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[37]
“Beware,
says one, “how you offend the veterans. For this is what I am most
constantly told. But I certainly ought to protect the rights of the veterans; of
those at least who are well disposed; but surely I ought not to fear them. And
those veterans who have taken up arms in the cause of the republic, and have
followed Caius Caesar, remembering the kindnesses which they received from his
father, and who at this day are defending the republic to their own great
personal danger,—those I ought not only to defend, but to seek to
procure additional advantages for them. But those also who remain quiet, such as
the sixth and eighth legion, I consider worthy of great glory and praise. But as
for those companions of Antonius, who after they have devoured the benefits of
Caesar, besiege the consul elect, threaten this city with fire and sword, and
have given themselves up to Saxa and Capho, men born for crime and plunder, who
is there who thinks that those men ought to be defended? Therefore the veterans
are either good men, whom we ought to load with distinctions; or quiet men, whom
we ought to preserve; or impious ones, against whose frenzy we have declared war
and taken up legitimate arms.
M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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