by Cicero
In this world, in September 44, the major figures were Marcus Antonius (in English, Mark Antony), the dead Caesar’s consular colleague, and the 18-year-old Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (Octavian), Caesar’s great-nephew, principal heir, and adoptive son. For Cicero, it was the first of these who presented the greater danger. He had not wished to cross swords with Antony; but when Antony, with all the authority of a consul, bitterly attacked him in the senate in his absence, he felt impelled to write, in pamphlet form, a comprehensive rejoinder. This rejoinder, the Second Philippic, marked the point of no return in Cicero’s deteriorating relationship with Antony, while also confirming Cicero’s status as Rome’s greatest orator. Written in a simpler style than most of his previous speeches, particularly the elaborate Pro Marcello, it is an utterly devastating attack. Later orators and critics regarded it as the classic invective, and the fact that its author was murdered for writing the Philippics certainly added to its fascination. In the early empire it was also of political interest in that Antony was Octavian’s great rival—the enemy in Augustan ideology as well as in Ciceronian rhetoric. The speech did much to determine the way Antony was viewed by posterity: it was used by Plutarch for his Life of Antony (c. AD 110–15), which in turn provided the historical basis for Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. Nearly two centuries after its composition, the satirist Juvenal, himself a past master in the art of denigrating others, would label it ‘the divine Philippic’ (10.125).
Cicero’s Philippics (there are fourteen of them in existence, four dating from 44 and the rest from January to April 43) are more properly known as In Antonium (‘Against Antonius’). But in a lost letter to Brutus, Cicero jokingly suggested that they might be described as his ‘Philippics’, and in a reply of 1 April 43 (Epistulae ad Brutum 2.3.4) Brutus good-humouredly approved the title, which then stuck (as Plutarch testifies at Cic. 48.6). The title Philippics is a reference to the four (extant) speeches which the Athenian orator Demosthenes composed against Philip II of Macedon between 351 and 340. Cicero’s Philippics, like those of Demosthenes, set out to defend the freedom of the state against an aggressor who threatened it. But apart from that, Cicero’s speeches have little in common with their Greek namesakes, and contain no verbal allusions to them. In choosing the title, Cicero did not mean to suggest any complex relationship between the two sets of speeches: all he was doing was making a light-hearted comparison between himself and Greece’s most famous orator. Indeed, when he published his corpus of consular speeches in 60, he wrote to Atticus comparing the speeches, in an equally light-hearted way, with Demosthenes’ Philippics (Att. 2.1.3), and it is perhaps only an accident of history that it is his speeches of 44–43 that have come to be known as the Philippics rather than those of 63. The Second Philippic, however, does have something in common with Demosthenes’ greatest speech, De corona (‘On the crown’, 330 BC): both speeches review at length the careers of the orator and an opponent (in Demosthenes’ case, his enemy Aeschines), and Cicero’s speech contains six allusions to its Demosthenic counterpart. But even so, the influence of Demosthenes is not strongly felt: Cicero does not allow imitation of an admired literary predecessor to deflect him from his central purpose of abusing his opponent.
Let us review the political developments which resulted in Cicero’s composition and publication of the speech. On the morning of the Ides (15th) of March 44, the consul and dictator Gaius Julius Caesar was assassinated in the senate by a large group of conspirators, some of them, like Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus, republicans who objected to tyranny, others Caesarians who for one reason or another had turned against their leader. They had chosen their moment carefully: in three days’ time Caesar had been due to leave for a three-year expedition against the Parthians, to avenge Crassus’ defeat at Carrhae in 53. The other consul, Antony, was taken to one side just before the deed was done: the conspirators had decided to kill Caesar alone (a basic error which Cicero later claimed that, had he been invited to join the conspiracy, he would have pointed out; cf. Fam. 10.28.1, 12.4.1). In the afternoon, the conspirators, who described themselves as ‘liberators’, addressed the people in the forum and then, after being received with a stony silence, took refuge on the Capitol.
