Page:Cicero And The Fall Of The Roman Republic.djvu/476

424 returned to another villa at Caieta. "Let me die," Livy reports that he said, "in the country which I have so often saved." Next day on the urgency of his attendants he allowed himself once more to be borne in a litter towards the sea; but the assassins, sent by Antony, overtook him on the way. His faithful slaves would fain have fought for him to the last, but he forbade all resistance and commanded them to set the litter on the ground. Sitting there with his chin resting on his left hand, an attitude, says Plutarch, which was habitual to him, he quietly awaited the stroke. His head and the hand which had penned the Second Philippic were hung on the Rostra in the Roman Forum.

A year and a half before the end, in counting up the chances to his friend Atticus, Cicero had said: "Must I then take refuge in a camp? It were better to die a thousand times. I have lived long enough." He was saved at least from another Civil War in which he could only have been a helpless spectator. Cicero's work was indeed over, and the tragedy of his death was the natural outcome of his splendid failure. He had staked all on one cast. The policy of the State during the brief months while he was at the helm had been vigorous, straightforward, and unhesitating. He had protested against all haif-measures and scorned all ambiguous words. He accepted the internecine conflict between the Republic of the Liberators and the revived Cæsarism of Antony. There was no door of escape, no place left in the State for him and Antony together.