"Our dissensions have been crushed by the arms, and extinguished by the
lenity of the conqueror. Let all of us, not the wise only, but every
citizen who has ordinary sense, be guided by a single desire. Salvation
there can be none for us, Caesar, unless you are preserved. Therefore, we
exhort you, we beseech you, to watch over your own safety. You believe
that you are threatened by a secret peril. From my own heart I say, and I
speak for others as well as myself, we will stand as sentries over your
safety, and we will interpose our own bodies between you and any danger
which may menace you." [15]
* * * * *
Such, in compressed form, for necessary brevity, but deserving to be
studied in its own brilliant language, was the speech delivered by Cicero,
in the Senate in Caesar's presence, within a few weeks of his murder. The
authenticity of it has been questioned, but without result beyond creating
a doubt whether it was edited and corrected, according to his usual habit,
by Cicero himself. The external evidence of genuineness is as good as for
any of his other orations, and the Senate possessed no other speaker known
to us, to whom, with any probability, so splendid an illustration of Roman
eloquence could be assigned.
Now, therefore, let us turn to the second Philippic delivered in the
following summer when the deed had been accomplished which Cicero
professed to hold in so much abhorrence.
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