his uncle's memory. He pointed with his right hand to the
statue of Caesar on the Rostra, and addressed it in a solemn
adjuration. This gave little hope to the anti-Julian party,
and made Cicero exclaim in Greek when he heard of it, " I
should be sorry to be saved by such a man as that !" But
Caesar's veterans who had followed Octavian to Rome did
not like the idea of righting against Antony. As consul he
was the legitimate commander of the army of Rome, and he
had given ample proof that he identified his own cause with
that of Caesar, their murdered general. A contest between
Octavian and Antony could only, they thought, benefit the
party of Brutus, whom they hated as assassins. They there-
fore began to leave the city in such numbers that Octavian
had only a small force left. His position was highly critical,
for Antony was marching up at the head of the Alaudae
legion and other reinforcements. It was no longer safe to
stay within the walls, and he hastily withdrew to Arretium,
to the north-east of Rome, which he made the place of
rendezvous for his troops.

Almost at the same time, or immediately afterwards,
Antony entered the city, with a large train of followers, but
he left the bulk of his army at Tibur. Cicero describes his
march through the streets amidst the groans of the populace,
and says that, as he passed by the houses of those who were
obnoxious to him on the right and left, he pointed to them
in a threatening manner, and told his followers that he would
give up the city to plunder. He was consul, and, as Dola-
bella was absent in the East, sole-acting consul at Rome.
This gave him an immense advantage, which none of his
opponents enjoyed. He could treat his personal enemies as



470 REVOLT OF TWO LEGIONS. CHAP. xxn.

enemies of the state. To summon legions to his standard
was in him an act of rightful authority ; in them it was an
act of rebellion. 1 He immediately issued proclamations
denouncing the conduct of Octavian. He compared him to
Spartacus, reproached him with being of ignoble birth, and
accused him of all kinds of vice, as if the purity of his own
life entitled him to play the part of a censor. He sum-
moned a meeting of the Senate for the 24th of November,
and declared that whoever did not attend would avow himself
a conspirator against Antony and his country. But when
the day arrived, he did not appear, as, if we may believe
Cicero, he had drunk too hard to be able to come. He
therefore summoned another meeting for the 28th, in the
temple of Jupiter, on the Capitol, and slunk up to it by a
subterranean passage which seems to have been made at the
time when the Gauls captured Rome, and was called Gal-
lorum Cuniculus. By an arbitrary edict he had forbidden,
under pain of death, three of the tribunes to be present,
afraid apparently lest they might exercise their veto. It was
no secret that his object was to get the Senate to pass a
resolution declaring Octavian a public enemy. But when he
rose to speak either his resolution had failed him or he thought
the right moment had not come, for the anxious senators
found that the only business he had to lay before them was
a proposal for a thanksgiving in honour of Lepidus, who had
a military command in Gaul. At the same instant startling
news suddenly arrived which completely disconcerted him.
Of the three legions that had left Brundusium and marched
northwards along the Adriatic coast, two, the Martial and the
Fourth, had just declared for Octavian, and taken up their
position at Alba, within a few miles of Rome. We must
not suppose that this was merely like the loss of a couple of
regiments in a modern army. The strength of a Roman
legion at the time of which we are speaking was about six
thousand men, so that the amount subtracted from the force
on which Antony reckoned would, by the defection of the
two legions, be twelve thousand soldiers, and these, as
veterans in the campaigns of Caesar, the very flower of his

1 To get over this, Cicero afterwards argued that Antony had by his crimes
forfeited the rank of consul. Phil. iii. 6.



JET. 63. TRICKERY WITH THE BALLOT. 471

troops. He was frightened out of his wits, and hurried over
the motion for a thanksgiving by immediately calling for a
division a thing which in such a case, as Cicero says, had
never been done before. 1 He then hastened from the Senate-
house the instant that the resolution was passed, and, changing
his consular robe for the military dress of a general {palu-
datus\ quitted or rather flew from the city to Alba, to try
and bring back the troops to his standard.

