The conspirators were so far from having formed a deliberate plan, that they were not even agreed as to what was to be done next. In the first moment, Cassius demanded that Antony should die; but Brutus was against it, declaring that it was enough that one man should have died. In this Brutus was evidently wrong, as many besides ought to have been slain, to set everything right: at all events, Antony should have been killed, if even a shadow of the republic was still to be kept up; for indeed it was he, and men like him, who had made Cæsar’s rule hateful. He had been his chief instigator to take the diadem, and it is generally acknowledged that, if left to himself, Cæsar would have done nothing but good. In the height of the tumult, most of the senators took to flight, a few openly declared for Brutus and his companions, as tyrannicides. Cicero was one of these, which shows no small courage on his part. On neither side were people at all aware of what was next to follow. One might have believed that the people would have been full of exultation after Cæsar’s murder, as public opinion was against him, ever since he had aspired to the diadem; yet there is nothing more changeable than man: now that the thing which they had wanted was done, the same people who a few days before had wished for Cæsar’s death, were bewailing and lamenting him. The tumult lasted for some days. Cæsar had been murdered on the fifteenth of March; on the seventeenth, the senate met to deliberate on the steps which were to be taken in a time of such great excitement. In this meeting, Antony behaved quite differently from what had been expected, holding out his hand for a reconciliation: people indeed did not trust him; yet they believed that he was forced by circumstances to act in this way. Cicero came forward as an adviser, and it was decreed that an amnesty should be granted for all that was past; just as they did at Athens after the time of the thirty tyrants. There was much consultation about what was to be done. Brutus and Cassius, as public opinion was against them, had betaken themselves to the Capitol to escape from the storm; and from thence they began to negotiate: there were many of Cæsar’s soldiers in the city, others thronged in, and the commotion was very great. The resolutions which were come to, aimed at reconciliation; but they were full of contradictions to each other. Whilst, on the one hand, there was a strong feeling of admiration for the murderers, the decrees of the senate took quite the opposite turn. The proposal that Cæsar should be declared a tyrant, and all his acts be repealed, was not only rejected by the senate, through fear of the veterans, but divine honours were even conferred upon him, and the validity of all his ordinances expressly acknowledged. The motion had been made that his will should be annulled; but his father-in-law, L. Calpurnius Piso, with persevering impudence, carried that it should be ratified, publicly read, and executed. Cæsar had bequeathed to the soldiers, and to every single individual of the Roman people, great sums from his immense treasures; with this one would be sure to rekindle the enthusiasm of the soldiers and of the populace for him who was dead. Some had wisely requested that the burial should be quite private; yet this also was overruled, owing to the boldness of the faction and the cowardice of the senate, and it was ordered that he should have a stately funeral in the Campus Martius. The corpse in an open bier, according to the Italian custom, as is still the case at this day, was set down in the Forum before the rostra; and there his nearest kinsman Antony, who was allied to him by his mother Julia, delivered the oration, thus working powerfully on the minds of the fickle and capricious people: he not only recounted Cæsar’s great achievements, but he afterwards showed the wounds, and held aloft the bloody toga pierced by the daggers. At this sight, the people became so frantic and enraged, that instead of bearing the dead body to the Campus Martius, they at once built up a funeral pile of the benches and whatever wood besides chanced to be at hand, and there they burnt it: they then tore a man to pieces, whom they had groundlessly mistaken for one of the conspirators, and they stormed the houses of Brutus and Cassius. These had already come down from the Capitol on a promise which Antony and Lepidus had made on oath; and now they betook themselves to Antium, whilst others went down to the provinces of which they were governors. Dec. Brutus withdrew to Cisalpine Gaul which had been promised him by Cæsar; there he meant to take the oaths of the legions, and to make sure of them: M. Brutus was to have had Macedon; Cassius, Syria.
The events of this year (708) are so complicated and various, that it is quite impossible to relate them in order. Fr. Fabricius gives a detailed account of them in his life of Cicero: the knowledge of them is of importance for the Philippic orations.
