Resigned to his fate - The death of Cicero

On September 2, 44 BC, the first of Cicero's Philippics (oratorical attacks) on Mark Antony was given. He Would make 14 of them over the next several months. From the article:

"Cicero’s demise
Mark Antony had insisted that Cicero be put on the proscriptions list. According to Plutarch, Octavian had argued for two days with both Mark Antony and Lepidus that Cicero be left alone, but to no avail; he yielded on the third day (Life of Cicero 46.3-5), thereby sealing Cicero’s fate.

Plutarch furthermore claims that Cicero had decided to flee, but had second thoughts on his way to Macedonia, and returned to Rome. But then he imagined being taken captive and tortured, and ordered his servants instead to take him to Caieta on the coast (modern Gaeta), where he possessed another villa. But Cicero’s time had run out on 7 December 43 BC.

As Plutarch tells it (Life of Cicero 48):

But meantime his assassins came to the villa, Herennius a centurion, and Popillius a tribune, who had once been prosecuted for parricide and defended by Cicero; and they had helpers. After they had broken in the door, which they found closed, Cicero was not to be seen, and the inmates said they knew not where he was. Then, we are told, a youth who had been liberally educated by Cicero, and who was a freedman of Cicero’s brother Quintus, Philologus by name, told the tribune that the litter was being carried through the wooded and shady walks towards the sea. The tribune, accordingly, taking a few helpers with him, ran round towards the exit, but Herennius hastened on the run through the walks, and Cicero, perceiving him, ordered the servants to set the litter down where they were. Then he himself, clasping his chin with his left hand, as was his wont, looked steadfastly at his slayers, his head all squalid and unkempt, and his face wasted with anxiety, so that most of those that stood by covered their faces while Herennius was slaying him. For he stretched his neck forth from the litter and was slain, being then in his sixty-fourth year. Herennius cut off his head, by Antony’s command, and his hands — the hands with which he wrote the Philippics. For Cicero himself entitled his speeches against Antony “Philippics”, and to this day the documents are called Philippics.

“Philippics” is the name given to three of Demosthenes’ speeches against Philip II of Macedon, whom he (correctly) regarded as a threat to Athenian sovereignity on account of his imperialistic ambitions. Cicero consciously modelled his speeches against Mark Antony after these texts written by Demosthenes.

After his death, Cicero’s head and hands were sent back to Rome, where Mark Antony ordered them fastened to the Rostra, a large platform from where orators spoke. Plutarch notes that this was a sight “that made the Romans shudder; for they thought they saw there, not the face of Cicero, but an image of the soul of Antony” (Life of Cicero 49.2)."