Men flock together from all quarters to extinguish a general conflagration.  The veterans were the first to follow the authority of Caesar and to repel the attempts of Antonius, afterwards the Martial legion checked his frenzy, the fourth legion crushed it.  Being thus condemned by his own legions, he burst into Gaul, which he knew to be adverse and hostile to him both in word and deed.  The armies of Aulus Hirtius and Caius Caesar pursued him, and afterwards the levies of Pansa roused the city and all Italy.  He is the one enemy of all men.  Although he has with him Lucius his brother, a citizen very much beloved by the Roman people, the regret for whose absence the city is unable to endure any longer!  What can be more foul than that beast? what more savage? who appears born for the express purpose of preventing Marcus Antonius from being the basest of all mortals.  They have with them Trebellius, who, now that all debts are cancelled, is become reconciled to them, and Titus Plancus, and other like them, who are striving with all their hearts, and whose sole object is, to appear to have been restored against the will of the republic.  Saxa and Capho, themselves rustic and clownish men, men who never have seen and who never wish to see this republic firmly established, are tampering with the ignorant classes; men who are not upholding the acts of Caesar but those of Antonius, who are led away by the unlimited occupation of the Campanian district, and who I marvel are not somewhat ashamed when they see that they have actors and actresses for their neighbours.

XI.  Why then should we be displeased that the army of Marcus Brutus is thrown into the scale to assist us in overwhelming these pests of the commonwealth?  It is the army, I suppose, of an intemperate and turbulent man.  I am more afraid of his being too patient, although in all the counsels and actions of that man there never has been anything either too much or too little.  The whole inclinations of Marcus Brutus, O conscript fathers, the whole of his thoughts, the whole of his ideas, are directed towards the authority of the senate and the freedom of the Roman people.  These are the objects which he proposes to himself, these are what he desires to uphold.  He has tried what he could do by patience, as he did nothing he has thought it necessary to encounter force by force.  And, O conscript fathers, you ought at this time to grant him the same honours which on the nineteenth of December you conferred by my advice on Decimus Brutus and Caius Caesar, whose designs and conduct in regard to the republic, while they also were but private individuals, was approved of and praised by your authority.  And you ought to do the same now with respect to Marcus Brutus, by whom an unhoped for and sudden reinforcement of legions and cavalry, and numerous and trusty bands of allies, have been provided for the republic.

Quintus Hortensius also ought to have a share of your praise, who, being governor of Macedonia, joined Brutus as a most faithful and untiring assistant in collecting that army.  For I think that a separate motion ought to be made respecting Marcus Appuleius, to whom Brutus bears witness in his letters that he has been a prime assistant to him in his endeavours to get together and equip his army.  And since this is the case,