For I am well aware of all they have been heaping on me since Caesar's death. They make it a reproach against me that I go heavily for the loss of a friend, and think it cruel that one whom I loved should have fallen, because, say they, country must be put before friends----as though they have hitherto been successful in proving that his death really was the gain of the commonwealth. But I will not enter any subtle plea; I admit that I have not attained to your higher grades of philosophy: for I have neither been a partisan of Caesar in our civil dissensions,----though I did not abandon my friend even when his action was a stumbling-block to me,----nor did I ever give my approval to the civil war, or even to the actual ground of quarrel, of which indeed I earnestly desired that the first sparks should be trampled out. And so in the triumph of a personal friend I was never ensnared by the charms either of place or of money; prizes which have been recklessly abused by the rest, though they had less influence with him than I had. I may even say that my own private property was impaired by that act of Caesar, thanks to which many of those who are rejoicing at Caesar's death continued to live in their own country. That our defeated fellow countrymen should be spared was as much an object to me as my own safety. Is it possible then for me, who wanted all to be left uninjured, not to feel indignation that he by whom this was secured is dead? above all when the very same men were the cause at once of his unpopularity and his untimely end. You shall smart then, say they, since you dare to disapprove of our deed. What unheard of insolence! One man then may boast of a deed, which another is not even allowed to lament without punishment. Why, even slaves have always been free of this----to feel their fears, their joys, their sorrows as their own, and not at anybody else's dictation; and these are the very things which now, at least according to what your "liberators" have always in their mouths, they are trying to wrest from us by terrorism. But they try in vain. There is no danger which has terrors enough ever to make me desert the side of gratitude or humanity; for never have I thought that death in a good cause is to be shunned, often indeed that it deserves to be courted. But why are they inclined to be enraged with me, if my wishes are simply that they may come to regret their deed, desiring as I do that Caesar's death may be felt to be untimely by us all? It is my duty as a citizen to desire the preservation of the constitution? Well, unless both my life in the past and all my hopes for the future prove without any words of mine that I do earnestly desire this, I make no demand to prove it by my professions.