Political Speeches (Oxford World's Classics) (43 page)

[9] Your military glories, Gaius Caesar, will be made famous by the pens and tongues not only of ourselves, but of virtually every nation: no age will ever cease to sing your praises. But still, deeds of that sort, even when one reads about them, somehow seem to be drowned out by the shouts of soldiers and the sound of trumpets. On the other hand, whenever we hear or read of some act of clemency, kindness, justice, moderation, or wisdom—especially when it is performed at a moment of passion, which is the enemy of good judgement, or in the hour of victory, which is by nature arrogant and proud—how we are set ablaze with approval, irrespective of whether the story is fact or fiction, so that often we find ourselves loving someone that we have never actually seen! [10] But you we do see here in front of us. We perceive your thoughts, emotions, and expression—and they tell us how you wish to see the preservation of whatever part of our state the fortune of war has spared. With what praise, then, shall we extol you, with what devotion attend you, and with what affection embrace you? I call heaven to witness that I believe the very walls of this senate-house are yearning to thank you for the fact that that great personage
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will shortly take up his place here where he belongs, and where his ancestors belonged before him. For my part, when like all of you I witnessed just now the tears of the excellent Gaius Marcellus,
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whose devotion to his family is so remarkable, my heart was filled with the memory of all the Marcelli: even though they are dead, by saving Marcus Marcellus you have given them back their honour, and rescued from the verge of extinction a family of the highest nobility whose numbers are now severely reduced.

[11] It is right for you to esteem this day more highly than the
countless major thanksgivings
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that have been decreed in your honour. For this act belongs to Gaius Caesar alone: all the other achievements which took place under your leadership, great as they were, were nevertheless accomplished with the help of a large and mighty following. But in this case you are simultaneously leader and follower. What you have done is so outstanding that, although time will eventually wear away your trophies and monuments (after all, there is nothing that is created by human handiwork that age does not destroy and devour), [12] this act of fairness and gentleness will blossom more fully with every day that passes. So the more that time undermines your works, the more it will add to your praise. You had already, it is true, vanquished all other victors of civil wars in justice and mercy: today, however, you have yourself vanquished yourself. I am afraid that my attempt to express what I feel may be only imperfectly understood by those who are listening to what I say: but you seem to have vanquished victory, since you have given back to the vanquished what had been taken from them. For when, by the universal law of victory, we had all been vanquished and had perished, we were saved by your decision to show clemency. Rightly, therefore, you alone are invincible, since you have utterly vanquished the nature and power of victory itself.

[13] Now as for this decision of Gaius Caesar, conscript fathers, consider how widely it applies. All those of us who were driven by some sad and deadly fate of our country to take up arms, even though we were guilty of human error, have at all events been acquitted of any crime. When, in response to your appeal, he saved Marcus Marcellus for his country, and when, although no one had appealed, he restored me to myself and to my country, and similarly all the other eminent men to themselves and to their country (if you look around you, you will see how numerous and distinguished they are)—when he did this, he did not admit enemies into the senate-house: on the contrary, he judged that most of us had resorted to war more from ignorance and from empty and ungrounded fears than out of motives of avarice or cruelty.

[14] In the Civil War, I always thought that proposals for peace should be listened to, and I always regretted that not only peace, but even the arguments of those who advocated it, were rejected. I myself did not take up arms in that or any other civil war: my policy was always directed towards peace and the toga,
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not towards war and
arms. It was a particular individual
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that I followed, from personal allegiance rather than public duty; and so heavily did the loyal memory of a grateful heart weigh with me that, with my eyes open and with full awareness of what I was doing, without avarice and without even the slightest expectation of success, I hurried to—how shall I put it?—a self-chosen doom. [15] This policy of mine was not something I kept to myself. Before the war began I often spoke in the senate in favour of peace, and while we were at war I continued to advocate it, even at the risk of my life. No one, therefore, could be so unreasonable a commentator as to question Caesar’s attitude to the war, seeing that he did not hesitate to reinstate those who had advocated peace, while being less conciliatory towards the others. This policy of his was perhaps less surprising at a time when the final result was still uncertain and the fortune of war doubtful. But when a victor in war shows favour to those who have advocated peace, he surely leaves little doubt that he would have preferred not to fight at all than to emerge victorious.

[16] On this point I can testify to how Marcus Marcellus feels, since our views coincided during the war just as they had always done in peacetime. How often, and with what bitter pain, have I observed his dismay at the overbearing behaviour of certain individuals and the savagery they would have shown in victory!
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We who actually witnessed that behaviour have all the more reason to feel grateful, Gaius Caesar, for your generosity. For it is not any more the principles of either side that we have to weigh up, but the victories. [17] We have seen your victory concluded with your battles: the sword unsheathed within the city we have not seen. The fellow-citizens we have lost were struck down by the violence of Mars, not by the anger of victory; and no one should doubt that Gaius Caesar, if he could, would raise many of them from the dead, seeing that he saves as many as he can of those who belonged to the same side as they did. As for that side, I will do no more than express what we all feared, that if they had won, their victory would have been vindictive. [18] Some of them made threats not merely against those who had taken up arms, but sometimes against the non-combatants, saying that it was not a man’s politics that counted, but his physical location.
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So it seems to me, then, that even if it was in order to punish the Roman people for some offence or other that the immortal gods provoked so terrible and tragic a civil war, they have
now at any rate been appeased or sated, and have at long last transferred all hope of safety to the clemency and wisdom of the victor.

