Philippicae

But Marcus Lepidus, having been a second time styled Imperator, Pontifex Maximus, a man who deserved excellently well of the republic in the last civil war, exhorts us to peace. No one, O conscript fathers, has greater weight with me than Marcus Lepidus, both on account of his personal virtues, and by reason of the dignity of his family. There are also private reasons which influence me, such as great services he has done me, and some kindnesses which I have done him. But the greatest of his services I consider to be his being of such a disposition as he is toward the republic, which has at all times been dearer to me than my life. For when by his influence he inclined Magnus Pompeius, a most admirable young man, the son of one of the greatest of men, to peace, and without arms released the republic from imminent danger of civil war, by so doing he laid me under as great obligations as it was in the power of any man to do. Therefore I proposed to decree to him the most ample honors that were in my power, in which you agreed with me; nor have I ceased both to think and speak in the highest terms of him. The republic has Marcus Lepidus bound to it by many pledges. He is a man of the highest rank, of the greatest honors; he has the most honorable priesthood, and has received numberless distinctions in the city. There are monuments of himself, and of his brother, and of his ancestors; he has a most excellent wife, children such as any man might desire, an ample family estate, untainted with the blood of his fellow-citizens. No citizen has been injured by him; many have been delivered from misery by his kindness and pity. Such a man and such a citizen may indeed err in his opinion, but it is quite impossible for him in inclination to be unfriendly to the republic.

Marcus Lepidus is desirous of peace. He does well especially if he can make such a peace as he made lately, owing to which the republic will behold the son of Cnaeus Pompeius, and will receive him in her bosom and embrace; and will think, that not he alone, but that she also is restored to herself with him. This was the reason why you decreed to him a statue in the rostra with an honorable inscription, and why you voted him a triumph in his absence. For although he had performed great exploits in war, and such as well deserved a triumph, still for that he might not have had that given to him which was not given to Lucius Aemilius, nor to Aemilianus Scipio, nor to the former Africanus, nor to Marius, nor to Pompeius, who had the conduct of greater wars than he had, but because he had put an end to a civil war in perfect silence, the first moment that it was in his power, on that account you conferred on him the greatest honors.

Do you think, then, O Marcus Lepidus, that the Antonii will be to the republic such citizens as she will find Pompeius? In the one there is modesty gravity, moderation, integrity; in them (and when I speak of them I do not mean to omit one of that band of pirates) there is lust and wickedness and savage audacity capable of every crime I entreat of you, O conscript fathers which of you fails to see this which Fortune herself, who is called blind, sees? For, saving the acts of Caesar, which we maintain for the sake of harmony, his own house will be open to Pompeius and he will redeem it for the same sum for which Antonius bought it. Yes, I say the son of Cnaeus Pompeius will buy back his house. O melancholy circumstance! But these things have been already lamented long and bitterly enough. You have voted a sum of money to Cnaeus Pompeius, equal to that which his conquering enemy had appropriated to himself of his father's property in the distribution of his booty. But I claim permission to manage this distribution myself, as due to my connection and intimacy with his father. He will buy back the villas, the houses, and some of the estates in the city which Antonius is in possession of. For, as for the silver plate, the garments, the furniture, and the wine which that glutton has made away with, those things he will lose without forfeiting his equanimity. The Alban and Firmian villas he will recover from Dolabella; the Tusculan villa he will also recover from Antonius. And these Ansers who are joining in the attack on Mutina and in the blockade of Decimus Brutus will be driven from his Falernian villa. There are many others, perhaps, who will be made to disgorge their plunder, but their names escape my memory. I say, too, that those men who are not in the number of our enemies, will be made to restore the possessions of Pompeius to his son for the price at which they bought them. It was the act of a sufficiently rash man, not to say an audacious one, to touch a single particle of that property; but who will have the face to endeavor to retain it, when its most illustrious owner is restored to his country? Will not that man restore his plunder, who, enfolding the patrimony of his master in his embrace, clinging to the treasure like a dragon, the slave of Pompeius, the freedman of Caesar, has seized upon his estates in the Lucanian district? And as for those seven hundred millions of sesterces which you, O conscript fathers, promised to the young man, they will be recovered in such a manner that the son of Cnaeus Pompeius will appear to have been established by you in his patrimony. This is what the senate must do; the Roman people will do the rest with respect to that family which was at one time one of the most honorable it ever saw. In the first place, it will invest him with his father's honor as an augur, for which rank I will nominate him and promote his election, in order that I may restore to the son what I received from the father. Which of these men will the Roman people most willingly sanction as the augur of the all powerful and all great Jupiter, whose interpreters and messengers we have been appointed,—Pompeius or Antonius? It seems indeed, to me, that Fortune has managed this by the divine aid of the immortal gods, that, leaving the acts of Caesar firmly ratified, the son of Cnaeus Pompeius might still be able to recover the dignities and fortunes of his father.