Cæsar had in his will made the grandson of his sister Julia, C. Octavius, his heir ex dodrante after the payment of all legacies; the remaining quarter he had bequeathed to his wife’s relations: Antony and L. Piso, were not among the heirs. Cæsar’s aunt Julia, had been married to Marius; his sister Julia, the wife of M. Atius Balbus, had a daughter Atia, who was married to C. Octavius, the son of C. Octavius: this last was a worthy man, and but for his early death, would have risen to the consulship. Whether these Octavii belonged to those who in former days had acted a part in history, especially the colleague of Tib. Gracchus, is a point which I do not clearly know. I am, however, inclined to deny it, as they are spoken of too positively as having been ordinis equestris. At the time of Cæsar’s murder, C. Octavius was in his nineteenth year, having been born on the 23d of September, 689. Cæsar had taken an interest in this young man after his return from Spain; for hitherto he does not seem to have bestowed any attention upon him. He had settled that he was to accompany him in the Parthian war, and thenceforth remain with him to finish his education: until then, he had sent him to Apollonia in Illyricum, to get Grecian learning there. The Greek language was at that time quite common among the Romans: Cassius and Messalla spoke it to each other;[19] and in Cicero’s letters there are long passages in Greek, without the writers being themselves aware of it: Cicero’s Greek, however, has sometimes a peculiarly foreign air about it; it would be interesting to make this at once the subject of an accurate research. When Octavius had heard the sad news, he came up to Rome, and presented himself to Antony as Cæsar’s heir, ready to enter upon his inheritance. This was a most unpleasant arrival for Antony, who had the most urgent reasons not to let the property go out of his hands: for as he was answerable for it, he had to look sharp that no mistake should be made, and that it should be most faithfully administered; just as was the case with those with whom Napoleon had deposited the five millions. Octavius is the first example which I know of in history of an adoption by will; afterwards, this was very often done. Antony now tried to deter Octavius: he as well as others represented to him that he had better give it up, telling him that he was still too young: his mother and his stepfather had allowed themselves to be intimidated. But he already had Agrippa for his adviser, a man of whom, at a later period, there is a great deal of good to be said, but whose conduct at this crisis brought sad consequences upon the republic. But for Agrippa, Octavius would have played quite a different part: he would have let himself be intimidated; or else would have been overpowered, and Brutus would at last have been obliged to take upon himself the dictatorship, though perhaps under a different name, as the dictatura had been abolished for ever by a decree of the senate. Octavius now attached himself to those by whom he hoped to strengthen himself against Antony; and as, of course, he could not league himself with the murderers of Cæsar, he made particular advances to Cicero, whose hands were clean in that affair, and who allowed himself to be entrapped by the deep cunning of the young man: for he deemed it impossible that one so young should be false; and he always tried to see what he wished, to find in Octavius a disposition to consult the good of the commonwealth. Thus arose this connexion.—Octavius carried his point, and Antony had to give up to him the will and the inheritance, that is to say, as much of the latter as was still left; for Antony had already made away with the greatest part of the sums which Cæsar had deposited with him. The ill-feeling between Octavius and Antony now ran very high: each suspected the other, and perhaps with good reason, of trying to murder him. To so great a height had the excitement risen, that Cicero resolved to go away to Athens, until the first of January of the following year, when Hirtius and Pansa were to be consuls: the former of these was a very worthy and able man, and really his friend, whilst Pansa was much less eminent, being only a commonplace soldier.
This summer Cicero displayed the greatest intellectual activity. He began the books de Officiis; he wrote the ones De Divinatione, De Fato, De Gloria, the Topica, and also that huge quantity of letters, many of which are no longer extant. I do not know of any person, who was so intensely laborious as Cicero, was at that time. A common man will under such circumstances be stunned; he only thinks with terror of what is before him: Cicero, on the contrary, was aware of everything that was going on; but instead of letting himself be made the slave of events which he could not check, he turned all his thoughts to the intellectual world. This activity was the recreation which he found in this grief; it shows the wonderful strength of his soul. Contrary winds obliged him to stop at Rhegium.
