proposed it, it was through me that this was done so.' But if anything
happens that ought not to have occurred, you take yourself out of the way
and censure all the rest, saying: 'You see I wasn't praetor, you see
I wasn't envoy, you see I wasn't consul.' And you abuse everybody
everywhere all the time, setting more store by the influence which
comes from appearing to speak your mind boldly than by saying what duty
demands: and you exhibit no important quality of an orator. [-10-] What
public advantage has been preserved or established by you? Who that
was really harming the city have you indicted, and who that was really
plotting against us have you brought to light? To neglect the other
cases,--these very charges which you now bring against Antony are of such
a nature and so many that no one could ever suffer any adequate penalty
for them. Why, then, if you saw us being wronged by him at the start, as
you assert, did you never attack or accuse him at the time, instead of
telling us now all the transgressions he committed when tribune, all his
irregularities when master of horse, all his villanies when consul? You
might at once, at the time, in each specific instance, have inflicted the
appropriate penalty upon him, if you had wanted to show yourself in very
deed a patriot, and we could have imposed the punishment in security
and safety during the course of the offences themselves. One of two
conclusions is inevitable,--either that you believed this to be so at the
time and renounced the idea of a struggle in our behalf, or else that you
could not prove any of your charges and are now engaged in a reckless
course of blackmail.

[-11-] "That this is so I will show you clearly, Conscript Fathers, by
going over each point in detail. Antony did say some words during his
tribuneship in Caesar's behalf: Cicero and some others spoke in behalf of
Pompey. Why now does he accuse him of preferring one man's friendship,
but acquit himself and the rest who warmly embraced the opposite cause?