here
were they all? A Charybdis do I call him? He swallowed them all like an
entire ocean!" Then he accuses him of cowardice and cruelty in the
Pharsalian wars, and compares him most injuriously with Dolabella. "Do
you remember how Dolabella fought for you in Spain, when you were
getting drunk at Narbo? And how did you get back from Narbo? He has
asked as to my return to the city. I have explained to you, O conscript
fathers, how I had intended to be here in January, so as to be of some
service to the Republic. You inquire how I got back. In daylight--not in
the dark, as you did; with Roman shoes on and a Roman toga--not in
barbaric boots and an old cloak.* * * When Caesar returned from Spain you
again pushed yourself into his intimacy--not a brave man, we should say,
but still strong enough for his purposes. Caesar did always this--that if
there were a man ruined, steeped in debt, up to his ears in poverty--a
base, needy, bold man--that was the man whom he could receive into his
friendship." This as to Caesar was undoubtedly true. "Recommended in this
way, you were told to declare yourself Consul." Then he describes the
way in which he endeavored to prevent the nomination of Dolabella to the
same office. Caesar had said that Dolabella should be Consul, but when
Caesar was dead this did not suit Antony. When the tribes had been called
in their centuries to vote, Antony, not understanding what form of words
he ought to have used as augur to stop the ceremony, had blundered.
"Would you not call him a very Laelius?" says Cicero. Laelius had made for
himself a name among augurs for excellence.

"Miserable that you are, you throw yourself at Caesar's feet asking only
permission to be his slave. You sought for yourself that state of
slavery which it has ever been easy for you to endure. Had you any
command from the Roman people to ask the same for them? Oh, that
eloquence of yours; when naked you stood up to harangue the people! Who
ever saw a fouler deed than that, or one more worthy scourges?" "Has
Tarquin suffered for this; have Spurius Cassius, Melius, and Marcus
Manlius suffered, that after many ages a king should be set up in Rome
by Marc Antony?" With abuse of a similar kind he goes on to the end of
his declamation, when he again professes himself ready to die at his
post in defence of the Republic. That he now made up his mind so to die,
should it become necessary, we may take for granted, but we cannot bring
ourselve