It was done; it could not be undone.  Not Caesar, but the Senate, had decreed the end of the glorious Republic.  Already, with hasty ostentation, some senators were stepping outside the Curia, and returning clad no longer in the toga of peace, but in a military cloak[146] which a slave had been keeping close at hand in readiness.  Already Cato was on his feet glaring at the Caesarian tribunes, and demanding that first of all they be subjected to punishment for persisting in their veto.  The Senate was getting more boisterous each minute.  A tumult was like to break out, in which some deed of violence would be committed, which would give the key-note to the whole sanguinary struggle impending.  Yet in the face of the raging tempest Marcus Antonius arose and confronted the assembly.  It raged, hooted, howled, cursed.  He still remained standing.  Cato tried to continue his invective.  The tempest that he had done so much to raise drowned his own voice, and he relapsed into his seat.  But still Antonius stood his ground, quietly, with no attempt to shout down the raging Senate, as steadfastly as though a thousand threats were not buzzing around his ears.  Drusus’s heart went with his friend that instant.  He had never been in a battle, yet he realized that it was vastly more heroic to stand undaunted before this audience, than to walk into the bloodiest melee without a tremor.

  [146] Sagum.

Then of a sudden, like the interval between the recession of one wave and the advance of a second billow, came a moment of silence; and into that silence Antonius broke, with a voice so strong, so piercing, so resonant, that the most envenomed oligarch checked his clamour to give ear.

“Hearken, ye senators of the Republic, ye false patres, ye fathers of the people who are no fathers!  So far have we waited; we wait no more!  So much have we seen; we’ll see no further!  So much have we endured,—­reproaches, repulses, deceits, insult, outrage, yes, for I see it in the consul’s eye, next do we suffer violence itself; but that we will not tamely suffer.  Ay! drive us from our seats, as Marcus Cato bids you!  Ay! strike our names from the Senate list, as Domitius will propose!  Ay! hound your lictors, sir consul, after us, to lay their rods across our backs!  Ay! enforce your decree proclaiming martial law!  So have you acted before to give legal fiction to your tyranny!  But tell me this, senators, praetorii, consulars, and consuls, where will this mad violence of yours find end?  Tiberius Gracchus you have murdered.  Caius Gracchus you have murdered.  Marcus Drusus you have murdered.  Ten thousand good men has your creature Sulla murdered.  Without trial, without defence, were the friends of Catilina murdered.  And now will ye add one more deed of blood to those going before?  Will ye strike down an inviolate tribune, in Rome,—­in the shadow of the very Curia?  Ah! days of the Decemvirs, when an evil Ten ruled over the state—­would that those days might return!  Not ten tyrants but a thousand oppress us now!  Then despotism wore no cloak of patriotism or legal right, but walked unmasked in all its blackness!