But how constantly does he harp on the expression “the consul Antonius!” This amounts to say “that most debauched consul,” “that most worthless of men, the consul.”  For what else is Antonius?  For if any dignity were implied in the name, then, I imagine, your grandfather would sometimes have called himself “the consul Antonius.”  But he never did.  My colleague too, your own uncle, would have called himself so.  Unless you are the only Antonius.  But I pass over those offences which have no peculiar connexion with the part you took in harassing the republic; I return to that in which you bore so principal a share,—­that is, to the civil war; and it is mainly owing to you that that was originated, and brought to a head, and carried on.

XXIX.  Though you yourself took no personal share in it, partly through timidity, partly through profligacy, you had tasted, or rather had sucked in, the blood of fellow-citizens:  you had been in the battle of Pharsalia as a leader; you had slain Lucius Domitius, a most illustrious and high-born man; you had pursued and put to death in the most barbarous manner many men who had escaped from the battle, and whom Caesar would perhaps have saved, as he did some others.

And after having performed these exploits, what was the reason why you did not follow Caesar into Africa; especially when so large a portion of the war was still remaining?  And accordingly, what place did you obtain about Caesar’s person after his return from Africa?  What was your rank?  He whose quaestor you had been when general, whose master of the horse when he was dictator, to whom you had been the chief cause of war, the chief instigator of cruelty, the sharer of his plunder, his son, as you yourself said, by inheritance, proceeded against you for the money which you owed for the house and gardens, and for the other property which you had bought at that sale.  At first you answered fiercely enough, and that I may not appear prejudiced against you in every particular, you used a tolerably just and reasonable argument.  “What, does Caius Caesar demand money of me? why should he do so, any more than I should claim it of him?  Was he victorious without my assistance?  No, and he never could have been.  It was I who supplied him with a pretext for civil war, it was I who proposed mischievous laws, it was I who took up arms against the consuls and generals of the Roman people, against the senate and people of Rome, against the gods of the country, against its altars and healths, against the country itself.  Has he conquered for himself alone?  Why should not those men whose common work the achievement is, have the booty also in common?” You were only claiming your right, but what had that to do with it?  He was the more powerful of the two.