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THE SIXTH ORATION OF M. T. CICERO AGAINST MARCUS ANTONIUS. CALLED ALSO THE SIXTH PHILIPPIC. ADDRESSED TO THE PEOPLE.
11.
[28]
On the nineteenth of December, you overwhelmed him with your decrees; you
ordained that this motion should be submitted to you on the first of January,
which you see is submitted now, respecting the honors and rewards to be
conferred on those who have deserved or do deserve well of the republic. And the
chief of those men you have adjudged to be the man who really has done so, Caius
Caesar, who had diverted the nefarious attacks of Marcus. Antonius against this
city, and compelled him to direct them against Gaul; and next to him you consider the veteran soldiers who
first followed Caesar; then those excellent and heavenly-minded legions the
Martial and the fourth, to whom you have promised honors and rewards, for having
not only abandoned their consul, but for having even declared war against him.
And on the same day, having a decree brought before you and published on
purpose, you praised the conduct of Decimus Brutus, a most excellent citizen,
and sanctioned with your public authority this war which he had undertaken of
his own head.
What else, then, did you do on that day except pronounce Antonius a public
enemy?
[29]
After these decrees of yours, will it
be possible for him to look upon you with equanimity, or for you to behold him
without the most excessive indignation! He has been excluded and cut off and
wholly separated from the republic, not merely by his own wickedness, as it
seems to me, but by some especial good fortune of the republic. And if he should
comply with the demands of the ambassadors and return to Rome, do you suppose that abandoned citizens
will ever be in need of a standard around which to rally? But this is not what I
am so much afraid of. There are other things which I am more apprehensive of and
more alarmed at. He never will comply with the demands of the ambassadors. I
know the man's insanity and arrogance; I know the desperate counsels of his
friends, to which he is wholly given up.
[30]
Lucius his brother, as being a man who has fought abroad, leads on his
household. Even suppose him to be in his senses himself, which he never will be;
still he will not be allowed by these men to act as if he were so. In the mean
time, time will be wasted. The preparations for war will cool. How is it that
the war has been protracted as long as this, if it is not by procrastination and
delay?
From the very first moment after the departure, or rather after the hopeless
flight of that bandit, that the senate could have met in freedom, I have always
been demanding that we should be called together. The first day that we were
called together, when the consuls elect were not present, I laid, in my opinion,
amidst the greatest unanimity on your part, the foundations of the republic;
later, indeed, than they should have been laid; for I could not do so before;
but still if no time had been lost after that day, we should have no war at all
now.
[31]
Every evil is easily crushed at its
birth; when it has become of long standing, it usually gets stronger. But then
every body was waiting for the first of January; perhaps not very wisely.
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