[59] "These facts furnish you an example of Antony's defence and of Cicero's fickleness. I will add an exhortation to right-minded men, not to do injustice to the people or to Antony, not to expose the public interests to new enmities and dangers while the commonwealth is sick and in want of timely defenders, but to establish a sufficient force in the city to ward off danger before breeding disorder outside, to provide against attacks from every quarter, and to come to such decisions as you please when you are able to carry them into effect. How shall these ends be accomplished? By allowing Antony, as a matter of policy, or for the sake of the people, to have Cisalpine Gaul. Call Decimus thence with his three legions, and when he comes send him to Macedonia, retaining his legions here. If the two legions that deserted from Antony deserted to us, as Cicero says, let us summon them also from Octavius to the city. Thus with five legions sustaining us we might pass such decrees as we think best with entire confidence, depending on the favor of no man.
The Civil Wars. Appian. Horace White. London. MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD. 1899.
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