Antony had, by means of decrees which he had wrung from the senate, given Macedonia to his brother Caius, and Syria to Dolabella, who, after Cæsar’s death, was consul with him: for himself, he had chosen Cisalpine Gaul. All at once, he turned round, and seemed to be quite another man: he showed himself friendly to the optimates, and most ready to conciliate men’s minds; and he enacted laws which aimed at peace. When Cicero was told that Antony was doing everything that one could wish, his friends earnestly begged him to return, and to reconcile himself with Antony. Had Cicero, on his arrival, ventured to appear in the senate, notwithstanding the risk there was of his being murdered in it; and had he brought himself to speak there to Antony, as if he could trust him; he might have prevented a great deal of mischief. Antony was embittered against him, and hated him; but he would perhaps after all have consented to make friends with him. On the whole, Cicero was guilty of a blunder in so loudly expressing his too just abhorrence of Antony’s utter profligacy. Antony, though a bad man, might still to some extent be gained over; he was at least an open character. Octavian, on the other hand, was a thorough hypocrite; and there was much truth in his last words at Nola, when he asked, whether he had well acted the comedy of his life: for it was all a part which he had got up most carefully and deliberately, and which he played with uncommon skill. Dissimulation was the master faculty of his mind. Antony, profligate as his life was, still did some good-natured, and even generous actions: Cicero could not have made a worse choice between the two. He may likewise have uttered things, which gave deep offence to Antony, and very often have made him the butt of his wit. However this may be, when Cicero did not show himself in the senate, Antony broke out against him in the most unseemly manner; and this called forth the second Philippic, which was never spoken, but written, and being immediately circulated, was devoured with the greatest admiration. As Cicero no longer deemed himself to be safe at Rome, he now went into the country.
Towards the end of the year, Antony betook himself to Cisalpine Gaul: Gallia Transpadana likewise had already received the franchise from Cæsar. During the whole of the summer, he went on in the most outrageous manner: on the strength of the senate having confirmed the acta Cæsaris, he did what he listed, pretending that he was acting according to commands which he had found among Cæsar’s papers. He granted to colonies immunity; gave others the franchise, and to some the jus Latii; chose his creatures into the senate; and all for money. In the same way, he had distributed the provinces.—In Spain, there was Asinius Pollio; in Gaul, M. Lepidus and L. Munatius Plancus. Antony betook himself to his province, where he tried to tamper with the legions of Dec. Brutus, but without success. The Transalpine and Illyrian towns showed themselves at first very friendly towards him; but his debaucheries and extortions estranged them from him. In the beginning of the year 709, the two consuls whom Cæsar had still nominated, Hirtius and Pansa, entered upon their office,—so far did Cæsar’s power reach even now!—and the senate assigned them the provinces of Gaul and Italy, to carry on, in common with Dec. Brutus, the struggle against Antony. Octavius had beguiled Cicero to get him the power and insignia of a prætor. Antony having, on the other hand, recalled the legions from Macedonia, whither they had been sent by Cæsar to be employed against the Parthians, two of them went over to Octavian; and they formed the nucleus of his force against Antony, and afforded protection to Cicero and the other patriots, although there was no one whom they hated so much. In the meanwhile, Brutus and Cassius had gone to Greece.
To the last year of Cicero’s life (709), belong the last Philippics, which come down to the end of April, besides several of the letters ad diversos, and also those to Brutus. This collection of epistles, as is well known, consists of two portions: an older one, which was very likely found in the same manuscript with those ad Quintum fratrem; and another, which has first appeared in the Cratandrina, and is stated to have been found in Germany. With regard to these last letters, there is a difficulty which cannot be cleared up. Whether they were forged in the sixteenth century, or, whether they are really old, I am not able to decide: if they are forged, he who did it has produced an incomparable masterpiece. And as for the other letters to Brutus in the first part, there is likewise a great dispute whether they be genuine or not. That they are very old, even as old as the first century, there can be no doubt; yet for all that they may very easily have been fabricated, even as early as the reign of Augustus, or at least in that of Tiberius: they are written by an ingenious man who had a very good knowledge of that age. It is nearly a hundred years since the question of their genuineness was first mooted by an English editor. Wolf was fully convinced that they were spurious; but I would not assert it so positively. I should however be glad if they were not genuine, of which I am morally convinced, as I am also with regard to the oration pro Marcello; yet there are still great doubts on the subject. These letters show some misunderstanding between Brutus and Cicero; and although we must not implicitly rely on them, yet they date so near the time itself, and are written so much from contemporary sources, that they may be looked upon as authorities.
