Searching for Antonius \Cic. Phil.
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XVI. I come now to Caius Cæsar, O conscript fathers; if he had not existed, which of us could have been alive now? That most intemperate of men, Antonius, was flying from Brundusium to the city, burning with hatred, with a disposition hostile to all good men, with an army. What was there to oppose to his audacity and wickedness? We had not as yet any generals, or any forces. There was no public council, no liberty; our necks were at the mercy of his nefarious cruelty; we were all preparing to have recourse to flight, though flight itself had no escape for us.
To say nothing of the mob, look at Lucius Nasidius, a Roman knight, a man of the very highest accomplishments and honour, a citizen always eminent, whose watchfulness and exertions for the protection of my life I felt in my consulship; who not only exhorted his neighbours to become soldiers, but also assisted them from his own resources; will it be possible ever to reconcile Antonius to such a man as this, a man whom we ought to praise by a formal resolution of the senate? What? will it be possible to reconcile him to Caius Cæsar, who prevented him from entering the city, or to Decimus Brutus, who has refused him entrance into Gaul?
What? when you ordered levies of troops to be made throughout all Italy, when you suspended all exemptions from service, was he not by those steps declared to be an enemy? You see manufactories of arms in the city; soldiers, sword in hand, are following the consul; they are in appearance a guard to the consul, but in fact and reality to us; all men are giving in their names, not only without any shirking, but with the greatest eagerness; they are acting in obedience to your authority. Has not Antonius been declared an enemy by such acts?
Add, besides the wrecks of Cæsar’s party, the Barbæ Cassii, the Barbatii, the Pollios; add the companions and fellow-gamblers of Antonius, Eutrapelus, and Mela, and Cœlius, and Pontius, and Crassicius, and Tiro, and Mustela, and Petissius; I say nothing of the main body, I am only naming the leaders. To these are added the legionaries of the Alauda and the rest of the veterans, the seminary of the judges of the third decury; who, having exhausted their own estates, and squandered all the fruits of Cæsar’s kindness, have now set their hearts on our fortunes.
On this day, O conscript fathers, for the first time after a long interval do we plant our foot and take possession of liberty. Liberty, of which, as long as I could be, I was not only the defender, but even the saviour. But when I could not be so, I rested; and I bore the misfortunes and misery of that period without abjectness, and not without some dignity. But as for this most foul monster, who could endure him, or how could any one endure him? What is there in Antonius except lust, and cruelty, and wantonness, and audacity? Of these materials he is wholly made up. There is in him nothing ingenuous, nothing moderate, nothing modest, nothing virtuous.
Cic. Phil. 3.1.1 (y)
I. We have been assembled at length, O conscript fathers, altogether later than the necessities of the republic required; but still we are assembled; a measure which I, indeed, have been every day demanding; inasmuch as I saw that a nefarious war against our altars and our hearths, against our lives and our fortunes, was, I will not say being prepared, but being actually waged by a profligate and desperate man. People are waiting for the first of January. But Antonius is not waiting for that day, who is now attempting with an army to invade the province of Decimus Brutus, a most illustrious and excellent man. And when he has procured reinforcements and equipments there, he threatens that he will come to this city.
Cic. Phil. 1.2.1 (y)
The oration then made by Marcus Antonius was an admirable one; his disposition, too, appeared excellent; and lastly, by his means and by his sons’, peace was ratified with the most illustrious of the citizens; and everything else was consistent with this beginning. He invited the chief men of the state to those deliberations which he held at his own house concerning the state of the republic; he referred all the most important matters to this order. Nothing was at that time found among the papers of Caius Cæsar except what was already well known to everybody; and he gave answers to every question that was asked of him with the greatest consistency.
Was it for this that we assumed the garb of war, and took arms, and roused up all the youth all over Italy, in order that, while we had a most flourishing and numerous army, we might send ambassadors to treat for peace? If that peace is to be received by others, why do we not wait to be entreated for it? If our ambassadors are to beg it, what is it that we are afraid of? Shall I make one of this embassy, or shall I be mixed up with this design, in which, even if I should dissent from the rest of my colleagues, the Roman people will not know it? The result will be, that if anything be granted or conceded, it will be my danger if Antonius commits any offences, since the power to commit them will seem to have been put in his hands by me.