The Senate met again in the evening and proceeded to
ballot for the provisional governments of the following year.
This ought to have been done under the presidency of
Antony, and several of the senators, who. were eligible for
the appointments, seem to have availed themselves of the
objection that he was absent, and to have withdrawn their
names. In the ironical account that Cicero gives of the
ballot, he implies that some unfair trick was used to give
Antony's friends the provinces they wanted. Addressing
the Senate soon afterwards in the speech known as the Third
Philippic, he said " Caius Antony got Macedonia. Lucky
man ! for he was always talking of that province. Caius
Calvisius got Africa. Nothing could be more lucky ; for he
had just quitted Africa, and, as if divining that he would
return there, had left two of his legates at Utica." But the
luck was not all on one side. M. Iccius got Sicily, and Q.
Cassius Spain. Cassius was the brother of the conspirator,
and Iccius belonged to the same party. "In their case,"
said Cicero, " I have no cause to suspect foul play. I sup-
pose the ballot for those two provinces was not so provi-
dentially directed !"

Antony did not succeed in shaking the resolution of the
legions at Alba, who had chosen Octavian as their leader.
He therefore hastened to Tibur, to join the troops that had
rallied round his own standard, and distributed money
amongst them to keep them in good humour. A fifth
legion had by this time come back from Macedonia, and
placed itself under his command, so that, including the new
levies he had raised, he found himself at the head of a

1 The reason why Antony resorted suppose it was thought an undignified

to it probably was because it was the mode oi carrying so solemn a measure

shortest mode of passing the resolution, as a supplicatio.
and he was in a desperate hurry. I



472 THE THIRD PHILIPPIC. CHAP. xxn.

respectable force of four legions, or twenty-four thousand
men. Octavian had about the same number ; but, in addi-
tion to these, it must be remembered that he could reckon
upon the co-operation of the army commanded by Decimus
Brutus in Cisalpine Gaul, of which it was the avowed object
of Antony to seize possession. Brutus acted with spirit and
firmness. He issued a proclamation declaring his resolve to
hold the province which had been bestowed on him by the
authority of the Senate, and levied troops to oppose the
approach of Antony.

The newly-elected tribunes, who had just entered into
office, convoked the Senate on the 2Oth of December, to
take into consideration a proposal to allow the consuls to
elect a military guard on the 1st of January, for the protec-
tion of the Senate, which would meet on that day. Cicero,
who had returned to Rome on the Qth, went early ; and,
when it was buzzed abroad that he was there, the senators
flocked in numbers to the House (or more properly the
Temple), in hopes of hearing him once more. And they
were not disappointed. He rose and delivered the oration
known as the Third Philippic.

It was an excellent speech for the objects he had in view,
which were to denounce Antony as a public enemy, and
show the Senate the necessity of energetic and immediate
action. He praised Octavian to the skies for the spirit he
had shown in raising levies of troops at his own expense,
and Decimus Brutus for his firmness in holding Cisalpine
Gaul ; and the inhabitants of the province, which he called
" the flower of Italy," for their zeal and unanimity in rallying
round their governor. He advised that the best military
commanders should be appointed to lead the troops, and
that liberal promises of reward should be made to the sol-
diers. He declared that Antony was worse than Tarquin,
and insisted that he could no longer, with any consistency
on their part, be regarded as consul ; for they applauded the
conduct of Brutus, and yet he was acting contrary to law in
opposing Antony, if Antony was really consul. They ap-
plauded the conduct of the legions that deserted him, and
yet those legions were guilty, and deserved the punishment
of mutiny, if Antony was consul.



B.C. 44. THE THIRD PHILIPPIC. 473

He ridiculed the attempt of Antony to throw discredit
upon Octavian because his mother was a native of a provin-
cial town (Aricia, in Latium, at the foot of the Mons Al-
banus). He said that if that was a stigma, it applied to
nearly the whole body of senators, for almost all were
sprung from a provincial stock ; and he retorted upon Antony
that his wife Fulvia was the daughter of a nobody from
Tusculum, nicknamed Bambalio, because he was a stutterer
and a fool. He ridiculed also the bad Latin of his procla-
mations in a way that reminds us of Cobbett criticising the
bad English of a royal speech. After describing his character
and conduct in the darkest colours, he earnestly adjured the
Senate not to lose the present opportunity afforded by the
kindness of the immortal gods ; for Antony was caught in
front, flank, and rear, if he entered Cisalpine Gaul. If he
was suffered to escape and become victorious, the provinces
had nothing to expect but servitude and disgrace. " But,"
he exclaimed, " if (may Heaven avert the omen !) the last
hour of the republic has arrived, let us, the foremost men
in all the world, do what noble gladiators do, fall with
honour. Let us rather die with dignity than serve with
ignominy." He concluded by declaring his opinion that it
should be resolved that Pansa and Hirtius, the consuls-elect,
should provide for the safety of the Senate at the meeting of
the ist of January; that Decimus Brutus had deserved well
of the state, in upholding the authority of the Senate and
the liberties of the people, and ought to keep his province ;
that the other provincial governors should retain their respec-
tive commands until successors were appointed by a resolu-
tion of the Senate ; that honours should be paid and thanks
given to Octavian (or Caius Caesar, as he designated him),
and the Fourth and Martial legions, and the veteran soldiers
who rallied round him ; and that as soon as the consuls-
elect entered upon office, they should bring all these ques-
tions before the Senate, in the way they deemed best for
the advantage of the republic, and most consistent with
their duty.

