44 BC

THE SECOND ORATION AGAINST MARCUS ANTONIUS

Called also the Second Philippic

by Marcus Tullius Cicero

translated by Charles Duke Yonge, A.B.

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.

THE SECOND ORATION AGAINST MARCUS ANTONIUS

Called also the Second Philippic -

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 favor of many most illustrious citizens that they governed the republic well, but in favor 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.

He has complained that I pleaded once against his interest. Was I not to plead against one with whom I was quite 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 wished it, would Caius Curio have ever suffered you to do so. You have said that you retired in my favor from the contest for the augurship. Oh, the incredible audacity! oh, the monstrous imprudence of such an assertion! For, at the time when Cnaeus Pompeius and Quintus Hortensius named me as augur, after I had been wished for as such by the whole college (for it was not lawful for me to be put in nomination by more than two members of the college), you were notoriously insolvent, nor did you think it possible for your safety to be secured by any other means than by the destruction of the republic. But was it possible for you to stand for the augurship at a time when Curio was not in Italy? or even at the time when you were elected, could you have got the votes of one single tribe without the aid of Curio? whose intimate friends even were convicted of violence for having been too zealous in your favor.