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[16] "The pseudo-Marius was put to death by your order in the plenitude of your authority, but you connived at the escape of the murderers, some of whom have passed on to the provinces which they nefariously hold as gifts at the hands of him whom they slew. These things were no sooner done than you and Dolabella, the consuls, proceeded, very properly, to strip them and possess yourselves of Syria and Macedonia. I should have owed you thanks for this also, had you not immediately voted them Cyrenaica ana Crete; had you not preferred these fugitives for governorships, where they can always defend themselves against me, and had you not tolerated Decimus Brutus in the command of Hither Gaul, although he, like the rest, was one of my father's slayers. It may be said that these were decrees of the Senate. But you put the vote and you presided over the Senate -- you who ought most of all to have opposed them on your own account. To grant amnesty to the murderers was merely to insure their personal safety as a matter of favor, but to vote them provinces and rewards forthwith was to insult Cæsar and annul your own opinion. Grief has compelled me to speak these words, against the rules of decorum perhaps, considering my youth and the respect I owe you. They have been spoken, however, to the firmest friend of Cæsar, to one who was invested by him with the greatest honor and power, and who would have been adopted by him no doubt if he had known that you would accept kinship with the family of Æneas in exchange for that of Hercules; for this created doubt in his mind when he was thinking strongly of designating you as his successor.

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