A resolution was passed in the terms that Cicero proposed ;
and he then immediately went to the Forum, and on the
same day addressed from the rostra a crowded meeting of



474 DISTRIBUTION OF THE LEGIONS. CHAP. xxn.

the people, telling them that although Antony had not been
formally declared a public enemy by the Senate, he was in
effect treated by them as such. He went over much of the
same ground as in his previous speech, and did his utmost
to inflame the passions of his audience.

It is probable that about this time he put into general
circulation his Second Philippic. He had completely broken
with Antony, and set him at defiance. The temptation
therefore was great to publish that attack which he had so
carefully elaborated in his retirement at Puteoli. Either he
or Antony must fall ; and his safety depended on the success
of his attempt to raise the hatred of his countrymen against
their unworthy consul.

For war was now inevitable. Antony was leading his
troops along the defiles of the Apennines to take forcible
possession of Cisalpine Gaul, and Decimus Brutus had thrown
himself into Mutina, the modern Modena, at the foot of the
northern range of the same mountains. He occupied the
town with a strong garrison, and was resolved to defend it
to the last extremity. He relied of course upon the assist-
ance of Octavian, who was in the field with his hastily-col-
lected levies, strengthened, however, by three of the well-
disciplined legions from Macedonia ; and also upon the forces
which the new consuls would be able to raise whenever they
entered upon office, on the 1st of January. On that day
Antony would cease to have any legal right to command a
Roman army, and all his authority would pass to Hirtius
and Pansa, his successors. And as the Senate had in effect
ratified the act of Octavian in levying troops, the armies
which the republic could call its own, and on which it could
rely to oppose Antony, would be represented by the triple
union of the forces of the Consuls, Octavian, and Brutus. The
other forces of the republic, exclusive of those to the east
of Italy, were thus distributed : Pollio had two legions in
Spain; Lepidus four in the north of Spain and the Narbon-
ensian province of Gaul ; Plancus three in the rest of Gaul.
Cicero was very anxious to secure Plancus on the side of the
Senate against Antony, and wrote to him at the end of the
year. They were on the best of terms with each other, and
Plancus, if we may believe his professions, regarded him



JET. 63.



LETTER TO PLANCUS.



475



with feelings of affectionate respect. He and Decimus Bru-
tus had been designated by Caesar as consuls for the next
year but one, and as all the " acts" of the deceased dictator
were ratified by the Senate, they would then enter upon that
high office, if nothing unforeseen occurred to prevent it At
the end of December Plancus wrote to Cicero in answer to a
letter he had received from him in November. He said his
only wish was to devote all his energies to the service of the
republic. But he had to keep a careful watch upon the
movements of the Gauls, lest they should think the confusion
in Italy a good opportunity for revolt Cicero was delighted
to hear such sentiments from a man who was at the head of
so many disciplined battalions, and he wrote to him in lavish
terms of flattery and compliment. He earnestly exhorted
him to pursue the path of true glory, by supporting the cause
of the republic. " You are," he said, " consul-elect, in the
flower of your age, gifted with the highest order of eloquence,
and this at a time when our fatherland is bereaved of almost
all her children, such as you." But, alas for promises and
professions made by the slippery sons of Rome ! In a few
short months Plancus joined his forces to those of Antony
and Lepidus, and abandoned the side of Cicero and the
Senate.





CHAPTER XXIII.

