Vi.  But if the republic itself could give a decision, or if all rights were established by its decrees, would it adjudge the legions of the Roman people to Antonius or to Brutus?  The one had flown with precipitation to the plunder and destruction of the allies, in order, wherever he went, to lay waste, and pillage, and plunder everything, and to employ the army of the Roman people against the Roman people itself.  The other had laid down this law for himself, that wherever he came he should appear to come as a sort of light and hope of safety.  Lastly, the one was seeking aids to overturn the republic; the other to preserve it.  Nor, indeed, did we see this more clearly than the soldiers themselves; from whom so much discernment in judging was not to have been expected.

He writes, that Antonius is at Apollonia with seven cohorts, and he is either by this time taken prisoner, (may the gods grant it!) or, at all events, like a modest man, he does not come near Macedonia, lest he should seem to act in opposition to the resolution of the senate.  A levy of troops has been held in Macedonia, by the great zeal and diligence of Quintus Hortensius; whose admirable courage, worthy both of himself and of his ancestors, you may clearly perceive from the letters of Brutus.  The legion which Lucius Piso, the lieutenant of Antonius, commanded, has surrendered itself to Cicero, my own son.  Of the cavalry, which was being led into Syria in two divisions, one division has left the quaestor who was commanding it, in Thessaly, and has joined Brutus; and Cnaeus Domitius, a young man of the greatest virtue and wisdom and firmness, has carried off the other from the Syrian lieutenant in Macedonia.  But Publius Vatinius, who has before this been deservedly praised by us, and who is justly entitled to further praise at the present time, has opened the gates of Dyrrachium to Brutus, and has given him up his army.

The Roman people then is now in possession of Macedonia, and Illyricum, and Greece.  The legions there are all devoted to us, the light-armed troops are ours, the cavalry is ours, and, above all, Brutus is ours, and always will be ours—­a man born for the republic, both by his own most excellent virtues, and also by some especial destiny of name and family, both on his father’s and on his mother’s side.

VII.  Does any one then fear war from this man, who, until we commenced the war, being compelled to do so, preferred lying unknown in peace to flourishing in war?  Although he, in truth, never did lie unknown, nor can this expression possibly be applied to such great eminence in virtue.  For he was the object of regret to the state; he was in every one’s mouth, the subject of every one’s conversation.  But he was so far removed from an inclination to war, that, though he was burning with a desire to see Italy free, he preferred being wanting to the zeal of the citizens, to leading them to put everything to the issue of war.  Therefore, those very men, if there be any such, who find fault with the slowness of Brutus’s movements, nevertheless at the same time admire his moderation and his patience.