 Section 5 of the Fourteen 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 Fifth Philippic The argument. The new consuls, Herschis and Panza, were much attached to Cicero, had consulted him a great deal and professed great respect for his opinion. But they were also under great obligations to Julius Caesar and, consequently, connected to some extent with his party and with Antonius, on which account they wished, if possible, to employ moderate measures only against him. As soon as they entered on their office, they convoked the Senate to meet for the purpose of deliberating on the general welfare of the Republic. They both spoke themselves with great firmness, promising to be leaders in defending the liberties of Rome, and exhorting the Senate to act with courage. And then they called on Quintus Fufius Calenus, who had been consul, AUC 707, and who was Panza's father-in-law, to deliver his opinion first. He was known to be a firm friend of Antonius. Cicero wished to declare Antonius a public enemy at once. But Calenus proposed that before they proceeded to acts of open hostility against him, they should send an embassy to him to admonish him to desist from his attempts upon Gaul and to submit to the authority of the Senate. Piso and others supported this motion, on the ground that it was cruel and unjust to condemn a man without giving him a fair chance of submitting and without hearing what he had to say. It was in opposition to Calenus' motion that Cicero made the following speech. Substituting for his proposition, one to declare Antonius an enemy, and to offer pardon to those of his army who returned to duty by the 1st of February. To thank Decimus Brutus for his conduct in Gaul, and to decree a statue to Marcus Lepidus for his services to the Republic and his loyalty. To thank Gaius Caesar, Octavius, and to grant him a special commission as general, to make him a senator and proprator, and to enable him to stand for any subsequent magistracy, as if he had been quaester. To thank Lucius Ignatuleius, and to vote thanks and promise rewards to the Marshal and the 4th Legion. Nothing, Oconscript Fathers, has ever seemed to me longer than these Calens of January, and I think that for the last few days you have all been feeling the same thing. For those who are waging war against the Republic have not waited for this day, but we, while it would have been most especially proper for us to come to the aid of the general safety with our consul, were not summoned to the Senate. However, the speech just addressed to us by the consuls has removed our complaints as to what has passed, for they have spoken in such a manner that the Calens of January seem to have been long wished for, rather than really to have arrived late. And while the speeches of the consuls have encouraged my mind and have given me a hope, not only of preserving our safety, but even of recovering our former dignity. On the other hand, the opinion of the man who has been asked for his opinion first would have disturbed me if I had not confidence in your virtue and firmness. For this day, Oconscript Fathers, has dawned upon you, and this opportunity has been afforded you of proving to the Roman people how much virtue, how much firmness, how much dignity exist in the councils of this order. Recollect what a day it was 13 years ago, how great was then your unanimity and virtue and firmness, and what great praise, what great glory, and what great gratitude you gained from the Roman people. On that day, Oconscript Fathers, you resolved that no other alternative was in your power, except either an honorable peace or a necessary war. Is Marcus Antonius desirous of peace? Let him lay down his arms, let him implore our pardon, let him deprecate our vengeance. He will find no one more reasonable than me, though, while seeking to recommend himself to impious citizens, he has chosen to be an enemy instead of a friend to me. There is in truth nothing which can be given to him while waging war. There will perhaps be something which may be granted to him if he comes before us as a suplean. But to send ambassadors to a man respecting whom you have passed a most dignified and severe decision only 13 days ago is not an act of lenity, but if I am to speak my real opinion of downright madness. In the first place you praise those generals who, of their own head, had undertaken war against him. In the next place you praise the veterans who, though they had been settled in those colonies by Antonius, preferred the liberty of the Roman people to the obligations which they were under to him. Is it not so? Why was the martial legion? Why was the fourth legion praised? For if they have deserted the consul, they ought to be blamed. If they have abandoned the enemy to the republic, then they are deservedly praised. But as at that time you had not yet got any consuls, you passed the decree that a motion concerning the rewards for the soldiers and the honors to be conferred on the generals should be submitted to you at the earliest opportunity. Are you then going now to arrange rewards for those men who have taken up arms against Antonius and to send ambassadors to Antonius so as to deserve to be ashamed that the legions should have come to a more honorable resolution than the senate, if indeed the legions have resolved to defend the senate against Antonius. But the senate decrees to send ambassadors to Antonius. Is this encouraging the spirit of the soldiers or damping their virtue? This is what we have gained in the last twelve days. That the man whom no single person except Catala was found to defend has now advocates even of consular rank. Would that they had all been asked their opinion before me, although I have my suspicions as to what some of those men who will be asked after me are intending to say, I should find it easier to speak against them if any argument appeared to have been advanced. For there is an opinion in some quarters that someone intends to propose to decree to Antonius that further gall, which Plankus is at present in possession of. What else is that but supplying an enemy with all the arms necessary for civil war? First of all, with the sinews of war, money in abundance, of which he is at present destitute, and secondly with as much cavalry as he pleases. Cavalry, do I say, he is a likely man to hesitate, I suppose, to bring with him to barbarian nations, a man who does not see this as senseless. He who does see it and still advocates such a measure is in pious. Will you furnish a wicked and desperate citizen with an army of galls and Germans with money and infantry and cavalry and all sorts of resources? All these excuses are no excuse at all. He is a friend of mine. Let him first be a friend of his country. He is a relation of mine. Can any relationship be nearer than that of one's country in which even one's parents are comprised? He has given me money. I should like to see the man who will dare to say that, but when I have explained what is the real object aimed at, it will be easy for you to decide which opinion you ought to agree with and adopt. The matter at issue is whether power is to be given to Marcus Antonius of oppressing the Republic, of massacring the virtuous citizens, of plundering the city, of distributing the lands among his robbers, of overwhelming the Roman people in slavery, or whether he is not to be allowed to do all this. Do you doubt what you are to do? Oh, but all this does not apply to Antonius. Even Cotyla would not venture to say that. For what does not apply to him? A man who, while he says that he is defending the acts of another, perverts all those laws of his which we might properly praise. Caesar wished to drain the marshes. This man is given all Italy to that moderate man Lucius Antonius to distribute. What? Has the Roman people adopted this law? What? Could it be passed with proper regard for the auspices? But this conscientious auger acts in references to the auspices without his colleagues. Although those auspices do not require any interpretation. For who is there who is ignorant that it is impious to submit any motion to the people while it is thundering? The tribunes of the people carried laws respecting the provinces in opposition to the acts of Caesar. Caesar had extended the provisions of his law over two years. Antonius over six years. Has then the Roman people adopted this law? What? Was it ever regularly promulgated? What? Was it not passed before it was even drawn up? Did we not see the deed done before we even suspected that it was going to be done? Where is the Caecilian and the Deedian law? What is become of the law that such bills should be published on three market days? What is become of the penalty appointed to the recent Junion and Lachinian law? Can these laws be ratified without the destruction of all other laws? Has anyone had a right of entering the forum? Moreover, what thunder and what a storm that was? So that even if the consideration of the auspices had no weight with Marcus Antonius it would seem strange that he would endure and bear such exceeding violence of tempest and rain and rural wind. When therefore he, as augur, says that he carried a law while Jupiter was not only thundering but almost uttering an express prohibition of it by his clamor from heaven, will he hesitate to confess that it was carried in violation to the auspices? What? Does the virtuous augur think that it has nothing to do with the auspices, that he carried the law with the aid of that colleague whose election he himself vindicated by giving notice of the auspices? But perhaps we, who are his colleagues, may be the interpreters of the auspices. Do we also want interpreters of arms? In the first place, all the approaches to the forum were so fenced round that even if no armed men were standing in the way, still it would have been impossible to enter the forum except by tearing down the barricades. But the guards were arranged in such a manner that, as the excess of an enemy to a city is prevented, so you might in this instance see the burgesses and the tribunes of the people cut off by forts and works from all entrance to the forum. On which account I give my vote that those laws which Marcus Antonius is said to have carried were all carried by violence and in violation of the auspices and the people is not bound by them. If Marcus Antonius is said to have carried any law about confirming the acts of Caesar and abolishing the dictatorship forever and of leading colonies into any lands, then I vote that those laws be passed over again with the due regard to the auspices so that they might bind the people. For although they may be good measures which he passed irregularly and by violence, still they are not to be accounted laws, and the whole audacity of this frantic gladiator must be repudiated by our authority. But that squandering of the public money cannot possibly be endured by which he got rid of 700 millions of Cisterci's by forged entries and deeds of gifts so that it seems an absolute miracle that so vast to some of money belonging to the Roman people can have disappeared in so short of time. What? Are those enormous profits to be endured which the household of Marcus Antonius has swallowed up? He was continually selling forged decrees, ordering the names of kingdoms and states and grants of exemptions to be engraved on brass, having received bribes for such orders, and his statement always was that he was doing these things in obedience to the memoranda of Caesar, of which he himself