 When Julius, or as he is usually called by Cicero, Gaius Caesar was slain on the 15th March of Urbe Condita 710, B.C. 44, Marcus Antonius was his colleague in the consulship, and he, being afraid that the conspirators might murder him, too, and that it is said that they had debated among themselves whether they would or no, concealed himself on that day and fortified his house, till, perceiving that nothing was intended against him, he ventured to appear in public the day following. Lepidus was in the suburbs of Rome with the regular army, ready to depart for the government of Spain which had been assigned to him with a part of Gaul. In the night, after Caesar's death, he occupied the forum with his troops and thought of making himself master of the city. But Antonius dissuaded him from that idea, and won him over to his views by giving his daughter and marriage to Lepidus his son, and by assisting him to seize on the office of Pontifus Maximus, which was vacant by Caesar's death. To the conspirators he professed friendship, sent his son among them as a hostage to his sincerity, and so deluded them that Brutus subbed with Lepidus, and Cassius with Antonius. By these means he got them to consent to his passing a decree for the confirmation of all of Caesar's acts, without describing or naming them more precisely. At last, on the occasion of Caesar's public funeral, he contrived so to inflame the populace against the conspirators that Brutus and Cassius had some difficulty in defending their houses and their lives, and he gradually alarmed them so much, and worked so cunningly on their fears that they all quitted Rome. Cicero also left Rome, disapproving greatly of the vacillation and want of purpose in the conspirators. On the 1st of June, Antonius assembled the Senate to deliberate on the affairs of the Republic, and in the interval visited all of the parts of Italy. In the meantime, young Octavius appeared on the stage. He had been left, by Caesar, who was his uncle, the heir to his name and estate. He returned from Apollonia and Macedonia to Italy, as soon as he heard of his uncle's death, and arrived at Naples on the 18th of April, where he was introduced by Hercius and Pansa to Cicero, whom he promised to be guided in all respects by his directions. He was now between eighteen and nineteen years of age. He begun by the representation of public spectacles and games in honor of Caesar's victories. In the meantime, Antonius, in his progress through Italy, was making great use of the decree confirming all Caesar's acts, which he interpolated and forged in the most shameless manner. Among other things he restored Dei Eotarius to all his dominions, having been bribed to do so by a hundred millions of Cisterci's by the king's agents, but Dei Eotarius himself, as soon as he had heard of Caesar's death, seized all his dominions by force. He also seized the public treasure which Caesar had deposited in the Temple of Ops, amounting to over four millions and a half of our money, and with this he won over Dolabela, who had seized the consulship on the death of Caesar and the greater part of the army. At the end of May, Cicero began to return towards Rome in order to arrive there in time for the meeting of the Senate on the first of June, but many of his friends dissuaded him from entering the city, and at last he determined not to appear in the Senate on that day, but to make a tour of Greece, to assist him in which Dolabela named him as one of his lieutenants. Deutonius also gave Brutus and Cassius commissions to buy corn in Asia and Sicily for the use of the Republic in order to keep them out of the city. Meanwhile, Sextus Pompeius, who was at the head of a considerable army in Spain, addressed letters to the consuls proposing terms of accommodation, which, after some debate and some important modifications, were agreed to, and he quitted Spain and came as far as Marseille on his road towards Rome. Cicero, having started for Greece, was forced to put back by contrary winds and returned to Velia on the 17th of August, where he had a long conference with Brutus, who soon after left Italy for his province of Macedonia, which Caesar had assigned him before his death, though Antonius now wished to compel him to exchange it for Crete. After this conference, Cicero returned to Rome, where he was received with unexampled joy, immense multitudes thronging out to meet him and to escort him into the city. He arrived in Rome on the last day of August, the next day the Senate met, to which he was particularly summoned by Antonius, but he excused himself as not having yet recovered from the fatigue of his journey. Antonius was greatly offended, and in his speech in the Senate threatened openly to order his house to be pulled down, the real reason of Cicero's absenting himself from the Senate being that the business of the day was to decree some new and extraordinary honors to Caesar, and to order supplications to him as a divinity, which Cicero was determined not to concur in, though he knew it to be useless to oppose them. The next day also the Senate met, and Antonius absented himself, but Cicero came down and delivered the following speech, which is the first in that celebrated series of fourteen speeches made in opposition to Antonius and his measures called Philippics, from the errations of Demosthenes against Philip, to which the Romans were in the habit of comparing them. The First Philippic Before, O conscript Fathers, I say those things concerning the Republic which I think myself bound to say at the present time, I will explain to you briefly the cause of my departure from, and of my return to, the city. What I hoped that the Republic was at last recalled to a proper respect for your wisdom and for your authority, I thought it became me to remain in a sort of sentinel ship, which was opposed upon me by my position as a senator, and a man of consular rank. Nor did I depart anywhere, nor did I ever take my eyes off the Republic, from the day on which we were summoned to meet in the Temple of Telus, in which Temple I, as far as was in my power, laid the foundations apiece, and renewed the ancient precedent set by the Athenians, I have ever used the Greek word, which that city employed in those times in a laying discord, and gave my vote that all recollection of the existing dissensions ought to be effaced by everlasting oblivion. The erration then made, by Marcus Antonius, was an admirable one, his dispositions too appeared excellent, and lastly, by his means and by his sons, peace was ratified, with the most illustrious of the citizens, and everything else was consistent with this beginning. He invited the chief men of the State to those deliberations which he held at his own house concerning the State of the Republic. He referred all the most important matters to this order. Nothing was, at this time, found among the papers of Gaius Caesar, except what was already well known to everybody, and he gave answers to every question that was asked of him with the greatest consistency. Were any exiles restored? He said that one was, but only one. Were any immunities granted? He answered none. He wished us even to adopt the proposition of Servius Sopisius, that most illustrious man that no tablet, purporting to contain any decree or grant of Caesars, should be published after the Ides of March were expired. I pass over many other things, all excellent, for I am hastening to come to a very extraordinary act of virtue of Marcus Antonius. He utterly abolished from the Constitution of the Republic the dictatorship, which had by this time obtained the authority of regal power. And that measure was not even offered to us for discussion. He brought with him a decree of the Senate, ready drawn up, ordering what he chose to have done, and when it had been read, we all submitted to his authority in the matter with the greatest eagerness. And by another resolution of the Senate, we returned him thanks in the most honorable and complementary language. A new light, as it were, seemed to have been brought over us now that not only the kingly power which we had endured but all fear of such power for the future was taken away from us, and a great pledge appeared to have been given by him to the Republic that he did wish the city to be free when he utterly abolished out of the Republic the name of dictator, which had often banned a legitimate title, on account of our late recollection of a perpetual dictatorship. A few days afterwards the Senate was delivered from the danger of bloodshed, and a hook was fixed into that runaway slave who had usurped the name of Gaius Marius. And all these things he did in concert with his colleague. Some other things that were done were the acts of Dola Bella alone, but if his colleague had not been absent would, I believe, had been done by both of them in concert. For when enormous evil was insinuating itself into the Republic, and was gaining more strength day by day, and when the same men were erecting a tomb in the Forum who had performed that irregular funeral, and when abandoned men with slaves like themselves were every day threatening with more and more vehemence all of the houses and temples of the city, so severe was the rigor of Dola Bella not only towards the audacious and wicked slaves but also towards the profligate and unprincipled freedmen, and so prompt was his overthrow of that accursed pillar that it seems marvelous to me that the subsequent time has been so different from that one day. For behold, on the first of June, on which day they had given notice that we were all to attend the Senate, everything was changed. Nothing was done by the Senate, but many and important measures were transacted by the agency of the people, though that people was both absent and disapproving. The consuls alike said that they did not dare to come into the Senate. The liberators of their country were absent from that city, from the neck of which they had removed the yoke of slavery, though the very consuls themselves professed to praise them in their public harangues and in all their conversation. Those who were called veterans, men of whose safety this order has been most particularly careful, were instigated not to the preservation of those things which they had, but to the cherished hopes of new booty, and as I preferred hearing of those things to seeing them, and as I had an honorary commission as lieutenant, I went away, intending to be present on the first of January, which appeared likely to be the first day of assembling the Senate. I have now explained to you, O conscript fathers, my design in leaving the city. Now I will briefly set before you also my intention in returning, which may perhaps appear more unaccountable. As I had avoided Brundizium and the ordinary route into Greece, not without good reason, on the first of August I arrived at Syracuse, because the passage from that city into Greece was said to be a good one, and that city, with which I had so intimate a connection, could not, though it was very eager to do so, detain me for more than one night. I was afraid that my sudden arrival among my friends might cause some suspicion if I remain there at all, but after the winds had driven me, on my departure from Sicily to Leocopetra, which is a promontory on the Regian district, I went up the gulf from that point, with the view of crossing over, and I had not advanced very far before I was driven back by a foul wind to the very place which I had just quitted. And as the night was stormy, and as I had lodged that night in the villa of Publius Valerius, my companion and intimate friend, and as I remained all the