Searching for “Antonius”

You are acting admirably, therefore, O tribunes of the people, in bringing forward a motion about the protection of the senate and consuls, and most deservedly are we all bound to feel and to prove to you the greatest gratitude for your conduct. For how can we be free from fear and danger while menaced by such covetousness and audacity? And as for that ruined and desperate man, what more hostile decision can be passed upon him than has already been passed by his own friends? His most intimate friend, a man connected with me too, Lucius Lentulus, and also Publius Naso, a man destitute of covetousness, have shown that they think that they have no provinces assigned them, and that the allotments of Antonius are invalid. Lucius Philippus, a man thoroughly worthy of his father and grandfather and ancestors, has done the same. The same is the opinion of Marcus Turanius, a man of the greatest integrity and purity of life. The same is the conduct of Publius Oppius; and those very men,—who, influenced by their friendship for Marcus Antonius, have attributed to him more power than they would perhaps really approve of,—Marcus Piso, my own connexion, a most admirable man and virtuous citizen, and Marcus Vehilius, a man of equal respectability, have both declared that they would obey the authority of the senate.

I praise you,—yes, I praise you greatly, O Romans, when you follow with the most grateful minds the name of that most illustrious youth, or rather boy; for his actions belong to immortality, the name of youth only to his age. I can recollect many things; I have heard of many things; I have read of many things; but in the whole history of the whole world I have never known anything like this. For, when we were weighed down with slavery, when the evil was daily increasing, when we had no defence, while we were in dread of the pernicious and fatal return of Marcus Antonius from Brundusium, this young man adopted the design which none of us had ventured to hope for, which beyond all question none of us were acquainted with, of raising an invincible army of his father’s soldiers, and so hindering the frenzy of Antonius, spurred on as it was by the most inhuman counsels, from the power of doing mischief to the republic.

Now who is there who does not see that by this decree Antonius has been adjudged to be an enemy? For what else can we call him, when the senate decides that extraordinary honours are to be devised for those men who are leading armies against him? What? did not the Martial legion (which appears to me by some divine permission to have derived its name from that god from whom we have heard that the Roman people descended) decide by its resolutions that Antonius was an enemy before the senate had come to any resolution? For if he be not an enemy, we must inevitably decide that those men who have deserted the consul are enemies. Admirably and seasonably, O Romans, have you by your cries sanctioned the noble conduct of the men of the Martial legion, who have come over to the authority of the senate, to your liberty, and to the whole republic; and have abandoned that enemy and robber and parricide of his country.

Nor did they display only their spirit and courage in doing this, but their caution and wisdom also. They encamped at Alba, in a city convenient, fortified, near, full of brave men and loyal and virtuous citizens. The fourth legion imitating the virtue of this Martial legion, under the leadership of Lucius Egnatuleius, whom the senate deservedly praised a little while ago, has also joined the army of Caius Cæsar. ¶ III. What more adverse decisions, O Marcus Antonius, can you want? Cæsar, who has levied an army against you, is extolled to the skies. The legions are praised in the most complimentary language, which have abandoned you, which were sent for into Italy by you; and which, if you had chosen to be a consul rather than an enemy, were wholly devoted to you. And the fearless and honest decision of those legions is confirmed by the senate, is approved of by the whole Roman people,—unless, indeed, you to-day, O Romans, decide that Antonius is a consul and not an enemy.

What then has been the opinion which Decimus Brutus has formed of Marcus Antonius? He excludes him from his province. He opposes him with his army. He rouses all Gaul to war, which is already roused of its own accord, and in consequence of the judgment which it has itself formed. If Antonius be consul, Brutus is an enemy. Can we then doubt which of these alternatives is the fact? ¶ IV. And just as you now with one mind and one voice affirm that you entertain no doubt, so did the senate just now decree that Decimus Brutus deserved excellently well of the republic, inasmuch as he was defending the authority of the senate and the liberty and empire of the Roman people. Defending it against whom? Why, against an enemy. For what other sort of defence deserves praise?

