Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician

by Anthony Everitt

Philippus (Octavian’s stepfather),

distinguished, cautious jurist Servi...

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.

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 addition to sending their official dispatches to the Senate, provincial governors and generals took care to inform Cicero of their activities.

Titus Munatius Plancus

Lepidus in Gaul,

Caius Asinius Pollio in Fa...

Brutus in Ma...

Cassius in Asi...

his friend ...

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.

He was riding high but always had time to poke fun at a friend.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

outgoing governor, Quintus Hortensius Hortalus,

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 ab...

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Antony laid a trap. He kept his legions hidden in a village named Forum Gallorum and showed only his cavalry.

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.

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.

A week later Hirtius, assisted by Decimus Brutus, who organized a sortie from Mutina, defeated Antony again and raised the siege of the town.

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.

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.

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.