to him Pansa and Hirtius, who held, (if I may use such an expression,) the two horns of Caesar, at the time when that deserved to be called a party.  But what parties are these, when the one proposes to itself to uphold the authority of the senate, the liberty of the Roman people, and the safety of the republic, while the other fixes its eyes on the slaughter of all good men, and on the partition of the city and of Italy.

XXI.  Let us come at last to the end.

“I do not believe that ambassadors are coming—­“.

He knows me well.

“To a place where war exists.”

Especially with the example of Dolabella before our eyes.  Ambassadors, I should think, will have privileges more respected than two consuls against whom he is bearing arms; or than Caesar, whose father’s priest he is; or than the consul elect, whom he is attacking; or than Mutina, which he is besieging; or than his country, which he is threatening with fire and sword.

“When they do come I shall see what they demand.”

Plagues and tortures seize you!  Will any one come to you, unless he be a man like Ventidius?  We sent men of the very highest character to extinguish the rising conflagration; you rejected them.  Shall we now send men when the fire has become so large and has risen to such a height, and when you have left yourself no possible room, not only for peace, but not even for a surrender?

I have read you this letter, O conscript fathers, not because I thought it worth reading, but in order to let you see all his parricidal treasons revealed by his own confessions.  Would Marcus Lepidus, that man so richly endowed with all the gifts of virtue and fortune, if he saw this letter, either wish for peace with this man, or even think it possible that peace should be made?  “Sooner shall fire and water mingle” as some poet or other says; sooner shall anything in the world happen than either the republic become reconciled to the Antonii, or the Antonii to the republic.  Those men are monsters, prodigies, portentous pests of the republic.  It would be better for this city to be uplifted from its foundations and transported, if such a thing were possible, into other regions, where it should never hear of the actions or the name of the Antonii, than for it to see those men, driven out by the valour of Caesar, and hemmed in by the courage of Brutus, inside these walls.  The most desirable thing is victory; the next best thing is to think no disaster too great to bear in defence of the dignity and freedom of one’s country.  The remaining alternative, I will not call it the third, but the lowest of all, is to undergo the greatest disgrace from a desire of life.