o undertake an embassy. And no wonder,
O Publius Servilius. For by your own most true and most weighty
arguments Antonius was stripped, I do not say of all dignity, but of
even every hope of safety. Who would not wonder if you were to go
as an ambassador to him? I judge by my own case, for with regard to
myself I see how the same design as you conceived is found fault with.
And are we the only people blamed? What? did that most gallant man
speak so long and so precisely a little while ago without any reason?
What was he labouring for, except to remove from himself a groundless
suspicion of treachery? And whence did that suspicion arise? From his
unexpected advocacy of peace, which he adopted all on a sudden, being
taken in by the same error that we were.

But if an error has been committed, O conscript fathers, owing to a
groundless and fallacious hope, let us return into the right road. The
best harbour for a penitent is a change of intention.

III. For what, in the name of the immortal gods! what good can our
embassy do to the republic? What good, do I say? What will you say if
it will even do us harm? _Will_ do us harm? What if it already _has_
done us harm? Do you suppose that that most energetic and fearless
desire shown by the Roman people for recovery of their liberty has
been damped and weakened by hearing of this embassy for peace? What
do you think the municipal towns feel? and the colonies? What do you
think will be the feelings of all Italy? Do you suppose that it will
continue to glow with the same zeal with which it burnt before to
extinguish this common conflagration? Do we not suppose that those
men will repent of having professed and displayed so much hatred to
Antonius, who promised us money and arms, who devoted themselves
wholly, body, heart, and soul, to the safety of the republic? How will
Capua, which at the present time feels like a second Rome, approve of
this design of yours? That city pronounced them impious citizens, cast
them out, and kept them out. Antonius was barely saved from the hands
of that city, which made a most gallant attempt to crush him. Need I
say more? Are we not by these proceedings cutting the sinews of our
own legions, for what man can engage with ardour in a war, when the
hope of peace is suggested to him? Even that godlike and divine
Martial legion will grow languid at and be cowed by the receipt of
this news, and will lose that most noble title of Martial, their
swords