If I had seen the Republic in the hands of bad or profligate citizens,as we know happened during the supremacy of Cinna,and on some other occasions,I should not under the pressure,I don t say of rewards,which are the last things to influence me,but even of danger,by which,after all,the bravest men are moved,have attached myself to their party,not even if their services to me had been of the very highest kind.As it is,seeing that the leading statesman in the Republic was Pompey,a man who had gained this power and renown by the most eminent services to the state and the most glorious achievements,and one of whose postion I had been a supporter from my youth up,and in my praetorship and consulship an active promoter also,and seeing that this same statesman had assisted me,in his own person by the weight of his influence and the expression of his opinion,and,in conjunction with you,by his counsels and zeal,and that he regarded my enemy as his own supreme enemy in the state I did not think that I need fear the reproach of inconsistency,if in some of my senatorial votes I somewhat changed my standpoint,and contributed my zeal to the promotion of the dignity of a most distiii guished man,and one to whom I am under the highest obligations.In this sentiment Ihad necessarily to include Caesar,as you see,for their policy and position were inseparably united.Here I was greatly influenced by two things the old friendship which you know that I and my brother Quintus have had with Caesar,and his own kindness and liberality,of which we have recently had clear and mistakable evidence both by his letters and his personal attentions.I was also strongly affected by the Republic itself,which appeared to me to demand,especially considering Caesar's brilliant successes,that there should be no quarrel maintained with these men,and indeed to forbid it in the strongest manner possible.Moreover,while entertaining these feelings,I was above all shaken by the pledge which Pompey had given for me to Caesar,and my brother to Pompey.Besides,I was forced to take into consideration the state maxim so divinely expressed by our master Plato--"Such as are the chief men in a republic,such are ever wont to be the other citizens."I called to mind that in my consulship,from the very 1st of January,such a foundation was laid of encouragement for the senate,that no one ought to have been surprised that on the 5th of December there was so much spirit and such commanding influence in that house.I also remember that when I became a private citizen up to the consulship of Caesar and Bibulus,when the opinions expressed by me had great weight in the senate,the feeling among all the loyalists was invariable.Afterwards,while you were holding the province of hither Spain with imperiuni and the Republic had no genuine consuls,but mere hucksters of provinces,mere slaves and agents of sedition,an accident threw my head as an apple of discord into the midst of contending factions and civil broils.And in that hour of danger,though a unanimity was displayed on the part of the senate that was surprising,on the part of all Italy surpassing belief,and of all the loyalists unparalleled,in standing forth in my defence,I will not say what happened--for the blame attaches to many,and is of various shades of turpitude--I will only say briefly that it was not the rank and file,but the leaders,that played me false.And in this matter,though some blame does attach to those who failed to defend me,no less attaches to those who abandoned me:and if those who were frightened deserve reproach,if there are such,still more are those to be blamed who pretended to be frightened.
At any rate,my policy is justly to be praised for refusing to allow my fellow citizens (preserved by me and ardently desiring to preserve me)to be exposed while bereft of leaders to armed slaves,and for preferring that it should be made manifest how much force there might be in the unanimity of the loyalists,if they had been permitted to champion my cause before I had fallen,when after that fall they had proved strong enough to raise me up again.And the real feelings of these men you not only had the penetration to see,when bringing forward my case,but the power to encourage and keep alive.In promoting which measure--I will not merely not deny,but shall always remember also and gladly proclaim it--you found certain men of the highest rank more courageous in securing my restoration than they had been in preserving me from my fall:and,if they had chosen to maintain that frame of mind,they would have recovered their own commanding position along with my salvation.For when the spirit of the loyalists had been renewed by your consulship,and they had been roused from their dismay by the extreme firmness and rectitude of your official conduct;when,above all,Pompey's support had been secured;and when Caesar,too,with all the prestige of his brilliant achievements,after being honoured with unique and unprecedented marks of distinction and compliments by the senate,was now supporting the dignity of the house,there could have been no opportunity for a disloyal citizen of outraging the Republic.
But now notice,I beg,what actually ensued.First of all,that intruder upon the women's rites,who had shewn no more respect for the Bona Dea than for his three sisters,secured immunity by the votes of those men who,when a tribune wished by a legal action to exact penalties from a seditious citizen by the agency of the loyalists,deprived the Republic of what would have been hereafter a most splendid precedent for the punishment of sedition.
