for his
excellence? Where did you learn that this was just, or where did you read
that this was lawful?

[-14-] "'But he did not rightly use his position as master of horse.'
Why? 'Because,' he answers, 'he bought Pompey's possessions.' How many
others are there who purchased numberless articles, no one of whom
is blamed? That was the purpose in confiscating certain articles and
exposing them in the market and proclaiming them by the voice of the
public crier, to have somebody buy them. 'But Pompey's goods ought not to
have been sold.' Then it was we who erred and did wrong in confiscating
them; or (to clear your skirts and ours) it was at least Caesar who acted
irregularly, he who ordered this to be done: yet you did not censure him
at all. I maintain that in this charge he is proven to be absolutely
beside himself. He has brought against Antony two quite opposite
accusations,--one, that after helping Caesar in very many ways and
receiving in return vast gifts from him he was then required under
compulsion to surrender the price of them, and the second, that he
inherited naught from his father, spent all that he had like Charybdis
(the speaker is always bringing in some comparison from Sicily, as if we
had forgotten that he had been exiled there), and paid the price of all
that he purchased.

[-15-] "So in these charges this remarkable orator is convicted of
violently contradicting himself and, by Jupiter, again in the following
statements. At one time he says that Antony took part in everything
that was done by Caesar and by this means became more than any one else
responsible for all our internal evils, and again he charges him with
cowardice, reproaching him with not having shared in any other exploits
than those performed in Thessaly. And he makes a complaint against him to
the effect that he restored some of the exiles and finds fault with him
because he did not secure the recall of his uncle; as if any one believes
that he would not have restored him first of all, if he had been able to
recall whomsoever he pleased, since there was no grievance on either side
between them, as this speaker himself knows. Indeed, though he told many
wretched lies about Antony, he did not dare to say anything of that kind.
But he is utterly reckless about letting slip anything that comes to his
tongue's end, as if it were mere breath.

[-16-] "Why should one follow this line of refutation further? Turning
now to the fact that he