Sixth Philippic
Philippica VI
Headnote
The popular counterpart to the Fifth Philippic, delivered to the people in the Forum on 4 January 43 BC, three days after the great senatorial debate of the Kalends. The Senate had met on 1 January under the new consuls Aulus Hirtius and Gaius Vibius Pansa, in the temple of Concord, to take up the war against Antony. Cicero (Philippic 5) had argued for an immediate declaration of a tumultus, with iustitium and saga and a levy — the full apparatus of war — against Antony at Mutina. Quintus Fufius Calenus, the consular father-in-law of Pansa, had moved instead that legates be sent. The debate ran for three days; today, on 4 January, the Senate had at last carried the legation, sending Servius Sulpicius Rufus, Lucius Calpurnius Piso, and Lucius Marcius Philippus to Antony with the terms Antony was to obey: quit Mutina, quit Gaul, withdraw to within two hundred miles of Rome, submit himself to the will of the Senate and the Roman people. Cicero had lost his motion. The Sixth Philippic is the speech he gave the same day, in the Forum, to report to the people what had been decided and to explain why they should nevertheless not lose heart.
The shape is short — nineteen sections — and divided into three unequal parts. §1–9 are the report and the case against the legation: the matter has been decided, but less severely than was fitting, the war is delayed but not its cause removed (§1); the legation is in substance a notice of war, like the embassy the Senate once sent to Hannibal not to attack Saguntum (§4, 6); Antony will not obey, for he has never obeyed his own judgment, let alone anyone else’s (§4–5); the brigand- gladiator language of the Fourth Philippic is renewed (gladiator, §3; importunissima belua, §7); Decimus Brutus, the consul-elect now penned in Mutina, is the test — a Brutus born for liberty and not for his own leisure (§8–9). §10–15 turn aside into the catalogue of Lucius Antonius’s statues — the murmillo brother who is the Africanus of the Antonine inner circle — a sustained set-piece of public ridicule: the gilded equestrian statue erected by the thirty- five tribes inscribed To their patron from the thirty- five tribes (§12); the Forum statue, in front of the temple of Castor, beside that of Quintus Tremulus who conquered the Hernici (§13); the equestrian-order statue with its inscription to their patron (§13); the military-tribunes’ statue, set up by men who had served twice in Caesar’s army and to whom Antony had divided up the Semurium estate (§14); and the palmaris statue, the consummate one, by the moneylenders of the Middle Janus, inscribed To Lucius Antonius, from the Middle Janus, their patron (§15). Each is named by name, each ridiculed. The Trebellius section (§11) is the bridge: a man who took fides as his cognomen and lives by defrauding his creditors. §16–19 close with the hortatory turn: wait a few days for the legates to come back; when they bring back the inevitable report of Antony’s refusal, the case for war will be made for us; meanwhile the unanimity of the people, the Senate, the orders, the colonies, all Italy, is so great that no hour more can be delayed. The final word is libertas: Other nations can bear slavery; liberty belongs to the Roman people by right.
The register is the register of the contio: shorter periods than the senatorial debate, named persons named, jokes told (the Trebellius O fides!, the imagined moneylender of the Middle Janus, the Mylasa murmillo cutting his friend’s throat), the structural drumbeat of Quirites sustained through almost every section. The speech runs throughout on the tension between what Cicero proposed in the Senate and what the Senate carried: minus severe quam decuit, non tamen omnino dissolute (§1) is the controlled, slightly bitter judgment that opens the speech and is restated at §7 (non omnino dissolutum est quod decrevit senatus: habet atrocitatis aliquid legatio: utinam nihil haberet morae). Cicero is making the best of a compromise he opposed; the report to the people is also a holding action — a few days only, the cloaks will be put on, the war will come, and meanwhile the man being notified is precisely the man who will not be notified.
The legation in fact returned almost at once. Servius Sulpicius Rufus, the great jurist, died on the road; Piso and Philippus reached Antony and were rebuffed — Antony added his own counter-demands (consular province of Further Gaul, the veteran lands, immunity for his acts) and refused the Senate’s terms. By 2 February the legates were back; on 3 February the Senate, addressed by Cicero in the Eighth Philippic, finally decreed tumultus. The drum-rhythm Cicero set going in this contio — a few days, then the cloaks — played out exactly as he had told the people it would.
