for myself, but for you and for the Republic." The words thus spoken became absolutely true.

CHAPTER IX.

_THE PHILIPPICS._

[Sidenote: B.C. 44, aetat. 63.]

Cicero was soon driven by the violence of Antony's conduct to relinquish the idea of moderate language, and was ready enough to pick up the gauntlet thrown down for him. From this moment to the last scene of his life it was all the fury of battle and the shout of victory, and then the scream of despair. Antony, when he read Cicero's speech, the first Philippic, the language of which was no doubt instantly sent to him, seems to have understood at once that he must either vanquish Cicero or be vanquished by him. He appreciated to the letter the ironically cautious language in which his conduct was exposed. He had not chosen to listen to Cicero, but was most anxious to get Cicero to listen to him.

Those "advocates" of whom Cicero had spoken would be around him, and at a nod, or perhaps without a nod, would do to Cicero as Brutus and Ca.s.sius had done to Caesar. The last meeting of the Senate had been on the 2d of September. When it was over, Antony, we are told, went down to his villa at Tivoli, and there devoted himself for above a fortnight to the getting up of a speech by which he might silence, or at any rate answer Cicero. Nor did he leave himself to his own devices, but took to himself a master of eloquence who might teach him when to make use of his arms, where to stamp his feet, and in what way to throw his toga about with a graceful pa.s.sion. He was about forty at this time,[201] and in the full flower of his manhood, yet, for such a purpose, he did not suppose himself to know all that lessons would teach him in the art of invective. There he remained, mouthing out his phrases in the presence of his preceptor, till he had learned by heart all that the preceptor knew. Then he summoned Cicero to meet him in the Senate on the 19th.

This Cicero was desirous of doing, but was prevented by his friends, who were afraid of the "advocates." There is extant a letter from Cicero to Ca.s.sius in which he states it to be well known in Rome that Antony had declared that he, Cicero, had been the author of Caesar's death, in order that Caesar's old soldiers might slay him.[202] There were other Senators, he says, who did not dare to show themselves in the Senate-house--Piso, and Servilius, and Cotta. Antony came down and made his practised oration against Cicero. The words of his speech have not been preserved, but Cicero has told us the manner of it, and some of the phrases which he used. The authority is not very good, but we may imagine from the results that his story is not far from the truth. From first to last it was one violent tirade of abuse which he seemed to vomit forth from his jaws, rather than to "speak after the manner of a Roman Consular." Such is Cicero's description.

It has been said of Antony that we hear of him only from his enemies. He left behind him no friend to speak for him, and we have heard of him certainly from one enemy; but the tidings are of a nature to force upon us belief in the evil which Cicero spoke of him. Had he been a man of decent habits of life, and of an honest purpose, would Cicero have dared to say to the Romans respecting him the words which he produced, not only in the second Philippic, which was unspoken, but also in the twelve which followed? The record of him, as far as it goes, is altogether bad.

Plutarch tells us that he was handsome, and a good soldier, but altogether vicious. Plutarch is not a biographer whose word is to be taken as to details, but he is generally correct in his estimate of character. Tacitus tells us but little about him as direct history, but mentions him ever in the same tone. Tacitus knew the feeling of Rome regarding him. Paterculus speaks specially of his fraud, and breaks out into strong repudiation of the murder of Cicero.[203] Valerius Maximus, in his anecdotes, mentions him slightingly, as an evil man is spoken of who has forced himself into notice. Virgil has stamped his name with everlasting ignominy. "Sequiturque nefas Egyptia conjux." I can think of no Roman writer who has named him with honor. He was a Roman of the day--what Rome had made him--brave, greedy, treacherous, and unpatriotic.

