December 44 BCE: The Second Philippic

Cicero insults Mark Antony for 119 Paragraphs

Salvete, patres subscripti.

Once again, this isn’t a letter! It’s the second of Cicero’s fourteen Philippic orations, a series of speeches delivered (or published!) against Mark Antony from 44 to 43 BCE. As I said previously, I’ve chosen to include them in e-pistulae for several reasons: they provide political context for most of the rest of Cicero’s letters; they are Cicero’s other ‘serialised’ work from this period; and the Second Philippic was published rather than being delivered… and then passed around in An Almost Letter-like Manner.

The translation is by W.C.A. Ker, taken from Attalus, with a few minor edits, and the footnotes (marked ‘**’) link to Ker’s footnotes on Attalus.

The First Philippic was short enough to fit in a Substack email, but only without the footnotes. This is not true for the Second Philippic (the longest of the Philippics), and so this email contains the opening of the speech, and then a link to read the rest of it on Attalus.

The context: Cicero attacked Antony with the First Philippic on September 2nd, and Antony responded with an aggressive speech in the Senate (for which Cicero was absent) on September 19th. The Second Philippic is imagined as a response to Antony’s speech, and so has a dramatic date of September 19th, although Cicero was not actually in the Senate that day and only composed the Second Philippic in October. (Remember when Cicero sent a copy to Atticus and told him not to publish it yet? Or the behind-the-scenes editing?)

The Second Philippic was probably published in December 44 BCE, although it is unclear whether this was while Antony was absent from Rome in early December, or after the success of Cicero’s Third and Fourth Philippics in late December. I’ve chosen to post it on December 5th purely because in 63 BCE it was the date of Cicero’s controversial execution of the Catilinarian conspirators. Cicero’s suppression of the (alleged) Catilinarian Conspiracy was the highpoint of his political career, and he returns to this moment at the close of the Second Philippic:

I defended the Republic in youth, I will not desert it in old age; I despised the swordsmen of Catiline, I will not dread yours. Aye, and even my body will I gladly offer if the liberty of the State can be realised by my death, so that the anguish of the Roman people may some time bring to birth that with which it has so long travailed. For if nearly twenty years ago in this very temple I said that death could not come untimely to a consular, with how much greater truth shall I say it in old age!

---

To what fate of mine, Conscript Fathers, shall I attribute it that no man has these twenty years been the enemy of the Republic without at the same time declaring war on me also? There is in truth no need that any man should be named by me: you yourselves have memories. They have paid me greater penalties than I wished: I wonder that you, Antonius, while you copy their deeds, do not shudder at their end. And this surprised me less in the case of others. For none of those men was unfriendly to me of his own will: it was by me they were all attacked on behalf of the Republic. You, not injured by even a word, to prove yourself more audacious than Catiline, more frenzied than Clodius, though unprovoked, attacked me with abuse, and thought that your estrangement from me would be your recommendation to disloyal citizens.

What am I to think? That I am scorned? I cannot perceive, whether in my life, or in my popularity, or in these moderate abilities of mine, anything to be despised by Antonius. Is it in the Senate he believed he could most easily disparage me, an order that has borne its testimony to illustrious citizens - for their administration of the Republic to many, to me alone for its preservation? Or did he wish to strive against me in a match of oratory? That indeed is a kindness: for what fuller, more exuberant subject is there than to speak both for myself and against Antonius? The fact of course is this: he did not think he could approve himself to men like himself as an enemy of his fatherland unless he were unfriendly to me. And before I reply to him on other points I will say a few words as to the friendship which he charges me with having violated, for I account that the heaviest of charges.

He has complained that at some time or other I appeared in court against his interests. ** Was I not to appear against a stranger for an intimate acquaintance and friend, not to appear against favour won, not by the hope of virtue, but by the prostitution of youth? not to appear against a wrong which that fellow upheld by the friendly veto of a most dishonest tribune, not by process of the praetor? But I think you have mentioned this for this reason, to commend yourself to the lowest order of citizens, since they would all remember that you had been the son-in-law of a freedman, ** and children of yours had been grandsons of Quintus Fadius, a freedman. Oh, but you had surrendered yourself to my instruction - for this is what you said - you had frequented my house. ** Truly, if you had done so, you would have better consulted your reputation, better your purity. But you neither did so, nor, had you wished, would Caius Curio ** have allowed you. 

