e difference. Peace is liberty
in tranquillity, slavery is the worst of all evils,--to be repelled,
if need be, not only by war, but even by death. But if those
deliverers of ours have taken themselves away out of our sight, still
they have left behind the example of their conduct. They have done
what no one else had done. Brutus pursued Tarquinius with war, who
was a king when it was lawful for a king to exist in Rome. Spurius
Cassius, Spurius Maelius, and Marcus Manlius were all slain because
they were suspected of aiming at regal power. These are the first men
who have ever ventured to attack, sword in hand, a man who was not
aiming at regal power, but actually reigning. And their action is not
only of itself a glorious and godlike exploit, but it is also one put
forth for our imitation, especially since by it they have acquired
such glory as appears hardly to be bounded by heaven itself. For
although in the very consciousness of a glorious action there is a
certain reward, still I do not consider immortality of glory a thing
to be despised by one who is himself mortal.

XLV. Recollect then, O Marcus Antonius, that day on which you
abolished the dictatorship. Set before you the joy of the senate and
people of Rome, compare it with this infamous market held by you
and by your friends, and then you will understand how great is the
difference between praise and profit. But in truth, just as some
people, through some disease which has blunted the senses, have
no conception of the niceness of food, so men who are lustful,
avaricious, and criminal, have no taste for true glory. But if praise
cannot allure you to act rightly, still cannot even fear turn you away
from the most shameful actions? You are not afraid of the courts of
justice. If it is because you are innocent I praise you, if because
you trust in your power of overbearing them by violence, are you
ignorant of what that man has to fear, who on such an account as that
does not fear the courts of justice?

But if you are not afraid of brave men and illustrious citizens,
because they are prevented from attacking you by your armed retinue,
still, believe me, your own fellows will not long endure you. And
what a life is it, day and night to be fearing danger from one's own
people! Unless, indeed, you have men who are bound to you by greater
kindnesses than some of those men by whom he was slain were bound to
Caesar, or unless there are points in which you can be com