THE EMBASSY TO ANTONY.
JEt. 64. B.C. 43.

WE have reached the last year of Cicero's life. The horizon
was dark and stormy, but yet light seemed to be breaking
through the gloom. Antony was no longer a consul, in law-
ful command of a Roman army, but a private citizen, engaged
in a desperate rebellion. The Senate had all but declared
him a public enemy, even while armed with consular autho-
rity, and the people had applauded when Cicero denounced
him as worse than Spartacus or Catiline. The net in which
he was to be caught was fast closing around him. Octavian,
at the head of an army formidable in numbers and in disci-
pline, was marching rapidly upon him, and in his front was
Decimus Brutus, holding him in check before the walls of
Mutina. If the new consuls acted as Cicero hoped and
believed they would act, it seemed inevitable that he must
fall. But upon them everything depended ; for if they
wavered and refused to employ against him the forces at
their command, it was possible that Octavian might be
defeated, in which case Mutina would fall, and Antony
would become master of Cisalpine Gaul.

Aulus Hirtius and Caius Vibius Pansa, who began their
consulship at this eventful crisis, had both belonged to the



B.C. 43. POLICY OF THE CONSULS. 477

Julian party, and owed everything to Caesar. Hirtius had
been one of his legates in Gaul, and received afterwards from
him the government of .the northern part of that province,
corresponding to the modern Belgium. Pansa had been
appointed by him governor of Cisalpine Gaul, as successor
to Marcus Brutus. Both owed to him their elevation to the
consulship, to which he had nominated them by virtue of his
sovereign power as dictator. Since his death they had
observed a cautious neutrality, and abstained almost entirely
from politics. They both, and especially Hirtius, had kept on
good terms with Cicero ; but, whatever he might think it
politic to say in public, his private correspondence shows
that he had no great confidence in either of them. Their
conduct, however, seems to have been loyal and sincere.
They naturally did not wish to drive Antony to extremities,
and destroy all hope of an accommodation, the failure of
which must result in another civil war, perhaps as bloody
and ruinous as the last. And besides, they could not forget
that his immediate antagonist was Decimus Brutus, one of
the assassins of their friend and benefactor Caesar ; and,
with the exception of Octavian, the party most violently
opposed to him was the party of the conspirators, men who
gloried in the murder of him whose statue yet stood in the
Forum, with the inscription proclaiming him " the father of
his country." They therefore determined to temporise, and
endeavour to bring back Antony to his allegiance.

The Senate met on the 1st of January in the Temple of
Jupiter, on the Capitol ; and, after the inaugural ceremonies
of religion, according to ancient custom, the consuls brought
forward the pressing question of the moment, how they were
to deal with Antony in arms. They both spoke in a tone
that pleased Cicero, who cheered himself with the hope that
they would act with as much vigour and firmness as their
speeches implied. But he was soon undeceived. By an
obviously preconcerted arrangement they called on Fufius
Calenus, Pansa's father-in-law, to rise first and deliver his
opinion. He had in old days, as tribune of the people,
actively assisted Clodius to obtain an acquittal on his trial
for the violation of the mysteries of the Bona Dea. Since
then he had distinguished himself as an ardent partisan of



478 THE EMBASSY TO ANTONY. CHAP. xxm.

Caesar, and was by him substituted consul B.C. 47 (consul
suffectus] for the last three months of that year. In one of
his letters, written in the previous year, Cicero calls him a
personal enemy of himself, and at this very time Antony's
wife, Fulvia, and her children, were staying under the protec-
tion of his roof. It was an ominous circumstance that he
should be chosen to speak first, and as it were lead the de-
bate, at such a momentous crisis ; although his near rela-
tionship to one of the consuls not only gave a pretext for,
but justified the precedence that was thus given him.

His advice was, that an embassy should be sent to Antony,
calling upon him to retire from Mutina and submit himself
to the authority of the Senate. L. Piso and other senators
of consular rank followed on the same side, and at last it
came to Cicero's turn to speak. He rose and delivered the
oration known as the Fifth Philippic. It may be described in
the words put by Milton into the mouth of Moloch, in the
second book of Paradise Lost

* ' My sentence is for open war : of wiles
More unexpert I boast not : them let those
Contrive who need, or when they need ; not now."