next day at his house waiting for a fair wind, many of the citizens of the municipality of Regium came to me, and of them there was some who had lately arrived from Rome. From them I first heard of the harangue of Marcus Antonius, with which I was so much pleased that, after I read it, I began for the very first time to think of returning, and not long afterwards the edict of Brutus and Cassius is brought to me, which, perhaps because I love those men even more for the sake of the Republic than my own friendship for them, appeared to me, indeed, to be full of equity. They added, besides, for it is a very common thing for those who are desirous of bringing good news to invent something to make the news which they bring seem even more joyful, that the parties were coming to an agreement, that the Senate was to meet on the first of August, that Antonius had discarded all evil councillors, and having given up the provinces of Gaul was about to return to submission to the authority of the Senate. But on this I was inflamed with such eagerness to return, that no oars or winds could be fast enough for me. Not that I thought that I should not arrive in time, but lest I should be later than I wished in congratulating the Republic, and I quickly arrived at Velia, where I saw Brutus. How grieved I was, I cannot express, for it seemed to be a discreditable thing, for me myself, that I should venture to return into that city from which Brutus was departing, and that I should be willing to live safely in a place where he could not. But he himself was not agitated in the same manner that I was. For being elevated with the consciousness of his great and glorious exploit, he had no complaints to make of what had been fallen him. Though he lamented your fate exceedingly, it was from him that I first heard of the language of Lucius Piso in the Senate of August, who, although he was but little assisted, for that I heard from Brutus himself, by those who ought to have seconded him, still according to the testimony of Brutus, and what evidence could be more trustworthy. And to the avowal of everyone who I saw afterwards, appeared to me to have gained great credit. I hastened hither, therefore, in order that as those who were present had not seconded him, I might do so, not with the hope of doing any good, for I neither hoped for that, nor that I well see how it was possible, but in order that if anything happened to me, and many things appeared to be threatening me out of the regular course of nature and even of destiny, I might still leave my speech on this day as a witness to the republic of my everlasting attachment to its interests. Since, then, O conscript fathers, I trust that the reason of my adopting such determination appears praiseworthy to you, before I begin to speak of the republic, I will make a brief complaint of the injury which Marcus Antonius did me yesterday, to whom I am friendly, and I have at all times admitted having received some services from him which make it my duty to be so. What reason had he then for endeavoring with such bitter hostility to force me into the senate yesterday? Was I the only person who was absent? Have you not repeatedly had thinner houses than yesterday? Or was a matter of such importance under discussion that it was desirable for even sick men to be brought down? All I suppose was at the gates, or there was a debate about peace with Pyrrhus, on which occasion it is related that even the great Apius, old and blind as he was, was brought down to the senate house. There was a motion being made about some supplications, a kind of measure when senators are not usually wanting, for they are under the compulsion, not of pledges, but of the influence of those men whose honor is being complimented, and the cause is the same when the motion has reference to a triumph. The consuls are so free from anxiety at these times, that it is almost entirely free for a senator to absent himself if he pleases. And as the general custom of our body was well known to me, and as I had hardly recovered from the fatigue of my journey, and was vexed with myself, I sent a man to him, out of regard for my friendship to him, to tell him that I should not be there. But he, in the hearing of you all, declared that he would come with masons to my house. This was said with too much passion, and very intemperately. For what crime is there such a heavy punishment appointed as that, that anyone should venture to say in this assembly that he, with the assistance of a lot of common operatives, would pull down a house which had been built at the public service in accordance with the vote of the senate. And whoever employed such compulsion as the threat of such an injury to a senator, or what severe punishment has ever been, he himself was unable to perform, as in fact he had failed to perform many promises made to many people, and a great many more of those promises have been found since his death, than the number of all the services which he conferred on and did to people during all the years that he was alive would amount to. But all these things I do not change. I do not meddle with. Today I defend all his good acts with the greatest earnestness. Would that the money remained in the temple of Ops. Bloodstained indeed, though it may be, but still needful at these times, since it is not restored to those to whom it really belongs. Let that, however, be squandered to if it is so written in his acts. Is there anything, whatever, that can be called, so peculiarly the act of that man who, while clad in the robe of peace, was yet invested with both civil and military command in the Republic as a law of his? Ask for the acts of Gracchus. The Sampronian laws will be brought forth. Ask for those of Silla. You will have the Cornelian laws. What more? In what acts did the Third Consulship of Neus Pompeius consist? Why, in his laws. And if you could ask Caesar himself what he had done in the city, and in the garb of peace, he would reply that he had passed many excellent laws. But his memoranda he would either alter or not produce at all, or if he did produce them he would not class them among his acts. But, however, I allow even these things to pass for acts. At some things I am content to wink. But I think it intolerable that the acts of Caesar, in the most important instances, that is to say in his laws, are to be annulled for their sake. What law was ever better, more advantageous, more frequently demanded in the best ages of the Republic, than the one which forbade the Praetorian provinces to be retained for more than one year, and the Consular provinces more than two? If this law be abrogated, do you think that the acts of Caesar are maintained? What? Are not all the laws of Caesar respecting judicial proceedings abrogated by the law which has been proposed concerning the Third Decorary? And are you the defenders of the acts of Caesar who overturn the laws? Unless indeed anything which, for the purpose of recollecting it, he entered in a notebook, is to be counted among his acts and defended, however unjust or useless it may be, and that which he proposed to the people in the Comitea Centuriata and carried, is not to be accounted as one of the acts of Caesar. But what is that Third Decorary? The Decorary of the Centurians says he, what? Was not the Judicature open to that order by the Julian Law, and even before that by the Pompeian and Aurelian Laws? The income of the men, says he, was exactly defined. Certainly not only in the case of a Centurion, but in the case too of a Roman Knight. Therefore, men of the highest honor and of the greatest bravery, who have acted as Centurians, are, and have, been judges. I am not asking about those men, says he. Whoever has acted as Centurion, let him be a judge. But if you were to propose a law, that whoever had served in the cavalry, which is a higher post, should be a judge, you would not be able to induce anyone to approve of that. For a man's fortune and worth ought to be regarded in a judge. I am not asking about those points, says he. I am going to add as judges, common soldiers of the Legion of Alaudai, as our friends say, that that is the only measure by which they can be saved. Oh, what an insulting compliment it is to those men, whom you summon to act as judges, though they never expected it. For the effect of the law is, to make those men judges in the Third Decorate, who do not dare to judge with freedom. And in that, how great, oh ye immortal gods, is the error of those men who have desired that law. For the meaner the condition of each judge is, the greater will be the severity of judgment, with which he will seek to efface the idea of his meanness, and he will strive rather to appear worthy of being classed in the honorable decrees, than to have deservedly ranked in a disreputable one. Another law was proposed, that men who have been condemned of violence and treason may appeal to the public if they please. Is this now a law, or rather an abrogation of all laws? For who is there at this day to whom it is an object that law should stand? No one is accused under those laws. There is no one whom we think likely to be so accused. For measures which have been carried by force of arms will certainly never be impeached in accord of justice. But the measure is a popular one. I wish, indeed, that you were willing to promote any popular measure, for at present all citizens agree with one mind and one voice in their view of its bearing on the safety of the republic. What is the meaning, then, of the eagerness to pass the law, which brings with it the greatest possible infamy and no popularity at all? For what can be more discreditable than for a man who has committed treason against the Roman people by acts of violence after he has been condemned by a legal decision to be able to return to that very course of violence, on account of which he has been condemned? But why do I argue any more about this law? As if the object aimed at were to enable anyone to appeal. The object is, the inevitable consequence must be, that no one can ever be prosecuted under those laws. For what prosecutor will be found insane enough to be willing after the defendant has been condemned to expose himself to the fury of a hired mob, or what judge will be bold enough to venture to condemn a criminal, knowing that he will immediately be dragged before a gang of hireling operatives? It is not, therefore, a right of appeal that is given by that law, but two of most salutary laws and modes of judicial investigation that are abolished. And what is this but exhorting young men to be turbulent, seditious, mischievous citizens? To what extent of mischief will it not be possible to instigate the frenzy of the tribunes now that those two rights of impeachment for violence and for treason are annulled? What more? Is not this a substitution of a new law, for the laws of Caesar, which enact that every man who has been convicted of violence, and also every man who has been convicted of treason, shall be interdicted from fire and water? When those men have a right of appeal given them, are not the acts of Caesar rescinded? And those acts, O conscript father's eye, who never approved of them, have still thought it advisable to maintain for the sake of concord. So that I not only did not think that the laws which Caesar had passed in his lifetime ought to be repealed, but I did not approve a meddling with those, even which, since the death of Caesar, you have seen produced and published. Men have been recalled from banishment, by a dead man. The freedom of the city has been conferred, not only on individuals but on entire nations and