THE SPEECH OF M. T. CICERO FOR HIS HOUSE. ADDRESSED TO THE PRIESTS

THE ARGUMENT.

Cicero soon after his consulship, had purchased the house of Marcus Crassus on the Palatine Hill, which adjoined that in which he had always lived with his father; it was one of the finest houses in Rome, and cost him nearly thirty thousand pounds, and was joined to the colonnade or portico called by the name of Catulus, who had built it out of the Cimbric spoils on that area where Flaccus formerly lived, whose house had been demolished by public authority for his seditious union with Caius Gracchus.

As soon as Clodius had carried his decree against Cicero after his flight, he immediately began plundering and destroying all his houses; the consuls, Piso and Gabinius, divided the greater part of his furniture and of the ornaments of his house and villa between them; and, in the hope of making the loss of his house at Rome irretrievable, Clodius consecrated the area on which it stood to the service of religion, building on it a temple to Liberty, and he pulled down the adjoining portico of Catulus in order to rebuild it of the same order as the temple. The law being that a consecration, legally performed, made the thing consecrated inapplicable ever after to any private use.

The affair was to be determined by the college of priests, who were the judges in all cases relating to religion; since the senate could only make a provisional decree, that, if the priests discharged the ground from the service of religion, then in that case the consuls should rebuild the house at the public charge. The cause now came before the priests on the last day of September. Cicero endeavoured, in the first place, to disabuse their minds of any enmity to him which might have been instilled into their minds by Clodius on account of his late conduct with respect to Pompey. (For there had been a great scarcity at Rome, partly occasioned by the great multitudes that had come from all parts of Italy on Cicero's account; and Cicero had supported a resolution of the senate by which Pompey was entreated to undertake the province of restoring plenty to the city, and to this end the consuls had been ordered to draw up a law by which the whole administration of the corn and provisions of the republic was granted to Pompey for five years. And in consequence of Cicero's advocacy of the measure Clodius endeavoured to excite odium against him, as having deserted the cause of the senate to pay court to Pompey; though the measure had been very successful, as the credit of Pompey's name immediately reduced the price of provisions in the markets.)

As, however, the main question turned upon the legality of the consecration, Cicero applies to establish the fact of its illegality by proving that Clodius could not legally consecrate anything, as his election to the tribunate was illegal; since his adoption into a plebeian family, or at least into that particular family into which he had been adopted, was in violation and defiance of all the laws made for such cases; if his adoption was illegal, clearly he could not have legally been elected tribune, nor have legally done any action as tribune.

The priests decided that if he who performed the office of consecration had not been legally authorized to do so, then the area in question might without any scruple of religion be restored to Cicero. The point of law they left to the senate, who, after many interruptions from Clodius and Serranus, passed a decree that Cicero's damage should be made good to him, and his houses rebuilt at the public charge.

Cicero himself thought very highly of this speech, and published it immediately; and says, in one of his letters to Atticus, (iv. 2) that if ever he was great in speaking, he was so especially now, as his indignation and the greatness of the injury done to him gave him especial energy and force of oratory. Some critics, but apparently without any good reason, have doubted the genuineness of this oration.

Many things, O priests, have been devised and established with divine wisdom by our ancestors; but no action of theirs was ever more wise than their determination that the same men should superintend both what relates to the religious worship due to the immortal gods, and also what concerns the highest interests of the state, so that they might preserve the republic as the most honourable and eminent of the citizens, by governing it well, and as priests by wisely interpreting the requirements of religion. But if there has ever been a time when an important cause has depended on the decision and power of the priests of the Roman people, this indeed is that cause; being such that the dignity of the whole republic, the safety of all the citizens, their lives, their liberties, their altars, their hearths, their household gods, their properties and condition as citizens, and their homes, all appear to be committed and entrusted to your wisdom integrity, and power. [sect. 2] You have got to decide this day whether you prefer for the future to deprive frantic and profligate magistrates of the protection of wicked and unprincipled citizens, or even to arm them with the cloak of religion and of the respect due to the immortal gods. For if that pest and conflagration of the republic succeeds in defending his own mischievous and fatal tribunate by appeals to divine religion, when he cannot maintain it by any considerations of human equity, then we must seek for other ceremonies, for other ministers of the immortal gods, for other interpreters of the requirements of religion. But if those things which were done by the madness of wicked men in the republic at a time when it was oppressed by one party, deserted by another, and betrayed by a third, are annulled by your authority and your wisdom, O priests, then we shall have cause rightly and deservedly to praise the wisdom of our ancestors in selecting the most honourable men of the state for the priesthood.

[sect. 3] But since that madman has thought that he should find a ready road to your attention by blaming the sentiments that I in the last few days have expressed in the senate concerning the republic, I will deviate from the natural arrangement of my speech, and I will make a reply to what I will not call the speech of that furious fellow, (for that is more than he is capable of,) but to his abuse, that being an employment which he has fortified himself in the practice of by his own intolerable bad temper, and by the length of time that he has been allowed to indulge it with impunity.

Ch. 2

And in the first place, I ask you this, O you insane and frantic man, what excessive punishment for your wickednesses and crimes is it that distracts you so as to make you think that these menmen of their high character, who support the dignity of the republic, not only by their wisdom, but also by their dignified appearanceare angry with me, because in delivering my opinion I connected the safety of the citizens with the honour of Cnaeus Pompeius, and that they are likely at this present time to have different feelings with respect to the general interests of religion from those which they entertained when I was absent? [sect. 4] Oh, says he, you had the advantage before the priests, but now you must inevitably get worst off since you have had recourse to the people. Is it so? Will you transfer that which is the greatest defect in the ignorant multitude,namely, its fickleness and inconstancy, and change of opinion, as frequent as the changes of the weather, to these men, whose gravity protects them from inconsistency, while their fixed and definite principles of religion and the antiquity of precedents, and the authority of written records and monuments, effectually deters them from all capricious change of sentiment? Are you, says he, the man whom the senate was unable to do without? whom the good lamented? whom the republic regretted? by whose restoration we expected that the authority of the senate was restored? and who destroyed that authority the very first thing you did? I am not at present speaking of my own matters; I will first of all reply to your impudence.

Ch. 3 [sect. 5]

Did you then, O you deadly pest of the republic, by means of the sword and arms, by the terror of an armed force, by the wickedness of the consuls, and the threats of most audacious men,by enlisting slaves, by besieging the temples, by occupying the forum, by oppressing the senate, contrive to compel the departure of that citizen from his home and from his country, in order to prevent actual battles between the virtuous and wicked citizens,though you now confess that he was regretted and sent for back and recalled by the senate, by all good men, and by the whole of Italy, as the only means of preserving the republic? But on that day of disturbance you ought not, says he, to have come into the senate, you ought not to have entered the Capitol. [sect. 6] But I did not come, and I kept in my own house as long as that disturbance lasted; while it was notorious that your slaves had come with you armed into the Capitol, ready for plunder and for the massacre of all good men, with all that band of wicked and profligate partisans of yours. And when this was reported to me, I know that I remained at home, and would not give you and your gladiators power of renewing the massacre. After news was brought to me that the Roman people had assembled at the Capitol, because of their fear for, and difficulty of procuring corn, and that the ministers of your crimes had been frightened and had fled, some having dropped their swords, and some having had them taken from them, I came forward not only without any armed band, but with only a very few friends. [sect. 7] Should I, when Publius Lentulus the consul, who had conferred the greatest benefits on me and on the republic,when Quintus Metellus, your brother, O Metellus, who, though he had been my enemy, had still preferred my safety and dignity to any desire to keep alive our quarrel, and to your entreaties that he would do so, sent for me to the senate,when that great multitude of citizens, who had lately shown such zeal in my behalf, entreated me by name to show my gratitude to them,should I, I say, have declined to come forward, especially when it was notorious that you with your band of runaway slaves had already left the place? Have you dared to call meme, the guardian and defender of the Capitol and of every templethe enemy of the Capitol, because, when the two consuls were holding the senate in the Capitol, I came thither? Is there any time at which it can be discreditable to have attended the senate? or was that business which was then being transacted of such a nature that I was bound to repudiate the affair itself, and to condemn those who were promoting it?

Ch. 4 [sect. 8]

First, I say that it is the duty of a virtuous senator at all times to attend the senate; and I do not agree with those who determine that they themselves will not come to the senate at unfavourable seasons, and who do not understand that this excessive obstinacy of theirs is exceedingly pleasant and acceptable to those men whose wishes they intend to counteract. But some departed out of fear, because they thought that they could not remain with safety in the senate. I do not name them, nor do I ask whether they had any real reason for fearing anything. I imagine that every one had a right to form his own opinion as to what grounds he had for fear. Do you ask why I was not afraid? Why, because it was known that you had gone away. Do you ask why, when some good men thought that they could not remain with safety in the senate, I did not think so too? or why, when I thought that it was impossible for me to remain in the city at all with safety, they did not think so too? Are then others to be allowed, and rightly enough, to have no fear for themselves at a time when I am in danger; and yet am I bound to be afraid not only when I am myself in peril, but when others are also?

[sect. 9] Or am I to be blamed because I did not express an opinion condemnatory of both the consuls? Ought I then to condemn those men, of all men in the world, by whose law it was brought about that I, who had never been condemned and who had deserved well of the republic, should be saved from enduring the punishment of condemned criminals? Was I, of all men in the world, I who had been restored to my former dignity by their means, to denounce by my expressed opinion the admirable sentiments of those men, who, even if they had been in error, ought to have been borne with by me and by all good men, on account of their exceeding good-will displayed in ensuring my preservation? And what were the opinions which I delivered? In the first place, that one which the common conversation of the people had already previously fixed in our minds; in the second place, that one which had been discussed in the senate on the preceding days; and thirdly, that which the senate in a very full house adopted, expressing its agreement with me; so that so sudden or novel proposition was brought forward by me, and moreover, if there be any fault in the opinion, it is sot more the fault of the individual who advanced it than of all those men who approved of it. [sect. 10] But the decision of the senate was not free, because of the fear in which they were. If you make out that they who left it were in fear, at least grant that they who remained were not alarmed. But if no free decision could be come to without the presence of those men who were absent at that time, I say that the motion about framing a resolution of the senate began to be made when every one was present; it was carried by acclamation by the entire senate.

Ch. 5

But I ask, since I am the prime mover in and the chief cause of this vote, what fault is found with the vote itself? Was there not good reason for adopting an unprecedented plan? Was not I as much concerned as any one in that matter? or, had we any other resource? What circumstances, what reasons could there be of greater consequence than famine? than sedition? than the designs of you and your partisans? who thought that, if an opportunity was given them of inflaming the minds of the ignorant, you, under the pretence afforded by the scarcity of provisions, would be able to renew your wicked and fatal practices.

[sect. 11] As for corn, some of the countries which usually supply it had not got it; some had sent it into other countries, I imagine because of the great variety of sellers; and some were keeping it back, shut up in their stores, in order suddenly to send it, so that the supply might be more acceptable if they seemed to come to our aid when we were in a state of actual famine. The matter was not one of uncertain opinions, it was a case of actually existing danger, present to our eyes; it was not one which we were looking forward to in conjecture, but one which we were actually beholding by present experience. For when the scarcity was getting more severe, so that it was actually want and famine that was dreaded, and not mere dearness of price, there was a rush towards the Temple of Concord, when the consul Metellus summoned the senate to meet in that place. And if that was the genuine effect of the grief of men suffering under famine, certainly the consuls had good reason to undertake the affair, certainly the senate had good reason to adopt some determination or other.

But if the scarcity was the pretext, and if you in reality were the exciter and kindler of sedition, ought we not all to have striven to take away all shadow of pretext for your madness? [sect. 12] What, if both these causes existed,if there was both famine to excite men, and you too like a nail working into this ulcer? was there not all the more need to apply some remedy, which might put an end to both the evil caused by nature, and to the other mischief imported into the case? There was then both present dearness and impending famine; that is not enough; men were attacked with stones. If that arose from the indignation of the common people, without any one having stirred them up, it is a great misfortune; but if, it was caused by the instigation of Publius Clodius, it is only the habitual wickedness of a wicked man: if both these causes existed,if there was both a fact sufficient of itself to excite the feelings of the multitude, and if there were leaders of sedition ready and forearmed; then, does it not seem natural for the republic to have had recourse to the protection of the consul and the loyalty of the senate? But it is quite plain that one of these causes did exist; that there was a difficulty of obtaining provisions, and an extreme scarcity of corn, so that men were afraid not only of a continuance of high prices, but of actual famine. No one denies it. But I do not wish you, O priests, to suspect that that enemy of all tranquillity and peace was likely to seize on this as a pretext for conflagration, and massacre, and rapine, unless you see it proved. [sect. 13]

Who are the men who were openly named in the senate by Quintus Metellus,your brother, O Metellus,the consul, by whom he said that he had been attacked with stones and actually hit? He named Lucius Sergius and Marcus Lollius. Who is that Lollius? A man who is not even at this moment by your side without his sword; who, while you were tribune of the people, demanded (I will say nothing of his designs against myself) to have the murder of Cnaeus Pompeius entrusted to him. Who is Sergius? The armour-bearer of Catiline, your own body-guard, the standard-bearer of sedition, the exciter of the shopkeepers, a man who has been convicted of assault, an assassin, a stoner of men, a man who has depopulated the forum, and blockaded the senate-house. With these leaders and others like them, when you, at the time when provisions were dear, under pretence of espousing the cause of the poor and ignorant, were preparing for sudden attacks on the consuls, on the senate, on the property and fortunes of the, rich; when it was impossible for you to find safety if affairs remained in a tranquil state; when, the leaders being all desperate men, you had your bands of profligates regularly enrolled and distributed into decuries,did it not behoove the senate to take good care that that fatal firebrand did not fall upon these vast materials for sedition?

Ch. 6 [sect. 14]

There was, therefore, good cause for adopting an unusual determination. See now whether or not I was the person who had the principal share in it. Who was it whom that friend of yours, Sergius, whom Lollius, whom the other rascals named when they were throwing the stones? who was it that they said ought to provide them with corn? was it not I? What was it that that nocturnal mob of boys which had been trained by you kept demanding? They were demanding corn of me; as if I superintended the corn-market; or as if I were keeping back any corn in store; or as if, in fact, I had any management of, or influence whatever in, any affairs of that class at all. But the fellow who was thirsting for slaughter had published my name to the artisans, and to the ignorant mob. When the senate, in a very full house assembled in the temple of the all-good and all-powerful Jupiter, had passed a decree touching my dignity with only one dissenting voice, on a sudden, on that very day, a most unexpected cheapness followed a time when corn had been excessively dear. [sect. 15] Some said, (and I myself am of that opinion,) that the immortal gods had shown their approbation of my return by this exercise of their power. But some traced that fact back, connecting it with this argument and opinion,that, as all hopes of tranquillity and concord appeared to depend on my return, and as there was an incessant dread of sedition connected with my absence, so now that all fear of contest was almost at an end, they thought that the state of the corn-market was altered; and, because it again had become more unmanageable after my return, then corn was demanded of me, on whose arrival virtuous men were in the habit of saying that there would be cheapness.

Ch. 7

Lastly, my name was pronounced not only by your band of partisans at your instigation, but even after your forces had been routed and scattered, I was summoned by name to the senate by the whole Roman people, who at that time were assembled around the Capitol, though on that day I was far from well. [sect. 16] Being expected, I came. After many opinions had been already pronounced, I was asked mine. I delivered one very advantageous to the republic, and at the same time necessary for my own interests. Abundance of corn and cheapness of price was demanded of me; as if I had any influence in producing such a state of things as that. Things were in a very different condition. I was pressed by eager expostulation from many good men. I was unable to support the abuse of the wicked. I proposed to entrust the business to an influential friend, not in order to impose a burden on one to whom I was under such heavy obligations, (for I would rather have sunk under it myself, than done that,) but because I saw, what every one else saw, that, whatever we promised in behalf of Cnaeus Pompeius, he would most easily accomplish by his integrity, wisdom, virtue, and authority, and by his invariable good-fortune. [sect. 17] Therefore, whether the immortal gods give this to the Roman people as the fruit of my return, that, as on my departure there ensued a want of corn, and famine, and devastation, and bloodshed, and conflagration, and pillage, and impunity for all crimes, and flight, and terror, and discord, so my return is followed by fertility of the lands, by abundant harvests, by hopes of tranquillity, by peaceful dispositions on the part of the citizens, by a restoration of the courts of justice and of the laws, while unanimity on the part of the people and the authority of the senate seem to have been brought back in my company; or, if the fact is that I, on my arrival, was bound, in return for [p. 10] such kindness, to do something for the Roman people by my prudence, authority and diligence; then I do promise, and undertake, and pledge myself to do it. I say no more. This, I say, which is sufficient for the present occasion, that the republic shall not, on any pretence connected with the price of corn, fall into that danger into which some people endeavoured to bring it.

Ch. 8 [sect. 18]

Are then my sentiments found fault with in this business which fell especially to my share? I rescued affairs of the greatest consequence from the mischief of the most imminent danger; and I saved not only it, but you also, from massacre, and conflagration, and devastation. No one denies this; as to the pretext of dearness there was added that spy of the general misery, who always lit the firebrand of his guilt in the misfortunes of the republic.

He says that nothing ought to have been decreed irregularly to any one. I do not at present make the same reply to you that I make to the rest,That many wars, and these wars of the greatest danger and of the greatest importance, both by land and sea, have been entrusted to Cnaeus Pompeius out of the regular order. And if any one repents of those measures, he must also repent of the victory of the Roman people. [sect. 19] I do not deal with you in this manner. I can address this argument to those men, who state that if any matter must be entrusted to one individual, then they would rather entrust it to Cnaeus Pompeius than to any one, but that they make a rule of never entrusting anything to any one in an irregular manner; still, after it has been entrusted to Pompeius, that they then vindicate and uphold the measure, as is due to the dignity of the man. From praising the statements of these men I am hindered by the triumphs of Cnaeus Pompeius, by which he (though it was quite out of the regular order of things that he was summoned to defend his country) increased the reputation of the Roman people, and crowned their empire with honour. At the same time I praise their firmness, which is a virtue which I have need to avail myself of, since it was on my proposition that he was appointed, quite out of the regular routine, to conduct the war against Mithridates and Tigranes. [sect. 20] But still there are some points which I can argue with them; but still, how great is your impudence, when you dare to say that nothing ought to be given to any one out of the regular routine! You who, when, by an iniquitous law, for some unknown cause you had confiscated the property of Ptolemy, King of Cyprus, the brother of the King of Alexandria, who was reigning by the same right as he was, and had involved the Roman people in the crime,when you had sent a band of robbers from this empire to ravage his kingdom, and goods, and property, though there had been a long alliance and friendship between us and his father, and grandfather, and still more remote ancestors,appointed Marcus Cato to superintend the carrying away of his money, and the managing the war if any individual was found hardy enough to defend his own property. [sect. 21] Will you say, Yes, but what a man Cato was! A most religious, most prudent, most gallant man; the firmest friend to the republic, a citizen of a most marvellous and almost unique virtue, and wisdom, and purity of life. Very fine, but what is all that to you, when you say that it is untrue that any one ought to be appointed to any public duty out of the regular course?

