3 February 43 BCE: The Eighth Philippic
'Is this not a war, or rather a war such as has never been before?'
Salvete, patres subscripti.
Here is (the first half of) the eighth of Cicero’s Philippic orations. Unfortunately the whole speech is, yet again, too long to fit in a Substack email. 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. There is a link at the end of this email to read the Latin text.
Some brief context, and an even briefer summary is as follows: The envoys sent to Antony returned just before February 2nd (minus Servius Sulpicius Rufus, who had died in the course of the embassy), with the message that Antony had refused the Senate’s demands and made demands of his own.
The Senate met to discuss the matter on February 2nd. Cicero argued (again) that the Senate should declare Antony a public enemy and make war on him. Lucius Caesar, Antony’s uncle, argued that the Senate should instead declare a state of ‘tumult’, which was less harsh towards Antony. The Senate accepted Lucius Caesar’s proposal.
On February 3rd the consul Hirtius’ report about the military situation in Northern Italy reached Rome, and during a Senate meeting about this, Cicero delivered the Eighth Philippic, arguing that the Senate was already at war (and not ‘tumult’!) with Antony. The speech ends with a motion that any soldier to defect from Antony before March 15th should be given amnesty.
There was more confusion in the conduct of business yesterday, Gaius Pansa, than the purpose of your consulship called for; you seemed to me to make little resistance to those to whom you do not usually yield. For when the Senate had showed its accustomed courage, and when all saw there was, in fact, a state of war, and certain persons thought the word ‘war’ should be withdrawn, in the division your inclination was towards leniency. So our motion was defeated at your instance because of the harshness of a word; that of Lucius Caesar, a most honourable man, prevailed; and yet, though the severity of the expression was taken away, he was more lenient in what he said than in his vote.
However, before he gave his vote, he excused himself by his relationship. ** He had done in my consulship in the case of his sister's husband ** the same thing that he did now in the case of his sister's son: he was moved by grief for his sister as well as by care for the safety of the Roman people. Yet even Caesar himself in a way recommended you not to agree with him, in saying that he would have given a different vote, and one worthy of himself and of the Republic, were he not being hampered by his relationship. Well! he is an uncle; are you also uncles who agreed with him?
But in what did the controversy consist? Some were unwilling the word ‘war’ should be inserted in the resolution; they preferred the term ‘tumult,’ being ignorant, not merely of events, but even of the meaning of words; for there can be a war without a tumult: there can be no tumult without a war. ** For what else is a tumult than a confusion so great that greater fear arises from it? from which the very word ‘tumult’ is derived. ** Accordingly our ancestors called a tumult that was a domestic one ‘Italic,’ a tumult that was on the borders of Italy ‘Gallic’; and gave the name to no other.
Now that a tumult is more serious than a war can be understood from this, that in a war exemptions from service are valid, in a tumult are invalid. Whence it comes, as I have said, that there can be a war without a tumult, but no tumult without a war. For since between war and peace there is no middle term, a tumult is, if not part of war, necessarily part of peace; and what can be said or thought of more absurd than that? But I have said enough about the phrase; let us rather look to the fact, conscript fathers, though I recognise that it is sometimes made worse by the use of a word.
We do not wish this to be accounted a ‘war.’ What then is this authority we are giving the colonies and municipia to shut out Antonius? the authority to enrol soldiers without compulsion, without fine, of their own enthusiasm and goodwill? the authority to promise contributions to the Republic? For if the name of war be done away with, the enthusiasm of the municipia will be done away with; the unanimity of the Roman people which now is directed to your side must, if we falter, necessarily be weakened.
But what need to say more? Decimus Brutus is being attacked: there is no war; Mutina, an old and steadfast colony, is being besieged: not even is this war; Gaul is being wasted: what peace can be more assured? Who can call that a war to which we have sent a consul, the bravest of men, with an army? He, though sick of a serious and lingering disease, deemed no excuse open to him when he was being summoned to guard the Republic. Gaius Caesar indeed did not wait for your decrees, as at that age he might have done: he undertook war of his own motion against Antonius. For the time for decrees had not yet arrived; but he saw that if he had let slip the season for waging war, when the Republic was crushed no decrees were possible.
