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23For you will find that all Antony’s acts after Caesar’s death were ordered by you. Now to speak about Antony’s disposition of Caesar’s funds and his examination of his papers I regard as superfluous. 2Why so? Because, in the first place, it would be the business of the one who inherited Caesar’s property to busy himself with it, and, in the second place, if there were any truth in the charge of malfeasance, it ought to have been stopped immediately at the time. For none of these transactions was carried out in secret, Cicero, but they were all recorded on tablets, as you yourself admit. 3But as to Antony’s other acts, if he committed these villainies as openly and shamelessly as you allege, if he seized upon all Crete on the pretext that in Caesar’s papers it had been left free after the governorship of Brutus,—although it was only later that Brutus was given charge of it by us—how could you have kept silent, and how could any one else have tolerated such acts? 4But, as I said, I will pass over these matters; for the majority of them have not been specifically mentioned, and Antony, who could inform you exactly of what he has done in each instance, is not present. But as regards Macedonia and Gaul and the remaining provinces and as regards the legions, there are your decrees, Conscript Fathers, according to which you assigned to the various governors their several charges and entrusted Gaul, together with the troops, to Antony. And this is known also to Cicero, for he was present and voted for them all just as you did. 5Yet how much better it would have been for him to speak against it at the time, if any of these matters were not being done properly, and to instruct you in these matters that he now brings forward, than to be silent at the time and allow you to make mistakes, and now nominally to censure Antony but really to accuse the senate!
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