provinces, by a dead man. Our revenues have been diminished by the granting of countless exemptions, by a dead man. Therefore do we defend these measures, which have been brought from his house, on the authority of a single, but I admit a very excellent individual. And passed, in the passing of which he gloried, and on which he believed that the safety of the Republic depended, especially those concerning provinces, and concerning judicial proceedings. Can we, I say we, who defend the acts of Caesar, think that these laws deserve to be upset? And yet, concerning those laws which were proposed, we have, at all events, the power of complaining. But concerning those which are actually passed, we have not even that privilege, for they, without any proposal of them to the people, were passed before they were framed. Men ask, what is the reason why I, or why any of you, O conscript fathers, should be afraid of bad laws, while we have virtuous tribunes of the people? We have men ready to interpose their veto, ready to defend the Republic with the sanctions of religion. We opt to be strangers to fear. What do you mean of interposing the veto, says he? Here are these sanctions of religion which you are talking about. These forsooth, on which the safety of the Republic depends. We are neglecting those things, and thinking them too old-fashioned and foolish. The forum will be surrounded, every entrance of it will be blocked up. Our men will be placed in garrison, as it were at many points. And then, whatever is accomplished by those means will be law, and you will order, I suppose, all those regularly passed decrees to be engraven on brazen tablets. The consuls consulted the people in regular form. Is this the way of consulting the people that we have received from our ancestors? And the people voted for it would do regularity. What people? That which was excluded from the forum? Under what law did they do so? Under that which has been wholly abrogated by violence and arms? But I am saying all this with reference to the future, because it is the part of a friend to point out evils which may be avoided, and if they never ensue, that will be the best refutation of my speech. I am speaking of laws which have been proposed, concerning which you have still full power to decide either way. I am pointing out the defects. Away with them! I am denouncing violence and arms. Away with them, too! You and your colleague Odolabella ought not indeed to be angry with me, for speaking in defense of the Republic. Although I do not think you yourself will be. I know you're willingness to listen to reason. They say that your colleague, in this fortune of his, which he himself thinks so good, but which would seem to me more favourable if, not to use any harsh language, he were, to imitate the example set him by the consulship of his grandfathers and of his uncle. They say that he has been exceedingly offended. I see what a formidable thing it is to have the same man angry with me, and also armed, especially at a time when men could use their swords with such impunity, but I will propose a condition which I myself think reasonable, and which I do not imagine Marcus Antonius will reject. If I have set anything insulting against his way of life, against his morals, I will not object at his being my bitterest enemy. But if I have maintained the same habits which I have already adopted in the Republic, that is, if I have spoken my opinions concerning the affairs of the Republic with freedom, in the first place, I beg that he will not be angry with me for that. But in the next place, if I cannot obtain my first request, I beg at least that he will show his anger only as he legitimately may show it to a fellow citizen. Let him employ arms, if it is necessary, as he says it is, for his own defense. Only let not those arms injure those men who have declared their honest sentiments in the affairs of the Republic. Now, what could be more reasonable than this demand? But if, as has been said to me by some of his intimate friends, every speech which is, at all contrary to his inclination, is violently offensive to him, even if there is no insult in it whatsoever, then we will bear with the natural disposition of our friend. But those men, at the same time, say to me, you will not have the same license granted to you, who are the adversary of Caesar, as might be claimed by Piso, his father-in-law. And then they warn me of something I must guard against, and certainly the excuse which sickness applies me with for not coming to the Senate will not be a more valid one than that which is furnished by death. But in the name of the immortal gods, for while I look upon you, Odolabella, who are most dear to me, it is impossible for me to keep silence, respecting the air into which you are both falling, for I believe that you, being both men of high birth, entertaining, lofty views, have been eager to acquire, not money, as some too credulous people suspect, a thing which has at all times been scorned by every honorable and illustrious man, nor power procured by violence and authorities such as never ought to be endured by the Roman people, but the affection of your fellow citizens and glory. But glory is praise for deeds which have been done, and the fame earned by great services to the Republic, which is approved of by the testimony borne in its favor, not only by every virtuous man, but also by the multitude. I would tell you, Odolabella, what the fruit of good actions is, if I did not see that you had already learned it by experience beyond all other men. What day can you recollect in your whole life is ever having beamed on you with a more joyful light than the one on which, having purified the Forum, having routed the throng of wicked men, having inflicted due punishment on the ring-leaders in wickedness, and having delivered the city from conflagration in the fear of massacre, you return to your house. What order of society, what class of people, what rank of nobles even was there who did not show their zeal in praising and congratulating you. Even I, too, because men thought that you had been acting by my advice in those transactions, received the thanks and congratulations of good men in your name. Remember I pray you, Odolabella, the unanimity displayed on that day in the theatre, when every one, forgetful of the causes on account of which they had been previously offended with you, showed that in consequence of your recent service they had banished all recollection of their former indignation. Could you, Odolabella, and it is with great concern that I speak, could you, I say, forfeit this dignity with equanimity? And you, O Marcus Antonius, I address myself to you, though in your absence, do you not prefer that day on which the Senate was assembled in the office of Telus? To all those months during which some who differ greatly in opinion from me think that you have been happy? What a noble speech was that of yours about unanimity. From what apprehensions were the veterans, and from what anxiety was the whole State relieved by you on that occasion, when, having laid aside your enmity against him, you on that day first consented that your present colleague should be your colleague, forgetting that the auspices had been announced by yourself as an auger of the Roman people, and when your little son was sent by you to the capital to be a hostage for peace? On what day was the Senate ever more joyful than on that day, or when was the Roman people more delighted, which had never met in greater numbers in any assembly whatever? Then at last we did appear to have been really delivered by brave men, because, as they had willed it to be, peace was following liberty. On the next day, on the day after that, on the third day, and on all the following days, you went on without intermission, giving every day as it were some fresh present to the Republic. But the greatest of all the presents was that when you abolished the name of the dictatorship. This was in effect branding the name of the dead Caesar with everlasting ignominy. And it was your doing, yours I say. For as, on account of the wickedness of one Marcus Manlius, by a resolution of the Manlian family it is unlawful that any patrician should be called Manlius. So you, on account of the hatred excited by one dictator, have utterly abolished the name of dictator. When you had done these mighty exploits for the safety of the Republic, did you repent of your fortune, or of the dignity and renown and glory which you had acquired? Whence, then, is the sudden change? I cannot be induced to suspect that you have been caught by the desire of acquiring money. Everyone may say what he pleases, but we are not bound to believe such a thing. For I never saw anything soren or anything mean in you, although a man's intimate friends do sometimes corrupt his natural disposition. Still, I know your firmness, and I only wish that, as you avoid that fault, you had been able to escape all suspicion of it. What I am more afraid of is, lest, being ignorant of the true path to glory, you should think it glorious for you to have more power by yourself than all the rest of the people put together, unless you should prefer being feared by your fellow citizens to being loved by them. If you do think so, you are ignorant of the road to glory, for a citizen to be dear to his fellow citizens, to deserve well of the Republic, to be praised, to be respected, to be loved is glorious, but to be feared, and to be an object of hatred is odious, detestable, and, moreover, pregnant with weakness and decay. When we see, even in that play, the very man who said, What care I, though all men should hate my name, so long as fear accompanies their hate, found that it was a mischievous principle to act upon. I wish, O Antonius, that you could recollect your grandfather, of whom, however, you have repeatedly heard me speak. Do you think that he would have been willing to deserve even immortality at the price of being feared in consequence of his licentious use of arms? What he considered life, what he considered prosperity, was the being equal to the rest of the citizens in freedom, the chief of them all in worth. Therefore, to say no more of the prosperity of your grandfather, I should prefer that most bitter day of his death to the domination of Lucius Sinna, by whom he was most barbariously slain. But why should I seek to make an impression on you by my speech? For, if the end of Gaius Caesar cannot influence you to prefer being loved to being feared, no speech of anyone will do any good or have any influence with you, and those who think him happy are themselves miserable. No one who is happy who lives on such terms that he may be put to death not merely with impunity, but even to the great glory of his slayer. Wherefore, change your mind I entreat you and look back upon your ancestors and govern the Republic in such a way that your fellow citizens may rejoice that you were born, without which no one could be happy or illustrious. And indeed you have both of you had many judgments delivered respecting you by the Roman people, by which I am greatly concerned that you are not sufficiently influenced. For what was the meaning of the shouts of the innumerable crowd of citizens collected at the gladiatorial games, or of the verses made by the people, or of the extraordinary applause at the sight of the statue of Pompeus, and at that sight of the two tribunitions of the people who are opposed to you? Are these things a feeble indication of the incredible unanimity of the entire Roman people? What more? Did the applause at the games of Apollo, or rather I should say, testimony