I am sorry to hear you’ve given up dining out. You have deprived yourself of a great deal of amusement and pleasure. Furthermore (you won’t mind my being frank) I am afraid you will unlearn what little you used to know and forget how to give dinner parties. When I laid the facts before Spurinna [the haruspex, or official diviner of entrails, who had warned Julius Caesar of the danger of assassination] and explained to him how you used to live, he pronounced a grave danger to the supreme interests of the State unless you resume your former habits!
He was riding high but always had time to poke fun at a friend. In the middle of January it was decided that Hirtius should take command of the troops in Italy, while Pansa would be responsible for further levies. Octavian agreed to lead his army towards Mutina, where he would join forces with Hirtius. Preoccupied by their military tasks, the Consuls were not in a position to manage affairs in Rome and, despite the fact that he held no official post, Cicero acted more and more like a popular leader. There were frequent General Assemblies, at which he seems to have had remarkable success in winning support for his policies. He had arms manufactured by gathering craftsmen together and convincing them to work without pay. To finance the war he raised money and exacted heavy contributions from Antony’s supporters. They in turn campaigned loudly against him, exploiting the public mood for peace and portraying him as hell-bent on a military confrontation. At a routine meeting of the Senate, Cicero took advantage of the rules of debate that allowed speakers to raise any subject they wished and launched into another Philippic (the seventh) in which he defended his record as a peacemaker but said that any compromise with Antony would be dishonorable. “I do not reject peace,” he said, “but I am afraid of war disguised as peace.”
Towards the end of the month the delegation to Antony returned without Sulpicius, who had died before reaching Mutina. Antony took advantage of the fact that the Senate was not treating him as an outlaw and tabled counterproposals. He would give up his claim to Italian Gaul, thus removing the threat to Decimus Brutus, but he insisted on retaining Long-haired Gaul with an army for five years. This would mean that Brutus and Cassius, who had the prospect of becoming Consuls in 41 and then being assigned post-Consular governorships, would have served their terms before he would have to lay down his arms. His political survival would be secured.
For Cicero, these terms had to be resisted, for their real consequence would be that the two leading followers of Caesar would be left in possession of armies and sooner or later might combine against the Senate. What looked like a personal obsession concealed a reasoned determination to keep the pair at loggerheads.
The Senate, under Pansa’s chairmanship, rejected Antony’s proposals and a motion for a second embassy was defeated. Opinion was hardening and war seemed inevitable. In a bid to ward off the greater evil, outlawry, Antony’s supporters finally conceded that a state of emergency should be decreed. The following day Cicero delivered his eighth Philippic, in which he politely criticized Pansa for not having been firm enough with the opposition. Everyone knew there was a war on, he said, and it was ridiculous to suggest yet more talks. There could be no negotiations so long as Antony contrived to threaten Rome with his army. When a state of emergency was declared, all Senators except former Consuls were obliged to wear military uniform rather than their togas; despite the fact that he was excused, Cicero announced that he would follow the rule too. He proposed that anyone who switched sides from Antony to the Consuls before the Ides of March that year would be granted an amnesty and that anyone who joined him would be deemed to have acted against the interests of the state. On the following day, in his ninth Philippic, Cicero celebrated Servius Sulpicius’s career and persuaded the Senate to vote him a bronze statue in the Forum.
Cicero’s policy did not win universal support and he was regarded by some middle-of-the-road Senators as a warmonger, but he held to it unswervingly, seeing his critics as without energy and without principle. The prize was within grasp. He wrote to Cassius in February: “If I am not in error, the position is that the decision of the whole war depends entirely on D. Brutus. If, as we hope, he breaks out of Mutina, it seems unlikely that there will be any further fighting.”
Cicero had other grounds for optimism. After Marcus Brutus left Italy the previous year he settled in Athens and gave the impression that he had abandoned politics for literary and philosophical pursuits. He attended lectures at the Academy. He was genuinely unenthusiastic for war and for a time waited and watched on events in Rome; he wanted to do nothing that would give his enemies any pretext for action.
With the situation in Italy deteriorating, however, he decided he had to act. He took possession of the province of Macedonia, which had originally been promised him by Julius Caesar and was now being claimed by Marcus Antony’s brother, Caius. He was helped in this endeavor by the outgoing governor, Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, the famous orator’s son and a close relative of his. Once Brutus had made up his mind, he moved with speed and efficiency and sent an agent to win over the legions based in the province. He recruited the 22-year-old Marcus Cicero, who happily abandoned his studies and accepted a military command. He intercepted the Quaestors of Asia and Syria on their homeward journey and persuaded them to hand over the tax revenues they were taking back to Rome. Caius Antonius was soon under siege in the town of Apollonia. By the end of the year Brutus was in control of most of the province.
In February he sent an official dispatch to the Senate setting out what had happened and reporting that Hortensius had handed the province over to him. This presented Cicero with a tricky problem: the allocation of governorships since Julius Caesar’s assassination had been altered so many times, and on occasion with dubious legality, that it was hard to say who was entitled to what. However, Cicero had to acknowledge that one thing at least was clear: Brutus no longer had any legal right to Macedonia. Nevertheless, in the tenth Philippic he successfully persuaded the Senate to confirm Brutus in place. He argued, not unreasonably, that Caius Antonius’s allegiance would not be to the Senate but to his brother, who would use the province as his refuge if he were defeated at Mutina. Once again, Cicero was abandoning the rule of law for realpolitik.
Meanwhile, Cassius had managed to take over the troops in Syria as well as those which Julius Caesar had left behind in Egypt—in total, eleven legions. On March 7 he sent a report to this effect to Cicero, adding: “I want you to know that you and your friends and the Senate are not without powerful supports, so you can defend the state in the best of hope and courage.”
Cassius would now have to deal with Dolabella, his rival claimant to Syria, who had arrived in the region. Decisive action was all the more necessary as Dolabella had recently murdered Caius Trebonius, the governor of the neighboring province of Asia (western Turkey). Dolabella had wanted to pass through Asia on his way to Syria, but Trebonius refused to let him into the port of Smyrna, where he was based. The town was only lightly defended and Dolabella broke in by night. He captured Trebonius and tortured him for two days with a whip and rack before having him beheaded. Some soldiers kicked his head around like a football.
The Senate was shocked and, with a rare unanimity, condemned the crime. Dolabella was declared a public enemy. But what could be done to arrest and punish him? Two motions were debated—one that a distinguished elder statesman should be given a special command to lead a campaign against Dolabella and the other that Hirtius and Pansa should be appointed governors of Syria and Asia for the following year. In his eleventh Philippic, Cicero opposed both proposals, saying that the matter should be left to Cassius, who was on the spot. But, as one of the leading conspirators, Cassius was a controversial figure and moderate Caesarians were offended. The Senate decided to give the Consuls the commission, once they had defeated Antony.