He regretted that he had not been called on to speak after
the other ex-consuls had delivered their opinions, for then he
would have been able to reply upon them all ; and he feared
that others would follow him who were prepared to go the
length of proposing that Antony should have the province of
Gaul, of which Plancus was governor.

"What," he exclaimed, " is this, but to put arms in the hands of an enemy
for the purpose of civil war ? . . . The pleas you urge are of no avail. ' He is
my friend,' says one. Let him first show himself the friend of his country.
* He is my relative,' cries another. Can there be any relationship closer than
that of one's countiy, which embraces even one's parents ? ' He owes me money,'
do I hear ? I should like to see the man who would dare to say it."

Again

" Does Antony wish for peace? Let him lay aside his arms. He will find
no one more equitable than myself, of whom, while he throws himself on the
support of impious citizens, he had rather be the enemy than the friend. There
is nothing which can be granted to him while he carries on war : there may
perhaps be something which will be given if he sues as a suppliant. "

He went over his former ground of argument to show the
inconsistency of sending ambassadors to a man whom, by



JET. 64. THE FIFTH PHILIPPIC, 479

their previous acts in honour of the generals and troops who
had marched against him, they had already denounced as his
country's foe. He reviewed the conduct of Antony, and
charged him with all the nefarious acts of which he had been
guilty in forging Caesar's papers and making a market of his
grants for his own private emolument. He amused his audi-
ence with a sarcastic account of what Antony had done to
increase the number of the body of jurymen at Rome.
Csesar, indeed, had placed among them common soldiers,
privates from the ranks, and the men of the Alaudae legion ;
but Antony had added gamblers and exiles, and even Greeks !
He made himself merry with the idea of a member of the
court of Areopagus being summoned to serve on a Roman
trial, and excusing himself on the ground that he could not
serve the same moment at Athens and at Rome. Did
some of them even know the Latin language ? Were they
acquainted with the laws and customs of Rome? Fancy
such a man as Cyda from Crete sitting on a trial a monster
of audacity and crime ! Antony, he said, alone, of all men
since the foundation of the city, kept openly an armed force
within the walls. This the old kings had never done, nor
those who, after their expulsion, had aimed at monarchy.

" I remember Cinna," he cried, " I have seen Sylla, and not long ago Caesar
these three, since the time when freedom was given to the state by Lucius
Brutus, made themselves more powerful than the whole republic. I cannot assert
that they were never attended by armed guards ; but this I do say, that the guards
were few, and kept in the background. But this pestilent fellow was followed
by a whole squadron of armed men. Classitius, Mustella, Tiro, and creatures
like them, brandished their swords, and led their bands through the Forum nay,
barbarian bowmen stood here in battle array."

He denounced in the strongest language the idea of sending
an embassy to Antony, and advised that not war (bellum)
but a "tumult" (tumultus) should be proclaimed 1 that a
levy en masse should be decreed a military uniform (saga)
be generally assumed, and the courts of justice closed. He
then proposed, in much the same form as in his previous
speech, that a public vote of thanks should be decreed by the
Senate to Decimus Brutus and to Lepidus, and that a gilt

* ' The distinction was this : Bellum proximity of Gaul to Italy. In the case

applied to a foreign war, tumultus to a of a tumultus all furloughs were called

domestic insurrection, or the threat of in, but not so in the case of bellum.
a Gallic invasion, owing to the close



480 THE EMBASSY TO ANTONY. CHAP. xxm.

equestrian statue of Lepidus should be placed on the Rostra,
or in any other part of the Forum he preferred. As for
Octavian or Caius Caesar, as he always took care to desig-
nate him he seemed to feel a difficulty in finding language
sufficiently complimentary in praise of him. He proposed
that he should be formally invested with a military command
it must be remembered that up to this time Octavian had
been levying troops, and was at the head of a military force
without any legal authority and that he should have the
rank of a propraetor, sit in the Senate in the place allotted to
the praetors, and be at liberty to become a candidate for any
of the higher state offices. As to the objection that he was
under the legal age, Cicero reminded the Senate that distin-
guished excellence anticipated the march of years. With an
earnestness which was little prescient of futurity, he scouted
the idea that Octavian might become intoxicated with such
honours, and forget the duty he owed to the republic. True
glory consisted in securing the esteem and love of the Senate