Civil fury and civil war

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter concentrates on the outbreak of fresh civil war. Topics include: Antony’s difficult relationship both with the Liberators and past devotees of Caesar; Cicero’s Philippics and the break between Antony and Cicero; the disintegration of the amnesty of 17 March; Antony’s open hostility against the Liberators, accusing them of parricidium in the assassination of Caesar; Octavian’s raising of a private army and his suborning of Antony’s soldiers; Cicero’s justifications for Octavian’s actions by appealing to libertas; Octavian’s march on Rome and his unsuccessful attempt to turn the veterans against Antony; Antony’s final acts as consul and his ceremonial departure; Cicero’s attempts to have Antony declared a hostis; Antony’s confrontation with Decimus Brutus at Mutina; Cicero’s success in annulling Antony’s legislation; the dispatch of Octavian, Hirtius, and Pansa to defend Decimus Brutus at Mutina; Dolabella’s success in the east against the Liberator Trebonius; Antony’s public letter to Hirtius and Pansa preserved in Cicero’s Thirteenth Philippic and its invocation of the party of Caesar; the battles of Forum Gallorum and Mutina; Antony’s defeat and withdrawal from Italy.