Ch. 9

And in this matter I am only convicting you of inconsistency; who in the case of this very Cato, whom you did not so much promote out of regard for his dignity, as get out of the way lest he might hinder your wickedness,whom you had exposed to your Sergii, and Lollii, and Titii, and your other leaders in massacre and conflagration, whom you yourself had called the executioner of the citizens, the chief murderer of men who had never been condemned, the very fountain of cruelty,you still by your motion conferred this honour and command on him out of the regular course, and behaved with such violence, that you were wholly unable to disguise your object and, the system of wickedness which you had laid down for yourself. [sect. 22]

You read letters in the assembly which you said had been sent to you by Caius Caesar. Caesar to Pulcher. And when you proceeded to argue that this was a proof of intimacy, because he only used the names of himself and you, and did not add proconsul, or tribune of the people, and then began to congratulate you that you had got Marcus Cato out of the way of your tribuneship for the remainder of the time, and that you had also taken away for the future the power of giving extraordinary commissions;letters which he never sent to you at all, or which, if he did send them, he certainly never meant to be read in the public assembly;at all events, whether he sent them or whether you forged them, your intention with respect to the honours conferred upon Cato was revealed by the reading of those letters. [sect. 23] But, however, I will say no more about Cato, whose eminent virtue, and dignity, and integrity, and moderation in that business which he executed, appear like a screen to veil the iniquity of your law and of your argument. What more need I say? Who was it who gave to the most infamous man that has ever existed, to the most wicked and polluted of all men, that rich and fertile Syria? Who gave him a war to carry on against nations who were in a state of profound peace? Who gave him the money which was destined for the purchase of lands and which had been taken by violence out of the fruits of the achievements of Caesar? Who gave him an unlimited command?¹ And, indeed, when you had given him Cilicia, you altered the terms of your bargain with him, and you transferred Cilicia to the praetor, again quite out of the regular course. And then, when the bribe had been increased, you gave Syria to Gabiniusexpressly naming him. What more? Did you not, naming him expressly, deliver over, bound and fettered, to Lucius Piso, the foulest, the most cruel, the most treacherous of men, the most infamous of all men, as stigmatised for every sort of wickedness and lust, free nations, who had been declared free by numerous resolutions of the senate, and even by a recent law of your own son-in-law? Did not you, after the recompense for your service and the bribe of a province had been paid by him at my expense, still divide the treasury with him? [sect. 24] Is it so? Did you annul the arrangement of the consular provinces, which Caius Gracchus, than whom there hardly ever lived a man more devoted to the people, not only abstained from taking from the senate, but even passed a solemn law to establish the principle that they were to be settled every year by the senate;did you, I say, disturb that arrangement, and that too after it had been formally settled according to the Sempronian law? You gave the provinces, in an irregular manner, without casting lots, not to the consuls, but to the pests of the republic, expressly naming them. And shall we be found fault with, because we have appointed a most illustrious man, who has often been selected before on occasions of the greatest danger to the republic, (expressly naming him,) to superintend a matter of the most urgent importance, and which was previously in an almost desperate condition?

Ch. 10

What more shall I say? If, then, amid the darkness and impenetrable clouds and storms which were then lowering above the republic, when you had driven the senate from the helm and turned the people out of the ship, and while you yourself, like a captain of pirates, were hastening on with all your sails set, with your most infamous band of robbers; if at that time you had been able to carry the resolutions which you proposed, and punished, and brought forward, and sold, what place in the whole world would have been free from the extraordinary magistrates and commanders invested with their power by the great Clodius? [sect. 25]

But at last the indignation of Cnaeus Pompeius, (I will say, even in his hearing, what I have felt, and still do feel what ever may be the way in which he takes it,)the indignation I say, of Cnaeus Pompeius, which had been too long concealed and slumbering, being at last aroused, came on a sudden to the aid of the republic, and raised the city crushed with misfortunes, dumb, weakened, and broken spirited through fear to some hope of recovering its liberty and former dignity. And was this man not to be appointed to superintend the providing the city with corn? You, forsooth, by your law abandoned all the corn, whether belonging to private individuals or to the state, all the provinces which supply corn, and all the contractors, and all the keys of the granaries, to that most impure of gluttons, the taster of your lusts, to that most needy and most impious man, Sextus Clodius, the companion of your family, who by his tongue alienated even your sister from you. And it was by this action of yours that dearness was first produced, and afterwards scarcity. Famine, conflagration, bloodshed, and pillage were impending. Your insane frenzy was threatening the fortunes and property of every man. [sect. 26] That ill-omened pest of the state even complains that the corn should have been taken out of the impure mouth of Sextus Clodius, and that the republic in its extremest peril should have implored the aid of that man by whom it recollected that it had often been preserved, and had its power [p. 14] extended. Clodius thinks that nothing ought to be done out of the regular course. What! what sort of law is it that you say that you passed about me, you parricide, you fratricide, you murderer of your sister; did you not pass that out of the regular course? Was it lawful for you to pass, I will not say a law, but a wicked private bill, concerning the ruin of a citizen, the preserver of the republic, as all gods and men have long since agreed to call him, and, as you yourself confess, when he was not only uncondemned but even unimpeached, amid the mourning of the senate and the lamentation of all good men, rejecting the prayers of all Italy, while the republic lay oppressed and captive at your feet? And was it not lawful for me, when the Roman people implored me, when the senate requested me, when the critical state of the republic demanded it of me, to deliver an opinion concerning the safety of the Roman people? [sect. 27] And if that opinion the dignity of Cnaeus Pompeius was increased, in connection with the common advantage, certainly I ought to be praised if I seemed to have given my vote for honour of that than who had brought his influence to aid in the ensuring of my safety.

Ch. 11

Let men ceasecease, I say, from hoping that now that I have been restored, I can be undermined by the same contrivances by which they formerly smote me when I was flourishing. For what pair of men of consular dignity were ever more united in friendship in this state than Cnaeus Pompeius and I? Who has ever spoken more honourably or more repeatedly of his dignity before the Roman people or to the senate than I have? What labour was there so great, or what enmity so formidable, or what contest so arduous, that I was unwilling to encounter it for the sake of his dignity? and what honour that could be paid me by him, what panegyric of my glory, what recompense for my goodwill was ever omitted by him? [sect. 28] This union of ours, this unanimity and concert in managing the affairs of the republic successfully, this most delightful agreement in life and all its duties, certain men, by false reports of conversations and false accusations, broke, interrupted; going to him, and warning him to be afraid of me, to guard against me, and at the same time telling me that he was hostile to me above all men: so that I had net sufficient confidence to ask of him what it was desirable for me to ask, nor did he, having been made sore by the jealousies and wickedness of certain individuals, promise me with sufficient freedom what my necessities required. [sect. 29] A great price has been paid for my error, O priests, so that I am not only grieved for my folly, but ashamed of it too; since, though it was not some sudden and accidental occasion, but many labors of long standing, encountered and undertaken long before, which had united me with a most gallant and most illustrious man, I still suffered myself to be led away to abandon such a friendship, and did not perceive who they were whom it became me either to oppose as open enemies, or to distrust as treacherous friends. Let them now at length cease to try and excite me with the same language as before: What is that man about? Does not he know how great his influence is, what great achievements be has performed with what great honour he has been restored? Why does he do honour to the man by whom he was deserted? [sect. 30] But I neither think that I was deserted at that time, but rather surrendered; nor do I think it needful for me to explain what at the time of that unhappiness to the republic was done against me nor how, nor by whose instrumentality it was done. If it was beneficial to the republic that that alone, as the victim offered for the general safety, should quaff that most unworthy cup of calamity, it may be useful also for me to conceal and be silent respecting the men by whose wickedness it was brought about. But yet it is the part of an ungrateful man to be silent. Therefore I will most willingly proclaim that Cnaeus Pompeius laboured with all his zeal and influence as much as any one of you, and with all his means, and labour, and by entreaty, and even at his own personal risk, to promote my safety.

Ch. 12

This man, O Publius Lentulus, was present at all your counsels, while you were thinking of nothing day and night except my safety. He cooperated with you as a most influential adviser in planning the conduct to be pursued, as a most faithful ally in preparing for it, and as a most fearless assistant in executing it. It was he who visited all the municipalities and colonies; it was he who implored the assistance of all Italy, which was eager to afford it; it was he who in the senate was the first person to deliver his opinion, and when he had delivered it there, he then also entreated the Roman people to preserve me. [sect. 31] Wherefore, you may desist from that language which you have been using, namely, that the dispositions of the priests were changed after my delivering the opinion which I did about the corn. As if they had any different opinion from what I myself had about Cnaeus Pompeius, or as if they were ignorant what I ought to do either with regard to the expectation of the Roman people, or to the services which I have received from Cnaeus Pompeius, or to my own circumstances and condition; or as if even, if my sentiments had perchance been offensive to any one of the priests, though I know for a certainty that the contrary was the case, any priest was on that account going to decide about religion, or any citizen about the republic, in any other manner than the laws respecting religious ceremonies compelled the one, or the interests and safety of the republic compelled the other.

[sect. 32] I am aware, O priests, that I have said more things which are foreign to this cause, than either your opinion is likely to approve of, or than my own inclination prompted. But I was anxious to be acquitted in your eyes; and, further, your kindness in listening to me with attention carried me on to say more than I had intended. But I will make amends for this by the brevity of that part of the speech which relates to the actual matter now brought under your examination; and as the affair is divided into two heads,one relating to the laws of religion, and the other to the laws of the state, I will pass over the question of religion, which would take a longer time to discuss, and speak to the point of what is the law of the state. [sect. 33] For what can be so arrogant as for a layman to endeavour to lecture the college of priests about religion, about divine affairs, and ceremonies, and sacrifices; or so foolish as for a man, if he has found anything of consequence in your books, to take up time in detailing it to you; or so superfluous, as to seek to acquire learning on those points concerning which our ancestors have laid down the principle that you alone have knowledge, and that you alone ought to be consulted?

Ch. 13

I say that it was not possible, according to our common rights, and according to those laws which are in force in this city, for any citizen to be exposed to such disaster as mine without a formal trial. I say that this was the law in this state even at the time when the kings existed; I say that this was the principle handed down to us from our ancestors; I say, moreover, that this is the inalienable characteristic of a free state,that no infringement on the liberties or property of a citizen can take place without the formal decision of the senate, or of the people, or of those persons who have been appointed as judges in each separate matter. [sect. 34] Do you not see that I am destroying all your proceedings by the roots? that I am arguing, what is manifest, that you did nothing whatever according to law,that you were not a tribune of the people at all? I say this, that you are a patrician. I say so before the priests; the augurs are present. I take my stand on the common public law. What, O priests is the law concerning adoption? Why that he may adopt children who is no longer able to have children himself, and who failed in having them when he was of an age to expect it. What reason, then, any one has for adopting children, what considerations of family or dignity are involved what principles of religion are concerned, are questions which are accustomed to be put to the college of priests. What if all these circumstances are found to exist in that adoption? The person who adopts him is twenty years old; a minor adopts a senator. Does he do so for the sake of having children? He is of an age to have them of his own. He has a wife; he has actually got children of his own. The father, then, will be disinheriting his own son. [sect. 35] What? why should all the sacred rites of the Clodian family perish, as far as it depends on you? And that must have been the idea of all the priests when you were adopted. Unless, perchance, the question was put to you in this way,whether you were intending to disturb the republic by seditions, and whether you wished to be adopted with that object, not in order to become that man's son, but only in order to be made a tribune of the people, and by that means utterly to overthrow the state? You answered, I presume, that your object was only to be made a tribune. That appeared to the priests to be a sufficient reason. They approved of it. No questions were asked about the age of the man who was adopting you; as was done in the case of Cnaeus Aufidius and Marcus Pupius, each of whom, within our recollection, when extremely old, adopted as sons, the one Orestes, and the other Piso. And these adoptions, like others, more than I can count, were followed by the inheritance of the name and [p. 18] property and sacred rites of the family. You are not Fonteius, as you ought to be, nor the heir of your new father; nor, though you have lost your right to the sacred ceremonies of your own family, have you availed yourself of those which belong to you by adoption. And so, having thrown the ceremonies of religion into confusion,having polluted both families, both the one which you have abandoned and the one which you have entered,having violated the legitimate practices of the Romans with respect to guardianships and inheritances, you have been made, contrary to all the requirements of religion, the son of that man of whom you were old enough to be the father.

Ch. 14 [sect. 36]

I am speaking before the priests; I say that that adoption did not take place according to the sacerdotal law. In the first place, because your respective ages are such that the man who has adopted you as your father might, as far as his age went, have been your son; in the second place, because a question is usually put as to the reason for the adoption, in order that the adopter may be a person who is seeking by regular and sacerdotal law that which by the ordinary process of nature he is no longer able to obtain; and that he may adopt a son in such a manner, as to in nowise impair the dignity of the families or the reverence belonging to their sacred ceremonies; and, above all things, that no false pretence, or fraud, or trickery, may creep in; so that this fictitious adoption of a son may appear to imitate as far as possible the real case of children being born to a man. [sect. 37] But what greater false pretence can there be than for a beardless young man, a vigorous man and a husband, to come forward, and to say that he wishes to adopt as his own son a senator of the Roman people, and for all men to know and see that this senator is adopted, not in order to become really the son of the plebeian, but merely in order that he may quit the patrician body, and be made a tribune of the people? And all that without any disguise. For in this case the adopted son was immediately emancipated, lest he should really have become the son of him who adopted him. Why then is he adopted at all? Only approve of this sort of adoption, and in a moment the sacred ceremonies of every family, of which you ought to be the guardians, will be abolished, and not one patrician will be left. For why should any one be willing to be incapable of being made a tribune of the people? to have his power of standing for the consulship narrowed? and, while he might arrive at the priesthood, not to arrive at it because there is not a vacancy at the moment for a patrician?² Whenever anything happens to any one to make it more convenient for him to be a plebeian, he will be adopted in the same manner as Clodius. [sect. 38] And so in a short time the Roman people will neither have a king of the sacrifices,³ nor flamines,⁴ nor Salii,⁵ nor one half of the rest of the priests, nor any one who has a right to open the comitia centuriata, or curiata; and the auspices of the Roman people must come to an end if no patrician magistrates are created, as there will be no interrex,⁶ for he must be a patrician, and must be nominated by a patrician. I said before the priests, that that adoption had not been approved by any decree of this college; that it had been executed contrary to every provision of the sacerdotal law; that it ought to be considered as no adoption at all; and if there is an end to that, you see at once that there is an end likewise of the whole of your tribuneship.

Ch. 15 [sect. 39]

I come now to the augurs and if they have any secret books I do not inquire into them; I am not very curious about inquiring into the principles of the augurs. I know, what I have learnt in common with all the people, what answers they have frequently given in the public assemblies. They say that it is contrary to divine law for any public business to be brought before the people when any proper officers observing the heavens. Will you venture to deny that, on the day when the Lex curiata⁷ concerning you is said to have been passed, the magistrates were observing the heavens? A man is here present in court, of the most eminent wisdom, and dignity, and authority, Marcus Bibulus. I assert that on that very day he, as consul, was observing the heavens. What then, you will say, are then the acts of Caius Caesar, that most admirable citizen, invalid in your opinion? By no means; for there is not one of them which concerns me in the least, nor anything else except these weapons which by that man's proceedings are hurled at me. [sect. 40] But the matter of the auspices, which I am now touching on with extreme brevity, has been handled in this manner by you. You, when your tribuneship was in danger and was falling to pieces as it were, all of a sudden came forward as a patron of the auspices; you brought forward Marcus Bibulus and the augurs into the assembly; you questioned the augurs, and they replied that when any magistrates was observing the heavens, no business could be transacted in the assembly of the people. You questioned Marcus Bibulus, and he told you in reply that he had been observing the heavens; and he also said in the public assembly, when he was brought forward there by your brother Appius, that you were no tribune of the people at all, because you had been adopted contrary to the auspices. In the succeeding months your language constantly was, that everything which Caius Caesar had done ought to be rescinded by the senate, because they had been done in disregard of the auspices; and if they were rescinded, you said that you would bring me back on your own shoulders into the city as the guardian of the city. See now, O priests, the insanity of the man when by means of his tribuneship he was connected to such an extent with the acts of Caesar. [sect. 41] If the priests deciding according to the law relating to sacrifices, and the augurs according to the religious observance due to the auspices, upset your whole tribuneship, what more do you ask? do you want some still more evident argument drawn from the rights of the people and the laws?

Ch. 16

It was perhaps about the sixth hour when I complained in the court of justice (when I was defending Caius Antonius, my colleague,) of some things in the republic which appeared to me to relate to the cause of that unhappy man. What I said was reported by some wicked men to some very eminent citizens in language very different from that which I had employed. At the ninth hour on that very same day you were adopted. If, while in all other laws there ought to be an interval of three days, it is sufficient in a law respecting an adoption that there should be one of three hours, I have nothing to object to. But if the same forms are to be observed,if the senate decreed that the people was not bound by the laws of Marcus Drusus, which had been passed contrary to the provisions of the Caecilian⁸ and Didian laws you must see that by every description of right which prevails with regard to sacred things, to the auspices, or to the laws, you were not elected tribune of the people. [sect. 42] And it is not without reason that I say no more on this point, for I see that some most eminent men, the chief men of the city, have given their decision on different occasions, that you could legally proceed with matters which came before the common people; who said too, with reference to my own case, though they said that the republic was murdered and buried by your motion, still that that burial, miserable and bitter as it was, was all according to law: they said that in carrying such a motion as you had carried concerning me a citizen, and one who had deserved well of the republic, you had inflicted a deadly wound on the republic; but, inasmuch as you had carried it with all due reverence for the auspices, they said that you had acted legally. Wherefore we, I imagine, may be allowed to abstain from attacking those actions by which they were induced to approve of the establishment of your tribuneship. [sect. 43]

Suppose, however, that you were as rightly and legally tribune as Rullus himself, who is here present, a man most illustrious and honourable on every account; still, by what law, or in accordance with what precedent or what custom, did you pass a law affecting, by name, the civil rights of a citizen who had not been condemned?