Cicero again was absent from the Senate, but was in Rome when Antony attacked him. We learn from a letter to Cornificius that Antony left the city shortly afterward, and went down to Brundisium to look after the legions which had come across from Macedonia, with which Cicero a.s.serts that he intends to tyrannize over them all in Rome.[204] He then tells his correspondent that young Octavius has just been discovered in an attempt to have Antony murdered, but that Antony, having found the murderer in his house, had not dared to complain. He seems to think that Octavius had been right! The state of things was such that men were used to murder; but this story was probably not true. He pa.s.ses on to declare in the next sentence that he receives such consolation from philosophy as to be able to bear all the ills of fortune. He himself goes to Puteoli, and there he writes the second Philippic. It is supposed to be the most violent piece of invective ever produced by human ingenuity and human anger. The readers of it must, however, remember that it was not made to be spoken--was not even written, as far as we are aware, to be shown to Antony, or to be published to the world. We do not even know that Antony ever saw it. There has been an idea prevalent that Antony's anger was caused by it, and that Cicero owed to it his death; but the surmise is based on probability--not at all on evidence. Cicero, when he heard what Antony had said of him, appears to have written all the evil he could say of his enemy, in order that he might send it to Atticus. It contained rather what he could have published than what he did intend to publish. He does, indeed, suggest, in the letter which accompanied the treatise when sent to Atticus, in some only half-intelligible words, that he hopes the time may come when the speech "shall find its way freely even into Sica's house;"[205] but we gather even from that his intention that it should have no absolutely public circulation. He had struggled to be as severe as he knew how, but had done it, as it were, with a halter round his neck; and for Antony's anger--the anger which afterward produced the proscription--there came to be cause enough beyond this. Before that day he had endeavored to stir up the whole Empire against Antony, and had all but succeeded.

It has been alleged that Cicero again shows his cowardice by writing and not speaking his oration, and also by writing it only for private distribution. If he were a coward, why did he write it at all? If he were a coward, why did he hurry into this contest with Antony? If he be blamed because his Philippic was anonymous, how do the anonymous writers of to-day escape? If because he wrote it, and did not speak it, what shall be said of the party writers of to-day? He was a coward, say his accusers, because he avoided a danger. Have they thought of the danger which he did run when they bring those charges against him? of what was the nature of the fight? Do they remember how many Romans in public life had been murdered during the last dozen years? We are well aware how far custom goes, and that men became used to the fear of violent death.

Cicero was now habituated to that fear, and was willing to face it. But not on that account are we to imagine that, with his eyes open, he was to be supposed always ready to rush into immediate destruction. To write a scurrilous attack, such as the second Philippic, is a bad exercise for the ingenuity of a great man; but so is any anonymous satire. It is so in regard to our own times, which have received the benefit of all antecedent civilization. Cicero, being in the midst of those heartless Romans, is expected to have the polished manners and high feelings of a modern politician! I have hardly a right to be angry with his critics because by his life he went so near to justify the expectation.

He begins by asking his supposed hearers how it has come to pa.s.s that during the last twenty years the Republic had had no enemy who was not also his enemy. "And you, Antony, whom I have never injured by a word, why is it that, more brazen-faced than Catiline, more fierce than Clodius, you should attack me with your maledictions? Will your enmity against me be a recommendation for you to every evil citizen in Rome?

* * * Why does not Antony come down among us to-day?" he says, as though he were in the Senate and Antony were away. "He gives a birthday fete in his garden: to whom, I wonder? I will name no one. To Phormio, perhaps, or Gnatho, or Ballion? Oh, incredible baseness; l.u.s.t and impudence not to be borne!" These were the vile knaves of the Roman comedy--the Nyms.

Pistols, and Bobadils. "Your Consulship no doubt will be salutary; but mine did only evil! You talk of my verses," he says--Antony having twitted him with the "cedant arma togae." "I will only say that you do not understand them or any other. Clodius was killed by my counsels--was he? What would men have said had they seen him running from you through the Forum--you with your drawn sword, and him escaping up the stairs of the bookseller's shop?[206] * * * It was by my advice that Caesar was killed! I fear, O conscript fathers, lest I should seem to have employed some false witness to flatter me with praises which do not belong to me.

