Antony would
not then have been alive to rekindle civil discord. When Antony left Rome,
Cicero was for a few months again the head of the State. He ruled the
Senate, controlled the Treasury, corresponded with the conspirators in the
provinces, and advised their movements. He continued sanguine himself, and
he poured spirit into others. No one can refuse admiration to the last
blaze of his expiring powers. But when he heard that Antony and Lepidus
and Octavius had united, and were coming into Italy with the whole Western
army, he saw that all was over. He was now sixty-three--too old for hope.
He could hardly have wished to live, and this time he was well assured
that there would be no mercy for him. Caesar would have spared a man whom
he esteemed in spite of his infirmities. But there was no Caesar now, and
fair speeches would serve his turn no longer. He retired from the city
with his brother Quintus, and had some half-formed purpose of flying to
Brutus, who was still in arms in Macedonia. He even embarked, but without
a settled resolution, and he allowed himself to be driven back by a storm.
Theatrical even in extremities, he thought of returning to Rome and of
killing himself in Caesar's house, that he might bring the curse of his
blood upon Octavius. In these uncertainties he drifted into his own villa
at Formiae,[6] saying in weariness, and with a sad note of his old
self-importance, that he would die in the country which he had so often
saved.
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