Ch. 17

The sacred laws,the laws of the Twelve Tables, forbid bills to be brought in affecting individuals only; for such a bill is a privilegium. No one has ever carried such a bill. There is nothing more cruel, nothing more mischievous, nothing which this city can less tolerate. What was it in that miserable proscription, and all the other miseries of Sulla's time, which was the most remarkable thing which will prevent the cruelties then practised from being ever forgotten? I imagine it was the fact that punishments were at that time proclaimed on Roman citizens by name without any trial. [sect. 44] Will you, then, O priests, by this decision, and by your authority, give a tribune of the people power to proscribe whomsoever he chooses? For I ask what else proscribing is, excepting proposing such a law as this, That you will decide and order that Marcus Tullius shall no longer be in the city, and that his property may become mine? For this is the effect of what he carried, though the language is somewhat different. Is this a resolution of the people? Is this a law? Is this a motion? Can you endure this? Can the city endure that a single citizen should be removed out of the city by a single line? I, indeed, have now endured my share. I have no more violence to fear. I am in dread of no further attacks. I have satisfied the hostility of those who envied me; I have appeased the hatred of wicked men; I have satiated even the treachery and wickedness of traitors; and, what is more, by this time every city, all ranks of men, all gods and men have expressed their opinion on my case, which appeared to those profligate men to be exposed above all others as a mark for unpopularity. [sect. 45] You now, O priests, are bound; as becomes your authority and your wisdom, to have regard in your decision to your own interests, and to those of your children, and to the welfare of the rest of the citizens.

For as the forms of proceeding before the people have been appointed by our ancestors to be so moderate,so that in the first place no punishment affecting a man's status as a citizen can be joined to any pecuniary fine in the next place, that no one can be accused except on a day previously appointed; again, that the prosecutor must accuse him before the magistrate three times, a day being allowed to intervene between each hearing, before the magistrate can inflict any fine or give any decision; and when there is a fourth hearing for the accusation appointed after seventeen⁹ days, on a day appointed on which the judge shall give his decision; and when many other concessions have been granted to the defendants to give them an opportunity of appeasing the prosecutor, or of exciting pity; and besides this the people is a people inclined to listen to entreaties, and very apt to give their votes for a defendant's safety; and, beyond all this, if anything prevents the cause from being proceeded with on that day, either because of the auspices, or on any other plea or excuse, then there is an end to the whole cause and to the whole business.

Ch. 18 [sect. 46]

As these things then are so where is the accusation, where is the prosecutor? where are the witnesses? What is more scandalous, than when a man has neither been ordered to appear, nor summoned, nor accused, for hired men, assassins, needy and profligate citizens, to give a vote touching his status as a citizen, his children and all his fortune, and then to think that vote a law? But, if he was able to do this in my case, I being a man protected by the honours which I had attained, by the justice of my cause, and by the republic; and being not so rich as to make my money an object to my enemies, and he had nothing which could be injurious to me, except the great chances which were taking place in the affairs of the state, and the critical condition of the times; what is likely to happen to those men whose way of life is removed from popular honours and from all that renown which gives influence, and whose riches are so great that too many men, needy, extravagant, and even of noble birth, covet them? [sect. 47] Grant this licence to a tribune of the people, and then for a moment contemplate in your minds the youth of the city, and especially those men who seem now to be anxiously coveting the tribunitian power. There will be found, by Jove! whole colleges of tribunes of the people, if this law is once established, and they will all conspire against the property of all the richest men, when a booty so especially popular and the hope of great acquisitions is thus held out to them.

But what vote is it that this skillful and experienced law-giver has carried? May you be willing and may you command that Marcus Tullius be interdicted from water and fire. A cruel vote, a nefarious vote, one not to be endured even in the case of the very wickedest citizen, without a trial. He did not propose a vote, That he be interdicted. What then? That he has been interdicted. O horrible, O prodigious, O what wickedness! Did Clodius frame this law, more infamous than even his own tongue?that it has been interdicted to a person to whom it has not been interdicted? My good friend Sextus, by your leave, tell me now, since you are a logician and are devoted to this science, is it possible for a proposition to be made to the people, or to be established by any form of words, or to be confirmed by any votes, making that to have been done which has not been done? [sect. 48] And have you ruined the public, with the man who drew this law for your adviser, and counselor, and minister, a fellow more impure, not only than any biped, but even than any quadruped? And you were not so foolish or so mad as to be ignorant that this man who violated the laws was Clodius; but that there were other men who were accustomed to frame laws: but you had not the least power over any one of them, or over any one else who had any character to lose; nor could you employ the same framers of laws, or the same architect for your works, as the others; nor could you obtain the aid of any priest you chose. Lastly, you were not able to discover, not even when you were dividing your plunder, any purchaser, or any one to share your plunder with you, out of your own band of gladiators, nor any one to support that proscription of yours with his vote except some thief or assassin.

Ch. 19 [sect. 49]

Therefore, when you, flourishing and powerful, were triumphing in the middle of your mob, those friends of yours, safe and happy in having you for their only friend, who had entrusted their fate to the people, were repelled¹⁰ in such a way that they lost the support of even that Palatine¹¹ tribe of yours. They who came before a court of justice, whether as prosecutors or as defendants, were condemned, though you endeavoured to beg them off. Lastly, even that new recruit, Ligur, your venal backer and seconder, when he had been disgraced by being passed over in the will of Marcus Papirius his brother, who expressed his opinion of him by that action, said that he desired to have a legal investigation into the circumstances of his death, and accused Sextus Propertius as accessory to it. He did not venture to accuse his partners of a crime in which they had no concern, and to endeavour to procure their condemnation, lest he himself should have been convicted of bringing false accusations. [sect. 50]

We are speaking, then, of this law which appears to have been legally brought forward, while yet every one that has had anything to do with any part of it, either by hand, voice, vote, or by sharing in the plunder, wherever he has been, has come off rejected and convicted.

What shall we say if the proscription is framed in such terms that it repels itself? For it is, Because Marcus Tullius has forged a decree of the senate. If, then, he did forge a decree of the senate, the law was proposed; but if he did not forge one, no proposition has been made at all. Does it or does it not appear sufficiently decided by the senate that I did not falsely allege the authority of that order, but that I, of all the men that have ever lived since the foundation of the city, have been the most diligent in my obedience to the senate? In how many ways do I not prove that that which you call a law is no law at all? What shall we say if you brought many different matters before the people at one and the same time? Do you still think that what Marcus Drusus, that admirable man, could not obtain in most of his laws,that what Marcus Scaurus and Lucius Crassus, men of consular rank, could not obtain, you can obtain through the agency of the Decurii and Clodii, the ministers of all your debaucheries and crimes? [sect. 51] You carried a proposition respecting me, that I should not be received anywhere,not that I should depart, when you yourself were not able to say that it was unlawful for me to remain in Rome.

Ch. 20

For what could you say? That I had been condemned?, Certainly not. That I had been expelled. How could you say that? And yet even that was not stated in your bill that I was to depart; there is a penalty for any one who received me, which every one disregarded; but there is no mention anywhere of driving me out. However, suppose there were,what are we to say about the collecting of all the common artisans to pull down my house? what shall we say about your having your name cut on it? does that seem to you to be anything except a plundering of all my property? except that you could not by the Licinian law undertake the commission yourself. What are we to say about this very matter which you are now arguing before the priests; namely, that you consecrated my house, that you erected a memorial, that you dedicated a statue in my house, and that you did all these things by one little bit of a bill? Do all these things appear to be only one and the same business with the bill which you carried against me expressly by name? [sect. 52] It is just the same thing that you did when you also carried these different enactments in one law,one, that the king of Cyprus, whose ancestors had always been allies and friends to this nation, should have all his goods sold by the public crier, and the other, that the exiles should be brought back to Byzantium. Oh, says he, I employed the same person on both those matters. What? Suppose you had given the same man a commission to get you an Asiatic coin in Asia, and from thence to proceed into Spain; and given him leave, after he had departed from Rome, to stand for the consulship, and, after he was made consul, to obtain Syria for his province; would that be all one measure, because you were mentioning only one man? [sect. 53] And if now the Roman people had been consulted about that business, and if you had not done everything by the instrumentality of slaves and robbers, was it impossible for the Roman people to approve of the part of the measure relating to the king of Cyprus, and to approve of that part which affected Byzantine exiles? What other force, what other meaning, I should like to know, has the Caecilian and Didian law, except this; that the people are not to be forced in consequence of many different things being joined in one complicated bill, either to accept what it disapproves of; or reject what it approves?

What shall we say if you carried the bill by violence? is it, nevertheless, a law? Or can anything appear to have been done rightfully which was notoriously done by violence? And if, at the very time of your getting this law passed, when the city was stormed, stones were not thrown, and men did not actually come to blows hand to hand, is that any proof that you were able to contrive that disgrace and ruin to the city without extreme violence?

Ch. 21 [sect. 54]

When in the Aurelian tribunal you were openly enrolling not only freemen but slaves also, got together out of all the streets in the city, were you not at that time preparing for violence? When by your edicts, you ordered all the shops to be shut, were you aiming not at the violence of the mob, but at a modest and prudent gathering of honourable men? When you were having arms collected and carried to the temple of Castor, had you no other object beyond preventing others from being able to effect anything by violence? But when you tore up and removed the steps of the temple of Castor, did you then, in order to be able to act in a moderate manner, repel audacious men from the approaches and ascents leading to the temple? When you ordered those persons who, in an assembly of virtuous men, had spoken in defence of, my safety, to come forward, and had driven away their companions and seconders by blows and arms and stones; then, no doubt, you showed that violence was excessively disagreeable to you. [sect. 55] Oh, but this frantic violence of a demented tribune of the people could easily be crushed and put down by the virtue and superior numbers of the good citizens. What? when Syria was given to Gabinius, Macedonia to Piso, boundless authority and vast sums of money to both of them, to induce them to place everything in your power, to assist you, to supply you which followers, and troops, and their own prepared centurions, and money, and bands of slaves; to all you with their infamous assemblies, to deride the authority of the senate, to threaten the Roman knights with death and proscription, to terrify me with threats, to threaten me with contests and murder, to fill my house with their friends, which had heretofore been full of virtuous men; through fear of proscription; to deprive me of the crowds of good men who used to associate with me, to strip me of their protection; to forbid the senate, that most illustrious body, not only to fight for me, but even to implore men, and to entreat them in my behalf, and, changing their garments, to lament my danger,was not even this violence?

Ch. 22 [sect. 56]

Why then did I depart, or what fear was there? I will not say in me. Allow that I am timid by nature; what are we to say of so many thousands of the bravest men? what did our Roman knights think? what did the senate? what, in short, did all good men think? If there was no violence, why did they escort me out of the city with tears, instead of reproving and detaining me, or being indignant with me and leaving me? Or was I afraid that I could not, while present, resist their accusations if they proceeded against me according to the usages and principles of our ancestors? [sect. 57] If a day had been appointed for my trial, must I have dreaded the investigation? or must I have feared a private bill being introduced against me without any trial? A trial in so shameful a cause I suppose I am a man who, if the cause were not understood, could not speak so as to explain it at all, or could I not make people approve of my cause, when its excellence is such that of its own merits it made people approve not only of itself while it was before them, but of me also though I was absent? Was the senate, were all ranks of the people, were those men who flew hither from all Italy to cooperate in my recall, likely to be more indifferent, while I was present, about retaining and preserving me, in that cause which even that parricide says was such, that he complains that I was sought out and recalled to my previous honours by the whole people? [sect. 58] Was there then no danger to me whatever in a court of justice; but was I to fear a private bill, and that if a penalty were sought to be recovered from me while I was present, no one would interpose a veto? Was I so destitute of friends, or was the republic so entirely without magistrates? What? supposing the tribes had been convoked, would they have approved of a proscription, I will not say against me who had deserved so well of them by my efforts for their safety, but would they have approved of it in the case of any citizen whatever? Or, if I had been present, would those veteran troops of conspirators, and those profligate and needy soldiers of yours, and that new force of two most impious consuls, have spared my person, when, after that I had, by departing, succumbed to their inhumanity and wickedness, I could not though absent satisfy their hostility to me by my misfortunes?

Ch. 23 [sect. 59]

For what injury had my unhappy wife done to you? whom you harassed and plundered and ill-treated with every description of cruelty. What harm had my daughter done to you? whose incessant weeping and mourning and misery were so agreeable to you, though they moved the eyes and feelings of every one else. What had my little son done? whom no one ever saw all the time that I was away, that he was not weeping and lamenting; what, I say, had he done that you should so often try to murder him by stratagem? What had my brother done? who, when, some time after my departure, he arrived from his province and thought that it was not worth his while to live unless I were restored to him, when his chief and excessive and unprecedented mourning seemed to render him an object of pity to every one, was constantly attacked by you with arms and violence, he escaped with difficulty out of your hands. [sect. 60] But why need I dilate upon your cruelty which you have displayed towards me and mine? when you have waged a horrible and nefarious war, dyed with every description of hatred against my walls, my roofs, my pillars and door-posts. For I do not think that you, when, after my departure, you in the covetousness of your hopes had devoured the fortunes of all the rich men, the produce of all the provinces, the property of tetrarchs and of kings, were blinded by the desire of my plate and furniture. I do not think that that Campanian consul with his dancing colleague, after you had sacrificed to the one all Achaia, Thessaly, Boeotia, Greece, Macedonia and all the countries of the barbarians, and the property of the Roman citizens in those countries, and when you had delivered up to the other Sulla, Babylon, and the Persians those hitherto uninjured and peaceful nations, to plunder, I do not think, I say, that they were covetous of my thresholds and pillars and folding doors. [sect. 61] Nor, indeed, did the bands and forces of Catiline think that they could appease their hunger with the tiles and mortar of my roofs. But as, without being influenced by the idea of booty, still out of hatred we are accustomed to destroy the cities of enemies;not of all enemies indeed, but of those with whom we have waged any bitter and intestine war; because when our minds have been inflamed against any people by reason of their cruelty, there always appears to be some war still lingering in their abodes and habitations, [gap in text: * * *]

Ch. 24 [sect. 62]

No law had been passed respecting me. I had not been ordered to appear in court; I had not been summoned. I was absent. I was even in your own opinion a citizen with all my rights as such unimpaired, when my house on the Palatine hill, and my villa in the district of Tusculum, were transferred one a-piece to each of the consuls; decrees of the senate were flying about; marble columns from my house were carried off to the father-in-law of the consul in the sight of the Roman people; and the consul who was my neighbour at my villa had not only my stock and the decorations of my villa, but even my trees transferred to his farm; while the villa itself was utterly destroyed, not from a desire of plunder, (for what plunder could there be there?) but out of hatred and cruelty. My house on the Palatine hill was burnt, not by accident, but having been set on fire on purpose. The consuls were feasting and reveling amid the congratulations of the conspirators, while the one boasted that he had been the favourite of Catiline, and the other that he was the cousin of Cethegus. [sect. 63] This violence, O priests, this wickedness, this frenzy, I, opposing my single person to the storm, warded off from the necks of all good men, and I received on my body all the attacks of disaffection, all the long-collected violence of the wicked, which, having been long coming to a head, with silent and repressed hatred, was at last breaking out now that it had got such audacious leaders. Against me alone were directed the consular firebrands hurled from the hands of the tribunes; all the impious arrows of the conspiracy, which I had once before blunted, now stuck in me. But if, as was the advice of many most gallant men, I had determined to contend with violence and arms against violence, I should either have gained the day with a great slaughter of wicked men, who notwithstanding were citizens, or else all the good men would have been slain, to the great joy of the wicked, and I too should have perished together with the republic. [sect. 64] I saw, that if the senate and people of Rome existed, I should have a speedy return with the greatest dignity, and I did not think it possible that such a state of affairs should longer continue to exist, as for me not to be allowed to live in that republic which I myself had saved. And if I were not allowed to live there, I had heard and read that some of the most illustrious men of our country had rushed into the middle of the enemy to manifest death for the sake of the safety of their army. And could I doubt that if I were to sacrifice myself for the safety of the entire republic, I should in this point be better off than the Decii, because they could not even hear of their glory, while I should be able to be even a spectator of my own renown?

Ch. 25

Therefore your frenzy, being disconcerted, kept making vain attacks. For the bitterness of my fortune had exhausted all the violence of all the wicked citizens. In such terrible disaster and such wide-spread ruin, there was no room for any new cruelty. [sect. 65] Cato was next to me. Was there nothing which you could do beyond making him who had been my leader and guide in all my conduct a partner also in my misfortune? What? Could you banish him? What then? You could send him away for the money of Cyprus. One booty may have been lost; another will be sure to be found; only let this man be got out of the way. Accordingly, the hated Marcus Cato is commissioned to go to Cyprus, as if it was a kindness that was being conferred on him. Two men are removed, whom the wicked men could not bear the sight of; one by the most discreditable sort of honour, the other by the most honourable possible calamity. [sect. 66] And that you may be aware that that man had been an enemy not to their persons, but to their virtues, after I was driven out, and Cato despatched on his commission, he turns himself against that very man by whose advice and by whose assistance he was in the habit of saying in the assemblies that he had done and continued to do what he was then doing and everything which he had hitherto done. He thought that Cnaeus Pompeius, who he saw was in every one's opinion by far the first man in the city, would not much longer tolerate his frenzy. After he had filched out of his custody by treachery the son of a king who was our friend,himself being an enemy and a prisoner,and having provoked that most gallant man by this injury, he thought that he could contend with him by the aid of those troops against whom I had been willing to struggle at the risk of the destruction of all virtuous citizens, especially as at first he had the consuls to help him. But after a time Gabinius broke his agreement with him; but Piso continued faithful to him. [sect. 67] You saw what massacres that man then committed, what men he stoned, what numbers he made to flee; how easily by means of his armed bands and his daily plots did he compel Cnaeus Pompeius to absent himself from the forum and the senate-house, and to confine himself to his own house, even after he had been already deserted by the best part of his forces. And from this you may judge how great that violence was at its first rise, and when first collected together, when even after it was scattered and almost extinct it alarmed Cnaeus Pompeius in this way.