You said you waived your candidature for the augurate in my favour. What incredible audacity! What crying impudence! For at a time when the whole college wanted me as augur, and Cnaeus Pompeius and Quintus Hortensius nominated me - nomination by more was not allowed - neither were you solvent, nor could you - so you thought - anyhow save yourself except by the overthrow of the Republic. Besides, could you at that time stand for the augurate seeing that Caius Curio was not in Italy? or, when you were elected, could you have carried a single tribe ** without the help of Curio, whose friends were even convicted of riot because they had been too zealous on your behalf?

But I had found in you a benefactor. How? The very fact, however, you mention I have always kept before me; I have preferred to admit a debt to you rather than seem to anyone less informed not grateful enough. But how a benefactor? Because you did not slay me at Brundisium? ** When the very victor, who, as you used to boast, had conferred on you the chief place among his brigands, wished a man to be safe, and had ordered him to return to Italy - were you to slay that man? Assuming it was in your power: how are brigands ‘benefactors,’ except in being able to assert that they have granted life to those from whom they have not taken it? But if this were a ‘benefaction,’ those that assassinated the man by whom they had been saved - men you are wont to call most noble - would never have achieved such glory. ** And what sort of ‘benefaction’ is it to have kept yourself from a nefarious crime? In such circumstances not to have been slain by you seemed to me justly not so much a matter for gratification as for bitter regret that it was in your power to do so with impunity.

But granted it was a benefaction, since no greater could be received from a brigand - wherein can you call me ungrateful? Ought I not to have complained of the destruction of the Republic, that I might not appear ungrateful to you? And yet in that complaint, ** piteous and mournful as it was, but, having regard to this position in which the Senate and Roman people have placed me, incumbent on me, what was said by me with insult? What without moderation? What in an unfriendly tone? What a sign indeed of self-control it was, while I was complaining of Marcus Antonius, to abstain from abuse! all the more when you had scattered abroad the last remnants of the constitution; when at your house by the foulest traffic all things were on sale; when you confessed that those laws that had never been advertised ** had been proposed for your own behoof and by yourself **; when, as augur, you had abolished the auspices, as consul the tribunes' veto; when you were most shamefully fenced round by armed men; when, exhausted with wine and debauchery, you were practising in your licentious house all forms of impurity. But for my part, as if the conflict was with Marcus Crassus, with whom I have had many great ones, not with a gladiator of all the most villainous, while making great complaint about public affairs, I said nothing concerning the man. Therefore I will make him understand to-day how great was the ‘benefaction’ he then received from me.

But he even quoted a letter which he said I had written him - this fellow devoid of good breeding, and ignorant of the usages of life! For what man, having only a slight knowledge of the customs of gentlemen, because of some offence in the meantime, ever produced in public a letter written to him by a friend and openly quoted it? What is this but to eradicate from life life's social intercourse, to eradicate the communion of friends in absence? How many jokes are commonly found in letters which, if published, seem jejune! how many serious thoughts which nevertheless should in no way be divulged! So much for ill-breeding: mark his incredible folly! What have you in reply to me, O man of eloquence, as you now appear to Mustela and Tiro ** - and seeing that at this very time they are standing sword in hand in the sight of the Senate, I too will think you eloquent if you show how you propose to defend them on a charge of assassination. 

But what reply would you make, pray, were I to deny I had ever written that letter to you? by what witness would you convict me? By handwriting? of which you have a profitable knowledge. ** How could you? It is in the hand of a secretary. Here I envy your teacher who for so great a fee - its amount I will reveal presently - teaches you to have no sense. For what can be less proof, I do not say of an orator, but of a man, than to make such an objection to an adversary that, on a bare word of denial, the objector can proceed no further? But I make no denial, and you in this very matter I convict not merely of ill-breeding, but also of madness. For what word is there in that letter that is not full of civility, of friendliness, of kindness? This is the sum of your charge, that in this letter I express no bad opinion of you, that I write as if to a fellow-citizen, as if to a good man, not as if to a criminal and a brigand. But I, although by right I might do so, as having been attacked by you, will not produce your letter ** that in which you ask me to allow you to recall some exile, and assure me that you will not do so without my consent. And that consent you obtained from me. For why should I set myself against your audacity, which neither the authority of this body, nor the opinion of the Roman people, nor any laws could restrain? Yet after all what reason had you to request me if the man about whom you made your request had been already restored by a law of Caesar's? But of course he wished the credit to be mine in a matter wherein even he himself could win none, as a law had been passed.

