while I am speaking, defend your conduct during this very moment, if
you can. Why has the senate been surrounded with a belt of armed men?
Why are your satellites listening to me sword in hand? Why are not the
folding-doors of the temple of Concord open? Why do you bring men of
all nations the most barbarous, Ityreans, armed with arrows, into the
forum? He says, that he does so as a guard. Is it not then better to
perish a thousand times than to be unable to live in one's own city
without a guard of armed men? But believe me, there is no protection
in that;--a man must be defended by the affection and good-will of his
fellow citizens, not by arms. The Roman people will take them from
you, will wrest them from your hands, I wish that they may do so while
we are still safe. But however you treat us, as long as you adopt
those counsels, it is impossible for you, believe me, to last long. In
truth, that wife of yours, who is so far removed from covetousness,
and whom I mention without intending any slight to her, has been too
long owing[23] her third payment to the state. The Roman people has
men to whom it can entrust the helm of the state, and wherever they
are, there is all the defence of the republic, or rather, there is
the republic itself, which as yet has only avenged, but has not
reestablished itself. Truly and surely has the republic most high born
youths ready to defend it,--though they may for a time keep in the
background from a desire for tranquillity, still they can be recalled
by the republic at any time.

The name of peace is sweet, the thing itself is most salutary. But
between peace and slavery there is a wide difference. Peace is liberty
in tranquillity, slavery is the worst of all evils,--to be repelled,
if need be, not only by war, but even by death. But if those
deliverers of ours have taken themselves away out of our sight, still
they have left behind the example of their conduct. They have done