Without the letters to Atticus we no longer have a window into Cicero’s mind, his private moods and doubts; but, so far as we can tell, the process of transformation that had begun with Cato’s death was now reaching completion. Some twentieth-century historians have detected fanaticism and obsession in Cicero at this time, especially so far as his loathing of Antony is concerned. One certainly senses a coarsening of his personality, the obverse perhaps of his new decisiveness. This was the price Cicero was to pay for his return to power. Although he held no public office, the next six months saw him become the first man in Rome, with as great a dominance over the political scene as during his Consulship. The disappointments and humiliations of the intervening twenty years were behind him.
15
CICERO’S CIVIL WAR
Against Mark Antony: January–April 43 BC
January 43 opened with gales. Some tablets around the Temple of Saturn in the Forum were snapped off and scattered on the ground. An epidemic was reported across Italy and one of the new Consul’s lictors fell down and died on his first day of office. A statue representing Honor was blown over and the little image of Minerva the Guardian, which Cicero had set up in the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitol before his departure for exile in 58, was shattered. These were sinister omens for the new, culminating phase of Cicero’s career.
The Senate met starting on January 1 for three days to discuss the political situation. The new Consuls, Aulus Hirtius and Caius Vibius Pansa Caetronianus, took a loyally constitutionalist line, but they distrusted Cicero’s extremism against Antony. Somewhat to Cicero’s annoyance, Pansa, in the chair, called on his father-in-law, Quintus Fufius Calenus, to speak first. A supporter of Antony, Calenus argued for negotiation and proposed that a delegation be sent to meet the former Consul, who was now besieging Decimus Brutus at the town of Mutina in Italian Gaul. Antony’s friends in Rome had been taken by surprise at the Senate meeting on December 20, but this time they had come prepared to launch a strong counterattack against their critics.
In his fifth Philippic, Cicero argued that this motion was pernicious and absurd. Antony’s intentions were the reverse of peaceful and negotiations would be pointless. He went through the familiar catalog of sins. The blockade of Mutina was an act of war and he proposed that the Senate declare a state of military emergency. He then moved to another subject: honors. Votes of thanks should be passed in honor of Decimus Brutus and Lepidus and a gilt equestrian statue of Lepidus should be erected on the Speakers’ Platform or elsewhere. This undistinguished but crucially placed Caesarian was now governor of Transalpine Gaul and Near Spain and commanded a substantial army; his loyalty was suspect and Cicero wanted to do all he could to bind him to the Senate.
Finally, Cicero came to Octavian, whom he called “this heaven-sent boy.” Throwing constitutional proprieties to the winds, he proposed that he be coopted to the Senate and given Propraetor status (that is, as if he had served as Praetor and so was eligible for military command). “I happen to know all the young man’s feelings,” he claimed. “Members of the Senate, I promise, I undertake, I solemnly swear, that Caius Caesar will always be such a citizen as he is today and as we should especially wish and pray he should be.”
This was a bold statement. If Cicero were not entirely convinced of Octavian’s settled intentions, he would know it to be a dangerous hostage to fortune. He was too experienced a politician to have taken such a risk without having prepared the ground carefully; something must have happened in December to allay his fears and allow him to enter into a firm alliance.
Cicero had not lost his fondness for teaching and guiding young men. He had even offered his services earlier in the year as mentor to his disreputable former son-in-law, Dolabella, before his defection to Antony. Now Octavian joined the long line of these unofficial trainees and took to calling him “father.” For all his early suspicions, Cicero must have been flattered by these respectful attentions.
Although he was popular with the legions, Octavian was in a weak position. The Caesarian faction, as we have seen, was split into three parts—the young man’s own followers, moderates who fell into place behind the Consuls Hirtius and Pansa, and supporters of Antony—and there was little he could do to bring them back together for the moment. The agreement with Cicero and the Senate gave him official status. He would in all likelihood have calculated that if the Republicans triumphed it would be difficult, pace Cicero, to discard him entirely. After all, time was on his side and he could live to fight another day; if necessary he would work through the constitution rather than openly against it.
Cicero’s speech was well received and he got much of what he asked for. The Senate had no difficulty in agreeing to the honors. Octavian was given Propraetorian rank and Antony’s Land Reform Act was declared invalid. But the assembly agonized over whether or not to declare a state of emergency. Eventually, despite Cicero’s advice to the contrary, it was agreed that a delegation would be sent to Antony. Three men were appointed to it: Piso, Philippus (Octavian’s stepfather), and the distinguished, cautious jurist Servius Sulpicius. Sulpicius was terminally ill but felt that, having argued for negotiations, he was morally obliged to accept the commission. The envoys were to convey a series of demands: Antony was to submit to the Senate and People; he was to abandon the siege of Mutina; and he was to move his troops out of Italian Gaul into Italy but should not come closer than 200 miles from Rome. Their demands were more of an ultimatum than a negotiating position.
It was a sign of his growing dominance that Cicero rather than the Consuls was then summoned by a Tribune to report to the People gathered in the Forum on what had been decided. This he did in his sixth Philippic, in which he made his opposition to the delegation very clear. “I give you notice,” he cried out. “I predict that Mark Antony will perform none of the commands which the envoys bring.”
Cicero was now the energy and guiding force behind the government. He used all of his resources of persuasion to get his way. The Consuls were honorable men, ready to do their duty but not altogether certain what it was. In addition, Hirtius was in poor health. Nothing much was expected of them—certainly not by Quintus, who had campaigned with them in Gaul. In his usual choleric manner he told Tiro: “I know them through and through. They are riddled with lusts and languor, utter effeminates at heart.” Quintus was exaggerating, for Hirtius and Pansa were soon to acquit themselves bravely on the battlefield, but in the Forum they were no match for Cicero, who liked to call them “my Consuls.” The Senate contained few people of note and moderate opinion tended to follow where he led.
In addition to sending their official dispatches to the Senate, provincial governors and generals took care to inform Cicero of their activities. He spent much of his time writing them letters—chivying, cajoling, flattering, advising, briefing. He tried hard to cheer up the depressed and beleaguered Decimus Brutus. He paid particular attention to men of wavering loyalty—Titus Munatius Plancus and Lepidus in Gaul, Caius Asinius Pollio in Far Spain—and was in close touch with Brutus in Macedonia and Cassius in Asia Minor. He was not exaggerating when he told his friend Paetus: “My days and nights are passed in one sole care and occupation—the safety and freedom of my countrymen.” In the same letter he showed that he still had time for private concerns and friendships. He twitted Paetus for having become rather antisocial for some reason.