Searching for “Antonius \Cic. Phil.”

Nor is it possible to pass over in silence the virtue and the firmness and the dignity of the province of Gaul. For that is the flower of Italy; that is the bulwark of the empire of the Roman people; that is the chief ornament of our dignity. But so perfect is the unanimity of the municipal towns and colonies of the province of Gaul, that all men in that district appear to have united together to defend the authority of this order, and the majesty of the Roman people. Wherefore, O tribunes of the people, although you have not actually brought any other business before us beyond the question of protection, in order that the consuls may be able to hold the senate with safety on the first of January, still you appear to me to have acted with great wisdom and great prudence in giving an opportunity of debating the general circumstances of the republic. For when you decided that the senate could not be held with safety without some protection or other, you at the same time asserted by that decision that the wickedness and audacity of Antonius was still continuing its practices within our walls.

VI. Wherefore, I will embrace every consideration in my opinion which I am now going to deliver, a course to which you, I feel sure, have no objection; in order that authority may be conferred by us on admirable generals, and that hope of reward may be held out by us to gallant soldiers, and that a formal decision may be come to, not by words only, but also by actions, that Antonius is not only not a consul, but is even an enemy. For if he be consul, then the legions which have deserted the consul deserve beating to death. Cæsar is wicked, Brutus is impious, since they of their own heads have levied an army against the consul. But if new honours are to be sought out for the soldiers on account of their divine and immortal merits, and if it is quite impossible to show gratitude enough to the generals, who is there who must not think that man a public enemy, whose conduct is such that those who are in arms against him are considered the saviours of the republic?

XI. O Caius Cæsar, (I am speaking of the young man,) what safety have you brought to the republic! How unforeseen has it been! how sudden! for if he did these things when flying, what would he have done when he was pursuing? In truth, he had said in a harangue that he would be the guardian of the city; and that he would keep his army at the gates of the city till the first of May. What a fine guardian (as the proverb goes) is the wolf of the sheep! Would Antonius have been a guardian of the city, or its plunderer and destroyer? And he said too that he would come into the city and go out as he pleased. What more need I say? Did he not say, in the hearing of all the people, while sitting in front of the temple of Castor, that no one should remain alive but the conqueror?

On this day, O conscript fathers, for the first time after a long interval do we plant our foot and take possession of liberty. Liberty, of which, as long as I could be, I was not only the defender, but even the saviour. But when I could not be so, I rested; and I bore the misfortunes and misery of that period without abjectness, and not without some dignity. But as for this most foul monster, who could endure him, or how could any one endure him? What is there in Antonius except lust, and cruelty, and wantonness, and audacity? Of these materials he is wholly made up. There is in him nothing ingenuous, nothing moderate, nothing modest, nothing virtuous.

And he, now that he has been prevented from succeeding in this attempt by the wisdom and forces of Cæsar, and the unanimity of the veterans, and the valour of the legions, even now that his fortunes are desperate, does not diminish his audacity, nor, mad that he is, does he cease proceeding in his headlong career of fury. He is leading his mutilated army into Gaul; with one legion, and that too wavering in its fidelity to him, he is waiting for his brother Lucius, as he cannot find any one more nearly like himself than him. But now what slaughter is this man, who has thus become a captain instead of a matador, a general instead of a gladiator, making, wherever he sets his foot! He destroys stores, he slays the flocks and herds, and all the cattle, wherever he finds them; his soldiers revel in their spoil; and he himself, in order to imitate his brother, drowns himself in wine. Fields are laid waste; villas are plundered; matrons, virgins, well-born boys are carried off and given up to the soldiery; and Marcus Antonius has done exactly the same wherever he has led his army.

It was in expectation of this day that I avoided the wicked army of Marcus Antonius, at a time when he, while inveighing against me, was not aware for what an occasion I was reserving myself and my strength. If at that time I had chosen to reply to him, while he was seeking to begin the massacre with me, I should not now be able to consult the welfare of the republic. But now that I have this opportunity, I will never, O conscript fathers, neither by day nor by night, cease considering what ought to be thought concerning the liberty of the Roman people, and concerning your dignity. And whatever ought to be planned or done, I not only will never shrink from, but I will offer myself for, and beg to have entrusted to me. This is what I did before while it was in my power; when it was no longer in my power to do so, I did nothing. But now it is not only in my power, but it is absolutely necessary for me, unless we prefer being slaves to fighting with all our strength and courage to avoid being slaves.

You know the insolence of Antonius; you know his friends; you know his whole household. To be slaves to lustful, wanton, debauched, profligate, drunken gamblers, is the extremity of misery combined with the extremity of infamy. And if now (but may the immortal gods avert the omen!) that worst of fates shall befal the republic, then, as brave gladiators take care to perish with honour, let us too, who are the chief men of all countries and nations, take care to fall with dignity rather than to live as slaves with ignominy.

I. The great numbers in which you are here met this day, O Romans, and this assembly, greater than, it seems to me, I ever remember, inspires me with both an exceeding eagerness to defend the republic, and with a great hope of reestablishing it. Although my courage indeed has never failed; what has been unfavourable is the time; and the moment that that has appeared to show any dawn of light, I at once have been the leader in the defence of your liberty. And if I had attempted to have done so before, I should not be able to do so now. For this day, O Romans, (that you may not think it is but a trifling business in which we have been engaged,) the foundations have been laid for future actions. For the senate has no longer been content with styling Antonius an enemy in words, but it has shown by actions that it thinks him one.