was the author. In the interior of his house there was going on a brisk market of the whole republic. His wife, more fortunate for herself than for her husband, was holding an auction of kingdoms and provinces. Exiles were restored without any law, as if by law, and unless these acts are rescinded by the authority of the senate, now that we have again arrived at a hope of recovering the republic, there will be no likeness of a free city left to us. Nor is it only by the sale of forged memoranda and autographs that a countless sum of money was collected together in that house, while Antonius, whatever he sold, said that he was acting in obedience to the papers of Caesar. But he even took bribes to make false entries of the resolutions of the senate to seal forged contracts, and resolutions of the senate that had never been passed were entered on the records of that treasury. Of all this baseness even foreign nations were witness. In the meantime treaties were made, kingdoms given away, nations and provinces released from the burdens of the state, and false memorials of all those transactions were fixed up all over the capital, amid the groans of the Roman people. And by all these proceedings so vast a sum of money was collected in one house that if we were all made available the Roman people would never want money again. Moreover he passed the law to regulate judicial proceedings, this chaste and upright man, this upholder of the tribunals and the law. And in this he deceived us. He used to say that he appointed men from the front ranks of the army, common soldiers, men of the Alauda, as judges. But he has in reality selected gamesters, he has selected exiles, he has selected Greeks. Oh, the fine bench of judges, oh the admirable dignity of that council. I do long to plead in behalf of some defendant before that tribunal. Citta of Crete, a prodigy even in that island, the most audacious and abandoned of men. But even suppose he were not so. Does he understand Latin? Is he qualified by birth and station to be a judge? Does he, which is most important, does he know anything about our laws and manners? Is he even acquainted with any of the citizens? Why Crete is better known to you than Rome is to Citta. In fact, the selection and appointment of the judges has usually been confined to our own citizens. But who ever knew or could possibly ever have known this Gortinian judge? For Lissiades, the Athenian, we most of us do know, for he is the son of Phidrus, an eminent philosopher. And besides, he is a witty man, so he will be able to get on very well with Marcus Curius, who will be one of his colleagues, and with whom he is in the habit of playing. I ask, if Lissiades, when summoned as a judge, should not answer to his name, and should have an excuse alleged for him that he is an Ariopagite, that he is not bound to act as a judge at both Rome and Athens at the same time, will the man who presides over the investigation admit the excuse of this Greekling judge at one time a Greek and another a Roman, or will he disregard the most ancient laws of the Athenians? Oh, what a bench will it be, oh ye good gods, a Cretian judge, and he the most worthless a man, whom can the defendant employ to propitiate him? How is he to get at him? He comes of a hard nation. But the Athenians are merciful. I daresay that Curius, too, is not cruel in so much as he is a man who is himself at the mercy of fortune every day. There are besides other chosen judges who will perhaps be excused, for they have a legitimate excuse. That they have left their country in banishment, and that they have not been restored since. And would that madman have chosen these men as judges, would he have entered their names as such in the treasury, would he have trusted a great portion of the Republic to them, if he intended to leave the least semblance of a Republic? And I have been speaking of those judges who are known, those whom you are less acquainted with, I have been unwilling to name. Know, then, that dancers, harp players, the whole troop, in fact, of Antonius's revelers, have all been pitchforked into the third decree of judges. Now you see the object of passing so splendid and admirable a law, admit excessive rain, storm, wind, tempest, and whirlwind, admit thunder and lightning. It was that we might have those men for our judges, whom no one would like to have for guests. It is the enormity of his wickedness, the consciousness of his crimes, the plunder of that money of which the account was kept in the Temple of Ops, which have been the real adventures of this third decree. And the infamous judges were not sought for, till all hope of safety for the guilty was disparate of, if they came before respectable ones. But what must have been the impudence, what must have been the iniquity of a man who dared to select those men as judges, by the selection of whom a double disgrace was stamped on the Republic? One, because the judges were so infamous. The other, because by this step it was revealed and published to the world how many infamous citizens we had in the Republic. These then and all other similar laws I should vote ought to be annulled, even if they were passed without violence and with all proper respect for the auspices. But now why need I vote that they ought to be annulled when I do not consider that they were ever legally passed? Is this not too to be marked with the deepest ignominy and with the severest Emmy inversion of this order? So as to be recollected by all posterity that Marcus Antonius, the first man who has ever done so since the foundation of the city, has openly taken armed men about with him in the city, a thing which the kings never did, nor those men who, since the kings have been banished, have endeavored to seize on kingly power. I can recollect Sina, I have seen Silla, and lately Caesar. For these three men were the only ones since the city was delivered by Lucius Brutus, who have had more power than the entire Republic. I cannot assert that no man in their train had weapons. This I do say that they had not many and that they had concealed them. But this pest was attended by an army of armed men. Clasitius, Mustela, and Tiro, openly displaying their swords, led troops of fellows like themselves through the forum. Barbarian archers occupied their regular place in the army, and when they arrived at the temple of Concord, the steps were crowded, the litters full of shields were arranged. Not because he wished the shields to be concealed, but that his friends might not be fatigued by carrying the shields themselves. And what was the most infamous not only to see, but even to hear of? Armed men, robbers, assassins were stationed in the temple of Concord. And the temple was turned into a prison. The doors of the temple were closed, and the conscript fathers delivered their opinions while robbers were standing among the benches of the senators. And, if I did not come to a senate house in this state, he on the 1st of September said that he would send carpenters and pull down my house. It was an important affair, I suppose, that was to be discussed. He made some motion about a supplication. I attended the day after. He himself did not come. I delivered my opinion about the Republic, not indeed with quite so much freedom as usual, but still with more than the threat of personal danger to myself made perhaps advisable. But that violent and furious man, Felucius Pizzo had done the same thing with great credit thirty days before, threatened me with his enmity, and ordered me to attend the senate on the 19th of September. In the meantime, he spent the whole of the intervening seven days in the villa of Scipio, at Tibor, declaiming against me to make himself thirsty. For this was his usual object in declaiming. When the day arrived on which he ordered me to attend, then he came with a regular army in battle array to the temple of Concord and out of his impure mouth vomited forth an oration against me in absence. On which day, if my friends had not prevented me from attending the senate as I was anxious to do, he would have began a massacre by the slaughter of me. For this is what he had resolved to do, and when once he had died his sword in blood, nothing would have made him leave off but pure fatigue and satiety. In truth, his brother Lucius Antonius was present, an Asiatic gladiator who has fought as a mormillo at my Lhasa. He was thirsting for my blood and had shed much of his own in that gladiatorial combat. He was now valuing our property and his mind, taking notice of our possessions in the city and in the country. His indigence, united with his covetousness, was threatening all our fortunes. He was distributing our lands to whosoever and in whatever shares he pleased. No private individual could get access to him, or find any means to propitiate him, and induce him to act with justice. Every former proprietor had just so much property as Antonius left him after the division of his estate. And although all these proceedings cannot be ratified, if you annull his laws, still I think that they all ought to be separately taken note of, article by article, and that we ought formally to decide that the appointment of September's was null and void, and that nothing is ratified, which is said to have been done by them. But who is there who can consider Marcus Antonius a citizen, rather than a most foul and barbarous enemy, who, while sitting in front of the Temple of Castor, in the hearing of the Roman people, said that no one should survive except those who were victorious? Do you suppose Oconscript Fathers that he spoke with more violence than he should act? And what are we to think of his having ventured to say that, after he had given up his magistracy, that he should still be at the city with his army, that he should enter the city as often as he pleased? What else was thus but threatening the Roman people with slavery? And what was the object of his journey to Brundizium, and of that great haste? What was his hope except to lead that vast army to the city, or rather into the city? What a proceeding was that selection of the Centurions, what unbridled fury of an intemperate mind, for when those gallant legions had raised an outcry against his promises? He ordered those Centurions who came to him to his house, whom he perceived to be loyally attached to the Republic. And then he had them all murdered before his own eyes, and those of his wife, whom this noble commander had taken with him to his army. What disposition do you suppose that this man will display towards us whom he hates, when he was so cruel to those men whom he had never seen? And how covetous will he be with respect to the money of rich men, when he has thirsted even for the blood of poor men? Whose property, such as it was, he immediately divided among his satellites and boon companions. And he in a fury was now moving his hostile standards against his country from Brundizium, when Gaius Caesar, by the kind inspiration of the immortal gods, by the greatness of his own heavenly courage and wisdom and genius, of his own accord indeed, and prompted by his own admirable virtue, but still with the approbation of my authority, went down to the colonies which had been founded by his father, convoked the veteran soldiery, and in a few days raised an army and checked the furious advance of this bandit. But after the Martial Legion saw this admirable leader, it had no other thoughts but those of securing our liberty, and the Fourth Legion followed its