Marcus Lepidus is desirous of peace.  He does well especially if he can make such a peace as he made lately, owing to which the republic will behold the son of Cnaeus Pompeius, and will receive him in her bosom and embrace; and will think, that not he alone, but that she also is restored to herself with him.  This was the reason why you decreed to him a statue in the rostra with an honourable inscription, and why you voted him a triumph in his absence.  For although he had performed great exploits in war, and such as well deserved a triumph, still for that he might not have had that given to him which was not given to Lucius aemilius, nor to aemilianus Scipio, nor to the former Africanus, nor to Marius, nor to Pompeius, who had the conduct of greater wars than he had, but because he had put an end to a civil war in perfect silence, the first moment that it was in his power, on that account you conferred on him the greatest honours.

V. Do you think, then, O Marcus Lepidus, that the Antonii will be to the republic such citizens as she will find Pompeius?  In the one there is modesty, gravity, moderation, integrity; in them (and when I speak of them, I do not mean to omit one of that band of pirates), there is lust, and wickedness, and savage audacity capable of every crime.  I entreat of you, O conscript fathers, which of you fails to see this which Fortune herself, who is called blind, sees?  For, saving the acts of Caesar, which we maintain for the sake of harmony, his own house will be open to Pompeius, and he will redeem it for the same sum for which Antonius bought it.  Yes, I say the son of Cnaeus Pompeius will buy back his house.  O melancholy circumstance!  But these things have been already lamented long and bitterly enough.  You have voted a sum of money to Cnaeus Pompeius, equal to that which his conquering enemy had appropriated to himself of his father’s property in the distribution of his booty.  But I claim permission to manage this distribution myself, as due to my connexion and intimacy with his father.  He will buy back the villas, the houses, and some of the estates in the city which Antonius is in possession of.  For as for the silver plate, the garments, the furniture, and the wine which that glutton has made away with, those things he will lose without forfeiting his equanimity.  The Alban and Firmian villas he will recover from Dolabella; the Tusculan villa he will also recover from Antonius.  And these Ansers who are joining in the attack on Mutina and in the blockade of Decimus Brutus will be driven from his Falernian villa.  There are many others, perhaps, who will be made to disgorge their plunder, but their names escape my memory.  I say, too, that those men who are not in the number of our enemies, will be made to restore the possessions of Pompeius to his son for the price at which they bought them.  It was the act of a sufficiently rash man, not to say an audacious one, to touch a single particle of that property; but who