I think you have heard, citizens, what was done in the Senate, what each man’s opinion was. For the matter, debated since the Kalends of January, was concluded a little while ago — less severely, indeed, than was fitting, but still not altogether weakly. A delay has been brought to the war, not its cause removed. So what Publius Apuleius asked of me — a man joined to me by many services and by the closest familiarity, and a great friend to you — I will answer in such a way that you may learn the things at which you were not present. The most resolute and excellent consuls had cause, on the Kalends of January, to bring the matter of the commonwealth before the Senate first, because of what the Senate, on my motion, decreed on the thirteenth day before the Kalends of January.
audita vobis esse arbitror, Quirites, quae sint acta in senatu, quae fuerit cuiusque sententia. res enim ex Kalendis Ianuariis agitata paulo ante confecta est, minus quidem illa severe quam decuit, non tamen omnino dissolute. mora est adlata bello, non causa sublata. quam ob rem, quod quaesivit ex me P. Apuleius, homo et multis officiis mihi et summa familiaritate coniunctus et vobis amicissimus, ita respondebo ut ea quibus non interfuistis nosse possitis. causa fortissimis optimisque consulibus Kalendis Ianuariis de re publica primum referendi fuit ex eo quod a. d. xiii. Kalendas Ianuarias senatus me auctore decrevit.
On that day, citizens, for the first time the foundations of the commonwealth were laid: for after a long interval the Senate was so free that you too at last could be free. At that time, even had that day been about to bring me the end of my life, I had received reward great enough, when you all together with one mind and voice cried out that the commonwealth had again been preserved by me. Roused by that so great and so signal judgment of yours, I came into the Senate on the Kalends of January so that I might remember what part you had imposed upon me to sustain. And so, when I saw a nefarious war waged against the commonwealth, I thought no delay should be interposed in pursuing Marcus Antonius, and I judged that this most reckless man — who, after committing many nefarious acts before, was now in this hour attacking a commander of the Roman people and besieging your most faithful and most valiant colony — should be pursued by war: I decreed that a state of tumult should be declared; I said that the courts should be suspended, the military cloaks taken up, so that all might more keenly and more weightily press on to the avenging of the wrongs done to the commonwealth, if they saw every mark of the gravest war taken up by the Senate.
eo die primum, Quirites, fundamenta sunt iacta rei publicae: fuit enim longo intervallo ita liber senatus ut vos aliquando liberi essetis. quo quidem tempore, etiam si ille dies vitae finem mihi adlaturus esset, satis magnum ceperam fructum, cum vos universi una mente atque voce iterum a me conservatam esse rem publicam conclamastis. hoc vestro iudicio tanto tamque praeclaro excitatus ita Kalendis Ianuariis veni in senatum ut meminissem quam personam impositam a vobis sustinerem. itaque bellum nefarium inlatum rei publicae cum viderem, nullam moram interponendam insequendi M. Antonium putavi, hominemque audacissimum qui multis nefariis rebus ante commissis hoc tempore imperatorem populi Romani oppugnaret, coloniam vestram fidissimam fortissimamque obsideret, bello censui persequendum: tumultum esse decrevi; iustitium edici, saga sumi dixi placere, quo omnes acrius graviusque incumberent ad ulciscendas rei publicae iniurias, si omnia gravissimi belli insignia suscepta a senatu viderent.
This opinion, citizens, so prevailed for three days that, although no division had been taken, nevertheless except for a few all seemed about to assent to me. But today, by some hope or other thrown in their way, the Senate was more relaxed. For more men followed the opinion that we should test, through legates, how much the authority of the Senate and your unanimity would weigh with Antony. I understand, citizens, that this opinion is rejected by you, and not unjustly. For to whom shall we send legates? To the man who, after squandering and pouring out the public money, after imposing on the commonwealth laws by force and against the auspices, after scattering an assembly, after besieging the Senate, summoned legions from Brundisium to crush the commonwealth — and, abandoned by them, broke into Gaul with a band of brigands, attacks Brutus, blockades Mutina? What common ground of terms, of fair dealing, of negotiation can you have with this gladiator?
