262 



I)1sc(jvi:hy 



thelcss became enemies of him wlio hail sliown them 

 kindness and conspired against his life, Gains Juhus Oesar 

 would never have been slain by those whom he took 

 prisoners in war and mercifully spared and whom one and 

 all he had treated as friends and promoted to honours ; 

 nor should we now be compelled to take these measures 

 against all tliose who have insulted us and proclaimed us 

 public enemies. But as things are, seeing that the 

 wickedness of those wlio have plotted to destroy us, and 

 by whom Cjesar was slain, cannot be overcome by any 

 kindness, we choose to anticipate our enemies rather than 

 to suffer ourselves. Therefore let no man think that what 

 we do is unjust or cruel or excessive, when he remembers 

 the fate of Oesar and the wrongs ' that have been done 

 to us. Caesar was Dictator and High Priest, and liad 

 vanquished and subdued the nations that were most 

 dangerous to Rome, and first of all men had begun to 

 explore the unkno\vn sea beyond tlie pillars of Hercules, 

 and discovered the land of Britain, liitherto unknown to 

 Rome ; yet they slew him in the midst of what they call 

 the sacred Senate-house, under the eyes of the gods,def acing 

 his body with twenty-three wounds, though they had all 

 been taken prisoners by him and spared, and though some 

 of their names were written in his will as his heirs. But the 

 rest, instead of punishing the authors of this abomination, 

 raised them to office and honours, which they abused by 

 seizing on public money * for themselves, and levying an 

 army against us. . . . Some of them we have already 

 punished ; the rest with God's help you shall shortly see 

 chastised. We have already succeeded in the greatest 

 of our endeavours, and made subject to us Spain and 

 Gaul, and the districts nearer home. One task yet 

 remains : to make war upon the murderers of Cassar who 

 are across the sea.' And since we intend to conduct 

 this war at a distance on your behalf, it does not seem to us 

 to be safe either for us, or for you, to leave the rest of our 

 enemies here behind us, since they would take advantage 

 of our absence, and lie in wait for the accidents of war. 

 Nor do we think that, in the present emergency, we ought 

 to be slow to act from any consideration for them, but 

 rather we must put tliem one and all out of the way. 

 We have no grudge against any large body of citizens, nor 

 shall we make * any choice of our private enemies nor shall 

 we in the least single out those who are wealthy or 

 politically eminent, though it must needs be that three 

 men must have more enemies than one ; we shall not slay 

 as many as did the last Dictator whom you called Sulla 

 the Fortunate, although he too was called on to rule the 

 city during a civil war. And though we might arrest those 



' These " wrongs " are only Antony's way of describing the 

 resistance of the Senate to his own armed attempts to make 

 himself emperor. 



' If there was any truth at all in this charge, it could only 

 relate to provincial revenues. Antony himself had left no 

 money in Rome for anyone else to seize. It was, of course, 

 Antony whose armies were unconstitutional ; the senatorial 

 forces were perfectly legal. 



' That is. Brutus and Cassius. 



* This and the following clause, if the vegatives be removed, 

 describe exactly what were the principles on which the list 

 was made up. 



whom we know to be evil without warning, we prefer 

 rather to proclaim their names for your sakes, so that, 

 having them properly named and numbered, the soldiers 

 may abstain from interfering with anyone else. Therefore, 

 with the blessing of Heaven, we give command that none 

 shall receive any of those whose names are written below. 

 Whosoever shall attempt to save them is included in the 

 list. And whosoever shall bring the head of any one of 

 them to us, if he be a free man, shall receive 2,500 

 drachma;,' but if he be a slave he shall receive 1,000 

 drachma;, his freedom and all the civic privileges of his 

 master. The same reward shall be given to anyone who 

 shall give information of their place of hiding. We shall 

 not enter on our records the names of any who earn these 

 rewards." 



Then followed the 2,000 names of the victims. 



Did ever murder speak so loud ? The writing was 

 doubtless that of Antony, but the signature is 

 Octavian's too. Yet within three years of this, Vergil 

 published his Fourth Eclogue, a half-boyish dream of 

 a new era of peace." 



Now consider the fate of the venerable patriot and 

 orator Cicero, as related by Plutarch ' : 



" At last he put himself in the hands of his servants, 

 and ordered them to carry him by sea to Caieta, where he 

 had a delightful retreat in the summer. There was a 

 temple of Apollo on the coast, from which a flight of crows 

 came, with great noise, towards Cicero's vessel, as it was 

 making land. They perched on both sides the sail-yard, 

 where some sat croaking and others pecking at the ends 

 of the ropes. All looked upon this as a bad omen ; yet 

 Cicero went on shore, and, entering his house, lay down to 

 repose himself. On sight of tliis the servants began to 

 reproach themselves. Then partly by entreatj', and partly 

 by force, they got him into his litter, and carried him 

 towards the sea. 



Meantime the assassins came up. They were com- 

 manded by Herennius, a centurion, and Pompilius, a 

 tribune, whom Cicero had formerly defended when under 

 a prosecution. The doors of the house had been made 

 fast, but they broke them open. Still Cicero did not 

 appear, and the servants who were left behind said they 

 knew nothing of him. But a young man, named Philo- 

 logus, a freedman of his brother Quintus, whom Cicero 

 had instructed in the liberal arts and sciences, informed the 

 tribune that they were carrying the litter through a deep 

 wood to the seaside. The tribune, taking a few soldiers 

 with him, ran to the end of the walk where Cicero's party 

 was to come out. But Cicero, perceiving that Herennius 

 was approaching to meet him, ordered his servants to set 

 the litter down [though a large number ' of them had 

 gathered and were preparing to defend him by force], 

 and putting his left hand to his chin, as it was his custom 



' Roughly £100, though with a very much greater purchasing 

 power than that amount of money to-day. 

 • On this poem see Discovery. May 1920. 

 ' Langhorne's translation, p. 614. 

 ' This detail is from Appian. 



