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[15]
If these are your thoughts, then are you really Marcus Lepidus the Pontifex
Maximus, the great-grandson of Marcus Lepidus, Pontifex Maximus, if you judge
that every thing is lawful for men to do that they have power to do, then beware
lest you seem to prefer acting on precedents set by those who have no connection
with you, and these, too, modern precedents, to being guided by the ancient
examples in your own family. But if you interpose your authority without having
recourse to arms, in that case indeed I praise you more; but beware lest this
thing itself be quite unnecessary. For although there is all the authority in
you that there ought to be in a man of the highest rank, still the senate itself
does not despise itself; nor was it ever more wise, more firm, more courageous.
We are all hurried on with the most eager zeal to recover our freedom. Such a
general ardor on the part of the senate and people of Rome can not be extinguished by the authority
of any one: we hate a man who would extinguish it; we are angry with him, and
resist him; our arms can not be wrested from our hands; we are deaf to all
signals for retreat, to all recall from the combat. We hope for the happiest
success; we will prefer enduring the bitterest disaster to being slaves.
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