By sparing Antonius when they slew Caesar, the Conspirators had foredoomed their schemes to ruin. The consul outplayed them in the game of intrigue and, in spite of the act of amnesty and the confirmation of their prospective appointments, their plight grew daily more precarious. They began to realize that they were marked men, and that if the Caesarian party triumphed, their destruction was certain. Speedily, therefore, their timid sympathizers in the Senate began to hold more and more aloof, for no one knew what desperate stroke Antonius might be meditating. Most of the leading republicans, judging that they could breathe more easily in the country than in Rome, betook themselves to their villas and waited for a sign, thus abandoning the capital to Antonius and his adherents. This was an unmistakable proof of weakness, which could not be rectified even by the frenzied efforts of Cicero to rally all those who remained true to the old constitution. The Conspirators, left alone in Rome, speedily found their position untenable. As praetors, Brutus and Cassius were legally bound to remain within the walls, but they, too, retired towards the end of April to Lanuvium. Decimus Brutus hurried away to his province of Cisalpine Gaul, Trebonius to Asia, and Cimber to Bithynia. But it is clear that they had no settled plan of concerted action and merely drifted with the times, looking helplessly to one another to initiate a policy.
That they were thoroughly despondent is evident from the letters which Cicero wrote during these troubled weeks, while he passed restlessly from villa to villa in the south of Italy. He could not disguise from himself the truth that things were going very badly for the cause, and that Antonius held all the winning cards. And supposing there was war, what was he to do? He had already compromised himself by his approbation of the Ides of March. He would be bound to take a side and join either Sextus Pompeius or Brutus. It would not be as it was in Caesar's day, when one might remain neutral, sure of magnanimity from the conqueror. This time there must be a formidable massacre of the losing party. Then, as he heard of the skillful use which Antonius was making of Caesar's papers, the unpalatable truth was borne in upon him that, after all, Caesar's assassination had done the Republic no good. "The Republic," he writes to Cassius, "has avenged its injuries by the death of the tyrant — nothing more. Which of its dignities has it recovered? We are actually endorsing the rough notes of the man whose laws we ought to have torn down from the walls where they are inscribed."
Cicero, in fact, was living from day to day in nervous apprehension, tortured by his increasing conviction of the futility of Caesar's murder. Dependent for his information on letters from Atticus and his other correspondents in Rome, it was impossible for him to gauge the situation correctly. There is something pathetic in the eager way he snatches at the passing straws of hope. Dolabella's repression of a slight Caesarian tumult at Rome throws him into transports of joy. He had been thinking of quitting Italy and going to Greece — anywhere to be out of the way. Immediately he cheers up and declares that he cannot dream of leaving at such a moment. He almost forgives Dolabella for not paying him back the dowry of Tullia. He hails him as the leader for whom they have been looking in vain. Then news comes from Rome that Dolabella has been bought by Antonius, and Cicero is once again in despair. "I think about Greece more and more." "The Ides of March do not afford me the consolation they did." "There was courage in the arms which slew Caesar, but the statesmanship was that of a child." And on May 11th, when he hears how Antonius is gathering the veterans around him, he gives way to a gloomy foreboding that war is inevitable. "Old age makes my temper sourer than it was. I am disgusted with everything. But then my active life is over. Let the younger men solve the problem." That is the cry of a disappointed man in a moment of petulance and utter weariness of mind and body. Yet the next day he is at work again, doing his utmost to rally his friends around the Republic. Cicero's loyalty to Brutus at this time was perhaps more creditable to his heart than to his judgment. He had persuaded himself that the fate of the Republic depended upon the Chief of the Conspirators. The shrewd Atticus had challenged this view. Cicero repeated it in emphatic language: "Either the Republic will fall or else it will be saved by Brutus and his friends." And throughout these weeks he was forever striving to strengthen the weak-kneed, to infuse into them new courage and energy, and to confirm the loyalty of the doubtful.
To confirm the doubtful — that was the difficulty. These formed an overwhelming majority of the Senate. Again, there were Caesar's friends to be taken into consideration, men of the stamp of the consuls-designate, Hirtius and Pansa. They had been loyal adherents of Caesar while Caesar lived. They owed their promotion to him. They had fought in his campaigns. He had promised them the consulship for the ensuing year. It was obviously of vital importance to the republican cause that they should be won over to some reasonable compromise. What, then, were their views upon the extraordinary situation in which they found themselves? Cicero supplies the answer. They roundly condemned the Ides of March. They would negotiate with Cicero, but they would have nothing to do with the Conspirators. They believed that Caesar's acts would be nullified and abrogated if the Conspirators proved triumphant, and that Caesar's friends would be proscribed. For that reason they welcomed Octavian on his arrival in Italy. Yet, while they distrusted Brutus and Cassius, they equally distrusted Antonius, whose domination threatened their peaceful succession to the consulship. Hence they were perfectly prepared to be friendly with Cicero, and lend an ear to his schemes, but were careful not to pledge themselves too deeply. Caesarians at heart, they were willing to accept any compromise whereby they might enter quietly upon their office at the beginning of the new year.
