k across the Rubicon, which is the frontier of Gaul, and
yet at the same time not come nearer Rome than two hundred miles? will
he obey this notice? will he allow himself to be confined by the river
Rubicon and by the limit of two hundred miles? Antonius is not that
sort of man. For if he had been, he would never have allowed matters
to come to such a pass, as for the senate to give him notice, as
it did to Hannibal at the beginning of the Punic war not to attack
Saguntum. But what ignominy it is to be called away from Mutina, and
at the same time to be forbidden to approach the city as if he were
some fatal conflagration! what an opinion is this for the senate
to have of a man! What? As to the commission which is given to the
ambassadors to visit Decimus Brutus and his soldiers, and to inform
them that their excellent zeal in behalf of, and services done to the
republic, are acceptable to the senate and people of Rome, and that
that conduct shall tend to their great glory and to their great
honour; do you think that Antonius will permit the ambassadors to
enter Mutina? and to depart from thence in safety? He never will allow
it, believe me. I know the violence of the man, I know his impudence,
I know his audacity.

Nor, indeed, ought we to think of him as of a human being, but as of a
most ill-omened beast. And as this is the case, the decree which
the senate has passed is not wholly improper. The embassy has some
severity in it; I only wish it had no delay. For as in the conduct of
almost every affair slowness and procrastination are hateful, so above
all things does this war require promptness of action. We must assist
Decimus Brutus; we must collect all our forces from all quarters;
we cannot lose a single hour in effecting the deliverance of such
a citizen without wickedness. Was it not in his power, if he had
considered Antonius a consul, and Gaul the province of Antonius, to
have given over the legions and the province to Antonius? and to
return home himself? and to celebrate a triumph? and to be the first
man in this body to deliver his opinion, until he entered on his
magistracy? What was the difficulty of doing that? But as he
remembered that he was Brutus, and that he was born for your freedom,
not for his own tranquillity, what else did he do but--as I may almost
say--put his own body in the way to prevent Antonius from entering
Gaul? Ought we then to send ambassadors to this man, or legions?
However, we wi