True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions.
In this oration, Cicero is outlining a fundamental template for legal reasoning based on the concept of law as a natural outgrowth of human nature. Human nature is often thought to be at odds with reason and logic and thought this is certainly so, it does not necessarily follow as a matter of fact. While certain aspects of human thought and action may be natural, that need not imply that they are not also deviant. Prohibitions against deviancy are a natural consequence of the application of universal conduct toward developing laws, rules, regulations, taboos, etc.
Do you, O conscript fathers, grieve that these armies of the Roman people have been slain? It is Antonius who slew them. Do you regret your most illustrious citizens? It is Antonius, again, who has deprived you of them. The authority of this order is overthrown; it is Antonius who has overthrown it. Everything, in short, which we have seen since that time, (and what misfortune is there that we have not seen?) we shall, if we argue rightly, attribute wholly to Antonius.
Cicero composed fourteen orations directed as an attack as Marc Antony. Yes, the same Marc Antony who asked for his fellow countrymen to lend him their ears and would later wind up in a tragic romance with Cleopatra. Cicero did not take kindly to Antony (whom he addresses at Antonius) in relation to the assassination of Caesar and Antony responded in kind. Thus began a series of back and forth communiques and hostile actions which led to this oration, the second of those fourteen orations collectively known as the Philippics, never actually being spoken and instead being hand-delivered to Antony. Ultimately—even, perhaps, ironically—oratory would literally become the death of Cicero: these attacks against Antony inexorably led to an order of execution in which Cicero was beheaded.
For we have a resolution of the senate, a formidable and authoritative decree against you, O Catiline; the wisdom of the republic is not at fault, nor the dignity of this senatorial body.
Cicero used his oratorical skills quite frequently to target enemies, it turns out. While things did not work out quite so well when targeting Marc Antony, this oration composed to target a Senate rival named Lucius Sergius Catiline came out quite well. Like those directed against Antony, the oratory against this rival resulted in a series of speeches, but it is the first which is most significant and most famous. The resolution of the senate to which he refers here would come to be known as Cicero’s Last Decree. A call for martial law and extreme measures of security were issued by the senate after the discovery of a conspiracy led by Catiline with the intent to overthrow the Roman government through the use of military force if necessary. Catiline was declared a public enemy and at the urging of Cicero was eventually killed in battle by troops under the leadership of a colleague named Gaius Antonius Hybrida who just so happened to be, somewhat ironically in retrospect, the son of Marc Antony.
