exerted the arbitrary violence of power; and in but a few, only to secure
the peace of the whole.

In answer to all this, it was urged, that "his filial piety, and the
unhappy situation of the Republic, were pure pretences; but the ardent
lust of reigning, his true and only motive: with this spirit he had
solicited into his service, by bribery, a body of veteran soldiers: and
though a private youth, without post or magistracy, but, in defiance of
law, levied an army: with this spirit he had debauched and bought the
Roman legions under the Consuls, while he was falsely feigning a coalition
with Pompey's republican party: that soon after, when he had procured from
the Senate, or rather usurped the honours and authority of the
Praetorship; and when Hirtius and Pansa, the two Consuls, were slain, he
seized both their armies: that it was doubted whether the Consuls fell by
the enemy, or whether Pansa was not killed by pouring poison into his
wounds; and Hirtius slain by his own soldiers; and whether the young
Caesar was not the black contriver of this bloody treason: that by terror
he had extorted the Consulship in spite of the Senate; and turned against
the Commonwealth the very arms with which the Commonwealth had trusted him
for her defence against Anthony. Add to all this his cruel proscriptions,
and the massacre of so many citizens, his seizing from the public and
distributing to his own creatures so many lands and possessions; a
violation of property not justified even by those who gained by it. But,
allowing him to dedicate to the Manes of the Dictator the lives of Brutus
and Cassius (though more to his honour had it been to have postponed his
own personal hate to public good), did he not betray the young Pompey by
an insidious peace, betray Lepidus by a deceitful show of friendship? Did
he not next ensnare Marc Anthony, first by treaties, those of Tarentum and
Brundusium; then by a marriage, that of his sister Octavia? And did not
Anthony at last pay with his life the penalty of that subdolous alliance?