'public enemy.'" Then he again
lashes out against the horror of Antony's proceedings: "He is waging
war, a war too dreadful to be spoken of, against four Roman Consuls"--he
means Hirtius and Pansa, who were already Consuls, and in truth already
dead, and Decimus and Plancus, who were designated as Consuls for the
next year. Plancus, however, joined his legions afterward with those of
Antony, and insisted in establishing the Second Triumvirate. "Rushing
from one scene of slaughter to another, he causes wherever he goes
misery, desolation, bloodshed, and agony." The language is so fine that
it is worth our while to see the words.[222] "Is he not responsible for
the horrors of Dolabella? What he would do in Rome, were it not for the
protection of Jupiter, may be seen from the miseries which his brother
has inflicted on those poor men of Parma--that Lucius, whom all men
hate, and the gods too would hate, if they hated as they ought. In what
city was Hannibal as cruel as Antony at Parma; and shall we not call him
an enemy?" Servilius had asked for a supplication, but had only asked
for one of moderate length. And Servilius had not called the generals
Imperatores. Who should be so called but they who have been valiant, and
lucky, and successful? Cicero forgets the meaning of the title, and that
even Bibulus had been called Imperator in Syria. Here he runs off from
his subject, and at some length praises himself. It seems that Rome was
in a tumult at the time, and that Antony's enemies did all they could to
support him, and also to turn his head. He had been carried into the
Senate-house in triumph, and had been thanked by the whole city. After
lauding the different generals, and calling them all Imperatores, he
desires the Senate to decree them a supplication for fifty days. Fifty
days are to be devoted to thanksgiving to the gods, though it had
already been declared how very little they have done for which to be
thankful, as Decimus had not yet been liberated.

Fifty days are granted for the battle of Mutina, which as yet was
supposed to have been but half fought. When we hear the term
"supplicatio" first mentioned in Livy one day was granted. It had grown
to twenty when the gods were thanked for the victory over Vercingetorix.
Now for this half-finished affair fifty was hardly enough. When the time
was over, Antony and Lepidus had joined their forces triumphantly. Pansa
and Hirtius were dead, and Decimus Brutus had fled, an