Civil Wars

"Father Antony (for the benefits that Cæsar conferred upon you and your gratitude toward him warrant me in giving you that title), for some of the things that you have done since his death I praise you and owe you thanks; for others I blame you. I shall speak freely of what my sorrow prompts me to speak. When Cæsar was killed you were not present, as the murderers detained you at the door; otherwise you would have saved him or incurred the danger of sharing the same fate with him. If the latter would have befallen you, then it is well that you were not present. When certain senators proposed rewards to the murderers as tyrannicides you strongly opposed them. For this I give you hearty thanks, although you knew that they intended to kill you also;[*](The interpretation of this passage is doubtful. Schweighäuser thinks that Octavius means to say that he thanks Antony for opposing the proposition to reward the murderers, although he may have had a selfish interest in doing so.) not, as I think, because you were likely to avenge Cæsar, but, as they themselves say, lest you should be his successor in the tyranny. At the same time they made it clear that they were not tyrant-killers, but murderers,[*]((/*ama d' ou)k h)=san e)kei=noi turannokto/noi ei) mh\ kai\ fonei=s h)=san: literally, "these men were not tyrant-killers unless they were murderers also." I have followed the Latin version of Schweighäuser, which differs from those of his predecessors. He said that the text conveyed no clear meaning to him, and that his version was guesswork.) by taking refuge in the Capitol, either as guilty suppliants in a temple or as enemies in a fortress. How then could they have obtained amnesty and impunity for their crime unless some portion of the Senate and people had been corrupted by them? Yet you, as consul, ought to have seen what would be for the interest of the majority,[*](kai\ se\ to\ tw=n pleo/nwn o)ra=|n e(xrh=n, u(/paton o)/nta. Schweighäuser and his predecessors rendered these words: " You as consul ought to see what would be agreeable to the majority (quid placeret pluribus)." The Didot version more properly renders it quid prodesset pluribus.) and if you had wished to avenge such a monstrous crime, or to reclaim the erring, your office would have enabled you to do either. But you sent hostages from your own family to the murderers at the Capitol for their security. Let us suppose that those who had been corrupted forced you to do this also, yet when Cæsar's will had been read, and you had delivered your righteous funeral oration, and the people, in lively remembrance of Cæsar, had carried firebrands to the houses of the murderers, but spared them for the sake of their neighbors, agreeing to come back armed the next day, why did you not coöperate with them and lead them with fire or arms? Or why did you not bring them to trial, if trial was necessary for men seen in the act of murder -- you, Cæsar's friend; you, the consul; you, Antony?

"The pseudo-Marius was put to death by your order in the plenitude of your authority, but you connived at the escape of the murderers, some of whom have passed on to the provinces which they nefariously hold as gifts at the hands of him whom they slew. These things were no sooner done than you and Dolabella, the consuls, proceeded, very properly, to strip them and possess yourselves of Syria and Macedonia. I should have owed you thanks for this also, had you not immediately voted them Cyrenaica ana Crete; had you not preferred these fugitives for governorships, where they can always defend themselves against me, and had you not tolerated Decimus Brutus in the command of Hither Gaul, although he, like the rest, was one of my father's slayers. It may be said that these were decrees of the Senate. But you put the vote and you presided over the Senate -- you who ought most of all to have opposed them on your own account. To grant amnesty to the murderers was merely to insure their personal safety as a matter of favor, but to vote them provinces and rewards forthwith was to insult Cæsar and annul your own opinion. Grief has compelled me to speak these words, against the rules of decorum perhaps, considering my youth and the respect I owe you. They have been spoken, however, to the firmest friend of Cæsar, to one who was invested by him with the greatest honor and power, and who would have been adopted by him no doubt if he had known that you would accept kinship with the family of Æneas in exchange for that of Hercules; for this created doubt in his mind when he was thinking strongly of designating you as his successor.

"For the future, Antony, I conjure you by the gods who preside over friendship, and by Cæsar himself, to change somewhat the measures that have been adopted, for you can change them if you wish to; if not, that you will hereafter aid and cooperate with me in punishing the murderers, with the help of the people and of those who are still my father's faithful friends. If you still have regard for the conspirators and the Senate, do not be hard on us. So much for that. You know about my private affairs and the expense I must incur for the legacy which my father directed to be given to the people, and the haste involved in it lest I may seem churlish by reason of delay, and lest those who have been assigned to colonies be compelled to remain in the city and waste their time on my account. Of Cæsar's movables, that were brought immediately after the murder from his house to yours as a safer place, I beg you to take keepsakes and anything else by way of ornament and whatever you like to retain from us. But in order that I may pay the legacy to the people, please give me the gold coin that Cæsar had collected for his intended wars. That will suffice for the distribution to 300,000 men now. For the rest of my expenses I may perhaps borrow from you, if I may be so bold, or from the public treasury on your security, if you will give it, and I will offer my own property for sale at once."

