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THE SIXTH ORATION OF M. T. CICERO AGAINST MARCUS ANTONIUS. CALLED ALSO THE SIXTH PHILIPPIC. ADDRESSED TO THE PEOPLE.
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After some time he at last went into Spain; but, as he says, he could not arrive there in safety.
How then did Dolabella manage to arrive there? Either, O Antonius, that cause
ought never to have been undertaken, or when you had undertaken it, it should
have been maintained to the end. Thrice did Caesar fight against his
fellow-citizens; in Thessaly, in
Africa, and in Spain. Dolabella was present at all these
battles. In the battle in Spain he even
received a wound. If you ask my opinion, I wish he had not been there. But
still, if his design at first was blamable, his consistency and firmness were
praiseworthy. But what shall we say of you? In the first place, the children of
Cnaeus Pompeius sought to be restored to their country. Well, this concerned the
common interests of the whole party. Besides that, they sought to recover their
household gods, the gods of their country, their altars, their hearths, the
tutelar gods of their family; all of which you had seized upon. And when they
sought to recover those things by force of arms which belonged to them by the
laws, who was it most natural—(although in unjust and unnatural
proceedings what can there be that is natural?)—still, who was it most
natural to expect would fight against the children of Cnaeus Pompeius? Who? Why,
you who had bought their property.
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