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20“Now I think that there is no further need even of words to show you that we shall be struggling, not for small or insignificant ends, but in a contest such that, if we are zealous, we shall obtain the greatest rewards, and if careless, we shall suffer the most grievous misfortunes. 2Why, what would they not do to us, if they should prevail, when they have put to death practically all the followers of Sextus who were of any prominence, and have even destroyed many followers of Lepidus though they coöperated with Caesar’s party? 3But why do I mention this, seeing that they have removed from his command altogether Lepidus himself, who was guilty of no wrong and furthermore had been their ally, and keep him under guard as if he were a prisoner of war, and when they have also exacted contributions of money from all the freedmen in Italy and from all the rest likewise who possess any land, going so far as to force some of them actually to resort to arms, and then for that act put large numbers to death? 4Is it possible that those who have not spared their allies will spare us? Will those who levied tribute upon the property of their own adherents keep their hands from ours? Will they show humanity as victors who, even before gaining supremacy, have committed every conceivable outrage? Not to spend time in speaking of the experience of other people, I will enumerate their acts of insolence toward ourselves. 5Who does not know that, although I was chosen a partner and colleague of Caesar, and was given the management of public affairs on equal terms with him, and received like honours and offices, in possession of which I have continued for so long a time, yet I have been deprived of them all, so far as lay in his power; I have become a private citizen instead of a commander, disfranchised 6instead of consul, and this not by the action of the people nor yet of the senate (for how could that be, when the consuls and some other senators went so far as to flee at once from the city in order to escape casting any such vote?), but by the act of this one man and of his adherents, who do not perceive that they are training a sovereign to rule over themselves first of all? 7Why, the man who dared while I was still alive and in possession of so great power and was conquering the Armenians, to hunt out my will, to take it forcibly from those who had received it, to open it and read it publicly—how, I say, should a man like that spare either you or anybody else? 8And how will he show any kindness to others to whom he is bound by no tie, when he has shown himself such a man toward me—his friend, his table-companion, his kinsman?
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