Is Marcus Antonius desirous of peace? Let him lay down his arms, let him implore our pardon, let him deprecate our vengeance: he will find no one more reasonable than me; though, while seeking to recommend himself to impious citizens, he has chosen to be an enemy instead of a friend to me. There is, in truth, nothing which can be given to him while waging war; there will perhaps be something which may be granted to him if he comes before us as a suppliant. ¶ II. But to send ambassadors to a man respecting whom you passed a most dignified and severe decision only thirteen days ago, is not an act of lenity, but, if I am to speak my real opinion, of downright madness. In the first place, you praised those generals who, of their own head, had undertaken war against him; in the next place, you praised the veterans who, though they had been settled in those colonies by Antonius, preferred the liberty of the Roman people to the obligations which they were under to him.

Will you furnish a wicked and desperate citizen with an army of Gauls and Germans, with money, and infantry, and cavalry, and all sorts of resources? All these excuses are no excuse at all:—“He is a friend of mine.” Let him first be a friend of his country:—“He is a relation of mine.” Can any relationship be nearer than that of one’s country, in which even one’s parents are comprised? “He has given me money:”—I should like to see the man who will dare to say that. But when I have explained what is the real object aimed at, it will be easy for you to decide which opinion you ought to agree with and adopt. ¶ III. The matter at issue is, whether power is to be given to Marcus Antonius of oppressing the republic, of massacring the virtuous citizens, of plundering the city, of distributing the lands among his robbers, of overwhelming the Roman people in slavery; or, whether he is not to be allowed to do all this. Do you doubt what you are to do? “Oh, but all this does not apply to Antonius.”

Even Cotyla would not venture to say that. For what does not apply to him? A man who, while he says that he is defending the acts of another, perverts all those laws of his which we might most properly praise. Cæsar wished to drain the marshes: this man has given all Italy to that moderate man Lucius Antonius to distribute.—What? has the Roman people adopted this law?—What? could it be passed with a proper regard for the auspices? But this conscientious augur acts in reference to the auspices without his colleagues. Although those auspices do not require any interpretation;—for who is there who is ignorant that it is impious to submit any motion to the people while it is thundering? The tribunes of the people carried laws respecting the provinces in opposition to the acts of Cæsar; Cæsar had extended the provisions of his law over two years; Antonius over six years. Has then the Roman people adopted this law? What? was it ever regularly promulgated? What? was it not passed before it was even drawn up? Did we not see the deed done before we even suspected that it was going to be done? Where is the Cæcilian and Didian law?

On which account I give my vote that those laws which Marcus Antonius is said to have carried were all carried by violence, and in violation of the auspices; and that the people is not bound by them. If Marcus Antonius is said to have carried any law about confirming the acts of Cæsar and abolishing the dictatorship for ever, and of leading colonies into any lands, then I vote that those laws be passed over again, with a due regard to the auspices, so that they may bind the people. For although they may be good measures which he passed irregularly and by violence, still they are not to be accounted laws, and the whole audacity of this frantic gladiator must be repudiated by our authority.

When the day arrived on which he had ordered me to attend, then he came with a regular army in battle array to the temple of Concord, and out of his impure mouth vomited forth an oration against me in my absence. On which day, if my friends had not prevented me from attending the senate as I was anxious to do, he would have begun a massacre by the slaughter of me. For that was what he had resolved to do. And when once he had dyed his sword in blood, nothing would have made him leave off but pure fatigue and satiety. In truth, his brother, Lucius Antonius, was present, an Asiatic gladiator, who had fought as a Mirmillo, at Mylasa; he was thirsting for my blood, and had shed much of his own in that gladiatorial combat. He was now valuing our property in his mind, taking notice of our possessions in the city and in the country; his indigence united with his covetousness was threatening all our fortunes; he was distributing our lands to whomsoever and in whatever shares he pleased; no private individual could get access to him, or find any means to propitiate him, and induce him to act with justice. Every former proprietor had just so much property as Antonius left him after the division of his estate.

