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THE SIXTH ORATION OF M. T. CICERO AGAINST MARCUS ANTONIUS. CALLED ALSO THE SIXTH PHILIPPIC. ADDRESSED TO THE PEOPLE.
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But, while all slavery is miserable, to be slave to a man who is profligate,
unchaste, effeminate, never, not even while in fear, sober, is surely
intolerable. He, then, who keeps this man out of Gaul, especially by his own private authority, judges, and
judges most truly, that he is not consul at all. We must take care, therefore, O
conscript fathers, to sanction the private decision of Decimus Brutus by public
authority. Nor, indeed, ought you to have thought Marcus Antonius consul at any
time since the Lupercalia. For on the day when he, in the sight of the Roman
people, harangued the mob, naked, perfumed, and drunk, and labored moreover to
put a crown on the head of his colleague, on that day he abdicated not only the
consulship, but also his own freedom. At, all events he himself must at once
have become a slave, if Caesar had been willing to accept from him that ensign
of royalty. Can I then think him a consul, can I think him a Roman citizen, can
I think him a freeman, can I even think him a man, who on that shameful and
wicked day showed what he was willing to endure while Caesar lived, and what he
was anxious to obtain himself after he was dead?
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