Salvete, patres conscripti, and Happy New Year!
As well as marking the beginning of the new year, January 1st was the day the new consuls would take office and hold their first Senate meeting. For Cicero in 43 BCE, this was the perfect opportunity to deliver the fifth of his Philippic orations. I’ve chosen to include these orations in e-pistulae for several reasons: they provide political context for most of the rest of Cicero’s letters; they are Cicero’s other ‘serialised’ work from this period; and the Second Philippic was published rather than being delivered… and then passed around in A Letter-like Manner.
The translation is by W.C.A. Ker, taken from Attalus, with a few minor edits, and the footnotes (marked ‘**’) link to Ker’s footnotes on Attalus. The Fifth Philippic is too long to fit in a Substack email, so this email contains the first half-ish of the speech, and then a link to read the rest of it on Attalus.
The most important result of Cicero’s speech in the Senate on 20th December (the Third Philippic) was the nullification of Mark Antony’s reallocation of the provinces, and thus the confirmation of Decimus Brutus, and not Antony, as governor of Cisalpine Gaul. At some point in late December, Antony reached and besieged Mutina (modern Modena), where Decimus was based. On January 1st, the new consuls Aulus Hirtius and Gaius Vibius Pansa took office. Although Cicero approved of their initial address to the Senate, the first consular (ex-consul) they chose to give his opinion was Pansa’s father-in-law, Quintus Fufius Calenus, who moved that rather than the Senate declaring war on Antony as a public enemy, it should first send an embassy to treat with him. Cicero did not like this at all, and the Fifth Philippic is his response.
A very brief summary is as follows: Cicero summarises the political situation, and reminds his audience of Antony’s various crimes against the Republic and Cicero personally. He then argues against sending an embassy to Antony, on the grounds that the Senate should not have to send envoys to stop a Roman commander from attacking Romans, and that any embassy would fail anyway. He moves that the Senate should instead declare war on Antony, before calling again for honours for those who have acted against Antony (including Decimus Brutus and Octavian, here again called ‘Gaius Caesar’).
The debate over what to do about Antony would continue until January 4th, when the Senate would eventually vote to send an embassy of three eminent consulars (Servius Sulpicius Rufus, Lucius Marcius Philippus, and Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus) to tell Antony that if he did not stop besieging Mutina and leave Cisalpine Gaul with his army, the Senate would declare war on him.
Nothing, conscript fathers, has ever seemed to me longer in coming than these Kalends of January; and I understood that during these last days it has also seemed so to each one of you. For those who wage war against the Republic did not wait for to-day; but we, at a time when it especially behoved us to come to the rescue of the common safety with our counsel, were not summoned to the Senate. But any complaints as to the past have been removed by the speeches of the consuls, ** for they have spoken in such terms that the Kalends seem not so much to come late as in fulfilment of our prayers. And as the speeches of the consuls have raised my spirits, and brought hope, not merely of preserving our safety but also of restoring our ancient dignity, so the opinion of the member who first was called upon ** would have disturbed me were I not trusting to your courage and firmness.
For this day has dawned upon you, conscript fathers, this opportunity has been given you, to enable you to declare to the Roman people what degree of courage, of firmness, of importance, resides in the counsels of this our order. Recall to mind what a day that was thirteen days ago, how great was your unanimity, your courage, your firmness, how much praise you won from the Roman people, how much glory and gratitude, And on that day, conscript fathers, your resolutions were such that you now have no course open to you but either an honourable peace or a necessary war.
Does Marcus Antonius desire peace? Let him lay down his arms; let him ask for peace; let him appeal to our mercy. He will find no man fairer than I, though he preferred, while commending himself to disloyal citizens, to be my enemy rather than my friend. Nothing at all can be granted to a combatant; possibly there will be something to be conceded to a petitioner; but to send envoys to a man on whom thirteen days ago you passed the heaviest and severest judgement is not now a sign of levity, but - if I must give my real opinion - one of madness.
First of all you praised those commanders who had on their own private judgement undertaken war against him; in the next place the veteran soldiers, who, although they had been planted by Antonius in colonies, set the liberty of the Roman people before his benefits. What of the Martian legion? What of the fourth? Why is it praised? For if it was their consul they deserted they are to be blamed; if an enemy of the Republic, they are rightly praised. And yet, although you had as yet no consuls, ** you decreed that a motion should be submitted at the earliest moment for rewarding the soldiers and honouring their generals. Is it your pleasure at the same time to appoint rewards for those that have taken up arms against Antonius, and also to send envoys to Antonius? so that now one must feel shame that the resolutions of the legions are more honourable than the Senate's, since the legions have resolved to defend the Senate against Antonius and the Senate resolves to send envoys to Antonius!
