t speak it with freedom; but here even the tender ears of a tyrant
are compelled to endure it. If I committed any faults, or erred in my
judgment, the calamities I have suffered are a punishment for it. Tell
me then, truly, and without fear of offending, what you think were my
failings.

_Atticus_.--You said that the principle upon which you killed Julius
Caesar had my approbation. This I do not deny; but did I ever declare,
or give you reason to believe, that I thought it a prudent or well-timed
act? I had quite other thoughts. Nothing ever seemed to me worse judged
or worse timed; and these, Brutus, were my reasons. Caesar was just
setting out to make war on the Parthians. This was an enterprise of no
little difficulty and no little danger; but his unbounded ambition, and
that restless spirit which never would suffer him to take any repose, did
not intend to stop there. You know very well (for he hid nothing from
you) that he had formed a vast plan of marching, after he had conquered
the whole Parthian Empire, along the coast of the Caspian Sea and the
sides of Mount Caucasus into Scythia, in order to subdue all the
countries that border on Germany, and Germany itself; from whence he
proposed to return to Rome by Gaul. Consider now, I beseech you, how
much time the execution of this project required. In some of his battles
with so many fierce and warlike nations, the bravest of all the
barbarians, he might have been slain; but, if he had not, disease, or age
itself, might have ended his life before he could have completed such an
immense undertaking. He was, when you killed him, in his fifty-sixth
year, and of an infirm constitution. Except his bastard by Cleopatra, he
had no son; nor was his power so absolute or so quietly settled that he
could have a thought of bequeathing the Empire, like a private
inheritance, to his sister's grandson, Octavius. While he was absent
there was no reason to fear any violence or maladministration in Italy or
in Rome. Cicero would have had the chief authority in the Senate. The
praetorship of the city had been conferred upon you by the favour of
Caesar, and your known credit with him, added to the high reputation of
your virtues and abilities, gave you a weight in all business which none
of his party left behind him in Italy would have been able to oppose.
What a fair prospect was here of good order, peace, and liberty at home,
while abroad the Roman name would have been