respect with more arrogance than suits his
character. For if he alarms us with his army, he is forgetting that
that army belongs to the senate, and to the Roman people, and to the
whole republic, not to himself. "But he has the power to use it as
if it were his own." What then? Does it become virtuous men to do
everything which it is in their power to do? Suppose it be a base
thing? Suppose it be a mischievous thing? Suppose it be absolutely
unlawful to do it?

But what can be more base, or more shameful, or more utterly
unbecoming, than to lead an army against the senate, against one's
fellow-citizens, against one's country? Or what can deserve greater
blame than doing that which is unlawful? But it is not lawful for any
one to lead an army against his country? if indeed we say that that is
lawful which is permitted by the laws or by the usages and established
principles of our ancestors. For it does not follow that whatever
a man has power to do is lawful for him to do; nor, if he be not
hindered, is he on that account permitted to do so. For to you, O
Lepidus, as to your ancestors, your country has given an army to be
employed in her cause. With this army you are to repel the enemy, you
are to extend the boundaries of the empire, you are to obey the senate
and people of Rome, if by any chance they direct you to some other
object.

VII. If these are your thoughts, then are you really Marcus Lepidus
the Pontifex Maximus, the great-grandson of Marcus Lepidus, Pontifex
Maximus. If you judge that everything is lawful for men to do that
they have the power to do, then beware lest you seem to prefer acting
on precedents set by those who have no connexion with you, and these,
too, modern precedents, to being guided by the ancient examples in
your own family. But if you interpose your authority without having
recourse to arms, in that case indeed I praise you more; but beware
lest this thing itself be quite unnecessary. For although there is all
the authority in you that there ought to be in a man of the highest
rank, still the senate itself does not despise itself; nor was it ever
more wise, more firm, more courageous. We are all hurried on with the
most eager zeal to recover our freedom. Such a general ardour on the
part of the senate and people of Rome cannot be extinguished by the
authority of any one: we hate a man who would extinguish it; we are
angry with him, and resist him; our arms cannot be wrested from our
han