and judgment there given by the Roman people appear to you of small importance? Oh, happy are those men who, though they themselves were unable to be present on account of the violence of arms, still were present in spirit, and had a place in the breast in the hearts of the Roman people. Unless perhaps you think that it was Achius who was applauded on that occasion, and who bore off the palm sixty years after his first appearance, and not Brutus, who was absent from the games which he himself was exhibiting, while at that most blended spectacle the Roman people showed their zeal in his favor, though he was absent, and clamored their own regret for their deliverer by uninterrupted applause and clamor. I myself, indeed, am a man who have at all times despised that applause which is bestowed by the vulgar crowd, but at the same time, when it is bestowed by those of the highest, and of the middle, and of the lowest rank, in short by all the ranks together, and when those men who were previously accustomed to aim, and nothing but the favor of the people keep aloof, I then think that, not mere applause, but a deliberate verdict. If this appears to you unimportant, which it is in reality most significant, do you also despise the fact of which you have had experience? Namely, that the life of all as Herschius is so dear to the Roman people, for it was sufficient for him to be esteemed by the Roman people as he is, to be popular among his friends, in which respect he surpasses everybody, to be beloved by his own son, his men, who love him beyond measure, but in whose case before do we ever recollect such anxiety and such fear being manifested, certainly in no ones. What then are we to do? In the name of the immortal gods can you interpret these facts, and see what is their purport? What do you think these men think of your lives, to whom the lives of those men who they hope will consult the welfare of the Republic are so dear? I have reaped, O Conscript Fathers, the reward of my return, since I have said enough to bear testimony of my constancy whatever event may befall me, and since I have been kindly and attentively listened to by you, and if I have had such opportunities frequently without exposing myself and you to danger, I shall avail myself to them. If not, as far as I can I shall reserve myself not for myself, but rather for the Republic. I have lived long enough for the course of human life, or for my own glory. If any additional life is granted to me, it shall be bestowed not so much on myself as on you and on the Republic. End of the first, Philippic. Section 2, Part 1 of the 14 Orations Against Marcus Antonius, called Philippics. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Philippics by Marcus Tullius Cicero. The second, Philippic, Part 1, The Argument. This second speech was not actually spoken at all. Antonius was greatly enraged at the first speech and summoned another meeting of the Senate for the 19th day of the month, giving Cicero a special notice to be present. And he employed the interval in preparing an invective against Cicero and a reply to the first Philippic. The Senate met in the Temple of Concord, but Cicero himself was persuaded not to intend by his friends who were afraid of Antonius proceeding to actual violence against him. And indeed, he brought a strong guard of armed men with him to the Senate. He spoke with the greatest fury against Cicero, charging him with having been the principal author and contriver of Caesar's murder, hoping by this to inflame the soldiers whom he had posted within hearing of his harangue. Soon after this, Cicero removed to a villa near Naples for greater safety. And here he composed this second Philippic, which he did not publish immediately, but contented himself at first with sending a copy to Brutus and Cassius, who were much pleased with it. To what destiny of mine, O conscript fathers, shall I say that it is owing that none for the last 20 years has been an enemy to the Republic without at the same time declaring war against me? Nor is there any necessity for naming any particular person. You yourselves recollect instances in proof of my statement. They have all hitherto suffered severer punishments than I could have wished for them. But I marvel that you, O Antonius, do not fear the end of those men whose conduct you are imitating. And in others I was less surprised at this. None of those men of former times was a voluntary enemy to me. All of them were attacked by me for the sake of the Republic. But you, who have never been injured by me, not even by a word, in order to appear more audacious than Catiline, more frantic than Claudius, have of your own accord attacked me with abuse and have considered that your alienation from me would be a recommendation of you to impious citizens. What am I to think that I have been despised? I see nothing either in my life or in my influence in the city or in my exploits or even in the moderate abilities with which I am endowed, which Antonius can despise. Did he think that it was easiest to disparage me in the Senate? A body which has borne its testimony in favor of many most illustrious citizens that they govern the Republic well, but in favor of me alone, of all men, that I preserved it. Or did he wished to contend with me in a rivalry of eloquence? This, indeed, is an act of generosity for what could be more fertile or richer subject for me than to have to speak in defense of myself and against Antonius. This, in fact, is the truth. He thought it impossible to prove to the satisfaction of those men who resembled himself that he was an enemy to his country if he was not also an enemy to me. And before I make him any reply on the other topics of his speech, I will say a few words, respecting the friendship formerly subsisting between us, which he has accused me of violating. For that I consider a most serious charge. He has complained that I pleaded once against his interest. Was I not to plead against one with whom I was quite unconnected in behalf of an intimate acquaintance of a dear friend? Was I not to plead against interest acquired not by hopes of virtue, but by the disgrace of youth? Was I not to plead against an injustice which that man procured to be done by the obsequiousness of a most iniquitous interposer of his veto, not by any law regulating the privileges of the praetor? But I imagine that this was mentioned by you in order that you might recommend yourself to the citizens. If they all recollected, you were the son-in-law of a freedman and your children were the grandsons of Quintus Fadius, a freedman. But you had entirely devoted yourself to my principles, for this is what you said. You had been in the habit of coming to my house. In truth, if you had done so, you would more have consulted your own character and your reputation for charity. But you did not do so, nor if you had wished it, could Gaius Curio ever have suffered you to do so. You have said that you retired in my favor for the contest for the augurship. Oh, the incredible audacity. Oh, the monstrous impudence of such an assertion. For, at the time when Neus Pompeius and Quintus Hortensius named me as an augur, after I had been wished for by the whole college, for it was not lawful for me to be put in nomination by more than two members of the college. You were notoriously insolvent. Nor did you think it possible for your safety to be secured by any other means than by the destruction of the Republic. But was it possible for you to stand for the augurship at a time when Curio was not in Italy or even at the time when you were elected, could you have got the votes of one single tribe without the aid of Curio, whose intimate friends even were convicted of violence for having been too zealous in your favor? But I availed myself of your friendly assistance? Of what assistance? Although the instance which you cite I have myself at all times openly admitted, I preferred confessing that I was under obligations to you to letting myself appear to any foolish person not sufficiently grateful. However, what was the kindness that you did to me? Not killing me at Brindisium? Would you then have slain the man whom the conqueror himself who conferred on you as you used to boast the chief rank among all his robbers had desired to be safe and had enjoined to go to Italy? Grant that you could have slain him is not this Oconscript father such a kindness as to be done by Banditi who are contented with being able to boast that they have granted their lives to all those men whose lives they have not taken? And if that were really a kindness, then these who slew that man by whom they themselves had been saved and whom you yourself are in the habit of styling most illustrious men would never have acquired such immortal glory. But what sort of kindness is it to have abstained from committing nefarious wickedness? It is a case in which it ought not to appear so delightful to me not to have been killed by you as miserable that it should have been in your power to do such a thing with impunity. However, Grant that it was a kindness since no greater kindness can be received from a robber still in what point can you call me ungrateful? Aught I not to complain of the ruin of the Republic lest I should appear ungrateful towards you? But in that complaint mournful indeed and miserable but still unavoidable for a man of that rank in which the Senate and people of Rome have placed me, what did I say that was insulting? That was otherwise than moderate. That was otherwise than friendly. In what instance was it not of moderation to complain of the conduct of Marcus Antonius and yet to abstain from any abusive expressions? Especially when you had scattered abroad all relics of the Republic when everything was on sale at your house by the most infamous traffic. When you confessed that those laws which had never been promulgated had been passed with reference to you and by you when you, being auger, had abolished the auspices, being consul had taken away the power of interposing the veto. When you were escorted in the most shameful manner by armed guards, when, worn out with drunkenness and debauchery, you were every day performing all sorts of obscenities in that chaste house of yours. But I, as if I had to contend against Marcus Crassus with whom I have had many severe struggles and not with the most worthless gladiator while complaining in dignified language of the State of the Republic, did not say one word which could be called personal. Therefore today I will make him understand with what great kindness he was then treated by me. But he also read letters which he said that I had sent to him like a man devoid of humanity and ignorant of the common usages of life. For whoever, who was even but slightly acquainted with the habits of polite men, produced in an assembly and openly read letters which had been sent to him by a friend, just because some quarrel had arisen between them. Is not this destroying all companionship in life? Destroying the means by which absent friends converse together? How many jests are frequently put in letters, which, if they were produced in public, would appear stupid? How many serious opinions, which, for all that, ought not to be published? Let this be proof of your utter ignorance of courtesy. Now Mark also, his incredible folly, what have you to oppose me, O you eloquent man, as you seem at least to Mastela Temisius and to Tiro Numisius? And while these men are standing at this very time in the sight of the Senate with drawn swords, I too will think you an eloquent man if you will show how you will defend them if they were charged with being