The Life of Cicero. Volume II.

Cicero in this matter talked some nonsense. "By what right, by what law," he asks, "shall Cassius go to Syria? By that law which Jupiter sanctioned when he ordained that all things good for the Republic should be just and legal." For neither had Brutus a right to establish himself in Macedonia as Proconsul nor Cassius in Syria. This reference to Jupiter was a begging of the question with a vengeance. But it was perhaps necessary, in a time of such confusion, to assume some pretext of legality, let it be ever so poor. Nothing could now be done in true obedience to the laws. The Triumvirate, with Cæsar at its head, had finally trodden down all law; and yet every one was clamoring for legal rights! Then he sings the praises of Cassius, but declares that he does not dare to give him credit in that place for the greatest deed he had done. He means, of course, the murder of Cæsar.

Paterculus tells us that all these things were decreed by the Senate.²¹⁶ But he is wrong. The decree of the Senate went against Cicero, and on the next day, amid much tumult, he addressed himself to the people on the subject. This he did in opposition to Pansa, who endeavored to hinder him from speaking in the Forum, and to Servilia, the mother-in-law of Cassius, who was afraid lest her son-in-law should encounter the anger of the Consuls. He went so far as to tell the people that Cassius would not obey the Senate, but would take upon himself, on such an emergency, to act as best he could for the Republic.²¹⁷ There was no moment in this stirring year, none, I think, during Cicero's life, in which he behaved with greater courage than now in appealing from the Senate to the people, and in the hardihood with which he declared that the Senate's decree should be held as going for nothing. Before the time came in which it could be carried out both Hirtius and Pansa were dead. They had fallen in relieving Decimus at Mutina. His address on this occasion to the people was not made public, and has not been preserved.

Then there came up the question of a second embassy, to which Cicero at first acceded. He was induced to do so, as he says, by news which had arrived of altered circumstances on Antony's part. Calenus and Piso had given the Senate to understand that Antony was desirous of peace. Cicero had therefore assented, and had agreed to be one of the deputation. The twelfth Philippic was spoken with the object of showing that no such embassy should be sent. Cicero's condition at this period was most peculiar and most perilous. The Senate would not altogether oppose his efforts, but they hated them. They feared that, if Antony should succeed, they who had opposed Antony would be ruined. Those among them who were the boldest openly reproached Cicero with the danger which they were made to incur in fighting his battles.²¹⁸ To be rid of Cicero was their desire and their difficulty. He had agreed to go on this embassy – who can say for what motives? To him it would be a mission of especial peril. It was one from which he could hardly hope ever to come back alive. It may be that he had agreed to go with his life in his hand, and to let them know that he at any rate had been willing to die for the Republic. It may be that he had heard of some altered circumstances. But he changed his mind and resolved that he would not go, unless driven forth by the Senate. There seems to have been a manifest attempt to get him out of Rome and send him where he might have his throat cut. But he declined; and this is the speech in which he did so. "It is impossible," says the French critic, speaking of the twelfth Philippic, "to surround the word 'I fear' with more imposing oratorical arguments." It has not occurred to him that Cicero may have thought that he might even yet do something better with the lees and dregs of his life than throw them away by thus falling into a trap. Nothing is so common to men as to fear to die – and nothing more necessary, or men would soon cease to live. To fear death more than ignominy is the disgrace – a truth which the French critic does not seem to have recognized when he twits the memory of Cicero with his scornful sneer, "J'ai peur." Did it occur to the French critic to ask himself for what purpose should Cicero go to Antony's camp, where he would probably be murdered, and by so doing favor the views of his own enemies in Rome? The deputation was not sent; but in lieu of the deputation Pansa, the remaining Consul, led his legions out of Rome at the beginning of April.

b. c. 43, ætat. 64.

