ly on the whole face of the earth. He
has Gaul most bitterly hostile to him, he has even those men the
people beyond the Po, in whom he placed the greatest reliance,
entirely alienated from him, all Italy is his enemy. Foreign nations,
from the nearest coast of Greece to Egypt, are occupied by the
military command and armies of most virtuous and intrepid citizens.
His only hope was in Caius Antonius; who being in age the middle one
between his two brothers, rivalled both of them in vices. He hastened
away as if he were being driven away by the senate into Macedonia, not
as if he were prohibited from proceeding thither. What a storm, O
ye immortal gods! what a conflagration! what a devastation! what a
pestilence to Greece would that man have been, if incredible and
godlike virtue had not checked the enterprise and audacity of that
frantic man. What promptness was there in Brutus's conduct! what
prudence! what valour! Although the rapidity of the movement of Caius
Antonius also is not despicable; for if some vacant inheritance had
not delayed him on his march, you might have said that he had flown
rather than travelled. When we desire other men to go forth to
undertake any public business, we are scarcely able to get them out
of the city; but we have driven this man out by the mere fact of our
desiring to retain him. But what business had he with Apollonia? what
business had he with Dyrrachium? or with Illyricum? What had he to
do with the army of Publius Vatinius, our general? He, as he said
himself, was the successor of Hortensius. The boundaries of Macedonia
are well defined; the condition of the proconsul is well known; the
amount of his army, if he has any at all, is fixed. But what had
Antonius to do at all with Illyricum and with the legions of Vatinius?

But Brutus had nothing to do with them either. For that, perhaps, is
what some worthless man may say. All the legions, all the forces which
exist anywhere, belong to the Roman people. Nor shall those legions
which have quitted Marcus Antonius be called the legions of Antonius
rather than of the republic; for he loses all power over his army, and
all the privileges of military command, who uses that military command
and that army to attack the republic.

VI. But if the republic itself could give a decision, or if all rights
were established by its decrees, would it adjudge the legions of
the Roman people to Antonius or to Brutus? The one had flown with
precipitat