assassins. However, what answer would you make if I were to deny that I ever sent those letters to you? By what evidence could you convict me? By my handwriting? Of handwriting, indeed, you have a lucrative knowledge. How can you prove it in that manner? For the letters are written by an amannuensis. By this time I envy your teacher, who, for all that payment, which I shall mention presently, has taught you to know nothing. For what can be less like? I do not say an orator, but a man, than to reproach an adversary with a thing, which if he denies by one single word, he who has reproached him cannot advance one step further. But I do not deny it, and in this very point, I convict you not only of inhumanity, but also of madness. For what expression is there in those letters which are not full of humanity and service and benevolence? And the whole of your charge amounts to this, that I do not express a bad opinion of you in those letters, that in them I wrote to you as a citizen, and as to a virtuous man, not as to a wicked man and a robber. But your letters I will not produce, although I fairly might, now that I am thus challenged by you, letters in which you beg of me that you may be enabled by my consent to procure the recall of someone from exile. And you will not attempt it if I have any objection, and you prevail on me by your entreaties. For why should I put myself in the way of your audacity when neither the authority of this body nor the opinion of the Roman people nor any laws are able to restrain you? However, what was the object of your addressing these entreaties to me if the man for whom you were entreating was already restored by a law of Caesars? I suppose the truth was that he wished it to be done by me as a favor, in which matter there cannot be any favor done even by himself if a law was already passed for the purpose. But as, O conscript fathers, I have many things which I must say both in my own defense and against Marcus Antonius. One thing I ask you, that you will listen to me with kindness while I am speaking for myself. The other I will ensure myself, namely that you shall listen to me with attention while speaking against him. At the same time also I beg of this, that you will have been acquainted with my moderation and modesty throughout my whole life and especially as a speaker. You will not when today I answer this man in the spirit with which he has attacked me, think that I have forgotten my usual character. I will not treat him as a consul, for he did not treat me as a man of consular rank. And although he in no respect deserves to be considered a consul, whether we regard his way of life or his principle of governing the republic or the manner in which he was elected, I am beyond all dispute a man of consular rank. That therefore you might understand what sort of consul he professed himself to be. He reproached me with my consulship, a consulship which O Conscript Fathers was in name indeed mine, but in reality yours. For what did I determine? What did I contrive? What did I do that was not determined, contrived or done by the council and authority and in accordance with the sentiments of this order. And have you, O wise men, O men not merely eloquent, dared to find fault with these actions before the very men by whose counsel and wisdom they were performed? But who was ever found before, except Publius Clodius, to find fault with my consulship? And his fate indeed awaits you as it also awaited Gaius Curio, since that is now in your house which was fatal to each of them. Marcus Antonius disapproves of my consulship, but it was approved of by Publius Sevilius to name that man first of the men of consular rank who had died most recently. It was approved by Quintus Catilus, whose authority will always carry weight in this republic. It was approved of by the two Luculli, by Marcus Crassus, by Quintus Hortensius, by Gaius Curio, by Gaius Piso, by Marcus Glabrio, by Marcus Lepidus, by Lucius Volcatius, by Gaius Figurus, by Decimus Salinas, by Lucius Morena, who at that time were the consuls-elect. The same consulship, which was also approved of by those men of consular rank, was approved of by Marcus Cato, who escaped many evils by departing from this life, and especially the evil of seeing you consul. But above all, my consulship was approved of by Nias Pompeius, who, when he first saw me as he was leaving Syria, embracing me and congratulating me, said that it was owing to my services that he was about to see his country again. But why should I mention individuals? It was approved of by the Senate, in a very full house so completely that there was no one who did not thank me as if I had been his parent, who did not attribute to me the salvation of his life, of his fortunes, of his children, and of the republic. But since the republic has been now deprived of those men whom I have named, many and illustrious as they were. Let us come to the living, since two of the men of consular rank are still left to us. Lucius Cata, a man of the greatest genius and the most consummate prudence, proposed a supplication of my honor for those very actions with which you find fault in the most complimentary language, and those very men of consular rank whom I have named, and the whole Senate adopted his proposal, an honor which has never been paid to anyone else in the garb of peace from the foundation of the city to my time. With what eloquence, with what firm wisdom, with what a weight of authority did Lucius Caesar, your uncle, pronounce his opinion against the husband of his own sister, your stepfather. But you, when you ought to have taken him as your advisor and tutor in all your designs, and in the whole conduct of your life, preferred being like your stepfather to resembling your uncle. I, who had no connection with him, acted by his counsels when I was counsel. Did you, who were his sister's son, ever once consult him on the affairs of the Republic? But who are those whom Antonius does consult? Ho ye immortal gods, they are men whose birthdays we have still to learn. Today, Antonius is not coming down. Why? He is celebrating his birthday feast in his villa, in whose honor? I will name no one. Suppose it is in honor of some formio, or natho, or even baleo. Oh, the abominable profligacy of the man. Oh, how intolerable is his impudence, his debauchery, and his lust. Can you, when you have one of the chiefs of the Senate, a citizen of singular virtue so nearly related to you, abstain from even consulting him on the affairs of the Republic, and consult men who have no property whatsoever of their own, and are draining yours? Yes, your consulship, forsooth, is a salutary one for the State, mine a mischievous one. Have you so entirely lost all shame, as well as all chastity, that you could venture to say that in the temple in which I was consulting that Senate, which formerly, in the full enjoyment of its honor, is presided over the world? And did you place around it abandoned men, armed with swords? And have you dared besides, for what is there which you would not dare, to say that the Capitoline Hill, when I was consul, was full of armed slaves? I was offering violence to the Senate, I suppose, in order to compel the adoption of those infamous decrees of the Senate. Oh, wretched man, whether those things are not known to you, for you know nothing that is good, or whether they are, when you dare to speak so shamelessly before such men. For what Roman night was there, what youth of noble birth except you, what man of any rank or class who recollected that he was a citizen, who was not on the Capitoline Hill when the Senate was assembled in this temple, who was there who did not give in his name, although there cannot be provided checks enough, nor were their books able to contain their names? In truth, when wicked men, being compelled by the revelations of the accomplices, by their own handwriting, and by what, I may almost call the voices of their letters, were confessing that they had planned the parasital destruction of their country, that they had agreed to burn the city, to massacre the citizens, to devastate Italy, to destroy the Republic, who could have existed without being roused to defend the common safety, especially when the Senate and people of Rome had a leader then, and if they had one now, like he was then, the same fate would befall you, which did overtake them. He asserts that the body of a stepfather was not allowed burial by me, but this is an assertion which was never made by Publius Clodius, a man whom, as I was deservedly an enemy of his, I grieve now to see surpassed by you in every sort of vice. But how could it occur to you to recall to our recollection that you had been educated in the house of Publius Lentulus? Were you afraid that we might think that you could have turned out as infamous as you are by the mere force of nature if your natural qualities had not be strengthened by education? But you are so senseless that throughout the whole of your speech you were at variance with yourself, so that you said things which had not only no coherence with each other, but which were most inconsistent with and contradictory to one another, so that it was not so much opposition between you and me as there was between you and yourself. You confess that your stepfather had been duplicated in that enormous wickedness, yet you complain that he had punishment inflicted on him. By doing so, you praised what was peculiarly my achievement and blamed, which was wholly the act of the Senate, for the detection in the arrest of the guilty parties was my work, their punishment was the work of the Senate. But that eloquent man does not perceive that the man against whom he is speaking is being praised by him, and that those before whom he is speaking are being attacked by him. But now what an act I will not say of audacity for he is anxious to be audacious, but that which he is not desirous of, what an act of folly in which he surpasses all men is it to make mention of the Capitoline Hill at a time when our men are actually between our benches, when men armed with swords are now stationed at this very temple of Concord, oh ye immortal gods in which I was counsel, opinions most salutary to the state were delivered, owing to which it is that we are all alive at this day. Accused the Senate, accused the equestrian body, which at that time was united with the Senate, accuse every order of society and all the citizens as long as you confess that this assembly at this very moment is besieged by Etarian soldiers. It is not so much a proof of audacity to advance these statements so impudently as of utter want of sense to be unable to see their contradictory nature. For what is more insane then after you yourself had taken up arms to do mischief to the Republic, to reproach another with having taken them up to secure its safety. On one occasion you even attempted to be witty, oh ye good gods, how little did that attempt suit you. And yet you are a little to be blamed for your failure in that instance too, for you might have gotten some wit from your wife, who was an actress. Arms to the gown must yield. Well, have they not yielded? But afterwards the gown yielded to your arms. Now let us inquire then whether it was better for the arms of wicked men to yield to the freedom of the Roman people or that our liberty should yield to your arms. Nor will I make any further reply to you about the verses. I will only say briefly that you do not understand them nor any other literature whatever. That I have never at any time been wanting to the claims that either the Republic or my friends had upon me, but nevertheless that in