talibus viris, neque nobis necessariis tuis, sed etiam rei publicae condonaveris.

Let Cæsar Show his Customary Clemency.

37. Fac igitur, quod de homine nobilissimo et clarissimo fecisti nuper in curia, nunc idem in foro de optimis et huic 5 omni frequentiae probatissimis fratribus. Ut concessisti illum senatui, sic da hunc populo, cujus voluntatem carissimam semper habuisti; et, si ille dies tibi gloriosissimus, populo Romano gratissimus fuit, noli, obsecro, dubitare, C. Caesar, similem illi gloriae laudem quam saepissime Io quaerere. Nihil est tam populare quam bonitas, nulla de virtutibus tuis plurimis nec admirabilior nec gratior misericordia est. 38. Homines enim ad deos nulla re propius accedunt quam salutem hominibus dando. Nihil habet nec fortuna tua majus quam ut possis, nec natura melius quam ut 15 velis, servare quam plurimos. Longiorem orationem causa forsitan postulet, tua certe natura breviorem. Qua re cum utilius esse arbitrer te ipsum quam me aut quemquam loqui tecum, finem jam faciam: tantum te admonebo, si illi absenti salutem dederis, praesentibus his omnibus te daturum.

JULIUS CAESAR was assassinated on the Ides of March (March 15), B.C. 44, by a band of conspirators, headed by Marcus Junius Brutus and Caius Cassius Longinus. The conspirators fancied that if the dictator were out of the way the old constitution could be restored. But Cæsar's victory had made a republic forever impossible. Nor had the con spirators made any arrangements for a permanent government, or even for their own safety. The sole question was, who should succeed to the

supreme power of the murdered dictator. And the only persons who

had any real claims were Cæsar's surviving colleague in the consulship, Mark Antony, and the young Octavianus, Cæsar's grand-nephew, adopted son, and heir (afterwards the emperor Augustus).

Antony, who had come into possession of Cæsar's papers and estates, caused his "acts" to be legally confirmed, seized the public funds, abolished the office of dictator, and secured as large a share of authority as he could. He was a man of inordinate ambition, controlled only by an equally unbounded self-indulgence, utterly without principle or scruple, and (if we may trust the character of him drawn by Cicero) a

monster of profligacy and crime. He had married for his third wife Fulvia, widow of Publius Clodius, and shared, with her, that tribune's vindictive hate of Cicero. His colleague was P. Cornelius Dolabella, Cicero's son-in-law, who had assumed the consulship at Cæsar's death, on the ground that the latter had appointed him his successor in that office. Dolabella dallied with the conspirators, suppressed the violence of the mob that threatened them, and might have had some pretensions to the power, with the support of the aristocracy, but was easily outgeneralled or bought off by Antony. Lepidus, who had a military command, and in whom the aristocracy had some hope, was also gained over by him. Octavianus, now twenty years old, hastened from Epirus to claim his inheritance and take part in the conflict which he saw approaching. He was a young man of precocious talent, of cool and wary temper, of ambition equal to Antony's, and of a political sagacity which, through his long life, seems never to have been at fault.

Neither of the two chief claimants was strong enough alone to be quite independent of the other. At first, however, they stood in the attitude of rivals, and in their antagonism there seemed still some hope for the republic. Each endeavored to secure the countenance of the Senate and to gain control over the public armies; and each succeeded in attaching to himself a considerable force, though neither was strong enough to hold the capital against the other.

Meanwhile Cicero, who at first hailed the death of Cæsar as the restoration of the republic, lost courage, and set out in July for Greece. Detained, however, by contrary winds, and receiving more favorable news from Rome, he returned to the city at the end of August, to find that all his hopes were idle. Still, he made an effort at conciliation, in a speech in the Senate, on the 2d of September. In this he replied severely to an attack made upon him by Antony the day before, but still took pains to leave the door open for a restoration of good-will. It was to no purpose. Antony replied, September 19, with such bitterness directly charging Cicero with the murder of Clodius and of Cæsar that it was clear he meant there should be no alternative but civil war. Cicero did not venture to answer him in the Senate; but replied, ten weeks later, in a pamphlet — by many regarded as his masterpiece as bitter and uncompromising as the consul's attack. From its likeness in tone to the famous invectives of Demosthenes against Philip of Macedon, this was called a "Philippic"; and the term has been extended to the entire series of fourteen orations against Antony, commencing with that of September 2, and ending with the triumphant speech (given below) with which Cicero's political career closed.