Searching for Antonius /Cic. Phil
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Antonius has invaded Gaul; Dolabella, Asia; each a province with which he had no business whatever. Brutus has opposed himself to the one, and at the peril of his own life has checked the onset of that frantic man wishing to harass and plunder everything, has prevented his further progress, and has cut him off from his return. By allowing himself to be besieged he has hemmed in Antonius on each side.
The other has forced his way into Asia. With what object? If it was merely to proceed into Syria, he had a road open to him which was sure, and was not long. What was the need of sending forward some Marsian, they call him Octavius, with a legion; a wicked and necessitous robber; a man to lay waste the lands, to harass the cities, not from any hope of acquiring any permanent property, which they who know him say that he is unable to keep, (for I have not the honour of being acquainted with this senator myself,) but just as present food to satisfy his indigence?
And this man, O ye immortal gods, was once my relation! For his vices were unknown to one who did not inquire into such things: nor perhaps should I now be alienated from him if he had not been discovered to be an enemy to you, to the walls of his country, to this city, to our household gods, to the altars and hearths of all of us,—in short, to human nature and to common humanity. But now, having received this lesson from him, let us be the more diligent and vigilant in being on our guard against Antonius.
V. Indeed, Dolabella had not with him any great number of notorious and conspicuous robbers. But you see there are with Antonius, and in what numbers. In the first place, there is his brother Lucius—what a firebrand, O ye immortal gods! what an incarnation of crime and wickedness! what a gulf, what a whirlpool of a man! What do you think that man incapable of swallowing up in his mind, or gulping down in his thoughts? Who do you imagine there is whose blood he is not thirsting for? who, on whose possessions and fortunes he is not fixing his most impudent eyes, his hopes, and his whole heart? What shall we say of Censorinus? who, as far as words go, said indeed that he wished to be the city prætor; but who, in fact, was unwilling to be so.
Nor is this the case with respect to this man alone; there are other men in the same camp honestly condemned and shamefully restored; what counsel do you imagine can be adopted by those men who are enemies to all good men, that is not utterly cruel? There is besides a fellow called Saxa; I don’t know who he is; some man whom Cæsar imported from the extremity of Celtiberia and gave us for a tribune of the people. Before that, he was a measurer of ground for camps: now he hopes to measure out and value the city. May the evils which this foreigner predicts to us fall on his own head, and may we escape in safety! With him is the veteran Capho; nor is there any man whom the veteran troops hate more cordially: to these men, as if in addition to the dowry which they had received during our civil disasters, Antonius had given the Campanian district, that they might have it as a sort of nurse for their other estates. I only wish they would be contented with them! We would bear it then, though it would not be what ought to be borne; but still it would be worth our while to bear anything, as long as we could escape this most shameful war.
VI. What more? Have you not before your eyes those ornaments of the camp of Marcus Antonius?
We have need, O conscript fathers, of a man ready and prepared, and of one who has a military command legally conferred on him; and of one who, besides this, has authority, and a name, and an army, and a courage which has been already tried in his exertions for the deliverance of the republic.
XI. Who then is that man? Either Marcus Brutus, or Caius Cassius, or both of them. I would vote in plain words, as there are many precedents for, one consul or both, if we had not already hampered Brutus sufficiently in Greece, and if we had not preferred having his reinforcement approach nearer to Italy rather than move further off towards Asia; not so much in order to receive succour ourselves from that army, as to enable that army to receive aid across the water. Besides, O conscript fathers, even now Caius Antonius is detaining Marcus Brutus, for he occupies Apollonia, a large and important city; he occupies, as I believe, Byllis; he occupies Amantia; he is threatening Epirus; he is pressing on Illyricum; he has with him several cohorts, and he has cavalry. If Brutus be transferred from this district to any other war, we shall at all events lose Greece. We must also provide for the safety of Brundusium and all that coast of Italy. Although I marvel that Antonius delays so long; for he is accustomed usually to put on his marching dress, and not to endure the fear of a siege for any length of time. But if Brutus has finished that business, and perceives that he can better serve the republic by pursuing Dolabella than by remaining in Greece, he will act of his own head, as he has hitherto done; nor amid such a general conflagration will he wait for the orders of the senate when instant help is required.