itaque haec sententia, Quirites, sic per triduum valuit ut, quamquam discessio facta non esset, tamen praeter paucos omnes mihi adsensuri viderentur. hodierno autem die spe nescio qua eis obiecta remissior senatus fuit. nam plures eam sententiam secuti sunt ut, quantum senatus auctoritas vesterque consensus apud Antonium valiturus esset, per legatos experiremur. intellego, Quirites, a vobis hanc sententiam repudiari, neque iniuria. ad quem enim legatos? ad eumne qui pecunia publica dissipata atque effusa per vim et contra auspicia impositis rei publicae legibus, fugata contione, obsesso senatu, ad opprimendam rem publicam Brundisio legiones arcessierit; ab eis relictus cum latronum manu in Galliam inruperit, Brutum oppugnet, Mutinam circumsedeat? quae vobis potest cum hoc gladiatore condicionis, aequitatis, legationis esse communitas?
Although, citizens, that is no legation, but a denunciation of war if he does not obey: for it was so decreed, as though legates were being sent to Hannibal. For men are being sent to give him notice not to attack the consul-elect, not to blockade Mutina, not to lay waste the province, not to hold a levy, to be in the power of the Senate and the Roman people. Easily, of course, will he obey this notice — so as to be in the power of the senators and in yours, the man who has never been in his own! For what has he ever done by his own judgment? He has always been dragged where lust dragged him, where fickleness, where frenzy, where drunkenness; two unlike kinds of men have always held him, pimps and brigands; he so delights in domestic adulteries and in public murders, that he sooner obeyed a most rapacious woman than the Senate and the Roman people.
quamquam, Quirites, non est illa legatio, sed denuntiatio belli, nisi paruerit: ita enim est decretum ut si legati ad Hannibalem mitterentur. mittuntur enim qui nuntient ne oppugnet consulem designatum, ne Mutinam obsideat, ne provinciam depopuletur, ne dilectus habeat, sit in senatus populique Romani potestate. facile vero huic denuntiationi parebit, ut in patrum conscriptorum atque in vestra potestate sit qui in sua numquam fuerit! quid enim ille umquam arbitrio suo fecit? semper eo tractus est quo libido rapuit, quo levitas, quo furor, quo vinolentia; semper eum duo dissimilia genera tenuerunt, lenonum et latronum; ita domesticis stupris, forensibus parricidiis delectatur ut mulieri citius avarissimae paruerit quam senatui populoque Romano.
So, what I did a little while ago in the Senate, I will do before you. I testify, I give warning, I foretell that Marcus Antonius will do none of the things which are entrusted to the legates; he will lay waste the fields, he will besiege Mutina, he will hold levies wherever he can. For he is the man who has always despised the judgment and the authority of the Senate, always despised your will and your power. Or will he do what was just now decreed — that he should lead his army across the river Rubicon, which is the boundary of Gaul, provided that he should bring it no nearer the city of Rome than two hundred miles? Shall he obey this notice, shall he allow himself to be circumscribed by the Rubicon and by two hundred miles?
itaque, quod paulo ante feci in senatu, faciam apud vos. testificor, denuntio, ante praedico nihil M. Antonium eorum quae sunt legatis mandata facturum; vastaturum agros, Mutinam obsessurum, dilectus qua possit habiturum. is est enim ille qui semper senatus iudicium et auctoritatem, semper voluntatem vestram potestatemque contempserit. an ille id faciat quod paulo ante decretum est, ut exercitum citra flumen Rubiconem, qui finis est Galliae, educeret, dum ne propius urbem Romam cc milia admoveret? huic denuntiationi ille pareat, ille se fluvio Rubicone et cc milibus circumscriptum esse patiatur?
Not such a man is Antony; for if he were, the Senate would not have come to give him notice, as it did to Hannibal at the outset of the Punic War, not to attack Saguntum. But that he is being called off from Mutina in such a way as to be kept from the city like a deadly fire — what ignominy that carries, what a judgment of the Senate! What of this, that the Senate gives the legates instructions to approach Decimus Brutus and his soldiers, and to demonstrate to them that their highest services and benefits to the commonwealth are pleasing to the Senate and the Roman people, and that this thing will be to them for great praise and great honour? Do you suppose Antony will allow the legates to enter Mutina, to depart from there in safety? He will never allow it, believe me. I know his violence, I know his shamelessness, I know his audacity.
