[-16-] "Why should one follow this line of refutation further? Turning now to the fact that he goes about with such a tragic air, and has but this moment said in the course of his remarks that Antony rendered the sight of the master of the horse most oppressive by using everywhere and under all circumstances the sword, the purple, the lictors, and the soldiers at once, let him tell me clearly how and in what respect we have been wronged by this. He will have no statement to make; for if he had had, he would have sputtered it out before anything else. Quite the reverse of his charge is true. Those who were quarreling at that time and causing all the trouble were Trebellius and Dolabella: Antony did no wrong and was active in every way in our behalf, so much so that he was entrusted by us with guarding the city against those very men, and not only did this remarkable orator not oppose it (he was there) but even approved it. Else let him show what syllable he uttered on seeing the licentious and accursed fellow (to quote from his abuse), besides doing nothing that the occasion required, securing also so great authority from you. He will have nothing to show. So it looks as if not a word of what he now shouts aloud was ventured at that time by this great and patriotic orator, who is everywhere and always saying and repeating: 'I alone am contending for freedom, I alone speak freely for the democracy; I cannot be restrained by favor of friends or fear of enemies from looking out for your advantage; I, even if it should be my lot to die in speaking in your behalf, will perish very gladly.' And his silence was very natural, for it occurred to him to reflect that Antony possessed the lictors and the purple-bordered vesture in accordance with the customs of our ancestors in regard to masters of horse, and that he was using the sword and the soldiers perforce against the rebels. For what most excessive outrages would they not have committed but for his being hedged about with these protections, when some of them so despised him as it was?

[-17-] "That these and all his other acts were correct and most thoroughly in accord with Caesar's intention the facts themselves show. The rebellion went no further, and Antony, far from paying a penalty for his course, was subsequently appointed consul. Notice, I beg of you, how he administered this office of his. You will find, if you scrutinize the matter minutely, that its tenure proved of great value to the city. His traducer, knowing this, could not endure his jealousy but dared to slander him for those deeds which he would have longed to do himself. That is why he introduced the matter of his stripping and anointing and those ancient fables, not because there was any pertinence in them now, but in order to obscure by external noise his opponent's consummate skill and success. Yet this same Antony, O thou earth, and ye gods (I shall call louder than you and invoke them with greater justice), saw that the city was already in reality under a tyranny through the fact that all the legions obeyed Caesar and all the people together with the senate submitted to him to such an extent that they voted among other measures that he should be dictator for life and use the appurtenances of a king. Then he showed Caesar his error most convincingly and restrained him most prudently, until the latter, abashed and afraid, would not accept either the name of king or the diadem, which he had in mind to bestow upon himself even against our will. Any other man would have declared that he had been ordered to do it by his master, and putting forward the compulsion as an excuse would have obtained pardon for it,—yes, indeed, he would, when you think of what kind of votes we had passed at that time and what power the soldiers had secured. Antony, however, because he was thoroughly acquainted with Caesar's disposition and accurately aware of all he was preparing to do, by great good judgment succeeded in turning him aside from his course and retarding his ambitions. The proof of it is that afterward he no longer behaved in any way like a monarch, but mingled publicly and unprotected with us all; and that accounts most of all for the possibility of his meeting the fate that he did.

