![]() ![]() L All that will pass away is the frail, perishable body, subject to disease, liable to mischances, exposed to proscription : but the soul, of birth divine, which knows neither age nor death, freed from the heavy bonds of the flesh, will hasten to its familiar home among the stars. Undying Memory, the guardian of human achievements, which makes great men's lives immortal, will make your name sacred to all generations. In no obscure tomb can you be shrouded from men's eyes : your virtues will not perish with your life. Since this is the plight of the Roman people, who does not think that Cicero must die? Your prayers to Antony will be shameful and in vain. We rush from strife to strife : victors abroad we are butchered at home at home an intestine enemy gloats upon our blood. And you would snatch Cicero from this madman's rage? What Charybdis so rapacious as he? Charybdis, said I? If Charybdis ever was, she was only one monster: scarcely, by heavens, could the sea itself have gulped down so many diverse things at once. Will you then keep silence while Antony issues his proscriptions and mangles his country? Shall not even your groans be free? I had rather the Roman people mourned Cicero in death than in life. You may know that for you longer life is not expedient, if you live only by Antony's reprieve. In the light of your services you have lived long enough: but looking to the wrongs inflicted by Fortune, and your country's plight, you have lived too long : as regards your works and their memory you are destined to be immortal. If you think of the people's desire, the people's grief, no matter when you die, you die untimely. Remember Cato whose death you extolled: do you think anything in the world so precious that you should be indebted to Antony for life? Will you fall as a suppliant there and beg for life on bended knee? With that tongue that saved the state will you utter humble words of flattery? Shame! Even Verres when proscribed died more gallantly. Pompey, that brawny chest, that gladiator's strength of frame : you shall see that spot before the seat of justice which lately as master of the horse, for whom a belch would have been a disgrace, he had defiled with his vomit. By the white wax of one tablet the disasters of Pharsalia, Munda and Mutina are surpassed: the lives of consuls are bartered for gold: your own words are all that we can utter: "Alas for the degeneracy of the age!" You shall see eyes burning at once with cruelty and pride : no human countenance shall you see, but the very visage of the Fury of civil war : you shall behold those jaws that devoured the wealth of Cn. Go, then, and ask mercy from Antony.ĭoes then Cicero ever speak without striking terror into Antony? Does Antony ever speak to strike terror into Cicero ? A thirst like Sulla's for his country's blood arises in the state again, and under the triumvirs' spear not taxes but the lives of Roman citizens are bought and sold. You yourself said, " Milo forbids me to ask mercy from the jury". Triumphant in defeat he spoke like a conqueror. When Scipio had buried the sword deep in his bosom he replied to the soldiers who had boarded his vessel and were searching for the commander, "With the commander all is well". L Marcus Cato, alone our noblest pattern in life and in death, chose to die rather than beg for mercy - yet it was no Antony he had to petition - and armed those hands of his, to the last unstained by Roman blood, against his own noble breast. Cato, nor the Luculli, nor Hortensius, nor Lentulus and Marcellus, nor your own particular consuls, Hirtius and Pansa? What has Cicero in common with an alien generation? Now our days are over. How will you bring yourself to enter this senate depleted by cruelty, recruited with dishonour? Will you have the heart to enter a senate in which you are not to see Cn. If you understand aright, Cicero, he does not say "Ask for life", but "Ask for bondage". Believe me, however carefully you guard your tongue, Antony will do what Cicero cannot pass in silence. You will have to write eulogies on Antony on such a theme even Cicero's eloquence will fail. Let future generations know that the commonwealth not Cicero could bow the knee to Antony. ![]() "Cicero considers whether he should beg Antony for life" Click on the L symbols to go to the Latin text of each chapter. ![]()
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