non is est Antonius; nam si esset, non commisisset ut ei senatus tamquam Hannibali initio belli Punici denuntiaret ne oppugnaret Saguntum. quod vero ita avocatur a Mutina ut ab urbe tamquam pestifera flamma arceatur, quam habet ignominiam, quod iudicium senatus! quid, quod a senatu dantur mandata legatis ut D. Brutum milites que eius adeant eisque demonstrent summa in rem publicam merita beneficiaque eorum grata esse senatui populoque Romano eisque eam rem magnae laudi magnoque honori fore? passurumne censetis Antonium introire Mutinam legatos, exire inde tuto? numquam patietur, mihi credite. Novi violentiam, novi impudentiam, novi audaciam.
Nor indeed ought we to think of him as we do of any human being, but as of some most savage beast. Since these things are so, what the Senate has decreed is not altogether weak: the legation has some severity about it: would that it had no delay! For while in most matters to be done dilatoriness and procrastination are hateful, in this war above all dispatch is needed. Help must be brought to Decimus Brutus, every force from every quarter must be collected; we cannot, without crime, exhibit any delay in the liberation of so great a citizen.
nec vero de illo sicut de homine aliquo debemus, sed ut de importunissima belua cogitare. quae cum ita sint, non omnino dissolutum est quod decrevit senatus: habet atrocitatis aliquid legatio: utinam nihil haberet morae! nam cum plerisque in rebus gerendis tarditas et procrastinatio odiosa est, tum hoc bellum indiget celeritatis. succurrendum est D. Bruto, omnes undique copiae conligendae; moram exhibere ullam in tali cive liberando sine scelere non possumus.
Or could he not, had he judged Antony consul, and Gaul Antony’s province, have handed over his legions and the province to Antony, gone home, celebrated a triumph, given his opinion first in this order until he entered upon office?
an ille non potuit, si Antonium consulem, si Galliam Antoni provinciam iudicasset, legiones Antonio et provinciam tradere, domum redire, triumphare, primus in hoc ordine, quoad magistratum iniret, sententiam dicere?
What was there in it? But because he remembered that he was a Brutus, and was born for your liberty and not for his own leisure — what else did he do but, almost with his own body, keep Antony from Gaul? Should legates have gone to such a man, or legions? But let us pass over what is past: let the legates make haste, as I see they are going to do; you, prepare your cloaks. For it has been so decreed that, if Antony has not obeyed the authority of the Senate, we go to the cloaks. To them we shall go; he will not obey: we shall lament that so many days have been lost for action. I do not fear, citizens, that, when Antony has heard that I have affirmed this both in the Senate and in the assembly — that he will never be in the power of the Senate — he, to confute me, so that I may seem to have foreseen nothing, will turn about and obey the Senate. He will never do it; he will not begrudge me this glory; he would rather have me thought wise by you than himself thought temperate.
quid negoti fuit? sed cum se Brutum esse meminisset vestraeque libertati natum, non otio suo, quid egit aliud nisi ut paene corpore suo Gallia prohiberet Antonium? ad hunc utrum legatos an legiones ire oportebat? sed praeterita omittamus: properent legati, quod video esse facturos; vos saga parate. est enim ita decretum ut, si ille auctoritati senatus non paruisset, ad saga iretur. Ibitur; non parebit: nos amissos tot dies rei gerendae queremur. non metuo, Quirites, ne, cum audierit Antonius, me hoc et in senatu et in contione confirmasse, numquam illum futurum in senatus potestate, refellendi mei causa, ut ego nihil vidisse videar, vertat se et senatui pareat. numquam faciet; non invidebit huic meae gloriae; malet me sapientem a vobis quam se modestum existimari.
