VIII.  But there is danger of our being overwhelmed.  I have no fear that the man who cannot enjoy his own most abundant fortunes, unless all the good men are saved, will betray his own safety.  It is nature which first makes good citizens, and then fortune assists them.  For it is for the advantage of all good men that the republic should be safe; but that advantage appears more clearly in the case of those who are fortunate.  Who is more fortunate than Lentulus, as I said before, and who is more sensible?  The Roman people saw his sorrow and his tears at the Lupercal festival.  They saw how miserable, how overwhelmed he was when Antonius placed a diadem on Caesar’s head and preferred being his slave to being his colleague.  And even if he had been able to abstain from his other crimes and wickednesses, still on account of that one single action I should think him worthy of all punishment.  For even if he himself was calculated to be a slave, why should he impose a master on us?  And if his childhood had borne the lusts of those men who were tyrants over him, was he on that account to prepare a master and a tyrant to lord it over our children?  Therefore since that man was slain, he himself has behaved to all others in the same manner as he wished him to behave to us.

For in what country of barbarians was there ever so foul and cruel a tyrant as Antonius, escorted by the arms of barbarians, has proved in this city?  When Caesar was exercising the supreme power, we used to come into the senate, if not with freedom, at all events with safety.  But under this arch-pirate, (for why should I say tyrant?) these benches were occupied by Itureans.  On a sudden he hastened to Brundusium, in order to come against this city from thence with a regular army.  He deluged Suessa, a most beautiful town, now of municipal citizens, formerly of most honourable colonists, with the blood of the bravest soldiers.  At Brundusium he massacred the chosen centurions of the Martial legion in the lap of his wife, who was not only most avaricious but also most cruel.  After that with what fury, with what eagerness did he hurry on to the city, that is to say, to the slaughter of every virtuous man!  But at that time the immortal gods brought to us a protector whom we had never seen nor expected.

IX.  For the incredible and godlike virtue of Caesar checked the cruel and frantic onslaught of that robber, whom then that madman believed that he was injuring with his edicts, ignorant that all the charges which he was falsely alleging against that most righteous young man, were all very appropriate to the recollections of his own childhood.  He entered the city, with what an escort, or rather with what a troop! when on the right hand and on the left, amid the groans of the Roman people, he was threatening the owners of property, taking notes of the houses, and openly promising to divide the city among his followers.  He returned to his soldiers; then came that mischievous assembly at Tibur.  From thence he hurried to the city; the senate was convened at the Capitol.  A decree with the authority of the consuls was prepared for proscribing the young man; when all on a sudden (for he was aware that the Martial legion had encamped at Alba) news is brought him of the proceedings of the fourth legion.