Two days later, on 17 March, Antony called a meeting of the senate and a compromise was agreed by which an amnesty was granted to Caesar’s assassins, but the dictator’s acts, including those not yet made public, were ratified. Caesar had wanted Publius Cornelius Dolabella (who from 50 to 46 had been Cicero’s son-in-law) to take over from him as consul when he left for Parthia; Antony, although he had previously resisted this, now gave way, and Dolabella was appointed as his colleague. The conspirators were then persuaded to come down from the Capitol.
Caesar’s funeral took place on c. 20 March. Antony gave the oration, but his words so stirred up the crowd (whether intentionally or not) that they burned the body themselves on an improvised pyre in the forum, instead of allowing it to be taken to the pyre that had been prepared in the Campus Martius. There was considerable violence, and attacks were made on the houses of the conspirators. (The chaotic scenes must have recalled those which had accompanied the impromptu cremation of Publius Clodius Pulcher in the senate-house in 52.) Antony brought the situation under control, however, and soon afterwards won the approval of Cicero and other republicans by proposing that the office of dictator be abolished. But it was no longer safe for the conspirators to remain in Rome: Brutus and Cassius withdrew from the city on c. 12 April (in Brutus’ case, special permission was required, since he was city praetor), and others left to take up the provincial governorships assigned to them by Caesar (Brutus’ cousin Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus went to Cisalpine Gaul). Cicero himself, although he had not been a conspirator, left Rome on 7 April to visit his country estates.
By mid-April, Antony had already started abusing his position as consul and custodian of Caesar’s papers (these had been handed over to him by the dictator’s widow Calpurnia as early as the night of 15 or 16 March). Since the ratification of Caesar’s acts had extended to those not yet made public, Antony took the opportunity of forging documents in Caesar’s name in return for massive bribes. He also helped himself to the vast treasury that Caesar had deposited in the temple of Ops (possibly for use in the Parthian campaign), and he bought Dolabella’s acquiescence with funds taken from the same source. These actions appalled Cicero, but he did not make his feelings public, and Antony treated him throughout this period with a show of respect. The senate, however, decreed that from 1 June all of Caesar’s purported acts should be subject to scrutiny by a special commission set up for the purpose.
On 18 April, Octavian arrived at Naples (at the time of Caesar’s death, he had been at Apollonia in northern Greece, preparing to join his great-uncle for the Parthian campaign). Large numbers of Caesar’s veterans had been settled in Campania, and Octavian presented himself to them as Gaius Julius Caesar, the dictator’s adoptive son. (He also presented himself to Cicero, who at this time was staying at his villa in Puteoli.) A week or so after this, Antony left for Campania himself, ostensibly to oversee the settlement of further veterans, but partly no doubt also to secure his own hold over the soldiers. Once he had left the capital, his colleague Dolabella, in a demonstration of independence, demolished an altar and column that had been set up on the spot where Caesar had been cremated, and summarily executed the people who were worshipping there. At the beginning of May, however, Octavian arrived in Rome and announced his intention to claim his inheritance, pay Caesar’s legacies to the Roman people, and hold games in Caesar’s honour.
On c. 18 May, Antony returned to Rome with a large bodyguard of Caesar’s veterans; Octavian asked him to hand Caesar’s property over to him, but he refused. On 1 June, Antony convened a meeting of the senate, but the senators were intimidated by his soldiers and few attended. Next (on 2 or 3 June), he went to the assembly and carried laws—illegally, since no notice had been given—to extend his and
Dolabella’s governorships of Macedonia and Syria respectively from two to five years (even though two years had been the limit set by Caesar for such appointments). Finally, he exchanged his province of Macedonia for Gaul, while nevertheless retaining command of five legions which had been sent to Macedonia in preparation for the Parthian campaign. For him, the advantages of Gaul were, first, that it would allow him to take over three legions which were under the command of Decimus Brutus and, secondly, that he would then be in a position, like Caesar in 49, to cross the Rubicon and invade Italy, should he feel the need to do so.
