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

the
Fourth Philippic
, delivered before the people on the same day, he argued that Antony was in effect a public enemy. At the same time, he urged both senate and people to give their support to Octavian. In thinking that the young man could be praised, honoured, and then disposed of (to his embarrassment, his words (
Fam
. 11.20.1) werereported to Octavian), Cicero made a serious misjudgement. It was also unrealistic of him to suppose that Octavian would stay for long on the same side as Caesar’s assassins. But Antony’s destruction seemed to Cicero the immediate priority, and an alliance with Octavian was the only way to bring it about.
    From this point, Cicero controlled events at Rome: nineteen years after his consulship, he was once again leading the republic at a moment of supreme national crisis. In a further ten
Philippics
(January to April 43), he directed the senate in its actions against Antony, urging it not to compromise, and presented his view of events to the people. It was his ‘finest hour’. In April 43 Antony was defeated near Mutina and declared a public enemy. Cicero, it seemed, had saved his country a second time. But events then took an unwelcome turn. Antony escaped and succeeded in acquiring further legions from Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, the governor of Narbonese Gaul and Nearer Spain; and Decimus Brutus was deserted by his troops and killed on Antony’s orders. Octavian, though only 19, demanded the consulship (both consuls had been killed in battle); he may have considered having Cicero as his colleague, but the evidence for this is doubtful. When his demand was refused by the senate, he marched on Rome and, in August, held an irregular election and took the consulship, with his uncle as his colleague. With nothing more to be got from Cicero and the senate, he then changed sides, holding a meeting with Antony and Lepidus near Bononia. The ‘second triumvirate’ was formed, and the three men gave themselves supreme power for five years, and divided out the empire between them. To rid themselves of their enemies and raise funds for their veterans they initiated a proscription, as Sulla had done in 82. So once again the lists of those to be killed were posted in the forum. Cicero met his end, on7 December, with great courage. He was 63. His head and hands were cut off and displayed on the rostra in the forum—the scene of so many of his successes.
    Octavian defeated Antony at Actium in 31, and in 30 he chose Cicero’s son as his colleague in the consulship. Many years later, as the emperor Augustus, he happened to catch his grandson reading one of Cicero’s books. He took the book, looked through it, and handed it back saying, ‘He was a master of words, child, a master of words and a patriot’ (Plut.
Cic
. 49.3).

NOTE ON THE TRANSLATION
    C ICERO’S orations are not written in the language of ordinary speech: instead, they are composed in a highly artificial style which must have impressed, astonished, and mesmerized those who listened to it. Sentences are long, sometimes as long as a third of a page of a modern printed text, and occasionally longer. The style is ‘periodic’; that is, once the sentence or ‘period’ has begun, the listener has to wait some time before the various subordinate clauses have been delivered and the sense is complete. While the period is evolving, the listener has certain expectations about how it is going to continue and end (grammatically, and in sense), and when it is finally completed these expectations are either fulfilled (giving the listener a sense of satisfaction) or, more rarely, cheated (startling the listener). The clauses which make up the period can sometimes be mere padding, but this is unusual; often they make the argument more impressive or powerful, and in addition they serve to delay the completion of the period, providing a greater feeling of satisfaction when the grammar and sense are finally completed. The clauses themselves and the