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tyrant with all the fervor of baffled yearning and wounded patriotism. For a little while he was the ascendant leader of the better men, few as they were, in Rome. The old rejoiced in his recovery, and the young wondered to believe, at last, that the stories told them of the twenty years before were true. "One ship," he declared triumphantly, "now holds us all; and at its helm I stand resolved. O that its voyage may be prosperous! Yet, however blow the winds, I shall not cease to strive.” 3

"37

The winds blew harder than he feared. "Small is the hope of our Commonwealth," he confessed with sinking voice, while Antony and Lepidus were driving down from the North; yet "it must not be said," he more cheerfully insisted, "that there is no hope at all." 38 His promise to be true himself, whatever might betide, was pledged again and again. "For I am of this mind," he wrote, "that, if my life is to be laid down in these exertions, I shall esteem it to

be nobly ended." 39 The news of his proscription

reached him at his villa in Tusculum. He first sought escape, with the intention of joining Brutus in Macedonia; but as he journeyed southwards, his heart sank, as if he were rather anxious to die where he had lived, than to seek a foreign land and join

40

36 Fulgentissimo et cœlesti ore," says the glittering Paterculus, II. 64. Cicero describes his own position in his letters, Ad Div., X. 28, XII. 25, but confesses that he wages war "non pari conditione.” Ibid., XII. 22.

37 Ad Div., XII. 25. See II. 5, XII. 28.

38 Ibid., XII. 9.

39 Ibid., IX. 24.

40 Moriar," he is reported to have said, "in patria sæpe servata." Liv., Fragm. CXX. ex M. Sen., Suas., VII.

in the bloodshed of his countrymen. Overtaken, at length, near Caieta, by the assassins sent in pursuit of him, he met his fate with a fortitude that had too often failed in the midst of the trials and perils through which he had attained to the age of sixty-three. The head and hands were cut from the corpse, at Antony's command, and nailed above the rostra in the Forum of Rome.42 Years after, Augustus spoke to his grandson of Cicero as a learned man and a lover of his country.43 Centuries after, the Christian, remembering his warmth of heart and the love he bore towards his fellow-beings, may believe that Cicero was given to the world as an example of the highest character and the widest usefulness that were possible upon earth before the opening of Heaven at Bethlehem and at Bethany.

The history of liberty in Rome terminates with the murder of its last true champion. But the judgment of its virtues and its crimes, in their relation to the providence of God and the progress of His creatures, cannot be made without beginning the history of the oppression that ensued.

When Brutus, who had fled with Cassius from Italy to take possession of the provinces allotted them in Syria and Macedonia by the Emperor they mur

41 December 7, A. C. 43. Plut., Cic., 47, 48.

42 Plut., Cic., 49. Flor., IV. 6.
"Pende en el foro, triunfo de un malvado,
La cabeza de aquel...

En los rostros, do aquella voz divina
Fué de la libertad muro sagrado."

VOL. II.

ARJONA.

62

43 Plut., Cic., 49. "Si quis tamen," says the great historian, "virtutibus vitia pensavit; vir magnus, acer, memorabilis fuit, et in cujus laudes persequendas Cicerone laudatore opus fuerit." Liv., Fragm., cit.

46

44

dered, heard of the proscriptions at Rome, he said it was the fault rather than the misfortune of men who had submitted to the Triumvirs. The ravages, nevertheless, which he and his associate committed in the East, and the forces which they raised, were equally ineffectual to prevent their own overthrow, in the following year, at Philippi, whither they were then pursued by Antony and Cæsar. Cassius was put to death, at his own command, by a follower, in the first engagement with his foes.47 Brutus lived twenty days longer, to fight a second battle; but on the loss of this, he slew himself by night, exclaiming, "as he looked up to the starry heavens," that "virtue was nothing but a name! He had done his best, involuntarily indeed, to prove that it then could be no more.5

