f
proposing to the senate a decree to declare Octavius a public enemy,
and after distributing some provinces among his friends, he put on
his military robes, and left the city to take possession of Cisalpine
Gaul, which had been assigned to him by a pretended law of the people,
against the will of the senate.

On the news of his departure Cicero returned to Rome, where he arrived
on the ninth of December. He immediately conferred with Pansa, one of
the consuls elect, (Hirtius his colleague was ill,) as to the measures
to be taken. He was again addressed with earnest solicitations by
the friends of Octavius, who, to confirm his belief in his good
intentions, allowed Casca, who had been one of the slayers of Caesar,
and had himself given him the first blow, to enter on his office as
tribune of the people on the tenth of December.

The new tribunes convoked the senate for the nineteenth, on which
occasion Cicero had intended to be absent, but receiving the day
before the edict of Decimus Brutus, by which he forbade Antonius to
enter his province (immediately after the death of Caesar he had taken
possession of Cisalpine Gaul, which had been conferred on him by
Caesar), and declared that he would defend it against him by force and
preserve it in its duty to the senate, he thought it necessary to
procure for Brutus a resolution of the senate in his favour. He went
down therefore very early, and, in a very full house, delivered the
following speech.

I. We have been assembled at length, O conscript fathers, altogether
later than the necessities of the republic required; but still we are
assembled, a measure which I, indeed, have been every day demanding,
inasmuch as I saw that a nefarious war against our altars and our
hearths, against our lives and our fortunes was, I will not say being
prepared, but being actually waged by a profligate and desperate man.
People are waiting for the first of January. But Antonius is not
waiting for that day, who is now attempting with an army to invade the
province of Decimus Brutus, a most illustrious and excellent man. And
when he has procured reinforcements and equipments there, he threatens
that he will come to this city. What is the use then of waiting, or
of even a delay for the very shortest time? For although the first of
January is at hand, still a short time is a long one for people who
are not prepared. For a day, or I should rather say an hour, often
brings great disasters, if