Political Speeches (Oxford World's Classics) Read Online Free PDF Page A

Caesar and allowed to move on to Rome.
    Under Caesar’s dictatorship there was no free political debate in which he could participate, and in any case his advice on political matters was not sought; he attended meetings of the senate, but without speaking. It was now that he found time to resume work on his many philosophical and rhetorical treatises, the bulk of which were written during this period; and he also taught rhetoric to aristocratic pupils. These activities helped take his mind off the fall of the republic, Caesar’s increasing autocracy, and (in 45) the death of his beloved daughter Tullia. In September 46 he broke his silence in the senate. Caesar had unexpectedly agreed to pardon an enemy, one of the most die-hard of the republican leaders, Marcus Claudius Marcellus, and Cicero made a speech of thanks.
Pro Marcello
(‘For Marcellus’) praises Caesar’s clemency and urges him to proceed with his work of reform; it also sets out Cicero’s case to be accepted as a mediator between Caesar and the former Pompeians.
Pro Ligario
(‘For Ligarius’, 46) and
Pro rege Deiotaro
(‘For King Deiotarus’, 45) are other speeches of this period in which Cicero begs Caesar to spare Pompeian enemies. In their circumstances of delivery and in their tone they are a far cry from the speeches in which Cicero addresses a jury and is free to say what he wishes. Here he is addressing a monarch in his palace.
    Caesar’s autocracy led of course to his assassination in the senate on the Ides (15th) of March 44, just a few weeks after he had had himself made
dictator perpetuo
(‘dictator for life’). Cicero had offered discreet encouragement to the assassins, or ‘liberators’ as he callsthem, but had not been let into the plot. He was actually present at the murder: Brutus raised his dagger and congratulated him on the recovery of their freedom. As the last of the senior republicans still surviving, Cicero had a symbolic value: he had become a token of the republic. And this time we do have evidence for his joy at the death of his enemy (if
Fam
. 6.15 does indeed refer to it).
    After the assassination, political life began again. The surviving consul, Mark Antony (in Latin, Marcus Antonius), arranged a settlement under which Caesar’s assassins would not be prosecuted, but his laws and appointments would remain in force. In April, however, the situation changed with the arrival in Italy of Caesar’s principal heir, his 18-year-old great-nephew Gaius Octavius (who from his posthumous adoption as Caesar’s son is known as Octavian, and from 27 is known as the first emperor, Augustus): calling himself Gaius Julius Caesar, he showed himself to Caesar’s veterans, held games in Caesar’s honour, and began paying Caesar’s legacies to the Roman people. In September, Cicero made an enemy of Antony, for a relatively trivial reason: Antony had denounced him for his failure to attend a meeting of the senate at which posthumous honours for Caesar were to be voted. Cicero replied the next day with the
First Philippic
; Antony then delivered a bitter invective against him in the senate in his absence; and Cicero wrote (but did not deliver) a savage reply, the
Second Philippic
. This speech attacks and ridicules Antony’s entire career, but particularly his behaviour under Caesar and his appropriation of state funds in the months since Caesar’s death; it closes with a warning of assassination. It was Cicero’s view that Antony ought to have been murdered at the same time as Caesar: if Cicero had been invited to the feast (i.e. let into the plot), there would have been no leftovers (
Fam
. 10.28.1, 12.4.1).
    In November Antony left Rome for Gaul, which he had taken as his province; and Cicero assumed unofficial leadership of the senate. In the
Third Philippic
, he persuaded the senate to approve the refusal of Decimus Brutus, the governor of Cisalpine Gaul and one of Caesar’s assassins, to hand over his legions to Antony; and in