decided wrongly and ought to submit to punishment, because without our sanction or that of the people they have dared to offer armed resistance to their consul, some having deserted his standard, and others having been gathered against him.  The other is to say that Antony by reason of his deeds has in our judgment long since admitted that he is our enemy and by public consent ought to be chastised by us all.  No one can be ignorant that the latter decision is not only more just but more expedient for us.  The man neither understands how to handle business himself (how or by what means could a person that lives in drunkenness and dicing?) nor has he any companion who is of any account.  He loves only such as are like himself and makes them the confidants of all his open and secret undertakings.  Also he is most cowardly in extreme dangers and most treacherous even to his intimate friends, neither of which qualities is suited for generalship or war. [-40-] Who can be unaware that this very man caused all our internal troubles and then shared the dangers to the slightest possible degree?  He tarried long in Brundusium through cowardice, so that Caesar was isolated and on account of him almost failed:  likewise he held aloof from all succeeding wars,—­that against the Egyptians, against Pharnaces, the African, and the Spanish.  Who is unaware that he won the favor of Clodius, and after using the latter’s tribuneship for the most outrageous ends would have killed him with his own hand, if I had accepted this promise from him?  Again, in the matter of Caesar, he was first associated with him as quaestor, when Caesar was praetor in Spain, next attached himself to him during the tribuneship, contrary to the liking of us all, and later received from him countless money and excessive honors:  in return for this he tried to inspire his patron with a desire for supremacy, which led to talk against him and was more than anything else responsible for Caesar’s death.

[-41-] “Yet he once stated that it was I who directed the assassins to their work.  He is so senseless as to venture to invent so great praise for me.  And I for my part do not affirm that he was the actual slayer of Caesar,—­not because he was not willing, but because in this, too, he was timid,—­yet by the very course of his actions I say that Caesar perished at his hands.  For this is the man who provided a motive, so that there seemed to be some justice in plotting against him, this is he who called him ‘king’, who gave him the diadem, who previously slandered him actually to his friends.  Do I rejoice at the death of Caesar, I, who never enjoyed anything but liberty at his hands, and is Antony grieved, who has rapaciously seized his whole property and committed many injuries on the pretext of his letters, and is finally hastening to succeed to his position of ruler?