example. And Antonius, on hearing of this news, after he had summoned the Senate and was provided a man of councilor rank to declare his opinion that Gaius Caesar was an enemy of his country, immediately fainted away. And afterwards, without either performing the usual sacrifices or offering the customary vows, he, I will not say went forth, but took to flight in his robe as a general. But which way did he flee? To the province of our most resolute and bravest citizens, men who could never have endured him if he had not come bringing war in his train, an intemperate, passionate, insolent, proud man, always making demands, always plundering, always drunk. But he, whose worthlessness, even when quiet was more than anyone could endure, has declared war upon the province of Gaul. He is besieging Mutena, a valiant and splendid colony of the Roman people. He is blockading Decimus Brutus, the general, the consul-elect, a citizen born not for himself, but for us in the Republic. Was then Hannibal an enemy, and his Antonius a citizen? What did the one do like an enemy that the other has not done or is not doing or planning and thinking of? What was there in the whole of the journey of the Antonii, except depopulation, devastation, slaughter, and rapine? Actions which Hannibal never did because he was reserving many things for his own use. He also, as men who live merely for the present hour, they have never given a thought, not only to the fortunes and welfare of the citizens, but not even to their own advantage. Are we then, O ye good gods, to resolve to send ambassadors to this man? Are those men who proposed this acquainted with the Constitution of the Republic, with the laws of war, with the precedents of our ancestors? Do they give a thought to which the majesty of the Roman people and the severity of the Senate requires? Do you resolve to send ambassadors? If to beg his mercy he will despise you, if to declare your commands he will not listen to you, and last of all however severe the message may be which we give the ambassadors, the very name of ambassadors will distinguish this order of the Roman people, which we see at present, and break the spirit of the municipal towns and of Italy. To say nothing of these arguments, though they are weighty, at all events that sending of an embassy will cause delay and slowness to the war. Although those who propose it should say, as I hear that some intend to say, let the ambassadors go, but let war be prepared for all the same. Still, the very name of ambassadors will damp men's courage and delay the rapidity of the war. The most important events, O conscript fathers, are often determined by the most trivial, moving influences in every circumstance that can happen in the Republic, and also in war, and especially in civil war, which is usually governed a great deal by men's opinions and by reports. No one will ask what is the commission with which we have sent the ambassadors. The mere name of an embassy, and that sent bias of our own accord, will appear an indication of our fear. Let him depart from Wutana, let him cease to attack Brutus, let him retire from Gaul. He must not be begged in words to do so, he must be compelled by arms. For we are not sending to Hannibal to desire him to retire before Seguntum, to whom the senate formally sent Publius Valerius Flacus and Quintus Bibius Tempilius, who, if Hannibal did not comply, will order to proceed to Carthage. Whither do we order our ambassadors to proceed if Antonius does not comply? Are we sending an embassy to our own citizen to beg him to not to attack a general and colony of the Roman people? Is it so? Is it becoming to us to beg this by means of ambassadors? What is the difference in the name of the immortal gods, whether he attacks this city himself, or whether he attacks an outpost of this city, a colony of the Roman people established for the sake of its being a bulwark and a protection to us? The siege of Seguntum was the cause of the Second Punic War, which Hannibal carried on against our ancestors. It was quite right to send ambassadors to him. They were sent to a Carthaginian, they were sent on behalf of those who were the enemies of Hannibal and our allies. What is there resembling that case here? We are sending to one of our own citizens to beg him not to blackade a general of the Roman army, not to attack our army and our colony, in short not to be an enemy of ours. Come, suppose he obeys. Shall we either be inclined, or shall we be able, by any possibility, to treat him as one of our citizens? On the 19th of December, you overwhelmed him with your decrees. You ordained that this motion should be submitted to you on the 1st of January, which you see is submitted to you, respecting the honors and rewards to be conferred on those who have deserved, or do deserve well of the Republic. The chief of those men you have have judged to be the man who has really done so. Gaius Caesar, who had diverted the nefarious attacks of Marcus Antonius against the city, compelled him to direct them against Gaul. And next to him you consider the veteran soldiers who first followed Caesar, then those excellent and honored in rewards, for having not only abandoned their consul, but for having even declared war against him. On the same day having a decree brought before you and published on purpose, you praised the conduct of Decimus Brutus, a most excellent citizen, in sanction with your public authority this war which he had undertaken of his own head. What else then, did you do on that day except pronounce Antonius a public enemy? After these decrees of yours, will it be possible for you or for you to behold him without the most excessive indignation? He has been excluded and cut off and wholly separated from the Republic. Not merely by his own wickedness as it seems to me, but by some special good fortune of the Republic. And if he should comply with the demands of the ambassadors and return to Rome, do you suppose that abandoned citizens will ever be in need of a standard around which to rally? But this is not what I am so much afraid of. There are other things which I am more apprehensive and more alarmed at. He will never comply with the demands of the ambassadors. I know the man's insanity and arrogance. I know the desperate consuls of his friends to whom he is wholly given up. Lucius, his brother, is being a man who has fought abroad, leads on his household. Even suppose him to be in his senses himself which he never will be. Still he will not be allowed by these men to act as if he were so. In the meantime time will be wasted, the preparations for war will cool. How is it that the war has been protracted as long as this, if not by our procrastination and delay? From the very first moment after the departure, or rather after the hopeless flight of that bandit that the senate could have met in freedom, I have always been demanding that we should be called together. The first day we were called together, when the consuls-elect were not present, I laid, in my opinion, the greatest unanimity on your part, the foundations of the Republic. Later, indeed, then they should have been laid, for I could not have done so before. But still, if no time had been lost after that day, we should have no war at all now. Every evil is easily crushed at its birth, when it has become of long-standing it usually gets stronger. But then everyone was waiting for the first of January, perhaps not wisely. However, let us say no more of what has passed. Are we still to allow any further delay while the ambassadors are on the road to him and while they are coming back again and the time spent in waiting for them will make men doubt about the war? And while the fact of the war is in doubt how can men possibly be zealous about the levies for the army? Wherefore, O conscript fathers, I give my vote that there should be no mention made of ambassadors. I think that the business that is to be done must be done without delay and instantly. I say that it is unnecessary that we should decree that there is sedition abroad and that we should suspend the regular courts of justice, order all men to wear the garb of war, and enlist men in all quarters, suspending all exemptions for military service in the city and in Italy, except in Gaul. And if this be done, the general opinion and report of your severity will overwhelm the insanity of that wicked gladiator. He will feel that he has undertaken a war against the Republic. He will experience the sinews and vigor of an unanimous senate. For at present, he is constantly saying that it is a mere struggle between parties. Between what parties? One party is defeated, the other is the heart of Gaius Caesar's party. Unless indeed we believe that the party of Caesar is attacked by Herschus and Ponsa, the consuls, and by Gaius Caesar's son. But this war has been kindled, not by a struggle between parties, but by the nefarious hopes of the most abandoned citizens, by whom all our estates and properties have been marked down and already distributed according as everyone has thought them desirable. I have read the letter of Antonius which he sent to one of the Semptevery, a thorough-paced scoundrel, a colleague of his own. Quote, look out and see what you have a fancy to, what you do fancy you shall certainly have. See to what a man we are sending ambassadors, against what a man we are delaying to make a war, a man who does not even let us draw lots for our fortunes, but hands us over to each man's caprice in such a way that he has not left even himself anything untouched, or which has not been promised to somebody. With this man, O conscript fathers, we must wage war, war I say, and that instantly, we must reject the slow proceedings of ambassadors. Therefore, though we may not have ever decrees to pass every day, I give my vote that the whole republic should be committed to the consuls, and that they should have a charge given them to defend the republic, and to take care that the republics suffer no injury. And I give my vote that those men who are in the army of Antonius be not visited with blame if they leave him before the 1st of February. If you adopt these proposals of mine, O conscript fathers, you will in a short time recover the liberty of the Roman people and our authority. But if you act with more mildness, still you will pass those resolutions, but perhaps you will pass them too late. As to the general welfare of the republic, on which you, O consuls, have consulted us, I think that I proposed what is sufficient. The next question is about honors, and to this point I perceive that I must speak next, but I will preserve the same order in paying respect to brave men that is usually preserved in asking their opinions. Let us therefore, according to the usages of our ancestors, begin with Brutus, the consul-elect, to say nothing of his former conduct, which has indeed been most admirable, but still such as has been praised by the individual judgments of men rather than by public authority. What words can we find adequate to his praise at this very time? For such great virtue requires no reward except this one, of praise and glory. And even if it were not to receive that, still it would be content with itself and would rejoice at being laid up in the recollection of grateful citizens as if it were placed in the full light. The praise then of our deliberate opinion and of our testimony in his favor must be given to Brutus. Therefore, O conscript fathers, I give my vote that a resolution of the senate