What? Even if he himself wished it, do we suppose his brother Lucius would suffer it? Lately, indeed, at Tibur, I think, when Marcus Antonius seemed to him to waver, he is said to have threatened his brother with death. Will even from this Asiatic murmillo the mandates of the Senate, the words of legates, be heard? For he will not be able to be sundered from his brother, especially with so great a weight of authority. For this man, among those of Antony’s circle, is an Africanus: he is reckoned more than Lucius Trebellius, more than Titus Plancus, than Extitius, a noble youth. Plancus, indeed — who, condemned by every vote amid your loudest applause, somehow flung himself into the crowd and so returned in mourning that he seemed dragged back rather than restored — Lucius despises as if Plancus had been interdicted from fire and water: he says at last that there ought to be no place in the curia for the man who set fire to the curia.
quid? ipse si velit, num etiam Lucium fratrem passurum arbitramur? nuper quidem dicitur ad Tibur, ut opinor, cum ei labare M. Antonius videretur, mortem fratri esse minitatus. etiamne ab hoc myrmillone Asiatico senatus mandata, legatorum verba audientur? nec enim secerni a fratre poterit, tanta praesertim auctoritate. nam hic inter illos Africanus est: pluris habetur quam L. Trebellius, pluris quam T. Plancus, quam Extitius, adolescens nobilis. Plancum quidem, qui omnibus sententiis maximo vestro plausu condemnatus nescio quo modo se coniecit in turbam atque ita maestus rediit ut retractus, non reversus videretur, sic contemnit tamquam si illi aqua et igni interdictum sit: aliquando negat ei locum esse oportere in curia qui incenderit curiam.
For Trebellius he now greatly cherishes; he used to hate him, when Trebellius opposed the abolition of debts; now he carries him in his eyes, after he saw that Trebellius himself could not be safe without the abolition of debts. For I think you have heard, citizens, what you have even been able to see — that every day the sureties and creditors of Lucius Trebellius gather together. O Faith! — for this, I think, is the cognomen Trebellius assumed — what greater faith can there be than to defraud your creditors, to flee from your house, to go to arms because of debt? Where is that applause at the triumph, often at the games, where is the aedileship conferred with the highest enthusiasm of the good? Who is there who does not think that this man acted rightly by accident, and criminally by his own depravity?
nam Trebellium valde iam diligit: oderat tum, cum ille tabulis novis adversabatur; iam fert in oculis, postea quam ipsum Trebellium vidit sine tabulis novis salvum esse non posse. audisse enim vos arbitror, Quirites, quod etiam videre potuistis, cotidie sponsores et creditores L. Trebelli convenire. O fide!—hoc enim opinor Trebellium sumpsisse cognomen—quae potest esse maior fides quam fraudare creditores, domo profugere, propter aes alienum ire ad arma? Vbi plausus ille in triumpho est, saepe ludis, ubi aedilitas delata summo studio bonorum? quis est qui hunc non casu existimet recte fecisse, nequitia sceleste.
But I return to your darling and delight, Lucius Antonius, who has taken you all into his trust. You deny it? Surely there is no one of you who does not have a tribe? Certainly none. And yet thirty-five tribes have adopted that man as their patron. Do you cry out again? Look at that gilded equestrian statue on your left, on which what is inscribed? To their patron from the thirty-five tribes. Then Lucius Antonius is the patron of the Roman people. An evil plague upon him! — for I assent to your cry. Not only is this brigand a man whom none would wish to have as a client, but who was ever of such great means, of such great deeds, that he would dare to call himself the patron of the Roman people, victor and lord of all nations?
sed redeo ad amores deliciasque vestras, L. Antonium, qui vos omnis in fidem suam recepit. negatis? num quisnam est vestrum qui tribum non habeat? certe nemo. atqui illum quinque et triginta tribus patronum adoptarunt. rursus reclamatis? aspicite illam a sinistra equestrem statuam inauratam, in qua quid inscriptum est? ‘ Qvinqve et triginta tribvs patrono. ’ populi Romani igitur est patronus L. Antonius. malam quidem illi pestem! clamori enim vestro adsentior. non modo hic latro quem clientem habere nemo velit sed quis umquam tantis opibus, tantis rebus gestis fuit qui se populi Romani victoris dominique omnium gentium patronum dicere auderet?