49

"48

The real conqueror at Philippi was Antony; but Cæsar assumed his share of credit for the victory, and the two together soon after appropriated the provinces allotted the previous year to Lepidus, reserving Africa alone for their associate.51 Antony, after tarrying awhile in Greece, went on to the East in search of plunder for his soldiers; and Cæsar returned to Italy, with the intent of dividing and securing the lands already promised to the same trouble

44 Plut., Brut., 28.

45 Ibid., 29.

46 A. C. 42.

47 Dion Cass., XLVII. 45.

48 Plut., Brut., 51.

49 Flor., IV. 7. Plut., Brut.,

51. Dion Cass., XLVII. 49.

50 Dante set him deep in the ice of the Inferno. XXXIV. 65.

51 Dion Cass., XLVIII. 1. Lepidus had been left in the enjoyment of the consulship and the pontificate at Rome.

some, but indispensable, followers. His first operations, however, after ejecting many families from their estates, and plundering the temples of the wealth he needed to satisfy his veterans,52 were directed against the brother and the wife of Antony, who took part against him, as if he had already excited the jealousy of his elder confederate. They raised some forces amongst the disaffected,53 and, seizing upon Perugia, sustained a siege of several months, until forced to surrender; 54 Fulvia,55 the wife, escaping in search of her husband, and Lucius Antonius, the brother, entering the service of the victor.

Whilst these events threatened to separate the Triumvirs, Sextus Pompey, who had been included in their proscription-lists, was in possession of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica; and as he had a large fleet under his command, he easily prevented the transportation of the supplies on which Rome depended for its common food. At every new success of the Triumvirs, the number of Pompey's followers was swelled by fugitives, arriving with little else than breath, to be protected against the victors. After the fall of Perugia, an alliance would have been made between Pompey and Antony,56 who was resolved upon hostilities against Cæsar, had not the latter,

52 A. C. 41. App., Bell. Civ., V. 13.

55 The widow of Clodius, and the bitter enemy of Cicero, as Velleius

53 Ibid., 12. Dion Cass., XLVIII. Paterculus says, "Nihil muliebre 4-6, 8, 9.

54 A. C. 40. The city met with a terrible fate. Ibid., 14. Suet., Aug., 15. App., Bell. Civ., V. 48, 49.

præter corpus gerens." II. 74.
56 Dion Cass., XLVIII. 15, 16,

29.

57 Ibid., 27.

keen towards every danger, hastened to receive his returning associate at Brundusium, where a new division of provinces and the betrothal of his sister Octavia the single fair or gentle figure in all these noisy and heartless scenes 59 -to Antony prevented the imminent rupture.

61

New difficulties, however, occurred. The proposal of renewing the attack which had, some time before, been made upon Sextus Pompey, aroused a great disturbance amongst the Romans,60 too much harassed by taxes and losses to bear with the high prices of grain, sure to be again cut off by the projected war. The Triumvirs, accordingly, determined to grant the demands of Pompey, and to invest him with a share of their authority, on condition of his insuring the supply of the Roman market and the safety of commerce on the Mediterranean. But the treaty, though celebrated with festivities amongst its parties, as well as by general rejoicings,62 was soon broken; and hostilities immediately succeeded. Sardinia and Corsica were betrayed to Cæsar, who finally, after great danger to himself,63 and through the prowess of his abler lieutenant, Vipsanius Agrippa, obliged his ad

58 A. C. 40. All to the east of the Adriatic being assigned to Antony. Dion Cass., XLVIII. 28, 30. App., Bell. Civ., V. 65.

XLVIII. 36. App., Bell. Civ.,
V. 72. This was in A. C. 39.

62 App., Bell. Civ., V. 74.
63 Suet., Aug., 16. Plin., Nat.

59 See Plutarch's delightful ac- Hist., VII. 46. count, Ant., 31, 53, 54, 57.

60 Dion Cass., XLVIII. 31.

61 Which were amnesty for his followers, with compensation and honors for himself. Dion Cass.,

64 Agrippa was and had been Cæsar's right-hand man. He advised him to go to Rome on his uncle's death; he supported him at Perugia; won victories for him in

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