I should think, will have privileges more respected than two consuls
against whom he is bearing arms; or than Caesar, whose father's priest
he is; or than the consul elect, whom he is attacking; or than Mutina,
which he is besieging; or than his country, which he is threatening
with fire and sword.

"When they do come I shall see what they demand."

Plagues and tortures seize you! Will any one come to you, unless he
be a man like Ventidius? We sent men of the very highest character to
extinguish the rising conflagration; you rejected them. Shall we now
send men when the fire has become so large and has risen to such a
height, and when you have left yourself no possible room, not only for
peace, but not even for a surrender?

I have read you this letter, O conscript fathers, not because I
thought it worth reading, but in order to let you see all his
parricidal treasons revealed by his own confessions. Would Marcus
Lepidus, that man so richly endowed with all the gifts of virtue and
fortune, if he saw this letter, either wish for peace with this man,
or even think it possible that peace should be made? "Sooner shall
fire and water mingle" as some poet or other says; sooner shall
anything in the world happen than either the republic become
reconciled to the Antonii, or the Antonii to the republic. Those men
are monsters, prodigies, portentous pests of the republic. It would
be better for this city to be uplifted from its foundations and
transported, if such a thing were possible, into other regions, where
it should never hear of the actions or the name of the Antonii, than
for it to see those men, driven out by the valour of Caesar, and
hemmed in by the courage of Brutus, inside these walls. The most
desirable thing is victory; the next best thing is to think no
disaster too great to bear in defence of the dignity and freedom of
one's country. The remaining alternative, I will not call it the
third, but the lowest of all, is to undergo the greatest disgrace from
a desire of life.

Since, then, this is the case, as to the letters and messages of
Marcus Lepidus, that most illustrious man, I agree with Servilius. And
I further give my vote, that Magnus Pompeius, the Son of Cnaeus, has
acted as might have been expected from the affection and zeal of his
father and forefathers towards the republic, and from his own previous
virtue and industry and loyal principles in promising to the senate
and people of Rome his own assi