While the first months were passing, Antony was besieging Dec. Brutus in Mutina. All in those parts had now declared against Antony. Modena must at that time have been of very great extent, since Brutus with all his army lay in it. Antony however, who was very much superior to him in numbers, having nine or ten legions, could have starved him out; and he was going to compel him to surrender, when Hirtius and Pansa, and C. Octavius as prætor, came up with three armies to his relief. Hirtius and Octavius first posted themselves in the neighbourhood of Bologna, whither Pansa followed with reinforcements: Octavian only had veterans; the rest were newly raised legions inferior to those of Antony. The latter having marched against the enemy to prevent the junction with Pansa, the troops of Pansa and especially the legio Martia which had been sent forward to his aid, heedlessly let themselves be drawn into a sort of irregular fight in which Antony at first had the worst of it, and then the better. When he was on the point of turning this advantage into a decided victory, Hirtius came up with reinforcements, and won the day. We have still extant an official bulletin of this battle, which was sent to Rome, and of which perhaps something must be abated. Pansa was severely wounded. As Antony did not stir from his lines, and the position of Dec. Brutus was by no means improved; the armies united, and ten or fourteen days afterwards Hirtius undertook an attack upon the camp of Antony: he broke through the upper lines, and took the camp; but he himself was killed in the battle. Dec. Brutus, however, had in the meanwhile made a furious sally, and joined the troops of the senate; so that Antony was obliged to give up the siege. He might still have kept his ground; but he entirely lost his head, and resolved upon leaving Italy.
At the end of April, things looked very cheerful in Rome, were it not for the death of the two consuls. Octavian’s reputation was then already such, that people suspected him of having had the wound of Pansa poisoned by his surgeon, and Hirtius killed in the battle, in the midst of his soldiers, by assassins: it is true that his moral character was by no means too good for such things to be ascribed to him; at any rate, great suspicion attaches itself to him, as those deaths left him the stage quite free. To the consuls who might have followed, the republic could not have intrusted itself. Under these circumstances, C. Cæsar, as he is now called, took the command of the armies of the two consuls, and Antony, whose army was dispersed, crossed the Alps with a small troop. It would now have been in the power of M. Lepidus—an abandoned fellow whom Cæsar unfortunately had been intimate with, and who after his death, in defiance of all right, had managed to get the pontificatus maximus—and of Munatius Plancus, to put an end to the whole affair, as the two were staying in Gaul, and might have crushed Antony: but this they did not wish. Lepidus would not have raised a hand against Antony. The latter—perhaps it was a got up farce,—was received in his camp, and proclaimed imperator by his soldiers and those of Plancus. This happened in the course of the summer, that season beginning in Italy as early as the seventh or eighth of May.
In this orphan state of the republic, Octavianus unmasked his real sentiments, and got his veterans loudly to demand that the consulship should be given him. Before that, he had applied to Cicero, proposing that they should be consuls together, in which case he would be entirely guided by Cicero’s advice. But Cicero did not fall into the snare: he saw that everything was hopeless. These last months after June were the most unhappy ones which he had ever known; so that it is no wonder that he got so tired of life, and would not even try to escape from death. The veterans with threats demanded the consulship for Octavian; but Cicero spoke against it quite as resolutely as any other senator. Surely here are no signs of cowardice, for which his excessive sensibility has indeed too often been mistaken!—They were, however, at last obliged to give way, and on the 19th of August, Octavian had himself proclaimed consul, together with his cousin Q. Pedius. There was now no more hope left for the lovers of their country: the senate was ready for slavery, and Cicero withdrew himself altogether. One of the first acts of the new consuls, was that frightful Lex Pedia by which criminal proceedings were instituted against all the accomplices in the murder of Cæsar. Judges were appointed, who were pro forma to summon Brutus, Cassius, and the other conspirators; and as these last, of course, did not surrender, they were condemned for contempt and proscribed:—they were outlawed and a price was set on their heads. This was quite against all Roman law; for whoever of his own free will renounced the republic, might always save his life. Dec. Brutus, whose army had been made disaffected by Octavian, fled to the borders of Gaul, and there he was murdered by a guest-friend. Octavian also reproached the senate with having ill-treated him, and with having slighted him after the war of Mutina; yet as he had the potestas prætoria, the senate could not indeed have done more for him than it did.