Among them he has distributed the lands of Semurium. The Campus Martius was all that was left, if he had not first fled with his brother. But this allotment of lands was put an end to a little while ago, O Romans, by the declaration of his opinion by Lucius Cæsar a most illustrious man and a most admirable senator. For we all agreed with him and annulled the acts of the septemvirs. So all the kindness of Nucula goes for nothing; and the patron Antonius is at a discount. For those who had taken possession will depart with more equanimity. They had not been at any expense; they had not yet furnished or stocked their domains, partly because they did not feel sure of their title, and partly because they had no money.
Am I to receive commands from a man who despises the commands of the senate? Or am I to think that he has anything in common with the senate, who besieges a general of the Roman people in spite of the prohibition of the senate? But what commands they are! With what arrogance, with what stupidity, with what insolence are they conceived! But what made him charge our ambassadors with them when he was sending Cotyla to us, the ornament and bulwark of his friends, a man of ædilitian rank? if, indeed, he really was an ædile at the time when the public slaves flogged him with thongs at a banquet by command of Antonius.
Is not this, too, to be marked with the deepest ignominy, and with the severest animadversion of this order, so as to be recollected by all posterity, that Marcus Antonius (the first man who has ever done so since the foundation of the city) has openly taken armed men about with him in this city? A thing which the kings never did, nor those men who, since the kings have been banished, have endeavoured to seize on kingly power. I can recollect Cinna; I have seen Sylla; and lately Cæsar. For these three men are the only ones since the city was delivered by Lucius Brutus, who have had more power than the entire republic. I cannot assert that no man in their trains had weapons.
You know the insolence of Antonius; you know his friends; you know his whole household. To be slaves to lustful, wanton, debauched, profligate, drunken gamblers, is the extremity of misery combined with the extremity of infamy. And if now (but may the immortal gods avert the omen!) that worst of fates shall befal the republic, then, as brave gladiators take care to perish with honour, let us too, who are the chief men of all countries and nations, take care to fall with dignity rather than to live as slaves with ignominy.
But I want to know what you mean, O Calenus? Do you call slavery peace? Our ancestors used to take up arms not merely to secure their freedom, but also to acquire empire; you think that we ought to throw away our arms, in order to become slaves. What juster cause is there for waging war than the wish to repel slavery? in which, even if one’s master be not tyrannical, yet it is a most miserable thing that he should be able to be so if he chooses. In truth, other causes are just, this is a necessary one. Unless, perhaps, you think that this does not apply to you, because you expect that you will be a partner in the dominion of Antonius. And there you make a two-fold mistake: first of all, in preferring your own to the general interest; and in the next place, in thinking that there is anything either stable or pleasant in kingly power. Even if it has before now been advantageous to you, it will not always be so.
XI. O Caius Cæsar, (I am speaking of the young man,) what safety have you brought to the republic! How unforeseen has it been! how sudden! for if he did these things when flying, what would he have done when he was pursuing? In truth, he had said in a harangue that he would be the guardian of the city; and that he would keep his army at the gates of the city till the first of May. What a fine guardian (as the proverb goes) is the wolf of the sheep! Would Antonius have been a guardian of the city, or its plunderer and destroyer? And he said too that he would come into the city and go out as he pleased. What more need I say? Did he not say, in the hearing of all the people, while sitting in front of the temple of Castor, that no one should remain alive but the conqueror?
Cic. Phil. 3.5.1 (y)
And from this calamity Cæsar has delivered the republic by his own individual prudence, (and, indeed, there were no other means by which it could have been done.) And if he had not been born in this republic we should, owing to the wickedness of Antonius, now have no republic at all.
For this is what I believe, this is my deliberate opinion, that if that one young man had not checked the violence and inhuman projects of that frantic man, the republic would have been utterly destroyed. And to him we must, O conscript fathers, (for this is the first time, met in such a condition, that, owing to his good service, we are at liberty to say freely what we think and feel,) we must, I say, this day give authority, so that he may be able to defend the republic, not because that defence has been voluntarily undertaken by him but also because it has been entrusted to him by us.