Philippicae
Based on Wikipedia: Philippicae
The Speeches That Killed Their Author
In the final months of his life, the sixty-three-year-old Roman senator Cicero delivered a series of speeches so devastating, so personally vicious, that they would cost him his head—literally. His hands, too. Mark Antony wanted them nailed up in the Roman Forum as a warning: this is what happens to men who wield words like weapons.
The speeches were called the Philippics, and they remain some of the most consequential acts of political oratory in Western history.
A Name Borrowed from Greek History
Cicero didn't invent the term "Philippic." He borrowed it from Demosthenes, the great Athenian orator who had lived three centuries earlier. Demosthenes had delivered a series of passionate speeches warning Athens about the growing threat of Philip the Second of Macedon—the father of Alexander the Great. Those speeches became known as the Philippics, from Philip's name.
By calling his own speeches "Philippics," Cicero was making a deliberate comparison. He was casting Mark Antony as a tyrant in the mold of Philip, and himself as the voice of republican liberty. It was a bold rhetorical move, and Antony understood the insult perfectly.
The comparison went deeper. Cicero's Second Philippic—the longest and most brutal of the series—was consciously modeled on Demosthenes' speech "On the Crown," considered his masterpiece. Cicero wasn't just attacking Antony; he was competing with the greatest orator of the ancient world.
The Assassination That Started Everything
On March 15th, 44 BCE—the infamous Ides of March—a group of Roman senators stabbed Julius Caesar to death in the Theatre of Pompey. They called themselves the Liberatores, the Liberators, and they believed they were saving the Roman Republic from a would-be king.
Cicero wasn't part of the conspiracy. The plotters hadn't recruited him, though they were confident of his sympathy. When Brutus lifted his bloodstained dagger after the assassination, he shouted Cicero's name, crying out: "Restore the Republic!"
Cicero later made his feelings perfectly clear. In a letter to Trebonius, one of the assassins, he wrote: "How I wish that you had invited me to that most glorious banquet on the Ides of March!"
But Cicero had one major regret about the assassination: they hadn't killed Mark Antony too.
The Constitutional Crisis
Caesar's death created an immediate political problem. As dictator, Caesar had appointed his supporters to magistracies—official positions that were supposed to be elected—and to promagistracies, provincial governorships that the Senate was supposed to assign. All of this was blatantly unconstitutional, which meant that every one of Caesar's appointees was now legally vulnerable. The Senate could simply declare their positions illegitimate and remove them.
This left the Caesarian faction—Caesar's political allies and supporters—in a precarious position. They needed to legitimize their appointments while also finding a way to punish the assassins.
Cicero brokered a compromise. The Senate would confirm Caesar's appointees in their posts, and in exchange, the assassins would receive amnesty. It was an uneasy peace. It would last less than a year.
The Young Man from Apollonia
In April, a nineteen-year-old named Gaius Octavius arrived in Italy from Apollonia, where he had been studying. He was Caesar's grandnephew, and Caesar had posthumously adopted him in his will, making him Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus—or Octavian, as historians call him.
Before heading to Rome, Octavian stopped to visit Cicero at his villa. Cicero saw an opportunity. Here was a young man with Caesar's name and Caesar's money, but without Caesar's political base. Perhaps he could be used against Mark Antony.
Cicero encouraged Octavian to oppose Antony. He lavished praise on the teenager, calling him a "god-sent child" and claiming that he desired only honor and would not make the same mistakes as Caesar had.
This would prove to be a catastrophic miscalculation.
The Campaign Begins
In September of 44 BCE, Cicero began his assault. Over the following months, he would deliver fourteen speeches—the Philippics—systematically attacking Mark Antony in the most personal and savage terms imaginable.
He called Antony a "sheep." He compared him unfavorably to Catiline, the aristocrat who had conspired to overthrow the Republic decades earlier—a conspiracy that Cicero himself had famously crushed. He accused Antony of misrepresenting Caesar's will for personal gain. He catalogued what he called Antony's "atrocities."
The Second Philippic, published as a pamphlet rather than delivered as a speech, was particularly vicious. It may not have been circulated until after Cicero's death, as if he knew how dangerous it was.
During this period, Cicero's popularity reached its peak. He was appointed princeps senatus—"first man of the Senate"—becoming the first plebeian, or commoner, ever to hold that position. According to the historian Appian, for a few months Cicero "had the most power any popular leader could possibly have."
The Fourteen Speeches
The Philippics followed the trajectory of a political crisis accelerating toward war.
The First Philippic, delivered in the Senate on September 2nd, was relatively mild. Cicero criticized the legislation passed by the consuls—Mark Antony and Publius Cornelius Dolabella—claiming they had acted against Caesar's true wishes. He demanded that they focus on the welfare of the Roman people.
The Second Philippic escalated dramatically. It was a comprehensive demolition of Antony's character, his career, and his ambitions. Cicero held nothing back.
By December, Antony had left Rome with an army, heading for Cisalpine Gaul—the region of northern Italy just south of the Alps. He feared prosecution once his term as consul ended on January 1st. In the Third and Fourth Philippics, delivered on the same day, Cicero called on the Senate to act against Antony and declared that peace with him was inconceivable.
The Fifth through Ninth Philippics, delivered in January and February of 43 BCE, focused on preventing negotiations with Antony. When the Senate sent ambassadors to him, Cicero argued it was merely delaying an inevitable war. When Antony rejected the Senate's demands, Cicero insisted that the word "war" should be used, not the milder term "unrest."