But since, Conscript Fathers, I must both say something on my own behalf and much against Marcus Antonius, while to the one I ask your consideration, as I speak for myself; as to the other, I will myself take care that while I am speaking against him you shall hear me with attention. At the same time I make this request: if you recognise my moderation and restraint in every part of my life, and in particular as a speaker, not to think that to-day when I shall have made a reply to him in accordance with his challenge, I have been totally forgetful of myself. I will not treat him as a consul: he has not treated me even as a consular. Though he is in no way a consul, whether as regards his life, or his administration of the Republic, or the manner of his appointment, I without any controversy am a consular. Accordingly, that you might understand what sort of consul he professed to be, he has flung my consulship in my teeth. That consulship, in name mine, Conscript Fathers, was in fact yours. For what did I establish, what policy did I adopt, what did I execute but on the advice, authority, opinion of this body? And have you in your wisdom - to say nothing of eloquence - dared to vilify those acts in the face of those by whose advice and wisdom they were transacted? And who has been found to vilify my consulship, save you and P. Clodius, whose fate indeed awaits you, as it does C. Curio; for you have that ** in your house which to each of them was fatal.

My consulship does not please Marcus Antonius. But it pleased Publius Servilius - if among the consulars of that period I may mention one who has recently died; it pleased Quintus Catulus, whose authority will always survive in this Republic; it pleased the two Luculluses, Marcus Crassus, Quintus Hortensius, Caius Curio, Caius Piso, Manius Glabrio, Manius Lepidus, Lucius Voleatius, Caius Figulus, Decimus Silanus, and Lucius Murena, who then were consuls elect; the same conduct that pleased the consulars pleased Marcus Cato, who, in his departure out of life showed large foresight, and above all in not having a sight of you as consul. But most of all did my consulship gain the approval of Cnaeus Pompeius: who, the first moment he saw me, on quitting Syria, embraced me, thanked me, and said that it was owing to my services that he would see his country again. But why do I mention individuals? In a very full assembly my consulship so pleased the Senate that there was no senator but thanked me as if I were his father, but credited me with the preservation of his life, his fortunes, his children, and the Republic.

But seeing that the Republic has been deprived of the many illustrious men I have named, let us come to the living, of whom two out of the ranks of consulars remain. Lucius Cotta, a man of the finest intellect, and of the highest judgment, after the exploits you censure, moved in the most complimentary terms for a public thanksgiving, and to that motion the very consulars I have just named, and the whole Senate, assented; an honour since the foundation of this city paid to no civilian except me. Lucius Caesar, your maternal uncle - with what eloquence, with what earnestness, with what gravity, did he give his vote against his sister's husband, your stepfather! **

He was the man whom you should have had as your adviser and preceptor in all your policy and in your whole course of life; yet you preferred to resemble your stepfather rather than your uncle. His advice, I, though no kin of his, enjoyed when I was consul; did you, his sister's son, ever refer to him any matter of Republic? But to whom does he refer such things? Heavens! why, to those whose very birthdays must be announced to us. ‘Today Antonius does not come down.’ Why? He is giving a birthday-feast in his gardens, To whom? I will give no name; imagine it to be given, at one time to some Phormio, at another to a Gnatho, at another even to a Ballio. **

What outrageous indecency the fellow shows! what impudence, wickedness, lust intolerable! When you have a principal senator, an eminent citizen so closely allied to you, would you refer no matter of State to him, but refer it to those that possess no property of their own, and drain yours dry? Your consulship we must allow was a salutary one, mine pernicious! Have you so lost your sense of shame with your purity that you have dared to say this in that temple, where I used to consult that Senate which in days of its power was supreme over the world, where you have stationed the greatest of reprobates sword in hand. 

