The Senate had been called together, nominally for the purpose of desiring the Consuls of the year to provide a guard for its own safety. Cicero makes it an occasion for perpetuating the feeling against Antony, which had already become strong in Rome. He breaks out into praise of Octavian, whom he calls "this young Caesar--almost a boy;" tells them what divine things the boy had already done, and how he had drawn away from the rebels those two indomitable legions, the Martia and the Fourth. Then he proceeds to abuse Antony. Tarquinius, the man whose name was most odious to Romans, had been unendurable as a tyrant, though himself not a bad man; but Antony's only object is to sell the Empire, and to spend the price. Antony had convoked the Senate for November, threatening the Senators with awful punishments should they absent themselves; but, when the day came, Antony, the Consul, had himself fled. He not only pours out the vials of his wrath but of his ridicule upon Antony's head, and quotes his bungling words. He gives instances of his imprudence, and his impotence, and of his greed. Then he again praises the young Caesar, and the two Consuls for the next year, and the two legions, and Decimus Brutus, who is about to fight the battle of the Republic for them in the north of Italy, and votes that the necessary guard be supplied. In the same evening he addresses the people in his fourth Philippic. He again praises the lad and the two legions, and again abuses Antony. No one can say after this day that he hid his anger, or was silent from fear. He congratulates the Romans on their patriotism--vain congratulations--and encourages them to make new efforts. He bids them rejoice that they have a hero such as Decimus Brutus to protect their liberties, and, almost, that they have such an enemy as Antony to conquer. It seems that his words, few as they were--perhaps because they were so few--took hold of the people's imaginations; so that they shouted to him that he had on that day a second time saved his country, as he reminds them afterward.[210]