II. For who is there who does not see clearly that, if Cæsar had not prepared an army, the return of Antonius must have been accompanied by our destruction? For, in truth, he returned in such a state of mind, burning with hatred of you all, stained with the blood of the Roman citizens, whom he had murdered at Suessa and at Brundusium, that he thought of nothing but the utter destruction of the republic. And what protection could have been found for your safety and for your liberty if the army of Caius Cæsar had not been composed of the bravest of his father’s soldiers? And with respect to his praises and honours,—and he is entitled to divine and everlasting honours for his godlike and undying services,—the senate has just consented to my proposals, and has decreed that a motion be submitted to it at the very earliest opportunity.

In the next place the province of Gaul is praised, and is deservedly complimented in most honourable language by the senate for resisting Antonius. But if that province considered him the consul, and still refused to receive him, it would be guilty of great wickedness. For all the provinces belong to the consul of right, and are bound to obey him. Decimus Brutus, imperator and consul elect, a citizen born for the republic, denies that he is consul; Gaul denies it; all Italy denies it; the senate denies it; you deny it. Who then think that he is consul except a few robbers? Although even they themselves do not believe what they say; nor is it possible that they should differ from the judgment of all men, impious and desperate men though they be. But the hope of plunder and booty blinds their minds; men whom no gifts of money, no allotment of land, nor even that interminable auction has satisfied; who have proposed to themselves the city, the properties and fortunes of all the citizens as their booty; and who, as long as there is something for them to seize and carry off, think that nothing will be wanting to them;

among whom Marcus Antonius (O ye immortal gods, avert, I pray you, and efface this omen,) has promised to divide this city. May things rather happen, O Romans, as you pray that they should, and may the chastisement of this frenzy fall on him and on his friend. And, indeed, I feel sure that it will be so. For I think that at present not only men but the immortal gods have all united together to preserve this republic. For if the immortal gods foreshow us the future, by means of portents and prodigies, then it has been openly revealed to us that punishment is near at hand to him, and liberty to us. Or if it was impossible for such unanimity on the part of all men to exist without the inspiration of the gods, in either case how can we doubt as to the inclinations of the heavenly deities? ¶ It only remains, O Romans, for you to persevere in the sentiments which you at present display.

The whole then of the contest, O Romans, which is now before the Roman people, the conqueror of all nations, is with an assassin, a robber, a Spartacus. For as to his habitual boast of being like Catilina, he is equal to him in wickedness, but inferior in energy. He, though he had no army, rapidly levied one. This man has lost that very army which he had. As, therefore, by my diligence, and the authority of the senate, and your own zeal and valour, you crushed Catilina, so you will very soon hear that this infamous piratical enterprise of Antonius has been put down by your own perfect and unexampled harmony with the senate, and by the good fortune and valour of your armies and generals.

This is what we have gained in the last twelve days, that the man whom no single person except Cotyla was then found to defend, has now advocates, even of consular rank. Would that they had all been asked their opinion before me; (although I have my suspicions as to what some of those men who will be asked after me, are intending to say;) I should find it easier to speak against them if any argument appeared to have been advanced. ¶ For there is an opinion in some quarters, that some one intends to propose to decree Antonius that further Gaul, which Plancus is at present in possession of. What else is that but supplying an enemy with all the arms necessary for civil war: first of all with the sinews of war, money in abundance, of which he is at present destitute; and secondly, with as much cavalry as he pleases? Cavalry do I say? He is a likely man to hesitate, I suppose, to bring with him the barbarian nations;—a man who does not see this is senseless; he who does see it, and still advocates such a measure, is impious.

What is become of the law that such bills should be published on three market days? What is become of the penalty appointed by the recent Junian and Licinian law? Can these laws be ratified without the destruction of all other laws? Has any one had a right of entering the forum? Moreover, what thunder, and what a storm that was! so that even if the consideration of the auspices had no weight with Marcus Antonius, it would seem strange that he could endure and bear such exceeding violence of tempest, and rain, and whirlwind. When therefore he, as augur, says that he carried a law while Jupiter was not only thundering, but almost uttering an express prohibition of it by his clamour from heaven, will he hesitate to confess that it was carried in violation of the auspices?

But that squandering of the public money cannot possibly be endured by which he got rid of seven hundred millions of sesterces by forged entries and deeds of gifts, so that it seems an absolute miracle that so vast a sum of money belonging to the Roman people can have disappeared in so short a time. What? are those enormous profits to be endured which the household of Marcus Antonius has swallowed up? He was continually selling forged decrees; ordering the names of kingdoms and states, and grants of exemptions to be engraved on brass, having received bribes for such orders. And his statement always was, that he was doing these things in obedience to the memoranda of Cæsar, of which he himself was the author. In the interior of his house there was going on a brisk market of the whole republic. His wife, more fortunate for herself than for her husband, was holding an auction of kingdoms and provinces: exiles were restored without any law, as if by law: and unless all these acts are rescinded by the authority of the senate, now that we have again arrived at a hope of recovering the republic, there will be no likeness of a free city left to us.