When you are so bitter, O Quintus Fufius, against the people of Marseilles, I cannot listen to you with calmness.  For how long are you going to attack Marseilles?  Does not even a triumph put an end to the war? in which was carried an image of that city, without whose assistance our forefathers never triumphed over the Transalpine nations.  Then, indeed, did the Roman people groan.  Although they had their own private griefs because of their own affairs, still there was no citizen who thought the miseries of this most loyal city unconnected with himself.  Caesar himself, who had been the most angry of all men with them, still, on account of the unusually high character and loyalty of that city, was every day relaxing something of his displeasure.  And is there no extent of calamity by which so faithful a city can satiate you?  Again, perhaps, you will say that I am losing my temper.  But I am speaking without passion, as I always do, though not without great indignation.  I think that no man can be an enemy to that city, who is a friend to this one.  What your object is, O Calenus, I cannot imagine.  Formerly we were unable to deter you from devoting yourself to the gratification of the people; now we are unable to prevail on you to show any regard for their interests.  I have argued long enough with Fufius, saying everything without hatred, but nothing without indignation.  But I suppose that a man who can bear the complaint of his son in law with indifference, will bear that of his friend with great equanimity.

VII.  I come now to the rest of the men of consular rank of whom there is no one, (I say this on my own responsibility,) who is not connected with me in some way or other by kindnesses conferred or received, some in a great, some in a moderate degree, but everyone to some extent or other.  What a disgraceful day was yesterday to us! to us consulars, I mean.  Are we to send ambassadors again?  What? would he make a truce?  Before the very face and eyes of the ambassadors he battered Mutina with his engines.  He displayed his works and his defences to the ambassadors.  The siege was not allowed one moment’s breathing time, not even while the ambassadors should be present.  Send ambassadors to this man!  What for? in order to have great fears for their return?  In truth, though on the previous occasion I had voted against the ambassadors being decreed, still I consoled myself with this reflection, that, when they had returned from Antonius despised and rejected, and had reported to the senate not merely that he had not withdrawn from Gaul, as we had voted that he should, but that he had not even retired from before Mutma, and that they had not been allowed to proceed on to Decimus Brutus, all men would be inflamed with hatred and stimulated by indignation, so that we should reinforce Decimus Brutus with arms, and horses, and men.  But we have become even more languid since we have become acquainted with, not only the audacity and