lic overwhelmed if so many men of such impiety, of such
audacity, and such guilt, were admitted into it? Can you think that
men whom we could hardly bear when they were not yet polluted with
such parricidal treasons; will be able to be borne by the city now
that they are immersed in every sort of wickedness? Believe me, we
must either adopt your plan, and retire, depart, embrace a life of
indigence and wandering, or else we must offer our throats to those
robbers, and perish in our country. What has become, O Carus Pansa, of
those noble exhortations of yours, by which the senate was roused, and
the Roman people stimulated, not only hearing but also learning from
you that there is nothing more disgraceful to a Roman than slavery?
Was it for this that we assumed the garb of war, and took arms and
roused up all the youth all over Italy, in order that while we had a
most flourishing and numerous army, we might send ambassadors to treat
for peace? If that peace is to be received by others, why do we not
wait to be entreated for it? If our ambassadors are to beg it, what is
it that we are afraid of? Shall I make one of this embassy, or shall I
be mixed up with this design, in which, even if I should dissent from
the rest of my colleagues, the Roman people will not know it? The
result will be that if anything be granted or conceded, it will be my
danger if Antonius commits any offences, since the power to commit
them will seem to have been put in his hands by me.

But even if it had been proper to entertain any idea of peace with the
piratical crew of Marcus Antonius, still I was the last person who
ought to have been selected to negotiate such a peace. I never voted
for sending ambassadors. Before the return of the last ambassadors I
ventured to say, that peace itself, even if they did bring it, ought
to be repudiated, since war would be concealed under the name of
peace; I was the chief adviser of the adoption of the garb of war, I
have invariably called that man a public enemy, when others have been
calling him only an adversary, I have always pronounced this to be a
war, while others have styled it only a tumult Nor have I done this
in the senate alone; I have always acted in the same way before the
people. Nor have I spoken against himself only, but also against the
accomplices in and agents of his crimes, whether present here, or
there with him. In short, I have at all times inveighed against the
whole family and party o