of less value than liberty, therefore enjoy these things if you can do so consistently with the freedom of the republic, and do not abandon liberty for them, but sacrifice them for liberty, as proofs of the injury you have sustained,”—­then I shall think that I really am listening to the voice of Wisdom, and I will obey her as a god.  Therefore, if when we have received those men we can still be free, let us subdue our hatred to them, and endure peace, but if there can be no tranquillity while those men are in safety, then let us rejoice that an opportunity of fighting them is put in our power.  For so, either (these men being conquered) we shall enjoy the republic victorious, or, if we be defeated (but may Jupiter avert that disaster), we shall live, if not with an actual breath, at all events in the renown of our valour.

IV.  But Marcus Lepidus, having been a second time styled Imperator, Pontifex Maximus, a man who deserved excellently well of the republic in the last civil war, exhorts us to peace.  No one, O conscript fathers, has greater weight with me than Marcus Lepidus, both on account of his personal virtues and by reason of the dignity of his family.  There are also private reasons which influence me, such as great services he has done me, and some kindnesses which I have done him.  But the greatest of his services I consider to be his being of such a disposition as he is towards the republic, which has at all times been dearer to me than my life.  For when by his influence he inclined Magnus Pompeius, a most admirable young man, the son of one of the greatest of men, to peace, and without arms released the republic from imminent danger of civil war, by so doing he laid me under as great obligations as it was in the power of any man to do.  Therefore I proposed to decree to him the most ample honours that were in my power, in which you agreed with me, nor have I ceased both to think and speak in the highest terms of him.  The republic has Marcus Lepidus bound to it by many pledges.  He is a man of the highest rank, of the greatest honours, he has the most honourable priesthood, and has received numberless distinctions in the city.  There are monuments of himself, and of his brother, and of his ancestors; he has a most excellent wife, children such as any man might desire, an ample family estate, untainted with the blood of his fellow-citizens.  No citizen has been injured by him; many have been delivered from misery by his kindness and pity.  Such a man and such a citizen may indeed err in his opinion, but it is quite impossible for him in inclination to be unfriendly to the republic.