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[113]
The Roman
people will take them from you, will wrest them from ) our hands. I wish that
they may do so while we are still safe. But however you treat us, as long as you
adopt those counsels it is impossible for you, believe me, to last long. In
truth, that wife of yours, who is so far removed from covetousness, and whom I
mention without intending any slight to her, has been too long owing1 her third
payment to the state. The Roman people has men to whom it can entrust the helm
of the state; and wherever they are, there is all the defense of the republic,
or rather, there is the republic itself; which as yet has only avenged, but has
not reestablished itself. Truly and surely has the republic most high-born
youths ready to defend it,—though they may for a time keep in the
background from a desire for tranquillity, still they can be recalled by the
republic at any time.
The name of peace is sweet, the thing itself is most salutary. But between peace
and slavery there is a wide difference. Peace is liberty in tranquillity;
slavery is the worst of all evils,—to be repelled, if need be, not
only by war, but even by death.
1 It has been explained before that Fulvia had been the widow of Clodius and of Curio, before she married Antonius.
M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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