B.C. 44.

THE THIRD PHILIPPIC.

473

He ridiculed the attempt of Antony to throw discredit upon Octavian because his mother was a native of a provincial town (Aricia, in Latium, at the foot of the Mons Albanus). He said that if that was a stigma, it applied to nearly the whole body of senators, for almost all were sprung from a provincial stock; and he retorted upon Antony that his wife Fulvia was the daughter of a nobody from Tusculum, nicknamed Bambalio, because he was a stutterer and a fool. He ridiculed also the bad Latin of his proclamations in a way that reminds us of Cobbett criticising the bad English of a royal speech. After describing his character and conduct in the darkest colours, he earnestly adjured the Senate not to lose the present opportunity afforded by the kindness of the immortal gods; for Antony was caught in front, flank, and rear, if he entered Cisalpine Gaul. If he was suffered to escape and become victorious, the provinces had nothing to expect but servitude and disgrace. "But," he exclaimed, "if (may Heaven avert the omen!) the last hour of the republic has arrived, let us, the foremost men in all the world, do what noble gladiators do, fall with honour. Let us rather die with dignity than serve with ignominy." He concluded by declaring his opinion that it should be resolved that Pansa and Hirtius, the consuls-elect, should provide for the safety of the Senate at the meeting of the 1st of January; that Decimus Brutus had deserved well of the state, in upholding the authority of the Senate and the liberties of the people, and ought to keep his province; that the other provincial governors should retain their respective commands until successors were appointed by a resolution of the Senate; that honours should be paid and thanks given to Octavian (or Caius Cæsar, as he designated him), and the Fourth and Martial legions, and the veteran soldiers who rallied round him; and that as soon as the consulselect entered upon office, they should bring all these questions before the Senate, in the way they deemed best for the advantage of the republic, and most consistent with their duty.

A resolution was passed in the terms that Cicero proposed; and he then immediately went to the Forum, and on the same day addressed from the rostra a crowded meeting of

the people, telling them that although Antony had not been formally declared a public enemy by the Senate, he was in effect treated by them as such. He went over much of the same ground as in his previous speech, and did his utmost to inflame the passions of his audience.

It is probable that about this time he put into general circulation his Second Philippic. He had completely broken with Antony, and set him at defiance. The temptation therefore was great to publish that attack which he had so carefully elaborated in his retirement at Puteoli. Either he or Antony must fall; and his safety depended on the success of his attempt to raise the hatred of his countrymen against their unworthy consul.

Antony was leading his

For war was now inevitable. troops along the defiles of the Apennines to take forcible possession of Cisalpine Gaul, and Decimus Brutus had thrown himself into Mutina, the modern Modena, at the foot of the northern range of the same mountains. He occupied the town with a strong garrison, and was resolved to defend it to the last extremity. He relied of course upon the assistance of Octavian, who was in the field with his hastily-collected levies, strengthened, however, by three of the welldisciplined legions from Macedonia; and also upon the forces which the new consuls would be able to raise whenever they entered upon office, on the 1st of January. On that day Antony would cease to have any legal right to command a Roman army, and all his authority would pass to Hirtius and Pansa, his successors. And as the Senate had in effect ratified the act of Octavian in levying troops, the armies which the republic could call its own, and on which it could rely to oppose Antony, would be represented by the triple union of the forces of the Consuls, Octavian, and Brutus. The other forces of the republic, exclusive of those to the east of Italy, were thus distributed Pollio had two legions in Spain; Lepidus four in the north of Spain and the Narbonensian province of Gaul; Plancus three in the rest of Gaul. Cicero was very anxious to secure Plancus on the side of the Senate against Antony, and wrote to him at the end of the year. They were on the best of terms with each other, and Plancus, if we may believe his professions, regarded him

ÆT. 63.

LETTER TO PLANCUS.

