state by Marcus Lepidus, imperator, and Pontifex Maximus; the senate and people of Rome, in return for the important and numerous services of Marcus Lepidus to the republic, declares that it places great hopes of future tranquillity and peace and concord, in his virtue, authority, and good fortune; and the senate and people of Rome will ever remember his services to the republic; and it is decreed by the vote of this order, That a gilt equestrian statue be erected to him in the Rostra, or in whatever other place in the forum he pleases.”

And this honour, O conscript fathers, appears to me a very great one, in the first place, because it is just;—­for it is not merely given on account of our hopes of the future, but it is paid, as it were, in requital of his ample services already done.  Nor are we able to mention any instance of this honour having been conferred on any one by the senate by their own free and voluntary judgment before.

XVI.  I come now to Caius Caesar, O conscript fathers; if he had not existed, which of us could have been alive now?  That most intemperate of men, Antonius, was flying from Brundusium to the city, burning with hatred, with a disposition hostile to all good men, with an army.  What was there to oppose to his audacity and wickedness?  We had not as yet any generals, or any forces.  There was no public council, no liberty; our necks were at the mercy of his nefarious cruelty; we were all preparing to have recourse to flight, though flight itself had no escape for us.  Who was it—­what god was it, who at that time gave to the Roman people this godlike young man, who, while every means for completing our destruction seemed open to that most pernicious citizen, rising up on a sudden, beyond every one’s hope, completed an army fit to oppose to the fury of Marcus Antonius before any one suspected that he was thinking of any such step?  Great honours were paid to Cnaeus Pompeius when he was a young man, and deservedly; for he came to the assistance of the republic; but he was of a more vigorous age, and more calculated to meet the eager requirements of soldiers seeking a general.  He had also been already trained in other kinds of war.  For the cause of Sylla was not agreeable to all men.  The multitude of the proscribed, and the enormous calamities that fell on so many municipal towns, show this plainly.  But Caesar, though many years younger, armed veterans who were now eager to rest; he has embraced that cause which was most agreeable to the senate, to the people, to all Italy,—­in short, to gods and men.  And Pompeius came as a reinforcement to the extensive command and victorious army of Lucius Sylla; Caesar had no one to join himself to.  He, of his own accord, was the author and executor of his plan of levying an army, and arraying a defence for us.  Pompeius found the whole Picene district hostile to the party of his adversaries; but Caesar has levied an army against Antonius from men who were Antonius’s own friends, but still greater friends to liberty.  It was owing to the influence of Pompeius that Sylla was enabled to act like a king.  It is by the protection afforded us by Caesar that the tyranny of Antonius has been put down.