Authors, Latin -- Biography; Cicero, Marcus Tullius; Statesmen -- Rome -- Biography
was speaking his Philippics they could not but be enthusiastic on the
same side. And now, when he was proscribed, they were both proscribed
with him. As the story goes, Quintus returned from Tusculum to Rome to
seek provision for their journey to Macedonia, there met his son, and
they both died gallantly. Antony's hirelings came upon the two together,
or nearly together, and, finding the son first, put him to the torture,
so to learn from him the place of his father's concealment; then the
father, hearing his son's screams, rushed out to his aid, and the two
perished together. But this story also comes to us from Greek sources,
and must be taken for what it is worth.
Marcus, alone in his litter, travelled through the country to his
sea-side villa at Astura. Then he went on to Formiae, sick with doubt,
not knowing whether to stay and die, or encounter the winter sea in such
boat as was provided for him. Should he seek the uncomfortable refuge of
Brutus's army? We can remember his bitter exclamations as to the
miseries of camp life. He did go on board; but was brought back by the
winds, and his servants could not persuade him to make another attempt.
Plutarch tells us that he was minded to go to Rome, to force his way
into young Caesar's house and there to stab himself, but that he was
deterred from this melodramatic death by the fear of torture. The story
only shows how great had been the attention given to every detail of his
last moments, and what the people in Rome had learned to say of them.
The same remark applies to Plutarch's tale as to the presuming crows who
pecked at the cordage of his sails when his boat was turned to go back
to the land, and afterward with their beaks strove to drag the
bedclothes from off him when he lay waiting his fate the night before
the murderers came to him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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