Antonius had summoned a meeting of the Senate for the first of June, and had flooded Rome with soldiers to overawe opposition. Cicero had long debated whether he should attend and had finally decided that it would not be safe for him to put in an appearance. Brutus and Cassius dared not leave their retreat. Antonius, therefore, found little active opposition when he laid before the Senate his high-handed proposition to abrogate in part the allotment of provinces which had been ratified at the earlier meeting of March 17th. On that occasion, Marcus Brutus had been confirmed in his appointment to Macedonia and Cassius in his appointment to Syria. Now the consul proposed that Macedonia should be given to himself and Syria be transferred to his colleague, Dolabella. There was no shadow of justification for this outrage upon constitutional procedure, and Antonius hardly deigned to offer reasons or excuses for the demand. His motives, indeed, were too transparent to be disguised. Now secure of the cooperation of the treacherous Dolabella, his aim was to gain control of the legions assembled in the East for the Thracian and Parthian wars. Then, a few days later, after this coup de main had been triumphantly carried through the Senate, he induced that body to pass another decree assigning to Brutus and Cassius the duty of providing the capital with grain, a sort of roving commissionership with certain military powers in the Mediterranean littoral. They had to decide whether they would pocket their pride and tamely submit to so gross an insult. Cicero put the case very neatly in one of his letters to Atticus. If they accepted the commissionership as an act of favor from Antonius, they would sacrifice their principles. To attempt a counterstroke was impossible. They had neither the courage nor the means to carry it through. And yet if they quietly acquiesced in the domination of the consul, who could guarantee their lives? That was the situation in a nutshell. Antonius had cleverly thrust them into a corner, and Cicero, quick to see that a false move would be fatal, hurried up to Antium to discuss what had best be done.
He gives us a graphic picture of the meeting, which throws a flood of light upon the character of the Conspirators and the hopelessness of their position. It was a family council, in which the ladies of the house shared and took a prominent part. Servilia was there, the resolute mother of the vacillating Brutus. Portia, wife of Brutus and Cato's daughter, and Tertia, the half-sister of Brutus and wife of Gaius Cassius, were also present. What was to be done? Cicero had gone to Antium with his mind made up. It was not safe for Brutus to go to Rome. He had no alternative, therefore, but to accept the commissionership. The advice was good and the Conspirators knew it, but it was none the less unpalatable. Cassius, in a towering fury, with his eyes darting fire, vowed that he would never go to Sicily. "Then where will you go?" asks Cicero. "To Achaia," was the answer. "And Brutus?" "To Rome, if Cicero advised it." "Quite impossible," said Cicero, "your life would not be worth a day's purchase." Mutual recriminations followed. They stormed at Decimus Brutus for wasting his time in chasing robbers in Cisalpine Gaul instead of making a stand against Antonius. They reproached one another for the opportunities which they had let slip, for their timorous action after the Ides of March, for the empty truce they had patched up with the consul. They saw that they had missed every opening and fumbled every chance. Cicero tried to quell the tempest. "The past was past; let bygones be bygones." In the end, he drew from them their reluctant consent to accept the commissionerships.