475

with feelings of affectionate respect. He and Decimus Brutus had been designated by Cæsar as consuls for the next year but one, and as all the "acts" of the deceased dictator were ratified by the Senate, they would then enter upon that high office, if nothing unforeseen occurred to prevent it. At the end of December Plancus wrote to Cicero in answer to a letter he had received from him in November. He said his only wish was to devote all his energies to the service of the republic. But he had to keep a careful watch upon the movements of the Gauls, lest they should think the confusion in Italy a good opportunity for revolt. Cicero was delighted to hear such sentiments from a man who was at the head of so many disciplined battalions, and he wrote to him in lavish terms of flattery and compliment. He earnestly exhorted him to pursue the path of true glory, by supporting the cause of the republic. "You are," he said, "consul-elect, in the flower of your age, gifted with the highest order of eloquence, and this at a time when our fatherland is bereaved of almost all her children, such as you." But, alas for promises and professions made by the slippery sons of Rome! In a few short months Plancus joined his forces to those of Antony and Lepidus, and abandoned the side of Cicero and the Senate.

WE have reached the last year of Cicero's life. The horizon was dark and stormy, but yet light seemed to be breaking through the gloom. Antony was no longer a consul, in lawful command of a Roman army, but a private citizen, engaged in a desperate rebellion. The Senate had all but declared him a public enemy, even while armed with consular authority, and the people had applauded when Cicero denounced him as worse than Spartacus or Catiline. The net in which he was to be caught was fast closing around him. Octavian, at the head of an army formidable in numbers and in discipline, was marching rapidly upon him, and in his front was Decimus Brutus, holding him in check before the walls of Mutina. If the new consuls acted as Cicero hoped and believed they would act, it seemed inevitable that he must fall. But upon them everything depended; for if they wavered and refused to employ against him the forces at their command, it was possible that Octavian might be defeated, in which case Mutina would fall, and Antony would become master of Cisalpine Gaul.

Aulus Hirtius and Caius Vibius Pansa, who began their consulship at this eventful crisis, had both belonged to the

B.C. 43.

POLICY OF THE CONSULS.

477

Julian party, and owed everything to Cæsar. Hirtius had been one of his legates in Gaul, and received afterwards from him the government of the northern part of that province, corresponding to the modern Belgium. Pansa had been appointed by him governor of Cisalpine Gaul, as successor to Marcus Brutus. Both owed to him their elevation to the consulship, to which he had nominated them by virtue of his sovereign power as dictator. Since his death they had observed a cautious neutrality, and abstained almost entirely from politics. They both, and especially Hirtius, had kept on good terms with Cicero; but, whatever he might think it politic to say in public, his private correspondence shows that he had no great confidence in either of them. Their conduct, however, seems to have been loyal and sincere. They naturally did not wish to drive Antony to extremities, and destroy all hope of an accommodation, the failure of which must result in another civil war, perhaps as bloody and ruinous as the last. And besides, they could not forget that his immediate antagonist was Decimus Brutus, one of the assassins of their friend and benefactor Cæsar; and, with the exception of Octavian, the party most violently opposed to him was the party of the conspirators, men who gloried in the murder of him whose statue yet stood in the Forum, with the inscription proclaiming him "the father of his country." They therefore determined to temporise, and endeavour to bring back Antony to his allegiance.

190

The Senate met on the 1st of January in the Temple of Jupiter, on the Capitol; and, after the inaugural ceremonies of religion, according to ancient custom, the consuls brought forward the pressing question of the moment, how they were to deal with Antony in arms. They both spoke in a tone that pleased Cicero, who cheered himself with the hope that they would act with as much vigour and firmness as their speeches implied. But he was soon undeceived. By an obviously preconcerted arrangement they called on Fufius Calenus, Pansa's father-in-law, to rise first and deliver his opinion. He had in old days, as tribune of the people, actively assisted Clodius to obtain an acquittal on his trial for the violation of the mysteries of the Bona Dea. Since then he had distinguished himself as an ardent partisan of