During the following years Cicero played a subordinate part. In the great convulsions that were shaking the state men of a different sort were required; men who possessed the first requisite for the statesman, the one thing that Cicero lacked, firmness. Had Cicero been as firm as he was clear-sighted, he might have headed the statesmanship of Rome. But while he saw the drift of affairs he had not courage to act upon his insight; he allowed himself to be made the tool, now of Pompey, now of Caesar, till both were tired of him. "I wish," said Pompey, when Cicero joined him in Epirus, "that Cicero would go over to the other side; perhaps he would then be afraid of us." The only speeches we possess of this period were delivered subsequently to the victorious entry of Caesar, and exhibit a prudent but most unworthy adulation. That for Marcellus [44] (46 B.C.) was uttered in the senate, and from its gross flattery of the dictator was long supposed to be spurious; the others on behalf of Ligarius [45] and King Deiotarus [46] are in a scarcely more elevated strain. Cicero was neither satisfied with himself nor with the world; he remained for the most time in retirement, and devoted his energies to other literary labours. But his absence had proved his value. No sooner is Caesar dead than he appears once more at the head of the state, and surpasses all his former efforts in the final contest waged with the brutal and unscrupulous Antony. On the history of this eventful period we shall not touch, but merely notice the fourteen glorious orations called _Philippicae_ [47] (after those of Demosthenes), with which as by a bright halo he encircled the closing period of his life.