Lepidus, who was Proconsul in Gaul and Northern Spain, wrote a letter at this time to the Senate recommending them to make peace with Antony. Cicero in his thirteenth Philippic shows how futile such a peace would be. That Lepidus was a vain, inconstant man, looking simply to his own advantage in the side which he might choose, is now understood; but when this letter was received he was supposed to have much weight in Rome. He had, however, given some offence to the Senate, not having acknowledged all the honors which had been paid to him. The advice had been rejected, and Cicero shows how unfit the man was to give it. This, however, he still does with complimentary phrases, though from a letter written by him to Lepidus about this time the nature of his feeling toward the man is declared: "You would have done better, in my judgment, if you had left alone this attempt at making peace, which approves itself neither to the Senate nor to the people, not to any good man."²¹⁹ When we remember the ordinary terms of Roman letter-writing, we must acknowledge that this was a plain and not very civil attempt to silence Lepidus. He then goes on in the Philippic to read a letter which Antony had sent to Hirtius and to young Cæsar, and which they had sent on to the Senate. The letter is sufficiently bold and abusive – throwing it in their teeth that they would rather punish the murderer of Trebonius than those of Cæsar. Cicero does this with some wit, but we feel compelled to observe that as much is to be said on the one side as on the other. Brutus, Cassius, with Trebonius and others, had killed Cæsar. Dolabella, perhaps with circumstances of great cruelty, had killed Trebonius. Cicero had again and again expressed his sorrow that Antony had been spared when Cæsar was killed. We have to go back before the first slaughter to resolve who was right and who was wrong, and even afterward can only take the doings of each in that direction as part of the internecine feud. Experience has since explained to us the results of introducing bloodshed into such quarrels. The laws which recognize war are and were acknowledged. But when A kills B because he thinks B to have done evil, A can no longer complain of murder. And Cicero's criticism is somewhat puerile. "And thou, boy," Antony had said in addressing Octavian – "Et te, puer!" "You shall find him to be a man by-and-by," says Cicero. Antony's Latin is not Ciceronian. "Utrum sit elegantius," he asks, putting some further question about Cæsar and Trebonius. "As if there could be anything elegant in this war," demands Cicero. He goes through the letter in the same way, turning Antony into ridicule in a manner which must have riveted in the heart of Fulvia, Antony's wife, who was in Rome, her desire to have that bitter-speaking tongue torn out of his mouth. Such was the thirteenth Philippic.

On the 21st of April was spoken the fourteenth and the last. Pansa early in the month had left Rome, and marched toward Mutina with the intention of relieving Decimus. Antony, who was then besieging Mutina after such a fashion as to prevent all egress or ingress, and had all but brought Decimus to starvation, finding himself about to be besieged, put his troops into motion, and attacked those who were attacking him. Then was fought the battle in which Antony was beaten, and Pansa, one of the Consuls, so wounded that he perished soon afterward. Antony retreated to his camp, but was again attacked by Hirtius and Octavian, and by Decimus, who sallied out of the town. He was routed, and fled, but Hirtius was killed in the battle. Suetonius tells us that in his time a rumor was abroad that Augustus, then Octavian, had himself killed Hirtius with his own hands in the fight – Hirtius having been his fellow-general, and fighting on the same side; and that he had paid Glyco, Pansa's doctor, to poison him while dressing his wounds.²²⁰ Tacitus had already made the story known.²²¹ It is worth repeating here only as showing the sort of conduct which a grave historian and a worthy biographer were not ashamed to attribute to the favorite Emperor of Rome.

It was on the receipt of the news in Rome of the first battle, but before the second had been fought, that the last Philippic was spoken. Pansa was not known to have been mortally wounded, nor Hirtius killed, nor was it known that Decimus had been relieved; but it was understood that Antony had received a check. Servilius had proposed a supplication, and had suggested that they should put away their saga and go back to their usual attire. The "sagum" was a common military cloak, which the early Romans wore instead of the toga when they went out to war. In later days, when the definition between a soldier and a civilian became more complete, they who were left at home wore the sagum, in token of their military feelings, when the Republic was fighting its battles near Rome. I do not suppose that when Crassus was in Parthia, or Cæsar in Gaul, the sagum was worn. It was not exactly known when the distant battles were being fought. But Cicero had taken care that the sagum should be properly worn, and had even put it on himself – to do which as a Consular was not required of him. Servilius now proposed that they should leave off their cloaks, having obtained a victory; but Cicero would not permit it. Decimus, he says, has not been relieved, and they had taken to their cloaks as showing their determination to succor their General in his distress. And he is discontented with the language used: "You have not even yet called Antony a 'public enemy.'" Then he again lashes out against the horror of Antony's proceedings: "He is waging war, a war too dreadful to be spoken of, against four Roman Consuls" – he means Hirtius and Pansa, who were already Consuls, and in truth already dead, and Decimus and Plancus, who were designated as Consuls for the next year. Plancus, however, joined his legions afterward with those of Antony, and insisted in establishing the Second Triumvirate. "Rushing from one scene of slaughter to another, he causes wherever he goes misery, desolation, bloodshed, and agony." The language is so fine that it is worth our while to see the words.²²² "Is he not responsible for the horrors of Dolabella? What he would do in Rome, were it not for the protection of Jupiter, may be seen from the miseries which his brother has inflicted on those poor men of Parma – that Lucius, whom all men hate, and the gods too would hate, if they hated as they ought. In what city was Hannibal as cruel as Antony at Parma; and shall we not call him an enemy?" Servilius had asked for a supplication, but had only asked for one of moderate length. And Servilius had not called the generals Imperatores. Who should be so called but they who have been valiant, and lucky, and successful? Cicero forgets the meaning of the title, and that even Bibulus had been called Imperator in Syria. Here he runs off from his subject, and at some length praises himself. It seems that Rome was in a tumult at the time, and that Antony's enemies did all they could to support him, and also to turn his head. He had been carried into the Senate-house in triumph, and had been thanked by the whole city. After lauding the different generals, and calling them all Imperatores, he desires the Senate to decree them a supplication for fifty days. Fifty days are to be devoted to thanksgiving to the gods, though it had already been declared how very little they have done for which to be thankful, as Decimus had not yet been liberated.