Who has ever heard me mentioned as having been conversant with that glorious affair? Among those who did do the deed, whose name has been hidden--or, indeed, is not most widely known? Some had been inclined to boast that they were there, though they were absent; but not one who was present has ever endeavored to conceal his name."

"You deny that I have had legacies? I wish it were true, for then my friends might still be living. But where have you learned that, seeing that I have inherited twenty million sesterces?[207] I am happier in this than you. No one but a friend has made me his heir. Lucius Rubrius Ca.s.sinas, whom you never even saw, has named you." He here refers to a man over whose property Antony was supposed to have obtained control fraudulently. "Did he know of you whether you were a white man or a negro? * * * Would you mind telling me what height Turselius stood?"

Here he names another of whose property Antony is supposed to have obtained possession illegally. "I believe all you know of him is what farms he had. * * * Do you bear in mind," he says, "that you were a bankrupt as soon as you had become a man? Do you remember your early friendship with Curio, and the injuries you did his father?" Here it is impossible to translate literally, but after speaking as he had done very openly, he goes on: "But I must omit the iniquities of your private life. There are things I cannot repeat here. You are safe, because the deeds you have done are too bad to be mentioned. But let us look at the affairs of your public life. I will just go through them;" which he does, laying bare as he well knew how to do, every past act. "When you had been made Quaestor you flew at once to Caesar. You knew that he was the only refuge for poverty, debt, wickedness, and vice. Then, when you had gorged upon his generosity and your plunderings--which indeed you spent faster than you got it--you betook yourself instantly to the Tribunate. * * * It is you, Antony, you who supplied Caesar with an excuse for invading his country." Caesar had declared at the Rubicon that the Tribunate had been violated in the person of Antony. "I will say nothing here against Caesar, though nothing can excuse a man for taking up arms against his country. But of you it has to be confessed that you were the cause. * * * He has been a very Helen to us Trojans. * * * He has brought back many a wretched exile, but has forgotten altogether his own uncle"--Cicero's colleague in the Consulship, who had been banished for plundering his province. "We have seen this Tribune of the people carried through the town on a British war-chariot. His lictors with their laurels went before him. In the midst, on an open litter, was carried an actress. When you come back from Thessaly with your legions to Brundisium you did not kill me! Oh, what a kindness! * * * You with those jaws of yours, with that huge chest, with that body like a gladiator, drank so much wine at Hippea's marriage that in the sight of all Rome you were forced to vomit.* * * When he had seized Pompey's property he rejoiced like some stage-actor who in a play is as poor as Poverty, and then suddenly becomes rich. All his wine, the great weight of silver, the costly furniture and rich dresses, in a few days where were they all? A Charybdis do I call him? He swallowed them all like an entire ocean!" Then he accuses him of cowardice and cruelty in the Pharsalian wars, and compares him most injuriously with Dolabella. "Do you remember how Dolabella fought for you in Spain, when you were getting drunk at Narbo? And how did you get back from Narbo? He has asked as to my return to the city. I have explained to you, O conscript fathers, how I had intended to be here in January, so as to be of some service to the Republic. You inquire how I got back. In daylight--not in the dark, as you did; with Roman shoes on and a Roman toga--not in barbaric boots and an old cloak.* * * When Caesar returned from Spain you again pushed yourself into his intimacy--not a brave man, we should say, but still strong enough for his purposes. Caesar did always this--that if there were a man ruined, steeped in debt, up to his ears in poverty--a base, needy, bold man--that was the man whom he could receive into his friendship." This as to Caesar was undoubtedly true. "Recommended in this way, you were told to declare yourself Consul." Then he describes the way in which he endeavored to prevent the nomination of Dolabella to the same office. Caesar had said that Dolabella should be Consul, but when Caesar was dead this did not suit Antony. When the tribes had been called in their centuries to vote, Antony, not understanding what form of words he ought to have used as augur to stop the ceremony, had blundered.

"Would you not call him a very Laelius?" says Cicero. Laelius had made for himself a name among augurs for excellence.

