charge?  From every point of view he is proved to have long been an enemy of ours, and the case stands as follows.  If we now take measures against him with all speed, we shall get back all that has been lost:  but if, neglecting to do this, we wait till he himself admits that he is plotting against us, we shall lose everything.  This he will never do, not even if he should actually march upon the City, any more than Marius or Cinna or Sulla did.  But if he gets control of affairs, he will not fail to act precisely as they did, or still worse.  Men who are anxious to accomplish an object are wont to say one thing, and those who have succeeded in accomplishing it are wont to do quite a different thing.  To gain their end they pretend anything, but having obtained it they deny themselves the gratification of no desire.  Furthermore, the last born always desire to surpass what their predecessors have ventured:  they think it a small thing to behave like them and do something that has been effected before, but determine that something original is the only thing worthy of them, because unexpected.

[-38-] “Seeing this, then, Conscript Fathers, let us no longer delay nor fall a prey to the indolence that the moment inspires, but let us take thought for the safety that concerns the future.  Surely it is a shame when Caesar, who has just emerged from boyhood and was recently registered among those having attained years of discretion, shows such great interest in the State as to spend his money and gather soldiers for its preservation that we should neither ourselves perform our duty nor cooeperate with him even after obtaining a tangible proof of his good-will.  Who is unaware that if he had not reached here with the soldiers from Campania, Antony would certainly have come rushing from Brundusium instanter, just as he was, and would have burst into our city with all his armies like a winter torrent?[13] There is, moreover, a striking inconsistency in our conduct.  Men who have long been campaigning voluntarily have put themselves at your service for the present crisis, regarding neither their age nor the wounds which they received in past years while fighting for you, and you both refuse to ratify the war in which these very men elected to serve, and show yourselves inferior to them, who are ready to face dangers; for while you praise the soldiers that detected the defilement of Antony and withdrew from him, though he was consul, and attached themselves to Caesar, (that is, to you through him), you shrink from voting for that which you say they were right in doing.  Also we are grateful to Brutus that he did not even at the start admit Antony to Gaul, and is trying to repel him now that Antony confronts him with a force.  Why in the world do we not ourselves do the same?  Why do we not imitate the rest whom we praise for their sound judgment?  There are only two courses open to us. [-39-] One is to say that all these men,—­Caesar, I mean, and Brutus, the old soldiers, the legions,—­have