Searching for Antonius \Cic. Phil.
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XLV. Recollect then, O Marcus Antonius, that day on which you abolished the dictatorship. Set before you the joy of the senate and people of Rome; compare it with this infamous market held by you and by your friends; and then you will understand how great is the difference between praise and profit. But in truth, just as some people, through some disease which has blunted the senses, have no conception of the niceness of food, so men who are lustful, avaricious, and criminal, have no taste for true glory. But if praise cannot allure you to act rightly, still cannot even fear turn you away from the most shameful actions? You are not afraid of the courts of justice. If it is because you are innocent, I praise you; if because you trust in your power of overbearing them by violence, are you ignorant of what that man has to fear, who on such an account as that does not fear the courts of justice?
Cic. Phil. 7.8.1 (y)
I therefore, a nursling of peace, as I may call myself, I who, whatever I am, (for I arrogate nothing to myself,) should undoubtedly not have been such without internal peace: I am speaking in peril: I shudder to think how you will receive it, O conscript fathers; but still, out of regard for my unceasing desire to support and increase your dignity, I beg and entreat you, O conscript fathers, although it may be a bitter thing to hear, or an incredible thing that it should be said by Marcus Cicero, still to receive at first, without offence, what I am going to say, and not to reject it before I have fully explained what it is;—I, who, I will say so over and over again, have always been a panegyrist, have always been an adviser of peace, do not wish to have peace with Marcus Antonius. I approach the rest of my speech with great hope, O conscript fathers, since I have now passed by that perilous point amid your silence.
What will be the case if we are not to confer out of the camp? What camp is to be chosen for the conference? He will never come into our camp;—much less will we go to his. It follows then, that all demands must be received and sent to and fro by means of letters. We then shall be in our respective camps. On all his demands I shall have but one opinion; and when I have stated it here, in your hearing, you may think that I have gone, and that I have come back again.—I shall have finished my embassy. As far as my sentiments can prevail I shall refer every demand which Antonius makes to the senate. For, indeed, we have no power to do otherwise; nor have we received any commission from this assembly, such as, when a war is terminated, is usually, in accordance with the precedents of your ancestors, entrusted to the ambassadors. Nor, in fact, have we received any particular commission from the senate at all.
And, as I shall pursue this line of conduct in the council, where some, as I imagine, will oppose it, have I not reason to fear that the ignorant mob may think that peace is delayed by my means?
among whom Marcus Antonius (O ye immortal gods, avert, I pray you, and efface this omen,) has promised to divide this city. May things rather happen, O Romans, as you pray that they should, and may the chastisement of this frenzy fall on him and on his friend. And, indeed, I feel sure that it will be so. For I think that at present not only men but the immortal gods have all united together to preserve this republic. For if the immortal gods foreshow us the future, by means of portents and prodigies, then it has been openly revealed to us that punishment is near at hand to him, and liberty to us. Or if it was impossible for such unanimity on the part of all men to exist without the inspiration of the gods, in either case how can we doubt as to the inclinations of the heavenly deities?
It only remains, O Romans, for you to persevere in the sentiments which you at present display.
VI. Wherefore, I will embrace every consideration in my opinion which I am now going to deliver, a course to which you, I feel sure, have no objection; in order that authority may be conferred by us on admirable generals, and that hope of reward may be held out by us to gallant soldiers, and that a formal decision may be come to, not by words only, but also by actions, that Antonius is not only not a consul, but is even an enemy. For if he be consul, then the legions which have deserted the consul deserve beating to death. Cæsar is wicked, Brutus is impious, since they of their own heads have levied an army against the consul. But if new honours are to be sought out for the soldiers on account of their divine and immortal merits, and if it is quite impossible to show gratitude enough to the generals, who is there who must not think that man a public enemy, whose conduct is such that those who are in arms against him are considered the saviours of the republic?
