Why need I make a long story of it, so great was the dignity of the
senators of our party, so great too were their numbers, that those men
have need of some very valid excuse who did not join that camp. Now
listen to the rest of the letter.

XV. "You have the defeated Cicero for your general."

I am the more glad to hear that word "general," because he certainly
uses it against his will, for as for his saying "defeated," I do not
mind that, for it is my fate that I can neither be victorious nor
defeated without the republic being so at the same time.

"You are fortifying Macedonia with armies".

Yes, indeed, and we have wrested one from your brother, who does not
in the least degenerate from you.

"You have entrusted Africa to Varus, who has been twice taken
prisoner".

Here he thinks that he is making out a case against his own brother
Lucius.

"You have sent Capius into Syria".

Do you not see then, O Antonius, that the whole world is open to our
party, but that you have no spot out of your own fortifications, where
you can set your foot?

"You have allowed Casca to discharge the office of tribune".

What then? Were we to remove a man, as if he had been Marullus,[53]
or Caesetius, to whom we own it, that this and many other things like
this can never happen for the future?

"You have taken away from the Luperci the revenues which Julius Caesar
assigned to them."

Does he dare to make mention of the Luperci? Does he not shudder at
the recollection of that day on which, smelling of wine, reeking with
perfumes, and naked, he dared to exhort the indignant Roman people to
embrace slavery?

"You, by a resolution of the senate, have removed the colonies of the
veterans which had been legally settled".

Have we removed them, or have we rather ratified a law which was
passed in the comitia centunata? See, rather, whether it is not you
who have ruined these veterans (those at least who are ruined,) and
settled them in a place from which they themselves now feel that they
shall never be able to make their escape.

"You are promising to restore to the people of Marseilles what has
been taken from them by the laws of war."

I am not going to discuss the laws of war. It is a discussion far more
easy to begin than necessary. But take notice of this, O conscript
fathers, what a born enemy to the republic Antonius is, who is so
violent in his hatred of that city which he knows to have been at all
times most firm