[33] To the tribunes who had thus spoken Antony made the following reply: "What friendship and zeal I had for Cæsar while he lived, what dangers I braved in his service, you, who have been my fellow-soldiers and the sharers in those events, know full well. What favors he showed me, what honors he continually bestowed upon me, it does not become me to say. The murderers, too, were acquainted with these facts. They conspired to kill me with Cæsar because they knew that if I were living they could not compass their designs. Whoever dissuaded them from that purpose did so not from regard for my safety, but to preserve the appearance of tyrannicide, so that they might not seem to be killing a number of persons as enemies, but only one as a despot. Who, then, will believe that I have no care for Cæsar, who was my benefactor, that I prefer his enemies, and that I willingly condone his murder at the hands of those who conspired against me also, as the young Cæsar imagines? Whence came their amnesty, whence their preferment? For he wishes to charge these things upon me instead of the Senate. Learn from me how they came about.
The Civil Wars. Appian. Horace White. London. MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD. 1899.
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