But you even dared - and what is there you would not dare? - to say that, when I was consul, the slope of the Capitol was full of armed slaves. In order, I suppose, that those nefarious resolutions ** of the Senate might pass I was offering violence to the Senate! O wretched fellow! if those doings are unknown to you - for you know nothing good - or if they are known, to make such an impudent statement in the face of such an assembly! For what Roman knight, what youth of good birth saving you, what man of any class, that remembered he was a citizen, when the Senate was sitting in this temple, was not on the slope of the Capitol? who was there that did not give in his name, though there were neither clerks enough, nor registers to take their names? For when nefarious conspirators to destroy their country were confessing, compelled as they were by the evidence of their accomplices, by their own handwriting, by letters which almost spoke aloud, that they had agreed to burn the city, to massacre the citizens, to lay waste Italy, and to wipe out the Republic, who would there be who would not be stirred to defend the common safety, especially when the Senate and Roman people possessed a leader ** such that, were his like now here, the same fate would have overtaken you as befell them?

He says I refused to surrender his stepfather's? body for burial. That charge not even Publius Clodius ever made; and, since I was justly that man's enemy, I lament that he has been in every vice already surpassed by you. But how did it occur to you to recall to our memory your education in the house of Publius Lentulus? Were you afraid we might think that by nature alone you could not have turned out so shameless had training also not come to your aid?

And so void of sense were you that throughout your speech you were at war with yourself, were making not only inconsistent statements, but statements so entirely disjointed and contrary to one another that the contest was not so much with me as with yourself. You confessed that your stepfather was implicated in that great crime, you complained of his paying the penalty. Thus what is peculiarly my part you praised, what is wholly that of the Senate you blamed: for the arrest of guilty men was my duty, their punishment that of the Senate. This eloquent fellow does not understand that his opponent is being praised by him, his audience abused. Moreover, what a sign it is, I do not say of audacity - for to be audacious is his desire - but of the last thing he desires, of the stupidity wherein he is unrivalled, to allude to the slope of the Capitol when armed men find a place among our benches! when, Good Heavens! in this shrine of Concord, where in my consulship salutary votes were given whereby we have survived up to this time, men stand posted sword in hand. Accuse the Senate: accuse the equestrian order, which was then allied with the Senate: accuse all classes, all citizens - if you only confess that this our order at this very time is beleaguered by Ituraeans, It is not audacity that causes you to make such impudent statements, but being blind to such self-contradiction, you show yourself a perfect fool. For what is madder, when you yourself have taken up arms to destroy the Republic, than to reproach another for taking them up to save it?

But you were even pleased on one occasion to be facetious. Heavens! how clumsy you were! And here some blame attaches to you, for you might have derived some wit from your actress ** wife. ‘Let arms yield to the toga.’ ** Well! did they not yield then? But afterwards the toga yielded to your arms. Let us therefore ask whether it was better for the arms of criminals to yield to the liberty of the Roman people, or for our liberty to yield to your arms. However I will make no further reply to you on the verses; this much I will say briefly, that you neither know them nor any literature at all; that I, though never wanting in duty either to the Republic or my friends, have yet by every kind of memorial of myself, secured that my vigils and my writings should both bring to youth something of profit, and to the Roman name something of honour. But these are not topics for the present occasion: let us consider greater matters.

You said P. Clodius was slain by my advice. What would men think if he had been killed at the time when you, in the forum, in the sight of the Roman people, attacked him with a sword, and would have finished the affair if he had not thrown himself on to the stairs of a bookshop, and baffled your attack by barricading them? In this proceeding indeed I confess I supported you, that I instigated it not even you assert. But Milo's action I had no opportunity even to support: he finished the business before anyone suspected he would act. ** ‘But I prompted it.’ No doubt such was Milo's temperament that he could not serve the Republic without a prompter! ‘But I rejoiced.’ What then? When all the community was so joyful, must I have been the only one sorrowful? However, as to the death of Clodius there was an enquiry - not indeed set up with much wisdom (for what was the use of an enquiry into homicide under a special law ** when there was by the laws a proper court already constituted?) yet enquiry there was. And so, whereas no one made such a charge against me when the matter was in issue, have you been found to make it so many years after?

As to your audacious statement, and that in many words, that it was by my doing that Pompeius was severed from Caesar's friendship, and for that reason it was by my fault the civil war arose, here you are mistaken, not indeed in the facts as a whole, but - what is most important - in the dates.

