Civil Wars

"They divided among you the property of your own people, the very ones who sent you with Cæsar to the Gallic war, and who offered up their prayers at your festival of victory. They colonized you in that way collectively, under your standards and in your military organization, so that you could neither enjoy peace nor be free from fear of those whom you displaced. The man who is driven out and deprived of his goods will always be watching his opportunity to ensnare you. This was the very thing that the tyrants sought to accomplish, -- not to provide you with land, which they could have obtained for you elsewhere; but that you, because always beset by lurking enemies, might be the firm bulwark of a government that was committing wrongs in common with you. A common interest between tyrants and their satellites grows out of common crimes and common fears. And this, ye gods, they call colonization, in which are common the lamentations of a kindred people and the expulsion of innocent men from their homes. They purposely made you enemies to your countrymen for their own advantage. We, the defenders of the republic, to whom our opponents say they grant safety out of pity, confirm this very same land to you and will confirm it forever; and to this promise we call to witness the god of this temple.[*](The temple of the Capitoline Jove.) You have and shall keep what you have received. None of us will take it from you, neither Brutus, nor Cassius, nor any of us who have incurred danger for your freedom. The one thing wanting in this business we will supply -- a reconciliation with your fellow-countrymen most agreeable to them now, as they hear that we shall at once pay them out of the public money the price of this land of which they have been deprived; so that not only shall your colony be secure, but it shall not even be exposed to hatred."

While Brutus was still speaking in this sort, and after the assembly was dissolved, his discourse was approved by all as being entirely just. He and his associates were admired as men of intrepidity, and as peculiarly the friends of the people. The latter were favorably inclined toward them, and promised to coöperate with them on the following day. At daybreak the consuls called the people to an assembly and communicated to them the decisions of the Senate, and Cicero pronounced a long encomium on the decree of amnesty. The people were delighted with it and invited Cassius and his friends to come down from the Capitol. The latter asked that hostages be sent to them in the meantime, and, accordingly, the sons of Antony and Lepidus were sent. When Brutus and his associates made their appearance they were received with shouts of applause, and when the consuls desired to say something the people would not allow them to do so, but demanded that they should first shake hands with these men and make peace with them, which was done. The minds of the consuls were much disturbed by fear and envy lest the conspirators should get the upper hand of them in other political matters.

Cæsar's will was now produced and the people ordered that it be read at once. In it Octavius, the grandson of his sister, was adopted by Cæsar. His gardens were given to the people as a place of recreation, and to every Roman still living in the city he gave seventy-five Attic drachmas.[*](About $14.) The people were again stirred to anger when they saw the will of this lover of his country, whom they had before heard accused of tyranny. Most of all did it seem pitiful to them that Decimus Brutus, one of the murderers, should have been named by him for adoption in the second degree; for it was customary for the Romans to name alternate heirs in case of the failure of the first. Whereupon there was still greater disturbance among the people, who considered it shocking and sacrilegious that Decimus should have conspired against Cæsar when he had been adopted as his son. When Piso brought Cæsar's body into the forum a countless multitude ran together with arms to guard it, and with acclamations and magnificent display placed it on the rostra. Wailing and lamentation were renewed for a long time, the armed men clashed their shields, and gradually they began to repent themselves of the amnesty. Antony, seeing how things were going, did not abandon his purpose, but, having been chosen to deliver the funeral oration, as a consul for a consul, a friend for a friend, a relative for a relative (for he was related to Cæsar on his mother's side), resumed his artful design and spoke as follows:--

"It is not fitting, citizens, that the funeral oration of so great a man should be pronounced by me alone, but rather by his whole country. The decrees which all of us, in equal admiration of his merit, voted to him while he was alive -- the Senate and the people acting together -- I will read, so that I may voice your sentiments rather than my own." Then he began to read with a severe and gloomy countenance, pronouncing each sentence distinctly and dwelling especially on those decrees which declared Cæsar to be superhuman, sacred, and inviolable, and which named him the father of his country, or the benefactor, or the chieftain without a peer. With each decree Antony turned his face and his hand toward Cæsar's corpse, illustrating his discourse by his action, and at each appellation he added some brief remark full of grief and indignation; as, for example, where the decree spoke of Cæsar as the father of his country he added that this was a testimonial of his clemency; and again, where he was made sacred and inviolable and everybody else was to be held unharmed who should find refuge with him,-- "Nobody," said Antony, "who found refuge with him was harmed, but he, whom you declared sacred and inviolable, was killed, although he did not extort these honors from you as a tyrant, and did not even ask for them. Most servile are we if we give such honors to the unworthy who do not ask for them. But you, faithful citizens, vindicate us from this charge of servility by paying such honors as you now pay to the dead."

Antony resumed his reading and recited the oaths by which all were pledged to guard Cæsar and Cæsar's body with all their strength, and all were devoted to perdition who should not avenge him against any conspiracy. Here, lifting up his voice and extending his hand toward the Capitol, he exclaimed, "Jupiter, guardian of this city, and ye other gods, I stand ready to avenge him as I have sworn and vowed, but since those who are of equal rank with me have considered the decree of amnesty beneficial, I pray that it may prove so." A commotion arose among the senators in consequence of this exclamation, which seemed to have special reference to them. So Antony quieted them again and recanted, saying, "It seems to me, fellow-citizens, that this deed is not the work of human beings, but of some evil spirit. It becomes us to consider the present rather than the past, since the greatest danger approaches, if it is not already here, lest we be drawn into our former civil commotions and lose whatever remains of noble birth in the city. Let us then conduct this sacred one to the abode of the blest, chanting our accustomed hymn of lamentation for him."

Having spoken thus,, he gathered up his garments like one inspired, girded himself so that he might have the free use of his hands, took his position in front of the bier as in a play, bending down to it and rising again, and sang first as to a celestial deity. In order to testify to Cæsar's godlike origin, he raised his hands to heaven and with rapid speech recited his wars, his battles, his victories, the nations he had brought under his country's sway, and the spoils he had sent home, extolling each exploit as miraculous, and all the time exclaiming, "Thou alone hast come forth unvanquished from all the battles thou hast fought. Thou alone hast avenged thy country of the out-rage put upon it 300 years ago, bringing to their knees those savage tribes, the only ones that ever broke into and burned the city of Rome." Many other things Antony said in a kind of divine frenzy, and then lowered his voice from its high pitch to a sorrowful tone, and mourned and wept as for a friend who had suffered unjustly, and prayed that his own life might be given in exchange for Cæsar's. Carried away by extreme passion he uncovered the body of Cæsar, lifted his robe on the point of a spear and shook it aloft, pierced with dagger-thrusts and red with the dictator's blood. Whereupon the people, like a chorus, mourned with him in the most lugubrious manner, and from sorrow became again filled with anger. After the discourse other lamentations were chanted with funeral music according to the national custom, by the people in chorus, to the dead; and his deeds and his sad fate were again recited. Somewhere from the midst of these lamentations Cæsar himself was supposed to speak, recounting the benefits he had conferred on his enemies by name, and speaking of the murderers themselves, exclaiming, as it were, " Oh that I should have spared these men to slay me!"[*](A quotation from the Latin poet Pacuvius. The original is given in Suetonius: " Men' servasse, ut essent qui me perderent!") The people could endure it no longer. It seemed to them monstrous that all the murderers who, with the single exception of Decimus Brutus, had been made prisoners while belonging to the faction of Pompey, and who, instead of being punished, had been advanced by Cæsar to the magistracies of Rome and to the command of provinces and armies, should have conspired against him; and that Decimus should have been deemed by him worthy of adoption as his son.

While they were in this temper and were already near to violence, somebody raised above the bier an image of Cæsar himself made of wax.[*](Waxen images of the deceased were common in the funerals of distinguished persons in Rome.) The body itself, as it lay on its back on the couch, could not be seen. The image was turned round and round by a mechanical device, showing the twenty-three wounds in all parts of the body and on the face, which gave him a shocking appearance. The people could no longer bear the pitiful sight presented to them. They groaned, and, girding themselves, they burned the senate-chamber where Cæsar was slain, and ran hither and thither searching for the murderers, who had fled some time previously. They were so mad with rage and grief that like wild beasts they tore in pieces the tribune Cinna on account of his similarity of name to the praetor Cinna who had made a speech against Cæsar, not waiting to hear any explanation about the simhilarity of name, so that no part of him was ever found for burial.[*](Suetonius (Jul. 85) and Valerius Maximus (ix. 9) agreed with Appian that this victim of error was the tribune Cinna, whose surname was Helvius. Plutarch says that he was a poet, or rather a man of a poetical turn.) They carried fire to the houses of the other murderers, but the domestics valiantly fought them off and the neighbors besought them to desist. So the people abstained from the use of fire, but they threatened to come back with arms on the following day.[*](Merivale (Hist. of the Romans under the Empire, ii. 84) considers this report of Antony's funeral oration " no rhetorical fiction, but a fair representation both in manner and substance of the actual harangue." Cicero bore testimony to the effectiveness of Antony's discourse when he spoke of it in the second Philippic (36) as " that beautiful encomium, that mournful dirge, that appeal to passion," adding: "thou, thou I say, didst light the fire that half consumed his body and burned down the house of L. Bellienus. Thou didst precipitate upon our homes that mob of abandoned men, mostly slaves, whom we drove back by force and violence.")