Such, in compressed form, for necessary brevity, but deserving to be studied in its own brilliant language, was the speech delivered by Cicero, in the Senate in Caesar’s presence, within a few weeks of his murder. The authenticity of it has been questioned, but without result beyond creating a doubt whether it was edited and corrected, according to his usual habit, by Cicero himself. The external evidence of genuineness is as good as for any of his other orations, and the Senate possessed no other speaker known to us, to whom, with any probability, so splendid an illustration of Roman eloquence could be assigned.
Now, therefore, let us turn to the second Philippic delivered in the following summer when the deed had been accomplished which Cicero professed to hold in so much abhorrence. Then, fiercely challenging for himself a share in the glory of tyrannicide, he exclaimed:
“What difference is there between advice beforehand and approbation afterward? What does it matter whether I wished it to be done, or rejoiced that it was done? Is there a man, save Antony and those who were glad to have Caesar reign over us, that did not wish him to be killed, or that disapproved when he was killed? All were in fault, for all the Boni joined in killing him, so far as lay in them. Some were not consulted, some wanted courage, some opportunity. All were willing,” [16]
Expressions so vehemently opposite compel us to compare them. Was it that Cicero was so carried away by the stream of his oratory, that he spoke like an actor, under artificial emotion which the occasion called for? Was it that he was deliberately trying to persuade Caesar that from the Senate he had nothing to fear, and so to put him off his guard? If, as he declared, he himself and the Boni, who were listening to him, desired so unanimously to see Caesar killed, how else can his language be interpreted? Cicero stands before the tribunal of posterity, to which he was so fond of appealing. In him, too, while “there is much to admire,” “something may be found wanting.”
Meanwhile the Senate went its way, still inventing fresh titles and conferring fresh powers. Caesar said that these vain distinctions needed limitation, rather than increase; but the flattery had a purpose in it, and would not be checked.
One day a deputation waited on him with the proffer of some “new marvel.” [17] He was sitting in front of the Temple of Venus Genetrix, and when the senators approached he neglected to rise to receive them. Some said that he was moving, but that Cornelius Balbus pulled him down. Others said that he was unwell. Pontius Aquila, a tribune, had shortly before refused to rise to Caesar. The senators thought he meant to read them a lesson in return. He intended to be king, it seemed; the constitution was gone, another Tarquin was about to seize the throne of Republican Rome.
Caesar was king in fact, and to recognize facts is more salutary than to ignore them. An acknowledgment of Caesar as king might have made the problem of reorganization easier than it proved. The army had thought of it. He was on the point of starting for Parthia, and a prophecy had said that the Parthians could only be conquered by a king.—But the Roman people were sensitive about names. Though their liberties were restricted for the present, they liked to hope that one day the Forum might recover its greatness. The Senate, meditating on the insult which they had received, concluded that Caesar might be tempted, and that if they could bring him to consent he would lose the people’s hearts. They had already made him Dictator for life; they voted next that he really should be King, and, not formally perhaps, but tentatively, they offered him the crown. He was sounded as to whether he would accept it. He understood the snare, and refused. What was to be done next? He would soon be gone to the East. Rome and its hollow adulations would lie behind him, and their one opportunity would be gone also. They employed some one to place a diadem on the head of his statue which stood upon the Rostra. [18] It was done publicly, in the midst of a vast crowd, in Caesar’s presence. Two eager tribunes tore the diadem down, and ordered the offender into custody. The treachery of the Senate was not the only danger. His friends in the army had the same ambition for him. A few days later, as he was riding through the streets, he was saluted as King by the mob. Caesar answered calmly that he was not King but Caesar, and there the matter might have ended; but the tribunes rushed into the crowd to arrest the leaders; a riot followed, for which Caesar blamed them; they complained noisily; he brought their conduct before the Senate, and they were censured and suspended. But suspicion was doing its work, and honest republican hearts began to heat and kindle.
The kingship assumed a more serious form on the 15th of February at the Lupercalia—the ancient carnival. Caesar was in his chair, in his consular purple, wearing a wreath of bay, wrought in gold. The honor of the wreath was the only distinction which he had accepted from the Senate with pleasure. He retained a remnant of youthful vanity, and the twisted leaves concealed his baldness. Antony, his colleague in the consulship, approached with a tiara, and placed it on Caesar’s head, saying, “The people give you this by my hand.” That Antony had no sinister purpose is obvious. He perhaps spoke for the army; [19] or it may be that Caesar himself suggested Antony’s action, that he might end the agitation of so dangerous a subject. He answered in a loud voice “that the Romans had no king but God,” and ordered that the tiara should be taken to the Capitol, and placed on the statue of Jupiter Olympius. The crowd burst into an enthusiastic cheer; and an inscription on a brass tablet recorded that the Roman people had offered Caesar the crown by the hands of the consul, and that Caesar had refused it.