On this day, O conscript fathers, for the first time after a long interval do we plant our foot and take possession of liberty.  Liberty, of which, as long as I could be, I was not only the defender, but even the saviour.  But when I could not be so, I rested; and I bore the misfortunes and misery of that period without abjectness, and not without some dignity.  But as for this most foul monster, who could endure him, or how could any one endure him?  What is there in Antonius except lust, and cruelty, and wantonness, and audacity?  Of these materials he is wholly made up.  There is in him nothing ingenuous, nothing moderate, nothing modest, nothing virtuous.  Wherefore, since the matter has come to such a crisis that the question is whether he is to make atonement to the republic for his crimes, or we are to become slaves, let us at last, I beseech you, by the immortal gods, O conscript fathers, adopt our fathers’ courage, and our fathers’ virtue, so as either to recover the liberty belonging to the Roman name and race, or else to prefer death to slavery.  We have borne and endured many things which ought not to be endured in a free city, some of us out of a hope of recovering our freedom, some from too great a fondness for life.  But if we have submitted to these things, which necessity and a sort of force which may seem almost to have been put on us by destiny have compelled us to endure, though, in point of fact, we have not endured them, are we also to bear with the most shameful and inhuman tyranny of this profligate robber?

XII.  What will he do in his passion, if ever he has the power, who, when he is not able to show his anger against any one, has been the enemy of all good men?  What will he not dare to do when victorious, who, without having gained any victory, has committed such crimes as these since the death of Caesar? has emptied his well filled house? has pillaged his gardens? has transferred to his own mansion all their ornaments? has sought to make his death a pretext for slaughter and conflagration? who, while he has carried two or three resolutions of the senate which have been advantageous to the republic, has made everything else subservient to his own acquisition of gain and plunder? who has put up exemptions and annuities to sale? who has released cities from obligations? who has removed whole provinces from subjection to the Roman empire? who has restored exiles? who has passed forged laws in the name of Caesar, and has continued to have forged decrees engraved on brass and fixed up in the Capitol, and has set up in his own house a domestic market for all things of that sort? who has imposed laws on the Roman people? and who, with armed troops and guards, has excluded both the people and the magistrates from the forum? who has filled the senate with armed men? and has introduced armed men into the temple of Concord when he was holding a senate there? who ran down to Brundusium to meet the legions, and then murdered all the centurions in them who were well affected to the republic? who endeavoured to come to Rome with his army to accomplish our massacre and the utter destruction of the city?