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Cicero's correspondents.

Marcus Antonius, b. B.C. 83.

Besides Atticus, who still claims a considerable share of the correspondence, the majority of letters in these last months are addressed to Plancus, Decimus Brutus, Lepidus, Cassius, and M. Brutus. There is one to Antony, afterwards quoted by him against Cicero in the senate, and some few to Dolabella. This is hardly the time at which a final review of ANTONY'S character should be made, for the test of his real worth as a statesman and ruler came in the period following Cicero's death. Yet in spite of personal prejudice Cicero does not seem to have made a mistaken estimate of him. In B.C. 51 he had foreseen that he and his brothers were likely to be important personages in the Cæsarian era, and had warned his friend Thermus not to offend them.1 Marcus had been through the regular official round. He had served with Gabinius in Syria and Egypt (B.C. 57-56), had been quæstor and legatus to Iulius Cæsar in Gaul (B.C. 54-52), and was one of the tribunes of B.C. 50-49 who vetoed the fatal motion in January, B.C. 49, for his recall. His greatness then began. After Pompey's flight and Cæsar's departure for Spain, he was left in charge of Italy with the rank of proprætor. In B.C. 48 he joined Cæsar in Epirus with reinforcements, fought at Pharsalia, and was sent back after the victory to take over again the management of Rome and Italy; and when Cæsar was named Dictator in B.C. 47 Antony was named his Master of the Horse. Thus far his energy and courage had put him in the front rank of Cæsar's younger officers. But from this time his weaknesses as well as his strength began to shew themselves. He was not successful in his government at Rome during Cæsar's absence in Alexandria, and the disorders which grew to a dangerous height under his administration, both in the city and among the veteran legions, were only suppressed by the return of the Dictator. His wild debaucheries seem to have contributed to weaken his influence, and his financial embarrassments, partly at least to be attributed to them, caused him to attempt their relief by dealing with confiscated properties in a way which brought him into collision with Cæsar. A

1 Vol. ii., p. 157.

coldness appears to have arisen between them, and Lepidus took his place as Master of the Horse. But this coldness, whatever its nature and cause, disappeared upon Cæsar's return from Spain in B.C. 45, and Antony was named consul as Cæsar's colleague for B.C. 44. In spite of Cicero's invectives against him in the last months of the orator's life, Antony does not seem to have treated him with personal disrespect or harshness: and this Cicero often acknowledges, scandalized as he was by his conduct whilst in charge of Italy. He was in fact not unkindly by nature, capable of genuine affection and even passion (he ended, we all know, in throwing away the world for a woman's smile), good-natured, and florid in person as well as in style of speech and writing. But with some amiable qualities, he was without virtues. In a ruler good-natured indulgence to followers means often suffering to the ruled. In a competitor for empire, reckless gallantry is by itself no match for self-control and astuteness. In the end the unimpassioned youth, whom we find him here treating with some disdain, out-manœuvred him and outbid him for popular favour, and finally even beat him in war. In these letters, in spite of their hostility, we learn of what was perhaps his greatest military achievement, his masterly retreat from Mutina and his rally in Gallia Narbonensis.

P. Cornelius Dolabella, b. about B.C. 70.

DOLABELLA is on a much lower plane than Antony, and would not be much worth our attention were it not for his peculiar connexion with Cicero. He was one of the wildest and most extravagant of the young nobles of the day, but was apparently possessed of some oratorical ability. As was the fashion of the time, he trusted to this ability to bring him office and means to escape from his embarrassments, and in order to make himself a name as an orator and man of affairs commenced a prosecution of a man of high rank for malversation in his province. The person he selected was Appius Claudius, Cicero's predecessor in Cilicia. This happened to be particularly inconvenient to Cicero, who, besides wishing to stand well with Claudius, found that just about the time the prosecution was to begin (early in B.C. 50) his wife had consented to Dolabella's marriage with Tullia. It is not quite clear what Cicero's views on the subject were.