all the different sorts of composition on which I have employed myself during my leisure hours, I have always endeavored to make my labors and my writings such as to be some advantage to our youth and some credit to the Roman name. But, however, all this was nothing to do with the present occasion. Let us consider more important matters. You have said that Publius Clodius was slain by my contrivance. What would men have thought if he had been slain at the time when you pursued him in the forum with a drawn sword in the sight of all the Roman people, when you would have settled his business if he had not thrown himself up the stairs of a bookseller's shop and, shutting them against you, checked your attack by that means. And I confess that at the time I favored you, but even you yourself do not say that I had advised your attempt. But as for Milo, it was not possible, even for me, to favor his action, for he had finished the business before anyone could suspect that he was going to do it. Oh, but I advised it. I suppose Milo was a man of such a disposition that he was not able to do a service to the Republic if he had not had someone to advise him to do it. But I rejoiced at it. Well, suppose I did. Was I to be the only sorrowful person in the city when everyone else was in such delight? Although that inquiry into the death of Publius Clodius was not instituted with any great wisdom, for what was the reason for having a new law to inquire into the conduct of the man who had slain him when there was a form of inquiry already established by the laws? However, an inquiry was instituted. And have you now been found so many years afterwards to say a thing which, at the time, that the affair was under discussion, no one ventured to say against me? But as to the assertion which you have dared to make, and that at great length too, that it was by my means that Pompeius was alienated from his friendship with Caesar, and that on my account it was my fault that the Civil War was originated, in that you have not aired so much in the main facts as, and that is of the greatest importance, in the times. When Marcus Bibulus, a most illustrious citizen, was consul, I omitted nothing which I could possibly do or attempt to draw off Pompeius from his union with Caesar, in which, however, Caesar, more fortunate than I, for he himself drew off Pompeius from his intimacy with me. But afterwards, when Pompeius joined Caesar with all his heart, what could have been my object in attempting to separate them, then? It would have been the part of a fool to hope to do so, and of an impudent man to advise it. However, two occasions did arise on which I gave Pompeius advice against Caesar. You are at liberty to find fault with my conduct on those occasions, if you can. One was when I advised him not to continue Caesar's government for five years more. The other, when I advised him, not to permit him to be considered as a candidate for the consulship when he was absent. If I had been able to prevent him on either of those particulars, we should never have fallen into our present miseries. Moreover, I also, when Pompeius had now devoted to the service of Caesar all his power and all the power of the Roman people, and had begun when it was too late to perceive all those things which I had foreseen long before. When I saw that an empharius war was about to be waged against our country, I never ceased to be the advisor of peace and concord end of some arrangement. And that language of mine was well-known to many people. I wish, O Nias Pompeius, that you had either never joined in a confederacy with Gaius Caesar or else you would never have broken it off. The one conduct would have become your dignity and the other would have been suited to your prudence. This, O Marcus Antonius, was at all times my advice both respecting Pompeius and concerning the Republic. And if it had prevailed, the Republic would still be standing and you would have perished through your own crimes and indigence and infamy. But these are all old stories now. This charge, however, is quite a modern one that Caesar was slain at my contrivance. I am afraid, O conscript fathers, lest I should appear to you to have brought up a sham accuser against myself, which is a most disgraceful thing to do. A man not only to distinguish by me the praises which are my due, but to load me also with those which could not belong to me. For whoever heard my name mentioned as an accomplice in that most glorious action and whose name has been concealed who was in the number of that gallant ban, concealed, do I say? Whose name was there that was not at once made public? I should sooner say that some men had boasted in order to appear to have been concerned in that conspiracy, though they had in reality known nothing of it. Then that anyone who had been an accomplice in it could have wished to be concealed. Moreover, how likely is it that among such a number of men, some obscure, some young men who had not the wit to conceal anyone, my name could possibly have escaped notice. Indeed, if leaders were wanted for the purpose of delivering the country, what need was there of instigating the brute? One of whom saw every day in his house the image of Lucius Brutus and the other saw the image of Ahala. Were these the men to seek counsel from the ancestors of others rather than from their own and out of doors rather than at home? What, Gaius Cassius, a man of that family which could not endure, I will not say the domination, but even the power of any individual. He, I suppose, was in need of me to instigate him. A man who, even without the assistance of those most illustrious men, would have accomplished the same deed in Cilicia at the mouth of the river Sidnes if Caesar had brought his ships to that bank of the river which he had intended and not to the opposite one, was Nius Domitius spurred on to recover his dignity, not by the death of his father, a most illustrious man, nor by the death of his uncle, nor by the deprivation of his own dignity, but by my advice and authority. That I persuade Gaius Trebonius, a man whom I should not have ventured even to advise, on which account the Republic owes him even a larger debt of gratitude because he preferred the liberty of the Roman people to the friendship of one man, and because he preferred overthrowing arbitrary power to sharing it. Was I the instigator whom Nucius Tilius Simber followed? A man whom I admired for having performed that action rather than ever expected that he would perform it. And I admired him on this account that he was unmindful of the personal kindness which he had received, but mindful of his country. What shall I say of the two Servilii? Shall I call them Cascus or Ahalus? And do you think that those men were instigated by my authority, rather than by their affection for the Republic? It would take a long time to go through all the rest, and it is a glorious thing for the Republic that they were so numerous, and a most honorable thing also for themselves. But recollect, I pray you, how that clever man convicted me of being a accomplice in the business. When Caesar was slain, says he, Marcus Brutus immediately lifted up on high his bloody dagger, and called on Cicero by name, and congratulated him on liberty being recovered. Why, on me, above all men? Because I knew of it beforehand? Consider, rather, this was not his reason for calling on me, that when he performed an action very like that which I myself had done, he called on me above all men to witness that he had been an imitator of my exploits. But you, oh, stupidest of all men, do not perceive that if it is a crime to have wished that Caesar should be slain, which you accuse me of having wished, it is a crime also to have rejoiced at his death. For what is the difference between a man who has advised an action and one who has approved of it? Or what does it signify whether I wish to have it done or rejoice that it has been done? Is there any one of them except you yourself and those men who wished him to become a king who was unwilling that that deed should be done or who disapproved of it after it was done? All men, therefore, are guilty as far as this goes. In truth, all good men, as far as it depended on them, bore apart in the slaying of Caesar. Some did not know how to contrive it. Some had not the courage for it. Some had no opportunity. Everyone had the inclination. However, remark the stupidity of this fellow, as I should rather say of this brute beast. For thus he spoke, Marcus Brutus, whom I named to do him honor, holding aloft his bloody dagger called upon Cicero, from which it must be understood that he was privy to the action. Am I then called wicked by you because you suspect that I suspected something? And is he who openly displayed his reeking dagger named by you that you may do him honor? Be it so, let this stupidity exist in your language, however much greater it is in your actions and opinions. Arrange matters in this way at last, O console, pronounce the calls of the Brutti, of Gaius Cassius, of Neostomitius, of Gaius Trebonius, and the rest to be whatever you pleased to call it. Sleep off that intoxication of yours. Sleep it off and take breath. Must one apply a torch to you to awaken you while you are sleeping over such an important affair? Will you never understand that you have to decide whether those men who perform that action are homicides or asserters of freedom? For just consider a little, and for a moment think of the business like a sober man. I, who, as I myself confess, am an intimate friend of those men and, as you accuse me, an accomplice of theirs, deny that there is any medium between these alternatives. I confess that they, if they are not the deliverers of the Roman people and saviors of the Republic, are worse than assassins, worse than homicides, worse even than parasites, since it is a more atrocious thing to murder the father of one's country than one's own father. You wise and considerate man, what do you say to this? If they are parasites, why are they always named by you both in this assembly and before the Roman people with such a view to do them honor? Why has Marcus Brutus been, on your motion, excused from obedience to the laws and allowed to be absent? Why were the games of Apollo celebrated with incredible honor to Marcus Brutus? Why were provinces given to Brutus and Cassius? Why were quaisters assigned to them? Why was the number of their lieutenants augmented? And all these measures are owing to you. They are not homicides, then. It follows that, in your opinion, they are the deliverers of their country, since there can be no other alternative. What is the matter? Am I embarrassing you? For perhaps you do not quite understand propositions which are stated disjunctively. Still, this is the sum total of my conclusion that since they are acquitted by you of wickedness, they are at the same time pronounced most worthy of the most honorable rewards. Therefore, I will now proceed again with my oration. I will write to them if anyone by chance should ask me whether what you have imputed to me be true, not to deny it to anyone. In truth, I am afraid that it must be considered either a not very credible thing to them that they should have concealed the fact of my being an accomplice or else a most discreditable thing to me that I was invited to be one and that I shirked it. For what greater exploit I call you to witness, O Auguste Jupiter, was ever achieved not only in this city, but in all the earth. What more glorious action was ever done, what deed was ever more deservedly recommended to the everlasting recollection of men. Do you, then, shut me