Ch. 26 [sect. 68]

That most prudent man, Lucius Cotta, a man most deeply attached to the republic and to me, and above all to truth, saw this when he delivered his opinion on the first of January. He then considered it unnecessary that any law should be passed for my return. He said that I had consulted the interests of the republic; that I had yielded to the tempest; that I had been more friendly to you and to the rest of the citizens than to myself and to my own relations; that I had been driven away by the disturbances of a body of men banded together for purposes of bloodshed, and by an unprecedented exercise of power; that no law could possibly have been passed affecting my status as a citizen; that no law had been drawn up in writing, that none could have any validity; that everything had been done in disregard of the laws and of the usages of our ancestors, in a rash and turbulent manner, by violence and frenzy. But if that were a law, then it was not lawful for the consuls to refer the matter to the senate,¹² nor for him himself to express his opinion upon it in the senate. And as both these things were being done, it was not right that it should be decreed that a law should be passed concerning me, lest that which was no law at all, should be in consequence decided to be a law. No opinion could be truer, sounder, more expedient, or better for the republic. For the wickedness and frenzy of the man being stigmatized by it, all danger of similar disgrace to the republic for the future was removed. [sect. 69] Nor did Cnaeus Pompeius, who delivered a most elaborate opinion and most honourable to me, nor did you, O priests, who defended me by your decision and authority, fail to see that that was no law at all, and that it was rather the heat of the times, an interdict of wickedness, a voice of frenzy. But you were anxious to guard against any popular odium being excited against you; if we appeared to have been restored without any decision of the people. And with the same idea the senate adopted the opinion of Marcus Bibulus, a most fearless man, that you should decide the question relating to my house: not that he doubted that nothing had been done by Clodius with due regard either to the laws, or to the requirements of religion, or to the rights of the citizens; but that, as wicked men were so numerous, no one should at any time arise and say that there was anything holy about my house. For as often as the senate has expressed any opinion at all in my case, so often has it decided that that was no law at all, since indeed, according to that writing which that fellow drew up, it was forbidden to express any opinion at all. [sect. 70] And that kindred pair, Piso and Gabinius, saw this. Those men, so obedient to the laws and courts of justice, when the senate in very full houses kept constantly entreating them to make a motion respecting me,said that they did not disapprove of the object, but that they were hindered by that fellow's law. And this was true; but it was law which he had passed about giving them Macedonia and Syria.

Ch. 27

But you, O Publius Lentulus, neither as a private individual nor as consul ever thought that it was a law. For when the tribunes of the people made a motion, you as consul elect often delivered your opinion concerning my affairs; and from the first of January to the time that the whole affair was completed, you persevered in making motions respecting me, you proposed a law, you passed it; none of which things could legally have been done by you if that thing of Clodius's had been a law. But Quintus Metellus your colleague, a most illustrious man, even though he was a brother of Clodius, when he joined you in making a motion in the senate respecting my affairs, expressed his opinion that that was no law at [p. 34] all which men utterly unconnected with Clodius,namely Piso and Gabinius, considered was a law. [sect. 71] But how did those men who had such respect for Clodius's laws observe the rest of the laws? The senate indeed, whose authority is of the very greatest weight on all questions affecting the power of the laws, as often as it has been consulted in my case, has decided that that was no law at all. And you, O Lentulus, showed that you were aware of its not being one in that law which you carried concerning me. For that law was not framed in such terms as that I might be allowed to come to Rome, but that I should come to Rome. For you did not wish to propose to make that lawful for me to do, which was lawful already; but you wished me to be in the republic, appearing to have been sent for by the command of the Roman people, rather than to have been restored for the purpose of aiding in the management of the republic. [sect. 72]

Did you then, O you most monstrous pest, dare to call that man an exile, when you yourself were branded with such wickedness and such crimes that you made every place which you approached very like a place of banishment? For what is an exile? The name itself is an indication of misfortune, not of disgrace. When, then, is it disgraceful? In reality when it is the punishment of guilt; but in the opinion of men, when it is the punishment of a condemned person. Is it then owing to any crime of mine that I hear the name of an exile, or owing to any judicial sentence? Owing to any crime? Even you, whom those satellites of yours call the prosperous Catiline, do not dare to affirm that, nor do any one of those men who used to say so, venture to say so now. There is not only no one so ignorant now as to say that those actions which I did in my consulship were errors; but no one is such an enemy to his country as not to confess that the country was preserved by my counsels.

Ch. 28 [sect. 73]

For what deliberative assembly is there in the whole earth, whether great or little, which has not expressed that opinion of my exploits which is most desirable and most honourable for me? The greatest council of the Roman people, and of all peoples, and nations, and kings, is the senate. That decreed that all men who desired the safety of the republic should come forward to defend me alone, and showed its opinion that the republic could not have been saved if I had [p. 35] not existed, and could not last if I did not return. [sect. 74] The next in rank to this dignified body is the equestrian order. All the companies of public contractors passed most favourable and honourable decrees respecting my consulship and my actions. The scriveners, who are much connected with us in matters relating to public registers and monuments, took good care that their sentiments and resolutions respecting my services to the republic should not be left in doubt. There is no corporation in all this city, no body of men either from the higher or lower parts of the city,¹³ (since our ancestors thought fit that the common people of the city should also have places of meeting and some sort of deliberative assemblies,) which has not passed most honourable resolutions, not merely respecting my safety, but relating also to my dignity. [sect. 75] For why need I mention those divine and immortal decrees of the municipal towns, and of the colonies, and of all Italy, by which, as by a flight of steps, I seem not only to have returned to my country, but to have mounted up to heaven? And what a day was that when the Roman people beheld you, O Publius Lentulus, passing a law respecting me, and felt how great a man and how worthy a citizen you were. For it is well known that the Campus Martius had never on any comitia seen so vast a crowd, or such a splendid assembly of men of every class, age, and order. I say nothing of the unanimous judgment and unanimous agreement of the cities, nations, provinces, kings,of the whole world, in short,as to the services which I had done to the whole human race. But what an arrival at and entry into the city was mine! Did my country receive me as it ought to receive light and safety when brought back and restored to it, or as a cruel tyrant, as you, you herd of Catiline, were accustomed to call me? [sect. 76] Therefore that one day on which the Roman people honoured me by escorting me with immense numbers and loud demonstrations of joy from the gate to the Capitol, and from the Capitol home, was so delightful to me, that that wicked violence of yours which had driven me away appeared not to [p. 36] be a thing from which I ought to have been defended, but one which it was worth my while even to purchase. Wherefore that calamity, if it deserves to be called a calamity, has put an end to the whole previous system of abuse, and has prevented any one for the future from daring to find fault with my consulship, which has now been approved of by such numerous, and such important, and such dignified decisions, and testimonies, and authorities.

Ch. 29

And if, in all that abuse of yours, you not only impute no disgraceful conduct to me, but even add more lustre on my credit, what can exist or be imagined more senseless than you? For by one piece of abuse you admit that my country was twice saved by me; once when I performed that action which every one avows ought to be remembered for ever if it be possible, you thought that I ought to be punished and put to death; a second time, when I bore in my own person your own violence and that of the numbers who through your agency were inflamed against all virtuous men, in order to avoid taking arms, and in that condition bringing into danger that state which I had saved when without arms.

Be it so then. [sect. 77] There was not in my case any punishment imposed for any offence. Still there was punishment imposed on me by a judicial decision. By what decision? Who ever examined me as a defendant under any law whatever? Who ever accused me? Who ever prosecuted me? Can then a man who is uncondemned be made to bear the punishment of a condemned man? Is this the act of a tribune of the people? Is this the act of a friend of the people? Although, when is it that a man can call himself a friend of the people, except when he has done something for the advantage of the people? Forsooth, has not this principle been handed down to us from our ancestors, that no Roman citizen can be deprived of his liberty, or of his status as a citizen, unless he himself consents to such a thing, as you yourself might learn in your own case? For, although in that adoption of yours nothing was done in a legal manner, still I suppose that you were asked, whether it was your object that Publius Fonteius should have the same power of life and death over you that be would have over an actual son. I ask, if you had either silenced it or had been silent, if, nevertheless, the thirty curies [p. 37] had passed a vote to this effect would that vote have had the force off law? Certainly not. Why? Because the law was established by our ancestors, who were not fictitiously and pretendedly attached to the people, but were so in truth and wisdom, in such a manner that no Roman citizen could be deprived of his liberty against his consent. [sect. 78] Moreover, if the decemvirs had given an unjust decision to the prejudice of any one's liberty, they established a law that any one who chose might on this subject alone, make a motion affecting a formal decision already pronounced. But no one will ever lose his status as a citizen against his will by any vote of the people.

Ch. 30

The Roman citizens who left Rome and went to the Latin colonies could not be made Latins, unless they themselves promoted such a change, and gave in their names themselves. Those men who had been condemned on a capital charge, did not lose their rights as citizens of this city before they were received as citizens of that other city to which they had gone for the sake of changing their abode. Our ancestors took care that they should do so, not by taking away their rights of citizenship, but only their house, and by interdicting them from fire and water within the city. [sect. 79] The Roman people on the motion of Lucius Sulla, the dictator, in the comitia centuriata, took away the rights of citizenship from the municipal towns, and at the same time took away their lands. The decree about the lands was ratified, for that the people had power to pass; but their decree concerning the rights of citizenship did not last even as long as the disturbances of the time of Sulla. Shall we then say that Lucius Sulla, victorious as he was, after he had been restored to the republic, could not in the comitia centuriata take away the rights of citizenship from the people of Volaterra, even though they were in arms at the time;and the Volaterrans to this day enjoy the rights of citizenship in common with ourselves, being not only citizens, but most excellent citizens too;and allow that Publius Clodius, at a time when the republic was utterly overturned, could take away his rights as a citizen from a man of consular rank, by summoning an assembly, and hiring bands not only of needy citizens, but even of slaves, with Sedulius as their imputed leader, though he declares that on that day he was not in Rome at all? [sect. 80] And, if he was not, [p. 38] what could be a more audacious thing than your putting his name to that bill? What could be more desperate than your condition, when, even if you told a lie about it you could not get up any more respectable authority? But if he was the first person who voted for it as he easily might have been, as he was a man who, for want of a house, slept all night in the forum, why should he not swear that he was at Cadiz, when you have proved so very distinctly that you were at Interamna? Do you, then,you, a man devoted to the people,think that our rights as citizens, and our freedom, ought to he established on this principle; so that when a tribune of the people brings forward a motion, Do you approve and determine [gap in text: * * * *] if a hundred Sedulii should say that they do approve and determine, any one of us may lose our privileges? Our ancestors, then, were not attached to the interests of the people, who with respect to the rights of citizenship and liberty established those principles which neither the power of time, nor the authority of magistrates, nor the decisions of judges, nor the sovereign power of the whole people of Rome, which in all other affairs is most absolute, can undermine. [sect. 81] But you, also, you who take men's rights as citizens from them, have also passed a law with respect to public injuries in favour of some fellow of Anagnia, of the name of Maerula, and he on account of that law has erected a statue to you in my house; so that the place itself, in hearing witness to your prodigious injustice, might refute the law and inscription on your statue. And that law was a much greater cause of grief to the citizens of Anagnia than the crimes which that gladiator had committed in that municipal town.

Ch. 31 [sect. 82]

What shall I say, if there is nothing said about the rights of citizenship even in that very form of motion which Sedulius declares he never voted for? Do you still cling to his authority in order to throw a lustre on the exploits of your splendid tribuneship by the dignity of that man?

But although you passed no law respecting me, to prevent my continuing not only in the number of Roman citizens, but even in that rank in which the honours conferred on me by the Roman people had placed me; will you still raise your voice to attack him whom after the abominable wickedness of the preceding consuls you see honoured by the decisions of the senate, of the Roman people, and of all Italy? whom even [p. 39] at the time when I was departing you could not deny, even by your own law, to be a senator. For, where was it that you passed the law that I should be interdicted from fire and water? When Gracchus passed such a decree respecting Publius Popillius, and Saturninus respecting Metellus, and other most seditious men respecting other most virtuous and gallant citizens, they did not pass a decree that they had been interdicted, which could have been quite intolerable but that they should be interdicted. When did you insert a clause that the censor should not enter me on the rolls of the senate in my proper place? which is a clause in the law concerning every one who has been condemned when the interdict is being framed. [sect. 83] Ask this of Sextus Clodius the framer of your laws. Bid him come forward; he is keeping out of the way; but if you order him to be looked for they will find the man in your sister's house hiding himself with his head down. But if no one in his senses ever called your father a citizenyes, by Jove, a good citizen, and one very unlike you, if no one I say, ever called him an exile, who, when a tribune of the people had proposed a bill against him, would not appear on account of the iniquity of that period of Cinna's triumph, and who, on that account had his command taken from him; if, I say, in his case, a punishment inflicted by law carried no disgrace with it, on account of the violent character of those times, could there, in my ease, be any penalty against me as if I had been condemned when I never was tried when I never was accused when I never was summoned by any tribune of the people, and, especially, a penalty which was not mentioned not even in the proposed bill itself?

Ch. 32 [sect. 84]

But just remark what the difference is between that most iniquitous misfortune inflicted on your father and between my fortune and condition which I am now discussing Lucius Philippus the censor, in reading the roll of the senate, passed over his own uncle, your father, a most excellent citizen; the son of a most illustrious man, himself a man of such severity of character that if he were alive you would not have been suffered to live. For he had no reason to allege why those acts should not be ratified which had been done in that republic in which, at that very time, he had been willing to take upon himself the office of censor. But as for me, Lucius Cotta, a man of censorian rank, said in the senate, on his [p. 40] oath, that if he had been censor at the time that I left the city, he should have retained me on the list as a senator in my proper place. [sect. 85] Who appointed any judge in my place? who of my friends made a will at the time that I was absent, and did not give me the same that he would have given me if I had been in the city? who was there, I will not say only among the citizens, but even among the allies, who hesitated to receive and assist me in defiance of your law? Lastly, the whole senate, long before the law was passed respecting me, Voted, that thanks should be given to all those cities by which Marcus Tullius... Was that all? Noit went, a citizen who had done the greatest services to the republic, had been received: and do you, one single pernicious citizen, deny that that citizen has been legally restored, whom the whole senate, even while he was absent, considered not only a citizen, but has at all times considered a most illustrious one? [sect. 86] But as the annals of the Roman people and the records of antiquity relate, that great man Caeso Quintius, and Marcus Furius Camillus, and Marcus Servilius Ahala, though they had deserved exceedingly well of the republic, still had to endure the violence and passion of an excited people; and after they had been condemned by the comitia centuriata and had gone into banishment, were again restored to their former dignity by the same people in a more placable humour. But if, in the case of those men who were thus condemned, their calamity not only did not diminish the glory of their most illustrious names, but even added fresh lustre to it; (for, although it is more desirable to finish the course of one's life without pain and without injury, still it contributes more to the immortality of a man's glory to have been universally regretted by his fellow-citizens: than never to have been injured;) shall a similar misfortune have in my case the force of a reproach or of an accusation, when I left the city without any sentence of the people, and have been restored by most honourable resolutions of every order of society? [sect. 87] Publius Popillius was always a brave and wise citizen in every point of view; yet in the whole of his life there is nothing which sheds a greater lustre on his character than this very calamity. For who would have recollected now that he conferred great benefits on the republic, if he had not been expelled by the wicked and restored by the good? The conduct of Quintus Metellus as a military commander was admirable, his censorship was splendid, his whole life was full of wisdom and dignity; and yet it is his calamity which has handed down his praises to everlasting recollection.

Ch. 33

But if the injury inflicted on them by their enemies was not any disgrace to those men who were expelled unjustly, but still who were restored according to law, after their enemies had been slain, after the tribunes had brought forward motions respecting them; not by the authority of the senate, not by the comitia centuriata, not by the decrees of all Italy, not by the universal regret of the state; do you think that in my case, who departed uncondemned, who departed at the same time as the republic, and returned with the greatest dignity, while you were still alive, while one of your brothers was one of the consuls who brought me back, and the other was the praetor who demanded my recall, your wickedness ought to be any discredit to me? And if the Roman people, being inflamed with passion or envy, had driven me out of the city, and afterwards, remembering my services to the republic, had recollected itself; and shown its repentance for its rashness and injustice by restoring me; yet, in truth, no one would have been so senseless, as to think that such conduct on the part of the people ought not rather to be considered an honour to me than a disgrace. [sect. 88] But now, when of all the people no one has accused me, when it is impossible for me to have been condemned, seeing that I have never been accused, since I was not even expelled in such a way that I could not have got the better of my adversaries if I had contested the point with them by force; and when, on the other hand, I have at all times been defrauded and praised and honoured by the Roman people; what pretence has any one for thinking himself better off than I am, at all events as far as the people are concerned? [sect. 89]

Do you think that the Roman people consists of these men who can be hired for any purpose? who are easily instigated to offer violence to magistrates? to besiege the senate? to wish every day for bloodshed, conflagration and plunder? people, indeed, whom you could not possibly collect together unless you shut up all the taverns; a people to whom you gave the Lentidii, and Lollii, and Plaguleii, and Sergii, for leaders. Oh for the splendour and dignity of the Roman people, for kings, for foreign nations, for the most distant [p. 42] lands to fear; a multitude collected of slaves, of hirelings, of, criminals, and beggars! [sect. 90] That was the real beauty and splendour of the Roman people, which you beheld in the Campus Martius at that time, when even you were allowed to speak in opposition to the authority and wishes of the senate and of all Italy. That is the peoplethat, I say, is the people which is the lord of kings, the conqueror and commander-in-chief of all nations, which you, O wicked man, beheld in that most illustrious day when all the chief men of the city, when all men of all ranks and ages considered themselves as giving their votes, not about the safety of a citizen, but about that of the state; when men arrive into the Campus, the municipal towns having been all emptied, not the taverns.

Ch. 34 [sect. 91]

By the aid of this people, if there had then been real consuls in the republic, or if there had been no consuls at all, I should without any difficulty have resisted your headlong frenzy and impious wickedness. But I was unwilling to take up the public cause against armed violence, without the protection of the people. Not that I disapproved of the late rigour of Publius Scipio, that bravest of men, when he was only a private individual; but Publius Mucius the consul, who was considered somewhat remiss in defending the republic, immediately defended, and, more than that, extolled the action of Scipio in many resolutions passed by the senate. But, in my case, I, if you were slain, would have had to contend by force of arms against the consuls, or if you were alive, against both you and them together. [sect. 92] There were many other circumstances also to be feared at that time. The contest, would, in truth, have reached the slaves. So great a hatred of all good men had still got possession of the minds of impious citizens, being burnt as it were into their wicked minds by that ancient conspiracy.