Brutus and Cassius, meanwhile, were eager to return to Rome and resume their duties as praetors. On 5 June, Antony, who wanted the pair kept out of political life, persuaded the senate to appoint them to a grain commission, to be held in Asia and Sicily respectively; considering this demeaning, they at once began lobbying to have the commission repealed. For himself, on the other hand, Antony secured the establishment of a powerful Board of Seven, charged with distributing public land in Italy among Caesar’s veterans and the poor; he, his brother Lucius Antonius, and Dolabella (whose allegiance, of course, he had bought) were all to be members.
On 6–13 July, Brutus sponsored the Apollinarian Games, although he did not dare attend (nor did Cicero, though Brutus wanted him to). The games earned him considerable popularity, as he had hoped—but this popularity lasted scarcely longer than the games themselves. On 17 July, Cicero, despairing of the political situation, started out on a voyage to visit his son, who was studying in Athens; he intended to return to Rome only when Antony’s consulship was over. Towards the end of the month, Octavian held his promised games in Caesar’s honour, despite the fact that Antony had not allowed him access to the funds he needed to pay for them; he was forced to borrow the money instead. During the games, a comet appeared for seven days, and was interpreted as a sign of Caesar’s divinity. The popularity which Octavian acquired from these games, and from the legacies which he started to pay to the Roman people (again, with borrowed money), caused relations between him and Antony to deteriorate so much that their soldiers, fearing civil war, forced them to meet on the Capitol and be publicly reconciled to one another.
On 1 August, Antony convened the senate. Brutus and Cassius had counted on opposition to him being expressed, but only Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, the consul of 58 and Caesar’s father-in-law, spoke out. Antony and Brutus and Cassius then issued edicts attacking each other. At around this time, Brutus and Cassius were assigned new provinces, Crete and Cyrene respectively (hardly prestigious appointments, but an improvement on the grain commission), and set sail for the east. Cicero, meanwhile, had attempted to sail to Greece, and had actually got as far as Syracuse, but had been forced back by contrary winds to Leucopetra (six miles south of Regium). There he heard that the situation in Rome had apparently improved, and that his absence was being criticized; so he changed his plans and turned back towards the capital. On 17 August, he met Brutus at Velia (on the coast between Naples and Regium), and learned from him more accurate news of the situation in Rome. Each of them then continued on their way, never to meet again.
On 1 September, Cicero arrived back in Rome, and was welcomed by enthusiastic crowds. But he soon learned that the senate was meeting that day in order to vote honours to Caesar: Antony was proposing to add an extra day in the dictator’s honour to all the festivals of thanksgiving to the gods. Cicero therefore sent his apologies, explaining that he was tired after his journey. Antony responded by attacking him in the senate and threatening to destroy his house. The next day Cicero attended the senate (this time Antony was absent), and delivered the speech which came to be known as the First Philippic. This was outwardly respectful and conciliatory, but nevertheless enumerated the illegalities committed by Antony as consul. The result was that Antony made a public declaration of hostility to Cicero, and then set to work preparing an invective against him, demanding his presence in the senate on-19 September (the next day on which the senate could meet). When the appointed day came, Cicero judged it too dangerous for him to attend, and stayed away. The meeting was held in the temple of Concord (in which Cicero had held the famous debate on the Catilinarian conspirators nineteen years earlier): Antony brought in armed men, locked the doors, and delivered the invective that he had prepared. In that speech, which does not not survive, he accused Cicero of ingratitude and unfriendly behaviour towards himself, and went on to criticize Cicero’s consulship and whole career, blaming him for, among other things, the murder of Clodius, the Civil War, and Caesar’s assassination. It was a comprehensive attack: he even found space in it to ridicule Cicero’s poetry.
