Cicero - Anthony Everitt [167]
In a carefully composed letter, Cicero defended himself but made it clear that he did think Caesar had been a despot. He dropped a broad hint that in his view the claims of freedom came before those of affection. Matius wrote a reply, so open in its emotions that it still has the power to touch the reader.
I am well aware of the criticisms which people have leveled at me since Caesar’s death. They make it a point against me that I take a friend’s death so much to heart and am indignant that the man I loved has been destroyed. They say that country should come before friendship—as though they have already proved that his death was in the public interest.… It wasn’t Caesar I followed in the civil conflict but a friend whom I did not desert, even though I didn’t like what he was doing. I never approved of the civil war or indeed the origin of the conflict, which I did my very utmost to get nipped in the Bud.… Why are they angry with me for praying that they may be sorry for what they have done? I want every man to be sorry for Caesar’s death.
The letter is testimony to the magnetism of Caesar’s personality. Cicero had once given in to it himself, but, as he entered this last exclusively public phase of his life, he was becoming impervious to the claims of private feeling. In Duties, which he was writing at the time, he made no concession to the genius of his great contemporary; he condemned the
unscrupulous behavior of Caius Caesar who disregarded all divine and human law for the sake of the preeminence on which he had deludedly set his heart.… If a man insists on outcompeting everyone else, then it is hard for him to respect the most important aspect of justice: equality. Men of this type put up with no restraint by way of debate or due process; they emerge as spendthrift faction leaders, because they wish to acquire as much power as possible and would sooner gain the upper hand through force than fair dealing.
The entente between Antony and Octavian was short-lived, and the scene of action soon shifted from the Forum to the legionary camps. The Consul’s rage at Cicero’s first Philippic reflected a tacit acknowledgment that he could no longer depend on support from the Senate. His year of office was drawing to a close and his priority now was to establish himself in his province with a strong army. Otherwise, he would be politically marginalized. He decided to move at once to Italian Gaul, before his Consulship was over, and to seize it from Decimus Brutus, who was enlisting legions to add to the two already stationed there. For this purpose he needed soldiers and in early October he set out for Brundisium to pick up four legions he had ordered over from Macedonia.
At this point his plans faltered. While his back was turned, Octavian went to Campania and started recruiting veterans. It was completely illegal for someone who held no public office to raise a private army, although forty years previously Pompey had launched his career by doing so. Today’s young adventurer, only nineteen years old, knew that unless he had troops behind him he would make no political headway. The appeal of his name and the added inducement of a hefty bribe of 2,000 sesterces per soldier was persuasive, and Octavian soon had a force of 3,000 experienced men at his disposal. The question now was what should he do with it.
Meanwhile, at Brundisium the Consul found his legions in truculent mood. He promised them only 400 sesterces for their loyalty. Aware of Octavian’s much more generous offer, they booed him, left him standing while he was speaking to them and rioted. “You will learn to obey orders,” was his savage response. Some judicious summary executions brought the soldiers to heel, but morale remained low.
What had been a political crisis was transforming itself into a phony war. The civilian leaders in Rome had no direct access to an army and