"Miserable that you are, you throw yourself at Caesar's feet asking only permission to be his slave. You sought for yourself that state of slavery which it has ever been easy for you to endure. Had you any command from the Roman people to ask the same for them? Oh, that eloquence of yours; when naked you stood up to harangue the people! Who ever saw a fouler deed than that, or one more worthy scourges?" "Has Tarquin suffered for this; have Spurius Ca.s.sius, Melius, and Marcus Manlius suffered, that after many ages a king should be set up in Rome by Marc Antony?" With abuse of a similar kind he goes on to the end of his declamation, when he again professes himself ready to die at his post in defence of the Republic. That he now made up his mind so to die, should it become necessary, we may take for granted, but we cannot bring ourselves to approve of the storm of abuse under which he attempted to drown the memory and name of his antagonist. So virulent a torrent of words, all seeming, as we read them, to have been poured out in rapid utterances by the keen energy of the moment, astonish us, when we reflect that it was the work of his quiet moments. That he should have prepared such a task in the seclusion of his closet is marvellous. It has about it the very ring of sudden pa.s.sion; but it must be acknowledged that it is not palatable. It is more Roman and less English than anything we have from Cicero--except his abuse of Piso, with whom he was again now half reconciled.

But it was solely on behalf of his country that he did it. He had grieved when Caesar had usurped the functions of the government; but in his grief he had respected Caesar, and had felt that he might best carry on the contest by submission. But, when Caesar was dead, and Antony was playing tyrant, his very soul rebelled. Then he sat down to prepare his first instalment of keen personal abuse, adding word to word and phrase to phrase till he had built up this unsavory monument of vituperation.

It is by this that Antony is now known to the world. Plutarch makes no special mention of the second Philippic. In his life of Antony he does not allude to these orations at all, but in that of Cicero he tells us how Antony had ordered that right hand to be brought to him with which Cicero had written his Philippics.

The "young Octavius" of Shakespeare had now taken the name of Octavia.n.u.s--Caius Julius Caesar Octavia.n.u.s--and had quarrelled to the knife with Antony. He had a.s.sumed that he had been adopted by Caesar, and now demanded all the treasures his uncle had collected as his own.

Antony, who had already stolen them, declared that they belonged to the State. At any rate there was cause enough for quarrelling among them, and they were enemies. Each seems to have brought charges of murder against the other, and each was anxious to obtain possession of the soldiery. Seen as we see now the period in Rome of which we are writing--every safeguard of the Republic gone, all law trampled under foot, Consuls, Praetors, and Tribunes not elected but forced upon the State, all things in disorder, the provinces becoming the open prey of the greediest plunderer--it is apparent enough that there could be no longer any hope for a Cicero. The marvel is that the every-day affairs of life should have been carried on with any reference to the law. When we are told that Antony stole Caesar's treasures and paid his debts with them, we are inclined to ask why he had paid his debts at all. But Cicero did hope. In his whole life there is nothing more remarkable than the final vitality with which he endeavored to withstand the coming deluge of military despotism. Nor in all history is there anything more wonderful than the capacity of power to re-establish itself, as is shown by the orderly Empire of Augustus growing out of the disorder left by Caesar. One is reminded by it of the impotency of a reckless heir to bring to absolute ruin the princely property of a great n.o.bleman brought together by the skill of many careful progenitors. A thing will grow to be so big as to be all but indestructible. It is like that tower of Caecilia Metella against which the storms of twenty centuries have beaten in vain. Looking at the state of the Roman Empire when Cicero died, who would not declare its doom? But it did "retrick its beams," not so much by the hand of one man, Augustus, as by the force of the concrete power collected within it--"Quod non imber edax non aquilo impotens Possit diruere."[208] Cicero with patriotic gallantry thought that even yet there might be a chance for the old Republic--thought that by his eloquence, by his vehemence of words, he could turn men from fraud to truth, and from the l.u.s.t of plundering a province to a desire to preserve their country. Of Antony now he despaired, but he still hoped that his words might act upon this young Caesar's heart. The youth was as callous as though he had already ruled a province for three years. No Roman was ever more cautious, more wise, more heartless, more able to pick his way through blood to a throne, than the young Augustus. Cicero fears Octavian--as we must now call him--and knows that he can only be restrained by the keeping of power out of his hands. Writing to Atticus from Arpinum, he says, "I agree altogether with you. If Octavian gets power into his hands he will insist upon the tyrant's decrees much more thoroughly than he did when the Senate sat in the temple of Tellus.