[-18-] "This is what was done, O Cicero or Cicerulus or Ciceracius or Ciceriscus or Graeculus¹⁷ or whatever you like to be called, by the uneducated, the naked, the anointed man: and none of it was done by you, the clever, the wise, the user of much more olive oil than wine, you who let your clothing drag about your ankles not, by Jupiter, as the dancers do, who teach you intricacies of reasoning by their poses, but in order to hide the ugliness of your legs. Oh no, it's not through modesty that you do this, you who delivered that long screed about Antony's habits. Who is there that does not see these soft clothes of yours? Who does not scent your carefully combed gray locks? Who is there unaware that you put away your first wife who had borne you two children, and at an advanced age married another, a mere girl, in order that you might pay your debts out of her property? And you did not even retain her, to the end that you might keep Caerellia fearlessly, whom you debauched when she was as much older than yourself as the maiden you married was younger, and to whom you write such letters as a jester at no loss for words would write if he were trying to get up an amour with a woman seventy years old. This, which is not altogether to my taste, I have been induced to say, Conscript Fathers, in the hope that he should not go away without getting as good as he sent in the discussion. Again, he has ventured to reproach Antony for a little kind of banquet, because he, as he says, drinks water, his purpose being to sit up at night and compose speeches against us,—though he brings up his son in such drunkenness that the latter is sober neither night nor day. Furthermore he undertook to make derogatory remarks about Antony's mouth, this man who has shown so great licentiousness and impurity throughout his entire life that he would not keep his hands off even his closest kin, but let out his wife for hire and deflowered his daughter.

[-18-] "These particulars I shall leave as they stand and return to the point where I started. That Antony against whom he has inveighed, seeing Caesar exalted over our government, caused him by granting what seemed personal favors to a friend not to put into effect any of the projects that he had in mind. Nothing so diverts persons from objects which they may attain without caring to secure them righteously, as for those who fear such results to appear to endure the former's conduct willingly. These persons in authority have no regard for their own consciousness of guilt, but if they think they have been detected, they are ashamed and afraid: thereafter they usually take what is said to them as flattery and believe the opposite, and any action which may result from the words as a plot, being suspicious in the midst of their shame. Antony knew this thoroughly, and first of all he selected the Lupercalia and that procession in order that Caesar in the relaxation of his spirit and the fun of the affair might be rebuked with immunity, and next he selected the Forum and the rostra that his patron might be shamed by the very places. And he fabricated the commands from the populace, in order that hearing them Caesar might reflect not on what Antony was saying at the time, but on what the Roman people would order a man to say. How could he have believed that this injunction had really been laid upon any one, when he knew that the people had not voted anything of the kind and did not hear them shouting out. But it was right for him to hear this in the Roman Forum, where we had often joined in many deliberations for freedom, and beside the rostra from which we had sent forth thousands and thousands of measures in behalf of the democracy, and at the festival of the Lupercalia, in order that he should remember Romulus, and from the mouth of the consul that he might call to mind the deeds of the early consuls, and in the name of the people, that he might ponder the fact that he was undertaking to be tyrant not over Africans or Gauls or Egyptians, but over very Romans. These words made him turn about; they humiliated him. And whereas if any one else had offered him the diadem, he might have taken it, he was then stopped short by that speech and felt a shudder of alarm.

