Civil Wars

From so many men of this kind a considerable crowd was drawn speedily and without difficulty to the party of Cassius in the forum. These, although bought, did not dare to praise the murder, because they feared Cæsar's reputation and doubted what course the rest of the people might take. So they shouted for peace as being for the public advantage, and with one accord recommended this policy to the magistrates, intending by this device to secure the safety of the murderers;[*](The text of all the codices except the Vatican reads: pareka/loun (te/xnasma tou=to/ e)sti tw=n a)ndrofonw=n) sothri/an e)pinoou=ntes; which means that this shouting for peace "was a device of the murderers themselves," which is not unlikely, but it presents grammatical difficulties which led Schweighäuser to change the word e)sti to e)s th\n and to reject the parenthesis, as Geslen had done before him. The Vatican codex has this very reading, as Mendelssohn points out.) for there could be no peace without amnesty to them. While they were thus engaged the prætor Cinna, a relative of Cæsar by marriage, made his appearance, advanced unexpectedly into the middle of the forum, laid aside his prætorian robe, as if disdaining the gift of a tyrant, and called Cæsar a tyrant and his murderers tyrannicides. He extolled their deed as exactly like that of their ancestors, and ordered that the men themselves should be called from the Capitol as benefactors and rewarded with public honors. So spake Cinna, but when the hirelings saw that the unbought portion of the crowd did not agree with them they did not call for the men in the Capitol, nor did they do anything else but continually demand peace.

But after Dolabella,[*](Dolabella had married Cicero's daughter Tullia. He was a great scoundrel and turncoat.) a young man of noble family who had been chosen by Cæsar as consul for the remainder of his own year when he was about to leave the city, and who had put on the consular garb and taken the other insignia of the office, came forward next and railed against the man who had advanced him to this dignity and pretended to have been privy to the conspiracy against him, and that his hand alone was unwillingly absent -- some say that he even proposed a decree that this day should be consecrated as the birthday of the republic -- then the hirelings took new courage, seeing that they had both a prætor and a consul on their side, and demanded that Cassius and his friends be summoned from the Capitol. They were delighted with Dolabella and thought that now they had a young optimate, who was also consul, to oppose against Antony. Only Cassius and Marcus Brutus came down, the latter with his hand still bleeding from the wound he had received when he and Cassius were dealing blows at Cæsar. When they reached the forum neither of them said anything which betokened humility. On the contrary they praised each other as for something confessedly admirable. They considered the city fortunate and bore special testimony to the merits of Decimus Brutus because he had furnished them gladiators at a critical moment. They exhorted the people to be like their ancestors, who had expelled the kings, although the latter were exercising the government not by violence like Cæsar, but had been chosen according to law. They advised the recall of Sextus Pompey (the son of Pompey the Great, the defender of the republic against Cæsar), who was still warring against Cæsar's lieutenants in Spain. They also recommended that the tribunes, Cæsetius and Marullus, who had been deposed by Cæsar, should be recalled from exile.

After they had thus spoken Cassius and Brutus returned directly to the Capitol, because they had not yet entire confidence in the present posture of affairs. Having first enabled their friends and relatives to come to them in the temple, they chose from among them messengers to treat on their behalf with Lepidus and Antony for conciliation and the preservation of liberty, and for warding off the evils that would befall the country if they should not come to an agreement. This the messengers asked, not extolling the deed that had been done, however, for they did not dare to do this in the presence of Cæsar's friends. They asked that it be tolerated now that it was done, out of pity for the perpetrators (who had been actuated, not by hatred toward Cæsar, but by love of country), and out of compassion for the city exhausted by long-continued civil strife, and which a new sedition might deprive of the good men still remaining. "If enmity were entertained against certain persons," they said, "it would be an act of impiety to gratify it in a time of public danger. It would be far preferable to sink private animosity in the public weal, or, if anybody were irreconcilable, at least to postpone his private grievances for the present."

Antony and Lepidus wished to avenge Cæsar, as I have already said, either on the score of friendship, or of the oaths they had sworn, or because they were aiming at the supreme power themselves and thought that their course would be easier if so many men of such rank were put out of the way at once. But they feared the friends and relatives of these men and the leaning of the rest of the Senate toward them, and especially they feared Decimus Brutus, who had been chosen by Cæsar governor of Cisalpine Gaul, which had a large army. So they decided to watch a future opportunity and to try if possible to draw over to themselves the army of Decimus, which was already disheartened by its protracted labors. Having come to this decision, Antony replied to the messengers, "We shall do nothing from private enmity, yet in consequence of the crime and of the oaths we have all sworn to Cæsar, that we would either protect his person or avenge his death, a solemn regard for our oath requires us to drive out the guilty and to live with a smaller number of innocent men rather than that all should be liable to the divine curse. Yet for our own part, although this seems to us the proper course, we will consider the matter with you in the Senate and we will agree to whatever may be decided in common to be propitious for the city."

Thus did Antony make a safe answer. The messengers returned their thanks and went away full of hope, for they had entire confidence that the Senate would cooperate with them. Antony ordered the magistrates to have the city watched by night, stationing guards at intervals as in the daytime, and he had fires lighted throughout the city. By this means the friends of the murderers were enabled to traverse the city the whole night, going to the houses of the senators and beseeching them in behalf of these men and of the republic. On the other hand, the leaders of the colonized soldiers ran about uttering threats lest they should fail to hold the lands set apart, either already assigned or proclaimed to them. And now the more honest citizens began to recover courage when they learned how small was the number of the conspirators, and when they remembered Cæsar's merits they became much divided in opinion. That same night Cæsar's money and his official papers were transferred to Antony's house, either because Calpurnia thought that they would be safer there or because Antony ordered it.