But he quit Antium with a heavy heart. He was leaving the nerveless leaders of a broken party, and he despaired of the future. "I found the party like a ship with her timbers starting; nay, fast going to pieces. They have no plans, no judgment, no system." Brutus and Cassius formally took over their new duties. Cicero himself sought and obtained a legatio from Dolabella — now the tool of Antonius — which enabled him to leave Italy at any moment. The fortunes of the Republicans had touched their lowest ebb. Their principal anxiety during the next three months was not so much to get back the power they had lost, as to secure their own personal safety. Antonius had uttered the dark menace: "Only the man on the winning side has a chance of seeing length of days." Cicero heard it, turned his eyes towards Greece, and tried to forget the cares of politics in composing his philosophical treatises on Old Age, Friendship, Glory, and Fate. He shrank from the turmoil which was brewing. Still loyal to Brutus, he saw only too well how unfit Brutus was to lead a party. "I send you Brutus' letter," he writes to Atticus on July 6th, "but, good God! did you ever see such fecklessness?" A week later the Ludi Apollinares were celebrated in Rome. It was the duty of Brutus, as City Praetor, to provide the shows. But he had long been absent from the capital and dared not return now. Consequently, while he paid for the entertainment, his colleague, Gaius Antonius, brother of his archenemy, the consul, presided. The people had their amusement and they applauded their lavish benefactor. But, for all practical purposes, the money was thrown away. The plaudits which greeted the name of Brutus were barren of political result, and Cicero let fall the bitter sarcasm that the hands of the Roman people suffered more wear and tear from clapping in the theater than from bearing arms in the defense of the Republic. The games were soon forgotten. The new name of Julius for the month Quintilis remained. Do what they would, the Republicans could not rid themselves of the shadow of the man they had slain. So they decided to leave Italy with a number of ships which they had chartered ostensibly as transports for grain. Antonius accused them of holding levies, exacting contributions, and tampering with the legions oversea. To this they replied in a joint letter from Naples on August 2nd, complaining that it was intolerable that they should not be allowed to waive their rights as praetors without a consul threatening them with arms. "We want you to occupy a great and honorable position in a free republic," they said, "and we challenge you to no open quarrel. Yet we value our liberty at a greater price than your friendship. Be careful, therefore, that you do not aspire to a role which you cannot sustain, and bethink yourself not how long Caesar lived, but how short a time he reigned." Such was the manifesto with which the two praetors replied to the fierce attack made upon them by the consul on August 1st, at the meeting of the Senate, when their friends had urged the House to pass a decree enabling them to retain their position as praetors while acting as commissioners for the grain supply.
Cicero, meanwhile, had embarked, in the middle of July, and sailed slowly down to Syracuse, with the full intention of leaving Italy and remaining away for the rest of the year. One hope alone remained to him. Antonius' consulship expired on December 31st. He would then have to make way for Hirtius and Pansa or there must be war; and Cicero, while by no means quite easy in his mind as to the intentions of the consuls-elect, felt that at least there was a reasonable chance of a brighter era dawning when they entered upon their office. He resolved to visit Greece. But the fates willed it otherwise. Twice he set sail from Leucopetra. Twice an adverse wind blew his vessel back to port, and on the second occasion news reached him which determined him to abandon his plans and go straight to Rome. He heard of the manifesto of Brutus and Cassius and of the summoning of the Senate, and received a circular letter which the two Conspirators had sent round to their friends, begging them to take their places in the Senate House. "They were in good hope" — so ran the document — "that Antonius would give way, and that an accommodation might be arrived at between the two parties." Consequently, Cicero plucked up heart once more and hastened north. At Velia, he fell in with Brutus, who welcomed him with open arms, abandoned his usual gloomy reserve, and poured into his ear all the secrets which hitherto he had kept locked in his own breast. Cicero reproached himself for having so much as thought of flight. He thanked the south wind which had saved him from the scandal of abandoning his friends, and, with the encouraging words and plaudits of his titular leader ringing in his ears, he entered Rome on August 31st. His great duel with Antonius was about to begin. He was to make his last great effort to save the Republic, to succeed for a time almost beyond reasonable expectation, and then to die the death of a martyr for his political principles.
What, then, was the political situation which Cicero found on his return? As far back as June 1st, Antonius had secured for himself the province of Macedonia and for Dolabella the province of Syria. But that was merely the first step toward the realization of the more ambitious schemes which he gradually disclosed. Antonius, who had been trained in the school of Julius, saw that victory could only be obtained by the help of the legions, and that he who commanded the most swords must eventually win. There were six legions stationed without a general on the Ionian coast, waiting to be led against the Parthians. Naturally, they expected to be transported to Syria, the base of all expeditions against Parthia, and Cassius had hoped for the command. When Cassius' province had been given to Dolabella, the legions looked to the latter as their probable leader, but Antonius persuaded his colleague to be content with one, while the remainder were transferred to himself. The consul induced the Senate to abandon the projected Parthian campaign, and gave orders that the legions should remain in their present quarters, and then, turning from the Senate to the people, he obtained permission for the transfer of Macedonia from himself to his brother Gaius, while he boldly claimed for himself the Gallic provinces, and urged that Cisalpine Gaul should be incorporated with the Italian peninsula and placed under the control of the central executive. The latter portion of his scheme failed. The rest succeeded. Decimus Brutus was bidden to make way for Antonius in Cisalpine Gaul, and instructions were given for the Macedonian legions to embark for Italy. They did not, it is true, begin to arrive until the beginning of October, but the knowledge that they were preparing to start was undoubtedly the principal factor in the political situation.
