ll say nothing of what is past. Let the ambassadors
hasten, as I see that they are about to do. Do you prepare your
robes of war. For it has been decreed, that, if he does not obey
the authority of the senate, we are all to betake our selves to our
military dress. And we shall have to do so. He will never obey. And we
shall lament that we have lost so many days, when we might have been
doing something.

IV I have no fear, O Romans, that when Antonius hears that I have
asserted, both in the senate and in the assembly of the people, that
he never will submit himself to the power of the senate, he will, for
the sake of disproving my words, and making me to appeal to have had
no foresight, alter his behaviour and obey the senate. He will never
do so. He will not grudge me this part of my reputation, he will
prefer letting me be thought wise by you to being thought modest
himself. Need I say more? Even if he were willing to do so himself,
do you think that his brother Lucius would permit him? It has been
reported that lately at Tibur, when Marcus Antonius appeared to him to
be wavering, he, Lucius, threatened his brother with death. And do
we suppose that the orders of the senate, and the words of the
ambassadors, will be listened to by this Asiatic gladiator? It will be
impossible for him to be separated from a brother, especially from one
of so much authority. For he is another Africanus among them. He is
considered of more influence than Lucius Trebellius, of more than
Titus Plancus [lacuna] a noble young man. As for Plancus, who, having
been condemned by the unanimous vote of every one, amid the
overpowering applause of you yourselves, somehow or other got mixed up
in this crowd, and returned with a countenance so sorrowful, that he
appeared to have been dragged back rather than to have returned, he
despises him to such degree, as if he were interdicted from fire and
water. At times he says that that man who set the senate house on fire
has no right to a place in the senate house. For at this moment he is
exceedingly in love with Trebellius. He hated him some time ago, when
he was opposing an abolition of debts, but now he delights in him,
ever since he has seen that Trebellius himself cannot continue in
safety without an abolition of debts. For I think that you have heard,
O Romans, what indeed you may possibly have seen, that the sureties
and creditors of Lucius Trebellius meet every day. Oh confidence! for
I imagine