[-36-] "Do not, then, wait until you have suffered some such treatment and begin to rue it, but guard yourselves before you are molested. It is out of the question to allow dangers to come upon you and then repent of it, when you might have anticipated them. And do not choose to neglect the seriousness of the present situation and then ask again for another Cassius or some more Brutuses. It is ridiculous, when we have the power of aiding ourselves in time, to seek later on men to set us free. Perhaps we should not even find them, especially if we handle in such a way the present situation. Who would privately choose to run risks for the democracy, when he sees that we are publicly resigned to slavery? It must be evident to every man that Antony will not rest contented with what he is now doing, but that in far off and small concerns even he is strengthening himself against us. He is warring against Decimus and besieging Mutina for no other purpose than to provide himself, by conquering and capturing them, with resources against us. He has not been wronged by them that he can appear to be defending himself, nor does he merely desire the property that they possess and with this in mind endure toils and dangers, while ready and willing to relinquish that belonging to us, who own their property and much beside. Shall we wait for him to secure the prize and still more, and so become a dangerous foe? Shall we trust his deception when he says that he is not warring against the City? [-37-] Who is so silly as to decide whether a man is making war on us or not by his words rather than by his deeds? I do not say that now for the first time is he unfriendly to us, when he has abandoned the City and made a campaign against allies and is assailing Brutus and besieging the cities; but on the basis of his former evil and licentious behavior, not only after Caesar's death but even in the latter's lifetime, I decide that he has shown himself an enemy of our government and liberty and a plotter against them. Who that loved his country or hated tyranny would have committed a single one of the many and manifold offences laid to this man's charge? From every point of view he is proved to have long been an enemy of ours, and the case stands as follows. If we now take measures against him with all speed, we shall get back all that has been lost: but if, neglecting to do this, we wait till he himself admits that he is plotting against us, we shall lose everything. This he will never do, not even if he should actually march upon the City, any more than Marius or Cinna or Sulla did. But if he gets control of affairs, he will not fail to act precisely as they did, or still worse. Men who are anxious to accomplish an object are wont to say one thing, and those who have succeeded in accomplishing it are wont to do quite a different thing. To gain their end they pretend anything, but having obtained it they deny themselves the gratification of no desire. Furthermore, the last born always desire to surpass what their predecessors have ventured: they think it a small thing to behave like them and do something that has been effected before, but determine that something original is the only thing worthy of them, because unexpected.
[-38-] "Seeing this, then, Conscript Fathers, let us no longer delay nor fall a prey to the indolence that the moment inspires, but let us take thought for the safety that concerns the future. Surely it is a shame when Caesar, who has just emerged from boyhood and was recently registered among those having attained years of discretion, shows such great interest in the State as to spend his money and gather soldiers for its preservation that we should neither ourselves perform our duty nor coöperate with him even after obtaining a tangible proof of his good-will. Who is unaware that if he had not reached here with the soldiers from Campania, Antony would certainly have come rushing from Brundusium instanter, just as he was, and would have burst into our city with all his armies like a winter torrent?13 There is, moreover, a striking inconsistency in our conduct. Men who have long been campaigning voluntarily have put themselves at your service for the present crisis, regarding neither their age nor the wounds which they received in past years while fighting for you, and you both refuse to ratify the war in which these very men elected to serve, and show yourselves inferior to them, who are ready to face dangers; for while you praise the soldiers that detected the defilement of Antony and withdrew from him, though he was consul, and attached themselves to Caesar, (that is, to you through him), you shrink from voting for that which you say they were right in doing. Also we are grateful to Brutus that he did not even at the start admit Antony to Gaul, and is trying to repel him now that Antony confronts him with a force. Why in the world do we not ourselves do the same? Why do we not imitate the rest whom we praise for their sound judgment? There are only two courses open to us. [-39-] One is to say that all these men,—Caesar, I mean, and Brutus, the old soldiers, the legions,—have decided wrongly and ought to submit to punishment, because without our sanction or that of the people they have dared to offer armed resistance to their consul, some having deserted his standard, and others having been gathered against him. The other is to say that Antony by reason of his deeds has in our judgment long since admitted that he is our enemy and by public consent ought to be chastised by us all. No one can be ignorant that the latter decision is not only more just but more expedient for us. The man neither understands how to handle business himself (how or by what means could a person that lives in drunkenness and dicing?) nor has he any companion who is of any account. He loves only such as are like himself and makes them the confidants of all his open and secret undertakings. Also he is most cowardly in extreme dangers and most treacherous even to his intimate friends, neither of which qualities is suited for generalship or war. [-40-] Who can be unaware that this very man caused all our internal troubles and then shared the dangers to the slightest possible degree? He tarried long in Brundusium through cowardice, so that Caesar was isolated and on account of him almost failed: likewise he held aloof from all succeeding wars,—that against the Egyptians, against Pharnaces, the African, and the Spanish. Who is unaware that he won the favor of Clodius, and after using the latter's tribuneship for the most outrageous ends would have killed him with his own hand, if I had accepted this promise from him? Again, in the matter of Caesar, he was first associated with him as quaestor, when Caesar was praetor in Spain, next attached himself to him during the tribuneship, contrary to the liking of us all, and later received from him countless money and excessive honors: in return for this he tried to inspire his patron with a desire for supremacy, which led to talk against him and was more than anything else responsible for Caesar's death.
[-41-] "Yet he once stated that it was I who directed the assassins to their work. He is so senseless as to venture to invent so great praise for me. And I for my part do not affirm that he was the actual slayer of Caesar,—not because he was not willing, but because in this, too, he was timid,—yet by the very course of his actions I say that Caesar perished at his hands. For this is the man who provided a motive, so that there seemed to be some justice in plotting against him, this is he who called him 'king', who gave him the diadem, who previously slandered him actually to his friends. Do I rejoice at the death of Caesar, I, who never enjoyed anything but liberty at his hands, and is Antony grieved, who has rapaciously seized his whole property and committed many injuries on the pretext of his letters, and is finally hastening to succeed to his position of ruler?