Here, too, you warn me not to boast. You say that those things are intolerable which I am accustomed to assert concerning myself; and being a witty man, you put on quite a polite and elegant sort of language. You say that I am accustomed to say that I am Jupiter; and also to make a frequent boast that Minerva is my sister. I will not so much defend myself from the charge of insolence in calling myself Jupiter, as from that of ignorance in thinking Minerva the sister of Jupiter. But even if I do say so, I at all events claim a virgin for my sister; but you would not allow your sister to remain a virgin. Consider rather whether you have not a right to call yourself Jupiter, because you have established a right to call the same woman both sister and wife.

Ch. 35 [sect. 93]

And since you find fault with me for this, that you assert that I am accustomed to speak too boastfully of myself; I ask, who ever heard me speak in this way, or speak of myself at all, except when I was compelled, and was doing so of necessity? For if, when robberies, and bribery, and lust are imputed to me, I am accustomed to reply that the country was saved by my prudence, and labour, and personal danger, I ought not to be considered as boasting of my own exploits, so much as refusing to confess what is imputed to me. But if, before these most miserable periods of the republic, nothing else was ever imputed to me, except the cruelty of my conduct at that time when I warded off destruction from the republic, what will you say? Ought I when accused in this manner, not to have replied at all, or to have replied in an abject tone? [sect. 94] But I have always thought it for the interest of even the republic itself, that I should uphold by my language the propriety and glory of that most noble exploit which I performed by the authority of the senate, with the consent of all virtuous men, for the safety of my country; especially when I am the only person in this republic who have been able to say on oath, in the hearing of the Roman people, that this city and this republic had been saved by my exertions. That accusation of cruelty has long since been extinguished, because men see that I was regretted, and demanded and sent for back by the wishes of all the citizens, not as a cruel tyrant, but as a most merciful parent. Another charge has risen up. [sect. 95] That departure of mine from the city is attacked, which accusation I cannot reply to without the greatest credit to myself. For what, O priests, ought I to say? That I lied from a consciousness of guilt? But that which was imputed to me as a crime, not only was not a crime, but was the most glorious action ever performed since the birth of man. That I feared the sentence of the people? But not only was there no trial at any time before the people, but if there had been, I should have departed with redoubled glory. That the protection of the good was wanting to me? [p. 44] It is false. That I was afraid of death? That is an assertion disgraceful to those who make it.

Ch. 36 [sect. 96]

I am therefore compelled to say that which I would not say if I were not compelled. (For I have never said anything at all in the way of extolling myself for the sake of gaining praise, but only with a view to repel an accusation.) I say, therefore, and I say it with the loudest voice I can command, when the inflamed violence of all the profligate citizens and conspirators, a tribune of the people being the leader, the consuls being their instigators, the senate being beaten down, the Roman knights being terrified, the whole city being in suspense and anxiety, was making an attack, not so much on me as, through me, on all good menI say that I then saw that if I conquered, there would be but little of the republic left, and if I were conquered, none at all. And when I had decided that this would be the case, I lamented indeed my separation from my unhappy wife, the desolate state of my most beloved children, the distress of my most affectionate and excellent brother, who was away, and the sudden ruin of a family which had seemed so thoroughly established; but still I preferred to all these considerations the safety of my fellow-citizens, and I preferred that the republic should rather fall, if fall it must through the departure of one man, than through the slaughter of every one. I hoped (as indeed happened) that I, though overthrown, might be raised again by gallant men who were still alive; but I expected that if I perished, involving all virtuous men in my fall, I could not by any possibility be recovered. [sect. 97] I felt indeed, O priests, a great and incredible pain; I do not deny it; nor do I pretend to that wisdom which some expected of me, who said that I was too much dispirited and cast down. Could I, when I was torn from such a number and variety of enjoyments, (which I pass over, because even now I cannot speak of them without tears,) deny that I was a human being, and repudiate the common feelings of our nature? But in that case I should neither call that action of mine praise-worthy, nor should I say that any service had been done to the republic by me, if I had only given up, for the sake of the republic, those things which I could bear the loss of with calmness; and that firmness of the mind, resembling that hardness of body, which, even when it is burnt,[p. 45] does not feel it, I should consider insensibility rather than virtue.

Ch. 37 [sect. 98]

To encounter voluntarily such great grief of mind, and by oneself to endure, while the city is standing, those things which, when a city is taken, befall the conquered citizens; to see oneself torn from the embrace of one's friends, one's houses destroyed, one's property plundered; above all for the sake of one's country, to lose one's country itself to be stripped of the most honourable favours of the Roman people, to be precipitated from the highest rank of dignity, to see one's enemies in their robes of office demanding to conduct one's funeral before one's death has been properly mourned;to undergo all these troubles for the sake of saving one's fellow-citizens, and this with such feelings that you are miserable while absent, not being as wise as those philosophers who care for nothing, but being as attached to one's relations and to oneself as the common feelings and rights of men require,that is illustrious and godlike glory. For he who with a calm spirit for the sake of the republic abandons those things which he has never considered dear or delightful is not showing any remarkable good will towards the republic but he who abandons those things for the sake of the republic from which he is not torn without the greatest agony, his country is dear to that man and he prefers her safety to his affection for his own relations. [sect. 99] Wherefore that fury may burst itself; and it must hear me say these things since it has provoked meI have twice saved the republic both when as consul in the garb of peace I subdued armed enemies, and when as a private individual I yielded to the consuls in arms. Of each piece of conduct I have reaped the greatest rewardI reaped the reward of my first achievement when I saw the senate and all virtuous men, in pursuance of a resolution of the senate, change their garments for the sake of my safety; and that of my subsequent conduct, when the senate, and the Roman people, and all men, whether in a public or a private capacity, decided that without my return the republic would not be safe. [sect. 100]

But this return of mine, O priests, depends now on your decision. For if you place me in my house, then I do plainly see and feel that I am restored, which is what all through my cause you have been always labouring to effect by your displays of zeal, by your counsels, and influence, and resolutions; [p. 46] but if, my house is not only not restored to me, but is even allowed to continue to furnish my enemy with a memorial of my distress, of his own wicked triumph, of the public calamity, who is there who will consider this a restoration, and not rather an eternal punishment? Moreover, my house, O priests, is in the sight of the whole city; and if there remains in it that (I will not call it monument of the city, but that) tomb inscribed with the name of my enemy, I had better migrate to some other spot, rather than dwell in that city in which I am to see trophies erected as tokens of victory over me and over the republic.

Ch. 38 [sect. 101]

Could I have such hardness of mind or such shamelessness of eye, as to be able in that city, the preserver of which the senate has so often unanimously decided that I am, to behold my house thrown down, not by my own private enemy, but by the common foe, and then again built up and placed in the sight of the whole city, that the weeping of the virtuous citizens might know no cessation? The house of Spurius Maelius, who aimed at the kingdom, was razed. What else ensued? The Roman people by the very name of Aequimaelium, which they gave the place, decided that what had happened to Maelius was deserved; the punishment inflicted on his folly was approved. The house of Spurius Cassius was destroyed for the same reason; and on the same spot was built the temple of Tellus. The house of Marcus Vaccus¹⁴ was in Vaccus's meadows, which was confiscated and destroyed in order that his crime might be kept alive in people's recollection by the name of the place. Marcus Manlius, when he had beaten back the attack of the Gauls from the Capitoline steep, was not content with the renown of his good deed; he was adjudged to have aimed at regal power, and on that account you see that his house was pulled down and the place covered with two groves. That therefore which our ancestors considered the greatest penalty which could be inflicted on wicked and infamous citizens, am I to undergo and to endure, so as to appear to posterity not to have been the extinguisher of conspiracy and wickedness, but its author and leader? [sect. 102] And will the dignity of the Roman people, O priests, be able to support this stain of infamy and inconsistency, while the senate live, while you are the chief man of the public council, if the house of Marcus Tullius Cicero appears joined with the house of Fulvius Flaccus by the memory of a punishment publicly inflicted? Marcus Flaccus because he had acted with Caius Gracchus in a manner opposed to the safety of the republic, was put to death by the sentence of the senate, and his house was destroyed and confiscated, and on the spot Quintus Catulus some time after erected a portico out of the spoils of the Cimbri. But that firebrand and fury of his country, when, under those great generals Piso and Gabinius, he had taken the city, and occupied, and was in entire possession of it, destroyed the memorials of a most illustrious man who was dead, and united my house with the house of Marcus Flaccus, in order that he, after he had crushed the senate, might inflict on him whom the conscript fathers had pronounced to be the saviour of his country, the same punishment which the senate had inflicted on the destroyer of the constitution.

Ch. 39 [sect. 103]

But will you allow this portico to stand on the Palatine Hill, and on the most beautiful spot in the whole city, erected as an everlasting token to keep alive the recollection of all nations and of all foes of the frenzy of the tribunes, of the wickedness of the consuls of the cruelty of the conspirators, of the calamity of the republic, and of my sufferings? A portico which, out of the affection which you have and always have had for the republic, you ought to wish to pull down, not only by your votes, but, if it were necessary, even by your hands. Unless, perchance, the religious consecration of it by that chastest of pontiffs deters any one. [sect. 104]

O that action, which careless men laugh at, but which graver citizens cannot hear of without the greatest indignation; has Publius Clodius, who removed religion even out of the house of the Pontifex Maximus,¹⁵ introduced it into mine? Do you, you who are the ministers of the religious ceremonies and sacrifices, admit this man to be an originator and regulator of public religion? O ye immortal gods! (for I wish you to hear these things), does Publius Clodius have the management of your sacred rites? Does he feel a reverent awe of your divine power? Is he a man who thinks that all human affairs are regulated by your providence? Is he not mocking the authority of all those eminent men who are here present? Is he not abusing your authority, O priests? Can any expression of religion escape or fall from that mouth? of religion, which with that same mouth you have most foully and shamefully violated, by accusing the senate of passing severe degrees about religion.

Ch. 40 [sect. 105]

Behold, behold, O priests, this religious man, and if it seems good to you, (and it is only the duty of virtuous priests,) warn him that there are some fixed limits to religion that a man ought not to be too superstitious. Why was it necessary for you, O fanatical man, with an old woman's superstition, to go to see a sacred ceremony which was being performed at another person's house? And how was it that you were possessed with such weakness of mind as to think it not possible for the gods to be sufficiently propitiated, unless you intruded yourself into the religious ceremonies of women? Whom of your ancestors did you ever hear of, of those men who were attentive to their private religious duties, and who presided over the public priesthoods, who were present when a sacrifice was being offered to the Bona Dea? No one; not even that great man who became blind: from which it may be easily seen that in this life men form many erroneous opinions; when he, who had not knowingly seen anything which it was impious to see, lost his eye-sight; but in the case of that fellow, who has polluted the ceremonies, not only by his presence, but also by his incestuous guilt and, adultery, all the punishment due to his eyes has fallen on the blindness of his mind. Can you, O priests, avoid being influenced by the authority of this man, so chaste, so religious, so holy, so pious a man, when he says that he, with his own hands, pulled down the house of a most virtuous citizen, and with the same hands consecrated it to the gods? [sect. 106]

What was that consecration of yours? I had carried a bill, says he, to make it lawful for me to act. What? had you not inserted this clause in it, that if there was anything contrary to what was right in the bill, it should be invalid? Will you then, O priests, by your decision, establish the point that it is right that the home of every one of you, and your altars, and your hearths, and your household gods, should be at the mercy of the caprice of the tribunes? that it is right for any one, not only to throw down the house of that man whom he may have chosen to attack with a body of excited men, and may have driven away by violence,which is an act of present insanity, like the effect of a sudden terror,but for him to bind that man and property for all future time by the everlasting obligation of religion?

Ch. 41 [sect. 107]

I indeed, O priests, have always understood that in undertaking religious obligations the main thing is to interpret what the intention of the immortal gods appears to be. Nor is piety towards the gods anything but an honourable opinion of their divine power and intentions, while you suppose that nothing is required by them which is unjust or dishonourable. That disgrace to the city could not find one single man, not even when he had everything in his power, to whom he could adjudge, or deliver, or make a present of my house; though he himself was inflamed with a great desire for that spot and for the house, and though, on that account alone, that excellent man had brought in that exceedingly just bill of his to make himself master of my property, yet even in the height of his madness he did not dare to take possession of my house, with the desire of which he had been so excited. Do you think that the immortal gods were willing to remove into the house of that man to whose labour and prudence it was owing that they still retained possession of their own temples, dismantled and ruined as it was by the nefarious robbery of a most worthless man? [sect. 108] There is not one citizen in this numerous people, out of that polluted and blood-thirsty band of Publius Clodius, who laid hands on a single article of my property, or who did not in that storm defend it as if it had been his own. But they who caught the infection and polluted themselves with any partnership in the plunder, or in the purchase of anything, were not able to escape every sort of condemnation, whether public or private. Of this property then, of which no one touched a single thing without being accounted in every one's opinion one of the wickedest of men, did the immortal gods covet my house? Did that beautiful Liberty of yours turn out my household gods and the eternal divinities of my hearth, in order to be established there herself by you, as if in a conquered country? [sect. 109] What is there more holy, what is there more carefully fenced round with every description of religious respect, than the house of every individual citizen? here are his altars, here are his hearths, here are his household gods: here all his sacred rites, all his religious ceremonies are preserved. This is the asylum of every one, so holy a spot that it is impious to drag any one from it.

Ch. 42

And on this account that man's madness is the more to be rejected by your ears who has not only attacked in a manner contrary to all religion those things which our ancestors intended to be safe and hallowed among us, as guarded by the sanction of religion, but has even made use of the name of religion to overturn them.

[sect. 110] And what goddess is she whom you have established there? She ought indeed to be the good goddess; since she has been consecrated by you. She is Liberty, says he. Have you then established her in my house whom you have driven out of the whole city? Did you, after you had denied that your colleagues,men invested with the highest power,were free; after you had closed all access to the temple of Castor against every one; after you had ordered in the hearing of the Roman people, this most illustrious man, of a most noble family, who has received the greatest honours from the Roman people, a priest, and a man of consular rank, a citizen of singular gentleness and modesty of character, (a man of whom I cannot sufficiently wonder how you can dare to look him in the face,) to be kicked and trampled on by your attendants; after you had driven him out of the city without being condemned, having proposed a most tyrannical privilegium against him; after you had confined the first man in the whole earth to his house; after you had occupied the forum with armed bands of profligate men;did you then place the image of Liberty in that house, which was of itself a proof of your most cruel tyranny and of the miserable slavery of the Roman people? Was he the man whom Liberty ought, of all men in the world, to have driven from his house, whose existence was the only thing that prevented the whole city from coming under the power of slaves?

Ch. 43 [sect. 111]

But from whence was that Liberty brought? for I sought for her diligently. She is said to have been a prostitute at Tanagra. At no great distance from Tanagra a marble image of her was placed on her tomb. A certain man of noble birth, not altogether unconnected with this holy priest of Liberty, carried off this statue to decorate his aedileship. He had in truth cherished the idea of surpassing all his predecessors in the splendour of his appointments. Therefore he brought away to his own house, like a prudent man as he was, all the statues and pictures, all the decorations of any sort, that remained in the temples and public places, out of Greece and out of all the islands, for the sake of doing honour to the Roman people. [sect. 112] After he understood that he might give up the aedileship, and still be appointed praetor by Lucius Piso the consul, provided he had any competitor whose name began with the same¹⁶ letter as his own, he stowed away what he had prepared for his aedileship in two places, partly in his strong-box, and partly in his gardens. He gave the statue which he had taken from the prostitute's tomb to that fellow, because it was much more suited to such people as he is than to Public Liberty. Can any one dare to profane this goddess, the statue of a harlot, the ornament of a tomb, carried off by a thief; and consecrated by a sacrilegious infidel? Is it she who is to drive me from my house? Is she the avenger of this afflicted city? Is she to be adorned with the spoils of the republic? Is she to be a part of that monument which has been erected so as to be a token of the oppression of the senate, and to keep alive for ever the recollection of this man's infamy? [sect. 113]

O Quintus Catulus! (Shall I appeal rather to the father, or to the son? The memory of the son is fresher, and more closely connected with my exploits.) How greatly were you mistaken when you thought that I should find the greatest possible rewarda reward, too, becoming every day greater in this republic when you said that it was impossible for there to be at the same time in this city two consuls hostile to the republic. Two have been found who gave over the senate bound hand and foot to a frantic tribune; who, by edicts and positive commands, prohibited the conscript fathers from entreating the people and coming to it as suppliants on my behalf; who looked on while my house was being sacked and plundered; who ordered the damaged relics of my property to be carried off to their own houses. [sect. 114] I come now to the father. You, O Quintus Catulus, chose the house of Marcus Fulvius, though he was the father-in-law of your own brother, to be the monument of your victories, in order that every recollection of that man who had embraced designs destructive of the republic should be entirely removed from the eyes and eradicated from the minds of men if, when you were building that portico, any one had said to you that the time would come when that tribune of the people, who had despised the authority of the senate and the opinion of all virtuous men, should injure and overthrow your monument, while the consuls were not looking on only, but even assisting in the work, and should join it to the house of that citizen who as consul had defended the republic in obedience to the authority of the senate; would you not have answered that that could not possibly happen, unless the republic itself was previously overthrown?

Ch. 44 [sect. 115]

But remark the intolerable audacity of the man, and at the same time his headlong and unbridled covetousness. That fellow never thought of any monument, or any religion; he wished to dwell splendidly and magnificently, and to unite two large and noble houses. At the same moment that my departure deprived him of all pretence for bloodshed, he was begging Quintus Seius to sell him his house; and when he refused to do so, he threatened that he would block up all his lights. Postumus declared that as long as he was alive that house should never belong to Clodius. That acute young man took the hint from his own mouth, as to what was best for him to do; and in the most open manner he took the man off by poison. He bought the house, after wearying out all the other bidders, for almost half as much again as he thought it really worth. What is my object in making this statement. [sect. 116] That house of mine is almost entirely empty; scarcely one-tenth part of my house has been added to Catulus's portico. The pretence was a promenade, and a monument, and that Tanagran lady Liberty, (all Roman liberty having been entirely put down). He had set his heart upon a portico with private chambers, paved to the distance of three hundred feet, with a fine court surrounded by a colonnade, on the Palatine Hill, commanding a superb view, and everything else in character, so as far to surpass all other houses in luxury and splendour. And that scrupulous man, while he was both buying and selling my house at the same moment, still, even in a time of such darkness as that, did not venture to give in his own name as the purchaser. He put up that fellow Scato, a man whose virtue it was, no doubt, that had made him poor; so poor that among the Marsi, where he was born, he had no house in which he could take refuge from the rain and yet he said now that he had purchased the finest house on the Palatine hill. The lower part of the house he assigned not to his own Fonteian family, but to the Clodian family which he had quitted; but of all the numerous family of Clodius, no one applied for any share in his liberality except those who were utterly destitute from indigence and wickedness.

