When he was dead I saw that nothing remained to my country but the choice
of a master. I chose the best.

_Cato_.--The best! What! a man who had broken all laws, who had violated
all trusts, who had led the armies of the Commonwealth against Antony,
and then joined with him and that sottish traitor Lepidus, to set up a
triumvirate more execrable by far than either of the former; who shed the
best blood in Rome by an inhuman proscription, murdered even his own
guardian, murdered Cicero, to whose confidence, too improvidently given,
he owed all his power? Was this the master you chose? Could you bring
your tongue to give him the name of Augustus? Could you stoop to beg
consulships and triumphs from him? Oh, shame to virtue! Oh, degeneracy
of Rome! To what infamy are her sons, her noblest sons, fallen. The
thought of it pains me more than the wound that I died of; it stabs my
soul.

_Messalla_.--Moderate, Cato, the vehemence of your indignation. There
has always been too much passion mixed with your virtue. The enthusiasm
you are possessed with is a noble one, but it disturbs your judgment.
Hear me with patience, and with the tranquillity that becomes a
philosopher. It is true that Octavius had done all you have said; but it
is no less true that, in our circumstances, he was the best master Rome
could choose. His mind was fitted by nature for empire. His
understanding was clear and strong. His passions were cool, and under
the absolute command of his reason. His name gave him an authority over
the troops and the people which no other Roman could possess in an equal
degree. He used that authority to restrain the excesses of both, which
it was no longer in the power of the Senate to repress, nor of any other
general or magistrate in the state. He restored discipline in our
armies, the first means of salvation, without which no legal government