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[119] Octavius and Antony, seeing that Brutus was not willing to fight, assembled their men, and Antony addressed them thus: "Soldiers, I am sure that the enemy claim in their speeches a share of yesterday's victory because they drove some of us and plundered our camp, but they will show by their action that it was wholly yours. I promise you that neither to-morrow nor on any subsequent day will they be willing to fight. It is the clearest proof of their defeat yesterday and of their lack of courage that, like those who have been vanquished in public games, they keep out of the arena. Surely they did not collect so numerous an army in order to pass their time in fortifications in the desert parts of Thrace. They built their fortifications when you were still approaching because they were afraid. Now that you have come they adhere to them because of yesterday's defeat, on which account also the older and more experienced of their generals in utter despair committed suicide, and this act is itself the greatest proof of their disaster. Since, therefore, they do not accept our challenge and come down from the mountain, but trust to their rocky fastnesses instead of their arms, be valliant, O my soldiers of Rome, and force them to it again as you forced them yesterday. Let us consider it base to yield to those who are afraid of us, to keep our hands off such sluggards, or, soldiers as we are, to be unequal to the capture of their fortifications. We did not come hither to pass our lives in this plain, and if we delay we shall be in want of everything. If we are well advised we shall prosecute the war sharply, in order that peace may be of the longest duration possible.

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