be passed in these words. As Decimus Brutus, Imperator, consul-elect, is maintaining the province of Gaul in obedience to the senate and people of Rome, and as he is enlisted and collected in so short of time a very numerous army being aided by the admirable zeal of the municipal towns and colonies of the province of Gaul, which has deserved and still does deserve admirably well of the Republic. He has acted rightly and virtuously and greatly to the advantage of the Republic. And that most excellent service done by Decimus Brutus to the Republic is, and always will be, grateful to the senate and people of Rome. Therefore the senate and the Roman people is of the opinion that the exertions and prudence and virtue of Decimus Brutus, Imperator and consul-elect, and the incredible zeal and unanimity of the province of Gaul, have been a great assistance to the Republic at a most critical time. What honor, O conscript fathers, can be too great to be due to such a mighty service as this of Brutus and to such important aid as he has afforded the Republic, for if Gaul had been opened to the people of Gronius, if, after having overwhelmed the municipal towns and colonies unprepared to resist him, he had been able to penetrate into that further Gaul, what great danger would have hung over the Republic. The most insane of men, that man, so headlong and furious in all courses, would have been likely, I suppose, to hesitate a waging war against us, not only with his own army, but with all the savage troops of barbarism, so that even the wall of the Alps could not have enabled us his fury. These thanks, then, will be deservedly paid to Decimus Brutus, who, before any authority of yours had been interposed, acting on his own judgment and responsibility, refused to receive him as consul, but repelled him from Gaul as an enemy, and preferred to be besieged himself rather than to allow this city to be so. Let him therefore have, by your decree, an everlasting testimony to this most important and glorious action, and let Gaul, which always is and has been a protection to this empire and to the general liberty, be deservedly and truly praised for not having surrendered herself and her power to Antonius, but for having opposed him and them. And, furthermore, I give my vote that the most ample honors be decreed to Marcus Lepidus as a reward for his eminent services to the Republic. He has, at all times, wished the Roman people to be free, and he gave the greatest proof of his inclination on that day, when, while Antonius was placing the diadem on Caesar's head, he turned his face away and by his groans and sorrow showed plainly what a hatred of slavery he had, how desirous he was for the Roman people to be free and how he had endured those things which he had endured more because of the necessity of the times than because they harmonized with his sentiments. And who of us can forget with what great moderation he behaved during that crisis of the city which ensued after the death of Caesar? These are great merits, but I hasten to speak of greater still. For, oh ye immortal gods, what could happen more to be admired by foreign nations or more to be desired by the Roman people than at a time when there was a most important civil war, the result of which we were all dreading, that it should be extinguished by prudence rather than that arms and violence should be able to put everything to the hazard of a battle. And if Caesar had been guided by the same principles in that odious and miserable war we should have, to say nothing of their father, two sons of Neus Pompeius, that most illustrious and virtuous man, safe among us, men whose piety and filial affection certainly ought not to have been their ruin. Would that Marcus Lepidus have been able to save them all? He showed that he would have done so by his conduct in cases where he had the power when he restored Sextus Pompeius to the state, a great ornament to the Republic and a most illustrious monument of his clemency. Sad was that picture. Melancholy was the destiny, then, of the Roman people. For, after Pompeius the father was dead, he, who was the light of the Roman people, the son, too, who was wholly like his father, was also slain. But all these calamities appeared to me to have been effaced by the kindness of the immortal gods, Sextus Pompeius being preserved to the Republic. For which cause, reasonable and important as it is, and because Marcus Lepidus, by his humanity and wisdom, has changed a most dangerous and extensive civil war into peace and concord, I give my vote that a resolution of the Senate being drawn up in these words. Since the affairs of the Republic have repeatedly been well and prosperously conducted by Marcus Lepidus and Perator and Pontifix Maximus, and since the Roman people are fully aware that kingly power is most displeasing to him, and since by his exertions and virtue and prudence and singular clemency and humanity a most bitter civil war has been extinguished, and Sextus Pompeius Magnus, the son of Neus, having submitted to the authority of this order and laid down his arms and, in accordance with the perfect good will of the Senate and people of Rome, has been restored to the state by Marcus Lepidus and Perator Pontifix Maximus. The Senate and people of Rome in return for the important and numerous services of Marcus Lepidus to the Republic declares that it places great hopes of future tranquility and peace and concord in his virtue, authority and good fortune, and the Senate and people of Rome will ever remember his services to the Republic, and it is decreed by the vote of this order that a guilt equestrian statue be erected to him in the rostra of his services. And this honor, O Conscript Fathers, appears to me a very great one in the first place because it is just, for it is not merely given on account of our hopes of the future, but it is paid, as it were, in requital of his ample services already done. Nor are we able to mention any instance of this honor having been conferred on anyone by the Senate, by their own free and voluntary judgment before. I come now to Gaius Caesar, if he had not existed, which of us could be alive now? That most intemperate of men, Antonius, was flying from grandizium to the city, burning with hatred with the disposition hostile to all good men with an army. What was there to oppose to his audacity and wickedness? We had not as yet any generals or any forces. There was no public council or liberty. Our necks were at the mercy of his nefarious cruelty. Although flight itself was no escape for us. Who was it? What God was it? Who, at that time, gave to the Roman people this God-like young man? Who, while every means for completing our destruction seemed open to that most pernicious citizen? Rising up on a sudden, beyond everyone's hope, completed an army fit to oppose the fury of Marcus Antonius before anyone suspected that he was thinking of any such step. Great honors were paid to Neus Pompeius as a man and deservedly, for he came to the assistance of the Republic. But he was of a more vigorous age and more calculated to meet the eager requirements of soldiers seeking a general. He had also already been trained in other kinds of war, for the cause of Silla was not agreeable to all men. The multitude of the prescribed in the enormous calamities that fell on so many municipal towns show this plainly. But Caesar, though many years younger, armed veterans who are now eager to rest, he has embraced that cause which was most agreeable to the Senate, to the people, to all Italy, in short, to gods and men. And Pompeius came as a reinforcement to the extensive command in victorious army of Lucius Sulla. Caesar had no one to join himself too. He, of his own accord, was the author and executor of his plan of levying an army and arraying a defense for us. Pompeius found the whole Piscine district hostile to the party of his friends. But Caesar had levied an army against Antonius for men who were Antonius' own friends, but still greater friends to liberty. It was owing to the influence of Pompeius that Sulla was unable to act like a king. It was by the protection afforded us by Caesar that the tyranny of Antonius has been put down. Let us then confer on Caesar a regular military command without which the military affairs cannot be directed. The army cannot be held together. War cannot be engaged. Let him be made proprietor with all the privileges which have ever been attached to that appointment. And that honor, although it is a great one for a man of his age, still is not merely of influence as giving dignity, but it confers powers calculated to meet the present emergency. Therefore let us seek for honors for him, which we shall not easily find at the present day. But I hope that we and the Roman people shall often have an opportunity of complimenting and honoring a young man. But at the present moment I give my vote that we should pass a decree in this form. As Gaius Caesar, son of Gaius, Pontiff and Proprator, has at a most critical moment of the Republic exhorted the veteran soldiers to defend the liberty of the Roman people and has enlisted them in his army and, as the Martial Legion and the Fourth Legion, with great zeal for the Republic and with admirable unanimity under the guidance and authority of Gaius Caesar, have defended and are defending the Republic and the liberty of the Roman people. And, as Gaius Caesar, Proprator, has gone with his army as a reinforcement to the province of Gaul, has made cavalry and archers and elephants obedient to himself and to the Roman people and has, at a most critical time for the Republic, come to the aid and safety and dignity of the Roman people. On these accounts it seems good to the Senate that Gaius Caesar, the son of Gaius, Pontiff and Proprator, shall be a senator and shall deliver his opinions from the bench occupied by men of Praetorian rank and that, on occasion of his offering himself for any majesty, he shall be considered of the same legal standing and qualification as if he had been quite stored the preceding year. For what reason can there be, O conscript fathers, why we should not wish him to arrive at the highest honors at as early age as possible? For when, by the laws fixing the age at which men might be appointed to the different magistracies, our ancestors fixed a more mature age for the consul ship, they were influenced by the fears and precipitation of youth. Gaius Caesar, at his first entrance into life, has shown us that, in the case of his eminent and unparalleled virtue, we have no need to wait for the progress of age. Therefore, our ancestors, those old men, in the most ancient times, had no laws regulating the age for different offices. It was ambition which caused them to be passed many years afterwards, in order that there might be among men of the same age different steps for arriving at honors, and it is often happened that a disposition of great natural virtue has been lost before it had any opportunity of benefiting the Republic. But among the agents, the Rulii, the Decii, the Corvium, and many others, and in more modern times the elder Africanus and Titus Flaminius were made consuls very young, and performed such exploits as greatly to extend the empire of the Roman people and to embellish its name. What more? Did not the Macedonian Alexander, having begun to perform mighty deeds from his earliest youth, die when he was only in his thirty-third year? In that age is ten years less than that fixed by our laws for a man to be