Cicero - Anthony Everitt [170]
After a military review the following day the Consul, who had been given a bad fright, left Rome and marched north. He still had four legions at his disposal. If he could have had his way, he would doubtless have preferred to finish off Octavian and encamped at Arretium, but he knew that his men would not have followed him. However, they were more than happy to fight any of Julius Caesar’s assassins, so Antony led them to Mutina and Decimus Brutus. With the onset of winter no immediate developments were expected.
On December 9 Cicero at last made his way back to Rome from the country. Before setting off, he gave Atticus a summary of the political situation as he saw it. He was still cautious about Octavian, especially after receiving a copy of the speech he had given to the General Assembly on November 12.
The boy is taking the steam out of Antony neatly enough for the moment, but we had best wait and see the issue. But what a speech—a copy was sent to me. Swears “by his hopes of rising to his father’s honors,” stretching his hand out towards the statue! Sooner destruction than this kind of a rescuer! But, as you say, the clearest test will be our friend Casca’s Tribuneship. [Casca, one of the conspirators, was due to take up office on December 10 and Octavian’s behavior towards him would be a test of his sincerity.] I told Oppius on that very subject, when he was pressing me to embrace the young man, not to mention his whole movement and band of veterans, that I could do nothing of the kind unless I was sure that he would be not only no enemy but a friend to the tyrannicides.
At this point the correspondence with Atticus closes. We do not know why. Atticus may have been in Rome for the rest or most of the rest of Cicero’s life and so there would have been no need to write; alternatively the correspondence may in fact have continued but have been judged to be too controversial for publication and thus suppressed. AS Emperor years later, Octavian may not have relished his maneuverings as Julius Caesar’s heir being exposed to the public gaze.
In the absence of both Consuls (Dolabella had already left Rome for Asia, his province) a Tribune called a meeting of the Senate for December 20 to approve the appointment of an armed guard for the new Consuls, Hirtius and Pansa, when they took up office on January 1. At first Cicero had not intended to be present, but, having read an edict by Decimus Brutus warning Antony to stay away from his province and announcing his allegiance to the Senate, he let it be known he would be there. He had encouraged Decimus Brutus to make a stand and, now that he was doing so, was determined to help him in any way he could.
There was no time to be lost. The Consul was moving as fast as he could to take over Italian Gaul before his successors could repudiate the legality of the law that had given him the province. He does not appear to have been acting unconstitutionally. After all, Decimus Brutus was soon due to hand over his powers to his successor. It should also be remembered that Antony (with his ally Dolabella) was head of the government with supreme executive powers. By the admittedly loose standards of the time he was within his rights to act as he did.
Cicero opened the debate at an unusually well-attended meeting with a powerful address, his third Philippic. He sought to demonstrate that Antony was an enemy of the state (arguably a treasonable assertion, bearing in mind that he was still Consul, if only for a few more days). He also argued that Octavian’s position as the leader of a private army should be regularized. For the first time he referred to the young man not as Octavian but by his new patronymic. “Caesar on his own initiative—he had no alternative—has liberated the Republic.” It sounded very much as if Cicero, despite all his misgivings, had at last decided to yield to the young