no precautions are taken. And it is not
usual to wait for a fixed day for holding a council, as it is for
celebrating a festival. But if the first of January had fallen on
the day when Antonius first fled from the city, or if people had not
waited for it, we should by this time have no war at all. For we
should easily have crushed the audacity of that frantic man by the
authority of the senate and the unanimity of the Roman people. And
now, indeed, I feel confident that the consuls elect will do so,
as soon as they enter on their magistracy. For they are men of the
highest courage, of the most consummate wisdom, and they will act in
perfect harmony with each other. But my exhortations to rapid and
instant action are prompted by a desire not merely for victory, but
for speedy victory.

For how long are we to trust to the prudence of an individual to repel
so important, so cruel, and so nefarious a war? Why is not the public
authority thrown into the scale as quickly as possible?

II. Caius Caesar, a young man, or, I should rather say, almost a boy,
endued with an incredible and godlike degree of wisdom and valour, at
the time when the frenzy of Antonius was at its height, and when
his cruel and mischievous return from Brundusium was an object of
apprehension to all, while we neither desired him to do so, nor
thought of such a measure, nor ventured even to wish it, (because it
did not seem practicable,) collected a most trustworthy army from the
invincible body of veteran soldiers, and has spent his own patrimony
in doing so. Although I have not used the expression which I
ought,--for he has not spent it,--he has invested it in the safety of
the republic.

And although it is not possible to requite him with all the thanks to
which he is entitled, still we ought to feel all the gratitude towards
him which our minds are capable of conceiving. For who is so ignorant
of public affairs, so entirely indifferent to all thoughts of the
republic, as not to see that, if Marcus Antonius could have come with
those forces which he made sure that he should have, from Brundusium
to Rome, as he threatened, there would have been no description of
cruelty which he would not have practised? A man who in the house of
his entertainer at Brundusium ordered so many most gallant men
and virtuous citizens to be murdered, and whose wife's face was
notoriously besprinkled with the blood of men dying at his and her
feet. Who is there of us, or