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Cicero must have congratulated himself on his refusal to be lured into a premature championing of the Republic. He resolved to wait until January 1st before appearing in the Senate. But Octavianus and D. Brutus were insistent--the former based on Etruria. As they were both acting on private initiative for the salvation of the State, they clamoured to have their position legalized. The offensive was therefore launched earlier than had been expected. Summoning all his oratory or the struggle against Antonius, eager for war and iimplacable, he would hear no word of peace or compromise:he confronted Antonius with the choice between capitulation and destruction. Cicero was spurred to desperate action by the memory --exile, a fatal miscalculation in politics and the compulsory speeches in defence of the tools of despotism, Balbusand Gabinius, by the Dictatorship of Caesar and the guilty knowledge of his own inadequacy. He knew how little he had achieved for the Republic despite his talent and his professions, how shamefully he had deserted his post after March 17th when concord and ordered government might still have been achieved. His hostility towards Antonius was declared. But Cicero's political feuds, however spirited at the outset, had not always been sustained with constancy. Cicero might rail at the consulars: but the advocates of concord and a settlement based upon compromise were neither fools nor traitors.