XI.  But these are all old stories now.  This charge, however, is quite a modern one, that Caesar was slain by my contrivance.  I am afraid, O conscript fathers, lest I should appear to you to have brought up a sham accuser against myself (which is a most disgraceful thing to do); a man not only to distinguish me by the praises which are my due, but to load me also with those which do not belong to me.  For who ever heard my name mentioned as an accomplice in that most glorious action? and whose name has been concealed who was in the number of that gallant band?  Concealed, do I say?  Whose name was there which was not at once made public?  I should sooner say that some men had boasted in order to appear to have been concerned in that conspiracy, though they had in reality known nothing of it, than that any one who had been an accomplice in it could have wished to be concealed.  Moreover, how likely it is, that among such a number of men, some obscure, some young men who had not the wit to conceal any one, my name could possibly have escaped notice!  Indeed, if leaders were wanted for the purpose of delivering the country, what need was there of my instigating the Bruti, one of whom saw every day in his house the image of Lucius Brutus, and the other saw also the image of Ahala?  Were these the men to seek counsel from the ancestors of others rather than from their own? and out of doors rather than at home?  What?  Caius Cassius, a man of that family which could not endure, I will not say the domination, but even the power of any individual,—­he, I suppose, was in need of me to instigate him? a man who, even without the assistance of these other most illustrious men, would have accomplished this same deed in Cilicia, at the mouth of the river Cydnus, if Caesar had brought his ships to that bank of the river which he had intended, and not to the opposite one.  Was Cnaeus Domitius spurred on to seek to recover his dignity, not by the death of his father, a most illustrious man, nor by the death of his uncle, nor by the deprivation of his own dignity, but by my advice and authority?  Did I persuade Caius Trebonius? a man whom I should not have ventured even to advise.  On which account the republic owes him even a larger debt of gratitude, because he preferred the liberty of the Roman people to the friendship of one man, and because he preferred overthrowing arbitrary power to sharing it.  Was I the instigator whom Lucius Tillius Cimber followed? a man whom I admired for having performed that action, rather than ever expected that he would perform it; and I admired him on this account, that he was unmindful of the personal kindnesses which he had received, but mindful of his country.  What shall I say of the two Servilii?  Shall I call them Cascas, or Ahalas? and do you think that those men were instigated by my authority rather than by their affection for the republic?  It would take a long time to go through all the rest; and it is a glorious thing for the republic that they were so numerous, and a most honourable thing also for themselves.