to his own disgrace as a private individual; but to the actions which
he did impiously and wickedly against us and our fortunes,--that is to
say, against the whole republic. For it is from his wickedness that
you will find that the beginning of all these evils has arisen.

For when, in the consulship of Lucius Lentulus and Marcus Marcellus,
you, on the first of January, were anxious to prop up the republic,
which was tottering and almost falling, and were willing to consult
the interests of Caius Caesar himself, if he would have acted like
a man in his senses, then this fellow opposed to your counsels his
tribuneship, which he had sold and handed over to the purchaser, and
exposed his own neck to that axe under which many have suffered for
smaller crimes. It was against you, O Marcus Antonius, that the
senate, while still in the possession of its rights, before so many
of its luminaries were extinguished, passed that decree which, in
accordance with the usage of our ancestors, is at times passed against
an enemy who is a citizen. And have you dared, before these conscript
fathers, to say anything against me, when I have been pronounced by
this order to be the saviour of my country, and when you have been
declared by it to be an enemy of the republic? The mention of that
wickedness of yours has been interrupted, but the recollection of it
has not been effaced. As long as the race of men, as long as the name
of the Roman people shall exist, (and that, unless it is prevented
from being so by your means, will be everlasting,) so long will that
most mischievous interposition of your veto be spoken of. What was
there that was being done by the senate either ambitiously or rashly,
when you, one single young man, forbade the whole order to pass
decrees concerning the safety of the republic? and when you did so,
not once only, but repeatedly? nor would you allow any one to plead
with you in behalf of the authority of the senate; and yet, what did