“But, however, that matter is not open for consideration now; an embassy has been appointed.” But what is there which is not open for consideration to a wise man, as long as it can be remodelled? Any man is liable to a mistake; but no one but a downright fool will persist in error. For second thoughts, as people say, are best. The mist which I spoke of just now is dispelled: light has arisen: the case is plain: we see everything, and that not by our own acuteness, but we are warned by our friends.
You heard just now what was the statement made by a most admirable man. I found, said he, his house, his wife, his children, all in great distress. Good men marvelled at me, my friends blamed me for having been led by the hope of peace to undertake an embassy. And no wonder, O Publius Servilius. For by your own most true and most weighty arguments Antonius was stripped, I do not say of all dignity, but of even every hope of safety.
Since, then, O conscript fathers, I trust that the reason of my adopting each determination appears praiseworthy to you, before I begin to speak of the republic, I will make a brief complaint of the injury which Marcus Antonius did me yesterday; to whom I am friendly, and I have at all times admitted having received some services from him which make it my duty to be so.
V. What reason had he then for endeavouring, with such bitter hostility, to force me into the senate yesterday? Was I the only person who was absent? Have you not repeatedly had thinner houses than yesterday? Or was a matter of such importance under discussion, that it was desirable for even sick men to be brought down? Hannibal, I suppose, was at the gates, or there was to be a debate about peace with Pyrrhus; on which occasion it is related that even the great Appius, old and blind as he was, was brought down to the senate-house.
One man, the foulest of all banditti, is waging an irreconcileable war against four consuls. He is at the same time carrying on war against the senate and people of Rome. He is (although he is himself hastening to destruction, through the disasters which he has met with) threatening all of us with destruction, and devastation, and torments, and tortures. He declares that that inhuman and savage act of Dolabella’s, which no nation of barbarians would have owned, was done by his advice; and what he himself would do in this city, if this very Jupiter, who now looks down upon us assembled in his temple, had not repelled him from this temple and from these walls, he showed, in the miseries of those inhabitants of Parma, whom, virtuous and honourable men as they were, and most intimately connected with the authority of this order, and with the dignity of the Roman people, that villain and monster, Lucius Antonius, that object of the extraordinary detestation of all men, and (if the gods hate those whom they ought) of all the gods also, murdered with every circumstance of cruelty.
What other object had Caius Pansa in holding the levies which he did, and in collecting money, and in carrying the most severe resolutions of the senate against Antonius, and in exhorting us, and in inviting the Roman people to embrace the cause of liberty, except to ensure the deliverance of Decimus Brutus? For the Roman people in crowds demanded at his hands the safety of Decimus Brutus with such unanimous outcries, that he was compelled to prefer it not only to any consideration of his own personal advantage, but even to his own necessities. And that end we now, O conscript fathers, are entitled to hope is either at the point of being achieved, or is actually gained; but it is right for the reward of our hopes to be reserved for the issue and event of the business, lest we should appear either to have anticipated the kindness of the gods by our over precipitation, or to have despised the bounty of fortune through our own folly.
Cic. Phil. 1.3.1 (y)
Were any exiles restored? He said that one was, and only one. Were any immunities granted? He answered, None. He wished us even to adopt the proposition of Servius Sulpicius, that most illustrious man, that no tablet purporting to contain any decree or grant of Cæsar’s should be published after the Ides of March were expired. I pass over many other things, all excellent—for I am hastening to come to a very extraordinary act of virtue of Marcus Antonius. He utterly abolished from the constitution of the republic the Dictatorship, which had by this time attained to the authority of regal power. And that measure was not even offered to us for discussion. He brought with him a decree of the senate, ready drawn up, ordering what he chose to have done: and when it had been read, we all submitted to his authority in the matter with the greatest eagerness; and, by another resolution of the senate, we returned him thanks in the most honourable and complimentary language.
