in consequence of your
recent service they had banished all recollection of their former
indignation. Could you, O Dolabella, (it is with great concern that I
speak,)--could you, I say, forfeit this dignity with equanimity?

XIII. And you, O Marcus Antonius, (I address myself to you, though
in your absence,) do you not prefer that day on which the senate was
assembled in the temple of Tellus, to all those months during which
some who differ greatly in opinion from me think that you have been
happy? What a noble speech was that of yours about unanimity! From
what apprehensions were the veterans, and from what anxiety was the
whole state relieved by you on that occasion! when, having laid aside
your enmity against him, you on that day first consented that your
present colleague should be your colleague, forgetting that the
auspices had been announced by yourself as augur of the Roman people;
and when your little son was sent by you to the Capitol to be a
hostage for peace. On what day was the senate ever more joyful than on
that day? or when was the Roman people more delighted? which had never
met in greater numbers in any assembly whatever. Then, at last, we did
appear to have been really delivered by brave men, because, as they
had willed it to be, peace was following liberty On the next day, on
the day after that, on the third day, and on all the following days,
you went on without intermission giving every day, as it were, some
fresh present to the republic, but the greatest of all presents was
that, when you abolished the name of the dictatorship. This was in
effect branding the name of the dead Caesar with everlasting ignominy,
and it was your doing,--yours, I say. For as, on account of the
wickedness of one Marcus Manlius, by a resolution of the Manlian
family it is unlawful that any patrician should be called Manlius, so
you, on account of the hatred excited by one dictator, have utterly
abolished the name of dictator.

When you had done these mighty exploits for the safety of the
republic, did you repent of your fortune, or of the dignity and renown
and glory which you had acquired? Whence then is this sudden change? I
cannot be induced to suspect that you have been caught by the desire
of acquiring money; every one may say what he pleases, but we are not
bound to believe such a thing; for I never saw anything sordid or
anything mean in you. Although a man's intimate friends do sometimes
corrupt his natural dis