Everything then will be done in opposition to Brutus. But if he be conquered, then see how intolerable would be the dominion of Antony."[209] In the same letter he speaks of the De Officiis, which he has just written. In his next and last epistle to his old friend he congratulates himself on having been able at last to quarrel with Dolabella. Dolabella had turned upon him in the end, bought by Antony's money. He then returns to the subject of Octavian, and his doubts as to his loyalty. He has been asked to pledge himself to Octavian, but has declined till he shall see how the young man will behave when Casea becomes candidate for the Tribunate. If he show himself to be Casea's enemy, Casea having been one of the conspirators, Cicero will know that he is not to be trusted. Then he falls into a despairing mood, and declares that there is no hope. "Even Hippocrates was unwilling to bestow medicine on those to whom it could avail nothing." But he will go to Rome, into the very jaws of the danger. "It is less base for such as I am to fall publicly than privately." With these words, almost the last written by him to Atticus, this correspondence is brought to an end: the most affectionate, the most trusting, and the most open ever published to the world as having come from one man to another. No letters more useful to the elucidation of character were ever written; but when read for that purpose they should be read with care, and should hardly be quoted till they have been understood.

[Sidenote: B.C. 44, aetat. 63.]

The struggles for the provinces were open and acknowledged. Under Caesar, Decimus Brutus had been nominated for Cisalpine Gaul, Marcus Brutus for Macedonia, and Ca.s.sius for Syria. It will be observed that these three men were the most prominent among the conspirators. Since that time Antony and Dolabella had obtained votes of the people to alter the arrangement. Antony was to go to Macedonia, and Dolabella to Syria. This was again changed when Antony found that Decimus had left Rome to take up his command. He sent his brother Caius to Macedonia, and himself claimed to be Governor of Cisalpine Gaul. Hence there were two Roman governors for each province; and in each case each governor was determined to fight for the possession. Antony hurried out of Rome before the end of the year with the purpose of hindering Decimus from the occupation of the north of Italy, and Cicero went up to Rome, determined to take a part in the struggle which was imminent. The Senate had been summoned for the 19th of December, and attended in great numbers. Then it was that he spoke the third Philippic, and in the evening of the same day he spoke the fourth to the people. It should be understood that none of these speeches were heard by Antony. Cicero had at this time become the acknowledged chief of the Republican party, having drifted into the position which Pompey had so long filled. Many of Caesar's friends, frightened by his death, or rather cowed by the absence of his genius, had found it safer to retreat from the Caesarean party, of which the Antonys, with Dolabella, the cutthroats and gladiators of the empire, had the command. Hirtius and Pansa, with Balbus and Oppius, were among them. They, at this moment, were powerful in Rome. The legions were divided--some with Antony, some with Octavian, and some with Decimus Brutus. The greater number were with Antony, whom they hated for his cruelty; but were with him because the mantle of Caesar's power had fallen on to his shoulders. It was felt by Cicero that if he could induce Octavian to act with him the Republic might be again established. He would surely have influence enough to keep the lad from hankering after his great uncle's pernicious power. He was aware that the dominion did in fact belong to the owner of the soldiers, but he thought that he could control this boy-officer, and thus have his legions at the command of the Republic.

The Senate had been called together, nominally for the purpose of desiring the Consuls of the year to provide a guard for its own safety.

