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Antony as ‘Tyrant’ in Cicero's First Philippic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2014

Tom Stevenson
Tom Stevenson*
Affiliation:
University of Queensland
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This paper is concerned with the impact made on Mark Antony by Cicero's First Philippic. Although the speech outwardly maintains a conciliatory attitude, it certainly upset Antony. Scholars have noted criticism of Antony in the First Philippic, both political and personal in character, which would not have pleased him. The following discussion argues that there are numerous associations with the stock figure of the ‘tyrant’ which would have been displeasing too. Such a vein of criticism in effect bridges the personal and political dimensions in potentially devastating fashion.

The First Philippic was delivered in difficult circumstances. Brutus and Cassius sent a letter to Antony on 4 August 44 BCE and concluded with a stark warning: neque, quam diu uixerit Caesar, sed quam non diu regnarit, fac cogites (‘keep in mind not the length of Caesar's life but the short time he ruled [sc. as a tyrant]’, Cic. Fam. 11.3). On 1 September, the senate met to consider a proposal which would have seen an extra day in honour of the deified Caesar added to all public thanksgivings (Cic. Phil. 1.13, 2.110). Antony was angered by Cicero's failure to attend the meeting. He apparently left Rome later that day for Tibur. His consular colleague Dolabella summoned a meeting of the senate ‘for the next day, and this time Cicero attended. It was at the meeting of 2 September that Cicero delivered his First Philippic. In comparison to later speeches in the Philippics corpus, the First Philippic has seemed to many a moderate and polite speech that concentrated upon Antony's political behaviour and left the door ajar for future cooperation. It certainly contrasts greatly with the Second Philippic, which is well known for its bitter and sustained personal invective. Nonetheless, the First Philippic was enough to make Antony angry and it is worth re-examining the reasons for this reaction. In particular, allusions in Philippic 1 to Antony as a tyrant and to death as the fate of tyrants, especially in the wake of Caesar's assassination, were probably interpreted by contemporaries as more sinister threats than they have generally been recognised to be by modern readers.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ramus , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , 2009 , pp. 174 - 186
Copyright
Copyright © Aureal Publications 2009

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References

1. I would like to thank Gesine Manuwald, Jon Hall, and the journal’s anonymous reviewer for much helpful advice in the writing of this paper. Any remaining errors are, of course, my fault alone.

2. For the historical circumstances, see the detailed account of Lintott, A., Cicero as Evidence: A Historian’s Companion (Oxford 2008), 374–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the Philippics more generally, see now the collection of papers in Stevenson, T. and Wilson, M. (eds.), Cicero’s Philippics: History, Rhetoric and Ideology (Prudentia 37–38: Auckland 2008Google Scholar), with the review by J. Henderson, BMCR 2010.03. 16.

3. Antony’s speech can be partly reconstructed from the Second Philippic: Frisch, H., Cicero’s Fight for the Republic: The Historical Background of Cicero’s Philippics (Copenhagen 1946), 130Google Scholar.

4. King, J.R., The Philippics Orations of M. Tullius Cicero 2 (Oxford 1878), 5Google Scholar (‘The tone of it is moderate, compared with those that follow’); Petersson, T., Cicero: A Biography (Berkeley 1920), 621Google Scholar (refraining from personal vituperation shows that Cicero is ready to remain on friendly terms in spite of the frank and determined words); Denniston, J.D., Cicero: Philippics I, II (Oxford 1926), xviGoogle Scholar (‘a restrained and temperate speech’); Ker, W.C.A., Cicero: Philippics (London 1926), 19Google Scholar (‘studiously moderate…. The orator had not yet thrown down the gage of combat. That was reserved for the second speech’); Ciaceri, E., Cicerone e i suoi tempi, 2 vols. (Milan 1930Google Scholar), 2.347 (‘con ben studiata moderazione di linguaggio’); Haskell, H.J., This was Cicero: Modern Politics in a Roman Toga (London 1943), 329Google Scholar (‘By Ciceronian standards the speech was moderate in tone’); Lacey, W.K., Cicero and the End of the Roman Republic (London 1978), 150Google Scholar (‘dignified and temperate’); Hall, J., ‘The Philippics’, in J. May (ed.), Brill’s Companion to Cicero: Oratory and Rhetoric (Leiden 2002), 273–304CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 275 (‘not uniformly belligerent, offering in places the possibility of cooperation in the future’).

