s to have all the profits, and
kindnesses, and privileges of his kingdom on sale? But what immunity
is there, what rights of citizenship, what rewards that this man has
not sold to individuals, and to cities, and to entire provinces?
We have never heard of anything base or sordid being imputed to
Tarquinius. But at the house of this man gold was constantly being
weighed out in the spinning room, and money was being paid, and in
one single house every soul who had any interest in the business was
selling the whole empire of the Roman people. We have never heard of
any executions of Roman citizens by the orders of Tarquinius, but this
man both at Suessa murdered the man whom he had thrown into prison,
and at Brundusium massacred about three hundred most gallant men and
most virtuous citizens. Lastly, Tarquinius was conducting a war in
defence of the Roman people at the very time when he was expelled.
Antonius was leading an army against the Roman people at the time
when, being abandoned by the legions, he cowered at the name of Caesar
and at his army, and neglecting the regular sacrifices, he offered up
before daylight vows which he could never mean to perform, and at
this very moment he is endeavouring to invade a province of the Roman
people. The Roman people, therefore, has already received and is still
looking for greater services at the hand of Decimus Brutus than our
ancestors received from Lucius Brutus, the founder of this race and
name which we ought to be so anxious to preserve.

V. But, while all slavery is miserable, to be slave to a man who is
profligate, unchaste, effeminate, never, not even while in fear,
sober, is surely intolerable. He, then, who keeps this man out of
Gaul, especially by his own private authority, judges, and judges most
truly, that he is not consul at all. We must take care, therefore, O
conscript fathers, to sanction the private decision of Decimus Brutus
by public authority. Nor, indeed, ought you to have thought Marcus
Antonius consul at any time since the Lupercalia. For on the day
when he, in the sight of the Roman people, harangued the mob, naked,
perfumed, and drunk, and laboured moreover to put a crown on the head
of his colleague, on that day he abdicated not only the consulship,
but also his own freedom. At all events he himself must at once have
become a slave, if Caesar had been willing to accept from him that
ensign of royalty. Can I then think him a consul, can I think him