While Octavius was speaking in this fashion Antony was astonished at his freedom of speech and his boldness, which seemed much beyond the bounds of propriety and of his years. He was offended by the words because they were wanting in the respect due to him, and still more by the demand for money, and, accordingly, he replied in the severe terms following: "Young man, if Cæsar left you the government, together with the inheritance and his name, it is proper for you to ask and for me to give the reasons for my public acts. But if the Roman people never surrendered the government to anybody to dispose of in succession, not even when they had kings, whom they expelled and swore never to have any more (this was the very charge that the murderers brought against your father, saying that they killed him because he was no longer leading but reigning), then there is no need of my answering you as to my public acts. For the same reason I release you from any indebtedness to me in the way of gratitude for those acts. They were performed not as a favor to you, but to the people, except in one particular, which was of the greatest importance to Cæsar and to yourself. For if, to secure my own safety and to shield myself from enmity, I had allowed honors to be voted to the murderers as tyrannicides, Cæsar would have been declared a tyrant, to whom neither glory, nor any kind of honor, nor confirmation of his acts would have been possible; who could make no valid will, have no son, nor any burial of his body, even as a private citizen. The laws provide that the bodies of tyrants shall be cast out unburied, their memory stigmatized, and their property confiscated.

"Apprehending all of these consequences, I entered the lists for Cæsar, for his immortal honor, and his public funeral, not without danger, not without incurring hatred to myself, contending against hot-headed, blood-thirsty men, who, as you know, had already conspired to kill me; and against the Senate, which was displeased with your father on account of his usurped authority. But I willingly chose to incur these dangers and to suffer anything rather than allow Cæsar to remain unburied and dishonored -- the most valiant man of his time, the most fortunate in every respect, and the one to whom the highest honors were due from me. It is by reason of the dangers I incurred that you enjoy your present distinction as the successor of Cæsar, his family, his name, his dignity, his wealth. It was more becoming in you to testify your gratitude to me for these things than to reproach me for concessions made to soothe the Senate, or in compensation for what I demanded of it, or in pursuance of other needs or reasons -- you a younger man addressing an older one. But enough of that. You hint that I am ambitious of the leadership. I am not ambitious of it, although I do not consider myself unworthy of it. You think that I am distressed because I was not mentioned in Cæsar's will, though you agree with me that the family of the Heraclidæ is enough to content one.

"As to your pecuniary needs and your wishing to borrow from the public funds, I should think you must be joking, unless we might believe that you are still ignorant of the fact that the public treasury was left empty by your father. After he assumed the government the public revenues were brought to him instead of to the treasury, and they will presently be found among Cæsar's assets when we vote an investigation into these matters. This will not be unjust to Cæsar now that he is dead, nor would he say that it was unjust if he were living and were asked for the accounts. And as there will be many private persons to dispute with you concerning single pieces of property, you may assume that this portion will not be uncontested. The money transferred to my house was not so large a sum as you conjecture, nor is any part of it in my custody now. The men in power and authority, except Dolabella and my brothers, divided up the whole of it straightway as the property of a tyrant, but were brought around by me to support the decrees in favor of Cæsar,[*](The truth was that Antony paid his own debts with Cæsar's money. So Cicero tells us in the second Philippic. " Where," he asks, " are the seven hundred million sesterces that were registered at the temple of Ops? His money was indeed a cause for mourning, yet if it was not to be returned to the rightful owners it might relieve us from taxes. But you owed four million sesterces on the Ides of March. How did it happen that you were free from debt on the Kalends of April?" (Phil. ii. 37.)) and you, if you are wise, when you get possession of the remainder, will distribute it among those who are disaffected toward you rather than among the people. The former, if they are in harmony with you,[*](a)\n sumfronw=si: to which Schweighäuser adds soi. All the codices except one read swfronw=si, i.e., " if they are wise." The Teubner edition adheres to the latter reading; the Didot to the former. I have preferred the former because it gives point to Antony's advice. It furnishes a reason why Octavius should use his money in one way rather than in the other. It would enable him to get rid of his expensive allies.) will send the people, who are to be colonized, away to their settlements. The people, however, as you ought to have learned from the Greek studies you have been lately pursuing, are as unstable as the waves of the sea, now advancing, now retreating. In like manner, among us also, the people are forever exalting their favorites, and casting them down again."