Are we then, O ye good gods, to resolve to send ambassadors to this man?  Are those men who propose this acquainted with the constitution of the republic, with the laws of war, with the precedents of our ancestors?  Do they give a thought to what the majesty of the Roman people and the severity of the senate requires?  Do you resolve to send ambassadors?  If to beg his mercy, he will despise you; if to declare your commands he will not listen to them; and last of all, however severe the message may be which we give the ambassadors, the very name of ambassadors will extinguish this ardour of the Roman people which we see at present, and break the spirit of the municipal towns and of Italy.  To say nothing of these arguments, though they are weighty, at all events that sending of an embassy will cause delay and slowness to the war.  Although those who propose it should say, as I hear that some intend to say,—­“Let the ambassadors go, but let war be prepared for all the same.”  Still the very name of ambassadors will damp men’s courage, and delay the rapidity of the war.

X. The most important events, O conscript fathers, are often determined by very trivial moving influences in every circumstance that can happen in the republic, and also in war, and especially in civil war, which is usually governed a great deal by men’s opinions and by reports.  No one will ask what is the commission with which we have sent the ambassadors; the mere name of an embassy, and that sent by us of our own accord, will appear an indication of fear.  Let him depart from Mutina; let him cease to attack Brutus; let him retire from Gaul.  He must not be begged in words to do so; he must be compelled by arms.  For we are not sending to Hannibal to desire him to retire from before Saguntum; to whom the senate formerly sent Publius Valerius Flaccus and Quintus Baebius Tampilus; who, if Hannibal did not comply, were ordered to proceed to Carthage.  Whither do we order our ambassadors to proceed, if Antonius does not comply?  Are we sending an embassy to our own citizen, to beg him not to attack a general and a colony of the Roman people?  Is it so?  Is it becoming to us to beg this by means of ambassadors?  What is the difference, in the name of the immortal gods, whether he attacks this city itself, or whether he attacks an outpost of this city, a colony of the Roman people, established for the sake of its being a bulwark and protection to us?  The siege of Saguntum was the cause of the second Punic war, which Hannibal carried on against our ancestors.  It was quite right to send ambassadors to him.  They were sent to a Carthaginian, they were sent on behalf of those who were the enemies of Hannibal, and our allies.  What is there resembling that case here?  We are sending to one of our own citizens to beg him not to blockade a general of the Roman army, not to attack our army and our colony,—­in short, not to be an enemy of ours.  Come; suppose he obeys, shall we either be inclined, or shall we be able by any possibility, to treat him as one of our citizens?