Therefore, stopping all your expostulations, he sent his soldiers to you, and to your sureties, when all on a sudden out came that splendid catalogue of yours.  How men did laugh!  That there should be so vast a catalogue, that their should be such a numerous and various list of possessions, of all of which, with the exception of a portion of Misenum, there was nothing which the man who was putting them up to sale could call his own.  And what a miserable sight was the auction.  A little apparel of Pompeius’s, and that stained, a few silver vessels belonging to the same man, all battered, some slaves in wretched condition, so that we grieved that there was anything remaining to be seen of these miserable relics.  This auction, however, the heirs of Lucius Rubrius prevented from proceeding, being armed with a decree of Caesar to that effect.  The spendthrift was embarrassed.  He did not know which way to turn.  It was at this very time that an assassin sent by him was said to have been detected with a dagger in the house of Caesar.  And of this Caesar himself complained in the senate, inveighing openly against you.  Caesar departs to Spain, having granted you a few days delay for making the payment, on account of your poverty.  Even then you do not follow him.  Had so good a gladiator as you retired from business so early?  Can any one then fear a man who was as timid as this man in upholding his party, that is, in upholding his own fortunes?

XXX.  After some time he at last went into Spain; but, as he says, he could not arrive there in safety.  How then did Dolabella manage to arrive there?  Either, O Antonius, that cause ought never to have been undertaken, or when you had undertaken it, it should have been maintained to the end.  Thrice did Caesar fight against his fellow-citizens; in Thessaly, in Africa, and in Spain.  Dolabella was present at all these battles.  In the battle in Spain he even received a wound.  If you ask my opinion, I wish he had not been there.  But still, if his design at first was blameable, his consistency and firmness were praiseworthy.  But what shall we say of you?  In the first place, the children of Cnaeus Pompeius sought to be restored to their country.  Well, this concerned the common interests of the whole party.  Besides that, they sought to recover their household gods, the gods of their country, their altars, their hearths, the tutelar gods of their family; all of which you had seized upon.  And when they sought to recover those things by force of arms which belonged to them by the laws, who was it most natural—­(although in unjust and unnatural proceedings what can there be that is natural?)—­still, who was it most natural to expect would fight against the children of Cnaeus Pompeius?  Who?  Why, you who had bought their property.  Were you at Narbo to be sick over the tables of your entertainers, while Dolabella was fighting your battles in Spain?