It was now November. Antony returned with Lepidus and Plancus and their army, and Octavian marched to the neighbourhood of Bologna to meet them. Lepidus, however, acted as a mediator, and the three came together on an islet in the river Reno, where they agreed to share among themselves for five years the government of the Roman world as triumviri reipublicæ constituendæ. The idea of such a magistracy was not a new one, as it had already been legally instituted once before, after the time of the Licinian law,[20] under quite different circumstances: it is also possible that on some other occasion there may also have been something of the kind. Italy was to be administered by them in common with consular power: of the provinces, Lepidus was to have Spain and Narbonnese Gaul; Antony, Cisalpine, Lugdunensian, and Belgic Gaul; Octavian, Africa, Sicily, and Sardinia. With regard to the eastern provinces nothing was settled. And likewise they first began with publishing a proscription of seventeen persons. Antony gave up his uncle as a victim; Lepidus, his brother,—or rather he demanded his death; as for Octavian, the historians say that it was only after a struggle that he made up his mind to sacrifice Cicero. Yet this cannot by any means have been hard for him to do: on the contrary, it must have been a relief to him to get rid of a benefactor, whom he had so beguiled and deceived, and to whom he had so often made vows of gratitude and of devotion to the republic. And moreover, this is only stated by Velleius and those writers who follow the historians of the Augustan age. How Livy treated this part of history, we unfortunately do not know for certain; but it is very likely that he was more free-spoken than others: we are told that Augustus called him a Pompeian, and a fragment also of his with regard to Cicero displays much boldness. It is, on the whole, astonishing how openly the writers of Augustus’ times—Asinius Pollio for instance—spoke out what they thought of the state of things in their day: this was partly because it was looked upon as the opinion of private persons, and perhaps also because these writings were not immediately circulated. A second proscription followed of a hundred and thirty senators, which was afterwards still further enlarged. These lists were much worse than those of Sylla. These last were the offspring of party spirit alone,—plunder was only a secondary object, or at most it followed as a thing of course; nor was it even for Sylla’s own benefit,—whereas now in most cases there was less of revenge than rapacity. Men who had never given any offence whatever, were made victims because they were rich, and of every one who was proscribed the goods and chattels were confiscated.
Cicero was in his Tusculan villa when the proscription list came out. He was undecided whether he ought not at once to await his death; yet he let himself be persuaded by his brother to flee. They went to the sea coast as far as Astura, to look out for a ship; and thence his brother returned, only to be murdered. Cicero took a fishing boat; but being tired of life, he had not the least wish to escape, and the murderer was welcome to him. Much as he honoured Cato, he did not think it right to lay hands on his own life: he therefore wished to leave it to Providence, whether he should flee to Sextus Pompey, who was already master of Sicily, or to Brutus, or any where else. Had he got to Sex. Pompey, he would have very likely died a natural death; for he would have lived to see the time when the latter made his peace, and all the proscribed persons of note who were with him returned to Rome. But Providence willed otherwise. The wind was contrary; he became sea sick, and found his wretched life not worth having: the sailors wanted to put back, and he allowed them to land near Mola di Gaëta, in the neighbourhood of one of his estates, to wait till the storm was over. Here he was betrayed by one of his own people, and a centurion, Popillius Lænas,—a man of a very distinguished plebeian clan, whose crime was perhaps exaggerated by the rhetorical invention that Cicero had once defended him,—overtook him. Cicero’s friends had prevailed upon him to let himself be carried away in a litter; but when his pursuers had come up with him, he ordered it to be set down, and, forbidding his slaves to fight for him, he himself stretched out his head to receive the deathblow. He died on the seventh of December 709, with great courage. His son, who was at that time with Brutus in Macedonia, still behaved in such a way as to give hopes of what he would become: he afterwards plunged into the lowest sensuality, and the coarsest debauchery. For all that, he was a man of much intellect, and he had his father’s wit; but he wanted all the moral qualities, which distinguished the first Cicero.
