Dictator

And once he had his audience laughing – once he had softened the ground, so to speak – he proceeded to pulverise them with a cataract of invective and derision. ‘Decimus is being attacked – there is no war. Mutina is being besieged – not even this is war. Gaul is being laid waste – what could be more peaceful? Gentlemen, this is a war such as has never been seen before! We are defending the temples of the immortal gods, our walls, our homes, and the birthrights of the Roman people, the altars, hearths and tombs of our ancestors; we are defending our laws, law courts, liberty, wives, children, fatherland. On the other side, Mark Antony fights to wreck all this and plunder the state.

‘At this point my brave and energetic friend Calenus reminds me of the advantages of peace. But I ask you, Calenus: what do you mean? Do you call slavery peace? Heavy fighting is in progress. We have sent three leading members of the Senate to intervene. These Antony has repudiated with contempt. Yet you remain his most constant defender!

‘With what dishonour did yesterday dawn upon us! “Oh, but what if he were to make a truce?” A truce? In the presence, before the very eyes of the envoys he pounded Mutina with his engines. He showed them his works and his siege train. Not for a moment, although the envoys were there, did the siege find a breathing space. Envoys to this man? Peace with this man?

‘I will say it with grief rather than with insult: we are deserted – deserted, gentlemen – by our leaders. What concessions have we not made to Cotyla, the envoy of Mark Antony? Though by rights the gates of this city should have been closed to him, yet this temple was open. He came into the Senate. He entered in his notebooks your votes and everything you said. Even those who had filled the highest offices were currying favour with him to the disgrace of their dignity. Ye immortal gods! Where is the ancient spirit of our ancestors? Let Cotyla return to his general but on condition that he never returns to Rome.’

The Senate sat stunned. They had not been shamed in such a fashion since Cato’s day. At the end, Cicero laid a fresh motion: that those fighting with Antony would be given until the Ides of March to lay down their arms; after that, any who continued in his army, or who went to join him, would be regarded as traitors. The proposal passed overwhelmingly. There was to be no truce, no peace, no deal; Cicero had his war.

A day or two after the first anniversary of Caesar’s assassination – an occasion that passed without notice apart from the laying of flowers on his tomb – Pansa followed his colleague Hirtius into battle. The consul rode off from the Field of Mars at the head of an army of four legions: almost twenty thousand men scoured from every corner of Italy. Cicero watched with the rest of the Senate as they paraded past. As a military force it was less impressive than it sounded. Most were the rawest of recruits – farmers, ostlers, bakers and laundrymen who could barely even march in time. Their real power was symbolic. The republic was in arms against the usurper Antony.

With both consuls gone, the most senior magistrate left behind in the city was the urban praetor, Marcus Cornutus – a soldier picked by Caesar for his loyalty and discretion. He now found himself required to preside over the Senate even though he had minimal experience of politics. He soon placed himself entirely in the hands of Cicero, who thus, at the age of sixty-three, became the effective ruler of Rome for the first time since his consulship twenty years before. It was to Cicero that all the imperial governors addressed their reports. It was he who decided when the Senate should meet. It was he who made the main appointments. His was the house that was packed all day with petitioners.

He sent an amused account of his redux to Octavian: