He is all for war with Antony--or rather he will not call it war, but a public breach of the peace which Antony has made. He begins mildly enough, but warms with his subject as he goes on: "Should they send ambassadors to a traitor to his country? * * * Let him return from Mutina." I keep the old Latin name, which is preserved for us in that of Modena. "Let him cease to contend with Decimus. Let him depart out of Gaul. It is not fit that we should send to implore him to do so. We should by force compel him. * * * We are not sending messengers to Hannibal, who, if Hannibal would not obey, might be desired to go on to Carthage. Whither shall the men go if Antony refuses to obey them?" But it is of no use. With eloquent words he praises Octavian and the two legions and Decimus. He praises even the coward Lepidus, who was in command of legions, and was now Governor of Gaul beyond the Alps and of Northern Spain, and proposes that the people should put up to him a gilt statue on horseback--so important was it to obtain, if possible, his services. Alas! it was impossible that such a man should be moved by patriotic motives. Lepidus was soon to go with the winning side, and became one of the second triumvirate with Antony and Octavian. Cicero's eloquence was on this occasion futile. At this sitting the Senate came to no decision, but on the third day afterward they decreed that the Senators, Servius Sulpicius, Lucius Piso, and Lucius Philippus, should be sent to Antony. The honors which he had demanded for Lepidus and the others were granted, but he was outvoted in regard to the ambassadors. On the 4th of January Cicero again addressed the people in the Forum. His task was very difficult. He wished to give no offence to the Senate, and yet was anxious to stir the citizens and to excite them to a desire for immediate war. The Senate, he told them, had not behaved disgracefully, but had--temporized. The war, unfortunately, must be delayed for those twenty days necessary for the going and coming of the ambassadors. The ambassadors could do nothing. But still they must wait. In the mean time he will not be idle. For them, the Roman people, he will work and watch with all his experience, with diligence almost above his strength, to repay them for their faith in him. When Caesar was with them they had had no choice but obedience--so much the times were out of joint. If they submit themselves to be slaves now, it will be their own fault. Then in general language he pronounces an opinion--which was the general Roman feeling of the day: "It is not permitted to the Roman people to become slaves--that people whom the immortal gods have willed to rule all nations of the earth."[211] So he ended the sixth Philippic, which, like the fourth, was addressed to the people. All the others were spoken in the Senate.