eligible for the consul ship, from which it may be plainly seen that the natural virtue is often swifter than that of age. For as to the fear which those men who are enemies of Caesar pretend to entertain, there is not the slightest reason to apprehend that he will be unable to restrain and govern himself, or that he will be so elated by the honors which he receives from us as to use his power without moderation. It is only natural, O conscript fathers, that the man who has learnt to appreciate real glory and who feels that he is loved and by the Roman knights and the whole Roman people as citizen who is dear to, and a blessing to the Republic, should think nothing whatever of deserving of being compared to this glory. Would that it had happened to Gaius Caesar, the father, I mean, when he was a young man, to be beloved by the senate and by every virtuous citizen. But, having neglected to aim at that, he wasted all the power of genius which he had in a most brilliant degree to a capricious pursuit of his power. Therefore, as he had not sufficient respect for the senate and the virtuous part of the citizens, he opened for himself that path for the extension of his power, which the virtue of a free people was unable to bear. But the principles of his son are widely different, who is not only beloved by everyone, but in the greatest degree by the most virtuous men. In him is placed all our hopes of liberty. From him already has our safety been sought out and prepared, while therefore we are admitting his singular prudence. Can we at the same time fear his folly? For what can be more foolish than to prefer useless power? Such influences brings envy in its train and a rash and slippery ambition of reigning to real, dignified, solid glory. Has he seen this truth as a boy, and when he is advanced in an age will he cease to see it? But he is an enemy to some, most illustrious and excellent citizens. That circumstance ought not to cause any fear Caesar has sacrificed all those eminities to the Republic. He had made the Republic his judge. He has made her the directress of all his councils and actions, for he has come to the service of the Republic in order to strengthen her, not to overturn her. I am well acquainted with all the feelings of the young man. There was nothing dearer to him than the Republic. Nothing which he considers of more weight than your authority. Not more than the appropriation of virtuous men. Nothing which he accounts sweeter than genuine glory. Wherefore you not only ought not to fear anything from him, but you ought to expect greater and better things still, nor ought you to apprehend with respect to a man who has already gone forward to release Destinmus Brutus from his siege, that the recollection of his domestic injury will dwell in his bosom and have more weight with him than the Roman people and the Republic. Which in truth, if no necessity compelled me to do so, I would not venture to do. And in doing which on slight grounds I should be afraid of giving rise to a dangerous opinion of my rashness in a most important business. But I do promise and pledge myself and undertake, O Conscript Fathers, that Gaius Caesar will always be such a citizen as he is this day. And we ought above all things to wish and desire that he may turn out. And as this is the case, I shall consider that I have said enough at present about Caesar. Nor do I think we ought to pass over Lucius Ignatuleus, a most gallant and wise and firm citizen, and one thoroughly attached to the Republic in silence. But that we ought to give him our testimony to his admirable virtue, because it was he who led the Fourth Legion to Caesar and into the people of the Republic. And for these acts I give my vote, that it be made lawful for Lucius Ignatuleus to stand for and to be elected to, and to discharge the duties of any magistracy three years before the legitimate time. And by this motion, O Conscript Fathers, Lucius Ignatuleus does not get so much actual advantage as honor, for in a case like this it is quite sufficient to be honorably appointed by Gaius Caesar. I give my vote for the passing of a decree in this form. The Senate decrees that the veteran soldiers who have defended, and are defending, there is a break in the text here. And the authority of this order should, and their children after them, have an exemption for military service, and that Gaius Panza and Aulus Herschius, the Consuls, one or both of them, as they think fit, shall inquire what land there is in which the veteran soldiers have been settled, which is occupied in defiance of the provisions of the Julian Law in order that it may be divided among those veterans. That they should institute a separate inquiry about the companion district, and devise a plan for increasing the advantages enjoyed by those veteran soldiers. And with respect to the Martial Legion, and to the Fourth Legion, and to those soldiers of the Second and Thirty-Fifth Legions, who have come over to Gaius Panza and have given in their names, because the authority of the Senate, and the liberty of the Roman people is, and always has been dear to them, the Senate decrees that they, and their children, shall have exemption from military service, except in the case of any Golic or Italian sedition. And decrees further that those legions should have their discharge when this war is terminated, and that whatever sum of money Gaius Caesar, Pontiff, and Proprytor has promised to the soldiers of those legions shall be paid to them, and that Gaius Panza and Aulus Hirtius, the consuls, one or the both of them, as it seems good to them, shall make an estimate of the land which can be distributed without injury to private individuals, and that land shall be given and assigned to the soldiers of the Martial Legion, and of the Fourth Legion, in the largest shares in which land has ever been given and assigned to soldiers. I have now spoken, oh consuls, on every point concerning which you have submitted a motion to us, and if the resolutions which I have proposed be decreed without delay and seasonably, you will the more easily prepare those measures which the present time and emergency demand. But instant action is necessary. If we had adopted that earlier we should, as I have often said, have no war at all. And of the fifth oration of Marcus Tullius Cicero against Marcus Antonius, otherwise called the fifth Philippic. Section 6 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 sixth Philippic, addressed to the people the argument. In respect of the honors proposed by Cicero in the last speech, the senate agreed with him, voting to Octavius honors beyond any that that Cicero had proposed. But they were much divided about the question of sending an embassy to Antonius and the consuls seeing that a majority agreed with Cicero adjoined the debate till the next day. The discussions lasted three days and the senate would at last have adopted all Cicero's measures if one of the tribunes Salvius had not put his veto on them. So that at last the embassy was ordered to be sent and Servius Sopicius, Lucius Piso, and Lucius Philippus, appointed as the ambassadors. But they were charged merely to order Antonius to abandon the siege of Mutina and to desist from hostilities beyond the province of Gaul and further to proceed to Decimus Brutus Mutina and to give him and his armies the thanks of the senate and people. The length of the debates roused the curiosity of the people who being assembled in the forum to learn the result called on Cicero to come forth and give them an account of what had been done on which he went to the rostra accompanied by Publius Apuleius the tribune and related to them all that had passed in the following speech. I imagine that you have heard what has been done in the senate and what has been the opinion delivered by each individual for the matter which has been in discussion since the first of January has been just brought to a conclusion with less severity indeed than it ought to have been but still in a manner not altogether unbecoming. The war has been subjected to a delay but the cause has not been removed. Wherefore, as to the question which Publius Apuleius a man united to me by many kind offices and by the closest intimacy and firmly attached to your interest has asked me I will answer in such a manner that you may be acquainted with the transactions at which you were not present. The cause which prompted our most fearless and excellent consuls to submit a motion on the first of January concerning the general state of the Republic arose from the decree which the senate passed by my advice on the 19th of December. On that day, O Romans, were the foundations of the Republic first laid. For then, after a long interval the senate was free in such a manner that you too might become free. On which day, indeed, even if it had been to bring to me the end of my life, I received a sufficient reward for my exertions when you had all with one heart and one voice cried out together that the Republic had been a second time saved by me. Stimulated by so important and so in splendid a decision of yours in my favor I came into the senate on the first of January with the feeling that I was bound to show my recollection of the character which you had imposed upon me in which I had to sustain. Therefore, when I saw that a nefarious war was waged against our Republic, I thought that no delay ought to be interposed to our pursuit of Marcus Antonius, and I gave my vote that we ought to pursue that most audacious man who, having committed many atrocious crimes before, was, at this moment, attacking a general of the Roman people, and besieging your most faithful and gallant colony, and that a state of civil war ought to be proclaimed. And I said further that my opinion was that a suspension of the ordinary forms of justice should be declared, and that the garb of war should be assumed by the citizens in order that all men might apply themselves with more activity and energy to avenging the injuries of the Republic if they saw that all the emblems of a regular war had been adopted by the Senate. Therefore, this opinion of mine, O. Romans, profailed so much for three days that, although no division was come to, still all, except a very few, appeared inclined to agree with me. But today, I know not owing to what circumstance the Senate was more indulgent, for the majority of the Senate had it on our making experiment by means of ambassadors, how much influence the authority of the Senate and your unanimity will have upon Antonius. I am well aware, O. Romans, that this decision is disapproved of by you, and reasonably too, for to whom are we sending ambassadors? Is it not to him who, after having dissipated and squandered the public money and imposed laws on the Roman people by violence and violation of the auspices, after having put the assembly of the people to flight and besieged the Senate, sent for the religions from Vrendicium to oppress the Republic, who, when deserted by them, has invaded Gaul with a troop of Banditi? Who is attacking Brutus? Who is besieging Mutina? How can you offer conditions to, or expect equity from, or send an ambassador to, or in short, have anything in common with this gladiator? Although, O. Romans, it is not an embassy, but a denunciation of war, if he does not obey. For the decree has been drawn up, as if ambassadors were being sent to Hannibal, for men are sent to order him not to attack the consul-olec, not to besiege Mutina. Not to lay waste the province, not