ANTONY, MARK, the orator, a very distinguished character in Rome, was born anno U. C. 611, during the consulship of App. Puleher and Q. Cxcilins. When a young man, he brought himself into public notice by preferring an accusation against en. Pap. Carbo. This appears to have been the way by which the aspiring youth usually drew the attention, and captivated the favour, of the people. Crassus, Sulpicius, and many others, adopted it with great success. (Cic. de Ofr. 14.) And it has been remarked, that such a practice, even when the charge was unfounded, was highly gra tifying to the Romans, because it indicated a dislike in those who had recourse to it to every appearance of corruption, and a determination to bring to punish ment all who should be found hostile to the laws and in terests of the commonwealth. (Plut. in Lucid.) Antony was quxstor in that memorable year of Rome (638) when so many of the vestal virgins were corrupted, and was accused, among many more, of being accessary to their seduction. Being on the eve of setting out from Brun dusium for Asia, his province, he might have taken ad vantage of the law which exempted those from prose cution who were absent on the public service. But waving this privilege, and confiding in his innocence, he returned to Rome, appeared for himself before an extraordinary commission, and, notwithstanding the se verity of his judges, and some peculiar difficulties• in his case, procured an honourable acquittal. In the third or fourth consulship of Marius, he was made praetor. While in this office, lie conducted the war against the pirates with great vigour and ability. He defeated them, pursued them as Ear as Cilicia, their place of rendez vous, and appears to have gained such advantages over them as merited a triumph. He was raised to the con sular dignity along with A. Posthum. Albinus, anno U. C. 653. Nothing happened in his consulship that was remarkable, excepting the birth of Jul. Caesar the dictator, and the recall of Metel. Numidius, who had been unjustly and ungratefully banished. Soon after wards, he was proconsul in Cilicia ; and, eager to em brace every opportunity of improvement, he called on the most learned and eloquent men whom be could find in his way to that country. Being invested with the censorship, he discharged the arduous duties of that office with considerable reputation. It occupied much of his time, and exposed him to a great deal of re proach. He was accused of bribery by M. Dutonius, to whom he had given offence by the integrity of his conduct, (Cir. dc Orat. ii. 68.); but he defended himself successfully before the people, and maintained the im• partiality and purity of his character. It appears that he had been also employed in the important capacity of an ambassador. (Cic. de clar. Orat. 89.) In all the si tuations of eminence and responsibility which Antony held, he seems to have conducted himself with the high est. wisdom and ability, and, with those exceptions which illustrious merit must ever look for, to have been honoured with universal approbation. He is chiefly to be commemorated, however, as one of the most elo quent men that Rome ever produced. Cicero, who says, that, on account of Antony and his contemporary Crassus, Rome might boast herself a rival to Greece, gives such a description of the properties and effects of his eloquence, as to show that he possessed almost all the gifts of nature, and all the acquirements of art, which arc necessary to constitute a great orator. His ideas, his language, and his manner, all harmonized with one another, and conspired with a peculiar readi ness of illustration and clearness of arrangement to ren der his speeches interesting and powerful. Even his voice, though naturally a little hoarse, had something in its tone that was calculated to inspire with confi dence, to excite commiseration, and to bend the minds of his hearers to all his purposes. He had a wonderful facility in raising and allaying suspicion, as the one or the other was answerable to his views, and seldom or never failed in attaining his object, when he addressed himself to the generous passions and sensibilities of his audience. His character as an orator is summed up in
the following words, which Cicero puts into the mouth of Crassus, and which we shall not venture to trans late " Videtisne genus hoc quod sit Antonii forte, ye hemens, commotum in agendo, prxmunitum et ex mi ni parte can= septum, acre, acutum, enucleatum, in unaquaque re commorans, honeste ceders, acriter in sequens, terrcns, supplicans, summa orationis varietate, nulls nostrarum aurium satietate." (De Orat. iii. 9.) His eloquence was displayed on many occasions, but particularly in the defence of M. Aquillius, who was accused of extortion when he commanded in Sicily, and in that of the tribune Norbanus, who was accused of ex citing a violent sedition, by arraigning CRpio before the people. Cicero has given an account of the figure which Antony made in both these causes. (De Orat. et De clar. Orat.) His pleadings were at once artful and pathetic; by no means destitute of argument, but consisting chiefly of appeals directed to the strongest feelings of the heart, and therefore better fitted to per suade than to convince ; enforced by all the appearance of sincerity and sensibility in himself, and accompanied with bold and frequent references to the personal cha racter of his clients. He succeeded in drawing tears from the eyes of hard-hearted Marius, and in inducing the judges to pronounce a sentence of acquittal upon men of whose guilt not a doubt could be reasonably en tertained. Talents which could produce such extraor dinary effects, must have been of the very first order. Antony never would publish any of his speeches, that be might not be found to deny in one ease what he had advanced in another ; or that, if he had said any thing unadvisedly, he might have it in his power to retract it, without the charge of glaring inconsistency. (Cic. pro Cluent. 50. Val. Max. vii. 3.) He left a small work on Eloquence ; but even the publication of that was done with reluctance, and afterwards regretted by him as an imprudent step. Nothing now remains of it but that saying which he himself quotes as one of the speaker's in Cicero's Treatise dc Orat. i. 21., and which forms the subject of Cicero's other treatise, entitled Orator, Scripsi cc disertos me cognosse nonullos, do quentem adhuc neminem." The end of this illustrious, orator was tragical and melancholy. It happened (A. R. 665) at that gloomy period when Marius and Cinna, after prevailing over their enemies, entered Rome, and subjected it to all the horrors of war. Antony was con cealed for some time in the house of a friend, but at last betrayed by the excessive kindness of his host. Marius heard with transports of joy that Antony was in his power, and sent Annius, the military tribune, to put him to death. Cicero ascribes this order to Cinna. (Tusc. Disp. v. 19.) The soldiers whom Annius em ployed to execute the bloody deed, were overcome by the venerable air and moving expostulations of Antony ; and when, impatient at their delay, he went in to dis cover the cause of it, he found them holding down their heads, and weeping, while Antony addressed them. Unmoved by the tender scene, he instantly cut off his head, and sent it to Marius, who, receiving it with cruel satisfaction, placed it, all bleeding, on his own table, and, after glutting his revengeful eyes with the sight, ordered it to be set up and exposed on the rostra. (Plut. in Mar. Appian, Flor. iii. 21.) It is a fine remark of Cicero, rendered more interesting too by his after wards meeting with a similar fate from the grandson of him whose calamity he was then deploring, that " on the very spot where Antony had most firmly and reso lutely defended the commonwealth, and which he had adorned with the spoils of its enemies, was placed ig nominiously that head to which the lives of so many ci tizens had been indebted for their preservation." (De Orat. iii. S.) (r)