Searching for Antonius \Cic. Phil.
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When men could not bear him, do you think they will bear you? Believe me, the time will come when men will race with one another to do this deed, and when no one will wait for the tardy arrival of an opportunity.
Consider, I beg you, Marcus Antonius, do some time or other consider the republic: think of the family of which you are born, not of the men with whom you are living. Be reconciled to the republic. However, do you decide on your conduct. As to mine, I myself will declare what that shall be. I defended the republic as a young man, I will not abandon it now that I am old. I scorned the sword of Catiline, I will not quail before yours. No, I will rather cheerfully expose my own person, if the liberty of the city can be restored by my death.
May the indignation of the Roman people at last bring forth what it has been so long labouring with. In truth, if twenty years ago in this very temple I asserted that death could not come prematurely upon a man of consular rank, with how much more truth must I now say the same of an old man? To me, indeed, O conscript fathers, death is now even desirable, after all the honours which I have gained, and the deeds which I have done. I only pray for these two things: one, that dying I may leave the Roman people free. No greater boon than this can be granted me by the immortal gods. The other, that every one may meet with a fate suitable to his deserts and conduct towards the republic.
We have pronounced that resolutions of the senate which have been produced by him are forged. Can we now pronounce them genuine? We have declared that laws have been carried by him by means of violence, and in a manner contrary to the auspices, and that neither the burgesses nor the common people are bound by them. Do you consider it possible that those laws should be reestablished? You have judicially decided that Antonius has embezzled seven hundred millions of sesterces of the public money. Can he now be released from the charge of peculation? Exemptions, grants of the freedom of the city, priesthoods, kingdoms have been sold by him. Can those tablets again be put up which you took down by your decrees?
VI. But if we can rescind those decrees which we have passed, can we also efface the memory of the facts? For where will any posterity forget to whose wickedness it was owing that we have been arrayed in these unseemly garments? Although the blood of the centurions of the Martial legion shed at Brundusium be washed out, can the notoriety of that inhuman act be washed out too? To pass over things which happened in the interval, what lapse of time will ever efface the foul memorials of his military works around Mutina, the tokens of his wickedness, the traces of his piratical conduct?
XXX. After some time he at last went into Spain; but, as he says, he could not arrive there in safety. How then did Dolabella manage to arrive there? Either, O Antonius, that cause ought never to have been undertaken, or when you had undertaken it, it should have been maintained to the end. Thrice did Cæsar fight against his fellow-citizens; in Thessaly, in Africa, and in Spain. Dolabella was present at all these battles. In the battle in Spain he even received a wound. If you ask my opinion, I wish he had not been there. But still, if his design at first was blameable, his consistency and firmness were praiseworthy. But what shall we say of you? In the first place, the children of Cnæus Pompeius sought to be restored to their country. Well, this concerned the common interests of the whole party. Besides that, they sought to recover their household gods, the gods of their country, their altars, their hearths, the tutelar gods of their family; all of which you had seized upon. And when they sought to recover those things by force of arms which belonged to them by the laws, who was it most natural—(although in unjust and unnatural proceedings what can there be that is natural?)—still, who was it most natural to expect would fight against the children of Cnæus Pompeius? Who? Why, you who had bought their property.
Marcus Antonius disapproves of my consulship; but it was approved of by Publius Servilius—to name that man first of the men of consular rank who had died most recently. It was approved of by Quintus Catulus, whose authority will always carry weight in this republic; it was approved of by the two Luculli, by Marcus Crassus, by Quintus Hortensius, by Caius Curio, by Caius Piso, by Marcus Glabrio, by Marcus Lepidus, by Lucius Volcatius, by Caius Figulus, by Decimus Silanus and Lucius Murena, who at that time were the consuls elect; the same consulship also which was approved of by those men of consular rank, was approved of by Marcus Cato; who escaped many evils by departing from this life, and especially the evil of seeing you consul. But, above all, my consulship was approved of by Cnæus Pompeius, who, when he first saw me, as he was leaving Syria, embracing me and congratulating me, said, that it was owing to my services that he was about to see his country again. But why should I mention individuals? It was approved of by the senate, in a very full house, so completely, that there was no one who did not thank me as if I had been his parent, who did not attribute to me the salvation of his life, of his fortunes, of his children, and of the republic.
You both ought to have great experience in the affairs of the republic, and you have. When did you ever see a decree framed in this manner? or in what resolution of the senate passed on such occasions, (and they are innumerable,) did you ever hear of its being decreed that the letters had been well drawn up? And that expression did not—as is often the case with other men—fall from you by chance, but you brought it with you written down, deliberated on, and carefully meditated on.