to enlist troops, but to submit himself to the consul. No doubt he is a likely man to obey this abjunction, and to submit to the power of the conscript fathers, and to yours, who has never had any mastery over himself. For what has he ever done that showed any discretion, always being led away wherever his lust, or his levity, or his frenzy, or his drunkenness has hurried him? He has been under the dominion so fond of domestic adulteries and forensic murders that he would rather obey a most covetous woman than the senate and people of Rome. Therefore, I will do before you what I have just done in the senate. I call you to witness, I give notice, I predict beforehand, that Marcus Antonius will do nothing whatever of those things which the ambassadors are commissioned to command him to do, but that he will lay waste the lands, and enlist soldiers wherever he can. For he is a man who has at all times despised the judgment and authority of the senate, and your inclinations and power. Will he do what it has been just now decreed that he shall do, lead his army back across the Rubicon, which is the frontier of Gaul, and yet at the same time not come nearer to Rome than 200 miles? Will he obey this notice? Will he allow himself to be confined by the river Rubicon, and by the 200 miles? Antonius is not that sort of man. For if he had been, he would never have allowed matters to come to such a pass, as for the senate to give him notice, as it did to Hannibal at the beginning of the Punic war, not to attack Seguntum. But what ignominy is it to be called away from Mutina, and at the same time to be forbidden to approach the city as if he were some fatal conflagration? What an opinion is this for the senate to have of a man? What? As to the commission, which is given to the ambassadors to visit Decimus Brutus and his soldiers, and to inform them that their excellent zeal in behalf of, and services done to the Republic, are acceptable to the senate and people of Rome, and that that conduct shall tend to their great glory and to their great honor. Do you think that Antonius will permit the ambassadors to enter Mutina, and to depart from thence in safety? He will never allow it. Believe me, I know the violence of the man. I know his impudence. I know his audacity. Nor indeed ought we to think of him as of a human being, but as a most ill-omined beast. And, as this is the case, the decree which the senate has passed is not wholly improper. The embassy has some severity in it. I only wish it had no delay. For as to the conduct of almost every member, slowness and procrastination are hateful. So above all things does this war require promptness of action. We must assist Decimus Brutus. We must collect all our forces from all quarters. We cannot lose a single hour in effecting the deliverance of such a citizen without wickedness. Was it not in his power, if he had considered Antonius a consul, and galled the province of Antonius to have given over the legions in the province to Antonius, to return home himself, and to celebrate a triumph, and to be the first man in this body to deliver his opinion until he entered on his majesty. What was the difficulty in doing that? But, as he remembered that he was Brutus, and that he was born for your freedom, not for his own tranquility, what else did he do but, as I may almost say, put his own body in the way to prevent Antonius from entering Gaul. Aught we then to send ambassadors to return, or legions. However, we will say nothing of what it has passed. Let the ambassadors hasten, as I see they are about to do. Do you prepare your robes of war? For it has been decreed that, if he does not obey the authority of the senate, we are to but take ourselves to our military dress, and we shall have to do so. He will never obey, and we shall lament that we have lost so many days when we might have been defeated. I have no fear, O Romans, that when Antonius hears that I have asserted, both in the senate and in the assembly of the people, he will, for the sake of disproving my words, and making me to appeal to have had no foresight, alter his behavior and obey the senate. He will never do so. He will not grudge me this part of my reputation. He will prefer letting me be thought wise by you to being thought modest himself. Even if you are willing to do so himself, do you think that his brother Lucius will permit him? It has been reported lately at Tabor when Marcus Antonius appeared to him to be wavering. He, Lucius, threatened his brother with death. And do we suppose that the orders of the senate and the words of the ambassadors will be listened to by this Asiatic gladiator? It will be impossible for him to be separated from a brother, for he is another Africanus among them. He is considered more influential than Lucius Trebellius, of more than Titus Plancus, a noble young man. As for Plancus, who, having been condemned by the unanimous vote of everyone amid the overpowering applause of you yourselves, somehow or other got mixed up in this crowd and returned with accountants so sorrowful that he appeared to have been rather than to have returned. He despises him to such a degree as if he were interdicted from fire and water. At times he says that that man who set the senate house on fire has no right to a place in the senate house, for at this moment he is exceedingly in love with Trebellius. He hated him some time ago when he was opposing an abolition of debts, but now he delights in him, ever since he has seen that Trebellius without an abolition of debts. For I think that you have heard, O Romans, what indeed you may possibly have seen that the sureties and creditors of Lucius Trebellius meet every day. O confidence, for I imagine that Trebellius has taken this surname, what can be greater confidence than defrauding one's creditors, then flying from one's house, then because of one's debts being forced to go to war. We come of the applause which he received on the occasion of Caesar's triumph, and often at the games. Where is the edile-ship that was conferred on him by the zealous efforts of all good men? Who is there who does not think that he has acted virtuously by accident? However, I return to your love and a special delight, Lucius Antonius, who has admitted you all to swear allegiance to him. Do you deny it? But thirty-five tribes have adopted him for their patron. Do you again cry out against my statement? Look at that guilt-statute of him on the left. What is the inscription upon it? The thirty-five tribes to their patron? Is then Lucius Antonius the patron of the Roman people? Plague, take him, for I fully assent to your outcry. I won't speak of this bandit, no one would choose to have for a client. But was there ever a man possessed of such influence, or illustrious for mighty deeds, as to dare to call himself the patron of the whole Roman people, the conqueror and master of all nations? We see in the forum a statue of Lucius Antonius, just as we see one of Quintus Tremulus, who conquered the Hannachi before the temple of Castor. Oh, the incredible impudence of the statue, has he assumed all this credit to himself, because as a Momilo at Milesa, he slew the Thracian, his friend? How should we ever be able to endure him, if he had fought in this forum before the eyes of you all? But, however, this is but one statue. He has another, erected by the Roman knights, who received horses from the state, and they too inscribe on that, to their patron, who was ever adopted by that order as its patron. If it ever adopted any one as such, it ought to have adopted me. What censor was ever so honored? What imperator? But, he distributed lands among them. Shame on their soren natures for accepting it. Shame on his dishonesty for giving it. Moreover, the military tribunes, who were in the army of Caesar, have erected him a statue. What order is that? There have been plenty of tribunes in our numerous legions in so many years. Among them, he has distributed the lands of Cimmerium. The campus marshes was all that was left, if he had not first fled with his brother. But this allotment of lands was put an end to a little while ago, O. Romans, by the declaration of his opinion by Lucius Caesar, a most illustrious man and a most admirable senator. For we all agreed with him and annulled the acts of the Temvirs. So all the kindness of Nucola goes for nothing, and the patron Antonius is at a discount. For those who had taken possession will depart with more equanimity. They had not been at any expense. They have not yet furnished or stocked their domains, partly because they did not feel sure of their title, and partly because they had no money. But as for that splendid statue, concerning which, if the times were better, I could not speak without laughing, to Lucius Antonius, patron of the middle of Janus. Is it so, is the middle of Janus a client of Lucius Antonius who ever was found in that Janus who would have lent Lucius Antonius a thousand sistercies? However, we have been spending too much time in trifles. Let us return to our subject and to the war, although it was not wholly foreign to the subject of some characters to be thoroughly appreciated by you in order that you might in silence think over who they were against whom you were to wage war. But I exhort you, O Romans, though perhaps other measures might have been wiser, still now to wait with calmness for the return of the ambassadors. Promptness of action has been taken from our side, but still some good has accrued to it. For when the ambassadors have reported and certainly will report that Antonius will not submit to you nor to the Senate, who then will be so worthless a citizen as to think him deserving of being accounted a citizen. For at present there are men, few indeed, but still more than there ought to be, or than the Republic deserves that there should be, who speak in this way. Shall we not even wait for the return of the ambassadors? Certainly the Republic itself forced them to abandon that expression of that pretense of clemency, on which account to confess the truth to you, O Romans, I have striven less today and labored all the less today to induce the Senate to agree with me in decreeing the existence of a seditious war and supporting the apparel of war to be assumed. I preferred having my sentiments applauded by everyone in twenty days time to having a blame today by a few. Wherefore, O Romans, wait now for the return of the ambassadors and devour your annoyance for a few days, and when they do return, if they bring back peace, believe me that I have been desirous that it should. If they bring back war, then allow me the praise of foresight. Aught I not to be provident for the welfare of my fellow citizens? Aught I not day and night to think of your freedom and of the safety of the Republic? For what do I not owe to you, O Romans, since you have preferred for all the honors of the State a man who is his own father to the most nobly-born men in the Republic? Am I ungrateful? Who is less so? I, who, after I had attained these honors, have constantly labored in the Forum with the same exertions as I used while striving for them. Am I inexperienced in State Affairs? Who has had more practice than I? Well, for twenty years been waging war against impious citizens. Wherefore, O Romans, with all the prudence of which I am master, and with almost more exertion than I am capable of, will I put forth my vigilance and watchfulness in your behalf. In truth, what citizen is there, especially in this rank in which