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 g