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21.
Let us come at last to the end.
‘“I do not believe that ambassadors are
coming—”’
He knows me well.
‘“To a place where war exists.”’
Especially with the example of Dolabella before our eyes ambassadors, I should
think, will have privileges more respected than two consuls against whom he is
bearing arms; or than Caesar, whose father's priest he is; or than the consul
elect, whom he is attacking; or than Mutina, which he is besieging; or than his country, which he is
threatening with fire and sword.
[48]
‘“When they do come I shall see what they
demand.’
Plagues and tortures seize you! Will any one come to you unless he be a man like
Ventidius? We sent men of the very highest character to extinguish the rising
conflagration; you rejected them. Shall we now send men when the fire has become
so large and has risen to such a height, and when you have left yourself no
possible room, not only for peace, but not even for a surrender?
I have read you this letter, O conscript fathers, not because I thought it worth
reading, but in order to let you see all his parricidal treasons revealed by his
own confessions.
[49]
Would Marcus Lepidus, that
man so richly endowed with all the gifts of virtue and fortune, if he saw this
letter, either wish for peace with this man, or even think it possible that
peace should be made? “Sooner shall fire and water mingle,”
as some poet or other says; sooner shall any thing in the world happen than
either the republic become reconciled to the Antonii, or the Antonii to the
republic. Those men are monsters, prodigies, portentous pests of the republic.
It would be better for this city to be uplifted from its foundations and
transported, if such a thing were possible, into other regions, where it should
never hear of the actions or the name of the Antonii, than for it to see those
men, driven out by the valor of Caesar, and hemmed in by the courage of Brutus,
inside these walls. The most desirable thing is victory; the next best thing is
to think no disaster too great to bear in defense of the dignity and freedom of
one's country. The remaining alternative, I will not call it the third, but the
lowest of all, is to undergo the greatest disgrace from a desire of life.
[50]
Since, then, this is the case, as to the letters and messages of Marcus Lepidus,
that most illustrious man, I agree with Servilius. And I further give my vote,
that Magnus Pompeius, the son of Cnaeus, has acted as might have been expected
from the affection and zeal of his father and forefathers toward the republic,
and from his own previous virtue and industry and loyal principles in promising
to the senate and people of Rome his
own assistance, and that of those men whom he has with him; and that that
conduct of his is grateful and acceptable to the senate and people of Rome, and that it shall tend to his own honor
and dignity. This may either be added to the resolution of the senate which is
before us, or it may be separated from it and drawn up by itself, so as to let
Pompeius be seen to be extolled in a distinct resolution of the senate.
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