III. If any one could take from you this habit of disparaging good men on almost every occasion, then what qualities would not be left to you which every one would desire for himself? Do, then, recollect yourself; do at last soften and quiet that disposition of yours; do take the advice of good men, with many of whom you are intimate; do converse with that wisest of men, your own son-in-law, oftener than with yourself; and then you will obtain the name of a man of the very highest character. Do you think it a matter of no consequence, (it is a matter in which I, out of the friendship which I feel you, constantly grieve in your stead,) that this should be commonly said out of doors, and should be a common topic of conversation among the Roman people, that the man who delivered his opinion first did not find a single person to agree with him? And that I think will be the case to-day.
You propose to take the legions away from Brutus:—which legions? Why, those which he has gained over from the wickedness of Caius Antonius, and has by his own authority gained over to the republic. Do you wish then that he should again appear to be the only person stripped of his authority, and as it were banished by the senate?
For we are not sending to Hannibal to desire him to retire from before Saguntum; to whom the senate formerly sent Publius Valerius Flaccus and Quintus Bæbius Tampilus; who, if Hannibal did not comply, were ordered to proceed to Carthage. Whither do we order our ambassadors to proceed, if Antonius does not comply? Are we sending an embassy to our own citizen, to beg him not to attack a general and a colony of the Roman people? Is it so? Is it becoming to us to beg this by means of ambassadors? What is the difference, in the name of the immortal gods, whether he attacks this city itself, or whether he attacks an outpost of this city, a colony of the Roman people, established for the sake of its being a bulwark and protection to us? The siege of Saguntum was the cause of the second Punic war, which Hannibal carried on against our ancestors. It was quite right to send ambassadors to him. They were sent to a Carthaginian, they were sent on behalf of those who were the enemies of Hannibal, and our allies. What is there resembling that case here? We are sending to one of our own citizens to beg him not to blockade a general of the Roman army, not to attack our army and our colony,—in short, not to be an enemy of ours. Come; suppose he obeys, shall we either be inclined, or shall we be able by any possibility, to treat him as one of our citizens?
I can recollect conferences with most bitter enemies, and with citizens in a state of the most bitter disagreement.
Cnæus Pompeius, the son of Sextus, being consul, in my presence, when I was serving my first campaign in his army, had a conference with Publius Vettius Scato, the general of the Marsians, between the camps. And I recollect that Sextus Pompeius, the brother of the consul, a very learned and wise man, came thither from Rome to the conference. And when Scato had saluted him, “What,” said he, “am I to call you?”—“Call me,” said he, “one who is by inclination a friend, by necessity an enemy.” That conference was conducted with fairness; there was no fear, no suspicion; even their mutual hatred was not great; for the allies were not seeking to take our city from us, but to be themselves admitted to share the privileges of it. Sylla and Scipio, one attended by the flower of the nobility, the other by the allies, had a conference between Cales and Teanum, respecting the authority of the senate, the suffrages of the people, and the privileges of citizenship; and agreed upon conditions and stipulations. Good faith was not strictly observed at that conference; but still there was no violence used, and no danger incurred.
XII. But can we be equally safe among Antonius’s piratical crew? We cannot; or, even if the rest can, I do not believe that I can.
“Oh, but we have sent ambassadors to him.” Alas, wretched that I am! why am I compelled to find fault with the senate whom I have always praised? Why? Do you think, O conscript fathers, that you have induced the Roman people to approve of the sending ambassadors? Do you not perceive, do you not hear, that the adoption of my opinion is demanded by them? that opinion which you, in a full house, agreed to the day before, though the day after you allowed yourselves to be brought down to a groundless hope of peace. Moreover, how shameful it is for the legions to send out ambassadors to the senate, and the senate to Antonius! Although that is not an embassy; it is a denunciation that destruction is prepared for him if he do not submit to this order. What is the difference? At all events, men’s opinions are unfavourable to the measure; for all men see that ambassadors have been sent, but it is not all who are acquainted with the terms of your decree.
V. You must, therefore, preserve your consistency, your wisdom, your firmness, your perseverance. You must go back to the old-fashioned severity, if at least the authority of the senate is anxious to establish its credit, its honour, its renown, and its dignity, things which this order has been too long deprived of. But there was some time ago some excuse for it, as being oppressed; a miserable excuse indeed, but still a fair one; now there is none. We appeared to have been delivered from kingly tyranny; and afterwards we were oppressed much more severely by domestic enemies. We did indeed turn their arms aside; we must now wrest them from their hands. And if we cannot do so, (I will say what it becomes one who is both a senator and a Roman to say,) let us die.