So then they and their armies are now engaged in peace! He is not an enemy whose garrison Hirtius has driven out of Claterna; he is not an enemy who is opposing in arms a consul, attacking a consul elect; nor are those words of hostility or war that Pansa read from his colleague's letter: ‘I have driven out the garrison; I hold Claterna; the cavalry have been put to flight, a battle has taken place, some few have been killed.’ What peace can be greater? Levies all over Italy have been decreed, exemptions from service being withdrawn; military garb will be assumed to-morrow; the consul has said he will come down to the forum with a bodyguard.
Is this not a war, or rather a war such as has never been before? For in other wars, and especially in civil wars, it was some political question gave rise to the quarrel. Sulla was at issue with Sulpicius on the validity of the laws which Sulla asserted had been carried by violence; Cinna with Octavius on the votes of the new citizens; Sulla again with Marius and Carbo against the tyranny of the unworthy, and to punish the most cruel death of eminent men. ** The causes of all these wars sprang from a political quarrel. Of the last civil war ** I do not care to speak: I do not know its cause; I detest its result.
This is the fifth civil war that is being waged - and all have fallen on our own times - the first that has arisen, not amid civic variance and discord, but amid the utmost unison and marvellous concord. All men have the same wishes, the same thing to defend, the same feelings. When I say ‘all,’ I except those whom no one deems worthy of citizenship. What then is the issue at stake in the war between us? We are defending the temples of the immortal Gods, our walls, our homes, and the abodes of the Roman people, the altars, hearths, and the sepulchres of our ancestors; we are defending our laws, law-courts, liberty, wives, children, fatherland; on the other side Marcus Antonius is striving and fighting to perturb and upset all these things; that he may regard the plunder of the Republic a reason for war; that he may partly dissipate our fortunes, and partly disperse them among his assassins.
In a war with such disparity of objects the most lamentable thing is that he first promises to his brigands our houses in Rome (for he assures them he will parcel out the city); next that he will lead them from all the gates whither they will. All the Cafos, all the Saxas, and the rest of the pests that follow Antonius, are specifying for themselves the finest mansions and pleasure-grounds, estates at Tusculum and Alba; and even rough countrymen - if men they are, and not rather beasts - are borne along by empty hopes as far as watering-places and Puteoli.
So Antonius has something to promise his followers. What have we? have we anything similar? Heaven forfend! for our object is that no man hereafter may be able to promise anything of the kind. I speak unwillingly, but I must speak. Caesar's auctions, conscript fathers, inspire many unprincipled men with expectations and audacity, for they have seen men become from beggars suddenly rich; and so those who threaten our goods, to whom Antonius promises everything, are always longing to see auctions. ** What have we? what are our engagements to our soldiers? Much better and greater things. For the promise of what is criminal is pernicious both to those that expect and to those that promise; we undertake to secure to our soldiers liberty, law, rights, courts, the empire of the world, dignity, peace, quiet. The promises therefore of Antonius are bloody, savage, criminal, hateful to gods and men, not lasting or salutary; ours, on the contrary, are honest, upright, noble, full of joy, and full of patriotism.
At this point too Quintus Fufius, my brave and energetic friend, ** reminds me of the advantages of peace. Just as though, if peace needed a panegyric, I could not compose one with equal propriety! Is it but once I have defended peace? have I not always aimed at quiet? which, useful as it is to all good men, is especially so to me. For what course could my industry have held without causes in the forum, without laws, without law-courts, things that cannot exist if you take away peace?
But I ask you, Calenus, ** what do you mean? do you call slavery peace? Our ancestors indeed took up arms not only to win freedom, but also empire; you think our arms should be thrown away to make us slaves. What juster reason is there for the waging of war than to repel slavery? a condition in which, though your master may not be oppressive, yet it is a wretched thing he should have the power to be so if he will. Nay, other causes are just, but this is necessary.
