ore adverse decisions, O Marcus Antonius, can you want? Caesar, who
has levied an army against you, is extolled to the skies. The legions
are praised in the most complimentary manner, which have abandoned you,
which were sent for into Italy by you, and which, if you had been chosen
to be a consul rather than an enemy, were wholly devoted to you. And the
fearless and honest decision of those legions is confirmed by the Senate
and is approved of by the whole Roman people. Do you suppose that the
municipal towns and the colonies and the prefectures have any other
opinion? All men are agreed with one mind, so that every one who wishes
the State to be saved must take every sort of arms against that
pestilence. What, does the opinion of Decimus Brutus which has this day
reached us appear to any one deserving of being lightly esteemed? The
family and name of Brutus has been by some especial kindness and
liberality of the immortal gods given to the republic, for the purpose
of at one time establishing, and at another of recovering, the liberty
of the Roman people. What has been the opinion which Decimus Brutus has
formed of Marcus Antonius? He excludes him from his province. He opposes
him with his army. He rouses all Gaul to war, which is already aroused
of its own accord, and in consequence of the judgment which it has
already formed. If Antonius be consul, Brutus is an enemy. Can we then
doubt which of these alternatives is the fact?

And just as you now with one mind and one voice affirm that you
entertain no doubt, so did the Senate just now decree that Decimus
Brutus deserved excellently well of the republic, inasmuch as he was
defending the authority of the Senate and the liberty and empire of the
Roman people. Defending it against whom? Why, against an enemy. For what
other sort of defense deserves praise? In the next place the province of
Gaul is praised and is deservedly complimented in most honorable
language by the Senate for resisting Antonius. But if that province
considered him the consul, and still refused to receive him it would be
guilty of great wickedness. For all the provinces belong to the consul
of right, and are bound to obey him. Decimus Brutus, imperator and
consul-elect, a citizen born for the republic, denies that he is consul.
Gaul denies it. All Italy denies it. The Senate denies it. You deny it.
Who then thinks he is consul except a few robbers? I think that at
present not only men but the immortal