Philippicae

Let those, then, who have no fear, cease to pretend to be alarmed, and to be exercising their foresight in the cause of the republic. And let those who really are afraid of every thing, cease to be too fearful, lest the pretense of the one party and the inactivity of the other be injurious to us. What, in the name of mischief! is the object of always opposing the name of the veterans to every good cause? For even if I were attached to their virtue, as indeed I am, still, if they were arrogant I should not be able to tolerate their airs. While we are endeavoring to break the bonds of slavery, shall any one hinder us by saying that the veterans do not approve of it? For they are not, I suppose, beyond all counting who are ready to take up arms in defense of the common freedom! There is no man, except the veteran soldiers, who is stimulated by the indignation of a freeman to repel slavery! Can the republic then stand, relying wholly on veterans, without a great reinforcement of the youth of the state? Whom, indeed, you ought to be attached to, if they be assistants to you in the assertion of your freedom, but whom you ought not to follow if they be the advisers of slavery.

Lastly (let me at last say one true word, one word worthy of myself!)—if the inclinations of this order are governed by the nod of the veterans, and if all our words and actions are to be referred to their will, death is what we should wish for, which has always, in the minds of Roman citizens, been preferable to slavery. All slavery is miserable; but some may have been unavoidable. Do you think, then, that there is never to be a beginning of our endeavors to recover our freedom? Or, when we would not bear that fortune which was unavoidable, and which seemed almost as if appointed by destiny, shall we tolerate the voluntary bondage! All Italy is burning with a desire for freedom. The city can not endure slavery any longer We have given this warlike attire and these arms to the Roman people much later than they have been demanded of us by them.

We have, indeed, undertaken our present course of action with a great and almost certain hope of liberty. But even if I allow that the events of war are uncertain, and that the chances of Mars are common to both sides, still it is worth while to fight for freedom at the peril of one's life. For life does not consist wholly in breathing; there is literally no life at all for one who is a slave. All nations can endure slavery. Our state can not. Nor is there any other reason for this, except that those nations shrink from toil and pain, and are willing to endure any thing so long as they may be free from those evils; but we have been trained and bred up by our forefathers in such a manner, as to measure all our designs and all our actions by the standard of dignity and virtue. The recovery of freedom is so splendid a thing that we must not shun even death when seeking to recover it. But if immortality were to be the result of our avoidance of present danger, still slavery would appear still more worthy of being avoided, in proportion as it is of longer duration. But as all sorts of death surround us on all sides night and day, it does not become a man, and least of all a Roman, to hesitate to give up to his country that breath which he owes to nature.

Men flock together from all quarters to extinguish a general conflagration. The veterans were the first to follow the authority of Caesar and to repel the attempts of Antonius; afterward the Martial legion checked his frenzy; the fourth legion crushed it. Being thus condemned by his own legions, he burst into Gaul which he knew to be adverse and hostile to him both in word and deed. The armies of Aulus Hirtius and Caius Caesar pursued him, and afterward the levies of Pansa roused the city and all Italy. He is the one enemy of all men. Although he has with him Lucius his brother, a citizen very much beloved by the Roman people, the regret for whose absence the city is unable to endure any longer! What can be more foul than that beast? what more savage? who appears born for the express purpose of preventing Marcus Antonius from being the basest of all mortals. They have with them Trebellius, who, now that all debts are canceled, is become reconciled to them; and Titus Plancus, and other like them; who are striving with all their hearts, and whose sole object is to appear to have been restored against the will of the republic. Saxa and Capho, themselves rustic and clownish men, men who never have seen and who never wish to see this republic firmly established, are tampering with the ignorant classes; men who are not upholding the acts of Caesar but those of Antonius; who are led away by the unlimited occupation of the Campanian district; and who I marvel are not somewhat ashamed when they see that they have actors and actresses for their neighbors.