In the Forum we see a statue of Lucius Antonius, as we see that of Quintus Tremulus, who conquered the Hernici, in front of the temple of Castor. O incredible shamelessness! Did he take so much upon himself, because at Mylasa, as a murmillo, he cut the throat of a Thracian, his own friend? In what way could we bear this man, if in this Forum, with you watching, he had fought to the death? But this is only one statue. The other is from the Roman equestrians equipped at public expense, who likewise add the inscription, to their patron. When did that order ever adopt a patron? If anyone, it should have been me. But I leave myself aside; what censor, what commander did they ever so adopt? He divided land among them. O sordid men, who took it; wicked man, who gave!
in foro L. Antoni statuam videmus, sicut illam Q. Tremuli, qui Hernicos devicit, ante Castoris. O impudentiam incredibilem! tantumne sibi sumpsit, quia Mylasis myrmillo Thraecem iugulavit, familiarem suum? quonam modo istum ferre possemus, si in hoc foro spectantibus vobis depugnasset? sed haec una statua. altera ab equitibus Romanis equo publico: qui item ascribunt, ‘ patrono.’ quem umquam iste ordo patronum adoptavit? si quemquam, debuit me. sed me omitto; quem censorem, quem imperatorem? agrum eis divisit. O sordidos qui acceperint, improbum qui dederit!
The military tribunes who had served twice in Caesar’s army set up a statue too. What sort of order is this? There were many, in many legions, over so many years. To these too he divided Semurium. The Campus Martius was the one thing left — unless he had first fled with his brother. But this allotment of lands, a little while ago, citizens, was undone by the vote of Lucius Caesar, that most illustrious man and most outstanding senator: for in agreement with him we annulled the acts of the septemvirs. The benefits of Nucula lie void; their patron Antony grows cold. For the possessors will go away with the easier mind: they had made no outlay; they had not yet stocked it, partly because they were not confident, partly because they had no means.
statuerunt etiam tribuni militares qui in exercitu Caesaris bis fuerunt. quis est iste ordo? multi fuerunt multis in legionibus per tot annos. Eis quoque divisit Semurium. campus Martius restabat, nisi prius cum fratre fugisset. sed haec agrorum adsignatio paulo ante, Quirites, L. Caesaris, clarissimi viri et praestantissimi senatoris, sententia dissoluta est: huic enim adsensi vii virum acta sustulimus. iacent beneficia Nuculae; friget patronus Antonius. nam possessores animo aequiore discedent: nullam impensam fecerant; nondum instruxerant, partim quia non confidebant, partim quia non habebant.
But that triumphant statue, of which, in better times, I could not have spoken without laughing: To Lucius Antonius, from the Middle Janus, their patron. Is that so? Is the Middle Janus now in Lucius Antonius’s clientship? Who was ever found in that Janus to enter on his books a thousand sesterces lent to Lucius Antonius? But too much about trifles: let us return to the cause and the war; though it was not inappropriate that certain personages should be reviewed by you, so that you might be able silently to consider with whom this war is to be waged. For my part I urge you, citizens, even if something else were better, nevertheless to await the return of the legates with an even mind. Speed has been taken from the cause; nevertheless some good has been added to the cause.
sed illa statua palmaris de qua, si meliora tempora essent, non possem sine risu dicere: L. Antonio a Iano medio patrono. itane? iam Ianus medius in L. Antoni clientela est? quis umquam in illo Iano inventus est qui L. Antonio mille nummum ferret expensum? sed nimis multa de nugis: ad causam bellumque redeamus; quamquam non alienum fuit personas quasdam a vobis recognosci, ut quibuscum bellum gereretur possetis taciti cogitare. ego autem vos hortor, Quirites, ut, etiam si melius aliud fuit, tamen legatorum reditum exspectetis animo aequo. celeritas detracta de causa est; boni tamen aliquid accessit ad causam.
For when the legates have reported back what they will certainly report — that Antony is not in your power, not in the Senate’s — what citizen will be so wicked as to think he ought to be held a citizen? For now there are a few, but still more than is worthy of the commonwealth, who speak in this fashion: Shall we not even wait for the legates? The very state of the commonwealth itself will surely wring that voice and pretence of clemency out of them. For which reason — to confess it to you, citizens — on today’s day I contended less, I laboured less to have the Senate, in agreement with me, decree a state of tumult, order the cloaks to be taken up. I preferred to be praised by all twenty days from now for my opinion than to be reviled by a few today.
cum enim legati renuntiarint quod certe renuntiabunt, non in vestra potestate, non in senatus esse Antonium, quis erit tam improbus civis qui illum civem habendum putet? nunc enim sunt pauci illi quidem, sed tamen plures quam re publica dignum est, qui ita loquantur: ‘ ne legatos quidem exspectabimus?’ istam certe vocem simulationemque clementiae extorquebit istis res ipsa publica. quo etiam, ut confitear vobis, Quirites, minus hodierno die contendi, minus laboravi, ut mihi senatus adsentiens tumultum decerneret, saga sumi iuberet. malui viginti diebus post sententiam meam laudari ab omnibus quam a paucis hodie vituperari.