Ch. 45 [sect. 117]

Will you, O priests, sanction this universal and unprecedented tyranny of every sort, this impudence and audacity and covetousness? Oh, says he, a priest was present. Are you not ashamed, when the matter is being discussed before the priests, to say that a priest was present, not the college of priests? especially when, as tribune of the people, you had power to summon them and even to compel their attendance. Be it so. You did not call in the whole college. Well. Which of the college was it who was present? For he had vested that authority in one individual which belongs to all of them; however, the age and rank of the man invest him with additional dignity. There was need also of knowledge and although they were all of them learned men, still no doubt age gives them still more experience. [sect. 118] Who then was it who was present? The brother, says he, of my wife. If we ask what was his authority, although he is of such an age that he cannot as yet have much, still even such authority as a young man can have is to be considered as diminished in his case, by reason of his near connection with and relationship to you. But if we ask what knowledge he has, who could have less than he who had only come into the college a few days before? And he was the more bound to you by your recent kindness to him, inasmuch as he had seen himself, the brother of your wife, preferred by you to your own brother. Although in that matter you took care that your brother should not be able to accuse you.

Do you then call that a dedication, to which you were not able to invite the college of pontiffs, or any single priest distinguished by honours conferred on him by the Roman people nor even any other young man, though you had some most intimate friends in the college? He only was present, if indeed he was present, whom you yourself instigated, whom his sister entreated, and whom his mother compelled to be so. [sect. 119]

Take care now, O priests, what decision you give in this cause of mine, concerning the fortunes of all the citizens. Do you think that the house of every single citizen can be consecrated by the word of a priest, if he takes hold of a door-post and says something or other? But those dedications, and those religious ceremonies respecting temples and shrines, were instituted by our ancestors to do honour to the immortal gods, without inflicting any misfortune on their fellow-citizens. A tribune of the people has been found, who, assisted by the forces of the consuls, has rushed with all the violence of insanity on that citizen, whom, after he had been beaten down, the republic itself raised up again with its own hands.

Ch. 46 [sect. 120]

What next? Suppose any one like that fellow,for there will not be wanting men who will be willing to imitate him,should by violence oppress some one who does not resemble me, to whom the republic does not owe as much as it does to me, and should dedicate his house by the agency of one priest; will you determine by your authority that a deed done in that manner ought to stand? Will you say, What priest will such a man be able to find? What? Cannot a tribune of the people be himself a priest also at the same time? Marcus Drusus, that most illustrious tribune of the people, was a priest also. Therefore, if he had taken hold of a door-post of the house of Quintus Caepio his enemy, and had uttered a few words, would the house of Caepio have been dedicated to the gods? I say nothing here about the privileges of the priesthood, nor about the language of the dedication itself; [sect. 121] I say nothing about religion, or religious ceremonies; I do not deny that I am ignorant of those matters, of which I should conceal my knowledge, even if I were acquainted with them, that I might not appear troublesome to others, and over curious to you; although many particulars of your usages do escape, and often reach the ears of the laity. I think, for instance, that I have heard that at the dedication of a temple, a door-post must be taken hold of. For the door-post is there where the entrance to the temple and its folding-door are. But no one ever took hold of the posts of a promenade in dedicating that; but if you have dedicated a statue or an altar, that cannot be moved from its place afterwards without impiety. But you will not be able now to allege this, since you have said that the priest did lay hands on the post.

Although, why do I say anything about the dedication? or why do I discuss your right and the religious features of the case, contrary to my original intention?

Ch. 47 [sect. 122]

But, even if I were to allow that everything had been done with the regularities of expression, according to ancient and established usages, I should still defend myself by the common law of the republic. When, after the departure of that citizen, to whose single exertions the senate and all good men had so often decided that the safety of the state was owing, you, with the aid of two most wicked consuls, were keeping down the republic which was groaning under the oppression of your most shameful robberies; when you had dedicated, with the countenance of some obscure priest, the house of that man who was unwilling that the country which had been preserved by him should perish on any pretence connected with him; could the republic when it had recovered itself endure that? [sect. 123] Once, O priests, give an opening for such religious acts as this, and you will very soon find no escape at all for any one's property. If a priest has laid his hand on a door-post, and has transferred expressions intended for the honour of the immortal gods to the injury of the citizens, will the holy name of religion avail to procure the ratification of such an injury, and yet will it not avail if a tribune of the people consecrates the goods of any citizen with a form of words no less ancient and almost equally solemn? But Caius Atinius, within the recollection of our fathers, consecrated the property of Quintus Metellus, who, as censor, had expelled him from the senate (your grandfather, O Quintus Metellus, and yours, O Publius Servilius, and your great-grandfather, O Publius Scipio;) placing a little brazier on the rostra and summoning a flute-player to assist him. What then? Did that frenzy of a tribune of the people, derived from some precedents of extreme antiquity, do any injury to Quintus Metellus, that great and most illustrious man? [sect. 124] Certainly not. We have seen a tribune of the people do the same thing to Cnaeus Lentulus the censor. Did he then at all bind the property of Lentulus to any peculiar sanctity?

But why should I speak of other men? You yourself; I say, with your head veiled, having summoned an assembly, having placed a brazier on the spot, consecrated the property of your dear friend Gabinius, to whom you had given all the kingdoms of the Syrians, and Arabians, and Persians. But if nothing was really effected at that time, why should my property be affected by the same measures? if, on the other hand, that consecration was valid, why did that abyss of a man, who had swallowed up with you all the blood of the republic, raise a villa as high as the heavens on my Tusculan estate, out of the funds of the public treasury? And why have I not been allowed to look upon the ruins of my property,I, who am the only person who prevented the whole city from being in a similar condition?

Ch. 48 [sect. 125]

I say nothing about Gabinius. Why? Did not Lucius Munius,¹⁷ the most fearless and most excellent of all men, consecrate your property by your own precedent? And if, because you yourself are concerned, you say that that action ought not to be ratified, did you in that splendid tribuneship of yours establish laws which, the moment that they were turned against yourself, you repudiated, though you made use of them to ruin other people? If that consecration be legal, then what is there in your property which can be applied to other than holy uses? Or has a consecration no power, while a dedication draws with it the sanctions of religion? What then was the meaning of your summoning that flute-player to be a witness? What was the object of your brazier? What became of your prayers? What was the meaning of all your old-fashioned expressions? Did you wish to lie, to deceive, to abuse the divine reverence due to the immortal gods, in order to strike terror into men? For if that act is once ratifiedI say nothing about Gabinius,most certainly your house and whatever else you have is consecrated to Ceres. But if that was a joke of yours, what can be more impure than you who have polluted every sort of religion by lies and adulteries? [sect. 126] Well, I confess, says he, that in the case of Gabinius I did behave wickedly. You see now that the punishment which was established by you with reference to another has been turned against yourself. But, O man, O you who are the very model of every possible crime and wickedness, do you deny with respect to me that which you admit in the case of Gabinius,a man the immodesty of whose childhood, the lust of whose youth, the disgrace and indigence of whose subsequent life, the open robberies of whose consulship, we have seen,a man to whom even calamity itself could not happen undeservedly? Did do you? that that was a more solemn act which you performed with one young man alone for your witness, than it would have been if you had had the whole assembly in that character? Oh, says he, a dedication is an act which carries the greatest possible quantity of sanctity with it.

Ch. 49 [sect. 127]

Does not Numa Pompilius appear to be speaking to you? Learn his speech by heart, O priests, and flamens. Do you too, O king of the sacrifices, learn of the man of your own family; although, indeed, he has quitted that family; but still learn from a man entirely devoted to religious observances, and just, and deeply skilled in all questions of religion. What? in the case of a dedication do not people inquire who says such and such a thing, and what he says, and how? Do you so confuse and mix up these matters, that whoever chooses can dedicate whatever he chooses, and in whatever manner he chooses? Who were you who performed the dedication? By what right did you do so? By what law? According to what precedent? By what power? When and where had the Roman people appointed you to manage that business? For I see that there is an old tribunitian law, which forbids any one to consecrate any house, land, or altar, without the order of the Roman people. Quintus Papirius, who proposed this law, did not perceive nor suspect that there would be danger lest hereafter the houses or possessions of citizens who had not been condemned might be consecrated. For that could not lawfully be done; nor had any one ever done such a thing; nor was there any reason why a prohibition should be issued, the effect of which appeared likely to be not so much to deter people from an action as to remind them of it. [sect. 128] But because buildings were consecrated,I do not mean the licenses of private persons, but those which are called sacred buildings,and because lands were consecrated, [p. 58] not in such a way that any one who chose might consecrate our farms, but that a general might consecrate lands taken from the enemy; and because altars were erected, which carried with them a degree of sanctity to the place in which they were consecrated; he forbade all these things to be done unless the people ordered them. And if your interpretation of these edicts be that they were framed with reference to our houses and lands, I make no objection. But I ask, what law was passed that you should consecrate my house? where this power was given to you? and by what right you did it? And I am not now arguing about religion, but about the property of all of us; nor about the sacerdotal law, but about the common law.

Ch. 50

The Papirian law forbids any building to be consecrated without the command of the people. Grant that that law refers to our houses, and not to the public temples. Show me one word of consecration in that law of yoursif it is a law, and not merely an expression of your wickedness and cruelty. [sect. 129] But if then, at the time of that shipwreck of the republic, everything necessary had occurred to you, or if the man who drew that law for you at the time of that general conflagration of the state had not been making contracts with the Byzantine exiles and with the royal ambassadors, but had his mind at leisure to attend to (what I will not call the ordinances, but) the monstrous papers which he was drawing, then you would have done what you wanted, if not in fact at all events as far as regular legal language went. But at one and the same time bonds for money were being drawn, treaties with provinces were being entered into, titles of kings were being put up for sale, the numbering of all the slaves was going on over the whole city street by street enemies were being reconciled, new commands were being given to the Roman youth, poison was being prepared for that unhappy Quintus Seius, designs were being formed for assassinating Cnaeus Pompeius, the bulwark and protector of the empire, and to prevent the senate from having any power, and to cause the good to mourn for ever, and to reduce the captive republic, by the treachery of the consuls, to a state of subjection to the violence of the tribunes. When such numerous and such important designs were all on foot, it is no wonder, especially while you were both in such a state of frenzy and [p. 59] blindness, that many things escaped both his notice and yours. [sect. 130]

But take notice now, what the effect of this Papirian law is in such a case as this; not such a case as you bring forward, full of wickedness and frenzy. Quintus Marcius the censor had made a statue of Concord, and had erected it in a public place. When Caius Cassius the censor had transported it into the senate-house, he consulted your college, and asked whether there was any reason why he should not dedicate that statue and the senate-house to Concord.

Ch. 51

I beseech you, O priests, compare man with man, the one time with the other, this case with that case. The one man was a censor of the greatest moderation and of the highest character; the other was a tribune of the people, of preeminent wickedness and audacity. That period was one of tranquillity, when the people enjoyed a full measure of liberty, and the senate all its legitimate authority; but your time was a time when the liberty of the Roman people was oppressed, and when the authority of the senate was destroyed. [sect. 131] The proposed measure was one full of justice, wisdom, and dignity. For the censor, to whose power (though you have abolished that) our ancestors chose to commit the decision respecting the dignity of each member of the senate, wished the statue of Concord to be in the senate-house, and wished also to dedicate the senate-house to that goddess. It was a noble intention, and one worthy of all praise. For he thought that by that measure he was enjoining that opinions should be delivered without party spirit or dissension, if he bound the place itself and the temple of public counsel by the religions reverence due to the goddess Concord. You, when you were keeping down the enslaved and oppressed city by the sword, by fear, by edicts, by privileges, by bands of abandoned men constantly present, and by the fear of the army which was absent and by threats of bringing it up, and by the assistance of the consuls, and by your nefarious agreement with them, erected a statue of Liberty in a mocking and shameless spirit, rather than with even any pretence to religion. He was dedicating a thing in the senate-house, which he was able to dedicate without any inconvenience to any one. You have erected an image not of public Liberty, but of licentiousness, on what I may call the blood and bones of that citizen [p. 60] who of all others has deserved best of the republic. [sect. 132] And moreover he referred his design to the sacred college: to whom did you refer yours? If you deliberated at all, if you had anything which you wished to expiate, or any domestic sacrifice which you desired to institute, still according to the ancient practice of other men you should have referred the matter to the priests. When you were beginning a new temple in the most beautiful spot in the city, with some wicked and unheard of object, did you not think that you ought to refer the matter to the public priests? But if you did not think it desirable to consult the whole college of priests, was there no single one of them who seemed to you a suitable man (of those who are eminent among all the citizens for age and honour and authority) for you to communicate your intention about the dedication to him? The truth was, not that you despised, but that you were afraid of their dignity.

Ch. 52

Could you have dared to ask Publius Servilius or Marcus Lucullus, (men by the assistance of whose wisdom and authority I as consul snatched the republic out of your hands, out of your jaws,) with what words or with what ceremony you could consecrate the house of a citizen? (that is my first point;) and in the next place, of that citizen, to whom the chief of the senate, to whom all ranks of men, to whom all Italy, to whom every nation upon earth, bore testimony that he had saved this city and empire? What would you say, O you most wicked and mischievous disgrace to the city? [sect. 133] Come forward, come forward, Lucullus, Servilius, while I dedicate the house of Cicero. Come, stand before me, and take hold of the door-post. You are, in truth, a man of extraordinary audacity and impudence, but still your eyes, and countenance, and voice would have failed you while those men who, by their dignity, upheld the character of the Roman people and the authority of the empire, were striking terror into you by their dignified language, and saying that it would be impious for them to be present at your frantic deeds, and at such wicked and parricidal attacks on the country. [sect. 134] And when you saw this, then you betook yourself to your kinsman,not that he was selected by you, but that he was left you by the rest. And yet I believe that he,if he is really descended from those men who, it is traditionally reported, learnt their sacred ceremonies from Hercules himself; [p. 61] after he had completed his labours,would not have been so cruel with respect to the distress of a brave man, as with his own hands to place a tomb on the head of a man still living and breathing; as he either actually said and did nothing at all, and bore this as a punishment for the rashness of his mother, that he lent his presence though mute, and his name to this sin; or, if he did say anything in a few faltering words, and if he did touch the door-post with trembling hand, at all events he did nothing regularly or solemnly, nothing according to proper usages or established forms. He had seen Murena, his stepfather, the consul elect in company with the Allobroges, bring to me when I was consul the proofs of the conspiracy for the general destruction. He had heard from him that he had twice received safety from me, once as an individual, and a second time in common with the whole body of citizens. [sect. 135] Who is there, then, who can think that this new priest, performing this his first religious ceremony, and uttering these his first official words since his admission to the priesthood, would not have felt his tongue grow mute, and his hand grow torpid, and his mind become weakened and fail through fear; especially when out of all that numerous college he saw neither king, nor flamen, nor priest and was compelled against his will to become a partner in another's wickedness, and was enduring the most terrible punishment of his most disgraceful relationship?

Ch. 53 [sect. 136]

But to return to the question of the vindication of the public rights, which the priests themselves have always adapted not only to their own ceremonies, but also to the commands of the people. You have a statement in your records, that Caius Cassius the censor consulted the pontifical college about dedicating the statue of Concord, and that Marcus Aemilius, the Pontifex Maximus, answered him on behalf of the college, that unless the Roman people had appointed him by name to superintend that business, it did not appear to them that the statue could properly be consecrated. What more? When Licinia,a vestal virgin, a woman of the highest rank, and invested with the most holy of all priesthoods,in the consulship of Titus Flamininus and Quintus Metellus, had dedicated an altar, and a little chapel, and a cushion at the foot of the sacred rock; did not Sextus Julius the praetor refer that matter to this college, in [p. 62] obedience to the authority of the senate? when Publius Scaevola, the Pontifex Maximus, answered on behalf of the college, that what Licinia, the daughter of Caius, had dedicated in a public place without the authority of the people, did not appear to be holy. And with what impartiality and with what diligence the senate annulled that act, you will easily see from the words of the resolution of the senate. Read the resolution of the senate. [The resolution of the senate is read.] [sect. 137] Do not you see that a commission is given to the praetor of the city, to take care that that which she had consecrated should not be accounted holy? and that, if any letters had been engraved or inscribed upon it, they should be removed? Shame on the times, and on their principles! Then the priests forbade the censor, a most holy man, to dedicate it statue to Concord in a temple which had not been duly consecrated. And after that the senate voted that that altar, which had been consecrated on a most venerable spot, should be taken down in obedience to the authority of the priests, and did not permit any memorial of writing to exist as a relic of that dedication. You, O storm ravaging your country,you whirlwind and tempest dispelling peace and tranquillity,did you hope that the republic would endure what you (in the shipwreck of the state, when darkness was spread over the republic, when the Roman people was overwhelmed, when the senate was overturned and expelled,) pulled down and built up? what you, after having violated every feeling of religion, still polluted under the name of religion? that it would endure the monument of the destruction of the republic which you erected in the house of this citizen who is now speaking, and in the city which he had preserved by his own exertions and dangers, to the disgrace of the knights and the grief of all virtuous men; that it would endure the inscription which you had placed there after having erased the name of Quintus Catulus, one moment longer than the time that it was absent from these walls, from which it had been driven at the same time that I myself was?

But if, O priests, you decide that no man who had a right to do so by law performed this dedication, and that nothing was dedicated which lawfully might be; then why need I prove that third point which I originally proposed to [p. 63] establish; namely, that he did not dedicate it with those forms and words which such ceremonies require?

