and fortunes he is not fixing his most impudent eyes, his hopes, and his whole heart?  What shall we say of Censorinus? who, as far as words go, said indeed that he wished to be the city praetor, but who, in fact, was unwilling to be so?  What of Bestia, who professes that he is a candidate for the consulship in the place of Brutus?  May Jupiter avert from us this most detestable omen!  But how absurd is it for a man to stand for the consulship who cannot be elected praetor! unless, indeed, he thinks his conviction may be taken as an equivalent to the praetorship.  Let this second Caesar, this great Vopiscus[46], a man of consummate genius, of the highest influence, who seeks the consulship immediately after having been aedile, be excused from obedience to the laws.  Although, indeed, the laws do not bind him, on account, I suppose, of his exceeding dignity.  But this man has been acquitted five times when I have defended him.  To win a sixth city victory is difficult, even in the case of a gladiator.  However, this is the fault of the judges, not mine.  I defended him with perfect good faith, they were bound to retain a most illustrious and excellent citizen in the republic, who now, however, appears to have no other object except to make us understand that those men whose judicial decisions we annulled, decided rightly and in a manner advantageous to the republic.

Nor is this the case with respect to this man alone; there are other men in the same camp honestly condemned and shamefully restored; what counsel do you imagine can be adopted by those men who are enemies to all good men, that is not utterly cruel?  There is besides a fellow called Saxa; I don’t know who he is, some man whom Caesar imported from the extremity of Celtiberia and gave us for a tribune of the people.  Before that, he was a measurer of ground for camps; now he hopes to measure out and value the city.  May the evils which this foreigner predicts to us fall on his own head, and may we escape in safety!  With him is the veteran Capho; nor is there any man whom the veteran troops hate more cordially; to these men, as if in addition to the dowry which they had received during our civil disasters, Antonius had given the Campanian district, that they might have it as a sort of nurse for their other estates.  I only wish they would be contented with them!  We would bear it then, though it would not be what ought to be borne, but still it would be worth our while to bear anything, as long as we could escape this most shameful war.

Vi.  What more?  Have you not before your eyes those ornaments of the camp of Marcus Antonius?  In the first place, these two colleagues of the Antonii and Dolabella, Nucula and Lento the dividers of all Italy according to that law which the senate pronounced to have been earned by violence, one of whom has been a writer of farces, and the other an actor of tragedies.  Why should I speak of Domitius the Apulian? whose property we have lately seen advertised, so great is