THE ARGUMENT
When Julius, or, as he is usually called by Cicero, Caius Caesar was slain on the fifteenth of March, A.U.C. 710, B.C. 44, Marcus Antonius was his colleague in the consulship; and he, being afraid that the conspirators might murder him too (and it is said that they had debated among themselves whether they would or no), concealed himself on that day, and fortified his house; till perceiving that nothing was intended against him, he ventured to appear in public the day following. Lepidus was in the suburbs of Rome with a regular army, ready to depart for the government of Spain, which had been assigned to him with a part of Gaul. In the night, after Caesar’s death, he occupied the forum with his troops, and thought of making himself master of the city, but Antonius dissuaded him from that idea, and won him over to his views by giving his daughter in marriage to Lepidus’s son, and by assisting him to seize on the office of Pontifex Maximus, which was vacant by Caesar’s death.
To the conspirators he professed friendship, sent his son among them as a hostage of his sincerity, and so deluded them, that Brutus supped with Lepidus, and Cassius with Antonius. By these means he got them to consent to his passing a decree for the confirmation of all Caesar’s acts, without describing or naming them more precisely. At last, on the occasion of Caesar’s public funeral, he contrived so to inflame the populace against the conspirators, that Brutus and Cassius had some difficulty in defending their houses and their lives; and he gradually alarmed them so much, and worked so cunningly on their fears, that they all quitted Rome. Cicero also left Rome, disapproving greatly of the vacillation and want of purpose in the conspirators. On the first of June Antonius assembled the Senate to deliberate on the affairs of the republic, and in the interval visited all parts of Italy.
In the mean time young Octavius appeared on the stage; he had been left by Caesar, who was his uncle, the heir to his name and estate. He returned from Apollonia, in Macedonia, to Italy as soon as he heard of his uncle’s death, and arrived at Naples on the eighteenth of April, where he was introduced by Hirtius and Pansa to Cicero, whom he promised to be guided in all respects by his directions. He was now between eighteen and nineteen years of age.
He began by the representation of public spectacles and games in honor of Caesar’s victories. In the mean time Antonius, in his progress through Italy, was making great use of the decree confirming all Caesar’s acts, which he interpolated and forged in the most shameless manner. Among other things he restored Deiotarus to all his dominions, having been bribed to do so by a hundred millions of sesterces by the king’s agents; but Deiotarus himself, as soon as he heard of Caesar’s death, seized all his dominions by force. He also seized the public treasure which Caesar had deposited in the temple of Opis, amounting to above $22,000,000 of our money, and with this he won over Dolabella, who had seized the consulship on the death of Caesar, and the greater part of the army.
At the end of May Cicero began to return towards Rome, in order to arrive there in time for the meeting of the Senate on the first of June; but many of his friends dissuaded him from entering the city, and at last he determined not to appear in the Senate on that day, but to make a tour in Greece; to assist him in which, Dolabella named him of his lieutenants. Antonius also gave Brutus and Cassius commissions to buy corn in Asia and Sicily for the use of the republic, in order to keep them out of the city.
Meantime Sextus Pompeius, who was at the head of a considerable army in Spain, addressed letters to the consuls proposing terms of accommodation, which after some debate, and some important modifications, were agreed to, and he quitted Spain, and came as far as Marseilles on his road towards Rome.
Cicero, having started for Greece, was forced to put back by contrary winds, and returned to Velia on the seventeenth of August, where he had a long conference with Brutus, who soon after left Italy for his province of Macedonia, which Caesar had assigned him before his death, though Antonius now wished to compel him to exchange it for Crete. After this conference Cicero returned to Rome, where he was received with unexampled joy, immense multitudes thronging out to meet him, and to escort him into the city. He arrived in Rome on the last day of August. The next day the Senate met, to which he was particularly summoned by Antonius, but he excused himself as not having recovered from the fatigue of his journey.
Antonius was greatly offended, and in his speech in the Senate threatened openly to order Cicero’s house to be pulled down; the real reason of Cicero’s absenting himself from the Senate being, that the business of the day was to decree some new and extraordinary honors to Caesar, and to order supplications to him as a divinity, which Cicero was determined not to concur in, though he knew it would be useless to oppose them.
The next day also the Senate met, and Antonius absented himself; but Cicero came down and delivered the first of that celebrated series of fourteen speeches made in opposition to Antonius and his measures, and called Philippics from the orations of Demosthenes against Philip, to which the Romans were in the habit of comparing them.