Ch. 54 [sect. 138]

I said at the beginning, that I was not going to say anything about your peculiar science; nor about the sacrifices, nor about the recondite laws of the priests. The arguments which I have hitherto advanced about the right of dedication, have not been drawn from any secret description of books, but are taken from common sources, from things openly done by the magistrates and referred to the sacred college, from resolutions of the senate, and from the law. Those inner mysteries, what ought to be said, or enjoined, or touched, or taken hold of are still your own. [sect. 139] But if it were proved that all these things had been done in a manner equal to the knowledge of Coruncanius, who is said to have been the most experienced of priests; or if that great man Marcus Horatius Pulvillus, who when many men out of envy endeavoured to hinder his dedication by false pretences about religion, resisted them, and with the greatest firmness dedicated the Capitol, had himself presided at such a dedication as this, still I say that accuracy of religious observance would not hallow a wicked act; much less can that act have any validity which an unskillful young man, a new priest, influenced by the prayers of his sister and the threats of his mother, ignorant and unwilling, without colleagues, without books, without any adviser or assistant,¹⁸ is said to have performed by stealth, with trembling heart and faltering tongue; especially when that impure and impious enemy of all religion, who in defiance of all that is right or holy had often been as a woman among men, and a man among women, completed the business in so hurried and disorderly a manner, that neither his senses, nor his voice, nor his language, had any consistency in them.

Ch. 55 [sect. 140]

It was then reported to you, O priests, and after that it became a common topic of conversation, how he, with preposterous language with ill-omened auspices, at times interrupting himself, doubting, fearing, hesitating, pronounced and [p. 64] did everything in a manner wholly different from that which you have recorded as proper in your books. It is, indeed, not very strange that in doing an act of such wickedness and such insanity, even his audacity could not wholly repress his fear. In truth, if no robber was ever so savage and inhuman, as, when he had plundered temples, and then, having been excited by dreams or some superstitious feelings, consecrated some altar on a desert shore, not to shudder in his mind when compelled to propitiate with his prayers the deity whom he has insulted by his wickedness; what do you suppose must have been the agitation of mind of that plunderer of every temple, and of every house, and of the whole city, when he was consecrating one single altar to avert the vengeance due to his numberless acts of wickedness? [sect. 141] He could not possibly (although the insolence of power had elated his mind, and although he was armed by nature with incredible audacity) fail to blunder in his proceedings, or to keep constantly making mistakes, especially when he had a priest and teacher who was compelled to teach before he had learnt himself. There is great power, not only in the divinity of the immortal gods, but also in the republic itself. When the immortal gods saw the guardian and protector of their temples driven away in a most wicked manner, they were unwilling to quit their temples and to remove into his house. Therefore they alarmed the mind of that most insensible man with fear and anxiety. But the republic, although that was banished at the same time with myself, was still constantly present to the eyes of its destroyer, and from his excited and kindled frenzy was constantly demanding my restoration and its own. What marvel then is it, if he, urged on by the insanity of fear and drawn on headlong by wickedness, was neither able properly to perform the ceremonies which he had begun, nor to utter one single word in due order with proper solemnity?

Ch. 56 [sect. 142]

And as this is the case, O priests, recall now your attention from this subtle argument of ours to the general state and interests of the republic, which you have before now had many gallant men to assist you in supporting, but which in this cause you are upholding on your own shoulders alone. To you the whole future authority of the senate, which you yourselves always led in a most admirable manner during the discussion of my case; to you that most glorious agitation [p. 65] of Italy, and that thronging hither of all the municipal towns; to you the Campus Martius, and the unanimous voice of all the centuries, of which you were the chiefs and leaders; to you every company in the city every rank of men all men who have any property or any hopes, think that all their zeal for my dignity, all their decisions in my favour are not only entrusted, but put wholly under your protection. [sect. 143] Lastly the immortal gods themselves, who protect this city and empire, appear to me to have claimed the credit of my return and of the happiness which it has diffused as due to the power and judicial sentence of their priests in order to make it evident to all nations and to all posterity that I had been restored to the republic by divine agency. For this return of mine, O priests and this restoration consists in recovering my house, my possessions, my altars, my hearths, and my household gods. And if that fellow with his most wicked hands tears up their dwellings and abodes and with the consuls for his leaders, as if the city were taken, has thought it becoming to destroy this house alone, as if it were the house of its most active defender, still those household gods, those deities of my family, will be by you replaced in my house at the same time as myself.

Ch. 57 [sect. 144]

Wherefore, O I pray and entreat you, O thou great God of the Capitol, thee whom the Roman people has styled, on account of your kindnesses to us, All Good, and, on account of your might All Powerful; and you, O royal Juno; and you, O guardian of the city, O Minerva, you who have at all times been my assistant in my counsels, and the witness of my exertions; and you too, you who above all others have claimed me back and recalled me, you, for the sake of whose habitations most especially it is that I am engaged in this contest, O household gods of my fathers, and of my family; and you too, who preside over this city and this republic, you do I entreat, from whose spires and temples I once repelled that fatal and impious flame, you too do I supplicate, O Vesta, whose chaste priestesses I have defended from the rage and frenzy and wickedness of men whose renowned and eternal fire I could not suffer either to be extinguished in the blood of the citizens or to be confused with the conflagration of the whole city, I entreat you all that, [sect. 145] if at that almost [p. 66] fatal crisis of the republic I exposed my life, in defence of your ceremonies and temples, to the rage and arms of abandoned citizens; and it at a subsequent time, when the destruction of all good men was aimed at through my ruin, I invoked your aid, I recommended myself and my family to your protection, I devoted myself and my life, on condition that it both at that moment, and previously, and in my consulship, disregarding all my own advantage, all my own interests, and all reward for my exertions, I strove with all my anxiety and thoughts and vigilance for nothing but the safety of my fellow-citizens, I might be allowed some day or other to enjoy my country restored to me; but if my counsels had been of no service to my country, then, that I might endure everlasting misery, separated from all my friends;I may be allowed to think this devotion of my life accepted and approved by the gods, when I am by your favour restored to my home. [sect. 146] For at present, O priests, I am not only deprived of my house, which you are at present inquiring into, but of the whole city, to which I appear to be restored. In the most frequented and finest part of the city, look to that (I will not say monument, but) wound of the country. And as you must see that that sight is to me one which is more to be detested and avoided than death itself; do not, I entreat you, allow that man by whose return you have thought that the republic too would be restored, to be deprived not only of the ornaments suited to his dignity, but even of his part in the city.

Ch. 58

I am not moved by the plundering of my property, nor by the razing of my houses, nor by the devastation of my farms, nor by the booty most cruelly taken by the consuls out of my possessions. I have always considered these as perishable and fleeting gifts of fortune and of the times, and not as proofs of virtue or genius; and they are things, too, of which I have never thought it becoming to wish for plenty and abundance, so much as for moderation in enjoying them, and patience if deprived of them. [sect. 147] In truth, the moderate amount of my family property very nearly corresponds to my necessities; and I shall leave a sufficiently ample patrimony to my children in the name and memory of their father. But I cannot without great discredit to the republic, and great [p. 67] shame and misery to myself, continue deprived of my house, which has been taken from me by wickedness, and, under pretence of religion, built up again with even more impiety than it was pulled down.

Wherefore, if you consider that my return is pleasing and acceptable to the immortal gods, to the senate, to the Roman people, to all Italy, to the provinces, to foreign nations, and to yourselves who have always taken the lead in and exercised a principal influence over all measures connected with my safety, I beg and entreat you, O priests, now, since it is the will of the senate that you should do so, to place me, whom you have restored by your authority and zeal and votes to my country, with your own hands in my house.

THE SPEECH OF M. T. CICERO RESPECTING THE ANSWERS OF THE SOOTHSAYERS. ADDRESSED TO THE SENATE.

THE ARGUMENT.

This speech was spoken towards the close of the year after the last speech, but it follows it in nearly all editions, as it relates in some degree to the same subject. In the early part of the summer many prodigies were reported to have happened in the neighborhood of Rome. And the senate consulted the soothsayers as to the cause of them, and as to the means of averting their consequences. The soothsayers made answer, that the solemn shows and plays had been negligently exhibited; that sacred places had been treated as profane; that ambassadors had been ill-treated and slain; that good faith and oaths had been disregarded, and ancient and secret sacrifices neglected and profaned. That these prodigies had been sent as warnings by the gods, lest the Romans should bring evil on themselves and on their country by continuing their disorderly conduct and dissensions. That therefore the evils must be amended, or removed as far as possible, and supplications made to Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and the other gods.

After this answer had been received, Clodius, who was now aedile, called the people together, and made them a speech to prove that the evils which had especially offended the gods were the tyrannical conduct of Cicero, and the restoration of his house, after it had been consecrated to the service of religion. Cicero replied to this harangue the next day in the senate, arguing that all the offenses which could have excited the displeasure of the gods were much more fairly imputable to Clodius than to him; and after exculpating himself, and dwelling on the outrages of which Clodius had notoriously been guilty, he exhorted all citizens of all classes to lay aside their mutual animosities, as the only way of regaining the favour of the gods and their former prosperity.

Yesterday, O conscript fathers, when I was greatly moved by the thoughts of your dignity, and of the great attendance of the Roman knights to whom a senate was given, I thought myself bound to check the shameless impudence of Publius Clodius, when he was hindering the cause of the publicans from being proceeded with by the most foolish possible [p. 69] questions, and was studying to save Publius Tullio the Syrian and was, even before your eyes selling himself to him to whom, indeed, he had already been entirely sold. Therefore I checked the man in his frenzy and exultation, the very moment that I gave him a hint of the danger of a public trial; and by two half-uttered words I bridled all the violence and ferocity of that gladiator. [sect. 2]

But he, ignorant what sort of men the consuls were, pale and fuming with me burst on a sudden out of the senate house, with some broken and empty threats and with those denunciations with which he used to terrify us in the time of Piso and Gabinius. And when I began to press upon him, as he was departing, I received the greatest reward of my exertions by all of you rising up at the same time with me, and by all the publicans thronging round me to escort me. But that senseless man stopped on a sudden out of countenance, colourless, and voiceless; then he looked back; and, as soon as he beheld Cnaeus Lentulus¹⁹ the consul, he fell down almost on the threshold of the senate house from the recollection, I imagine, of his dear friend Gabinius and from regret for Piso. And why need I speak at all of his unbridled and headlong fury? He cannot be wounded by me with more severe language than he was on the instant being crushed and overwhelmed at the very moment of his acting in that manner by Publius Servilius. And even if I were able to equal the extraordinary and almost divine energy and dignity of that man, still I cannot doubt that those weapons which out enemy hurled at him would appear less powerful and less sharp than those which the colleague of his father aimed at him.

Ch. 2 [sect. 3]

But still I wish to explain the principles of my conduct to those men who thought that I was carried away yesterday by my indignation, and that, out of passion, I made a wider digression than the deliberate calmness of a philosopher allowed. I did nothing in anger nothing from not being able to restrain my temper nothing which I had not maturely considered and determined on a long time before. For I, O conscript fathers, have always professed myself an enemy to those two men who were bound to have defended and were [p. 70] able to have preserved both me and the republic; and who though they were called to the performance of their duty as consuls by the very ensigns of their office, and to the preservation of my safety, not only by your authority but even by your prayers, first of all deserted, then betrayed, and last of all opposed me; and, having received the rewards of their nefarious covenant, wished utterly to overwhelm and destroy me together with the republic; and who, during the time of their magistracy and command, bloody and fatal that it was, were neither able to defend the walls of our allies from chastisement, nor to inflict chastisement on the cities of the enemy; but who bore along into all my houses and lands, razing, and conflagration, and destruction, and depopulation, and devastation, to the great enriching of themselves with my plunder. [sect. 4]

Against these furies and firebrands, with these destructive monsters and pests, which have been (I may almost say) desolating this empire, I do say that I have undertaken inexpiable war; and yet, even that is not as great as my sufferings and those of my relations require, though it may be enough to satisfy your indignation and that of all virtuous men.

Ch. 3

But my hatred towards Clodius is not greater this day than it was then, when I knew that he was scorched, as it were, by those most holy fires, and that he had escaped in female attire from the house of the Pontifex Maximus, after attempting an act of most atrocious licentiousness. Then, I say, then I perceived, and foresaw long beforehand, how great a tempest was being raised, how great a storm was threatening the republic. I saw that that ill-omened wickedness, that that intolerable audacity of a young man, mad, nobly born, and disgraced as he was, could not be hindered from breaking through the bounds of tranquillity; that that evil would certainly break out some day or other to the destruction of the state, if it were allowed to remain unpunished. There has not been much since to add to my detestation of that man. [sect. 5] For he has not done anything against me out of hatred to me, but out of hatred to strictness, out of hatred to dignity, out of hatred to the republic. He has not insulted me more than he has the senate, or the Roman knights, or all good men, or the whole of Italy. Lastly, he has not behaved more wickedly towards me than he has towards the immortal gods. In truth, he has polluted those gods with his [p. 71] impiety whom no one before ever did. Towards me his disposition has been the same as that of his dear friend Catiline would have been, if he had been victorious. Therefore, I never thought it necessary for me to prosecute him, any more than that blockhead, whose very nation we should be ignorant of if he did not himself say that he was a Ligurian. For why should I pursue this animal, this beast, bribed by the food and acorns thrown him by my enemy? a fellow, who, if he had only sense to know to what wickedness he has bound himself, would be, I doubt not, most wretched; but if he is not aware of it there is some danger lest he may save himself by the excuse of stupidity.

[sect. 6] There is also this consideration which weighs with me that, according to universal expectation, that man seems devoted and marked out as the victim of that most gallant and most illustrious man Titus Annius; from whom it would be a scandalous thing for me to snatch the credit which is destined for, and already openly promised to him, when it is owing to his exertions that I myself have recovered my own dignity and safety.

Ch. 4

In truth, as that great man, Publius Scipio, appears to me to have been born for the overthrow and destruction of Carthage, he being the only man who, at last, as it were, by a special decree of destiny, did overthrow it after it had been besieged, attacked, undermined, and almost taken by many generals; so Titus Annius appears to have been born, and to have been given to the republic, by a sort of divine munificence as it were for the express purpose of repressing and extinguishing and utterly destroying that pest of the state. He alone has discovered the way not only of defeating but also of fettering an armed citizen who was driving the citizens away, some by the sword, some by stones, was confining others to their houses and alarming the whole city, the senate house, the forum, and all the temples with bloodshed and conflagration. [sect. 7] I will never, with my own free will, take out of the hands of this man, being so good a man as one who has deserved so well of me and of his country, that criminal of all men in the world, whose enmity be has not only encountered, but has even sought for out of a regard for my safety. But if, even now that he is entangled in all the dangers of the laws, surrounded by the hatred of all virtuous men, and [p. 72] hemmed in on all sides by the expectation or punishment which cannot be long delayed, still, hesitating and hampered as he is, he persists in rushing on, and making attacks upon me, I will resist him, and gaining the consent, or, perhaps, the assistance of Milo, I will frustrate his endeavours; as I did yesterday, when, while he was threatening me in dumb show, as I was standing near him, I just said one word about the beginning of legal proceedings and a trial. He sat down. He did not say a word. Suppose he had brought a charge against me, as he had threatened, I should have instantly taken steps to have him summoned to appear before the praetor in three days. And let him restrain himself with the idea that if he is content with those acts of wickedness which he has already committed, he is already dedicated to Milo; but if he aims any dart against me, that then I shall immediately employ all the weapons of the courts of justice and of the laws.

[sect. 8] And a little time ago, O conscript fathers, he held an assembly, and made a speech which was directed wholly against me. And I will tell you the argument and sentiment which ran through the whole of his speech. And when you have been sufficiently amused at the fellow's impudence, I will give you the details of everything that then took place.

Ch. 5

Publius Clodius, O conscript fathers, made a long speech about religious observances, and sacrifices, and ceremonies. Publius Clodius, I say, complained that the sacrifices and religious rites were neglected, profaned, and polluted. It is no wonder if this seems to you an absurdity. Indeed the very assembly which he himself had convened laughed at the idea of a man, who has been pierced, as be himself is in the habit of boasting, with two hundred resolutions of the senate against him, every one of which was passed against him because of matters connected with religion,of that fellow who carried his adulteries to the shrine of the Good Goddess herself; and who profaned those sacred rites which may not be seen without impiety by the eyes of a man even unintentionally, not only by the view of a man, but by lust and wickedness, complaining in a public assembly about the neglect of religion. Therefore they are now expecting another speech from him on the subject of chastity. [sect. 9] For what difference does it make whether, when just driven from the most holy of altars, he makes complaints of the state of the sacrifices and religious observances; [p. 73] or whether, having just left his sister's bed-chamber, he speaks in defence of modesty and chastity? In his harangue he recited the lately received answer of the soothsayers about the noises which have been heard; in which among many other things it is stated, (as you have heard yourselves,) that holy and sacred places had been treated as common. Under that head he said that my house was intended, which had been consecrated by that holiest of pontiffs, Publius Clodius. [sect. 10] I am delighted at not only having a reasonable pretext for, but being even under an absolute necessity of speaking about this prodigy, which I am not sure that I may not call the most important one that has for many years been reported to this body. For you find that by every part of this prodigy and of this answer, we have been warned, I may almost say by the voice of the all-good and all-powerful Jupiter himself, of the wickedness and frenzy of that man, and of the immense dangers which are impending over the state. [sect. 11] But first of all I will clear up the objections made on the score of religion in the case of my own house, if I am able to do so truly, and without leaving the least doubt in any one's mind; but if the very slightest scruple on the subject exists in any one's mind, I will obey the prodigies sent by the immortal gods, and comply with what is required by the reverence due to them not only with a patient but even with a willing mind.

Ch. 6

But what house is there in the whole city so clear and free from all suspicion of being a consecrated building as this? Although your houses, O conscript fathers, and those of all the other citizens, are, for much the greater part of them, free from all religious obligation, yet my house is the only one in the whole city which has been pronounced to be so by the decision of all the tribunals. For I appeal to you, O Lentulus and to you, O Philippus. After this reply was received from the soothsayers, the senate decreed that you should refer the question of hallowed and consecrated spots to this order of the senate. Can you put any question to them concerning my house? which (as I have said) is the only one in the whole of the city which has been pronounced by every tribunal in it to be free from every sort of religious obligation; which at first my enemy himself; even in the time of that storm and nocturnal darkness which was overwhelming the republic, when he had set down all his other wicked actions with that [p. 74] foul pen of his dipped in the mouth of Sextus Clodius, did not mark with one single letter indicating any religions liability. And in the second place, the Roman people, whose power is supreme in all matters in the comitia centuriata, and by the suffrage of every age and every rank of men, ordered it to remain in the same condition in which it had previously been.

