to tell me, O Lucius Caesar,--I am
aware that I am arguing with a man of the greatest experience,--when
did the senate ever confer a military command on a private individual
who was in a state of inactivity, and doing nothing?

IX. However, I have been speaking hitherto to avoid the appearance of
gratuitously opposing a man who is a great friend of mine, and who has
showed me great kindness. Although, can one deny a thing to a person
who not only does not ask for it, but who even refuses it? But, O
conscript fathers, that proposition is unsuited to the dignity of the
consuls, unsuited to the critical character of the times, namely, the
proposition that the consuls, for the sake of pursuing Dolabella,
shall have the provinces of Asia and Syria allotted to them. I will
explain why it is inexpedient for the republic, but first of all,
consider what ignominy it fixes on the consuls. When a consul elect
is being besieged, when the safety of the republic depends upon his
liberation, when mischievous and parricidal citizens have revolted
from the republic, and when we are carrying on a war in which we are
fighting for our dignity, for our freedom, and for our lives, and
when, if any one falls into the power of Antonius, tortures and
torments are prepared for him, and when the struggle for all these
objects has been committed and entrusted to our most admirable and
gallant consuls,--shall any mention be made of Asia and Syria so
that we may appear to have given any injurious cause for others to
entertain suspicion of us, or to bring us into unpopularity? They do
indeed propose it, "after having liberated Brutus,"--for those were
the last words of the proposal, say rather, after having deserted,
abandoned, and betrayed him.

But I say that any mention whatever of any provinces has been made at
a most unseasonable time. For although your mind, O Caius Pausa, be
ever so intent, as indeed it is, on effecting the liberation of the
most true and illustrious of all men, still the nature of things would
compel you inevitably sometimes to turn your thoughts to the idea
of pursuing Antonius, and to divert some portion of your care and
attention to Asia and Syria. But if it were possible, I could wish you
to have more minds than one, and yet to direct them all upon Mutina.
But since that is impossible, I do wish you, with that most virtuous
and all accomplished mind which you have got, to think of nothing but
Brutus. And that indeed, i