The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 | Page 8

not see that
you have already learnt it by experience beyond all other men.
What day can you recollect in your whole life, as ever having beamed
on you with a more joyful light than the one on which, having purified
the forum, having routed the throng of wicked men, having inflicted
due punishment on the ringleaders in wickedness, and having delivered
the city from conflagration and from fear of massacre, you returned to
your house? What order of society, what class of people, what rank of
nobles even was there who did not then show their zeal in praising and
congratulating you? Even I, too, because men thought that you had

been acting by my advice in those transactions, received the thanks and
congratulations of good men in your name. Remember, I pray you, O
Dolabella, the unanimity displayed on that day in the theatre, when
every one, forgetful of the causes on account of which they had been
previously offended with you, showed that in consequence of your
recent service they had banished all recollection of their former
indignation. Could you, O Dolabella, (it is with great concern that I
speak,)--could you, I say, forfeit this dignity with equanimity?
XIII. And you, O Marcus Antonius, (I address myself to you, though in
your absence,) do you not prefer that day on which the senate was
assembled in the temple of Tellus, to all those months during which
some who differ greatly in opinion from me think that you have been
happy? What a noble speech was that of yours about unanimity! From
what apprehensions were the veterans, and from what anxiety was the
whole state relieved by you on that occasion! when, having laid aside
your enmity against him, you on that day first consented that your
present colleague should be your colleague, forgetting that the auspices
had been announced by yourself as augur of the Roman people; and
when your little son was sent by you to the Capitol to be a hostage for
peace. On what day was the senate ever more joyful than on that day?
or when was the Roman people more delighted? which had never met
in greater numbers in any assembly whatever. Then, at last, we did
appear to have been really delivered by brave men, because, as they
had willed it to be, peace was following liberty On the next day, on the
day after that, on the third day, and on all the following days, you went
on without intermission giving every day, as it were, some fresh
present to the republic, but the greatest of all presents was that, when
you abolished the name of the dictatorship. This was in effect branding
the name of the dead Caesar with everlasting ignominy, and it was your
doing,--yours, I say. For as, on account of the wickedness of one
Marcus Manlius, by a resolution of the Manlian family it is unlawful
that any patrician should be called Manlius, so you, on account of the
hatred excited by one dictator, have utterly abolished the name of
dictator.
When you had done these mighty exploits for the safety of the republic,
did you repent of your fortune, or of the dignity and renown and glory
which you had acquired? Whence then is this sudden change? I cannot

be induced to suspect that you have been caught by the desire of
acquiring money; every one may say what he pleases, but we are not
bound to believe such a thing; for I never saw anything sordid or
anything mean in you. Although a man's intimate friends do sometimes
corrupt his natural disposition, still I know your firmness; and I only
wish that, as you avoid that fault, you had been able also to escape all
suspicion of it.
XIV. What I am more afraid of is lest, being ignorant of the true path to
glory, you should think it glorious for you to have more power by
yourself than all the rest of the people put together, and lest you should
prefer being feared by your fellow-citizens to being loved by them.
And if you do think so, you are ignorant of the road to glory. For a
citizen to be dear to his fellow-citizens, to deserve well of the republic,
to be praised, to be respected, to be loved, is glorious; but to be feared,
and to be an object of hatred, is odious, detestable; and moreover,
pregnant with weakness and decay. And we see that, even in the play,
the very man who said,
"What care I though all men should hate my name, So long as fear
accompanies their hate?"
found that it was a mischievous principle to act upon.
I wish, O Antonius, that you could recollect your grand father of whom,