[19] Take pleasure, therefore, in this outstanding deed that you have done. Reap the reward not only of your good fortune and glory, but of your natural disposition and character: it is that from which wise men derive the greatest pleasure and satisfaction. When you look back over the other things that you have achieved, you will very often give thanks for your own talents—but most often for your luck. On the other hand, when you reflect on us, whom you have desired to join you in matters of state, you will also have reason to reflect on your extraordinary acts of kindness, your astonishing generosity, and your unprecedented wisdom—qualities which I would venture to describe not as the highest virtues, but as the only ones. For there is such splendour in genuine glory, and such nobility in magnanimity and sagacity that it seems as if these particular qualities are the gifts of virtue, and other ones merely the loans of luck.

[20] So do not grow tired of saving good men—especially since they have erred not as a result of selfishness or any moral failing, but from a conception of their duty that was foolish perhaps, but by no means criminal, and from a certain illusion of what the country required of them. For it is no fault of yours if some people have been afraid of you; on the contrary, it is greatly to your credit that they came to the realization that they had nothing to fear.

[21] I come now to that extremely serious complaint, that awful suspicion that you have expressed
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—something which all citizens, and especially those of us whom you have restored, must guard against no less than you yourself must. Though I trust that it is groundless, I will not for a moment make light of it, since any precautions that are taken for your security are taken for ours too, and if one is going to err on one side or the other, I would far sooner appear excessively fearful than insufficiently careful. But who is there so insane? Someone from among your supporters? Yet who are more well disposed to you than the people to whom you have granted a salvation they did not expect? Or someone from among those who have been with you from the start? It is inconceivable that anyone could be so savage as not to value above his own life the life of the leader through whom he attained the pinnacle of his desires. But if your friends are plotting no crime against you, should you take precautions against your enemies doing so? What enemies? It is a fact
that all those who were your enemies have either lost their lives through their own stubbornness
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or kept it through your own mercifulness, so that either none of your enemies survive, or if any do they are now your most loyal friends.

[22] But still, given that men’s minds do contain dark corners and hidden recesses, let us by all means increase your suspicion—for that way we shall also increase your vigilance. After all, is there anyone so ignorant of the world, so politically naive, and so oblivious to his own safety and that of his fellow men that he fails to appreciate that his own survival is bound up with yours, and that the lives of everyone depend exclusively on yours? Spending my days and nights thinking about you, as I am bound to do, I shudder only at the risks to which all humans are subject, the uncertainty of good health, and the frailty of our bodily constitution—and I grieve at the fact that our country, which ought to be immortal, is dependent on the life of a single mortal. [23] But if, in addition to the risks to which humans are subject and the uncertainty of health, there should also be a conspiracy for criminal and treacherous ends, then what god do we imagine would have the power, even if he had the desire, to rescue our country?

It is your task, Gaius Caesar, and yours alone, to restore everything that you can now see lying battered and shattered (as was unavoidable) by the violence of war. Courts must be established, credit restored, self-indulgence checked, the birth-rate raised,
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and everything which has become disintegrated and dissipated reorganized by means of stringent legislation. [24] In such a terrible civil war, amid such stirrings of spirits and swords, it was inevitable that the stricken state, whatever the final result, would lose many ornaments of its prestige
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and many bulwarks of its security, and that each leader would do many things under arms that he would not have permitted in peacetime. It is your task now to heal all these wounds of war, which no one but you is capable of treating.

[25] That is why I was disappointed when I heard you make that admirable remark, so full of wisdom, ‘I have lived long enough for nature, or for glory.’
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Long enough perhaps for nature, if you like; and, I will add, for glory, if that is what you want; but—and this is the crucial point—by no means long enough for your country. So please do not show the wisdom of philosophers in despising death: do not be wise at our peril! It is always being reported to me that you
keep saying, much too often, that as far as you are concerned you have lived long enough. I do not doubt your sincerity; but I would approve the sentiment only if you were living for yourself alone, or had been born for yourself alone. But as it is your achievements have to do with the safety of all the citizens and the entire country—and you are so far from completing your greatest works that you have not yet even laid the foundations
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of what you are contemplating.

So, having reached this point, do you really intend to fix the limit of your life not according to what the country needs but according to the equanimity you have attained? And what if the limit you have fixed turns out to be insufficient for glory? You must admit that, although you are a philosopher, you do hanker after that! [26] ‘But is the achievement I will leave behind me,’ you will ask, ‘not enough?’ It would certainly be enough in the case of any number of others—but for you it is too little. For anything that exists, however great it may be, is too little, if something else exists that is greater. But if the result of your immortal achievements, Gaius Caesar, is that, after vanquishing your opponents, you leave the country in its present state, then please make sure that your superhuman ability does not produce merely wonder rather than actual glory—assuming, of course, that glory consists of a brilliant, widespread renown resulting from great services to one’s friends, one’s country, or the human race. [27] This part therefore still awaits you, this act of the drama remains, this is what you must work at—to place the country on a sound footing, and, yourself above all others, to reap its benefits in peace and tranquillity. Then and only then, when you have both discharged your obligations to your country and satisfied nature herself with your full fill of life, say, if you wish, that you have lived long enough.

In any case, what is this ‘long’, which has some final stopping point? When that point comes, all past pleasure counts for nothing, because there is none to follow. And yet that spirit of yours has never been content to stay within the confines that nature has given us to live in: it has always burned with the desire for immortality. [28] But we must not consider your life as consisting merely of what is contained within your body and your breath: your life, I tell you, is what will flourish in the memory of every age, it is what posterity will nurture, it is what eternity itself will always preserve! So it is eternity to which you should devote yourself, eternity to which you should
reveal yourself: it has long had much from you to wonder at, but now is also looking to you for deeds to praise.