up with the other leaders in the partnership in this design, as in the Trojan horse? I have no objection. I even thank you for doing so, with whatever intent you do it. For the deed is so great a one that I cannot compare the unpopularity with which you wish to excite against me on account of it, with its real glory. For who can be happier than those men whom you boast of now having expelled and driven from the city? What place is there either so deserted or so uncivilized as not to seem to greet and to covet the presence of those men wherever they have arrived? What men are so clownished is not when they have once beheld them to think that they have reaped the greatest enjoyment that life can give them. And what posterity will ever be so forgetful? What literature will ever be found so ungrateful as to not cherish their glory with undying recollection? Enroll me, then, I beg, in the number of those men. But one thing I am afraid you may not approve of, for if I had really been one of their number, I should not have only gotten rid of the king, but of the kingly power also out of the Republic. And if I had been the author of the piece, as it is said, believe me, I should not have been contented with one act, but should have finished the whole play. Although, if it be a crime to have wished that Caesar might be put to death, be where I pray you, O Antonius, of what must be your own case, as it is notorious that you, when at Narbo, formed a plan of the same sort with Gaius Trebonius, and it was on account of your participation in that design, when Caesar was being killed, we saw you called aside by Trebonius. But I, see how far I am from any horrible inclination towards, praise you for having once in your life had a righteous intention. I return you thanks for not having revealed the matter, and I excuse you for not having accomplished your purpose. That exploit required a man. And if anyone should institute a prosecution against you, and employ that test of old Cassius, who reaped any advantage from it? Take care, I advise you, lest you suit that description. Although in truth that action was, as you used to say, an advantage to everyone who was not willing to be a slave. Still, it was so to you above all men, who are not merely not a slave, but are actually a king, who delivered yourself from an enormous burden of debt at the temple of Ops. Who, by your dealings with the account books, there squandered a countless sum of money? Who have had such vast treasures brought to you from Caesar's house? At whose house there is set up a most lucrative manufacturing of false memoranda and autographs, and the most iniquitous market of lands, of towns, and exemptions, and revenues? In truth, what measure, except the death of Caesar, could possibly have been any relief to your indigit and insolvent condition? You appear to be somewhat agitated. Have you any secret fear that you yourself may appear to have had some connection with that crime? I will release you from all apprehension. No one will ever believe it. It is not like you to deserve well of the Republic. Most illustrious men in the Republic are the authors of that exploit. I only say that you are glad it was done. I do not accuse you of having done it. I have replied to your heaviest accusation. I must now also reply to the rest of them. You have thrown in my teeth the camp of Pompeius and all my conduct at that time, at which time indeed, if, as I have said before, my councils and authority had prevailed, you would this day be in indigence. We should be free, and the Republic would not have lost so many generals and so many armies. For I confess that, when I saw that these things certainly would happen, which now have happened, I was greatly grieved as all the other virtual citizens would have been if they had foreseen the same things. I did grieve. I did grieve, O conscript fathers, that the Republic, which had once been saved by your councils and mine, was fated to perish in a short time. Nor was I so inexperienced in, and ignorant of this nature of things, as to be disheartened on account of a fondness of life, which, while it endured, would wear me out with anguish, and when brought to an end, would release me from all trouble. But I was desirous that those most illustrious men, the lights of the Republic, should live. So many men of consular rank, so many men of praetorian rank, so many most honorable senators, and besides them all the flower of our nobility, and our youth, and the armies of excellent citizens. If they were still alive, even under such hard conditions of peace, for any sort of peace with our fellow citizens appeared to me more desirable than civil war, we should still be this day enjoying the Republic. And if my opinion had prevailed, and if those men, the preservation of whose lives was my main object, elated with the hope of victory, had not been my chief opposers, to say nothing of the other results at all events, would you not have continued in this order, or rather in this city? But say you, my speech alienated from me the regard of Pompeus, was there anyone to whom he was more attached? Anyone with whom he conversed, or shared his counsels more frequently? It was indeed a great thing that we, differing as we did respecting the general's interest in the Republic, should continue in uninterrupted friendship. But I saw clearly that what his opinions and views were, and he saw mine equally. I was for providing for the safety of the citizens in the first place, in order that we might be able to consult their dignity afterwards. He thought more of consulting their existing dignity. But each of us had a definite object to pursue. Our disagreement was the more durable. But what that extraordinary and almost God-like man thought of me is known to those men who pursued him to Paphos from the battle of Farsalia. No mention of me was ever made by him that was not the most honorable that could be, that was not full of the most friendly regret for me, while he confessed that I had the most foresight, but that he had the more sanguine hopes. But do you dare taunt me with the name of that man whose friend you admit that I was, and whose assassin you confess yourself? However, let us say nothing more of that war, in which you were too fortunate. I will not reply even with those jests to which you have said that I gave utterance in the camp. That camp was in truth full of anxiety, but although men were in great difficulties, still provided they are men, they sometimes relaxed their minds. But the fact that the same man finds fault with my melancholy and also with my jokes is a great proof that I was very moderate in each particular. You have said that no inheritance has come to me. Would that this accusation of yours was a true one? I should have had even more of my friends and connections alive. But how could such a charge ever come to your head? For I have received more than 20 millions of cisterces and inheritances, although in this particular I admit that you have been more fortunate than I. No one has ever made me his heir, except he was a friend of mine, in order that my grief of mine for his loss might be accompanied also with some gain. If it was to be considered as such. But a man whom you never even saw, Lucius Ruberius of Cassium made you his heir, and see now how much he loved you, who, though he did not know whether you were white or black, passed over a son of his brother, Quintus Fufius, a most honorable Roman knight and most attached to him, whom he had on all occasions openly declared his heir. He never even names him in his will and makes you his heir whom he had never seen or at all events have never spoken to. I wish you would tell me, if it were not too much trouble, what sort of countenance Lucius Tricellius was of? What sort of height? From what municipal town he came? From what tribe he was a member? I know nothing, you will say, about him, except what farms he had. Therefore he, disinheriting his brother, made you his heir, and besides these instances, this man had seized on much other property a longing to men wholly unconnected with him to the exclusion of legitimate heirs as if he and self were the heir. Although the thing that struck me with the most astonishment of all was that you should venture to make mention of inheritances when you yourself had not received the inheritance of your own father. And was it in order to collect all these arguments, oh, you most senseless of men, that you spent so many days in practicing declamation in another man's villa? Although indeed, as your most intimate friends usually say, you are in the habit of declaiming not for the purpose of wetting your genius but of working off the effects of wine. And indeed, you employ a master to teach you jokes, a man appointed by your own vote and that of your boon companions, a rhetoricician whom you have allowed to say whatever he pleased against you, a thoroughly facetious gentleman, but there are plenty of materials for speaking against you and against your friends. But just see now what a difference there is between you and your grandfather. He used, with great deliberation, to bring forth arguments advantageous to the cause he was advocating. You pour forth in a hurry the sentiments which you have been taught by another. And what wages have you paid this rhetoricician? Listen, listen, O'Conscript Fathers, and learn the blows which are afflicted on the Republic. You have assigned, O'Antonius, 2,000 acres of land in the Leontine district to the Sextus Claudius, the rhetoricician, and those two exempt from every kind of tax for the rhetoricician and those for the sake of putting the Roman people to such a vast expense that you might learn to be a fool. Was this gift, too, O' you most audacious of men, found among Caesar's papers? But I will take another opportunity to speak about the Leontine and companion district where he has stolen lands from the Republic to pollute them with the most infamous owners. For now, since I have sufficiently replied to all his charges, I must say a little bit about our corrector and censor himself. And yet I will not say all that I could in order that if I have to often battle with him, I may always come to the contest with fresh arms. And the multitude of his vices and atrocities will easily enable me to do so. Shall we then examine your conduct from the time you were a boy? I think so. Let us begin at the beginning. Do you recollect that, while you were still clad in the Pritexta, you became a bankrupt? That was the fault of your father, you will say. I admit that. In truth, such a defense is full of filial affection. But is particularly suited to your own audacity that you sat among the 14 rows of knights, though by the Raskian law there was a place appointed for bankrupts, even if anyone had become so. But let us say no more of your profligacy and debauchery. There are things which it is not possible for me to mention with honor. But you are all the more free for that, in so much as you have not scrupled to be an actor in scenes which a modest enemy cannot bring himself to mention. Mark now, O conscript fathers, the rest of his life, which I will touch upon rapidly, for my inclination hastens to arrive at those things which he did in the time of the Civil War, amid the greatest miseries of the Republic, and at those things which he does every day. I beg of you, though they are still better known to you than they are to me, still to listen attentively, as you are doing to my relation to them. For in cases such as this, it is not the mere knowledge of such actions that ought to excite the mind, but the recollection of them