It was the act of a sufficiently rash man, not to say an audacious one, to touch a single particle of that property; but who will have the face to endeavour to retain it, when its most illustrious owner is restored to his country? Will not that man restore his plunder, who enfolding the patrimony of his master in his embrace, clinging to the treasure like a dragon, the slave of Pompeius, the freedman of Cæsar, has seized upon his estates in the Lucanian district? And as for those seven hundred millions of sesterces which you, O conscript fathers, promised to the young man, they will be recovered in such a manner that the son of Cnæus Pompeius will appear to have been established by you in his patrimony. This is what the senate must do; the Roman people will do the rest with respect to that family which was at one time one of the most honourable it ever saw. In the first place, it will invest him with his father’s honour as an augur, for which rank I will nominate him and promote his election, in order that I may restore to the son what I received from the father. Which of these men will the Roman people most willingly sanction as the augur of the all-powerful and all-great Jupiter, whose interpreters and messengers we have been appointed,—Pompeius or Antonius? It seems indeed, to me, that Fortune has managed this by the divine aid of the immortal gods, that, leaving the acts of Cæsar firmly ratified, the son of Cnæus Pompeius might still be able to recover the dignities and fortunes of his father.
Nor is it only by the sale of forged memoranda and autographs that a countless sum of money was collected together in that house, while Antonius, whatever he sold, said that he was acting in obedience to the papers of Cæsar; but he even took bribes to make false entries of the resolutions of the senate; to seal forged contracts; and resolutions of the senate that had never been passed were entered on the records of that treasury. Of all this baseness even foreign nations were witnesses. In the meantime treaties were made; kingdoms given away; nations and provinces released from the burdens of the state; and false memorials of all these transactions were fixed up all over the Capitol, amid the groans of the Roman people. And by all these proceedings so vast a sum of money was collected in one house, that if it were all made available, the Roman people would never want money again.
V. Moreover, he passed a law to regulate judicial proceedings, this chaste and upright man, this upholder of the tribunals and the law. And in this he deceived us. He used to say that he appointed men from the front ranks of the army, common soldiers, men of the Alauda, as judges. But he has in reality selected gamesters; he has selected exiles; he has selected Greeks. Oh the fine bench of judges! Oh the admirable dignity of that council!
Cic. Phil. 6.2.1 (y)
The cause which prompted our most fearless and excellent consuls to submit a motion on the first of January, concerning the general state of the republic, arose from the decree which the senate passed by my advice on the nineteenth of December. On that day, O Romans, were the foundations of the republic first laid. For then, after a long interval, the senate was free in such a manner that you too might become free. On which day, indeed,—even if it had been to bring to me the end of my life,—I received a sufficient reward for my exertions, when you all with one heart and one voice cried out together, that the republic had been a second time saved by me. Stimulated by so important and so splendid a decision of yours in my favour, I came into the senate on the first of January, with the feeling that I was bound to show my recollection of the character which you had imposed upon me, and which I had to sustain.
Therefore, when I saw that a nefarious war was waged against the republic, I thought that no delay ought to be interposed to our pursuit of Marcus Antonius; and I gave my vote that we ought to pursue with war that most audacious man, who, having committed many atrocious crimes before, was at this moment attacking a general of the Roman people, and besieging your most faithful and gallant colony; and that a state of civil war ought to be proclaimed; and I said further, that my opinion was that a suspension of the ordinary forms of justice should be declared, and that the garb of war should be assumed by the citizens, in order that all men might apply themselves with more activity and energy to avenging the injuries of the republic, if they saw that all the emblems of a regular war had been adopted by the senate.
But if any one has hitherto been able to doubt the fact, that there can be nothing whatever in common between this order and the Roman people and that most detestable beast, let him at least cease to entertain such a doubt, when he becomes acquainted with this letter which I have just received, it having been sent to me by Hirtius the consul. While I read it, and while I briefly discuss each paragraph, I beg, O conscript fathers, that you will listen to me most attentively, as you have hitherto done.
“Antonius to Hirtius and Cæsar.”
He does not call himself imperator, nor Hirtius consul, nor Cæsar pro-prætor. This is cunningly done enough. He preferred laying aside a title to which he had no right himself, to giving them their proper style.
“When I heard of the death of Caius Trebonius, I was not more rejoiced than grieved.”
Take notice why he says he rejoiced, why he says that he was grieved; and then you will be more easily able to decide the question of peace.
“It was a matter of proper rejoicing that a wicked man had paid the penalty due to the bones and ashes of a most illustrious man, and that the divine power of the gods had shown itself before the end of the current year, by showing the chastisement of that parricide already inflicted in some cases, and impending in others.”
O you Spartacus! for what name is more fit for you? you whose abominable wickedness is such as to make even Catiline seem tolerable. Have you dared to write that it is a matter of rejoicing that Trebonius has suffered punishment? that Trebonius was wicked? What was his crime, except that on the ides of March he withdrew you from the destruction which you had deserved? Come;