ndured by which he got rid of
seven hundred millions of sesterces by forged entries and deeds of
gifts, so that it seems an absolute miracle that so vast a sum of
money belonging to the Roman people can have disappeared in so short
a time. What? are those enormous profits to be endured which the
household of Marcus Antonius has swallowed up? He was continually
selling forged decrees; ordering the names of kingdoms and states, and
grants of exemptions to be engraved on brass, having received bribes
for such orders. And his statement always was, that he was doing these
things in obedience to the memoranda of Caesar, of which he himself was
the author. In the interior of his house there was going on a brisk
market of the whole republic. His wife, more fortunate for herself
than for her husband, was holding an auction of kingdoms and
provinces: exiles were restored without any law, as if by law: and
unless all these acts are rescinded by the authority of the senate,
now that we have again arrived at a hope of recovering the republic,
there will be no likeness of a free city left to us.

Nor is it only by the sale of forged memoranda and autographs that a
countless sum of money was collected together in that house, while
Antonius, whatever he sold, said that he was acting in obedience to
the papers of Caesar; but he even took bribes to make false entries
of the resolutions of the senate; to seal forged contracts; and
resolutions of the senate that had never been passed were entered
on the records of that treasury. Of all this baseness even foreign
nations were witnesses. In the meantime treaties were made; kingdoms
given away; nations and provinces released from the burdens of the
state; and false memorials of all these transactions were fixed up
all over the Capitol, amid the groans of the Roman people. And by all
these proceedings so vast a sum of money was collected in one house,
that if it were all made available, the Roman people would never want
money again.

V. Moreover, he passed a law to regulate judicial proceedings, this
chaste and upright man, this upholder of the tribunals and the law.
And in this he deceived us. He used to say that he appointed men from
the front ranks of the army, common soldiers, men of the Alauda,[33]
as judges. But he has in reality selected gamesters; he has selected
exiles; he has selected Greeks. Oh the fine bench of judges! Oh the
admirable dignity of that council! I do long to plead