I recommend to you Middleton’s Life of Cicero: it is written not only in a very fine style, but also in a very fine spirit, whereas Hooke is revoltingly unjust to Cicero, and his diffuse work after all is only patchwork. Until the time of my youth, Cicero was ever revered as a great name, like a god before whom one bows the knee, albeit a θεὸς ἄγνωτος. Throughout the whole of the middle ages also, he stood high in men’s esteem: great minds, like Dante, St. Bernard, Petrarch and others, knew how to enter into his ideas, and could admire him. This feeling rose even to a greater height at the time of the revival of learning. The mania of the Ciceroniani in the sixteenth century is well known: it was held to be quite a heresy to use a phrase which was not to be found in Cicero. Some have been made quite dull by it; others, on the contrary, have thus formed a noble style: of this Manutius is an instance. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, a reaction began: people neglected, and even disdained the Latin language and literature, whilst the study of Greek got more in fashion. This was carried still farther during the first ten years of this century, when distinguished philologists would look down upon Cicero with scorn, and sneer at his twaddle, especially in his philosophical writings. Nowadays an enlightened and just estimation of Greek and Latin philology seems to have come into vogue. The philologist’s true standing, according to Quintilian’s saying, is to be judged of by his love of Cicero’s Latin: on the whole, nothing better can be said of him as a writer than this passage of Quintilian. Yet his style is not without its faults: in his earlier writings, particularly in the speeches against Verres, there are passages which are quite unworthy of him, and which he himself also afterwards criticised so severely in his Brutus. In his latest writings, on the other hand, he has not gone down, nor become dry; but there is always a freshness about him. The real spring-time of his life was the time of his prætorship and consulate. After his return, the oration pro Cælio is particularly distinguished; in the later ones, we must take the distress of the times into account. The famous second Philippic, as compared with the rest, has in my opinion been much overrated by the rhetoricians: wherever he gives himself up to vehemence, he exaggerates, which was not natural to him. His mind in fact was thoroughly benevolent, and wherever he shows himself in this light, he is finest. M. Seneca in the Suasoria gives us opinions on Cicero by Livy, Asinius Pollio, and Cassius Severus, which are most remarkable.
Cicero’s death ends for us this unhappy year. During its course, Brutus and Cassius had more and more established their power in the east: the former had made himself master of Macedonia, and been acknowledged by the legions; the latter whilst Cassius was in possession of Syria, had hemmed in Dolabella near Laodicea, and compelled him to surrender. This fellow, though he had at Rome as consul suffectus overthrown the statue of Cæsar, had afterwards, when in Asia, killed Trebonius, who indeed, like Decius Brutus, had formerly been Cæsar’s friend, and therefore was one of the most guilty of his murderers: for this, he was now condemned as a traitor, and put to death. Cassius was still most highly popular in Syria owing to the Parthian war; the legions declared for him, and the whole of the country submitted to him. At the end of the year, Brutus and Cassius were masters of the whole of the east, of the Adriatic sea, of Macedonia, and of Achaia, as far as the frontiers of Egypt. Brutus kept C. Antonius, a brother of the triumvir, as a prisoner in Macedonia; but when the tidings came of the proscriptions at Rome, he had him executed.
In the unfortunate issue of the war of Philippi, we may see the irresistible sway of what the ancients called fatum: one untoward circumstance followed close upon another, and everything which seemed to promise well took an unlucky turn. This was especially the case with the long expeditions of Brutus and Cassius in Asia. Though indeed these were of some advantage to them in bringing in money and soldiers, as they could both of them increase their resources and make conscriptions; they became notwithstanding the cause of their mishap. The chastisement of Xanthus in Lycia by Brutus, the taking of Rhodes by Cassius, and other things of the same kind, belong rather to the later Greek history than to this. Whilst they were training and recruiting their troops, they ought indeed to have kept themselves in Macedon and Greece, and have made it impossible for the triumvirs to bring together large masses; they would have compelled them to march a long way round through Illyricum, and should the enemy have landed at last, they might have prevented them from undertaking anything. Thus the chances would have been considerably in their favour. Fortune was likewise against their fleet. The two commanders, Statius Murcus and Domitius Ahenobarbus, who were stationed in the Illyrian waters, do not seem to have neglected anything; but the wind was fair for the triumvirs, and they landed two or three times in several squadrons on the Illyrian coast, and advanced from thence to Macedon. Here Brutus and Cassius had no troops, although they were not at all in want of soldiers; so that they must have withdrawn them to Thrace. It was not until the armies of Octavius and Antony had established themselves in Greece, and had subdued the whole of it, that their two antagonists concentrated their forces in Asia, and passed over the Hellespont into Macedon. Near Philippi, in the neighbourhood of the gold mine of Pangæus, there is between the mountains and the