BOOK XLVI
B.C. 43 of any wrong-doing, and since, furthermore, he has made insulting reference to me, as if he could not have exhibited his own cleverness without indulging in unrestrained abuse of people, it behooves me also both to refute his accusations and to bring countercharges against him. For, in the first place, I would not have him profit either from his own impudence, if allowed to go unchallenged, or from my silence, which might be suspected of coming from a guilty conscience; nor, again, would I have you be deceived by what he has said and come to an unworthy decision by letting his private grudge against Antony take the place of the public interest. For the purpose he wishes to accomplish is nothing else than that we should give up providing for the greatest safety of the commonwealth and fall into discord once more. Indeed, it is not the first time he has done this, but from the outset, ever since he entered politics, he has been continually turning things topsy-turvy. Is he not the one who embroiled Caesar with Pompey and prevented Pompey from becoming reconciled with Caesar? Or the one, again, who persuaded you to pass that vote against Antony by which he angered Caesar, and persuaded Pompey to leave Italy and transfer his quarters to Macedonia,—a course which proved the chief cause of all the evils that subsequently befell us? Is he not the one who killed Clodius by the hand of Milo and slew Caesar by the hand of Brutus? The one who made Catiline hostile to us and put Lentulus to death without a trial? Hence I should be very much surprised at you if, after changing your mind then about his conduct and making him pay the penalty for it, you should now heed him again, when his