The Tenth and Eleventh Philippics supported the military buildup of Brutus and Cassius—two of Caesar's assassins who were now commanding armies in the eastern provinces.
The final speeches, the Twelfth through Fourteenth, pushed for total commitment to the war. Even after a military victory against Antony, Cicero warned against "too prompt an eagerness for peace."
The Battles That Changed Everything
Cicero got his war. He convinced the two consuls for 43 BCE—Aulus Hirtius and Gaius Vibius Pansa—to lead the Senate's armies against Antony. Octavian commanded an allied force.
The Battle of Forum Gallorum in April was a victory for the Senate's forces. So was the Battle of Mutina a few days later. But both battles came at a terrible cost: Pansa was mortally wounded at Forum Gallorum, and Hirtius died at Mutina.
With both consuls dead, the Senate's army was suddenly leaderless. The obvious candidate to take command was Decimus Brutus, one of Caesar's assassins who was serving as governor of Cisalpine Gaul. But Octavian refused to work with him—because he had helped kill Octavian's adoptive father.
Most of the troops switched their loyalty to Octavian.
The Boy Grows Up
The nineteen-year-old "god-sent child" was now in command of a large army. And he had learned something important: Cicero and the Senate were trying to bypass him.
Octavian demanded to be appointed suffect consul—a replacement consul to fill the vacancy left by Hirtius and Pansa's deaths. There was just one problem: Roman law required consuls to be at least forty-two years old. Octavian was twenty-two years too young.
The Senate declined.
So Octavian marched his army on Rome and occupied the city without resistance. He forced through his election as suffect consul and began reconciling with Mark Antony.
The teenager Cicero had patronized, the useful tool he thought he could manipulate, had outmaneuvered him completely. There's a famous phrase attributed to Cicero about Octavian: "Adolescentem laudandum, ornandum, tollendum"—"The boy should be praised, honored, and removed." The Latin word "tollendum" was a dark pun: it could mean "elevated" or "eliminated."
In the end, it was Cicero who was removed.
The Second Triumvirate
Octavian, Mark Antony, and a general named Marcus Aemilius Lepidus formed the Second Triumvirate—a formal alliance with quasi-legal powers to rule the Roman state. They were united in their opposition to Caesar's assassins, but they had debts to settle among themselves as well.
The triumvirs began proscribing their enemies. Proscription was a particularly Roman form of political violence: you published a list of names, offered rewards for their capture, and stripped them of all legal protections. Anyone on the list could be killed with impunity. Their property was confiscated, their families left destitute.
According to ancient sources, Octavian argued for two days against adding Cicero to the proscription list. But the triumvirs had made a deal: each would sacrifice one close associate to appease the others. Antony wanted Cicero. After the Philippics, he would accept nothing less.
Cicero's younger brother Quintus was also proscribed, along with all their supporters.
The End
Most of the proscribed senators fled east, hoping to reach Macedonia where Brutus and Cassius were raising new armies. Cicero tried to do the same.
He was one of the most doggedly hunted of the proscribed, but also one of the most sympathetically viewed by ordinary people. Many who saw him refused to report it. He made it to his villa at Formiae, on the Italian coast, and was being carried in a litter toward a ship that might have taken him to safety.
The soldiers caught him there.
According to the ancient sources, Cicero submitted to his death with dignity. He bared his neck to the soldier and was beheaded. Mark Antony had given specific instructions: he wanted the hands that had written the Philippics removed as well.
Cicero's head and hands were displayed on the Rostra in the Roman Forum—the speakers' platform where he had delivered so many of his greatest speeches. It was a message to anyone who might consider opposing the new masters of Rome.
The Legacy of the Philippics
The Philippics failed in their immediate purpose. Cicero wanted to destroy Mark Antony and restore the Roman Republic. Instead, he was killed, Antony survived, and the Republic died with him. Within fifteen years, Octavian—now called Augustus—would be the first Roman Emperor.
But the speeches themselves survived. They became models of political oratory, studied for centuries by anyone who wanted to learn how to attack a political opponent with rhetorical force. The very word "philippic" entered the language as a term for any bitter verbal attack.
There's a deeper irony here. Cicero thought he was using Octavian as a tool against Antony. In reality, Octavian was using Cicero. The young man needed the Senate's legitimacy in his struggle against Antony, and Cicero provided it. Once that purpose was served, once Octavian had his army and his consulship and his alliance with Antony, Cicero was expendable.
In his final speeches, Cicero kept warning against "too prompt an eagerness for peace." He was right to worry. But the peace that came wasn't a return to the Republic he loved. It was the peace of autocracy, the peace of one man's unchallenged rule, the peace that would last for centuries and would be called the Pax Romana.
Cicero's hands had written the death warrant for the old Rome. And then those hands were nailed up in the Forum for everyone to see.
The Lost Philippics
The fourteen speeches we have today are not all that Cicero composed. Scholars know of at least six additional Philippics that have been lost to history, plus one from which only a single sentence survives. They were delivered to the Senate and to public assemblies in the months between the assassination and Cicero's death.
What arguments did they contain? What attacks did Cicero launch that we will never read? We can only imagine. The speeches that survived were devastating enough to cost a man his life. The ones that were lost may have been even more dangerous.