Philippicae

“Men who will count the destruction of either you or me gain to them. A spectacle which as yet fortune herself has taken care to avoid, unwilling to see two armies which belong to one body fighting, with Cicero acting as master of the show; a fellow who is so far happy that he has cajoled you both with the same compliments as those with which he boasted that he had deceived Caesar.”

He proceeds in his abuse of me, as if he had been very fortunate in all his former reproaches of me; but I will brand him with the most thoroughly deserved marks of infamy, and pillory him for the everlasting recollection of posterity. I a “master of the show of gladiators!” indeed he is not wholly wrong, for I do wish to see the worst party slain, and the best victorious! He writes that “whichever of them are destroyed we shall count as so much gain.” 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 Caesar “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 Caesar. But do you, O Antonius, dare to say that Caesar, 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.

“I am quite resolved to brook no insult either to myself or to my friends; nor to desert that party which Pompeius hated, nor to allow the veterans to be removed from their abodes; nor to allow individuals to be dragged out to torture, nor to violate the faith which I pledged to Dolabella.”

I say nothing of the rest of this sentence, “the faith pledged to Dolabella,” to that most holy man, this pious gentleman will by no means violate. What faith? Was it a pledge to murder every virtuous citizen, to partition the city and Italy, to distribute the provinces among, and to hand them over to be plundered by, their followers? For what else was there which could have been ratified by treaty and mutual pledges between Antonius and Dolabella, those foul and parricidal traitors?

“Nor to violate my treaty of alliance with Lepidus, the most conscientious of men.”

You have any alliance with Lepidus or with any (I will not say virtuous citizen, as he is, but with any) man in his senses! Your object is to make Lepidus appear either an impious man, or a madman. But you are doing no good (although it is a hard matter to speak positively of another), especially with a man like Lepidus, whom I will never fear, but I shall hope good things of him unless I am prevented from doing so. Lepidus wished to recall you from your frenzy, not to be the assistant of your insanity. But you seek your friends not only among conscientious men, but among most conscientious men. And you actually, godlike is your piety, invent a new word to express it which has no existence in the Latin language.

“Nor to betray Plancus, the partner of my counsels.)“

Plancus, the partner of your counsels? He, whose ever memorable and divine virtue brings a light to the republic (unless, perhaps, you think that it is as a reinforcement to you that he has come with those most gallant legions, and with a numerous Gallic force of both cavalry and infantry); and who, if before his arrival you have not by your punishment made atonement to the republic for your wickedness, will be chief leader in this war. For although the first succors that arrive are more useful to the republic, yet the last are the more acceptable.

However, at last he recollects himself and begins to philosophize.

“If the immortal gods assist me, as I trust that they will, going on my way with proper feelings, I shall live happily; but if another fate awaits me, I have already a foretaste of joy in the certainty of your punishment. For if the Pompeians when defeated are so insolent, you will be sure to experience what they will be when victorious.”

You are very welcome to your foretaste of joy. For you are at war not only with the Pompeians, but with the entire republic. Every one, gods and men, the highest rank, the middle class, the lowest dregs of the people, citizens and foreigners, men and women, free men and slaves, all hate you. We saw this the other day on some false news that came; but we shall soon see it from the way in which true news is received. And if you ponder these things with yourself a little, you will die with more equanimity, and greater comfort.

“Lastly, this is the sum of my opinion and determination; I will bear with the insults offered me by my friends, if they themselves are willing to forget that they have offered them; or if they are prepared to unite with me in avenging Caesar a death.”

Now that they know this resolution of Antonius, do you think that Aulus Hirtius and Caius Pansa, the consuls, can hesitate to pass over to Antonius? to besiege Brutus? to be eager to attack Mutina? Why do I say Hirtius and Pansa? Will Caesar, that young man of singular piety, be able to restrain himself from seeking to avenge the injuries of his father in the blood of Decimus Brutus? Therefore, as soon as they had read his letter, the course which they adopted was to approach nearer to the fortifications. And on this account we ought to consider Caesar a still more admirable young man; and that a still greater kindness of the immortal gods which gave him to the republic, as he has never been misled by the specious use of his father's name; nor by any false idea of piety and affection. He sees clearly that the greatest piety consists in the salvation of one's country. But if it were a contest between parties, the name of which is utterly extinct, then would Antonius and Ventidius be the proper persons to uphold the party of Caesar, rather than in the first place, Caesar, a young man full of the greatest piety and the most affectionate recollection of his parent? and next to him Pansa and Hirtius, who held (if I may use such an expression) the two horns of Caesar, at the time when that deserved to be called a party. But what parties are these, when the one proposes to itself to uphold the authority of the senate, the liberty of the Roman people, and the safety of the republic, while the other fixes its eyes on the slaughter of all good men, and on the partition of the city and of Italy!