also. Although we must at once go into the middle of them, lest otherwise we should be too long coming to the end. He was very intimate with Claudius at the time of his tribunship. He, who now enumerates the kindnesses which he did me, he was the firebrand to handle all conflagrations, and even in his house he attempted something. He himself well knows what I allude to. From thence he made a journey to Alexandria, in defiance of the authority of the Senate, and against the interests of the Republic, and in spite of religious obstacles, but he had gibinous for his leader, with whom whatever he did was sure to be right. What were the circumstances of his return from thence? What sort of return was it? He went from Egypt to the furthest extremity of Gaul before he returned home. And what was his home? For at that time every man had possession of his own house, and you had no house anywhere, O Antonius. House, do you say? What place was there in the whole world which you could set your foot on anything which belonged to you, except Mianum, which you farmed with your partners, as if it had been Sisipal? You came from Gaul to stand for the quistership. Dare to say that you went to your own father before you came to me? I had already received Caesar's letters, begging me to allow myself to accept of your excuses, and therefore I did not allow you to even mention thanks. After that I was retreated with respect by you, and you received attentions from me in your canvas for the quistership. And it was at that time indeed that you endeavored to slay Publius Clodius in the Forum with the approbation of the Roman people. And though you made the attempt of your own accord and not in my instigation, still you clearly alleged that you did not think, unless you slew him, that you could possibly make amends to me for all the injuries which you had done me. And this makes me wonder why should you say that Milo did that deed at my instigation when I never once exhorted you to it? Who of your own accord attempted to do the same service? Although, if you had persisted in it, I should have preferred allowing the action to be set down entirely to your own love of glory rather than my influence. You were elected quister. On this, immediately, without any resolution of the Senate authorizing such a step, without drawing lots, without procuring any law to be passed, you hastened to Caesar. For you thought the camp, the only refuge on earth for indigence and debt and profligacy for all men in short, who were in a state of utter ruin. Then when you had recruited your resources again by his largesse and your own robberies, if indeed a person can be said to recruit who only acquires something which he may immediately squander, you hastened, being again, a beggar to the tribunship. In order that, in that magistracy, you might, if possible, behave like your friend. Listen now, I beseech you, O conscript fathers, not to those things which he did indecently and profligately, to his own injury and to his own disgrace as a private individual, but to the actions which he did impiously and wickedly against us and our fortunes, that is to say against the whole republic, for it is from his wickedness that you will find that the beginning of all these evils has arisen. For when, in the consulship of Lucius Lentulus and Marcus Mycelus, you, on the 1st of January, being anxious to prop up the republic, which was tottering and almost falling and were willing to consult the interests of Gaius Caesar himself, if he would have acted like a man in his senses, then this fellow opposed to your counsel's his tribunship, which he had sold and handed over to the purchaser and to expose his own neck to that ax under which many have suffered for smaller crimes. It was against you, O Marcus Antonius, that the senate, while still in possession of its rights before so many of its luminaries were extinguished, passed that decree which, in accordance with the usage of our ancestors, is at times passed against an enemy who was a citizen. And have you dared, before these conscript fathers, to say anything against me, when I have been pronounced by this order to be the savior of my country and when you have been declared by it to be an enemy of the republic? The mention of that wickedness of yours has been interrupted, but the recollection of it has not been effaced. As long as the race of men, as long as the name of the Roman people shall exist, and that, unless it is prevented from being so by your means will be everlasting, so long will that most mischievous interposition of your veto be spoken of. What was there that was being done by the senate, either ambitiously or rashly, when you, one single young man, forbade the whole order to pass decrees concerning the safety of the republic? And when you did so not once only, but repeatedly? Nor would you allow anyone to plead with you on behalf of the authority of the senate, and yet, what did anyone entreat of you, except that you would not desire the republic to be entirely overthrown and destroyed, when neither the chief men of the state, by their entreaties, nor the elders by their warnings, nor the senate in a full house by pleading with you, could move you from the determination which you had already sold, and as it were, delivered to the purchaser. Then it was, after having tried many other expediences previously, that a blow was of necessity struck at you, which had been struck at only a few men before you, in which none of them had ever survived. Then it was that this order armed the councils, and the rest of the magistrates, who were invested with either military or civil command against you, and you would never have escaped them if you had not taken refuge in the camp of Caesar. And wasn't you, I say, O Marcus Antonius, who gave Gaius Caesar, desirous as he already was to throw everything into confusion, the principal pretext for waging war against his country? For what other pretense did he allege? What cause did he give for his most frantic resolution and action, except that the power of interposition by the veto has been disregarded, the privileges of the tribunes taken away, and Antonius's rights abridged by the Senate? I say nothing of how false, how trivial these pretenses were, especially when they could not possibly by any reasonable cause whatever to justify anyone in taking up arms against his country. But I have nothing to do with Caesar. You must unquestionably allow that the cause of that ruinous war existed in your person. Oh miserable man, if you are aware, more miserable still if you are not aware that this is recorded in writings is handed down to men's recollection that our very latest posterity in the most distant ages will never forget this fact that the consuls were expelled from Italy and with them Nias Pompeis, who was the glory and light of the empire of the Roman people, that all the men of consular rank whose health would allow them to share in that disaster and that of the people and a great part of the Senate and all the flour of the youth of the city and in a word the Republic itself was driven out and expelled from its abode. And as then, there is in seeds the cause which produces trees and plants, so of this most lamentable war, you were the seed. Do you, O conscript fathers grieve that these armies of the Roman people have been slain? It is Antonius who slew them. Do you regret your most illustrious citizens? It is Antonius again who has deprived you of them. The authority of this order is overthrown. It is Antonius who has overthrown it. Everything in short which we have seen since that time and what misfortune is there we have not seen, we shall, if we argue rightly, attribute wholly to Antonius. As Helen was to the Trojans, so has this man been to the Republic, the cause of war, the cause of mischief, the cause of ruin. The rest of his tribunship was like the beginning. He did everything which the Senate had labored to prevent, as being impossible to be done consistently with the safety of the Republic. And see now how gratuitously wicked he is even in accomplishing his wickedness. He restored many men who had fallen under misfortune. Among them, no mention was made of his uncle. If he was severe, why was he not so to everyone? If he was merciful, why was he not merciful to his own relations? But I say nothing of the rest. He restored Lechinius lenticula, a man who had been condemned for gambling and who was a fellow game-ster of his own, as if he could not play with a condemned man. But in reality, in order to pay by a straining of the law in his favor, what he had lost by the dice. What reason do you allege to the Roman people why it was desirable that he should be restored? I suppose you said that he was absent when the prosecution was instituted against him, that the cause was deciding without having been heard in his defense, that there was not by a law any judicial proceeding established in reference to gambling, that he had been put down by violence or by arms or, lastly, as it was said in the case of your uncle, that the tribunal had been bribed with money. Nothing of this sort was said. Then he was a good man and one worthy of the Republic. That, indeed, would have been nothing to the purpose. But still, since being condemned does not go for much, I would forgive you if that were the truth. Does he not restore to the full possession of his former privileges the most worthless man possible? One who would not hesitate to play at dice even in the forum and who had been convicted under the law which exists, respecting gambling, does not he declare in the most open matter his own propensities? Then, in the same tribunship, when Caesar, while on his way to Spain, had given him in Italy to trample on, what journeys did he make in every direction? How did he visit the municipal towns? I know that I am only speaking of matters which have been discussed in everyone's conversation and that the things that I am saying and am going to say are better known to everyone who was in Italy at that time than to me who was not. Still, I mentioned the particulars of his conduct, although my speech cannot possibly come up to your own personal knowledge. When was such wickedness ever heard of as existing upon earth or such shamelessness or such open infamy? The tribune of the people was born along in a chariot, lictors crowned with laurel preceded him, among whom, on an open litter, was carried an actress, whom honorable men, citizens of the different municipalities, coming out from their towns under compulsion to meet him, saluted not by the name by which she was well known on the stage, but of that of Volumnia. A car followed full of pimps, then a lot of debauched companions, and then his mother, utterly neglected, followed the mistress of her profligate son as if she had been her daughter-in-law. Oh, the disastrous fecundity of that miserable woman, with the marks of such wickedness as this, did that fellow stamp every municipality, and prefecture, and colony, and, in short, the whole of Italy. To find fault with the rest of his actions, O Conscript Fathers, is difficult and somewhat unsafe. He was occupied in war. He glutted himself with the slaughter of citizens who bore no resemblance to himself. He was fortunate if at least there can be any good fortune in wickedness. But since we wish to show a regard for the veterans, although the cause of the soldiers is very different from yours, they followed their chief. You went to seek for a leader. Still, may I not give you any pretense for stirring up odium against me among them. I will say nothing of the nature of the war. End of the second, Philippic, part one.