I. Although, O conscript fathers, it seems very unbecoming for that man whose counsels you have so often adopted in the most important affairs, to be deceived and deluded, and to commit mistakes; yet I console myself, since I made the mistake in company with you, and in company also with a consul of the greatest wisdom. For when two men of consular rank had brought us hope of an honourable peace, they appeared, as being friends and extremely intimate with Marcus Antonius, to be aware of some weak point about him with which we were unacquainted. His wife and children are in the house of one; the other is known every day to send letters to, to receive letters from, and openly to favour Antonius.
But we were caught by this expression of Quintus Fufius; “Shall we not listen to Antonius, even if he retires from Mutina? Shall we not, even if he declares that he will submit himself to the authority of the senate?” It seemed harsh to say that. Thus it was that we were broken; we yielded. Does he then retire from Mutina? “I don’t know.” Is he obeying the senate? “I think so,” says Calenus, “but so as to preserve his own dignity at the same time.” You then, O conscript fathers, are to make great exertions for the express purpose of losing your own dignity, which is very great, and of preserving that of Antonius, which neither has nor can have any existence; and of enabling him to recover that by your conduct, which he has lost by his own.
But if an error has been committed, O conscript fathers, owing to a groundless and fallacious hope, let us return into the right road. The best harbour for a penitent is a change of intention.
III. For what, in the name of the immortal gods! what good can our embassy do to the republic? What good, do I say? What will you say if it will even do us harm? Will do us harm? What if it already has done us harm? Do you suppose that that most energetic and fearless desire shown by the Roman people for recovery of their liberty has been damped and weakened by hearing of this embassy for peace? What do you think the municipal towns feel? and the colonies? What do you think will be the feelings of all Italy? Do you suppose that it will continue to glow with the same zeal with which it burnt before to extinguish this common conflagration? Do we not suppose that those men will repent of having professed and displayed so much hatred to Antonius, who promised us money and arms; who devoted themselves wholly, body, heart, and soul, to the safety of the republic? How will Capua, which at the present time feels like a second Rome, approve of this design of yours? That city pronounced them impious citizens, cast them out, and kept them out. Antonius was barely saved from the hands of that city, which made a most gallant attempt to crush him.
Need I say more? Are we not by these proceedings cutting the sinews of our own legions; for what man can engage with ardour in a war, when the hope of peace is suggested to him? Even that godlike and divine Martial legion will grow languid at and be cowed by the receipt of this news, and will lose that most noble title of Martial; their swords will fall to the ground; their weapons will drop from their hands. For, following the senate, it will not consider itself bound to feel more bitter hatred against Antonius than the senate.
I am ashamed for this legion, I am ashamed for the fourth legion, which, approving of our authority with equal virtue, abandoned Antonius, not looking upon him as their consul and general, but as an enemy and attacker of their country. I am ashamed for that admirable army which is made up of two armies; which has now been reviewed, and which has started for Mutina, and which, if it hears a word of peace, that is to say, of our fear, even if it does not return, will at all events halt. For who, when the senate recals him and sounds a retreat, will be eager to engage in battle?
And, to say nothing of the other parts of Gaul, (for they are all alike,) the people of Patavium have excluded some men who were sent to them by Antonius, and have driven out others, and have assisted our generals with money and soldiers, and with what was above all things wanting, arms. The rest have done the same; even those who formerly were of the party of Antonius, and who were believed to have been alienated from the senate by the injuries of many years. Men, who indeed there is no great reason to wonder at being faithful now, after the freedom of the republic has been shared with them, when, even before they had been admitted to those privileges, they always behaved with loyalty and good faith.
V. All these men, then, who are now sanguine of victory, we are to meet with the name of peace; that is to say, with a complete despair of victory.