you have placed me, so forgetful of your kindness, so unmindful of his country, so hostile to his own dignity, as not he roused and stimulated by your wonderful unanimity? I, as consul, have held many assemblies of the people. I have been present at many others. I have never once seen so numerous as this one of yours now is. You have all one feeling. You have all one desire. That of averting the attempts of Marcus Antonius from the Republic, of extinguishing his frenzy and crushing his audacity. All the orders have the same wish. The municipal towns, the colonies, and all Italy are laboring for the same end. Therefore you have made the Senate, which was already pretty firm of its own accord, firm or still by your authority. The time has come, O Romans, later altogether than for the honor of the Roman people, it should have been, but still so that the things are now so ripe that they do not admit of a moment's delay. There has been a sort of fatality, so which we have born as it was necessary to bear it. But hereafter, if any disaster happens to us, it will be of our own seeking. It is impossible for the Roman people to be slaves. That people whom the immortal gods have ordained should rule over all nations. Matters are now come to a crisis. We are fighting for our freedom. Either you must conquer, O Romans, which you indeed will do if you continue to act with such piety and such unanimity. Or you must do anything rather than become slaves. Other nations can endure slavery. Liberty is the inalienable possession of the Roman people. End of the sixth oration of Marcus Tullius Cicero against Marcus Antonius, called also the sixth Philippic. Section 7 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 seventh Philippic the argument after the senate had decided on sending them the ambassadors immediately set out though Servius Sopichius was in a very bad state of health. In the meantime, the partisans of Antonius and the city with Calenus at their head were endeavoring to gain over the rest of the citizens by representing him as eager for an accommodation and they kept up a correspondence with him and published such of his letters as they thought favorable for their views. Matters being in this state Cicero at an ordinary meeting of the senate made the following speech to counteract the machinations of this party and to warn the citizens generally of the dangers of being deluded by them. We are consulted today about matters of small importance but still perhaps necessary O'Conscript Fathers the consul submits a motion to us about the Appian Road and about the coinage the tribune of the people won about the Luperchi and although it seems easy to settle such matters as those still my mind cannot fix itself on the subjects being anxious about more important matters for our fares O'Conscript Fathers are come to a crisis and are in a state of almost extreme danger it is not without reason that I have always feared and never approved of that sending of ambassadors of what the return is to bring us I know not but who is there who does not see with how much languor the expectation of it infects our minds but nowhere strength on themselves who grieve that the senate have revived so as to entertain hopes of its former authority and that the Roman people is united to this our order and all Italy is animated by one common feeling that armies are prepared in generals ready for the armies even already they are inventing replies for Antonius and defending them some pretend that his demand is that all the armies be disbanded I suppose then we sent ambassadors to him not that he should submit and obey this our body but that he should offer us conditions impose laws upon us order us to open Italy to foreign nations especially while we were to leave him in safety from whom there is more danger to be feared than from any nation whatever others say that he is willing to give up the nearer gall to us we satisfied with the further gall very kind of him in order that from thence he may endeavor to bring not merely legions but even nations against the city others say that he makes no demands now but such as are quite moderate Macedonia he calls absolutely his own since it was from thence that his brother Gaius was recalled but what province is there in which that firebrand may not kindle a conflagration therefore those same men like provident citizens and diligent senators say that I have sounded the charge and they undertake the advocacy of peace is this not the way in which they argue Antonius ought not to have been irritated he is a reckless and a bold man and there are many bad men besides him no doubt and they may begin and count themselves first and they warn us to be on our guard against them what conduct then is it which shows the more prudent caution chastising wicked citizens when one is able to do so or fearing them and these men speak in this way who on account of their trifling disposition used to be considered friends of the people from which it may be understood that they in their hearts have at all times been disinclined to a good constitution of the state and they were not friends of the people from inclination it comes to pass that those men who are anxious to gratify the people in evil things now on an occasion which above all concerns the people's interests because the same thing would also be salutary for the republic now prefer being wicked to being friends of the people this noble cause of which I am the advocate has made me popular a man who as you know have always opposed the rashness of the people and those men are called themselves consulars though no man is worthy of that name except those who can support so high an honor will you favor an enemy will you let him send you letters about his hopes of success will you be glad to produce them to read them will you even give them to wicked citizens to take copies of will you thus raise their courage will you thus damp the hopes and valor of the good and then will you think yourself a consular or even a citizen Gaius Panza a most fearless and virtual consul will take what I say in good part for I speak with the disposition most friendly to him but I should not consider him himself a consul though a man with whom I am most intimate unless he was such a consul as to devote all his diligence and cares and thoughts to the safety of the republic although long acquaintance and habit and a fellowship and resemblance in the most honorable pursuits has bound us together from his first entrance into life and his incredible diligence proved at the time of the most formidable dangers of the civil war showed us that he was a favorer not only of my safety but also of my dignity still as I said before if he were not such a consul as I have described I would venture to deny that he was a consul at all but now I call him not only a consul but the most excellent and virtuous consul within my recollection not but that there have been others of equal virtue and equal inclination but still they have not had an equal opportunity of displaying that virtue and inclination but the opportunity of a time of most formidable change has been afforded to his magnanimity and dignity and wisdom and that is the time when the consulship is displayed to the greatest advantage and the time which, if not desirable is at all events critical and momentous and a more critical time than the present O Conscript Fathers never was therefore I who abandon at all times an advisor of peace and who though all good men have always considered peace and especially internal peace desirable have desired it more than all of them for the whole of the career of my industry has been passed in the forum and in warding off dangers for my friends it is by this course that I have arrived at the highest honors at moderate wealth and at any dignity which we may be thought to have I therefore a nursing of peace as I may call myself I who whatever I am for I irrigate nothing to myself should undoubtedly not have been such without internal peace I am speaking in peril to think how you will receive it O Conscript Fathers but still out of regard for my unceasing desire to support and increase or dignity I beg and entreat you O Conscript Fathers although it may be a bitter thing to hear or an incredible thing that it should be said by Marcus Cicero still to receive it first without offense what I am going to say and not to reject it before I have fully explained what it is I who I will say over again have always been a Panagerist have always been an advisor of peace I do not wish to have peace with Marcus Antonius I approach the rest of my speech with great hope O Conscript Fathers since I have now passed by that perilous point amid your silence why then do I not wish for peace because it would be shameful because it would be dangerous because it could not possibly be real and while I explain these three points to you I beg of you O Conscript Fathers to listen to my words with the same kindness which you usually show to me what is more shameful than inconsistency, fickleness and levity both to individuals and also to the entire senate moreover what can be more inconsistent than on a sudden to be willing to be united in peace with a man whom you have lately have judged to be an enemy not by words but by actions and by many formal decrees unless indeed when you were decreeing honors to Gaia Caesar well deserved indeed and fairly due to him but still unprecedented and never to be forgotten for one single reason because he had levied an army against Marcus Antonius you were not judging Marcus Antonius to be an enemy and unless Antonius was not pronounced an enemy by you when the veteran soldiers were praised by your authority for having followed Caesar and unless you did not declare Antonius an enemy when you promised exemptions and money and lands to those brave legions because they had deserted him who was consul while he was an enemy what when you distinguished with highest praise Brutus a man born under the same omen as it were of his race and name for the deliverance of the republic and his army which was waging war against Antonius on behalf of the liberty of the Roman people and the most loyal and admirable province of Gaul did you not then pronounce Antonius an enemy what when you decreed that the consuls one or both of them should go to war what war was there if Antonius was not an enemy why then was it that most gallant man my own colleague and intimate friend Alice Hersches the consul was set out and in what delicate health he is how wasted away but the weak state of his body could not repress the vigor of his mind he thought it fair I suppose to expose to danger in defense of the Roman people that life which would have been preserved to him by their prayers what when you ordered levies of troops to be made throughout all Italy when you suspended all exemptions from service was he not by these steps declared to be an enemy you see you facturers of arms in the city soldiers sword in hand are following the consul they are in appearance a guard to the consul but in fact in reality to us all men are giving in their names not only without any shirking but with the greatest eagerness they are acting in obedience to your authority has not Antonius been declared an enemy by such acts oh but we sent ambassadors to him alas wretched that I am why am I compelled to find fault with the senate whom I have always praised why do you think Oconscript Fathers that you have induced the Roman people to approve of the sending