_Philippica_.—The remaining orations of Cicero are those directed against Antony, of whose private life and political conduct they present us with a full and glaring picture. The character of Antony, next to that of Sylla, was the most singular in the Annals of Rome, and in some of its features bore a striking resemblance to that of the fortunate Dictator. Both were possessed of uncommon military talents—both were imbued with cruelty which makes human nature shudder—both were inordinately addicted to luxury and pleasure—and both, for men of their powers of mind and habits, had apparently, at least, a strange superstitious reliance on destiny, portents, and omens. Yet there were strong shades of distinction even in those parts of their characters in which we trace the closest resemblance: The cruelty of Sylla was more deliberate and remorseless—that of Antony, more regardless and unthinking—and amid all the atrocities of the latter, there burst forth occasional gleams of generosity and feeling. But then Sylla was a man of much greater discernment and penetration—a much more profound and successful dissembler—and he was possessed of many refined and elegant accomplishments, of which the coarser Antony was destitute. Sylla gratified his voluptuousness, but Antony was ruled by it. The former indulged in pleasure when within his grasp, but ease, power, and revenge, were his great and ultimate objects: The chief aim of the latter, was the sensual pleasure to which he was subservient. Sylla would never have been the slave of Cleopatra, or the dupe of Octavius. Hence the wide difference between the destiny of the triumphant Dictator, whose chariot rolled on the wheels of Fortune to the close of his career, and the sad fate of Antony. Yet that very fate has mitigated the abhorrence of posterity, and weakness having been added to wickedness, has unaccountably palliated, in our eyes, the faults of the soft Triumvir, now more remembered as the devoted lover of Cleopatra, than as the chief promoter of the Proscriptions.