Selected Works - Marcus Tullius Cicero

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promise this to you, O judges, I promise this to the Roman people, that my life shall fail rather than my vigour and perseverance in prosecuting their iniquity. But that iniquity, which, if it should be committed, I promise to prosecute severely, with however much trouble and danger to myself, and whatever enmities I may bring on myself by so doing, you, O Marcus Glabrio, can guard against ever taking place by your wisdom, and authority, and diligence. Do you undertake the cause of the tribunals. Do you undertake the cause of impartiality, of integrity, of good faith and of religion. Do you undertake the cause of the senate; that, being proved worthy by its conduct in this trial, it may come into favour and popularity with the Roman people. Think who you are, and in what a situation you are placed; what you ought to give to the Roman people, what you ought to repay to your ancestors. Let the recollection of the Acilian{16} law passed by your father occur to your mind, owing to which law the Roman people has had this advantage of most admirable decisions and very strict judges in cases of extortion. High authorities surround you which will not suffer you to forget your family credit; which will remind you day and night that your father was a most brave man, your grandfather a most wise one, and your father-in-law a most worthy man. Wherefore, if you have inherited the vigour and energy of your father Glabrio in resisting audacious men; if you have inherited the prudence of your grandfather Scaevola in foreseeing intrigues which are prepared against your fame and that of your fellow-judges; if you have any share of the constancy of your father-in-law Scaurus, so that no one can move you from your genuine and deliberate opinion, the Roman people will understand that with an upright and honourable praetor, and a carefully selected bench of judges, abundance of wealth has more influence in bringing a criminal into suspicion, than in contributing to his safety.

      XVIII. I am resolved not to permit the praetor or the judges to be changed in this cause. I will not permit the matter to be delayed till the lictors of the consuls can go and summon the Sicilians, whom the servants of the consuls elect did not influence before, when by an unprecedented course of proceeding they sent for them all; I will not permit those miserable men, formerly the allies and friends of the Roman people, now their slaves and suppliants, to lose not only their rights and fortunes by their tyranny, but to be deprived of even the power of bewailing their condition; I will not, I say, when the cause has been summed up by me, permit them after a delay of forty days has intervened, then at last to reply to me when my accusation has already fallen into oblivion through lapse of time; I will not permit the decision to be given when this crowd collected from all Italy has departed from Rome, which has assembled from all quarters at the same time on account of the comitia, of the games, and of the census. The reward of the credit gained by your decision, or the danger arising from the unpopularity which will accrue to you if you decide unjustly, I think ought to belong to you; the labour and anxiety to me; the knowledge of what is done and the recollection of what has been said by every one, to all. I will adopt this course, not an unprecedented one, but one that has been adopted before, by those who are now the chief men of our state,—the course, I mean, of at once producing the witnesses. What you will find novel, O judges, is this, that I will so marshal my witnesses as to unfold the whole of my accusation; that when I have established it by examining my witnesses, by arguments, and by my speech, then I shall show the agreement of the evidence with my accusation: so that there shall be no difference between the established mode of prosecuting, and this new one, except that, according to the established mode, when everything has been said which is to be said, then the witnesses are produced; here they shall be produced as each count is brought forward; so that the other side shall have the same opportunity of examining them, of arguing and making speeches or of attacking their evidence. If there be any one who prefers an uninterrupted speech and the old mode of conducting a prosecution without any break, he shall have it in some other trial. But for this time let him understand that what we do is done by us on compulsion, (for we only do it with the design of opposing the artifice of the opposite party by our prudence.) This will be the first part of the prosecution. We say that Caius Verres has not only done many licentious acts, many cruel ones, towards Roman citizens, and towards some of the allies, many wicked acts against both gods and men; but especially that he has taken away forty million sesterces out of Sicily contrary to the laws. We will make this so plain to you by witnesses, by private documents, and by public records that you shall decide that, even if we had abundant space and leisure days for making a long speech without any inconvenience, still there was no need at all of a long speech in this matter.

      The Second Philippic Against Marcus Antonius

      * * * * *

      THE ARGUMENT.

      This second speech was not actually spoken at all. Antonius was greatly enraged at the first speech, and summoned another meeting of the senate for the nineteenth day of the month, giving Cicero especial notice to be present, and he employed the interval in preparing an invective against Cicero, and a reply to the first Philippic. The senate met in the temple of Concord, but Cicero himself was persuaded not to attend by his friends, who were afraid of Antonius proceeding to actual violence against him, (and indeed he brought a strong guard of armed men with him to the senate) He spoke with the greatest fury against Cicero, charging him with having been the principal author and contriver of Caesar’s murder, hoping by this to inflame the soldiers, whom he had posted within hearing of his harangue.

      Soon after this, Cicero removed to a villa near Naples for greater safety, and here he composed this second Philippic, which he did not publish immediately, but contented himself at first with sending a copy to Brutus and Cassius, who were much pleased with it.

      I. To what destiny of mine, O conscript fathers, shall I say that it is owing, that none for the last twenty years has been an enemy to the republic without at the same time declaring war against me? Nor is there any necessity for naming any particular person; you yourselves recollect instances in proof of my statement. They have all hitherto suffered severer punishments than I could have wished for them; but I marvel that you, O Antonius, do not fear the end of those men whose conduct you are imitating. And in others I was less surprised at this. None of those men of former times was a voluntary enemy to me; all of them were attacked by me for the sake of the republic. But you, who have never been injured by me, not even by a word, in order to appear more audacious than Catiline, more frantic than Clodius, have of your own accord attacked me with abuse, and have considered that your alienation from me would be a recommendation of you to impious citizens.

      What am I to think? that I have been despised? I see nothing either in my life, or in my influence in the city, or in my exploits, or even in the moderate abilities with which I am endowed, which Antonius can despise. Did he think that it was easiest to disparage me in the senate? a body which has borne its testimony in favour of many most illustrious citizens that they governed the republic well, but in favour of me alone, of all men, that I preserved it. Or did he wish to contend with me in a rivalry of eloquence? This, indeed, is an act of generosity; for what could be a more fertile or richer subject for me, than to have to speak in defence of myself, and against Antonius? This, in fact, is the truth. He thought it impossible to prove to the satisfaction of those men who resembled himself, that he was an enemy to his country, if he was not also an enemy to me. And before I make him any reply on the other topics of his speech, I will say a few words; respecting the friendship formerly subsisting between us, which he has accused me of violating,—for that I consider a most serious charge.

      II. He has complained that I pleaded once against his interest. Was I not to plead against one with whom I was quite I unconnected, in behalf of an intimate acquaintance, of a dear friend? Was I not to plead against interest acquired not by hopes of virtue, but by the disgrace of youth? Was I not to plead against an injustice which that man procured to be done by the obsequiousness of a most iniquitous interposer of his veto, not by any law regulating the privileges of the praetor? But I imagine that this was mentioned by you, in order that you might recommend yourself to the citizens, if they all recollected that you were the son-in-law of a freedman, and that your children were the grandsons of Quintus Fadius a freedman.

      But you had entirely devoted yourself to my principles; (for this is what you said;) you had been in the habit of coming to my house. In truth, if you had done so, you would more have consulted your own character and your reputation for chastity. But you did not do so, nor, if you had

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