The more I read about it, the more I realize that no period in late-Republican history was quite as fraught as the 18 months between Caesar's murder and December, 43 BC, by which time Octavian (barely 20!) was a Consul of Rome, negotiating with Antony on who would die, with Cicero's name topping the list. Cicero was murdered by Antony's thugs in the first week of December.

When you think about it, it's sheerly impossible. Try to imagine a younger computer hacker, Senior in High School, having taken over Microsoft in 18 months. (I know, frivolous comparison, but...)

I was re-reading Cicero's letters post-Ides, and they give such a magnificent view of the up-down-up-down of the post-Caesar politics. But what I can never quite get my finger around is WHY Cicero went after Antony in his Philippics, beginning (off the top of my head?) early August, 44 BC. I personally think it's because he decided that if he could get Caesar's (I mean Octavian Caesar's) support and work him rather like a client, he could get back into a position of control in Rome after about 15 years in the political wilderness. I think Cicero's complete misreading of Octavian's character was probably one of the stupidest judgments he ever made, but then, we've got the virtue of hindsight. NO ONE at the time took young Caesar seriously.

There's a famous crack Cicero made - not the first of his spontaneous witticisms that would come back to plague him. I don't have the Latin handy, but he basically made a quip that Octavian was there to be praised, used - and eliminated. All agree that, when this got (inevitably) to Octavian, he was Not Amused. But apparently he read Cicero from the git-go far more cannily than Cicero was able to read him.

But 18 months later, all that would change, and Cicero would be dead. So was he brave in attacking Antony? If you re-read the second Philippic in particular, the personal attacks and sarcasm leave almost a queasy feeling (it was, of course, the one that Cicero never had the courage to say publicly, he only circulated the speech privately). Was he a true patriot? Did he see that Antony was going to be a warlord replacing Caesar without any of Caesar's strengths? Or was Cicero being a selfish political operator trying to get back into power?

Surely, both?

BTW, there's an interesting bit by HBO/Rome's historian, Jonathan Stamp, on Cicero, and it's rather well put:

The Consul is A Whore