He had been consulted, and wrote to Terentia leaving the matter in her hands. Yet when he found it an accomplished fact, he felt much annoyed, especially as in the meanwhile he had been visited by Tiberius Nero with a proposal for Tullia's hand, and would have preferred him. The marriage, however, had taken place, and he was obliged to make the best of it, and consoled himself in B.C. 50-49 with the reflexion that, as Dolabella took Cæsar's side in the Civil War, he might prove a protection to his wife's family, which perhaps turned out to be the case. But neither was the marriage a happy one, owing to Dolabella's gross misbehaviour, nor had Cicero any reason to approve his son-in-law's public conduct. He was tribune in B.C. 47, whilst Cæsar was in Alexandria, and produced much uproar in Rome by proposing a law for the abolition of debts. Though his conduct was condoned by Cæsar, who took him on his campaigns in Africa and Spain (B.c. 46-45), he never shewed any qualities fitting him for public life. However, his behaviour in the field may be supposed to have earned Cæsar's regard, for he promised him the consulship for half the year B.C. 44, when he himself should have gone on the Getic and Parthian expeditions. Antony objected to such a colleague and went so far as to attempt to invalidate the election-as he had threatened to do—by announcing bad omens. The decision of the augurs on the point was not given when Cæsar was assassinated, and in the confusion that followed Dolabella assumed the insignia of the consulship. Two years before this his conduct had been so outrageous that Cicero had induced Tullia-somewhat unwillingly, it seems-to divorce him. But the strangest part of the business to our feelings is the cordial and almost affectionate manner in which Cicero continues to address him. This is raised to absolute adulation -in spite of a private grievance as to the failure to repay Tullia's dowry-by his belief that after Cæsar's death Dolabella meant to take the constitutional side. He had at first openly shewn his sympathy with the assassins, and a few weeks later had suppressed the riots which took place round the column and altar placed over the spot where Cæsar's body had been burnt, by executing-in what appears a most arbitrary manner-a number of citizens and slaves. But this show of republican ardour soon disap

peared. He shared with Antony in the plunder of the temple of Ops, obtained a nomination to the province of Syria, left Rome while still consul to take possession before Cassius could get there, and on his way through Asia barbarously murdered the governor of Asia, Trebonius (February, B.C. 43). Trebonius was in Asia with the express understanding that he was to collect forces and money for the republican party; and this act of Dolabella's was a declaration of hostility to it. The senate declared him a hostis and Cassius was commissioned to crush him. Rumour of his fall (he committed suicide while blockaded in Laodicea) reached Rome before the correspondence closes, but no official confirmation of it. Dolabella's private character was bad, and there is nothing in his public conduct to make up for it.

But the chief figures in the last stage of the correspond

C. Cassius Longinus, b. B.C. 83.

ence are the two Bruti, Marcus and Decimus, Gaius Cassius, Plancus and Lepidus.' With CASSIUS Cicero's intimacy seems to have begun in B.C. 46, when they were both living in Rome by Cæsar's indulgence, and both of them with feelings of very doubtful loyalty to his régime. Cassius had distinguished himself after the fall of Crassus-whose

1 The family ties uniting the leaders of the anti-Cæsarian party will be seen by the annexed table:

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quæstor he was-by successfully getting the remains of the Roman army back to Antioch, and repelling an attack of the Parthians on that town in the following year (B.C. 52). His success made Cicero's year in Cilicia (B.C. 51-50) safe as far as the Parthians were concerned. But he does not speak with much cordiality about it, or as if he knew Cassius at all intimately. Cassius was in command of a fleet off Sicily when the battle of Pharsalia took place. When he heard of it he sailed towards the Hellespont, apparently with a view of intercepting Cæsar, but almost immediately surrendered to him. After the Alexandrian War he seems to have returned to Rome and turned his attention to philosophy, adopting the doctrines of the Epicurean School. His letter (vol. iii., p. 194) shews the zeal of a late convert, as Cicero implies that he was (vol. iii., p. 174). He was never a hearty Cæsarian, though, like others, he submitted. In B.C. 46-45, when Cæsar was going to Spain to attack the sons of Pompey, he seems to have excused himself from fighting against old friends, and consequently to have received a hint that he had better go on a tour that would keep him from Rome during Cæsar's absence. On Cæsar's return, however, in the middle of B.C. 45, he appears to have been treated respectfully and nominated as prætor for B.C. 44, though he was annoyed at the preference being given to his brother-in-law M. Brutus, who was prætor urbanus. They were also to be consuls in B.C. 41, their proper year. Το assign his personal annoyance as to the urban prætorship as the motive for his promotion of the conspiracy does not seem reasonable, in face of the evidence of his profound discontent at the Cæsarian régime. He of course accepted office by Cæsar's favour, but he probably regarded that office as no more than his due, and the influence which gave it him as an unconstitutional exercise of prerogative, with which he could have dispensed if the state of the Republic had been normal. On the whole his share in the crime of the Ides of March is not aggravated by the additional stigma of ingratitude to the same extent as some of the others. His letters from Syria are short and soldierlike. Without being a man of great ability, he evidently possessed energy and military capacity.

PLANCUS was only accidentally of interest to Cicero. He

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