o had held
the province of Macedonia against Caius Antonius, should be left there
in command. The two propositions were carried.

As we read this, all appears to be prospering on behalf of the Republic;
but if we turn to the suspected correspondence between Brutus and
Cicero, we find a different state of things. And these letters, though
we altogether doubt their authenticity--for their language is cold,
formal, and un-Ciceronian--still were probably written by one who had
access to those which Cicero had himself penned: "As to what you write
about wanting men and money, it is very difficult to give you advice. I
do not see how you are to raise any except by borrowing it from the
municipalities"--in Macedonia--"according to the decree of the Senate.
As to men, I do not know what to propose. Pansa is so far from sparing
men from his army, that he begrudges those who go to you as volunteers.
Some think that he wishes you to be less strong than you are--which,
however. I do not suspect myself."[214] A letter might fall into the
hands of persons not intended to read it, and Cicero was forced to be on
his guard in communicating his suspicions--Cicero or the pseudo-Cicero.
In the next Brutus is rebuked for having left Antony live when Caesar was
slain. "Had not some god inspired Octavian," he says, "we should have
been altogether in the power of Antony, that base and abominable man.
And you see how terrible is our contest with him." And he tries to
awaken him to the necessity of severity. "I see how much you delight in
clemency. That is very well. But there is another place, another time,
for clemency. The question for us is whether we shall any longer exist
or be put out of the world." These, which are intended to represent his
private fears, deal with the affairs of the day in a tone altogether
different from that of his public speeches. Doubt, anxiety, occasionally
almost despair, are expressed in them. But not the less does he thunder
on in the Senate, aware that to attain success he must appear to have
obtained it.

The eleventh Philippic was occasioned by the news which had arrived in
Rome of the death of Trebonius. Trebonius had been surprised in Smyrna
by a stratagem as to which alone no disgrace would have fallen on
Dolabella, had he not followed up his success by killing Trebonius. How
far the bloody cruelty, of which we have the account in Cicero's words,
was in truth executed, it is now impossible to say. The Gre