Page:Cicero And The Fall Of The Roman Republic.djvu/448

396 and the veterans, that he could not do so unless he were "satisfied that he would not only renounce all enmity against the tyrannicides but frankly accept their friendship." This Oppius assures him that Cæsar will do.

A permanent reconciliation was in truth impossible; yet Octavian's action had for the present saved Rome from Antony, and now the one thing needful was that he should be willing to rescue Decimus Brutus. Whatever doubts may have presented themselves, it was clearly Cicero's duty to accept the situation, and make what use he could of the army, which Octavian placed for the moment at his disposal. As soon then as the danger of falling into Antony's hands was removed, Cicero again proceeded to Rome, where he arrived on the 9th of December.

He immediately struck the key-note of the opposition to Antony by the publication of the Second Philippic Oration, which he had been carefully preparing during the last two months. This great impeachment is thrown into the form of a speech, supposed to be delivered in the Senate in answer to one which Antony had actually uttered after Cicero's retirement in the previous September. In reality the Second Philippic is not a spoken oration at all, but the most famous and effective of all political pamphlets. Cicero pursues Antony with fiery invective through the whole course of his life, from his dissolute boyhood onward. Antony's persistent