The first Philippic, 2nd Sept., B.C.
44.
On the 2nd of September therefore Cicero
attended and made a statement of his position and
views, which has come down to us as the
first Philippic. It is a dignified
and comparatively gentle statement of his case
against Antony. But it puts clearly his belief as
to the abuse by him of the confirmation of
Caesar's
acta, passed
by the senate on the 17th of March. It recalls
Antony's own measures of which Cicero
approved—especially the abolition of the
dictatorship and the suppression of the riots
round the memorial column—and appeals to
him to keep within the lines of the constitution,
and to trust to the affection rather than the
fears of his fellow citizens. There is an absence
of personal invective and insult, which shews that
Cicero was not yet prepared to throw away the
scabbard in his contest with Antony, though he had
long seen that his existence made the murder of
Caesar vain and useless. The tyrant was dead, not
the tyranny; the assassins had acted with the
courage of heroes, but the folly of children, and
left the heir to the tyranny alive.
1 Yet he
remained on tolerably courteous terms with Antony,
and even requested a
legatio from him.
2 But that was to be over for
ever.
Antony's reply to the first Philippic,
delivered after much preparation on the 19th of
September, and containing every kind of invective
against Cicero's life, policy, and
public conduct, drew from Cicero the terrible
second Philippic,
The second Philippic,
19th Sept. |
which, though never delivered,
was handed about among all kinds of people who
cared to read it. It made all reconciliation,
however formal or official, for ever impossible.
From that time forward the letters shew us Cicero
in determined and unhesitating opposition to
Antony. For some weeks still he is doubtful as to
what practical steps he is to take, but he has no
more hesitation as to what his political object is
to be: it is to crush Antony by any and every
means within his power. The letters henceforth are
more and more exclusively political. Though
references to private affairs and to literary
questions, connected with the
de
Officiis, still occur in the letters to
Atticus, even they are almost monopolized by the
one absorbing subject. He still expresses
gratitude to philosophy, "which not only diverts
me from anxious thoughts, but also arms me against
all assaults of fortune"
3—but literature and
philosophy in the old sense are over for him: and
when for a nioment he touches on lighter subjects
to Paetus,
4
he hastens to excuse himself: "Don't suppose
because I write jestingly I have cast off all care
for the state. Be assured, my dear Paetus, that I
work for nothing, care for nothing all day and
night except the safety and freedom of my fellow
citizens."