sea, where the road leads from Amphipolis to Thrace, a narrow defile which the triumvirs had occupied. Brutus was guided by a faithful Thracian ally, and so he turned the pass, and encamped over against the enemy near Philippi: the fleet was in the western seas. Before he started for this march, Brutus, either at Sardis or at Abydus, saw the vision which called itself his evil genius, and announced that it would meet him again at Philippi. The question now was, what was to be done. Cassius, an experienced general, rather shrank from bringing matters to a quick decision; but the general voice of the army called for the attack. The troops stood faithful to their generals, and no desertion took place: it would therefore have been possible to protract the war. Had Brutus and Cassius caused themselves to be joined by their fleet, which they did not know that they could do, and then acted for a considerable time on the defensive, Octavian and Antony would very likely have been forced for want of provisions to retreat; but unhappily they determined upon giving battle. In the army of Brutus and Cassius were the Romans of the highest rank; the greater part of these had been proscribed. Most of those who had saved their lives were now with them; only a few were with Sextus Pompey in Sicily, who had a large fleet of pirate ships, with which, however, Brutus and Cassius, as men of honour, and, even for the simple reason that they would thus have made themselves hateful to the people, would not unite themselves. The battle was fought; Brutus leading the left, Cassius the right wing (or rather, according to the ancient way of speaking, the left and right horns; for the term wing supposes a centre, whereas there were two separate armies, which were drawn up close together). In the battle, the fatum again showed its influence. Brutus overcame the enemy with great ease; and the one who distinguished himself most under him, was M. Valerius Messalla, a very young man, whom Cicero much loved, and whom he had recommended to him. In the reign of Augustus also, Messalla afterwards bore a high character. Brutus opposed Octavian; Cassius, Antony. Octavian is generally accused—Antony taxed him with it in his letters, and in public—of not having taken the least share in the battle; his army was utterly defeated. The excuses which are pleaded for him are very sorry ones; but as the command had devolved upon Agrippa, it certainly had not fallen into worse hands. In the Julian centre, a stout resistance was made; the right wing, however, was undeniably beaten, and the camp of Octavian taken. That of Cassius was not forced; but his troops were routed before it. Owing to the centre standing its ground, it was not possible to see the success of the army on the left wing; so that Cassius was led to think that all was lost. He sent an officer to bring him a report of the state of things on the other side, and after waiting a very long time for his return, matters appeared to him so desperate, that he bade his servant take away his life. The suspicion was already afloat among the ancients, that the slave behaved as a traitor, and did this without being ordered. Brutus was very downcast about the issue; twenty days passed, and both parties were still in the same position to each other as before: all was not yet lost. Had Brutus known that on the very day of the first battle his fleet had gained a complete victory, he would certainly have sent for it, and would have remained firm to his plan of keeping on the defensive. He had much trouble to get provisions, and it pained him to see that his troops were as lawless as those of the enemy: he had been obliged to promise them the plunder of Thessalonica and Lacedæmon in case of victory. On the day only that he yielded to the wish of his army to decide the war at once, he heard from the prisoners of the victory of his fleet; but low-spirited as he was, he would not believe it,—the messengers sent to him had been intercepted,—and he let himself be brought to an engagement. In this battle, his troops did not behave with the same gallantry as before, and they were signally beaten: Brutus escaped with a small band to a hill. As he could not reach the sea, and life would only be to him a most heavy burthen, he called upon his faithful servants to do the last duty to him; and on their refusing it, he fell upon his sword.
He was only in his thirty-seventh year when he died: at the time of Cicero’s consulship therefore, he was fifteen years old.[21]
Antony at that time saved many a life, whereas Octavian displayed a cold-blooded sneering cruelty which was revolting to the feelings: of this the strangely impartial account in Suetonius bears evidence. Antony had the body of Brutus solemnly buried: it is true that he likewise caused the son of Hortensius to be put to death, as he laid to his door the execution of his brother Caius. Most of the proscribed who were still alive, now killed themselves. Strikingly enough, among these was the father of that Livia who afterwards became the wife of Augustus, and the whole of whose family belonged to Pompey’s party: her first husband, Tiberius Claudius Nero, even tried to get up an insurrection in favour of the last of the proscribed.
After the battle, the fleets were still untouched. The army took service with the conquerors; many of the soldiers were scattered, many also returned unobserved to Italy; especially the young volunteers, among whom was also the poet Horace. From Athens, where he was pursuing his studies with other young Romans, he had joined the army of Brutus, who gave them appointments as tribunes. He was afterwards very badly off, until he was recommended to Mæcenas by whose means he got his pardon.[22]