The Life of Cicero / Volume II. by Anthony Trollope

Author:Anthony Trollope [Trollope, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Cicero, Marcus Tullius, Statesmen -- Rome -- Biography, Authors, Latin -- Biography
Published: 2009-05-03T04:00:00+00:00

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Chapter X.

CICERO'S DEATH.

b.c. 43, ætat. 64.

What other letters from Cicero we possess were written almost exclusively with the view of keeping the army together, and continuing the contest against Antony. There are among them a few introductory letters of little or no interest. And these military despatches, though of importance as showing the eager nature of the man, seem, as we read them, to be foreign to his nature. He does not understand war, and devotes himself to instigating men to defend the Republic, of whom we suspect that they were not in the least affected by the words they received from him. The correspondence as to this period of his life consists of his letters to the Generals, and of theirs to him. There are nearly as many of the one as of the other, and the reader is often inclined to doubt whether Cicero be writing to Plancus or Plancus to Cicero. He remained at Rome, and we can only imagine him as busy among the official workshops of the State, writing letters, scraping together money for the troops, struggling in vain to raise levies, amid a crowd of hopeless, doubting, disheartened Senators, whom he still kept together by his eloquence as Republicans, though each was eager to escape.

But who can be made Consuls in the place of Pansa and Hirtius? Octavian, who had not left Italy after the battle of Mutina, was determined to be one; but the Senate, probably under the guidance of Cicero, for a time would not have him. There was a rumor that Cicero had been elected—or is said to have been such a rumor. Our authority for it comes from that correspondence with Marcus Brutus on the authenticity of which we do not trust, and the date of which we do not know.229 "When I had already written my letter, I heard that you had been made Consul. When that is done I shall believe that we shall have a true Republic, and one supported by its own strength." But probably neither was the rumor true, nor the fact that there was such a rumor. It was not thus that Octavian meant to play his part. He had been passed over by Cicero when a General against Antony was needed. Decimus had been used, and Hirtius and Pansa had been employed as though they had been themselves strong as were the Consuls of old. So they were to Cicero—in whose ears the very name of Consul had in it a resonance of the magnificence of Rome. Octavian thought that Pansa and Hirtius were but Cæsar's creatures, who at Cæsar's death had turned against him. But even they had been preferred to him. In those days he was very quick to learn. He had been with the army, and with Cæsar's soldiers, and was soon instructed in the steps which it was wise that he should take. He put aside, as with a sweep of his hand, all the legal impediments to his holding the Consulship.

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