But perhaps you think this does not apply to you because you hope to be the partner of Antonius' tyranny? Here you make a double mistake; first, in preferring your own interests to those of the commonwealth; secondly, in thinking there is anything stable or agreeable in kingship. If it profited you once, ** it will not always profit you. What is more, you used to complain of Caesar, who was a man; what do you think you will do in the case of a wild beast? And you say you are one who has always longed for peace, always wished that all citizens should live in safety. Fine sentiments! but only if you mean good and useful and loyal citizens: if you wish for the safety of those that are by nature citizens, but by choice enemies, what difference, pray, is there, between you and them?
Your father indeed, whom as an old man I used to consult in my youth, a man of austerity and judgement, was wont to assign to Publius Nasica, who slew Tiberius Gracchus, ** the primacy of all his fellow-citizens; he thought that by Nasica's courage and prudence and greatness of mind the Republic had been liberated. Well? have we received any other precepts from our fathers? So that citizen would not have been approved in your eyes, if you had lived in those times, because he had not desired the safety of all the citizens! ‘Whereas Lucius Opimius the consul has spoken on a matter touching the Republic, the Senate on that matter has decreed that Lucius Opimius the consul should defend the Republic.’ ** Thus the Senate in words; Opimius supported it with arms.
Would you then, if you had lived at that time, have regarded him as a rash or cruel citizen? or Quintus Metellus, whose four sons were consulars? or Publius Lentulus, the leader of the Senate, and many other most distinguished men who took up arms with Opimius the consul and pursued Gracchus to the Aventine, an encounter in which Lentulus received a severe wound, and Gracchus was slain, and Marcus Fulvius the consular, and his two young sons? Those men are therefore to be abused, for they did not desire the safety of all citizens.
Let us come to more recent examples. The Senate entrusted the defence of the Republic to Gaius Marius and Lucius Valerius the consuls; Lucius Saturninus, tribune of the plebs, and Gaius Glaucia the praetor were slain. ** On that day all the Scauri, Metelli, Claudii, Catuli, Scaevolas, and Crassi took up arms. Do you think that either those consuls or those illustrious men should be abused? I desired the death of Catiline. Did you who wish for the safety of all wish that Catiline should be unpunished? There is this difference, Calenus, between your creed and mine: I am unwilling that any citizen should act so as to incur the penalty of death; you think that, even if he has so acted, he should be spared. If there be in the body anything such as to injure the rest of the body we suffer it to be cauterised and cut out, that some member, rather than the whole body, should perish; so in the body of the Republic, to ensure the health of the whole, let what is noxious be amputated.
A harsh saying; but yours is harsher: 'Let the reprobate, the criminal, the disloyal, be saved; let the innocent, the honest, the good, all the Republic, be wiped out!’ In the case of one man, Quintus Fufius, I confess you saw farther than I. I deemed Publius Clodius a pernicious citizen, criminal, lascivious, disloyal, audacious, villainous; you, on the contrary, thought him incorrupt, reasonable, innocent, modest, one to be kept and desired as a citizen. That in the case of this one man you were very clear-sighted and I much in error I allow! **
As to your statement that I am in the habit of arguing angrily, it is not so: I confess I argue with vehemence, I deny the anger; I am not at all wont to be wroth lightly with friends even when they deserve it. So I can dissent from you without insulting words, but without the greatest pain I cannot. For is my difference with you a small one or on a small point? Do I merely favour this man, you that? Yes, indeed, I do favour Decimus Brutus, you Marcus Antonius; I desire the preservation of a colony of the Roman people, you are anxious it should be reduced by storm.
Latin text of the Eighth Philippic | Glossary | Historia Civilis video overview of 44-43 BCE
"What juster reason is there for the waging of war than to repel slavery? a condition in which, though your master may not be oppressive, yet it is a wretched thing he should have the power to be so if he will. Nay, other causes are just, but this is necessary." fascinating take from a guy who owned slaves