Therefore, citizens, await the return of the legates and swallow the annoyance of a few days. When they have come back, if they bring peace, judge me eager for it; if war, judge me foreseeing. Or shall I not see ahead for my fellow citizens, shall I not think day and night about your liberty, about the safety of the commonwealth? For what do I not owe you, citizens, who, sprung as I am from myself, preferred me to the most noble men in every office? Am I ungrateful? Who less so? I, who, once offices had been gained, performed in the Forum the same labours which I had performed in seeking them. Unpractised in public life? Who more exercised? I, who for now twenty years have waged war with impious citizens. Wherefore,
quapropter, Quirites, exspectate legatorum reditum et paucorum dierum molestiam devorate. qui cum redierint, si pacem adferent, cupidum me; si bellum, providum iudicatote. an ego non provideam meis civibus, non dies noctesque de vestra libertate, de rei publicae salute cogitem? quid enim non debeo vobis, Quirites, quem vos a se ortum hominibus nobilissimis omnibus honoribus praetulistis? an ingratus sum? quis minus? qui partis honoribus eosdem in foro gessi labores quos petendis. rudis in re publica? quis exercitatior? qui viginti iam annos bellum geram cum impiis civibus. quam ob rem.
citizens, with counsel as far as I am able, and with labour all but more than I am able, I shall watch and keep watch for you. For who is the citizen — especially in this rank in which you have wished me to stand — so forgetful of your kindness, so unmindful of his country, so hostile to his own dignity, that this so great unanimity of yours does not rouse him, does not inflame him? Many and great assemblies I held as consul; in many I was present: never have I seen one so great as yours is now. You all feel one thing, you are all eager for one thing — to turn aside Marcus Antonius’s enterprises from the commonwealth, to extinguish his frenzy, to crush his audacity. All orders want the same thing; the municipalities, the colonies, all Italy lean the same way. And so a Senate firm of its own accord you have made firmer by your authority.
Quirites, consilio quantum potero, labore plus paene quam potero, excubabo vigilaboque pro vobis. etenim quis est civis, praesertim hoc gradu quo me vos esse voluistis, tam oblitus benefici vestri, tam immemor patriae, tam inimicus dignitati suae quem non excitet, non inflammet tantus vester iste consensus? multas magnasque habui consul contiones, multis interfui: nullam umquam vidi tantam quanta nunc vestrum est. Vnum sentitis omnes, unum studetis, M. Antoni conatus avertere a re publica, furorem exstinguere, opprimere audaciam. idem volunt omnes ordines; eodem incumbunt municipia, coloniae, cuncta Italia. itaque senatum bene sua sponte firmum firmiorem vestra auctoritate fecistis.
The time has come, citizens — later, to be sure, than was fitting for the Roman people, but nevertheless so ripe that it can no longer be put off by even an hour. There was, so to speak, some fatal mischance which we endured, since it had in some fashion to be endured: now if there is any, it will be voluntary. It is not divinely lawful for the Roman people to be slaves — whom the immortal gods willed to rule over all nations. The matter has been brought to the extremest crisis; the decision is upon liberty. Either you must conquer, citizens — which surely both by your piety and by this so great concord you will accomplish — or you must endure anything rather than be slaves. Other nations can bear slavery; liberty belongs to the Roman people by right.
venit tempus, Quirites, serius omnino quam dignum populo Romano fuit, sed tamen ita maturum ut differri iam hora non possit. fuit aliquis fatalis casus, ut ita dicam, quem tulimus, quoquo modo ferendus fuit: nunc si quis erit, erit voluntarius. populum Romanum servire fas non est, quem di immortales omnibus gentibus imperare voluerunt. res in extremum est adducta discrimen; de libertate decernitur. aut vincatis oportet, Quirites, quod profecto et pietate vestra et tanta concordia consequemini, aut quidvis potius quam serviatis. Aliae nationes servitutem pati possunt, populi Romani est propria libertas.