the world. We do not even know
that Antony ever saw it. There has been an idea prevalent that Antony's
anger was caused by it, and that Cicero owed to it his death; but the
surmise is based on probability--not at all on evidence. Cicero, when he
heard what Antony had said of him, appears to have written all the evil
he could say of his enemy, in order that he might send it to Atticus. It
contained rather what he could have published than what he did intend to
publish. He does, indeed, suggest, in the letter which accompanied the
treatise when sent to Atticus, in some only half-intelligible words,
that he hopes the time may come when the speech "shall find its way
freely even into Sica's house;"[205] but we gather even from that his
intention that it should have no absolutely public circulation. He had
struggled to be as severe as he knew how, but had done it, as it were,
with a halter round his neck; and for Antony's anger--the anger which
afterward produced the proscription--there came to be cause enough
beyond this. Before that day he had endeavored to stir up the whole
Empire against Antony, and had all but succeeded.

It has been alleged that Cicero again shows his cowardice by writing
and not speaking his oration, and also by writing it only for private
distribution. If he were a coward, why did he write it at all? If he
were a coward, why did he hurry into this contest with Antony? If he be
blamed because his Philippic was anonymous, how do the anonymous writers
of to-day escape? If because he wrote it, and did not speak it, what
shall be said of the party writers of to-day? He was a coward, say his
accusers, because he avoided a danger. Have they thought of the danger
which he did run when they bring those charges against him? of what was
the nature of the fight? Do they remember how many Romans in public life
had been murdered during the last dozen years? We are well aware how far
custom goes, and that men became used to the fear of violent death.
Cicero was now habituated to that fear, and was willing to face it. But
not on that account are we to imagine that, with his eyes open, he was
to be supposed always ready to rush into immediate destruction. To write
a scurrilous attack, such as the second Philippic, is a bad exercise for
the ingenuity of a great man; but so is any anonymous satire. It is so
in regard to our own times, which have received the benefit of all
antecedent civilization. Cicero, being in the m