Fifty days are granted for the battle of Mutina, which as yet was supposed to have been but half fought. When we hear the term "supplicatio" first mentioned in Livy one day was granted. It had grown to twenty when the gods were thanked for the victory over Vercingetorix. Now for this half-finished affair fifty was hardly enough. When the time was over, Antony and Lepidus had joined their forces triumphantly. Pansa and Hirtius were dead, and Decimus Brutus had fled, and had probably been murdered. Nothing increases so out of proportion to the occasion as the granting of honors. Stars, when they fall in showers, pale their brilliancy, and turn at last to no more than a cloud of dust. Honors are soon robbed of all their honor when once the first step downward has been taken. The decree was passed, and Cicero finished his last speech on so poor an occasion. But though the thing itself then done be small and trivial to us now, it was completed in magnificent language.²²³ The passage of which I give the first words below is very fine in the original, though it does not well bear translation. Thus he ended his fourteenth Philippic, and the silver tongue which had charmed Rome so often was silent forever.

We at least have no record of any further speech; nor, as I think, did he again take the labor of putting into words which should thrill through all who heard them, not the thoughts but the passionate feelings of the moment.

I will venture to quote from a contemporary his praise of the Philippics. Mr. Forsyth says: "Nothing can exceed the beauty of the language, the rhythmical flow of the periods, and the harmony of the style. The structure of the Latin language, which enables the speaker or writer to collocate his words, not, as in English, merely according to the order of thought, but in the manner best calculated to produce effect, too often baffles the powers of the translator who seeks to give the force of the passage without altering the arrangement. Often again, as is the case with all attempts to present the thoughts of the ancient in a modern dress, a periphrasis must be used to explain the meaning of an idea which was instantly caught by the Greek or Roman ear. Many allusions which flashed like lightning upon the minds of the Senators must be explained in a parenthesis, and many a home-thrust and caustic sarcasm are now deprived of their sting, which pierced sharply at the moment of their utterance some twenty centuries ago.

"But with all such disadvantages I hope that even the English reader will be able to recognize in these speeches something of the grandeur of the old Roman eloquence. The noble passages in which Cicero strove to force his countrymen for very shame to emulate the heroic virtues of their forefathers, and urged them to brave every danger and welcome death rather than slavery in the last struggle for freedom, are radiant with a glory which not even a translation can destroy. And it is impossible not to admire the genius of the orator whose words did more than armies toward recovering the lost liberty of Rome."

His words did more than armies, but neither could do anything lasting for the Republic. What was one honest man among so many? We remember Mommsen's verdict: "On the Roman oligarchy of this period no judgment can be passed save one of inexorable and remorseless condemnation." The farther we see into the facts of Roman history in our endeavors to read the life of Cicero, the more apparent becomes its truth. But Cicero, though he saw far toward it, never altogether acknowledged it. In this consists the charm of his character, though at the same time the weakness of his political aspirations; his weakness – because he was vain enough to imagine that he could talk men back from their fish-ponds; its charm – because he was able through it all to believe in honesty. The more hopeless became the cause, the sweeter, the more impassioned, the more divine, became his language. He tuned his notes to still higher pitches of melody, and thought that thus he could bring back public virtue. Often in these Philippics the matter is small enough. The men he has to praise are so little; and Antony does not loom large enough in history to have merited from Cicero so great a meed of vituperation! Nor is the abuse all true, in attributing to him motives so low. But Cicero was true through it all, anxious, all on fire with anxiety to induce those who heard him to send men to fight the battles to which he knew them, in their hearts, to be opposed.