Is this a bracing of the soldiers' spirits or a weakening of their courage? Has this been the result of twelve days, that the man for whom no defender was discovered but Cotyla ** has now as patrons even consulars? I wish all of them were asked their opinions before me, though I suspect what some of them called upon after me will say - I should more easily say in opposition whatever seemed appropriate. For there is a belief abroad that some one will propose to decree Antonius that further Gaul which Plancus holds. What is this but to lavish on an enemy all the weapons for civil war? first of all, the sinews of war, infinite treasure, which he now needs; in the next place, cavalry, as many as he wishes. Cavalry, do I say? He will shrink, I suppose, from bringing with him whole barbarous nations! He that does not see this is a fool; he that sees it, and proposes it, is disloyal. Will you equip a criminal and abandoned citizen with the treasure, the infantry, the cavalry, all the resources of Gauls and Germans? Your excuses ** are no use: ‘He is my friend’; let him be his country's first; ‘He is my relation’; can any relationship be closer than with that fatherland wherein even parents are included? ‘He has given me money.’ I long to see the man who dares to say that! But when I have revealed what is the issue, it will be easy for you to determine what opinion to pronounce or which to follow.
The issue is whether Marcus Antonius is to be given an opportunity of crushing the Republic, of massacring loyal men, of portioning out the city, of making presents of land to his brigands, and of crushing the Roman people with slavery, or whether he is to be allowed to do none of these things. You hesitate what to do. But these things, you will say, do not apply to Antonius. This not even Cotyla would dare to say. For what does not apply to the man who, while he says he is defending the acts of Caesar, overturns those of his laws which we were able especially to commend? Caesar wished to drain the marshes; this man has given that moderate person, Lucius Antonius, the whole of Italy for division, What? has the Roman people accepted this law? What? could it be proposed in the face of the auspices? Our augur is too bashful to interpret the auspices without his colleagues. And yet those auspices need no interpretation; for who does not know that, when Jupiter is thundering, no transaction with the people can legally be carried out? ** The tribunes made a proposal to the commons on the subject of the provinces contrary to the acts of Gaius Caesar; Caesar fixed a two years' tenure, they six. Did the Roman people accept this law too? Again, was notice given of it? Again, was it not proposed before it was drafted? Again, did we not see the thing done before anyone suspected it would be so?
Where is the Caecilian and Didian law? where the notice on three market days? where is the penalty according to the recent Junian and Licinian law? ** Can these laws of yours be in force without the destruction of all other laws? Was any man able to steal into the forum? And what a thunderstorm there was besides! what a tempest! so that, if the auspices did not influence Antonius, it seemed wonderful he could put up with and endure such violence of storm, rain, and tornado. When, therefore, the augur says he proposed this law, not only while Jupiter was thundering, but almost in the face of the uproar of Heavenly prohibition, will he hesitate to confess it was proposed in defiance of the auspices? Again, did our good augur think it was no concern of the auspices that he proposed the law jointly with a colleague ** whose appointment he himself had rendered defective by his report?
But of the auspices we shall possibly be interpreters, who are his colleagues. Are we on that account also to search for interpreters of his arms? Firstly, all the approaches of the forum were so barred up that, even if no man-at-arms stopped the way, there was no getting anyhow into the forum except by pulling down the barriers; in fact the guards were so placed that - as an enemy's entry into a city is prevented by forts and works - so you might observe the people and the tribunes of the plebs thrust back from entering the forum. For these reasons I am of opinion that those laws which Antonius is said to have carried were all carried by violence and contrary to the auspices, and that by those laws the people is not bound. If Marcus Antonius is said to have carried any law for the confirmation of Caesar's acts, or for the perpetual abolition of the dictatorship, or for founding colonies on lands, the Senate is pleased that those same laws should be carried afresh subject to the auspices, so as to bind the people, for, although he carried irregularly and by violence good laws, yet they should not be regarded as laws, and all the audacity of a frenzied gladiator must be repudiated by our authority.