In the consulship of that most eminent citizen, Marcus Bibulus, I left nothing undone, to the full extent of my activities and efforts, to win Pompeius from alliance with Caesar. Here Caesar was more fortunate; for he severed Pompeius from intimacy with myself. But after Pompeius surrendered himself wholly to Caesar, why should I attempt to part him from Caesar? To hope it had been folly, to urge it impudence. None the less there did happen two occasions for me to give Pompeius some advice against Caesar: you may carp at them if you can. One was that he should not extend Caesar's command for five years; the other that he should not tolerate a proposal that Caesar's candidature should be recognised in his absence. If on either of these points I had prevailed we never should have fallen into this unhappy condition.

Yes, and I too, after Pompeius had already carried over to Caesar all his own resources and those of the Roman people, and had too late begun to perceive what I had long before foreseen, and after I saw the unnatural war that was assailing my country, it was I who never ceased to urge peace, and concord, and reconciliation; and my saying at that time is known to many: ‘Pompeius, would that either you had never joined in partnership with Caesar, or had never dissolved it! The one course would have shown your steadfastness, the other your foresight.’ These, Marcus Antonius, were always my counsels both as concerning Pompeius and the Republic: had they prevailed, the republic would now be standing; it is you that by your crimes, your penury, your infamy would have been brought to ruin.

But this is old history: the next accusation is new, that Caesar was slain by my advice. And here I am afraid, Conscript Fathers, to appear, by the most dishonourable act, to have suborned a mock accuser, not only to trick me out in my own merits, but also to load me with borrowed ones. ** For who ever heard of my name among the partners in that most glorious deed? And what man's name among that number was concealed? Concealed, say I? whose name was not at once made public? I would sooner assert that some boasted of the deed to win the reputation of a partner though they were not privy, than that any partner wished his name concealed. Moreover how likely it is that, among so many men, some obscure, some young, who were not suppressing any name, my name could have lain hid? For if advisers were wanted for the liberation of the country when those men were the actors, should I incite the Brutuses, of whom the one saw every day the bust of Lucius Brutus, ** the other that of Ahala also? ** Should these men then, with such a lineage as this, seek counsel from strangers rather than from their own kin, and abroad rather than at home? 

Again: Caius Cassius, a man born of a family that could not endure, I do not say sovereignty, but even the superior power of any man, wanted me, I suppose, as an adviser; Cassius who, without the aid of these most noble men, would have finished this business in Cilicia at the mouth of the river Cydnus if Caesar had, as arranged, moored his vessels to one bank instead of the opposite. ** Cnaeus Domitius too - it was not the death of that most illustrious gentleman, his father, not the death of his maternal uncle, ** not the deprivation of his rank, that stirred him to the recovery of his liberty, but my influence? Did I convince Caius Trebonius? I should not have ventured even to advise him. Wherefore the Republic owes a greater debt of gratitude to him who set the liberty of the Roman people above one man's friendship, and preferred to resist a sovereignty rather than to share it. Did Lucius Tillius Cimber follow me as his adviser? I was rather astonished that he performed that deed than thought he would do so - astonished for this reason: he had forgotten benefits, but remembered his country. Again: the two Serviliuses? - shall I call them Cascas or Ahalas? ** And these men you think were aroused by my advice rather than by affection for the Republic? It would be long to go through the rest of the names: that they were so many is an honour to the Republic, for themselves a title to glory.

But consider how this sharp fellow has convicted me. ‘When Caesar had been slain,’ he says, ‘Brutus, at once lifting high his bloody dagger, shouted for Cicero by name, and congratulated him on the recovery of freedom.’ Why for me especially? because I was privy to the plot? See whether the reason of his calling on me was not this, that, as he had done a deed exactly like those deeds I myself had done, he called me especially to witness that he had appeared as a rival of my fame? But you, most foolish of all men, do you not understand that, if it be a crime - as you assert against me - to have wished for Caesar's slaying, to have rejoiced at his death is also a crime? For what difference is there between the adviser and the approver of a deed? or what does it matter whether I wished it done, or was glad that it was done? Is there then any man, except those that were glad of his reign, who repudiated that deed, or disapproved of it when it was done?

