never heard of anything base or sordid being imputed to Tarquinius.  But at the house of this man gold was constantly being weighed out in the spinning room, and money was being paid, and in one single house every soul who had any interest in the business was selling the whole empire of the Roman people.  We have never heard of any executions of Roman citizens by the orders of Tarquinius, but this man both at Suessa murdered the man whom he had thrown into prison, and at Brundusium massacred about three hundred most gallant men and most virtuous citizens.  Lastly, Tarquinius was conducting a war in defence of the Roman people at the very time when he was expelled.  Antonius was leading an army against the Roman people at the time when, being abandoned by the legions, he cowered at the name of Caesar and at his army, and neglecting the regular sacrifices, he offered up before daylight vows which he could never mean to perform, and at this very moment he is endeavouring to invade a province of the Roman people.  The Roman people, therefore, has already received and is still looking for greater services at the hand of Decimus Brutus than our ancestors received from Lucius Brutus, the founder of this race and name which we ought to be so anxious to preserve.

V. But, while all slavery is miserable, to be slave to a man who is profligate, unchaste, effeminate, never, not even while in fear, sober, is surely intolerable.  He, then, who keeps this man out of Gaul, especially by his own private authority, judges, and judges most truly, that he is not consul at all.  We must take care, therefore, O conscript fathers, to sanction the private decision of Decimus Brutus by public authority.  Nor, indeed, ought you to have thought Marcus Antonius consul at any time since the Lupercalia.  For on the day when he, in the sight of the Roman people, harangued the mob, naked, perfumed, and drunk, and laboured moreover to put a crown on the head of his colleague, on that day he abdicated not only the consulship, but also his own freedom.  At all events he himself must at once have become a slave, if Caesar had been willing to accept from him that ensign of royalty.  Can I then think him a consul, can I think him a Roman citizen, can I think him a freeman, can I even think him a man, who on that shameful and wicked day showed what he was willing to endure while Caesar lived, and what he was anxious to obtain himself after he was dead?

Nor is it possible to pass over in silence the virtue and the firmness and the dignity of the province of Gaul.  For that is the flower of Italy, that is the bulwark of the empire of the Roman people, that is the chief ornament of our dignity.  But so perfect is the unanimity of the municipal towns and colonies of the province of Gaul, that all men in that district appear to have united together to defend the authority of this order, and the majesty of the Roman people.  Wherefore, O tribunes of the people, although you have not actually brought any other business