chooses. In truth, other causes are just, this is
a necessary one. Unless, perhaps, you think that this does not apply
to you, because you expect that you will be a partner in the dominion
of Antonius. And there you make a two-fold mistake: first of all, in
preferring your own to the general interest; and in the next place, in
thinking that there is anything either stable or pleasant in kingly
power. Even if it has before now been advantageous to you, it will not
always be so. Moreover, you used to complain of that former master,
who was a man; what do you think you will do when your master is a
beast? And you say that you are a man who have always been desirous
of peace, and have always wished for the preservation of all the
citizens. Very honest language; that is, if you mean all citizens who
are virtuous, and useful, and serviceable to the republic; but if you
wish those who are by nature citizens, but by inclination enemies, to
be saved, what difference is there between you and them? Your father,
indeed, with whom I as a youth was acquainted, when he was an old man,
--a man of rigid virtue and wisdom,--used to give the greatest praise
of all citizens who had ever lived to Publius Nasica, who slew
Tiberius Gracchus. By his valour, and wisdom, and magnanimity he
thought that the republic had been saved. What am I to say? Have
we received any other doctrine from our fathers? Therefore, that
citizen--if you had lived in those times--would not have been approved
of by you, because he did not wish all the citizens to be safe.
"Because Lucius Opimius the consul has made a speech concerning the
republic, the senators have thus decided on that matter, that Opimius
the consul shall defend the republic." The senate adopted these
measures in words, Opimius followed them up by his arms. Should you
then, if you had lived in those times, have thought him a hasty or a
cruel citizen? or should you have thought Quintus Metellus one, whose
four sons were all men of consular rank? or Publius Lentulus the chief
of the senate, and many other admirable men, who, with Lucius Opimius
the consul, took arms, and pursued Gracchus to the Aventine? and in
the battle which ensued, Lentulus received a severe wound, Gracchus
was plain, and so was Marcus Fulvius, a man of consular rank, and his
two youthful sons. Those men, therefore, are to be blamed; for they
did not wish all the citizens to be safe.

V. Let us come to instances nearer our own ti