All therefore are to blame, for all good men, so far as their own power went, slew Caesar; some lacked a plan, others courage, others opportunity: will no man lacked. But regard the stupidity of the fellow, or - I should say - of the blockhead. For this is what he said: ‘Brutus, whom I name with respect, ** grasping his bloody dagger, shouted for Cicero; whence it should be understood that he was an accomplice.’ So I, whom you suspect of having suspected something, am called by you a criminal; he who held up before him his dripping dagger, he is named by you with respect? Be it so: let the stupidity of your words be as I say: how much greater is it in your deeds and sentiments! Determine this some time or other, consul, what view you wish held of the Brutuses, of Caius Cassius, of Cnaeus Domitius, of Caius Trebonius, and of all the rest: sleep off, I say, and exhale the fume of debauch. Must torches be brought to rouse you as over such an issue you lie asleep? Will you never understand that you must determine whether the doers of that deed are murderers or avengers of liberty?

For attend for a while, and assume for a moment the thoughts of a sober man. I who am, as I myself confess, the friend, and, as you argue, the ally, of those men, say there is no middle course: I confess that they, if they are not the liberators of the Roman people and the saviours of the Republic, are worse than assassins, worse than murderers, worse even than parricides - if indeed it be more atrocious to slay the father of the country than one's own, You, wise and thoughtful fellow, what do you call them? If parricides, why have they been always named with respect by you both in this assembly and before the Roman people? why was Marcus Brutus on your motion exempted from the statutes, though absent from the city longer than ten days? ** why were the Apollinarian Games held with incredible proofs of honour towards Marcus Brutus? why were provinces given to Brutus, to Cassius? why were additional quaestors assigned them? why was the number of their legates increased? And these things were done through your means. Not murderers therefore. It follows that in your judgment they are saviours, since indeed there can be no middle term. 

What is the matter? do I disconcert you? for perhaps you do not sufficiently grasp what is put as a dilemma? Yet this is the gist of my conclusion: that, as they have been absolved by you from crime, by you too are they adjudged most worthy of the fullest rewards. Therefore I now recast my speech. I will write to them, that if any persons happen to ask them whether your charge against me ** is true, they are not to deny it to any. For I fear that, either their keeping me in ignorance of the plot may be dishonourable to the men themselves, or my refusal of their invitation my own utter disgrace.

For what thing, holy Jupiter! ever done, not in this city only but in all the world, was greater? what more glorious? what more to be commended to men's everlasting memory? Do you admit me, with its chiefs, into the partnership of this enterprise, as into a Trojan horse? ** I do not decline; I even thank you, whatever be your motive. For the matter is so great that I do not account that odium you wish to excite against me as comparable with the renown. For what happier fortune is there than that of the men whom you proclaim you have expelled and banished? what spot is there so deserted, or so savage, as not, as it were, to seem to accost them when they come, and welcome them? what men so boorish as not to think, when they see these men, that they themselves have reaped the fullest harvest that life gives? what future generation indeed shall be found so unmindful, what literature so ungrateful, as not to enshrine their glory in an immortal record? Aye! enrol me in the number of such.

But one thing I fear you will not approve of. For had I been one of them, I would have removed, not a king only, but kingship, out of the Republic; and if that pen ** had been mine, as is said, believe me, I would have made an end, ** not of one act only, but of the whole story. And yet, if to have wished for Caesar's slaying is a crime, consider, I pray, Antonius, what will be your position, who, it is well known, entered into this scheme ** at Narbo with Caius Trebonius, and, because of partnership in that design, were, we have seen, drawn aside by Trebonius at the time when Caesar was being slain. But I - see how I treat you in no unfriendly way! - praise you for having at one time had a noble thought; for not having informed, I thank you; your failure to act I pardon. That matter called for a man.

But if any one were to drag you into court, and were to adopt that maxim of Cassius, ‘To whose advantage was it?’ take care, I pray, you are not embarrassed. Although that deed was in fact, as you said, a gain for all men who repudiated slavery, yet for you it was especially so, who not only are not a slave, but even a king, who have at the Temple of Ops delivered yourself from a load of debt; who by means of those same documents have squandered moneys innumerable; you, to whom so much was brought out of Caesar's house; you, at whose house is a most lucrative factory of forged note-books and signatures, a most outrageous market for lands, towns, exemptions from taxation, revenues. For what could have alleviated your need and your debt save the death of Caesar? You seem to me somewhat disturbed: have you some secret fear this charge may seem to attach to you? I free you from apprehension: no one will ever believe it; it is not your nature to deserve well of the Republic: as authors of that most glorious deed the Republic possesses most illustrious men: I only say you are glad of it, I do not contend you did it.

I have replied to his greatest charges; now I must also reply to what remains.

Read the rest of the Second Philippic on Attalus