hen he was absent. And if I had been
able to prevail on him in either of these particulars, we should never
have fallen into our present miseries.

Moreover, I also, when Pompeius had now devoted to the service of
Caesar all his own power, and all the power of the Roman people, and
had begun when it was too late to perceive all those things which I
had foreseen long before, and when I saw that a nefarious war was
about to be waged against our country, I never ceased to be the
adviser of peace, and concord, and some arrangement. And that language
of mine was well known to many people,--"I wish, O Cnaeus Pompeius,
that you had either never joined in a confederacy with Caius Caesar,
or else that you had never broken it off. The one conduct would have
become your dignity, and the other would have been suited to your
prudence." This, O Marcus Antonius, was at all times my advice both
respecting Pompeius and concerning the republic. And if it had
prevailed, the republic would still be standing, and you would have
perished through your own crimes, and indigence, and infamy.

XI. But these are all old stories now. This charge, however, is quite
a modern one, that Caesar was slain by my contrivance. I am afraid, O
conscript fathers, lest I should appear to you to have brought up a
sham accuser against myself (which is a most disgraceful thing to do);
a man not only to distinguish me by the praises which are my due, but
to load me also with those which do not belong to me. For who ever
heard my name mentioned as an accomplice in that most glorious action?
and whose name has been concealed who was in the number of that
gallant band? Concealed, do I say? Whose name was there which was not
at once made public? I should sooner say that some men had boasted in
order to appear to have been concerned in that conspiracy, though they
had in reality known nothing of it, than that any one who had been
an accomplice in it could have wished to be concealed. Moreover, how
likely it is, that among such a number of men, some obscure, some
young men who had not the wit to conceal any one, my name could
possibly have escaped notice! Indeed, if leaders were wanted for
the purpose of delivering the country, what need was there of my
instigating the Bruti, one of whom saw every day in his house the
image of Lucius Brutus, and the other saw also the image of Ahala?
Were these the men to seek counsel from the ancestors of others rather
than from thei