o be able to rise again in the most honourable manner.

Can I, then, appear as cautious and as prudent as I ought to be if I
commit myself to a journey so full of enemies and dangers to me? Those
men who are concerned in the government of the republic ought at their
death to leave behind them glory, and not reproaches for their fault,
or grounds for blaming their folly. What good man is there who does
not mourn for the death of Trebonius? Who is there who does not grieve
for the loss of such a citizen and such a man? But there are men who
say, (hastily indeed, but still they do say so,) that he deserves to
be grieved for less because he did not take precautions against a
desperately wicked man. In truth, a man who professes to be himself a
defender of many men, wise men say, ought in the first place to show
himself able to protect his own life. I say, that when one is fenced
round by the laws and by the fear of justice, a man is not bound to be
afraid of everything, or to take precautions against all imaginable
designs; for who would dare to attack a man in daylight, on a military
road, or a man who was well attended, or an illustrious man? But these
considerations have no bearing on the present time, nor in my case;
for not only would a man who offered violence to me have no fear of
punishment, but he would even hope to obtain glory and rewards from
those bands of robbers.

XI. These dangers I can guard against in the city; it is easy for me
to look around and see where I am going out from, whither I am going,
what there is on my right hand, and on my left. Shall I be able to do
the same on the roads of the Apennines? in which, even if there should
be no ambush, as there easily may be, still my mind will be kept in
such a state of anxiety as not to be able to attend to the duties of
an embassy. But suppose I have escaped all plots against me, and have
passed over the Apennines; still I have to encounter a meeting and
conference with Antonius. What place am I to select? If it is outside
the camp, the rest may look to themselves,--I think that death would
come upon me instantly. I know the frenzy of the man; I know his
unbridled violence. The ferocity of his manners and the savageness of
his nature is not usually softened even by wine. Then, inflamed by
anger and insanity, with his brother Lucius, that foulest of beasts,
at his side, he will never keep his sacrilegious and impious hands
from me. I can recollect conferen