But that squandering of public money is by no means to be borne whereby he embezzled seven hundred million sesterces by means of false entries and by donations, so that it seems like a miracle that so much treasure of the Roman people could in so short a time have disappeared. Again, are those monstrous profits to be put up with which the whole household of Marcus Antonius has swallowed? He sold forged decrees, and for a bribe commanded that grants of kingdoms, states, and immunities from taxation should be inscribed on brass. These things he asserted he was doing according to the notebooks of Gaius Caesar, of which he was himself the author. There was a lively traffic in every interest of the Republic in the inner part of the house; his wife, more lucky for herself than for her husbands, ** was putting up to auction provinces and kingdoms; exiles were being restored in guise of law but with out law; and if these things are not rescinded by the authority of the Senate, now we have entered upon the hope of re-establishing the Republic, no semblance of a free community will be left to us.
And not by falsified note-books alone, and by the sale of memoranda, has a countless sum of money been accumulated in that house, since Antonius asserted that in his sales he was acting according to Caesar's ‘acts’; but he even recorded for a bribe forged decrees of the Senate; contracts were being sealed; decrees of the Senate never made were entered at the Treasury. Of this villainy even foreign nations were witness. Treaties were in the meantime made; kingdoms were bestowed; peoples and provinces freed from tribute; and of these very things false memorials were posted all over the Capitol amid the groans of the Roman people. By these means such an amount of money was heaped up in a single house that, if this sort ** of money were brought into the Treasury, the Republic would never lack money.
He also proposed a judicature law, this chaste and upright fellow and supporter of the courts and of the law. In this he deceived us. He said he had appointed as jurymen colour-sergeants, and privates, and soldiers of The Larks; ** but he has appointed gamblers, appointed exiles, appointed Greeks. What an eminent bench of jurymen! what a wonderfully dignified court! My heart yearns to plead for a defendant in that court! There is Cydas from Crete, the island's prodigy, a most audacious and abandoned fellow. But assume he is not so: does he know Latin? is he of the type and fashion of our jurymen? what is most important, does he know our laws or customs? in short, does he know our men? for Crete is better known to you than Rome to Cydas; and even among our own citizens some selection and enquiry as to jurymen is usually made; but who knows, or could know, a juryman from Gortyna? Now Lysiades of Athens most of us know; for he is the son of Phaedrus, a noted philosopher; he is besides a cheerful man, so that he can very easily concur with Curius, his assessor and fellow-gambler.
I ask then, if Lysiades, when summoned as juryman, does not answer to his name, and excuses himself as being a member of the Areopagus, and not bound to act as juryman at the same time at Rome and at Athens, will the president of the Court accept the excuse of a Greekling juryman, wearing now a Greek pallium and now a toga? or will he disregard the most ancient laws of the Athenians? Moreover, what a bench - Good Heavens! a Cretan juryman, and he the worst of Cretans! How is a defendant to choose counsel to address this man? how is he to approach him? It is a hard nation. Oh, but the Athenians are merciful! I think that not even Curius, who every day risks his fortune, is cruel. There are also jurymen chosen who perhaps will be excused; for they have the lawful excuse that they changed their domicile because of exile, and have not since been recalled. Are these the jurymen that madman would have chosen, and entered their names at the Treasury; these the men to whom he would have entrusted a great portion of the Republic if he had thought that any semblance of the Republic remained?
And I have spoken of jurymen that are known; I was unwilling to mention those you know less; dancers, harp-players, in a word the whole gang of the Antonian revel, you must know, have been pitchforked into the third panel of jurymen. Here you have the reason why a law so excellent and so splendid was proposed in the midst of a downpour of rain, in a tempest of wind, storm, and tornadoes, amid lightning and thunder: it was that we should have men as jurymen whom no one would willingly have as guests. It was the greatness of his crimes, his consciousness of ill deeds, the plunder of that money the account of which was kept in the Temple of Ops, that has invented this third panel; base jurymen were not sought for till the exculpation of the guilty at the hands of honest jurymen was despaired of. But to think of the impudence, the foul scandal of his daring to choose these men as jurymen, men by whose selection a double disgrace was branded on the Republic; one, that such base men were jurymen; the other, that it was revealed and became known how many base scoundrels we had in the community.
This law, then, and the remaining laws of that stamp, even if they had been passed without violence and subject to the auspices, I should vote should be repealed; but, as the case stands, why should I vote for the repeal of laws which I decide were not passed at all?
