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Before, O conscript fathers, I say those things concerning the republic which I
think myself bound to say at the present time, I will explain to you briefly the
cause of my departure from, and of my return to the city. When I hoped that the
republic was at last recalled to a proper respect for your wisdom and for your
authority, I thought that it became me to remain in a sort of sentinelship,
which was imposed upon me by my position as a senator and a man of consular
rank. Nor did I depart anywhere, nor did I ever take my eyes off from the
republic, from the day on which we were summoned to meet in the temple of
Tellus; 1 in which temple, I, as far as was in my power, laid
the foundations of peace, and renewed the ancient precedent set by the
Athenians; I even used the Greek word,2which that city employed in those times in allaying discords, and gave my
vote that all recollection of the existing dissensions ought to be effaced by
everlasting oblivion.
1 This meeting took place on the third day after Caesar's death.
M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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