Cicero

But meantime his assassins came to the villa, Herennius a centurion, and Popillius a tribune, who had once been prosecuted for parricide and defended by Cicero; and they had helpers. After they had broken in the door, which they found closed, Cicero was not to be seen, and the inmates said they knew not where he was.

Then, we are told, a youth who had been liberally educated by Cicero, and who was a freedman of Cicero’s brother Quintus, Philologus by name, told the tribune that the litter was being carried through the wooded and shady walks towards the sea. The tribune, accordingly, taking a few helpers with him, ran round towards the exit, but Herennius hastened on the run through the walks, and Cicero, perceiving him, ordered the servants to set the litter down where they were.

Then he himself, clasping his chin with his left hand, as was his wont, looked steadfastly at his slayers, his head all squalid and unkempt, and his face wasted with anxiety, so that most of those that stood by covered their faces while Herennius was slaying him.

For he stretched his neck forth from the litter and was slain, being then in his sixty-fourth year.[*](Cicero was murdered on the seventh of December, 43 B.C.) Herennius cut off his head, by Antony’s command, and his hands—the hands with which he wrote the Philippics. For Cicero himself entitled his speeches against Antony Philippics, and to this day the documents are called Philippics.

When Cicero’s extremities were brought to Rome, it chanced that Antony was conducting an election, but when he heard of their arrival and saw them, he cried out, Now let our proscriptions have an end. Then he ordered the head and hands to be placed over the ships’ beaks on the rostra, a sight that made the Romans shudder; for they thought they saw there, not the face of Cicero, but an image of the soul of Antony.

However, he showed at least one sentiment of fair dealing in the case when he handed over Philologus to Pomponia, the wife of Quintus. And she, having got the man into her power, besides other dreadful punishments which she inflicted upon him, forced him to cut off his own flesh bit by bit and roast it, and then to eat it. This, indeed, is what some of the historians say; but Cicero’s own freedman, Tiro, makes no mention at all of the treachery of Philologus.