as you adopt those counsels, it is impossible for you, believe me, to last long.  In truth, that wife of yours, who is so far removed from covetousness, and whom I mention without intending any slight to her, has been too long owing[23] her third payment to the state.  The Roman people has men to whom it can entrust the helm of the state, and wherever they are, there is all the defence of the republic, or rather, there is the republic itself, which as yet has only avenged, but has not reestablished itself.  Truly and surely has the republic most high born youths ready to defend it,—­though they may for a time keep in the background from a desire for tranquillity, still they can be recalled by the republic at any time.

The name of peace is sweet, the thing itself is most salutary.  But between peace and slavery there is a wide difference.  Peace is liberty in tranquillity, slavery is the worst of all evils,—­to be repelled, if need be, not only by war, but even by death.  But if those deliverers of ours have taken themselves away out of our sight, still they have left behind the example of their conduct.  They have done what no one else had done.  Brutus pursued Tarquinius with war, who was a king when it was lawful for a king to exist in Rome.  Spurius Cassius, Spurius Maelius, and Marcus Manlius were all slain because they were suspected of aiming at regal power.  These are the first men who have ever ventured to attack, sword in hand, a man who was not aiming at regal power, but actually reigning.  And their action is not only of itself a glorious and godlike exploit, but it is also one put forth for our imitation, especially since by it they have acquired such glory as appears hardly to be bounded by heaven itself.  For although in the very consciousness of a glorious action there is a certain reward, still I do not consider immortality of glory a thing to be despised by one who is himself mortal.

XLV.  Recollect then, O Marcus Antonius, that day on which you abolished the dictatorship.  Set before you the joy of the senate and people of Rome, compare it with this infamous market held by you and by your friends, and then you will understand how great is the difference between praise and profit.  But in truth, just as some people, through some disease which has blunted the senses, have no conception of the niceness of food, so men who are lustful, avaricious, and criminal, have no taste for true glory.  But if praise cannot allure you to act rightly, still cannot even fear turn you away from the most shameful actions?  You are not afraid of the courts of justice.  If it is because you are innocent I praise you, if because you trust in your power of overbearing them by violence, are you ignorant of what that man has to fear, who on such an account as that does not fear the courts of justice?

But if you are not afraid of brave men and illustrious citizens, because they are prevented from attacking you by your armed retinue, still, believe me, your own fellows will not long endure you.  And what a life is it, day and night to be fearing danger from one’s own people!  Unless, indeed, you have men who are bound to you by greater kindnesses than some of those men by whom he was slain were bound to Caesar, or unless there are points in which you can be compared with him.