e and as perpetual
laws--shall they go for nothing?"[198] Here was the point in dispute.
The decree had been voted soon after Caesar's death, giving the sanction
of the Senate to his laws. For peace this had been done, as the best way
out of the difficulty which oppressed the State. But it was intolerable
that, under this sanction, Antony should have the power of bringing
forth new edicts day after day, while the very laws which Caesar had
passed were not maintained. "What better law was there, or more often
demanded in the best days of the Republic, than that law," passed by
Caesar, "under which the provinces were to be held by the Praetors only
for one year, and by the Consuls for not more than two? But this law is
abolished. So it is thus that Caesar's acts are to be maintained?"[199]
Antony, no doubt, and his friends, having an eye to the fruition of the
provinces, had found among Caesar's papers--or said they had found--some
writing to suit their purpose. All things to be desired were to be found
among Caesar's papers. "The banished are brought back from banishment,
the right of citizenship is given not only to individuals but to whole
nations and provinces, exceptions from taxations are granted, by the
dead man's voice."[200] Antony had begun, probably, with some one or two
more modest forgeries, and had gone on, strengthened in impudence by his
own success, till Caesar dead was like to be worse to them than Caesar
living. The whole speech is dignified, patriotic, and bold, asserting
with truth that which he believed to be right, but never carried into
invective or dealing with expressions of anger. It is very short, but I
know no speech of his more closely to its purpose. I can see him now,
with his toga round him, as he utters the final words: "I have lived
perhaps long enough--both as to length of years and the glory I have
won. What little may be added, shall be, not for myself, but for you and
for the Republic." The words thus spoken became absolutely true.

CHAPTER IX.

_THE PHILIPPICS._

[Sidenote: B.C. 44, aetat. 63.]

Cicero was soon driven by the violence of Antony's conduct to relinquish
the idea of moderate language, and was ready enough to pick up the
gauntlet thrown down for him. From this moment to the last scene of his
life it was all the fury of battle and the shout of victory, and then
the scream of despair. Antony, when he read Cicero's speech, the first
Philippic, the language of wh