"These, then are the deeds of Antony: he did not uselessly break a leg, in order himself to escape, nor burn off a hand, in order to frighten Porsenna, but by his cleverness and consummate skill he put an end to the tyranny of Caesar better than any spear of Decius and better than the sword of Brutus. [-20-] But you, Cicero, what did you effect in your consulship, not to mention wise and good things, that was not deserving of the greatest punishment? Did you not throw our city into uproar and party strife when it was quiet and harmonious, and fill the Forum and Capitol with slaves, among others, that you had called to your aid? Did you not ruin miserably Catiline, who was overanxious for office, but otherwise guilty of no violence? Did you not pitiably destroy Lentulus and his followers, who were not guilty, not tried, and not convicted, in spite of the fact that you are always and everywhere prating interminably about the laws and about the courts? If any one should take these phrases from your speeches, there is nothing left. You censured Pompey because he conducted the trial of Milo contrary to legalized precedent: yet you afforded Lentulus no privilege great or small that is enjoined in these cases, but without a speech or trial you cast him into prison, a man respectable, aged, whose ancestors had given many great pledges that he would be friendly to his country, and who by reason of his age and his character had no power to do anything revolutionary. What trouble did he have that would have been cured by the change of condition? What blessing did he possess that would not certainly be jeopardized by rebellion? What arms had he collected, what allies had he equipped, that a man who had been consul and was praetor should be so pitilessly and impiously cast into a cell without being allowed to say a word of defence or hear a single charge, and die there like the basest criminals? For this is what this excellent Tullius most of all desired,—that in [the Tullianum,] the place that bears his name, he might put to death the grandson of that Lentulus once became the head of the senate. [-21-] What would he have done if he had obtained authority to bear arms, seeing that he accomplished so many things of such a nature by his words alone? These are your brilliant achievements, these are your great exhibitions of generalship; and not only were you condemned for them by the rest, but you were so ready to vote against your own self in the matter that you fled before your trial came on. Yet what greater demonstration of your bloodguiltiness could there be than that you came in danger of perishing at the hands of those very persons in whose behalf you pretended you had done this, that you were afraid of the very ones whom you said you had benefited by these acts, and that you did not wait to hear from them or say a word to them, you clever, you extraordinary man, you aider of other people, but secured your safety by flight as if from a battle? And you are so shameless that you have undertaken to write a history of these events that I have related, whereas you ought to have prayed that no other man even should give an account of any of them: then you might at least derive this advantage, that your doings should die with you and no memory of them be transmitted to posterity. Now, gentlemen, if you want to laugh, listen to his clever device. He set himself the task of writing a history of the entire existence of the city (for he pretends to be a sophist and poet and philosopher and orator and historian), and he began not from the founding of it, like the rest are similarly busied, but from his own consulship, so that he might proceed backwards, making that the beginning of his account, and the kingdom of Romulus the end.

[-22-] "Tell me now, you who write such things and do such things, what the excellent man ought to say in popular address and do in action: for you are better at advising others about any matter whatsoever than at doing your own duty, and better at rebuking others than at reforming yourself. Yet how much better it were for you instead of reproaching Antony with cowardice to lay aside yourself that effeminacy both of spirit and of body, instead of bringing a charge of disloyalty against him to cease yourself from doing anything disloyal or playing the deserter, instead of accusing him of ingratitude to cease yourself from wronging your benefactors! For this, I must tell you, is one of his inherent defects, that he hates above all those who have done him any favor, and is always fawning upon somebody else but plotting against these persons. To leave aside other instances, he was pitied and preserved by Caesar and enrolled among the patricians, after which he killed him,—no, not with his own hand (he is too cowardly and womanish), but by persuading and making ready others who should do it. The men themselves showed that I speak the truth in this. When they ran out into the Forum with their naked blades, they invoked him by name, saying 'Cicero!' repeatedly, as you all heard. His benefactor, Caesar, then, he slew, and as for Antony from whom he obtained personally safety and a priesthood when he was in danger of perishing at the hands of the soldiers in Brundusium, he repays him with this sort of thanks, by accusing him for deeds with which neither he himself nor any one else ever found any fault and attacking him for conduct which he praises in others. Yet he sees this Caesar, who has not attained the age yet to hold office or have any part in politics and has not been chosen by you, sees him equipped with power and standing as the author of a war without our vote or orders, and not only has no blame to bestow, but pronounces laudations. So you perceive that he investigates neither what is just with reference to the laws nor what is useful with reference to the public weal, but simply manages everything to suit his own will, censuring in some what he extols in others, spreads false reports against you, and calumniates you gratuitously.[-23-] For you will find that all of Antony's acts after Caesar's demise were ordered by you. To speak about the disposition of the funds and the examination of the letters I deem to be superfluous. Why so? Because first it would be the business of the one who inherited his property to look into the matter, and second, if there was any truth in the charge of malfeasance, it ought to have been stopped then on the moment. For none of the transactions was carried on underhandedly, Cicero, but they were all recorded on tablets, as you yourself affirm. If Antony committed his many wrongs so openly and shamelessly as you say, and plundered the whole of Crete on the pretext that in accord with Caesar's letters it had been left free after the governorship of Brutus, though the latter was later given charge of it by us, how could you have kept silent and how could any one else have borne it? But these matters, as I said, I shall pass over; for the majority of them have not been mentioned individually, and Antony is not present, who could inform you exactly of what he has done in each instance. As to Macedonia and Gaul and the remaining provinces and legions, yours are the decrees, Conscript Fathers, according to which you assigned to the various governors their separate charges and delivered to Antony Gaul, together with the soldiers. This is known also to Cicero. He was there and helped vote for all of them just like you. Yet how much better it would have been for him then to speak in opposition, if any item of business was not going as it should, and to instruct you in these matters that are now brought forward, than to be silent at the time and allow you to make mistakes, and now nominally to censure Antony but really to accuse the senate!