Shall I be able to bear the sight of Lucius Antonius? a man from whose cruelty I could not have escaped if I had not defended myself behind the walls and gates and by the zeal of my own municipal town. And this same Asiatic gladiator, this plunderer of Italy, this colleague of Lenti and Nucula, when he was giving some pieces of gold to Aquila the centurion, said that he was giving him some of my property. For, if he had said he was giving him some of his own, he thought that the eagle itself would not have believed it. My eyes cannot—my eyes, I say, will not bear the sight of Saxa, or Capho, or the two prætors, or the tribune of the people, or the two tribunes elect, or Bestia, or Trebellius, or Titus Plancus. I cannot look with equanimity on so many, and those such foul, such wicked enemies; nor is that feeling caused by any fastidiousness of mine, but by my affection for the republic. But I will subdue my feelings, and keep my own inclinations under restraint.
XVIII. What can you do with a man who puts on paper and records the fact, that his agreement with Dolabella is so complete, that he would kill Trebonius, and, if he could, Brutus and Cassius too, with every circumstance of torture; and inflict the same punishment on us also? Certainly, a man who makes so pious and fair a treaty is a citizen to be taken care of! He, also, complains that the conditions which he offered, those reasonable and modest conditions, were rejected; namely, that he was to have the further Gaul,—the province the most suitable of all for renewing and carrying on the war; that the legionaries of the Alauda should be judges in the third decury; that is to say, that there shall be an asylum for all crimes, to the indelible disgrace of the republic; that his own acts should be ratified, his,—when not one trace of his consulship has been allowed to remain! He showed his regard also for the interests of Lucius Antonius, who had been a most equitable surveyor of private and public domains, with Nucula and Lento for his colleagues.
Oh that trustworthy right hand of Antonius, with which he has murdered many citizens! Oh that regularly ratified and solemn treaty which we made with the Antonii! Surely if Marcus shall attempt to violate it, the conscientious piety of Lucius will call him back from such wickedness. If there is any room allowed these men in this city, there will be no room for the city itself. Place before your eyes, O conscript fathers, the countenances of those men, and especially the countenances of the Antonii. Mark their gait, their look, their face, their arrogance; mark those friends of theirs who walk by their side, who follow them, who precede them. What breath reeking of wine, what insolence, what threatening language do you not think there will be there? Unless, indeed, the mere fact of peace is to soften them, and unless you expect that, especially when they come into this assembly, they will salute every one of us kindly, and address us courteously.
From thence it was not a journey, but a race and flight into Gaul. He thought that Cæsar was pursuing him with the fourth legion, with the martial legion, with the veterans, whose very name he could not endure for fright. Then, as he was making his way into Gaul, Decimus Brutus opposed him; who preferred being himself surrounded by the waves of the whole war, to allowing him either to retreat or advance; and who put Mutina on him as a sort of bridle to his exultation. And when he had blockaded that city with his works and fortifications, and when the dignity of a most flourishing colony, and the majesty of a consul elect, were both insufficient to deter him from his parricidal treason, then, (I call you, and the Roman people, and all the gods who preside over this city, to witness,) against my will, and in spite of my resistance and remonstrance, three ambassadors of consular rank were sent to that robber, to that leader of gladiators, Marcus Antonius.
XXXIX. However, let us return to the subject of Cæsar’s written papers. How were they verified by you? For the acts of Cæsar were for peace’s sake confirmed by the senate; that is to say, the acts which Cæsar had really done, not those which Antonius said that Cæsar had done. Where do all these come from? By whom are they produced and vouched for? If they are false, why are they ratified? If they are true, why are they sold? But the vote which was come to enjoined you, after the first of June, to make an examination of Cæsar’s acts with the assistance of a council. What council did you consult? whom did you ever invite to help you? what was the first of June that you waited for? Was it that day on which you, having travelled all through the colonies where the veterans were settled, returned escorted by a band of armed men?
Oh what a splendid progress of yours was that in the months of April and May, when you attempted even to lead a colony to Capua! How you made your escape from thence, or rather how you barely made your escape, we all know.