As a memorial too for posterity, must we not stamp with a record of the deepest ignominy this order can inflict the fact that Marcus Antonius alone in this city since the founding of the city had openly with him an armed guard; a thing neither our kings ever did, nor those that after the expulsion of the kings sought to seize kingly power? I remember Cinna; I have seen Sulla, and but lately Caesar; for these three possessed more power since the community was made free by Lucius Brutus ** than the whole Republic. I cannot affirm they were surrounded by no weapons: this I assert - those weapons were not many, and were concealed. But an array of men-at-arms used to attend this pest; Cassius, Mustela, Tiro, displaying their swords, led through the forum gangs like themselves; barbarian archers marched in regular column. And when they reached the Temple of Concord the steps were packed, the litters were set down; not that he wished the shields should be hidden; but that his friends should not be fatigued by carrying them themselves.
And the most infamous thing of all, not only to see, but even to hear of, is that armed men, brigands, assassins, were stationed in the shrine of Concord; the temple became a prison; when the doors of Concord were closed conscript fathers gave their votes while brigands were moving about amid the benches. And if I did not come here on the Kalends of September, he even said he would send workmen, and would break my house up. An important debate was toward, I suppose; he moved for a public thanksgiving. I came the day after: he himself did not come. I spoke ** on the condition of the Republic, no doubt less freely than my wont, but more freely than his threats of danger warranted. But he, with a vehemence and violence meant to preclude our present habit of free speech - a freedom Lucius Piso had used with the utmost credit thirty days before - threatened me with his enmity, and bade me attend in the Senate on the nineteenth of September. He himself in the meantime for seventeen days declaimed a good deal against me in Scipio's villa at Tibur to provoke a thirst; for this is his usual reason for declamation.
When the day on which he had ordered me to attend had arrived, he then came in battle-array into the Temple of Concord, and in my absence vomited a speech against me from that foulest of mouths. On that day, if my friends had allowed me to come to the Senate, as I wished, he would have begun his massacre with me; for so he had resolved. And, if he had once fleshed his sword in crime, nothing would have made an end of his slaughtering but weariness and satiety; for his brother Lucius was present, that Asiatic gladiator, who had fought at Mylasa as a murmillo; ** he was thirsting for our blood; much of his own he had poured forth in that gladiatorial encounter. This man was estimating your property; he was making a note of possessions, both urban and rural; this man's beggary, joined with greed, was threatening our fortunes; he was dividing up lands, to whom and where he pleased; there were no means of access to him for a private citizen, no plea for equity was possible; so much only each owner possessed as Antonius had left him in the division. Although these things cannot stand if you make void his laws, yet I think they should be individually and specifically noticed, and that we should decide that the septemvirate ** is null and void, and that it is your pleasure that nothing should stand that was said to have been done by those men.
But as to Marcus Antonius, who can consider him a citizen, rather than a most savage and cruel enemy, when he, while sitting in front of the Temple of Castor, in the hearing of the Roman people, said that, except of the victors, no man should be left alive? Do you think, conscript fathers, that his words were more threatening than would have been his deeds? But what of the fact that he dared to say at a public meeting that, when he had laid down his office, he would be present close to the city with an army, and would enter it as often as he pleased? ** What did this mean but a threat to the Roman people of slavery? And what meant his journey to Brundisium, that haste of his? what was his hope if he did not bring to, or rather into, the city a huge army? And what a gathering was that of the centurions! what an unbridled, unconquerable temper! When the legions had with great bravery repudiated his promises with shouts, he ordered those centurions to attend at his house whom he had recognised were well affected to the Republic, and caused them to be murdered before his feet, and those of his wife whom the august general had brought with him to the army. What do you think would have been his temper towards us whom he hated, when toward those he had never seen he had been so cruel? and what would be his greediness for the money of rich men, when he coveted the blood of the poor; whose goods, such as they were, he at once distributed amongst his fellows and boon companions?
And that madman was already advancing from Brundisium hostile standards against his country when Gaius Caesar, by the favour of the immortal Gods, with a heaven-given greatness of spirit, of intellect, and of judgment, of his own accord no doubt and by his own rare virtue, yet with the warranty of my authority, entered the colonies founded by his father, called together the veteran soldiers, in a few days founded an army, and stayed the headlong rush of the brigand. And after the Martian legion saw this most excellent commander, it had no other object than that we should at length be free; and the fourth followed its example.
