Cicero

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.

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.

This was a setback for Cicero, but with cheery unconcern he wrote to Cassius advising him to act on his own initiative. This was, in fact, exactly what he did. It did not take him long to hunt Dolabella down. The clever young opportunist realized that he had run out of opportunities and, perhaps fearing he would be given the same treatment he had meted out to Trebonius, had the good sense to commit suicide before being captured. Seeing that his position was hopeless, he asked a bodyguard to cut off his head. The man who had charmed Tullia clearly knew how to win the affection of those around him, for, having obeyed the order, the soldier then turned the sword against himself.

In Italy, Antony’s supporters made a last desperate attempt to avert war. In Rome, Pansa put a motion before the Senate for yet another embassy, reporting that Antony was now pessimistic about his prospects and would be willing to make concessions. Cicero agreed to join a negotiating team of five ex-Consuls, but for some reason the project was abandoned after further discussion. In his twelfth Philippic Cicero regretted having agreed to be an envoy. He told the Senate that his duty lay elsewhere. “If I may, I will remain in the city. Here is my place. Here I keep watch. Here I stand sentinel. Here is my guardhouse.” The speech is interesting because it confirms that clemency was a discredited policy of the past. We learn that Antony had, in the event of victory, already decided to confiscate Cicero’s property and give it to a supporter. The orator’s life would almost certainly have been forfeit too. In this civil war there would be no pardons.

In late March, Lepidus and Plancus wrote letters from their provinces in Spain and Gaul urging peace. The former implied that he would join forces with Antony if his advice was not heeded. This was potentially a serious threat. On the same evening Cicero sent firm replies, and in Lepidus’s case struck a distinctly brusque note. “In my opinion, you will be wiser not to meddle in a kind of peacemaking which is unacceptable to the Senate and the People—and to every patriotic citizen.” However, it was important not to give needless offense. At a Senate meeting called on April 9 to discuss the letters, Cicero moved a vote of thanks for Plancus. On the following day he seconded another for Lepidus, to which a rider was attached warning the governor to leave questions of peace to the Senate. This was his thirteenth Philippic, in which he also dealt with a long dispatch which Antony had sent Hirtius and Octavian.

Antony’s dispatch was a very dangerous document, for it exposed Cicero’s policy of divide-and-rule with devastating clarity. It was written with passionate candor and had a ring of despair, as though Antony was at the end of his tether. He presented himself as the dead Dictator’s only sincere avenger and the letter must have made (as was surely intended) uncomfortable reading for Octavian. Antony made it threateningly clear that Lepidus was his ally and Plancus

the partner of my counsels.… Whichever of us is defeated, our enemies will be the beneficiaries. So far Fortune has avoided such a spectacle, not wanting to see two armies of one body fighting each other under the supervision of Cicero in his role as a trainer of gladiators. He has deceived you with the same verbal trickery he has boasted he used to deceive Julius Caesar.

Cicero took the Senate through Antony’s charges one by one, using them to demonstrate his treasonable intentions. But the length and detail of his rebuttal and a certain shrillness of tone betrayed his unease. The dispatch may well have disturbed waverers, especially among moderate Caesarians. Fortunately for Cicero, events had traveled too far to be undone.

A few days later battle commenced outside Mutina. On April 14 Antony led his army to intercept Pansa’s four newly recruited legions before they managed to join the other Republican forces already in the field. In order to keep these at bay he organized a simultaneous attack on their camp, not knowing that Hirtius had already sent Pansa the experienced Martian Legion the night before.

Antony laid a trap. He kept his legions hidden in a village named Forum Gallorum and showed only his cavalry. The Martian Legion and some other troops moved forward without orders, marching through marsh and woodland. Antony suddenly led his forces out of the village before Pansa could bring up his legions.

The mood among the soldiers of both sides was somber; instead of uttering their usual battle cries, they fought in grim silence. Surrounded by marshes and ditches it was difficult to charge or make flanking movements. Unable to push each other back, the two sides, as the historian Appian writes, were “locked together with their swords as if in a wrestling contest.” When a man fell he was carried away and another stepped forward to take his place.

Eight cohorts of the Martian Legion repulsed Antony’s left wing and advanced about half a mile, only to find their rear attacked by his cavalry. Pansa was wounded in the side by a javelin and his inexperienced army was routed. But Hirtius had anticipated Antony’s tactics and, leaving Octavian to guard the camp, arrived with some veteran troops in support. They came too late to prevent the defeat, but were in time to fall on Antony’s triumphant but disordered troops, on whom they inflicted heavy casualties.

A week later Hirtius, assisted by Decimus Brutus, who organized a sortie from Mutina, defeated Antony again and raised the siege of the town. Antony’s only hope now was to escape north with what was left of his army to the protection of Lepidus in Gaul, assuming that that weak but canny man would be willing to associate himself with an obviously lost cause.

A false report of an Antonian victory arrived in Rome and people fled from the city. It was rumored that, to meet the crisis, Cicero intended to become Dictator, a charge he furiously denied. When the truth about the first battle became known, the city erupted in celebrations. Cicero wrote to Brutus in Macedonia:

I reaped the richest of rewards for my many days of labor and sleepless nights—if there is any reward in true, genuine glory. The whole population of Rome thronged to my house and escorted me up to the Capitol, then set me on the Speakers’ Platform amid tumultuous applause. I am not a vain man, I do not need to be; but the unison of all classes in thanks and congratulations does move me, for to be popular in serving the People’s welfare is a fine thing.

Cicero had every reason to be proud of himself. The Caesarian faction was broken. Antony was out of the game and time-servers like Lepidus and Plancus would quickly come to heel. Brutus and Cassius controlled the eastern half of the empire. All that needed to be done now was some mopping up: Cicero wrote to Plancus on May 5, asking him to make sure that “not a spark of this abominable war is left alive.”

The only hostile, or potentially hostile, piece left on the board was Octavian, who was locked into the Republican cause. Cicero expected trouble from him but felt he could handle it. He told Brutus: “AS for the boy Caesar, his natural worth and manliness is extraordinary. I only pray that I may succeed in guiding and holding him in the fullness of honors and favor as easily as I have done hitherto. That will be more difficult, it is true, but still I do not despair.”

It had been a close-run thing, but Cicero’s strategy had worked: the Republic was saved.