The courage, the persistency, and the skill shown, in the attempt were marvellous. They could not have succeeded, but they seem almost to have done so. I have said that he was one honest man among many. Brutus was honest in his patriotism, and Cassius, and all the conspirators. I do not doubt that Cæsar was killed from a true desire to restore the Roman Republic. They desired to restore a thing that was in itself evil – the evils of which had induced Cæsar to see that he might make himself its master. But Cicero had conceived a Republic in his own mind – not Utopian, altogether human and rational – a Republic which he believed to have been that of Scipio, of Marcellus, and Lælius: a Republic which should do nothing for him but require his assistance, in which the people should vote, and the oligarchs rule in accordance with the established laws. Peace and ease, prosperity and protection, it would be for the Rome of his dream to bestow upon the provinces. Law and order, education and intelligence, it would be for her rulers to bestow upon Rome. In desiring this, he was the one honest man among many. In accordance with that theory he had lived, and I claim for him that he had never departed from it. In his latter days, when the final struggle came, when there had arisen for him the chance of Cæsar's death, when Antony was his chief enemy, when he found himself in Rome with authority sufficient to control legions, when the young Cæsar had not shown – probably had not made – his plans, when Lepidus and Plancus and Pollio might still prove themselves at last true men, he was once again alive with his dream. There might yet be again a Scipio, or a Cicero as good as Scipio, in the Republic; one who might have lived as gloriously, and die – not amid the jealousies but with the love of his countrymen.

It was not to be. Looking back at it now, we wonder that he should have dared to hope for it. But it is to the presence within gallant bosoms of hope still springing, though almost forlorn, of hope which has in its existence been marvellous, that the world is indebted for the most beneficial enterprises. It was not given to Cicero to stem the tide and to prevent the evil coming of the Cæsars; but still the nature of the life he had led, the dreams of a pure Republic, those aspirations after liberty have not altogether perished. We have at any rate the record of the great endeavors which he made.

Nothing can have been worse managed than the victory at Mutina. The two Consuls were both killed; but that, it may be said, was the chance of war. Antony with all his cavalry was allowed to escape eastward toward the Cottian Alps. Decimus Brutus seems to have shown himself deficient in all the qualities of a General, except that power of endurance which can hold a town with little or no provision. He wrote to Cicero saying that he would follow Antony. He makes a promise that Antony shall not be allowed to remain in Italy. He beseeches Cicero to write to that "windy fellow Lepidus," to prevent him from joining the enemy. Lepidus will never do what is right unless made to do so by Cicero. As to Plancus, Decimus has his doubts, but he thinks that Plancus will be true to the Republic now that Antony is beaten.²²⁴ In his next letter he speaks of the great confusion which has come among them from the death of the two Consuls. He declares also how great has been Antony's energy in already recruiting his army. He has opened all the prisons and workhouses, and taken the men he found there. Ventidius has joined him with his army, and he still fears Lepidus. And young Cæsar, who is supposed to be on their side, will obey no one, and can make none obey him. He, Decimus, cannot feed his men. He has spent all his own money and his friends'. How is he to support seven legions?²²⁵ On the next day he writes again, and is still afraid of Plancus and of Lepidus and of Pollio. And he bids Cicero look after his good name: "Stop the evil tongues of men if you can."²²⁶ A few days afterward Cicero writes him a letter which he can hardly have liked to receive. What business had Brutus to think the senate cowardly?²²⁷ Who can be afraid of Antony conquered who did not fear him in his strength? How should Lepidus doubt now when victory had declared for the Republic? Though Antony may have collected together the scrapings of the jails, Decimus is not to forget that he, Decimus, has the whole Roman people at his back.

Cicero was probably right to encourage the General, and to endeavor to fill him with hope. To make a man victorious you should teach him to believe in victory. But Decimus knew the nature of the troops around him, and was aware that every soldier was so imbued with an idea of the power of Cæsar that, though Cæsar was dead, they could fight with only half a heart against soldiers who had been in his armies. The name and authority and high office of the two Consuls had done something with them, and young Cæsar had been with the Consuls. But both the Consuls had been killed – which was in itself ominous – and Antony was still full of hope, and young Cæsar was not there, and Decimus was unpopular with the men. It was of no use that Cicero should write with lofty ideas and speak of the spirit of the Senate. Antony had received a severe check, but the feeling of military rule which Cæsar had engendered was still there, and soldiers who would obey their officers were not going to submit themselves to "votes of the people." Cicero in the mean time had his letters passing daily between himself and the camps, thinking to make up by the energy of his pen for the weakness of his party. Lepidus sends him an account of his movements on the Rhone, declaring how he was anxious to surround Antony. Lepidus was already meditating his surrender. "I ask from you, my Cicero, that if you have seen with what zeal I have in former times served the Republic, you should look for conduct equal to it, or surpassing it for the future; and, that you should think me the more worthy of your protection, the higher are my deserts."²²⁸ He was already, when writing that letter, in treaty with Antony. Plancus writes to him at the same time apologizing for his conduct in joining Lepidus. It was a service of great danger for him, Plancus, but it was necessary for Lepidus that this should be done. We are inclined to doubt them all, knowing whither they were tending. Lepidus was false from the beginning. Plancus doubled for a while, and then yielded himself.

The reader, I think, will have had no hope for Cicero and the Republic since the two Consuls were killed; but as he comes upon the letters which passed between Cicero and the armies he will have been altogether disheartened.