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THE SIXTH ORATION OF M. T. CICERO AGAINST MARCUS ANTONIUS. CALLED ALSO THE SIXTH PHILIPPIC. ADDRESSED TO THE PEOPLE.
[51]
For when, in the consulship of Lucius
Lentulus and Marcus Marcellus, you, on the first of January, were anxious to
prop up the republic, which was tottering and almost falling, and were willing
to consult the interests of Caius Caesar himself, if he would have acted like a
man in his senses, then this fellow opposed to your counsels his tribuneship,
which he had sold and handed over to the purchaser, and exposed his own neck to
that ax under which many have suffered for smaller crimes. It was against you, O
Marcus Antonius, that the senate, while still in the possession of its rights,
before so many of its luminaries were extinguished, passed that decree which, in
accordance with the usage of our ancestors, is at times passed against an enemy
who is a citizen. And have you dared, before these conscript fathers, to say any
thing against me, when I have been pronounced by this order to be the savior of
my country, and when you have been declared by it to be an enemy of the
republic? The mention of that wickedness of yours has been interrupted, but the
recollection of it has not been effaced. As long as the race of men, as long as
the name of the Roman people shall exist (and that, unless it is prevented from
being so by your means, will be everlasting), so long will that most mischievous
interposition of your veto be spoken of.
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