of Brutus, though the latter was later given charge of it by us, how could you have kept silent and how could any one else have borne it?  But these matters, as I said, I shall pass over; for the majority of them have not been mentioned individually, and Antony is not present, who could inform you exactly of what he has done in each instance.  As to Macedonia and Gaul and the remaining provinces and legions, yours are the decrees, Conscript Fathers, according to which you assigned to the various governors their separate charges and delivered to Antony Gaul, together with the soldiers.  This is known also to Cicero.  He was there and helped vote for all of them just like you.  Yet how much better it would have been for him then to speak in opposition, if any item of business was not going as it should, and to instruct you in these matters that are now brought forward, than to be silent at the time and allow you to make mistakes, and now nominally to censure Antony but really to accuse the senate!

[-24-] “Any sensible person could not assert, either, that Antony forced you to vote these measures.  He himself had no band of soldiers so as to compel you to do anything contrary to your inclinations, and further the business was done for the good of the city.  For since the legions had been sent ahead and united, there was fear that when they heard of Caesar’s assassination they might revolt, put some inferior man at their head, and begin to wage war again:  so it seemed good to you, taking a proper and excellent course, to place in command of them Antony the consul, who was charged with the promotion of harmony, who had rejected the dictatorship entirely from the system of government.  And that is the reason that you gave him Gaul in place of Macedonia, that he should stay here in Italy, committing no harm, and do at once whatever errand was assigned him by you.

[-25-] “This I have said to you that you may know that you decided rightly.  For Cicero that other point of mine was sufficient,—­namely, that he was present during all these proceedings and helped us to pass the measures, though Antony had not a soldier at the time and could not have brought to bear on us pressure in the shape of any terror that would have made us neglect a single point of our interest.  But even if you were then silent, tell us now at least:  what ought we to have done under the circumstances?  Leave the legions leaderless?  Would they have failed to fill both Macedonia and Italy with countless evils?  Commit them to another?  And whom could we have found more closely related and suited to the business than Antony, the consul, the director of all the city’s affairs, the one who had taken such good care of harmony among us, the one who had given countless examples of his affection for the State?  Some one of the assassins, perhaps?  Why, it wasn’t even safe for them to live in the city.  Some one of the party opposed to them?  Everybody suspected those people.  What other man was there surpassing