With that he took a pace backward to signal that his speech was over, the crowd roared and stamped their feet in approval, and the last and most glorious phase of Cicero’s public career began.
From my shorthand notes I made a transcript of both speeches, and once again a team of scribes worked in relays to make copies. These were variously posted up in the Forum and dispatched to Brutus, Cassius, Decimus and the other prominent men in the republican cause. Naturally they were also sent to Octavian, who read them at once and replied within a week:
All men now waited anxiously for the next meeting of the Senate, due to be held on the first day of January. Cicero fretted that they were wasting precious time: ‘It is the most important rule in politics always to keep things moving.’ He went to see Hirtius and Pansa and urged them to bring the session forward; they refused, saying they did not have the legal authority. Still, he believed he had their confidence and that the three of them would present a united front. But when the new year dawned, and the sacrifices had been conducted on the Capitol in accordance with tradition, and the Senate retired to the Temple of Jupiter to debate the state of the nation, he received a nasty shock. Both Pansa, who presided and made the opening speech, and Hirtius, who spoke next, expressed the hope that, grave though the situation was, it might still be possible to find a peaceful solution with Antony. This was not at all what Cicero wanted to hear.
As the senior ex-consul, he had expected to be called next and rose accordingly. But instead Pansa ignored him in favour of his father-in-law, Quintus Calenus, an old supporter of Clodius and a crony of Antony, who had never been elected consul but had only been appointed to the office by the Dictator. He was a stocky, burly figure, built like a blacksmith, and no great speaker, but he was blunt and heard with respect.
‘This crisis,’ he said, ‘has been made out by the learned and distinguished Cicero to be a war between the republic on the one side and Mark Antony on the other. That’s not correct, gentlemen. It’s a war between three different parties: Antony, who was made governor of Nearer Gaul by a vote of this house and by the people; Decimus, who refuses to surrender his command; and a boy who has raised a private army and is out for all he can get. Of the three, I know and personally favour Antony. Perhaps as a compromise we should offer him the governorship of Further Gaul instead? But if that’s too much for the rest of you, I propose we should at the very least stay neutral.’
When he sat, Cicero stood again. But again Pansa ignored him and called Lucius Piso, Caesar’s ex-father-in-law, whom Cicero had also naturally counted as an ally. Instead Piso made a long speech, the gist of it being that he had always regarded Antony as a danger to the state, and still did, but having lived through the last civil war, he had no desire to live through another and believed the Senate should make one last attempt at peace by sending a delegation to Antony to offer him terms. ‘I propose that he should submit himself to the will of the Senate and people, abandon his siege of Mutina and withdraw his army to the Italian side of the Rubicon but no closer to Rome than two hundred miles. If he does that, then even at this late stage war may be averted. But if he does not, and war does come, at least the world will have no doubt who bears the blame.’
