XI Who then is that man?  Either Marcus Brutus, or Caius Cassius, or both of them.  I would vote in plain words, as there are many precedents for, one consul or both, if we had not already hampered Brutus sufficiently in Greece, and if we had not preferred having his reinforcement approach nearer to Italy rather than move further off towards Asia, not so much in order to receive succour ourselves from that army, as to enable that army to receive aid across the water.  Besides, O conscript fathers, even now Caius Antonius is detaining Marcus Brutus, for he occupies Apollonia, a large and important city, he occupies, as I believe, Byllis, he occupies Amantia, he is threatening Epirus, he is pressing on Illyricum, he has with him several cohorts, and he has cavalry.  If Brutus be transferred from this district to any other war, we shall at all events lose Greece.  We must also provide for the safety of Brundusium and all that coast of Italy.  Although I marvel that Antonius delays so long, for he is accustomed usually to put on his marching dress and not to endure the fear of a siege for any length of time.  But if Brutus has finished that business, and perceives that he can better serve the republic by pursuing Dolabella than by remaining in Greece, he will act of his own head, as he has hitherto done, nor amid such a general conflagration will he wait for the orders of the senate when instant help is required.  For both Brutus and Cassius have in many instances been a senate to themselves.  For it is quite inevitable that in such a confusion and disturbance of all things men should be guided by the present emergency rather than by precedent.  Nor will this be the first time that either Brutus or Cassius has considered the safety and deliverance of his country his most holy law and his most excellent precedent.  Therefore, if there were no motion submitted to us about the pursuit of Dolabella, still I should consider it equivalent to a decree, when there were men of such a character for virtue, authority, and the greatest nobleness, possessing armies, one of which is already known to us, and the other has been abundantly heard of.

XII Brutus then, you may be sure, has not waited for our decrees, as he was sure of our desires.  For he is not gone to his own province of Crete, he has flown to Macedonia, which belonged to another, he has accounted everything his own which you have wished to be yours, he has enlisted new legions, he has received old ones, he has gained over to his own standard the cavalry of Dolabella, and even before that man was polluted with such enormous parricide, he, of his own head, pronounced him his enemy.  For if he were not one, by what right could he himself have tempted the cavalry to abandon the consul?  What more need I say?  Did not Caius Cassius, a man endowed with equal greatness of mind and with equal wisdom, depart from Italy with the deliberate object of preventing Dolabella from obtaining possession of Syria?  By what law?  By what right?  By that which Jupiter himself has sanctioned, that everything which was advantageous to the republic should be considered legal and just.