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11.
[27]
O Caius Caesar (I am speaking of the young man), what safety have you brought to
the republic! How unforeseen has it been! how sudden! for if he did these things
when flying, what would he have done when he was pursuing? In truth, he had said
in a harangue that he would be the guardian of the city; and that he would keep
his army at the gates of the city till the first of May. What a fine guardian
(as the proverb goes) is the wolf of the sheep! Would Antonius have been a
guardian of the city, or its plunderer and destroyer? And he said too that he
would come into the city and go out as he pleased. What more need I say? Did he
not say, in the hearing of all the people, while sitting in front of the temple
of Castor, that no one should remain alive but the conqueror?
[28]
On this day, O conscript fathers, for the first time after a long interval do we
plant our foot and take possession of liberty. Liberty, of which, as long as I
could be, I was not only the defender, but even the savior. But when I could not
be so, I rested; and I bore the misfortunes and misery of that period without
abjectness, and not without some dignity. But as for this most foul monster, who
could endure him, or how could any one endure him? What is there in Antonius
except lust, and cruelty, and wantonness, and audacity? Of these materials he is
wholly made up. There is in him nothing virtuous, nothing moderate, nothing
modest, nothing virtuous.
[29]
Wherefore, since
the matter has come to such a crisis that the question is whether he is to make
atonement to the republic for his crimes, or we are to become slaves, let us at
last, I beseech you, by the immortal gods. O conscript fathers, adopt our
fathers' courage, and our fathers' virtue so as either to recover the liberty
belonging to the Roman name and race, or else to prefer death to slavery. We
have borne and endured many things which ought not to be endured in a free city:
some of us out of a hope of recovering our freedom, some from too great a
fondness for life. But if we have submitted to these things, which necessity and
a sort of forcer which may seem almost to have been put on us by destiny, have
compelled us to endure; though, in point of fact, we have not endured them; are
we also to bear with the most shameful and inhuman tyranny of this profligate
robber?
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