of ambassadors do you not perceive do you not hear that the adoption of my opinion is demanded by them that opinion which you in a full house agreed to the day before though the day after you have allowed yourselves to be brought down to a groundless hope of peace moreover how shameful is it for the legions to send out ambassadors to the senate and the senate to Antonius although it is not an embassy it is a denunciation that destruction is prepared for him if he do not submit to this order what is the difference at all events men's opinions are unfavorable to the measure for all men see that ambassadors have been sent for all who are acquainted with the terms of your decree you must therefore preserve your consistency your wisdom your firmness your perseverance you must go back to the old fashioned severity if at least the authority of the senate is anxious to establish its credit its honor its renowned and its dignity things which this order has been too long deprived of but there was some time ago an excuse for it as being oppressed an honorable excuse indeed but still a fair one now there is none we appear to have been delivered from kingly tyranny and afterwards we are oppressed much more severely by domestic enemies we did indeed turn their arms aside we must now rest them from their hands if we cannot do so I will say that it becomes one who is both a senator and a roman to say let us die for how just will be the shame how great will be the disgrace how great the infamy to the republic if marcus antonius can deliver his opinion in this assembly from the consular bench four to say nothing of the consulus acts of wickedness committed by him while counsel in the city during which time he has squandered a vast amount of public money restored exiles without any law sold our revenues to all sorts of people removed provinces from the empire given people given men kingdoms were bribes imposed laws on the city by violence besieged the senate and at other times excluded it from the senate house by force of arms to say nothing I say of all this do you not consider this that he who has attacked mutina a most powerful colony of the roman people who has besieged a general of the roman people who was consul-elect who has laid waste the lands do you consider I say how shameful and iniquitous a thing it would be for that man to be received into this order by which he has been so repeatedly pronounced an enemy for these very reasons I have said enough of the shamefulness of such a proceeding I will now speak as I proposed of the danger of it which although it is not important to avoid a shame still offends the minds of the greater part of mankind even more then be possible for you to rely on the certainty of any peace unless you see Antonius or rather the Antonii in the city unless indeed you despise Lucius I do not despise even Cassius but as I think Lucius will be the dominant spirit for he is the patron of five and thirty tribes whose votes he took away by his law by which he divided the magistracies in conjunction with Gaius Caesar he is the patron of the centuries of the Roman knights which also he thought fit to deprive of the suffragists he is the patron of the men who have been military tribunes he is the patron of the middle of Janus, oh ye gods who will be able to support this man's power especially when he has brought all his dependents into the lands whoever was the patron of all the tribes and of the Roman knights and of the military tribunes do you think that the power of even the Gracchi was greater than of this gladiator will be whom I have called gladiator not in the sense in which sometimes Marcus Antonius too is called gladiator but his men call him who are speaking plain Latin he has fought in Asia as a mormillo and after having equipped his own companion an intimate friend in the armor of a Thracian he slew the miserable man as he was flying but he himself received a palpable wound as the scar proves what will the man who murdered his friend in this way when he has an opportunity due to an enemy if he did such a thing as this for the fun of the thing what do you think you will do when tempted by the hope of plunder will he not again meet wicked men in the dequeries will he not again tamper with those men and seek those who have been banished will he not in short be Marcus Antonius to whom on the occasion of every commotion there will be a rush to all profligate citizens even if there be no one else except those who are with him now and those who in this body now openly speak in his favor will they be too small in number especially when all the protection which we might have had from good men is lost when those men are prepared to obey his nod but I am afraid if at this time we fail to adopt wise councils that that party will in short time appear too numerous for us nor have I any dislike to peace only I do dread war disguised under the name of peace wherefore if we wish to enjoy peace we must first wage war if we shrink from war peace we shall never have wisdoms your prudence O conscript fathers to provide as far as possible for posterity that is the object for which we were placed in this garrison and as it were on this watchtower that by our vigilance and foresight we might keep the Roman people free from fear it would be a shameful thing especially in so clearer cases this for it to be notorious that wisdom was wanting to the chief council of the whole world we have such councils there is such eagerness on the part of the Roman people we have such an unanimous feeling of all idly in our favor such generals and such armies that the republic cannot possibly suffer any disaster without the senate being in fault I, for my part, will not be wanting I will warn you I will forewarn you I will give you notice I will call gods and men to witness what I do really believe I will display my good faith alone which, perhaps, may seem to be enough but which in a chief citizen is not enough I will exert all my care and prudence and vigilance I have spoken about the danger I will not proceed to prove to you that it is not possible for peace to be firmly cemented for of the propositions which I promise to establish, this is the last what peace can there be between Marcus Antonius and the first place, the senate with what face will he be able to look upon you with what eyes will you in turn look upon him which of you does not hate him which of you does he not hate come, are you the only people who hate him and whom he hates what? what do you think of those men who are besieging Wutana who are levying troops in Gaul who are threatening your fortunes will they ever be friends to you will he embrace the Roman knights for, suppose their inclinations respecting and their opinions of Antonius were very much concealed when they stood in crowds on the steps of the temple of concord when they stimulated you to endeavor to recover your liberty when they demanded arms the robe of war and war and who, with the Roman people invited me in the assembly of the people will these men ever become friends to Antonius ever maintain peace with them for why should I speak of the whole Roman people which in a full and crowded forum twice with one heart and one voice summoned me into the assembly and plainly showed their excess of eagerness for the recovery of their liberty so desirable as it was before to have the Roman people for our comrade we now have it for our leader what hope then is there there can be peace between the Roman people and the men who are besieging Mutuna and attacking a general and army of the Roman people will there be peace with the municipal towns whose great zeal is shown by the decrees which they pass by the soldiers whom they furnish by the sums which they promise so that in each town there is such a spirit as leaves no room to wish for a senate of the Roman people the men of fermium deserve to be praised by a resolution in our order who set the first example of promising money we ought to return a complimentary answer to the Marikini who have passed a vote that all who evade military service are to be branded with infamy these measures are adopted all over Italy there is great peace between Antonius and these men and between them and him what greater discord can there possibly be and in discord civil peace cannot by any possibility exist to say nothing of the mob look at Lucius Nesidius a Roman knight a man of very highest accomplishment and honor a citizen always eminent whose watchfulness and exertions for the protection of my life I felt in my consulship who not only exhorted his neighbors to become soldiers but also assisted them from his own resources will it be possible ever to reconcile Antonius to such a man as this a man whom we ought to praise by a formal resolution of the senate what will it be possible to reconcile him to Gaius Caesar who prevented him from entering the city or to Decimus Brutus who has refused him entrance into Gaul moreover will he reconcile himself too or look mercifully on the province of Gaul by which he had been excluded and rejected you will see everything Oconscript Fathers if you do not take care full of hatred and full of discord from which civil wars arise do not then desire that which is impossible and beware I entreat you by the immortal gods Oconscript Fathers that out of hope of present peace you do not lose perpetual peace what now is the object of this oration for we do not yet know what the ambassadors have done but still we ought to be awake erect prepared armed in our minds so as not to be deceived by any civil or supplicatory language or any pretense of justice he must have complied with all the prohibitions and all the commands which we have sent him before he can demand anything he must have desisted from attacking Brutus and his army and from plundering the cities and lands of the province of Gaul he must have permitted the ambassadors to go to Brutus and led his army back on this side of the Rubicon and yet not come within 200 miles of the city he must have submitted himself to the power of the senate and of the Roman people if he does this then we shall have an opportunity of deliberating without any decision being forced upon us either way if he does not obey the senate then it will not be the senate that declares war against him but he will have declared it against the senate but I warn you old conscript fathers the liberty of the Roman people which is entrusted to you is at stake the life and fortune of every virtuous man is at stake against which Antonius has long been directing his insatiable covetousness united to his savage cruelty your authority is at stake which you will wholly lose if you do not beware how you let that foul and deadly beast escape now that you've got him confined and chained you too panza I warn although you do not need counsel for you have plenty of wisdom yourself but still even the most skillful pilots received often warnings from the passengers in terrible storms not to allow this vast and noble preparation which you have made to fall away to nothing you have such an opportunity as no one ever had it is in your power so as to avail yourself of this wise firmness of the senate of this zeal of the equestrian order of this ardor of the Roman people as to release the Roman people from fear and danger forever as to the matters to which your emotion before the senate refers I agree with Publius Servilius and of the seventh oration of Marcus Tullius Cicero against Marcus Antonius called also the seventh Philippic