5. Strachan-Davidson, J.L., Cicero and the Fall of the Roman Republic (New York and London 1900), 392Google Scholar (‘firm but conciliatory…. The speech was, however, sufficient to rouse the deadly hostility of the consul’); Grant, M., Cicero: Selected Political Speeches (Harmondsworth 1969), 295Google Scholar (‘moderate and reasonable…. Yet it earned a violent riposte, and the battle was joined’).

6. Cowell, F.R., Cicero and the Roman Republic (London 1948), 209Google Scholar (‘unscrupulous adventurer…gross swashbuckling army commander…base desires and worthless way of life’); Ward, A.M., Heichelheim, F.M. and Yeo, C.A., A History of the Roman People 3 (New Jersey 1999), 211Google Scholar (‘a mildly critical speech but irritating enough to provoke the increasingly sensitive Antonius to an angry attack on Cicero’s past career’); Cary, M. and Scullard, H., A History of Rome 3 (London 1975), 285Google Scholar (‘conciliatory intent…spoilt by a jarring undertone of criticism…served to irritate Antony into a violent rejoinder’).

7. Sihler, E.G., Cicero of Arpinum: A Political and Literary Biography (New Haven, London & Oxford 1914), 422Google Scholar; Smith, R.E., Cicero the Statesman (Cambridge 1966), 245Google Scholar; Wooten, C.W., Cicero’s Philippics and their Demosthenic Model: The Rhetoric of Crisis (Chapel Hill & London 1983), 14Google Scholar; Steel, C., Reading Cicero: Genre and Performance in Late Republican Rome (London 2005), 142Google Scholar (‘Antonius made it clear that he looked to the contents of the first Philippic rather than its style’).

8. Stockton, D., Cicero: A Political Biography (Oxford 1971) 292f.Google Scholar; cf. Charlesworth, M.P., ‘The Avenging of Caesar’, in The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 10 (Cambridge 1952), 1–30Google Scholar, at 10f. (‘temperate in tone…a criticism that seems mild in comparison with later efforts…already meditating support from Octavius’).

9. Rawson, E., Cicero: A Portrait (Bristol 1983), 271Google Scholar (‘a very clever piece of work, personally mild in tone’); Rawson, E., ‘The Aftermath of the Ides’, in The Cambridge Ancient History 2, vol. 9 (Cambridge 1994), 468–90Google Scholar, at 477 (‘cleverly representing [Antony’s] actions as not only unconstitutional, but neither popular with the plebs nor in accord with Caesar’s intentions’); Ramsey, J.T., Cicero: Philippics I–II (Cambridge 2003), 9Google Scholar (‘Antony took great offence at [the First Philippic] because Cicero openly criticised his policies and portrayed them as a betrayal of Caesar’s legacy’), 83 (‘[Antony] could ill afford to permit such a devastating critique of his administration to go unchallenged’); cf. Frisch (n.3 above), 128 (‘a political dexterity carried to its extremest limits’).