XI. On the nineteenth of December, you overwhelmed him with your decrees; you ordained that this motion should be submitted to you on the first of January, which you see is submitted now, respecting the honours and rewards to be conferred on those who have deserved or do deserve well of the republic. And the chief of those men you have adjudged to be the man who really has done so, Caius Cæsar, who had diverted the nefarious attacks of Marcus Antonius against this city, and compelled him to direct them against Gaul; and next to him you consider the veteran soldiers who first followed Cæsar; then those excellent and heavenly-minded legions the Martial and the fourth, to whom you have promised honours and rewards, for having not only abandoned their consul, but for having even declared war against him. And on the same day, having a decree brought before you and published on purpose, you praised the conduct of Decimus Brutus, a most excellent citizen, and sanctioned with your public authority this war which he had undertaken of his own head. ¶ What else, then, did you do on that day except pronounce Antonius a public enemy?

What honour, O conscript fathers, can be too great to be due to such a mighty service as this of Brutus, and to such important aid as he has afforded the republic? For if Gaul had been open to Marcus Antonius—if after having overwhelmed the municipal towns and colonies unprepared to resist him, he had been able to penetrate into that further Gaul—what great danger would have hung over the republic! That most insane of men, that man so headlong and furious in all his courses, would have been likely, I suppose, to hesitate at waging war against us, not only with his own army, but with all the savage troops of barbarism; so that even the wall of the Alps would not have enabled us to check his frenzy. These thanks then will be deservedly paid to Decimus Brutus, who, before any authority of yours had been interposed, acting on his own judgment and responsibility, refused to receive him as consul, but repelled him from Gaul as an enemy, and preferred to be besieged himself rather than to allow this city to be so. Let him therefore have, by your decree, an everlasting testimony to this most important and glorious action; and let Gaul, which always is and has been a protection to this empire and to the general liberty, be deservedly and truly praised for not having surrendered herself and her power to Antonius, but for having opposed him with them.

Antonius is not that sort of man. For if he had been, he would never have allowed matters to come to such a pass, as for the senate to give him notice, as it did to Hannibal at the beginning of the Punic war not to attack Saguntum. But what ignominy it is to be called away from Mutina, and at the same time to be forbidden to approach the city as if he were some fatal conflagration! what an opinion is this for the senate to have of a man! What? As to the commission which is given to the ambassadors to visit Decimus Brutus and his soldiers, and to inform them that their excellent zeal in behalf of, and services done to the republic, are acceptable to the senate and people of Rome, and that that conduct shall tend to their great glory and to their great honour; do you think that Antonius will permit the ambassadors to enter Mutina? and to depart from thence in safety? He never will allow it, believe me. I know the violence of the man, I know his impudence, I know his audacity.

But as he remembered that he was Brutus, and that he was born for your freedom, not for his own tranquillity, what else did he do but—as I may almost say—put his own body in the way to prevent Antonius from entering Gaul? Ought we then to send ambassadors to this man, or legions? However, we will say nothing of what is past. Let the ambassadors hasten, as I see that they are about to do. Do you prepare your robes of war. For it has been decreed, that, if he does not obey the authority of the senate, we are all to betake ourselves to our military dress. And we shall have to do so. He will never obey. And we shall lament that we have lost so many days, when we might have been doing something. ¶ IV. I have no fear, O Romans, that when Antonius hears that I have asserted, both in the senate and in the assembly of the people, that he never will submit himself to the power of the senate, he will, for the sake of disproving my words, and making me to appear to have had no foresight, alter his behaviour and obey the senate. He will never do so. He will not grudge me this part of my reputation; he will prefer letting me be thought wise by you to being thought modest himself.

V. However, I return to your love and especial delight, Lucius Antonius, who has admitted you all to swear allegiance to him. Do you deny it? is there any one of you who does not belong to a tribe? Certainly not. But thirty-five tribes have adopted him for their patron. Do you again cry out against my statement? Look at that gilt statue of him on the left: what is the inscription upon it? “The thirty-five tribes to their patron.” Is then Lucius Antonius the patron of the Roman people? Plague take him! For I fully assent to your outcry. I won’t speak of this bandit whom no one would choose to have for a client; but was there ever a man possessed of such influence, or illustrious for mighty deeds, as to dare to call himself the patron of the whole Roman people, the conqueror and master of all nations?