[-24-] "Any sensible person could not assert, either, that Antony forced you to vote these measures. He himself had no band of soldiers so as to compel you to do anything contrary to your inclinations, and further the business was done for the good of the city. For since the legions had been sent ahead and united, there was fear that when they heard of Caesar's assassination they might revolt, put some inferior man at their head, and begin to wage war again: so it seemed good to you, taking a proper and excellent course, to place in command of them Antony the consul, who was charged with the promotion of harmony, who had rejected the dictatorship entirely from the system of government. And that is the reason that you gave him Gaul in place of Macedonia, that he should stay here in Italy, committing no harm, and do at once whatever errand was assigned him by you.

[-25-] "This I have said to you that you may know that you decided rightly. For Cicero that other point of mine was sufficient,—namely, that he was present during all these proceedings and helped us to pass the measures, though Antony had not a soldier at the time and could not have brought to bear on us pressure in the shape of any terror that would have made us neglect a single point of our interest. But even if you were then silent, tell us now at least: what ought we to have done under the circumstances? Leave the legions leaderless? Would they have failed to fill both Macedonia and Italy with countless evils? Commit them to another? And whom could we have found more closely related and suited to the business than Antony, the consul, the director of all the city's affairs, the one who had taken such good care of harmony among us, the one who had given countless examples of his affection for the State? Some one of the assassins, perhaps? Why, it wasn't even safe for them to live in the city. Some one of the party opposed to them? Everybody suspected those people. What other man was there surpassing him in esteem, excelling him in experience? Or are you vexed that we did not choose you? What kind of administration would you have given? What would you not have done when you got arms and soldiers, considering that you occasioned so many and so great instances of turmoil in your consulship as a result of these elaborate antitheses, which you have made your specialty, of which alone you were master. [-26-] But I return to my point that you were present when it was being voted and said nothing against it, but assented to all the measures as being obviously excellent and necessary. You did not lack opportunity to speak; indeed you roared out considerable that was beside the purpose. Nor were you afraid of anybody. How could you, who did not fear the armed warrior, have quailed before the defenceless man? Or how have feared him alone when you do not dread him in the possession of many soldiers! Yes, you also give yourself airs for absolutely despising death, as you affirm.

"Since these facts are so, which of the two, senators, seems to be in the wrong, Antony, who is managing the forces granted him by us, or Caesar, who is surrounded with such a large band of his own? Antony, who has departed to take up the office committed to him by us, or Brutus, who prevents him from setting foot in the country? Antony, who wishes to compel our allies to obey our decrees, or they, who have not received the ruler sent them by us but have attached themselves to the man who was voted against? Antony, who keeps our soldiers together, or the soldiers, who have abandoned their commander? Antony, who has introduced not one of these soldiers granted him by us into the city, or Caesar, who by money persuaded those who had long ago been in service to come here? I think there is no further need of argument to answer the imputation that he does not seem to be managing correctly all the duties laid upon him by us, and to show that these men ought to suffer punishment for what they have ventured on their own responsibility. Therefore you also secured the guard of soldiers that you might discuss in safety the present situation, not on account of Antony, who had caused no trouble privately nor intimidated you in any way, but on account of his rival, who both had gathered a force against him and has often kept many soldiers in the city itself.