f any one could take from you this habit of disparaging good men
on almost every occasion, then what qualities would not be left to
you which every one would desire for himself? Do, then, recollect
yourself, do at last soften and quiet that disposition of yours, do
take the advice of good men, with many of whom you are intimate, do
converse with that wisest of men, your own son in-law, oftener than
with yourself, and then you will obtain the name of a man of the very
highest character. Do you think it a matter of no consequence, (it
is a matter in which I, out of the friendship which I feel you,
constantly grieve in your stead,) that this should be commonly said
out of doors, and should be a common topic of conversation among the
Roman people, that the man who delivered his opinion first did not
find a single person to agree with him? And that I think will be the
case to day.

You propose to take the legions away from Brutus--which legions? Why,
those which he has gained over from the wickedness of Caius Antonius,
and has by his own authority gained over to the republic. Do you wish
then that he should again appear to be the only person stripped of his
authority, and as it were banished by the senate? And you, O conscript
fathers, if you abandon and betray Marcus Brutus, what citizen in the
world will you ever distinguish? Whom will you ever favour? Unless,
indeed, you think that those men who put a diadem on a man's head
deserve to be preserved, and those who have abolished the very name of
kingly power deserve to be abandoned. And of this divine and immortal
glory of Marcus Brutus I will say no more, it is already embalmed in
the grateful recollection of all the citizens, but it has not yet been
sanctioned by any formal act of public authority. Such patience! O ye
good gods! such moderation! such tranquillity and submission under
injury! A man who, while he was praetor of the city, was driven from
the city, was prevented from sitting as judge in legal proceedings,
when it was he who had restored all law to the republic, and, though
he might have been hedged round by the daily concourse of all virtuous
men, who were constantly flocking round him in marvellous numbers, he
preferred to be defended in his absence by the judgment of the good,
to being present and protected by their force,--who was not even
present to celebrate the games to Apollo, which had been prepared in
a manner suitable to his own dignity and to that