10. Rawson (n.9 above ‘Aftermath’), 477.

11. Shackleton Bailey, D.R., Cicero (London 1971), 245Google Scholar.

12. Richards, G.C., Cicero: A Study (London 1935), 175fGoogle Scholar.

13. Frisch (n .3 above) 131 f.

14. For tyrant discourse in the Philippics, see T. Stevenson, ‘Tyrants, Kings and Fathers in the Philippics’, in Stevenson and Wilson (n.2 above), 95–113. On development of the stock figure of the tyrant, see Dvornik, F., Early Christian and Byzantine Political Philosophy: Origins and Background, 2 vols. (Washington DC 1966Google Scholar), chs. 4, 5, 8; Dunkle, J., ‘The Greek Tyrant and Roman Political Invective of the Late Republic’, TAPA 98 (1967), 151–71Google Scholar; Sinclair, T.A., A History of Greek Political Thought 2 (London 1967), 161–64Google Scholar, 269–86; Weinstock, S., Divus Julius (Oxford 1971), 201–03Google Scholar; Aalders, G., Political Thought in Hellenistic Times (Amsterdam 1975), 33Google Scholar, 91f., 103, 107; Stevenson, T., ‘The Ideal Benefactor and the Father Analogy in Greek and Roman Thought’, CQ 42 (1992), 421–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 431–35; Rowe, C. and Schofield, M. (eds.), The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought (Cambridge 2000CrossRefGoogle Scholar), esp. 477–516 on Cicero (E.M. Atkins) and 517–31 on Latin historical writing (T. Wiedemann); and the various papers in Lewis, S. (ed.), Ancient Tyranny (Edinburgh 2006CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

15. Dunkle (n.14 above), 159.

16. Weinstock (n.14 above), 201–03; Stockton (n.8 above), 110–42; Stevenson (n.14 above), 421.

17. If the suspect letter Ad Brutum 1.17 is in fact genuine, or if it does accurately reflect contemporary opinion, Brutus could openly write that Cicero saw Antony as a tyrant (1.17.1). In any event, it represents an informed interpretation of the orator’s attitude. For Cicero’s characterisation of Caesar as a tyrant, see I. Gildenhard, ‘Reckoning with Tyranny: Greek Thoughts on Caesar in Cicero’s Letters to Atticus in Early 49’, in Lewis (n.14 above), 197–209.

18. Ramsey (n.9 above), 83f.

19. On the Athenian agreement, see King (n.4 above), 8; Denniston (n.4 above), 65; Ramsey (n.9 above), 86.

20. For another well known turning-point in the depiction of a tyrant, see Suet. Cal. 22.1: hactenus quasi de principe, reliqua ut de monstro narranda sunt (‘so much for the emperor; the rest of this history must deal with the monster’). Wardle, David, Suetonius’ Life of Caligula: A Commentary (Brussels 1994), 202Google Scholar, thinks that such a device was rare before Suetonius, though it is characteristic of his work.

21. Ramsey (n.9 above), 104 and 145f., sees references to Antony’s wife Fulvia and brother Lucius; cf. Phil. 2.14 for a motley crew of spendthrifts and wastrels.

22. For Antony’s legislative programme, see Ramsey, J.T., ‘Mark Antony’s Judiciary Reform and its Revival under the Triumvirs’, JRS 95 (2005), 20–37Google Scholar.

23. It is not that Cicero will absent himself on account of the risk of death at Antony’s hands, but the more sinister implication that he will be prevented from attending the senate by death at Antony’s hands. See Ramsey (n.9 above), 138f.

24. On the fall from grace of M. Manlius, hero of the Capitol when Rome was invaded by the Gauls, including abolition of his praenomen, see Cic. Dom. 101; Phil. 2.87, 2.114; Livy 6.11–20; Diod. Sic. 15.35.3; Ramsey (n.9 above), 144f. Cf. Plut. Cic. 49.6 and Dio 51.19, who say that after Actium the senate similarly decreed that the praenomen Marcus would not be used for an Antonius.

25. On the domestici of Phil. 1.33, see n.21 above.

26. Trag. Fr. 203 Ribbeck; Suet. Tib. 59.2; Cal. 30.1.

27. Ramsey (n.9 above), 148.

28. The play originally intended for production was Accius’ Brutus, which would have allowed the contemporary Brutus to bask in the glow of his ancestor’s deed. As it turned out, Cicero was not displeased with the result, although he wishes the people had done more than applaud (Att. 16.5.1).

29. Lintott (n.2 above), 377, writes of this part of the speech: ‘We have in effect a polemical version of what [Cicerol was to say to his son in the third book of De Officiis (79–83).’

