Selected Works - Marcus Tullius Cicero

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those men whom you boast of having now expelled and driven from the city? What place is there either so deserted or so uncivilized, as not to seem to greet and to covet the presence of those men wherever they have arrived? What men are so clownish as not, when they have once beheld them, to think that they have reaped the greatest enjoyment that life can give? And what posterity will be ever so forgetful, what literature will ever be found so ungrateful, as not to cherish their glory with undying recollection? Enrol me then, I beg, in the number of those men.

      XIV. But one thing I am afraid you may not approve of. For if I had really been one of their number, I should have not only got rid of the king, but of the kingly power also out of the republic; and if I had been the author of the piece, as it is said, believe me, I should not have been contented with one act, but should have finished the whole play. Although, if it be a crime to have wished that Caesar might be put to death, beware, I pray you, O Antonius, of what must be your own case, as it is notorious that you, when at Narbo, formed a plan of the same sort with Caius Trebonius; and it was on account of your participation in that design that, when Caesar was being killed, we saw you called aside by Trebonius. But I (see how far I am from any horrible inclination towards,) praise you for having once in your life had a righteous intention; I return you thanks for not having revealed the matter; and I excuse you for not having accomplished your purpose. That exploit required a man.

      And if any one should institute a prosecution against you, and employ that test of old Cassius, “who reaped any advantage from it?” take care, I advise you, lest you suit that description. Although, in truth, that action was, as you used to say, an advantage to every one who was not willing to be a slave, still it was so to you above all men, who are not merely not a slave, but are actually a king; who delivered yourself from an enormous burden of debt at the temple of Ops; who, by your dealings with the account books, there squandered a countless sum of money; who have had such vast treasures brought to you from Caesar’s house; at whose own house there is set up a most lucrative manufactory of false memoranda and autographs, and a most iniquitous market of lands, and towns, and exemptions, and revenues. In truth, what measure except the death of Caesar could possibly have been any relief to your indigent and insolvent condition? You appear to be somewhat agitated. Have you any secret fear that you yourself may appear to have had some connexion with that crime? I will release you from all apprehension; no one will ever believe it; it is not like you to deserve well of the republic; the most illustrious men in the republic are the authors of that exploit; I only say that you are glad it was done; I do not accuse you of having done it.

      I have replied to your heaviest accusations, I must now also reply to the rest of them.

      XV. You have thrown in my teeth the camp of Pompeius and all my conduct at that time. At which time, indeed, if, as I have said before, my counsels and my authority had prevailed, you would this day be in indigence, we should be free, and the republic would not have lost so many generals and so many armies. For I confess that, when I saw that these things certainly would happen, which now have happened, I was as greatly grieved as all the other virtuous citizens would have been if they had foreseen the same things. I did grieve, I did grieve, O conscript fathers, that the republic which had once been saved by your counsels and mine, was fated to perish in a short time. Nor was I so inexperienced in and ignorant of this nature of things, as to be disheartened on account of a fondness for life, which while it endured would wear me out with anguish, and when brought to an end would release me from all trouble. But I was desirous that those most illustrious men, the lights of the republic, should live: so many men of consular rank, so many men of praetorian rank, so many most honourable senators; and besides them all the flower of our nobility and of our youth; and the armies of excellent citizens. And if they were still alive, under ever such hard conditions of peace, (for any sort of peace with our fellow-citizens appeared to me more desirable than civil war,) we should be still this day enjoying the republic.

      And if my opinion had prevailed, and if those men, the preservation of whose lives was my main object, elated with the hope of victory, had not been my chief opposers, to say nothing of other results, at all events you would never have continued in this order, or rather in this city. But say you, my speech alienated from me the regard of Pompeius? Was there any one to whom he was more attached? any one with whom he conversed or shared his counsels more frequently? It was, indeed, a great thing that we, differing as we did respecting the general interests of the republic, should continue in uninterrupted friendship. But I saw clearly what his opinions and views were, and he saw mine equally. I was for providing for the safety of the citizens in the first place, in order that we might be able to consult their dignity afterwards. He thought more of consulting their existing dignity. But because each of us had a definite object to pursue, our disagreement was the more endurable. But what that extraordinary and almost godlike man thought of me is known to those men who pursued him to Paphos from the battle of Pharsalia. No mention of me was ever made by him that was not the most honourable that could be, that was not full of the most friendly regret for me; while he confessed that I had had the most foresight, but that he had had more sanguine hopes. And do you dare taunt me with the name of that man whose friend you admit that I was, and whose assassin you confess yourself?

      XVI. However, let us say no more of that war, in which you were too fortunate. I will not reply even with those jests to which you have said that I gave utterance in the camp. That camp was in truth full of anxiety, but although men are in great difficulties, still, provided they are men, they sometimes relax their minds. But the fact that the same man finds fault with my melancholy, and also with my jokes, is a great proof that I was very moderate in each particular.

      You have said that no inheritances come to me. Would that this accusation of yours were a true one; I should have more of my friends and connexions alive. But how could such a charge ever come into your head? For I have received more than twenty millions of sesterces in inheritances. Although in this particular I admit that you have been more fortunate than I. No one has ever made me his heir except he was a friend of mine, in order that my grief of mind for his loss might be accompanied also with some gain, if it was to be considered as such. But a man whom you never even saw, Lucius Rubrius, of Casinum, made you his heir. And see now how much he loved you, who, though he did not know whether you were white or black, passed over the son of his brother, Quintus Fufius, a most honourable Roman knight, and most attached to him, whom he had on all occasions openly declared his heir, (he never even names him in his will,) and he makes you his heir whom he had never seen, or at all events had never spoken to.

      I wish you would tell me, if it is not too much trouble, what sort of countenance Lucius Turselius was of; what sort of height; from what municipal town he came; and of what tribe he was a member. “I know nothing,” you will say, “about him, except what farms he had.” Therefore, he, disinheriting his brother, made you his heir. And besides these instances, this man has seized on much other property belonging to men wholly unconnected with him, to the exclusion of the legitimate heirs, as if he himself were the heir. Although the thing that struck me with most astonishment of all was, that you should venture to make mention of inheritances, when you yourself had not received the inheritance of your own father.

      XVII. And was it in order to collect all these arguments, O you most senseless of men, that you spent so many days in practising declamation in another man’s villa? Although, indeed, (as your most intimate friends usually say,) you are in the habit of declaiming, not for the purpose of whetting your genius, but of working off the effects of wine. And, indeed, you employ a master to teach you jokes, a man appointed by your own vote and that of your boon companions; a rhetorician, whom you have allowed to say what ever he pleased against you, a thoroughly facetious gentleman; but there are plenty of materials for speaking against you and against your friends. But just see now what a difference there is between you and your grandfather. He used with great deliberation to bring forth arguments advantageous to the cause he was advocating; you pour forth in a hurry the sentiments which you have been taught by another. And what wages have you paid this rhetorician? Listen, listen, O conscript fathers, and learn the blows which are inflicted on the republic. You have assigned, O Antonius, two thousand acres{22} which is often translated acre also, of land, in the Leontine district, to Sextus Clodius, the rhetorician, and those, too, exempt from every kind of tax, for the sake of putting the Roman people to such a vast expense that you might learn to be a fool. Was this gift, too, O

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