I. From the first beginning, O conscript fathers, of this war which we have undertaken against those impious and wicked citizens, I have been afraid lest the insidious proposals of peace might damp our zeal for the recovery of our liberty.  But the name of peace is sweet; and the thing itself not only pleasant but salutary.  For a man seems to have no affection either for the private hearths of the citizens, nor for the public laws, nor for the rights of freedom, who is delighted with discord and the slaughter of his fellow-citizens, and with civil war; and such a man I think ought to be erased from the catalogue of men, and exterminated from all human society.  Therefore, if Sylla, or Marius, or both of them, or Octavius, or Cinna, or Sylla for the second time, or the other Marius and Carbo, or if any one else has ever wished for civil war, I think that man a citizen born for the detestation of the republic.  For why should I speak of the last man who stirred up such a war; a man whose acts, indeed, we defend, while we admit that the author of them was deservedly slain?  Nothing, then, is more infamous than such a citizen or such a man; if indeed he deserves to be considered either a citizen or a man, who is desirous of civil war.

But the first thing that we have to consider, O conscript fathers, is whether peace can exist with all men, or whether there be any war incapable of reconciliation, in which any agreement of peace is only a covenant of slavery.  Whether Sylla was making peace with Scipio, or whether he was only pretending to do so, there was no reason to despair, if an agreement had been come to, that the city might have been in a tolerable state.  If Cinna had been willing to agree with Octavius, the safety of the citizens might still have had an existence in the republic.  In the last war, if Pompeius had relaxed somewhat of his dignified firmness, and Caesar a good deal of his ambition, we might have had both a lasting peace, and some considerable remainder of the republic.

II.  But what is the state of things now?  Is it possible for there to be peace with Antonius? with Censorinus, and Ventidius, and Trebellius, and Bestia, and Nucula, and Munatius, and Lento, and Saxa?  I have just mentioned a few names as a specimen; you yourselves see the countless numbers and savage nature of the rest of the host.  Add, besides the wrecks of Caesar’s party, the Barbae Cassii, the Barbatii, the Pollios; add the companions and fellow-gamblers of Antonius, Eutrapelus, and Mela, and Coelius, and Pontius, and Crassicius, and Tiro, and Mustela, and Petissius; I say nothing of the main body, I am only naming the leaders.  To these are added the legionaries of the Alauda and the rest of the veterans, the seminary of the judges of the third decury; who, having exhausted their own estates, and squandered all the fruits of Caesar’s kindness, have now set their hearts on our fortunes.  Oh that trustworthy right hand of Antonius, with which he has murdered many citizens!