Let us come at last to the end.

“I do not believe that ambassadors are coming—”

He knows me well.

“To a place where war exists.”

Especially with the example of Dolabella before our eyes ambassadors, I should think, will have privileges more respected than two consuls against whom he is bearing arms; or than Caesar, whose father's priest he is; or than the consul elect, whom he is attacking; or than Mutina, which he is besieging; or than his country, which he is threatening with fire and sword.

“When they do come I shall see what they demand.

Plagues and tortures seize you! Will any one come to you unless he be a man like Ventidius? We sent men of the very highest character to extinguish the rising conflagration; you rejected them. Shall we now send men when the fire has become so large and has risen to such a height, and when you have left yourself no possible room, not only for peace, but not even for a surrender?

I have read you this letter, O conscript fathers, not because I thought it worth reading, but in order to let you see all his parricidal treasons revealed by his own confessions. Would Marcus Lepidus, that man so richly endowed with all the gifts of virtue and fortune, if he saw this letter, either wish for peace with this man, or even think it possible that peace should be made? “Sooner shall fire and water mingle,” as some poet or other says; sooner shall any thing in the world happen than either the republic become reconciled to the Antonii, or the Antonii to the republic. Those men are monsters, prodigies, portentous pests of the republic. It would be better for this city to be uplifted from its foundations and transported, if such a thing were possible, into other regions, where it should never hear of the actions or the name of the Antonii, than for it to see those men, driven out by the valor of Caesar, and hemmed in by the courage of Brutus, inside these walls. The most desirable thing is victory; the next best thing is to think no disaster too great to bear in defense of the dignity and freedom of one's country. The remaining alternative, I will not call it the third, but the lowest of all, is to undergo the greatest disgrace from a desire of life.

Since, then, this is the case, as to the letters and messages of Marcus Lepidus, that most illustrious man, I agree with Servilius. And I further give my vote, that Magnus Pompeius, the son of Cnaeus, has acted as might have been expected from the affection and zeal of his father and forefathers toward the republic, and from his own previous virtue and industry and loyal principles in promising to the senate and people of Rome his own assistance, and that of those men whom he has with him; and that that conduct of his is grateful and acceptable to the senate and people of Rome, and that it shall tend to his own honor and dignity. This may either be added to the resolution of the senate which is before us, or it may be separated from it and drawn up by itself, so as to let Pompeius be seen to be extolled in a distinct resolution of the senate.

If, O conscript fathers, while I learned from the letters which have been read that the army of our most wicked enemies had been defeated and routed, I had also learned what we all wish for above all things, and which we do suppose has resulted from that victory which has been achieved,—namely, that Decimus Brutus had already quitted Mutina,—then I should without any hesitation give my vote for our returning to our usual dress out of joy at the safety of that citizen on account of whose danger it was that we adopted the robe of war, But before any news of that event which the city looks for with the greatest eagerness arrives, we have sufficient reason indeed for joy at this most important and most illustrious battle; but reserve, I beg you, your return to your usual dress for the time of complete victory. But the completion of this war is the safety of Decimus Brutus.

But what is the meaning of this proposal that our dress shall be changed just for today, and that tomorrow we should again come forth in the garb of war? Rather when we have once turned to that dress which we wish and desire to assume, let us strive to retain it forever; for this is not only discreditable, but it is displeasing also to the immortal gods, to leave their altars, which we have approached in the attire of peace, for the purpose of assuming the garb of war. And I notice, O conscript fathers, that there are some who favor this proposal: whose intention and design is, as they see that that will be a most glorious day for Decimus Brutus on which we return to our usual dress out of joy for his safety, to deprive him of this great reward, so that it may not be handed down to the recollection of posterity that the Roman people had recourse to the garb of war on account of the danger of one single citizen, and then returned to their gowns of pence on account of his safety. Take away this reason, and you will find no other for so absurd a proposal. But do you, O conscript fathers, preserve your authority, adhere to your own opinions, preserve in your recollection what you have often declared, that the whole result of this entire war depends on the life of one most brave and excellent man.