When he had heard the news, although he had summoned the Senate, and put up a consular to declare his opinion that Gaius Caesar ** was a public enemy, he suddenly succumbed. But afterwards, without making the accustomed sacrifices, with no solemn vows, ** he did not set out, he fled away in his general's cloak. ** But whither? Into a province inhabited by most steadfast and brave citizens, who could not have borne with him even if he had not come with the intention of waging war, ungovernable as he was, passionate, insulting, arrogant, always grasping, always pillaging, always drunk. But he, whose iniquity even in peace no man could bear, has made war on the province of Gaul; he is besieging Mutina, a most steadfast and splendid colony of the Roman people; he is attacking Decimus Brutus, a general, a consul elect, a citizen born to serve, not himself, but us and the Republic. Is Hannibal then an enemy, Antonius a citizen? - What did he do as an enemy that this man has not either done, or is doing, or striving for and designing? The whole journey of the Antoniuses - what did it consist of but depopulation, devastation, massacre, rapine? Hannibal was not guilty of these: he kept much for his own use; but these men, who lived only for the hour, have not given a thought, I do not say to the fortunes and the goods of citizens, but even to their own advantage.
Is it to this man, good Heavens! we are pleased to send envoys? Do those friends of yours ** know the constitution of the Republic, the laws of war, the precedents of our ancestors? do they consider what the majesty of the Roman people, the gravity of the Senate calls for? Do you propose an embassy? If it is to plead to him, he will despise you: if to command him, he will not listen; in a word, however stern the mandates we give the envoys, the very name of envoys will quench this ardour we now perceive in the Roman people, and will break the spirit of the boroughs and of Italy. To pass over these considerations, which are grave, assuredly that embassy will bring delay and a prolongation of the war. However much they say, as I hear certain persons will say: ‘Let the envoys start; none the less the war may be prepared for,’ yet the very name of envoys will damp both the spirits of men, and the swift conduct of the war.
By the most trivial impulses, conscript fathers, in critical times the scale is turned most completely, not only in all the accidents of public affairs, but principally in war, and most of all in civil war, which as a rule is governed by opinion and rumour. No one will ask with what mandates we sent envoys: the very name of embassy, and that one sent unsolicited, will seem a token of fear. Let him retreat from Mutina, let him cease to attack Brutus, let him depart out of Gaul: he should not be requested by words, he should be compelled by arms. For we are not sending to Hannibal to command him to retreat from Saguntum, as the Senate sent to him in old times Publius Valerius Flaccus and Quintus Baebius Tampilus (who were ordered, if Hannibal did not obey, to proceed to Carthage - where shall we order our ambassadors to go if Antonius does not obey?): we are sending to our fellow-citizen to bid him not to attack a general and a colony of the Roman people. Is that in truth so? is this what we must ask through envoys? What difference is there, ye immortal Gods! whether he is attacking this city or an outer bastion of this city, a colony planted for the protection of the Roman people? The cause of the second Punic war which Hannibal waged against our ancestors was the blockade of Saguntum. Rightly were ambassadors sent to him; they were sent to a Carthaginian, they were sent in defence of Hannibal's enemies, our allies. What analogy is there, pray? Are we sending to a fellow-citizen to bid him cease from besieging, from attacking a general, an army, a colony of the Roman people, from wasting its territory, from being our enemy?
Come, suppose he obeys: have we the wish or the power to treat him as a citizen? On the 20th of December ** by your decrees you cut him to pieces; you resolved that this motion you see made to-day should be made on the Kalends of January, concerning the rewards to be paid to those that have deserved, and to-day deserve, well of the Republic, of whom you adjudged him the foremost who was indeed so - Gaius Caesar, who diverted the nefarious attacks of Marcus Antonius from the city into Gaul. In the next place you commended the veteran soldiers who had been the first to follow Caesar, and especially those Heaven-sent and God-inspired legions, the Martian and the Fourth, to whom, because they had, not merely deserted their consul, but were even attacking him in war, you promised honours and rewards. And on the same day, when an edict of that most excellent citizen Decimus Brutus had been brought and set before you, you praised what he had done; and the war he had undertaken on his private judgment you approved with your public authority. What other object then had you on that day but to adjudge Antonius a public enemy? After these your decrees ** will either he be able to look you in the face with equanimity, or you to see him without the greatest indignation? He has been shut out, dragged, dissociated from the Republic, not only by his own crime, but also, as it seems to me, by some good fortune of the Republic.
Latin text of the Fifth Philippic | Glossary | Historia Civilis video overview of 44-43 BCE
"My heart yearns to plead for a defendant in that court!" the fucking drama on this guy...
also comparing antony to HANNIBAL? holy shit marce tulli don't say that