Conspirators

Senators! We have heard your advice. Villians! We have heard your deceptions.

Senators, we will soon hear your consensus. Villians, we will soon hear your laments. You are no doubt thankful that the disorder you have sown with your daggers takes so long to weed out, for by all rights you ought already to be decaying in the Tiber. We quickly approach the day when you will reap the vengeance of what you so insidiously cultivated.

Your cohorts have run out of excuses and pressing issues for you to hide behind and likewise you have run out of time. Indeed all this urgent business seems to have sheathed the vengeance of Rome, but no longer! Your lackeys ask us to remain true to the customs and traditions of Rome. They ask us to remember the past in deciding the future. Remember Lucius Saturninus, tribune of the plebs, and Gaius Servilius, praetor, both executed for conspiracy against the state. Remember the Grachii, righteously killed for their rashness, for their impudence against the senate. Remember the Catilinarian conspirators, strangled with even less consideration than we now offer to the executors of this most recent conspiracy.

Senators, stay on the path you began by naming Dolabella consul, the path you continued in granting Caesar the state sponsored funeral games he deserved. We have already praised Caesar in death for the great man he was, but this issue is not complete. Now we must punish the men who struck him down, struck down the very same man they swore a sacred oath to protect!

Realize the small measure of order we have regained still lies vulnerable. If you do not call the conspirators to stand for their crimes then you also do not affirm the composition of this senate. We must continue to forge forward or we will fall apart. We do not need to start all this over again. If we abandon our course in support of Caesar then we take up the burden of the assassins. We take up the burden of new elections without old magistrates, of new problems without old guidance.

Do not make light of this progress we have striven so far to achieve. Do not let the calls of amnesty soften your hearts, lest we all remain at the mercy of these murders. If we grant them immunity now, then we leave ourselves vulnerable to them in the future. If we let them walk free what are the people to think of the senate except that whichever man holds the most daggers holds the most power?

Marcus Junius Brutus sits before us still and stabs at us with lies as he stabbed Caesar with iron. You have heard this man claim he wants peace with all of you, but whose actions are to blame for riling the people to begin with? He seeks only escape from his crimes. You have heard this man claim compassion, but who was it that remained numb to Caesar’s pain? He is the one who stabbed the man offering clemency. You have heard this man claim liberty, but who was it that shackled all of us with complaint, and deceit, and pettiness as we strive to reform our country. His liberty may still yet imprison us all in the slaughter of a plebeian rebellion.

Since the beginning of all these affairs have we spoken of grain? Of expansion? Of taxes? Recording history? Furthering literature? Building infrastructure? Building temples? Finding our soldiers land? Securing our borders? Securing our provinces? In short have we spoken of any matter looking to ensure Rome’s future? Any matter to benefit all of Rome? NO! We have been restricted in fighting amongst ourselves, fighting to establish order we had until so recently already achieved, fighting for peace. And what root is to blame for sapping so much of the Roman Senate and People’s nourishing efforts? I look no farther than you and your conspirators Marcus Junius Brutus.

Therefore senate I ask you to vote on the conspirators: for the safety of us all, and the conservation of Rome; so that we may appease heart of the people and ourselves; to the verification and glory of this august body; to the repression of the enemies of Rome; in keeping with the previous rulings of this body and the ancient precedents and customs of our people. I ask your advice, conscript fathers: should not Marcus Junius Brutus be stripped of his praetorship and with his fellow brought before a trial to face the consequences of his sins?

Marcus Antonius