This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
Table of Contents:


[27]
But I warn you, O conscript fathers, the liberty of the Roman people, which is
entrusted to you, is at stake. The life and fortune of every virtuous man is at
stake, against which Antonius has long been directing his insatiable
covetousness, united to his savage cruelty. Your authority is at stake, which
you will wholly lose if you do not maintain it now. Beware how you let that foul
and deadly beast escape now that you have got him confined and chained. You too,
Pansa, I warn (although you do not need counsel, for you have plenty of wisdom
yourself: but still, even the most skillful pilots receive often warnings from
the passengers in terrible storms.), not to allow this vast and noble
preparation which you have made to fall away to nothing. You have such an
opportunity as no one ever had. It is in your power so to avail yourself of this
wise firmness of the senate, of this zeal of the equestrian order, of this ardor
of the Roman people, as to release the Roman people from fear and danger
forever. As to the matters to which your motion before the senate refers, I
agree with Publius Servilius.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.