amid thunder and lightning; it was that we might have those men for our judges whom no one would like to have for guests.  It is the enormity of his wickedness, the consciousness of his crimes, the plunder of that money of which the account was kept in the temple of Ops, which have been the real inventors of this third decury.  And infamous judges were not sought for, till all hope of safety for the guilty was despaired of, if they came before respectable ones.  But what must have been the impudence, what must have been the iniquity of a man who dared to select those men as judges, by the selection of whom a double disgrace was stamped on the republic:  one, because the judges were so infamous; the other, because by this step it was revealed and published to the world how many infamous citizens we had in the republic?  These then, and all other similar laws, I should vote ought to be annulled, even if they had been passed without violence, and with all proper respect for the auspices.  But now why need I vote that they ought to be annulled, when I do not consider that they were ever legally passed?

Is not this, too, to be marked with the deepest ignominy, and with the severest animadversion of this order, so as to be recollected by all posterity, that Marcus Antonius (the first man who has ever done so since the foundation of the city) has openly taken armed men about with him in this city?  A thing which the kings never did, nor those men who, since the kings have been banished, have endeavoured to seize on kingly power.  I can recollect Cinna; I have seen Sylla; and lately Caesar.  For these three men are the only ones since the city was delivered by Lucius Brutus, who have had more power than the entire republic.  I cannot assert that no man in their trains had weapons.  This I do say, that they had not many, and that they concealed them.  But this pest was attended by an army of armed men.  Classitius, Mustela, and Tiro, openly displaying their swords, led troops of fellows like themselves through the forum.  Barbarian archers occupied their regular place in the army.  And when they arrived at the temple of Concord, the steps were crowded, the litters full of shields were arranged; not because he wished the shields to be concealed, but that his friends might not be fatigued by carrying the shields themselves.

VII.  And what was most infamous not only to see, but even to hear of, armed men, robbers, assassins were stationed in the temple of Concord; the temple was turned into a prison; the doors of the temple were closed, and the conscript fathers delivered their opinions while robbers were standing among the benches of the senators.  And if I did not come to a senate-house in this state, he, on the first of September, said that he would send carpenters and pull down my house.  It was an important affair, I suppose, that was to be discussed.  He made some motion about a supplication.  I attended the day after.  He himself did not