They agreed to appoint themselves as a three-man Constitutional Commission (which historians have called the Second Triumvirate) charged with the familiar duty of restoring the Republic. Their mandate was to last for five years. It was as if the old alliance of the First Triumvirate had returned in a new guise, but, unlike the private agreement among Pompey, Julius Caesar and Crassus in the 50s, the Commission was formally established in due course by the General Assembly and was, in effect, a triple Dictatorship. Of course, reform was the last thing on the Commissioners’ minds. Antony and Octavian (with Lepidus as a junior partner) had formed a coalition of convenience. Their priorities were to allocate provincial commands to themselves and assemble the forces necessary to defeat Brutus and Cassius.
The Commissioners were short of ready cash and needed to fundraise. They also had to consider what to do with the defeated Republican opposition in Rome. There was one solution that would solve both problems: a proscription. A good deal of time on the island was spent haggling over names. More than 130 Senators (perhaps as many as 300) and an estimated 2,000 equites were marked down for execution and property confiscation. Huge rewards were offered for anyone who killed a proscribed man—100,000 sesterces for a free man and 40,000 sesterces for a slave.
For members of the Roman ruling class, such as remained, history seemed to be repeating itself. They knew what to expect, for some of them could recall fearfully the last proscription conducted by Sulla nearly forty years previously. However, that dark moment in the history of the Republic had at least been followed by a rapid return to (more or less) constitutional government. Few people could be confident that this time around the three Commissioners would, like Sulla, step down voluntarily and retire into private life. What looked far more likely were further years of war as the reunited Caesarians fought it out with Brutus and Cassius in the east for final mastery.
During the following weeks new names were added to the original list—some because they were genuine political opponents, but others simply because they had been a nuisance or were friends of enemies or enemies of friends or, most appositely, were known to be rich. Appian writes: “The point was reached where a person was proscribed because he had a fine town house or country estate.” Verres, Cicero’s old adversary, whom he had prosecuted for corruption in Sicily a quarter of a century before, was still alive and a collector of valuable Corinthian bronze artifacts; it was said that Antony had him proscribed when he refused to part with any of them.
In a thoroughly un-Roman betrayal of family loyalties and the ties of amicitia, each Commissioner agreed to abandon friends and relatives. Lepidus allowed his brother Paulus to be marked down, Antony an uncle of his (although both ultimately survived) and Octavian a man reported to have been his guardian. Cicero was proscribed along with the rest of his family. It was claimed that Octavian fought to keep his name off the list for two days, but the vindictive Antony insisted. This account may have been propaganda, for Octavian will not have forgotten Cicero’s self-betraying remark about him, “Laudandum, ornandum, tollendum,” and this may have strengthened a resolve to see an end to the troublesome old man. If the last of the orator’s young disciples had genuine feelings of affection for him, they probably did not run deep: with Octavian personal ties took second place to public expediency.
Cicero and his brother were at Tusculum when they heard about the proscription. They moved at once to the villa at Astura about thirty miles away on the coast (and forty miles or so from Rome), planning to sail to Macedonia and join Brutus. They were carried on their way in litters—a journey that could be accomplished in a long day. According to Plutarch, “they were quite overwhelmed with grief and on the journey would often stop and, with the litters placed side by side, would condole with each other.” Quintus suddenly realized that he had brought no cash with him and Cicero too had insufficient funds for the journey. So Quintus volunteered to go back home, get what was needed and catch up with Cicero later. The brothers hugged each other and parted in tears.
The decision to return was disastrous. Bounty hunters were already on the family’s trail and Quintus was betrayed by servants. His son was either with him or within reach: according to one account, he found a hiding place for his father and, when tortured to reveal its whereabouts, did not utter a syllable. AS soon as Quintus was told about this, he came out into the open and gave himself up. Each man begged to be killed first. The conflicting requests were reconciled, for they were taken away to separate parties of executioners and, on an agreed signal, put to death simultaneously.
During the civil war both father and son had tried in their different ways to extricate themselves from Cicero’s clouded fortunes, but they had been unable to escape his ruin. The brothers had been reconciled, at least on the surface, and, whatever their disagreements about Julius Caesar, they both unhesitatingly backed the last surviving defenders of the Republican cause. Young Quintus was a clever but unsympathetic figure. However (if we can believe the story of his last days, as recounted by late sources), it is touching to see him behave for once with courage and unselfishness.
Meanwhile, Cicero reached Astura and, presumably after waiting vainly for Quintus or having received news of his capture, found a boat. He sailed twenty miles south to the headland of Circaeum. There was a following wind and the pilots wanted to continue their journey, but Cicero insisted on disembarking and walked about twelve miles in the direction of the Appian Way, the road to Rome.
His motives are unclear. Plutarch offers various alternative explanations. One is that he was afraid of the sea. It was true that Cicero disliked sea voyages, but in the past that had not prevented him from sailing; in 44 he got as far as Syracuse on his abortive escape to Greece. Plutarch also suggests that he had not entirely lost his faith in Octavian and thought he could negotiate a pardon; and conversely, that one idea he had was to go secretly to Octavian’s home, presumably in Rome or perhaps at a country villa, and kill himself on the hearthstone—this would be so grave a pollution that it would bring down a curse from heaven on its owner. Fear of being caught and tortured might have decided Cicero against this course of action. Whatever his motive, he lost his resolution, perhaps fearing he would be recognized on the Appian Way, and turned back to Astura, where he spent a sleepless night, according to Plutarch, with his mind “full of terrible thoughts and desperate plans.”
He now put himself in the hands of his servants and they took him by sea to his villa about sixty miles south at Caeta, near Formiae, which in happier days he had used as a refreshing retreat in the heat of summer. In Plutarch’s account, as the boat was being rowed to land, a flock of crows approached, cawing loudly. They perched on both ends of the yardarm and pecked at the ends of the ropes. Despite the fact that everyone thought this to be a bad omen, Cicero disembarked and went to the house to lie down and rest. He is reported to have said, rather grandly: “I will die in the country I have so often saved.” According to Plutarch:
Then most of the crows perched around the window, making a tremendous cawing. One of them flew down to the bed where Cicero was lying with his head all covered up, and little by little began to drag the garment away from his face with its beak. When the servants saw this they reproached themselves for standing by as spectators waiting for their master to be murdered, and doing nothing to defend him, while these wild brute creatures were helping him and caring for him in his undeserved ill fortune. So partly by entreaty and partly by force, they took him up and carried him in his litter towards the sea.