The oration then made by Marcus Antonius was an admirable one, his disposition, too, appeared excellent, and lastly, by his means and by his sons’, peace was ratified with the most illustrious of the citizens, and everything else was consistent with this beginning.  He invited the chief men of the state to those deliberations which he held at his own house concerning the state of the republic, he referred all the most important matters to this order.  Nothing was at that time found among the papers of Caius Caesar except what was already well known to everybody, and he gave answers to every question that was asked of him with the greatest consistency.  Were any exiles restored?  He said that one was, and only one.  Were any immunities granted?  He answered, None.  He wished us even to adopt the proposition of Servius Sulpicius, that most illustrious man, that no tablet purporting to contain any decree or grant of Caesar’s should be published after the Ides of March were expired.  I pass over many other things, all excellent—­for I am hastening to come to a very extraordinary act of virtue of Marcus Antonius.  He utterly abolished from the constitution of the republic the Dictatorship, which had by this time attained to the authority of regal power.  And that measure was not even offered to us for discussion.  He brought with him a decree of the senate, ready drawn up, ordering what he chose to have done:  and when it had been read, we all submitted to his authority in the matter with the greatest eagerness; and, by another resolution of the senate, we returned him thanks in the most honourable and complimentary language.

II.  A new light, as it were, seemed to be brought over us, now that not only the kingly power which we had endured, but all fear of such power for the future, was taken away from us; and a great pledge appeared to have been given by him to the republic that he did wish the city to be free, when he utterly abolished out of the republic the name of dictator, which had often been a legitimate title, on account of our late recollection of a perpetual dictatorship.  A few days afterwards the senate was delivered from the danger of bloodshed, and a hook[5] was fixed into that runaway slave who had usurped the name of Caius Marius.  And all these things he did in concert with his colleague.  Some other things that were done were the acts of Dolabella alone; but, if his colleague had not been absent, would, I believe, have been done by both of them in concert.

For when enormous evil was insinuating itself into the republic, and was gaining more strength day by day; and when the same men were erecting a tomb[6] in the forum, who had performed that irregular funeral; and when abandoned men, with slaves like themselves, were every day threatening with more and more vehemence all the houses and temples of the city; so severe was the rigour of Dolabella, not only towards the audacious and wicked slaves, but also towards the profligate and unprincipled freemen, and so prompt was his overthrow of that accursed pillar, that it seems marvellous to me that the subsequent time has been so different from that one day.