Cicero makes it an occasion for perpetuating the feeling against Antony, which had already become strong in Rome. He breaks out into praise of Octavian, whom he calls "this young Caesar--almost a boy;" tells them what divine things the boy had already done, and how he had drawn away from the rebels those two indomitable legions, the Martia and the Fourth. Then he proceeds to abuse Antony. Tarquinius, the man whose name was most odious to Romans, had been unendurable as a tyrant, though himself not a bad man; but Antony's only object is to sell the Empire, and to spend the price. Antony had convoked the Senate for November, threatening the Senators with awful punishments should they absent themselves; but, when the day came, Antony, the Consul, had himself fled. He not only pours out the vials of his wrath but of his ridicule upon Antony's head, and quotes his bungling words. He gives instances of his imprudence, and his impotence, and of his greed. Then he again praises the young Caesar, and the two Consuls for the next year, and the two legions, and Decimus Brutus, who is about to fight the battle of the Republic for them in the north of Italy, and votes that the necessary guard be supplied. In the same evening he addresses the people in his fourth Philippic. He again praises the lad and the two legions, and again abuses Antony. No one can say after this day that he hid his anger, or was silent from fear. He congratulates the Romans on their patriotism--vain congratulations--and encourages them to make new efforts. He bids them rejoice that they have a hero such as Decimus Brutus to protect their liberties, and, almost, that they have such an enemy as Antony to conquer. It seems that his words, few as they were--perhaps because they were so few--took hold of the people's imaginations; so that they shouted to him that he had on that day a second time saved his country, as he reminds them afterward.[210]

From this time forward we are without those intimate and friendly letters which we have had with us as our guide through the last twenty-one years of Cicero's life. For though we have a large body of correspondence written during the last year of his life, which are genuine, they are written in altogether a different style from those which have gone before. They are for the most part urgent appeals to those of his political friends to whom he can look for support in his views--often to those to whom he looked in vain. They are pa.s.sionate prayers for the performance of a public duty, and as such are altogether to the writer's credit. His letters to Plancus are beautiful in their patriotism, as are also those to Decimus Brutus. When we think of his age, of his zeal, of his earnestness, and of the dangers which he ran, we hardly know how sufficiently to admire the public spirit with which at such a crisis he had taken on himself to lead the party. But our guide to his inner feelings is gone. There are no further letters to tell us of every doubt at his heart. We think of him as of some stalwart commander left at home to arrange the affairs of the war, while the less experienced men were sent to the van.

There is also a book of letters published as having pa.s.sed between Cicero and Junius Brutus. The critics have generally united in condemning them as spurious. They are at, any rate, if genuine, cold and formal in their language.

[Sidenote: B.C. 43, aetat. 64.]

Antony had proceeded into Cisalpine Gaul to drive out of the province the Consul named by the people to govern it. The nomination of Decimus had in truth been Caesar's nomination; but the right of Decimus to rule was at any rate better than that of any other claimant. He had been appointed in accordance with the power then in existence, and his appointment had been confirmed by the decree of the Senate sanctioning all Caesar's acts. It was, after all, a question of simple power, for Caesar had overridden every legal form. It became necessary, however, that they who were in power in Rome should decide. The Consuls Hirtius and Pansa had been Caesar's friends, and had also been the friends of Antony. They had not the trust in Antony which Caesar had inspired; but they were anxious to befriend him--or rather not to break with him. When the Senate met, they called on one Fufius Calenus--who was Antony's friend and Pansa's father-in-law--first to offer his opinion. He had been one of Caesar's Consuls, appointed for a month or two, and was now chosen for the honorable part of first spokesman, as being a Consular Senator. He was for making terms with Antony, and suggested that a deputation of three Senators should be sent to him with a message calling upon him to retire. The object probably was to give Antony time, or rather to give Octavian time, to join with Antony if it suited him.

Others spoke in the same sense, and then Cicero was desired to give his opinion. This was the fifth Philippic. He is all for war with Antony--or rather he will not call it war, but a public breach of the peace which Antony has made. He begins mildly enough, but warms with his subject as he goes on: "Should they send amba.s.sadors to a traitor to his country?