It is difficult to follow with exactitude the relations between Antonius and Octavian during this eventful summer, but their general outlines are tolerably clear. We have already seen how, when Octavian returned to Rome to claim his patrimony, the consul thwarted him at every turn. He had hindered the passing of the curiate law necessary for his formal adoption. He had threatened him with violence when he erected a brazen statue to Caesar. He had prevented the people from electing him a tribunus suffectus. It had been Octavian's policy to ingratiate himself with the Senate, and especially with the leading members of the old noble families, and, without relinquishing the name of Caesar, to affect adherence to the constitutionalist party and its principles. He was apparently regarded as an unknown quantity, as one who might at any moment become important and even dangerous. Thus we find Cicero, on June l0th, writing:
"As for Octavian, I have come to the conclusion that he has plenty of ability and courage and that his sentiments towards our heroes, the Liberators, are all that we could desire. But we must carefully consider how far we can trust one so young, bearing the name he does, coming from such a stock, and with such a bringing up. Nevertheless, he is a man to be nursed, and, above all, it is of supreme importance to detach him from Antonius. His disposition is good, if only it will bear the strain."
There is reason to think that Antonius was quicker than Cicero to see of what the youthful Octavian was actually, and not merely potentially, capable, and therefore, when in July and August he was feeling his way towards his great coup — that of ousting Decimus from his province and bringing back the legions to Italy — Antonius found it politic to effect a rapprochement with him and disarm his active opposition. Whenever Antonius felt apprehensive of a strong republican reaction — and there were moments when that seemed just within the bounds of probability — he made overtures to Octavian. Strong as Antonius was, he felt compelled to conciliate, on occasion, the rival whom he had already begun to fear. But there was no lasting understanding between them, and the breach was again beginning to widen.
Cicero had hurried up to Rome with unusual haste to be in time for the meeting of September 1st, but he did not take his place in the Curia, pleading the fatigue of his journey as an excuse for nonattendance. The real reason lay elsewhere. He had been warned that Antonius was furious at his coming, and had prepared a savage attack upon him. The consul taunted him with being afraid to meet him face to face and then quit the city for his Tiburtine villa, leaving his colleague, Dolabella, to preside over the adjourned meeting on the following day, at which Cicero delivered the first of that historic series of fourteen orations which, while they cost him his life, have gained him deathless fame. The First Philippic was a consummate piece of political rhetoric. Cicero did not pick up the gauntlet which Antonius had thrown down. He rather implored his enemy not to take the irretrievable step. He praised Antonius for his behavior up to the first of June, and sharply contrasted it with his subsequent conduct. Since that date, he exclaimed, the whole scene had changed. "Nihil per senatum; multa et magna per populum. et absente populo et invito." In short, he accused Antonius of having ignored the Senate, of having carried his high-handed measures through the people, and even, when it suited his purpose, of having usurped absolute power without the slightest semblance of constitutional procedure. It was not a candid speech. It was rather a clever party move, intended, if possible, to isolate Antonius, and rally the moderates against him. What Cicero really thought of Antonius conduct between the Ides of March and June 1st was very different from the flattering praise which it now suited his purpose to bestow upon it. But he wished to gain public opinion over to his side by making a last appeal to the consul to return to a constitutional position. However, it merely served to rouse Antonius to a deeper hatred. He knew the power of Cicero's eloquence, and the electrifying effect it had upon the Roman Senate. The chilly, egotistical, self-satisfied Brutus was an enemy who might safely be ignored. Cicero's presence in Rome was a constant source of danger to his plans. Antonius, therefore, formally renounced his friendship with Cicero, and prepared another onslaught, which he delivered on the nineteenth of September. Again Cicero was absent. He shrank from facing the consul when surrounded by his bodyguard, and prudently remained at home. The fierce tirade of the consul thoroughly cowed the Senate. They had applauded Cicero. Antonius' reply was to parade his swordsmen through the streets of Rome. The capital became an armed camp. The consul boldly erected a statue of Caesar on the Rostra and dedicated it "Parenti Optime Merito." Until the end of the month, Cicero kept within doors and then sought the seclusion of his villa at Puteoli, where he elaborated that amazing torrent of invective, the Second Philippic. But it was never spoken, and was not even published until two months later, when the sword had already been drawn. Antonius for three weeks terrorized Rome and ruled alone. On October 2nd, he threw aside the mask and declaimed against Cicero and the Conspirators as traitors and assassins. On October 5th, he declared that he had discovered a plot of Octavian against his life. On October 9th, he left Rome for Brundisium to take command of the legions which had been brought across the Adriatic. Although, as yet, no war was proclaimed, war had in truth begun.