For the purpose of effecting the liberation of Decimus Brutus, the chief men of the state were sent as ambassadors, to give notice to that enemy and parricidal traitor to retire from Mutina; for the sake of preserving that same Decimus Brutus, Aulus Hirtius, the consul, went by lot to conduct the war; a man the weakness of whose bodily health was made up for by the strength of his courage, and encouraged by the hope of victory; Caesar, too, after he, with an army levied by his own resources and on his own authority, had delivered the republic from the first dangers that assailed it, in order to prevent any subsequent wicked attempts from being originated, departed to assist in the deliverance of the same Brutus, and subdued some family vexation which he may have felt by his attachment to his country. What other object had Caius Pansa in holding the levies which he did, and in collecting money, and in carrying the most severe resolutions of the senate against Antonius, and in exhorting us, and in inviting the Roman people to embrace the cause of liberty, except to insure the deliverance of Decimus Brutus? For the Roman people in crowds demanded at his hands the safety of Decimus Brutus with such unanimous outcries, that he was compelled to prefer it not only to any consideration of his own personal advantage, but even to his own necessities. And that end we now, O conscript fathers, are entitled to hope is either at the point of being achieved, or is actually gained; but it is right for the reward of our hopes to be reserved for the issue and event of the business, lest we should appear either to have anticipated the kindness of the gods by our over precipitation, or to have despised the bounty of fortune through our own folly.

But since the manner of your behavior shows plainly enough what you think of this matter, I will come to the letters which have arrived from the consuls and the propraetor, after I have said a few words relating to the letters themselves.

The swords, O conscript fathers, of our legions and armies have been stained with, or rather, I should say, dipped deep in blood in two battles which have taken place under the consuls, and a third, which has been fought under the command of Caesar. If it was the blood of enemies, then great is the piety of the soldiers; but it is nefarious wickedness if it was the blood of citizens. How long, then, is that man, who has surpassed all enemies in wickedness, to be spared the name of enemy? unless you wish to see the very swords of our soldiers trembling in their hands while they doubt whether they are piercing a citizen or an enemy. You vote a supplication; you do not call Antonius an enemy. Very pleasing indeed to the immortal gods will our thanksgivings be, very pleasing too the victims, after a multitude of our citizens has been slain! “For the victory” says the proposer of the supplication, “over wicked and audacious men.” For that is what this most illustrious man calls them; expressions of blame suited to lawsuits carried on in the city, not denunciations of searing infamy such as deserved by internecine war. I suppose they are forging wills, or trespassing on their neighbors, or cheating some young men; for it is men implicated in these and similar practices that we are in the habit of terming wicked and audacious. One man, the foulest of all banditti, is waging an irreconcilable war against four consuls. He is at the same time carrying on war against the senate and people of Rome. He is (although he is himself hastening to destruction; through the disasters which he has met with) threatening all of us with destruction, and devastation, and torments, and tortures. He declares that that inhuman and savage act of Dolabella's, which no nation of barbarians would have owned, was done by his advice; and what he himself would do in this city, if this very Jupiter, who now looks down upon us assembled in his temple, had not repelled him from this temple and from these walls, he showed, in the miseries of those inhabitants of Parma, whom, virtuous and honorable men as they were, and most intimately connected with the authority of this order, and with the dignity of the Roman people, that villain and monster, Lucius Antonius, that object of the extraordinary detestation of all men, and (if the gods hate those whom they ought) of all the gods also, murdered with every circumstance of cruelty. My mind shudders at the recollection, O conscript fathers, and shrinks from relating the cruelties which Lucius Antonius perpetrated on the children and wives of the citizens of Parma. For whatever infamy the Antonii have willingly undergone in their own persons to their own infamy, they triumph in the fact of having inflicted on others by violence. But it is a miserable violence which they offered to them; most unholy lust, such as the whole life of the Antonii is polluted with.

Is there then any one who is afraid to call those men enemies, whose wickedness he admits to have surpassed even the inhumanity of the Carthaginians? For in what city, when taken by storm, did Hannibal even behave with such ferocity as Antonius did in Parma, which he filched by surprise? Unless, perhaps, Antonius is not to be considered the enemy of this colony, and of the others toward which he is animated with the same feelings. But if he is beyond all question the enemy of the colonies and municipal towns, then what do you consider him with respect to this city which he is so eager for to satiate the indigence of his band of robbers? which that skillful and experienced surveyor of his, Saxa, has already marked out with his rule. Recollect, I entreat you, in the name of the immortal gods, O conscript fathers, what we have been fearing for the last two days, in consequence of infamous rumors carefully disseminated by enemies within the walls. Who has been able to look upon his children or upon his wife without weeping? who has been able to bear the sight of his home, of his house, and his household gods? Already all of us were expecting a most ignominious death, or meditating a miserable flight. And shall we hesitate to call the men at whose hands we feared all these things enemies? If any one should propose a more severe designation I will willingly agree to it; I am hardly content with this ordinary one, and will certainly not employ a more moderate one.