30. Ramsey (n.9 above), 154.

31. Cf. Cic. Att. 14.21.3; Marc. 25; Suet. lul. 86.2; Ramsey (n.9 above), 155.

32. E.g. Cic. Att. 16.14.1 (acta tyranni [= Caesaris]), 16.15.3 (Octavian must be not only no enemy [inimicus] but a friend [amicus] to the tyrannicides [tyrannoctoni]); Off. 3.82–84, 3.90.

33. Cic. Fam. 12.23.2; Nic. Dam. 30; Veil. Pat. 2.60.3; Sen. Clem. 1.9.1; Plut. Ant. 16; Suet. Aug. 10; App.B Civ. 3.39.

34. Ramsey (n.9 above), 81, points out that Cicero later described the First Philippic as an invective (Fam. 12.25.4: sum in Antonius inuectus). Gelzer, Matthias, Cicero (Wiesbaden 1969), 346–50Google Scholar, it may be noted, reads the First Philippic as criticism of Antony measured against Cicero’s ideal statesman from the De Re Publico, who was explicitly the opposite of the tyrant (Rep. 1.64).

35. The following seem a reasonable start: discord/concord (pax atque otium, 1,16; pax, 17, 23, 31); examples from Greek and Roman tyranny (1, 13, 32, 34, 36); dictatura/regnum (3, 4, 13, 32); fear (4, 5, 7, 10, 14, 15, 22, 28, 30, 31, 33, 38); force/violence (uis et maiestas, 5, 6, 13, 21; threat of death, 22, 26, 28); suppression of libertas (12, 13, 27, 32); Brutus and Cassius as liberators (6, 9, 32, 35, 36); subversion of law/the laws (16–26); use of an armed bodyguard (16, 25, 27); slavery for the citizens (6, 15); evil advisers (8, 33); anger (11, 12, 27, 28); greed (6 [veteran plunder], 29, 33); the fate of Caesar (35, 38); ignoring the will of the senate and people (6, 8, 13, 36); promoting the lowly (20); impiety (31); moral weakness (33); threats to life (28, 35, 38).

36. The following passages condemn Caesar as a tyrant and justify his assassination on this basis: Phil. 2.90 (funeri tyranni), 2.96 (tyrannis interfectis), 2.117 (fama gloriosum tyrannum occidere) and 13.17 (dominum et tyrannum…Mo interfecto). Phil. 2.110 involves a disputed reading (Caesaris as a possible gloss for tyranni) but may originally have served the same purpose (siue quod Caesaris sacerdos es siue quod mortui, ‘whether you are priest of Caesar/a tyrant or priest of a dead man’). Phil. 2.118 warns Antony that he will meet the same fate as Caesar, the tyrant of 2.117. Similarly, Phil. 13.18 attacks Antony twice with the term tyrannus after justifying Caesar’s assassination on these grounds in the preceding section.

37. Note, for example, charges that Antony is more tyrannical than Tarquinius Superbus (Phil. 3.9–11), that he is greedy (5.22), impious (3.9, 11.6), an opponent of concord (4.14), a promoter of discord (13.1) and of civil war (7.23–5, 13.1), consumed by anger (3.4, 12.26), demented (12.26), a figure of furor (2.65, 3.5, 3.17, 3.31, 4.3, 5.10, 5.37, 5.43, 6.4, 6.18, 11.2, 12.26, 13.18–20, 13.43), insane (5.29), and mad (2.9, 2.42, 3.6, 3.17, 4.10, 5.32, 5.37, 13.24–25). He disregards the laws (5.42, 11.11, 11.36, 13.1), his use of violence is emphasised (2.115, 5.10, 6.6, 12.26), and he is associated with tyranny, kingship and domination (2.34–35, 2.84–87,2.117,3.8–12, 3.29, 3.34, 5.17, 5.39–40, 5.44, 8.12, 13.6, 13.17–18). Cicero explicitly builds on the tyrant base in Phil. 13.18, where he calls Antony an arch-pirate and adds parenthetically quid enim dicam tyranno (‘for why should I call him merely a tyrant’)? For further discussion, see Stevenson (n.14 above).