Between 2 and 9 October 44 BCE: To Gaius Cassius Longinus (near Puteoli) from Cicero (at Rome)
Antony accuses Cicero of being involved in the plot to kill Caesar. Cicero tells Cassius that if he had been, he would have killed Antony too
Your friend1 gets more frenzied by the day. First, he has inscribed ‘To the most deserving father’ on the statue2 which he has set up on the Rostra, so that you are judged not just assassins, but parricides too. I say ‘you are judged,’ but I should really say ‘we are judged.’ For that frenzied man says that I was in charge of that most beautiful act of yours.3 If only I had been! He would not be causing us any trouble.4 But that is up to you; and since it is in the past, I only wish I could give you some advice—but I can’t even tell what I should do myself. For what can be done against violence, except through violence?
Their entire plan is to avenge the death of Caesar. And so, on October 2nd, he5 was brought to a public meeting by Cannutius, and indeed he left it very shamefully, but he did still say things about the saviours of our country that ought to be said about traitors. He even said that everything you all had done, and that Cannutius was doing, was indubitably done on my advice. You can judge the rest from the way they have seized your legate’s travelling money. What do you think they mean in doing that? The money was being taken to a public enemy, of course.
What a miserable situation! We could not endure a master, and so we are slaves to a fellow slave. And—although for me it is more a wish than an expectation—there is still hope in your virtue. But where are the troops?
About the rest, I would rather you follow your own advice than listen to what I have to say.
Goodbye.
Read Ad Familiares 12.3 in Latin here | Check the glossary here
Antony. Cicero does not name him at any point in this letter.
The statue was of Caesar. The Senate had previously given Caesar the title ‘parens patriae’ (father of his country).
i.e. the assassination of Caesar.
Cicero would not have left Antony alive. He implies the same in other letters, though his relations with Antony were cordial in the immediate aftermath of the assassination.
Antony.
i love when the girls are fighting