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[17]
But even if it had been proper to entertain
any idea of peace with the piratical crew of Marcus Antonius, still I was the
last person who ought to have been selected to negotiate such a peace. I never
voted for sending ambassadors. Before the return of the last ambassadors I
ventured to say, that peace itself, even if they did bring it, ought to be
repudiated, since war would be concealed under the name of peace; I was the
chief adviser of the adoption of the garb of war; I have invariably called that
man a public enemy, when others have been calling him only an adversary; I have
always pronounced this to be a war, while others have styled it only a tumult.
Nor have I done this in the senate alone; I have always acted in the same way
before the people. Nor have I spoken against himself only, but also against the
accomplices in and agents of his crimes, whether present here, or there with
him.
M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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