Place before your eyes Marcus Antonius, as a man of consular rank; add to him Lucius, hoping to obtain the consulship; join to them all the rest, and those too not confined to our order, who are fixing their thoughts on honours and commands. Do not despise the Tiros, and the Numisii, or the Mustellæ, or the Seii. A peace made with those men will not be peace, but a covenant of slavery. That was an admirable expression of Lucius Piso, a most honourable man, and one which has been deservedly praised by you, O Pansa, not only in this order, but also in the assembly of the people. He said, that he would depart from Italy, and leave his household gods and his native home, if (but might the gods avert such a disaster!) Antonius overwhelmed the republic.
VIII. Let the ambassadors go, with all our good wishes; but let those men go at whom Antonius may take no offence. But if you are not anxious about what he may think, at all events. O conscript fathers, you ought to have some regard for me. At least spare my eyes, and make some allowance for a just indignation. For with what countenance shall I be able to behold, (I do not say, the enemy of my country, for my hatred of him on that score I feel in common with you all,) but how shall I bear to look upon that man who is my own most bitter personal enemy, as his most furious harangues against me plainly declare him? Do you think that I am so completely made of iron as to be able unmoved to meet him, or look at him? who lately, when in an assembly of the people he was making presents to those men who appeared to him the most audacious of his band of parricidal traitors, said that he gave my property to Petissius of Urbinum, a man who, after the shipwreck of a very splendid patrimony, was dashed against these rocks of Antonius.
But I claim permission to manage this distribution myself, as due to my connexion and intimacy with his father. He will buy back the villas, the houses, and some of the estates in the city which Antonius is in possession of. For as for the silver plate, the garments, the furniture, and the wine which that glutton has made away with, those things he will lose without forfeiting his equanimity. The Alban and Firmian villas he will recover from Dolabella; the Tusculan villa he will also recover from Antonius. And these Ansers who are joining in the attack on Mutina and in the blockade of Decimus Brutus will be driven from his Falernian villa. There are many others, perhaps, who will be made to disgorge their plunder, but their names escape my memory. I say, too, that those men who are not in the number of our enemies, will be made to restore the possessions of Pompeius to his son for the price at which they bought them.
There is also one of the Sasernæ; but all of them have such a resemblance to one another, that I may make a mistake as to their first names. Nor must I omit Exitius, the brother of Philadelphus the quæstor; lest, if I were to be silent about that most illustrious young man, I should seem to be envying Antonius. There is also a gentleman of the name of Asinius, a voluntary senator, having been elected by himself. He saw the senate-house open after the death of Cæsar, he changed his shoes, and in a moment became a conscript father. Sextus Albedius I do not know, but still I have not fallen in with any one so fond of evil-speaking, as to deny that he is worthy of a place in the senate of Antonius.
I dare say that I have passed over some names; but still I could not refrain from mentioning those who did occur to me. Relying then on this senate, he looks down on the senate which supported Pompeius, in which ten of us were men of consular rank; and if they were all alive now this war would never have arisen at all. Audacity would have succumbed to authority.
“Since you yourselves have sold yourselves for flatteries and poisoned gifts.”
Are those men depraved and corrupted, who have been persuaded to pursue a most detestable enemy with most righteous war?
“But you say, you are bringing assistance to troops who are hemmed in. I have no objection to their being saved, and departing wherever you wish, if they only allow that man to be put to death who has deserved it.”
How very kind of him! The soldiers availing themselves of the liberality of Antonius have deserted their general, and have fled in alarm to his enemy; and if it had not been for them, Dolabella, in offering the sacrifice which he did to the shade of his general, would not have been beforehand with Antonius in propitiating the spirit of his colleague by a similar offering.
Admirable gain, when, if you, O Antonius, are victorious, (may the gods avert such a disaster!) the death of those men who depart from life untortured will be accounted happy! He says that Hirtius and Cæsar “have been cajoled by me by the same compliments.” I should like to know what compliment has been as yet paid to Hirtius by me; for still more and greater ones than have been paid him already are due to Cæsar. But do you, O Antonius, dare to say that Cæsar, the father, was deceived by me? You, it was you, I say, who really slew him at the Lupercal games. Why, O most ungrateful of men, have you abandoned your office of priest to him? But remark now the admirable wisdom and consistency of this great and illustrious man.