e ides of March, I ask whether you have done
anything? I heard, indeed, that you had come down prepared, because
you thought that I intended to speak about your having made a false
statement respecting the auspices, though it was still necessary for
us to respect them. The fortune of the Roman people saved us from that
day. Did the death of Caesar also put an end to your opinion respecting
the auspices? But I have come to mention that occasion which must
be allowed to precede those matters which I had begun to discuss.
What a flight was that of yours! What alarm was yours on that
memorable day! How, from the consciousness of your wickedness,
did you despair of your life! How, while flying, were you enabled
secretly to get home by the kindness of those men who wished
to save you, thinking you would show more sense than you do! O
how vain have at all times been my too true predictions of the future!
I told those deliverers of ours in the Capitol, when they wished me to
go to you to exhort you to defend the republic, that as long as you
were in fear you would promise everything, but that as soon as you
had emancipated yourself from alarm you would be yourself again.
Therefore, while the rest of the men of consular rank were going
backwards and forwards to you, I adhered to my opinion, nor did I see
you at all that day, or the next; nor did I think it possible for an
alliance between virtuous citizens and a most unprincipled enemy to be
made, so as to last, by any treaty or engagement whatever. The third
day I came into the temple of Tellus, even then very much against my
will, as armed men were blockading all the approaches. What a day was
that for you, O Marcus Antonius! Although you showed yourself all on a
sudden an enemy to me; still I pity you for having envied yourself.

XXXVI. What a man, O ye immortal gods! and how great a man might
you have been, if you had been able to preserve the inclination you
displayed that day;--we should still have peace which was made then by
the pledge of a hostage, a boy of noble birth, the grandson of Marcus
Bambalio. Although it was fear that was then making you a good
citizen, which is never a lasting teacher of duty; your own audacity,
which never departs from you as long as you are free from fear, has
made you a worthless one. Although even at that time, when they
thought you an excellent man, though I indeed differed from that
opinion, you behaved with the greatest wickedness whil