Naturally enough, perhaps, Cicero immediately began work on a written rebuttal—the Second Philippic. This was essentially the speech that he would have given in reply to Antony had he been able to: it is written exactly as if delivered in the senate on 19 September, and scrupulously avoids reference to events that happened later. At the end of October, Cicero sent a draft of it to his friend Atticus: it was to be shown only to people who would be sympathetic, and was not to be given a wider circulation until such time as the republic had been restored. Cicero was fully aware that it would have been folly to publish it under the conditions then existing. In public, he did not dignify Antony’s attack on him with a reply.
While Cicero was thus engaged, relations between Antony and Octavian were rapidly worsening. Early in October, Antony accused Octavian of plotting to assassinate him. When Antony then went to Brundisium to take command of the five legions which were being transferred to him from Macedonia, Octavian raised an army from Caesar’s veterans and, on 9 November, briefly occupied Rome. Antony quickly returned to the city; but when two of his Macedonian legions defected to Octavian, he nominated a new set of provincial governors and then set out for Cisalpine Gaul early on 29 November. On 20 December, the senate received a letter from Decimus Brutus, the governor of Cisalpine Gaul, in which he announced his refusal to hand over his province, with its three legions, to Antony. Cicero therefore delivered the Third Philippic, in which he persuaded the senate to approve Decimus Brutus’ action and to rule that all the existing governors should retain control of their provinces until further notice. The Fourth Philippic, delivered before the people on the same day, contained further praise of Decimus Brutus and argued that Antony was now in effect a public enemy. It was probably at this point, when he was irrevocably committed to a course of opposition to Antony, that he released the Second Philippic into public circulation.
So began Cicero’s ‘finest hour’, in which, through the remaining Philippics (January to April 43), he directed the senate in its war against Antony. Decimus Brutus, after being besieged and relieved at Mutina, was eventually killed by Antony. Dolabella was declared a public enemy, was besieged by Crassus in Syria, and committed suicide. Octavian marched on Rome, seized the consulship (aged 19), and revoked the amnesty that had been granted to Caesar’s assassins—thus unleashing the further civil war in which Brutus and Cassius would perish. Finally, in November 43, Antony, Octavian, and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (Master of the Horse at the time of Caesar’s assassination, and governor of Narbonese Gaul and Nearer Spain) came together to form the ‘second triumvirate’, thus effectively ending the republic. Their proscription lists, agreed in advance, were immediately published; and Cicero was murdered on 7 December. His head and hands—the hand that had written the Philippics—were displayed, on Antony’s orders, on the rostra at Rome. There people saw, according to Plutarch (Cic. 49.2), ‘not the face of Cicero, but an image of Antony’s soul’.
PHILIPPIC II
[1] To what fate of mine, conscript fathers, should I attribute the fact that, over the past twenty years,* there has not been a single enemy of the state who did not at the same time declare war on me also? I need not name names: you will recall them yourselves. Those enemies paid me penalties greater than I would have wished: I am surprised, Antonius, that when you copy their deeds you do not also s
hudder at their ends. I was less surprised in the case of the others. After all, none of them set out to become my enemy: in each case, it was because they attacked the state that they encountered my opposition. You, on the other hand, though I had never said so much as a word against you, attacked me with unprovoked abuse—so you could present yourself as more reckless than Catiline, more demented than Clodius; and you calculated that your alienation from me would serve as a recommendation for you in the eyes of disloyal citizens.
[2] So what am I to make of this? Should I conclude that he despises me? But I cannot see anything in my private life, in my reputation, in my record, or in these moderate abilities of mine that would merit the contempt of—Antonius! Or was it that he thought the senate the place where I could most easily be disparaged? Yet this is a body which has borne testimony in the case of many illustrious citizens that they served their country well—but in my case alone that I saved it.* Or did he wish to vie with me in oratory? How kind of him! After all, what richer or more rewarding theme could I possibly have than to speak both for myself and against Antonius? No, the only possible conclusion is this—that he felt he had no chance of convincing those like himself that he really was an enemy of his country unless he were also an enemy of mine.
[3] Before I reply to his other points, I want to say a few words about the friendship which he accused me of having violated, since I consider this a charge of the utmost seriousness.