b.c. 44, ætat. 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 Cassius had done to Cæsar. 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 passion. 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 Cassius in which he states it to be well known in Rome that Antony had declared that he, Cicero, had been the author of Cæsar's death, in order that Cæsar'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 isgenerally 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 asserts 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 passes 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 pass 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 fête in his garden: to whom, I wonder? I will name no one. To Phormio, perhaps, or Gnatho, or Ballion? Oh, incredible baseness; lust 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 togæ." "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 Cæsar 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 Cassinas, 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 Quæstor you flew at once to Cæsar. 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 Cæsar with an excuse for invading his country." Cæsar had declared at the Rubicon that the Tribunate had been violated in the person of Antony. "I will say nothing here against Cæsar, 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 Cæsar returned from Spain you again pushed yourself into his intimacy—not a brave man, we should say, but still strong enough for his purposes. Cæsar 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 Cæsar 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. Cæsar had said that Dolabella should be Consul, but when Cæsar 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 Lælius?" says Cicero. Lælius had made for himself a name among augurs for excellence.
"Miserable that you are, you throw yourself at Cæsar'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 Cassius, 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 passion; 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 Cæsar had usurped the functions of the government; but in his grief he had respected Cæsar, and had felt that he might best carry on the contest by submission. But, when Cæsar 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 Octavianus—Caius Julius Cæsar Octavianus—and had quarrelled to the knife with Antony. He had assumed that he had been adopted by Cæsar, 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, Prætors, 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 Cæsar'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 Cæsar. One is reminded by it of the impotency of a reckless heir to bring to absolute ruin the princely property of a great nobleman 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 Cæcilia 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 lust 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 Cæsar'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.