Therefore, as we are bound to vote, and as Servilius has already proposed a most just supplication for those letters which have been read to you; I will propose altogether to increase the number of the days which it is to last, especially as it is to be decreed in honor of three generals conjointly. But first of all I will insist on styling those men imperator by whose valor, and wisdom, and good fortune we have been released from the most imminent danger of slavery and death. Indeed, who is there within the last twenty years who has had a supplication decreed to him without being himself styled imperator, though he may have performed the most insignificant exploits, or even almost none at all. Wherefore, the senator who spoke before me ought either not to have moved for a supplication at all, or he ought to have paid the usual and established compliment to those men to whom even new and extraordinary honors are justly due.

Shall the senate, according to this custom which has now obtained, style a man imperator if he has slain a thousand or two of Spaniards, or Gauls, or Thracians; and now that so many legions have been routed, now that such a multitude of enemies has been slain,—yes, enemies, I say, although our enemies within the city do not fancy this expression,—shall we pay to our most illustrious generals the honor of a supplication, and refuse them the name of imperator? For with what great honor, and joy, and exultation ought the deliverers of this city themselves to enter into this temple, when yesterday, on account of the exploits which they have performed, the Roman people carried me in an ovation, almost in a triumph from my house to the Capitol, and back again from the Capitol to my own house? That is indeed in my opinion a just and genuine triumph, when men who have deserved well of the republic receive public testimony to their merits from the unanimous consent of the senate. For if, at a time of general rejoicing on the part of the Roman people, they addressed their congratulations to one individual, that is a great proof of their opinion of him; if they gave him thanks, that is a greater still; if they did both, then nothing more honorable to him can be possibly imagined.

Are you saying all this of yourself? some one will ask. It is indeed against my will that I do so; but my indignation at injustice makes me boastful, contrary to my usual habit. Is it not sufficient that thanks should not be given to men who have well earned them, by men who are ignorant of the very nature of virtue? And shall accusations and odium be attempted to be excited against those men who devote all their thoughts to insuring the safety of the republic? For you well know that there has been a common report for the last few days, that the day before the wine feast,[*](There were two wine feasts, Vinalia, at Rome: the vinalia urbana, celebrated on the twenty-third of April; and the vinalia rustica, on the nineteenth of October. This was the urbana vinalia; on which occasion the wine-casks which had been filled In the autumn were tasted for the first time.) that is to say, on this very day, I was intending to come forth with the fasces as dictator. One would think that this story was invented against some gladiator, or robber, or Catiline, and not against a man who had prevented any such step from ever being taken in the republic. Was I, who defeated and overthrew and crushed Catiline, when he was attempting such wickedness, a likely man myself all on a sudden to turn out Catiline? Under what auspices could I, an augur, take those fasces? How long should I have been likely to keep them? to whom was I to deliver them as my successor? The idea of any one having been so wicked as to invent such a tale! or so mad as to believe it! In what could such a suspicion, or rather such gossip, have originated?

When, as you know, during the last three or four days a report of bad news from Mutina has been creeping abroad, the disloyal part of the citizens, inflated with exultation and insolence, began to collect in one place, at that senate-house which has been more fatal to their party than to the republic. There, while they were forming a plan to massacre us, and were distributing the different duties among one another, and settling who was to seize on the Capitol, who on the rostra, who on the gates of the city, they thought that all the citizens would flock to me. And in order to bring me into unpopularity, and even into danger of my life, they spread abroad this report about the fasces. They themselves had some idea of bringing the fasces to my house; and then, on pretense of that having been done by my wish, they had prepared a band of hired ruffians to make an attack on me as on a tyrant, and a massacre of all of you was intended to follow. The fact is already notorious, O conscript fathers, but the origin of all this wickedness will be revealed in its fitting time.

Therefore Publius Apuleius, a tribune of the people, who ever since my consulship has been the witness and partaker of, and my assistant in all my designs and all my dangers, could not endure the grief of witnessing my indignation. He convened a numerous assembly, as the whole Roman people were animated with one feeling on the subject. And when in the harangue which he then made, he, as was natural from our great intimacy and friendship, was going to exculpate me from all suspicion in the matter of the fasces, the whole assembly cried out with one voice, that I had never had any intentions with regard to the republic which were not excellent. After this assembly was over, within two or three hours, these most welcome messengers and letters arrived, so that the same day not only delivered me from a most unjust odium, but increased my credit by that most extraordinary act with which the Roman people distinguished me

I have made this digression, O conscript fathers, not so much for the sake of speaking of myself (for I should be in a sorry plight if I were not sufficiently acquitted in your eyes without the necessity of making a formal defense), as with the view of warning some men of too groveling and narrow minds, to adopt the line of conduct which I myself have always pursued, and to think the virtue of excellent citizens worthy of imitation, not of envy. There is a great field in the republic, as Crassus used very wisely to say; the road to glory is open to many.