emote from the world--where,
as it is supposed, each might think himself secure from the other.
Antony and Lepidus were men old in craft--Antony in middle life, and
Lepidus somewhat older. Caesar was just twenty-one; but from all that we
have been able to gather as to that meeting, he was fully able to hold
his own with his elders. What each claimed as his share in the Empire is
not so much matter of history as the blood which each demanded.
Paterculus says that the death-warrants which were then signed were all
arranged in opposition to Caesar.[235] But Paterculus wrote as the
servant of Tiberius, and had been the servant of Augustus. It was his
object to tell the story as much in favor of Augustus as it could be
told. It is said that, debating among themselves the murders which each
desired for his own security, young Caesar, on the third day only, gave
up Cicero to the vengeance of Antony. It may have been so. It is
impossible that we should have a record of what took place from day to
day on that island. But we do know that there Cicero's death was
pronounced, and to that doom young Caesar assented. It did not occur to
them, as it would have done to Julius Caesar at such a time, that it
would be better that they should show their mercy than their hatred.
This proscription was made by hatred and not by fear. It was not Brutus
and Cassius against whom it was directed--the common enemies of the
three Triumviri. Sulla had attempted to stamp out a whole faction, and
so far succeeded as to strike dumb with awe the remainder. But here the
bargain of death was made by each against the other's friends. "Your
brother shall go," said Antony to Lepidus. "If so, your uncle also,"
said Lepidus to Antony. So the one gave up his brother and the other his
uncle, to indulge the private spleen of his partner; and Cicero must go
to appease both. As it happened, though Cicero's fate was spoken, the
two others escaped their doom. "Nothing so bad was done in those days,"
says Paterculus, "that Caesar should have been compelled to doom any one
to death, or that such a one as Cicero should have been doomed by
any."[236] Middleton thinks, and perhaps with fair reason, that Caesar's
objection was feigned, and that his delay was made for show. A slight
change in quoting the above passage, unintentionally made, favors his
view; "Or that Cicero should have been proscribed by him," he says,
turning "ullo" into "illo." The meaning of the passage see