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THE SIXTH ORATION OF M. T. CICERO AGAINST MARCUS ANTONIUS. CALLED ALSO THE SIXTH PHILIPPIC. ADDRESSED TO THE PEOPLE.
[14]
Wherefore, I will embrace every consideration in my opinion which I am now going
to deliver, a course to which you, I feel sure, have no objection; in order that
authority may be conferred by us on admirable generals, and that hope of reward
may be held out by us to gallant soldiers, and that a formal decision may be
come to, not by words only, but also by actions, that Antonius is not only not a
consul, but is even an enemy. For if he be consul, then the legions which have
deserted the consul deserve beating1 to death. Caesar is wicked, Brutus is
impious, since they of their own heads have levied an army against the consul.
But if new honors are to be sought out for the soldiers on account of their
divine and immortal merits, and if it is quite impossible to show gratitude
enough to the generals, who is there who must not think that man a public enemy,
whose conduct is such that those who are in arms against him are considered the
saviors of the republic?
1 Riddle (Dict. Lat in voce) says, that this was the regular punishment for deserters, and was inflicted by their comrades.
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