h complimentary phrases, though from a letter written by
him to Lepidus about this time the nature of his feeling toward the man
is declared: "You would have done better, in my judgment, if you had
left alone this attempt at making peace, which approves itself neither
to the Senate nor to the people, not to any good man."[219] When we
remember the ordinary terms of Roman letter-writing, we must acknowledge
that this was a plain and not very civil attempt to silence Lepidus. He
then goes on in the Philippic to read a letter which Antony had sent to
Hirtius and to young Caesar, and which they had sent on to the Senate.
The letter is sufficiently bold and abusive--throwing it in their teeth
that they would rather punish the murderer of Trebonius than those of
Caesar. Cicero does this with some wit, but we feel compelled to observe
that as much is to be said on the one side as on the other. Brutus,
Cassius, with Trebonius and others, had killed Caesar. Dolabella, perhaps
with circumstances of great cruelty, had killed Trebonius. Cicero had
again and again expressed his sorrow that Antony had been spared when
Caesar was killed. We have to go back before the first slaughter to
resolve who was right and who was wrong, and even afterward can only
take the doings of each in that direction as part of the internecine
feud. Experience has since explained to us the results of introducing
bloodshed into such quarrels. The laws which recognize war are and were
acknowledged. But when A kills B because he thinks B to have done evil.
A can no longer complain of murder. And Cicero's criticism is somewhat
puerile. "And thou, boy," Antony had said in addressing Octavian--"Et
te, puer!" "You shall find him to be a man by-and-by," says Cicero.
Antony's Latin is not Ciceronian. "Utrum sit elegantius," he asks,
putting some further question about Caesar and Trebonius. "As if there
could be anything elegant in this war," demands Cicero. He goes through
the letter in the same way, turning Antony into ridicule in a manner
which must have riveted in the heart of Fulvia, Antony's wife, who was
in Rome, her desire to have that bitter-speaking tongue torn out of his
mouth. Such was the thirteenth Philippic.

On the 21st of April was spoken the fourteenth and the last. Pansa early
in the month had left Rome, and marched toward Mutina with the intention
of relieving Decimus. Antony, who was then besieging Mutina after such a
fashion as to prevent all egr