[sect. 12] Afterwards, O conscript fathers, not because the matter was doubtful, but in order to cut off every argument from this furious man, if he chose to remain any longer in this city which he was anxious to destroy, you passed a decree that a reference should be made to the college of pontiffs as to the religious liability of my house. What obligation can there possibly be from our greatest doubts and most serious religious apprehensions, as to which we may not be relieved by the answer and dictum of Publius Servilius or Marcus Lucullus alone? In all matters concerning the public sacrifices, or the great games, or the ceremonies of the household gods, and of Vesta, the mother of the city, or even concerning that great sacrifice itself which is performed for the safety of the Roman people, and which since the first foundation of Rome has never been profaned except by the wickedness of this single holy guardian of religion, whatever three pontiffs have decided, has at all times appeared to the Roman people, and to the senate, and to the immortal gods themselves, sufficiently holy, sufficiently august, sufficiently religious. But Publius Lentulus being both consul and pontiff, and Publius Servilius, and Marcus Lucullus, and Quintus Metellus, and Marcus Glabrio, and Marcus Messala, and Lucius Lentulus, the priest of Mars, and Publius Galba, and Quintus Metellus Scipio, and Caius Fannius, and Marcus Lepidus, and Lucius Claudius, the king of the sacrifices, and Marcus Scaurus, and Marcus Crassus, and Caius Curio, and Sextus Caesar, the priest of Jupiter, and Quintus Cornelius, and Publius Albinovanus, and Quintus Terentius, the lesser²⁰ pontiffs, having investigated [p. 75] the case after it had been argued before them on two separate occasions, in the presence of a great number of the noblest and wisest of the citizens, all unanimously pronounced my house free from all religious obligation.

Ch. 7 [sect. 13]

I say that so numerous a meeting of the college has never decided on any subject, not even concerning the rights or life of a vestal virgin, ever since the establishment of sacred ceremonies, though their antiquity is the same as that of the city itself; although when an investigation into any crime is taking place it is of consequence that as many as possible should be present. For the interpretation of a law given by the priests is on such a footing that it has the same force as a decision of the judges. An explanation of what is required by religion can be properly given by one single experienced priest; but in a case of a trial for life, such a proceeding would be harsh and unjust. Nevertheless, you will find this to be the case, that a greater number of pontiffs were assembled when they decided on the question concerning my house, than had ever met on any question concerning the ceremonies of the vestal virgins. The next day the senate in a very full house, when you, O Lentulus, being the consul elect, made the motion, and Publius Lentulus and Quintus Metellus, the consuls, put it to the senate, when all the pontiffs who belonged to this order were present and when those who had precedence, from the distinctions which had been conferred on them by the Roman people, had made many speeches concerning the decision of the college, and when all of them had assisted in drawing up the decree,the senate, I say, voted that my house appeared, according to the decision of the pontiffs, to be free from all religious liability. [sect. 14] Is this then the place which of all others the soothsayers appear to intend to speak of as sacred, which is the only one of all private buildings in the whole city which has this argument to advance in support of its rights, that it has been adjudged not to be sacred by those very men who preside over all sacred things?

However, refer the matter to them, as you are bound to do [p. 76] according to the resolution of the senate. Either the investigation will be allotted to you who were the first to pronounce an opinion respecting this house, and who have pronounced it free from all religious liability; or the senate itself will decide, which has already decided in the fullest possible house, that one single priest alone dissenting; or else, what will certainly be done, it will be referred back to the pontiffs, to whose authority, integrity, and prudence our ancestors entrusted all sacred and religious observances, whether private or public. What then can these men decide different from what they have already decided? There are many houses in this city, O conscript fathers; I do not know whether they are not nearly all held by thoroughly good titles, but still they are only private titles, titles derived from inheritance, from prescription, from purchase, or from mortgage. But I assert that there is no other house whatever equally fenced round by private title and incontestable rights, and at the same time by every sort of public law of the highest authority, both human and divine. [sect. 15] For in the first place it was built by the authority of the senate, with the public money; and in the second place it has been fenced round and fortified against the impious violence of this gladiator by numerous resolutions of the senate.

Ch. 8

At first a commission was given to those same magistrates in the preceding year, to whom at times of the greatest peril the whole republic is usually recommended, to take care that I was to be allowed to proceed in building without any hindrance from violence. Afterwards, when that fellow had brought devastation on my estate with stones, and fire, and sword, the senate voted that those who had acted in that manner were liable to be proceeded against by the laws concerning violence which are in force against those who have attacked the whole republic. But when you put the question, O you best and bravest of consuls within the memory of man, the same senate in a very full house decreed, that whoever injured my house would be acting against the interests of the republic. [sect. 16] I say that there never were so many resolutions of the senate passed about any public work, monument or temple, as about my house, the only house since the first foundation of the city which the senate has thought ought to be built at the public expense, released from all religious [p. 77] obligation by the pontiffs, defended by the magistrates, and put under the protection of the judges who were to punish all who injured it. On account of his immense services to the republic, a house at Velia was given by a public vote to Publius Valerius. But my house was restored to me on the Palatine Hill. He had a spot of ground given him. I had walls also and a roof. He had a house given to him which he was to defend by his rights as a private citizen; but I had one which all the magistrates were ordered to protect with the public force of the city. And if I had all this owing to my own exertions, or if I had received it from any other persons except you, I would not mention it before you, lest I might appear to be boasting too much. But as all these things have been given me by you, and as they are now being attacked by the tongue of that man by whose hand they were formerly overthrown, when you restored them with your own hands to me and to my children, I am not speaking of my own actions but of yours; nor am I afraid lest this public mention of all your kindness to me should appear to be not so much grateful as arrogant. [sect. 17]

Although, if indeed a certain indignation which I cannot help feeling were to lead me who have exerted myself so much in the cause of the public safety at times to speaking some what boastfully when refuting the aspersions of wicked men who would not excuse me for so doing? For I did see yesterday someone murmuring: and people said that he declared that he could not endure me because when I was asked by that foul traitor to his country to what city I belonged, I answered, with the approval of you and of the Roman knights also, that I belonged to a city which could not do without me. He, I imagine, groaned at this. What then was I to answer? (I ask that very man who cannot endure me.) That I was a Roman citizen? It would have been a truly learned answer. Should I have held my tongue? That would have been a betrayal of my own cause. Can any man when it is attempted to excite odium against him with respect to important affairs, reply with sufficient dignity to the abuse of his enemy without some praise of himself? But no doubt he himself, when he is attacked, not only answers as well as he can, but is even glad to be prompted by his friends and to have an answer suggested to him. [p. 78]

Ch. 9 [sect. 18]

But since I have now said enough respecting my own case, let us see now what it is that the soothsayers say. For I confess that I have been greatly moved both by the magnitude of the prodigies, and by the solemnity of the answer, and by the unanimous and consistent language of the soothsayers. Nor am I a man who,though I may perhaps appear to some men to be more addicted to the study of literature than the rest of those are who are occupied about state affairs as much as myselfat all incline to derive delight from or to pursue those branches of learning which have a tendency to divert and deter our minds from the study of religion. But in the first place, I have our ancestors as my leaders and tutors in paying proper respect to religion,men whose wisdom appears to me to have been so great, that those men are sufficiently, and more than sufficiently prudent, who are ableI will not say to equal their prudence, but to be thoroughly aware how great it was; who thought that the stated and regular ceremonies were provided for by the establishment of the Pontificate, that due authority for the performance of all actions was to he derived from the auspices, that the ancient prophecies of our destinies were contained in the books of the prophets of Apollo, and the explanations of prodigies in the system of the Etrurians; and this last is of such weight that within our own recollection they have predicted to us in no obscure language, first of all those fatal beginnings of the Italian war, and after that the imminent danger and almost destruction of the time of Sulla and Cinna, and very lately this recent conspiracy for burning the city and destroying the empire. [sect. 19] In the next place, I knew that the most learned and the wisest men have both said many things and have left behind them many written books concerning the divine power of the immortal gods. And although I see that those books are written with a godlike eloquence, still they are such that our ancestors appear to have taught those things to the writers, and not to have learnt of them. In truth, who is there so senseless as either, when he looks up to heaven, not to feel that there are gods, or to think that those things are done by chance which are done with such wisdom, that scarcely any one by any amount of skill can comprehend their order and necessary dependence on each other? or, when he has arrived at the knowledge that there are gods, not to understand that all this [p. 79] mighty empire has been originated, and increased, and preserved by their divine authority? Let us, O conscript fathers, think as highly of ourselves as we please; and yet it is not in numbers that we are superior to the Spaniards, nor in personal strength to the Gauls, nor in cunning to the Carthaginians, nor in arts to the Greeks, nor in the natural acuteness which seems to be implanted in the people of this land and country, to the Italian and Latin tribes; but it is in and by means of piety and religion, and this especial wisdom of perceiving that all things are governed and managed by the divine power of the immortal gods, that we have been and are superior to all other countries and nations.

Ch. 10 [sect. 20]

Wherefore, not to say any more about a doubtful matter, give, I pray you, your thoughts and attention, and do not lend your ears alone to the language of the soothsayers: Because a noise and roaring has been heard in the Latin district. I say nothing of the soothsayers, I say nothing of that ancient system, given, as men report, to Etruria by the immortal gods themselves; but cannot we ourselves be soothsayers here? A certain obscure noise, and a horrible rattling of arms, has been heard in a neighbouring and suburban district. Who is there of all those giants, whom the poets relate to have waged war against the immortal gods, so impious as not to confess that by this novel and mighty commotion the gods are foreshowing and predicting something important to the Roman people? Concerning that matter it is written down that entreaties are to be addressed to Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Tellus, and the gods of heaven. [sect. 21] Well, I hear what gods have been offended and to whom atonement is due; but I want to know on account of what offences committed by men they have been offended. On account of the games having been carelessly exhibited and polluted. What games? I appeal to you, O Lentulus; for the sacred cars and chariots, the singing, the sports, the libations, and feasts of the public games belong to your priesthood; and I appeal to you, O pontiffs, to whom those who prepare the banquet for the all-good and all-powerful Jupiter report it if anything has been neglected or done improperly, and if you give sentence that it shall be so, those ceremonies are celebrated anew and repeated over again. What games are they which have been exhibited without due diligence? By what wickedness, by what sort of [p. 80] crime have they been polluted? You will answer on behalf of yourself; and of your colleagues, and of the college of pontiffs, that none of these things have been treated contemptuously through the carelessness of anyone, or polluted by any wickedness, but that all the solemnities and practices of the games have been attended to with a proper observance of all necessary things, and with the strictest performance of all the usual ceremonies.

Ch. 11 [sect. 22]

What games, then, are they which the soothsayers say have not been performed with due diligence, and have been polluted? Those of which the immortal gods themselves and the blessed mother Cybele chose youyou, O Cnaeus Lentulus, by the hands of whose ancestor she was originally receivedto be a spectator. And unless you had chosen to be a spectator of the Megalesia on that day, I do not know whether we should have been allowed to be give and to complain of these things. For an enormous multitude of slaves in a state of great excitement, collected out of all the streets by this religious aedile, burst in on a sudden upon the stage from all the arch-ways and doors at a given signal. Your virtue,yours, I say, O Cnaeus Lentulus,was at that crisis shown to be equal to that formerly displayed by your ancestor as a private individual. The senate standing up, and the Roman knights and all virtuous men, followed you, and your name and your command, and your voice, aspect, and authority, when he had handed over the senate and people of Rome, hampered by the dense body in which they were sitting, chained as it were to the spectacle, and hindered by the crowd and narrow space, to a multitude of slaves and buffoons.

[sect. 23] Shall we say that, if a sacred dancer stops, or a flute-player has on a sudden ceased to play, or if a boy²¹ with both father and mother alive has ceased to touch the ground, or has lost his hold of the sacred car, or of the reins, or if an aedile has used a wrong word or made the slightest mistake, then the games have not been duly celebrated, and those mistakes are forced to be expiated and the minds of the immortal gods are appeased by their repetition; and yet if the games are suddenly changed from a scene of joy to one of terror,if they have been, not interrupted, but broken up and put an [p. 81] end to,if those days of festival turned out nearly fatal to the through the wickedness of that man who wished to turn the games into a time of grief,shall we doubt what games that noise warns us have been polluted? [sect. 24] And if we wish to recollect those things which have been handed down to us traditionally about each of the gods, we have heard that this mighty Mother; whose games were thus violated and polluted, and turned almost to a massacre and to the destruction of the city, does roam over the fields and through the groves with a certain degree of noise and roaring.

Ch. 12

She, then, she it is, who has displayed to the Roman people these tokens of wickedness, and revealed to them these indications of danger. For why should I speak of those games which our ancestors ordered to be performed and celebrated on the Palatine Hill, in front of the temple, in the very sight of the mighty Mother, on the day of the Megalesia?²² which are in their institution and in the manner in which they are celebrated, above all other games chaste, solemn, and holy; in which games that great man Publius Africanus the elder, in his second consulship, gave for the first time the senate a place in front of the seats belonging to the people. Why need I tell how that foul pestilence polluted these games when if any freeman came near them either as a spectator or from some motive of religion, he was driven back by force and no matron approached them because of the number and violence of the slaves? And so these gamesthe reverence paid to which is so great that the goddess did not come to this city without having been sent for from the most distant countries,which are the only games which have not even a Latin name, so that by their very name the religion is declared to have been a foreign one and imported hither and to have been undertaken in the name of the mighty Mother,these games, I say, were celebrated by slaves, and had slaves alone for the spectators, and in every part, in this man's aedileship, were the Megalesia of slaves. [sect. 25] O ye immortal gods! How could you speak more plainly to us if you were living [p. 82] among and associating with us? You show us and plainly tell us that those games were profaned. What can be mentioned more deformed, polluted, altered and perverted, than for the whole body of slaves, as if they had been liberated by the permission of the magistrates, to be turned loose into one theatre, and set as guards over another, so that one body of spectators might be exposed to the power of slaves, and that the other might consist entirely of slaves? If during the games a swarm of bees had come on the stage, we should think it necessary to send for the soothsayers out of Etruria; and shall we all see on a sudden such vast swarms of slaves let loose upon the Roman people, blocked up and shut in, and not be moved by that? And perhaps, in the case of a swarm of bees, the soothsayers would warn us from the written books of the Etruscans to guard against the slaves. [sect. 26] That then which we should guard against, if indicated by some disjointed prodigy admitting of divers interpretations, shall we not be afraid of when it is its own prodigy, and when the danger is in that very thing from which danger is dreaded? Were such the Megalesia which your father celebrated? Did your uncle celebrate them in such a manner as this? And then he makes mention to me of his family, when he would rather celebrate the games after the fashion of Athenio or Spartacus, than like Caius or Appius Claudius. When these great men were celebrating games, they ordered all the slaves to depart from the theatre. But you turned slaves into one, and turned free men out of the other. Therefore they, who formerly used to be separated from free men by the voice of the herald, now, at your games, separated free men from themselves not by their voice, but by force.

Ch. 13

Did not even this occur to you, being a priest so well acquainted with the Sibylline oracles, that our ancestors derived these games from the Sibylline books? if those books are yours, which you consult with imperious intentions, and read with profane eyes, and handle with polluted hands. [sect. 27] Formerly, then, by the advice of this prophetess, when Italy was wearied by the Punic war and harassed by Hannibal, our ancestors imported that sacred image and those sacred rites from Phrygia, and established them at Rome, where they were received by that man who was adjudged to be the most virtuous of all the Roman people, Publius Scipio Nasica, and [p. 83] by the woman who was considered the chastest of the matrons, Quinta Claudia; the old-fashioned strictness of whose sacrifice on that occasion your sister is considered to have imitated in a wonderful manner. Did, then, neither your ancestors, connected as they were with these religious ceremonies, nor the priesthood itself, by which all these religious observances were established, nor the curule aedileship, which above all things is accustomed to uphold this worship, influence you to abstain from polluting those most holy games with every sort of crime, and polluting them with infamy, and involving them in guilt? [sect. 28]

But why do I wonder? when, having taken a bribe, you ravaged Pessinus itself, the habitation and home of the mother of the gods, and sold to Brogitarusa fellow half Gaul, half Greek, a profligate and impious man, whose agents, while you were tribune, used to pay you the money for your share of the work in the temple of Castorthe whole of that place and the temple; when you dragged the priest from the very altar and cushion of the goddess; when you perverted those omens which all antiquity, which Persians, and Syrians, and all kings who have ever reigned in Europe and Asia have always venerated with the greatest piety; which, last of all; our own ancestors considered so sacred, that though we had the city and all Italy crowded with temples, still our generals in our most important and most perilous wars used to offer their vows to this goddess, and to pay them in Pessinus itself, at that identical principal altar and on that spot and in that temple.

[sect. 29] And when Deiotarus was protecting this temple in the most holy manner with the deepest feelings of religionDeiotarus, of all allies the most faithful to this empire and the most devoted to our nameyou gave it to Brogitarus as I have said before, having sold it to him for a sum of money. And yet you order this Deiotarus who has been repeatedly declared by the senate worthy of the name of king and adorned with the testimony of many most illustrious generals in his favour, to be styled king together with Brogitarus. But one of them has been called king by the decision of the senate through my instrumentality. Brogitarus has been called king by you for money. And I will think him a king, indeed, if he has any means of paying you what you [p. 84] have trusted him with on his note of hand. For there are many royal qualities in Deiotarus; this was the most royal of all, that he gave you no money; that he did not repudiate that portion of your law which agreed with the decision of the senate, namely that he was a king; that he recovered Pessinus, which had been impiously violated by you and stripped of its priest and its sacrifices, in order to maintain it in its accustomed religion; that he does not suffer the ceremonies which have been received as handed down from the most remote antiquity, to be polluted by Brogitarus; and that he prefers to let his son-in-law be deprived of your liberality, rather than to allow that temple to lose the ancient reverence due to its religious character.

But to return to these answers of the soothsayers, the first of which is that respecting these games; who is there who does not confess that the whole of that answer and prophecy was delivered with reference to that fellow's games?

Ch. 14 [sect. 30]

The answer about sacred and holy places comes next. Oh, the marvellous impudence of the man! do you dare to make mention of my house? Entrust your own to the consuls, or the senate, or the college of pontiffs; and mine, as I have said before, has been declared by all these three decisions to be free from all religions liability. But in that house which you keep possession of after having slain Quintus Seius, a Roman knight and most excellent man, in the most open manner, I say that there was a shrine and altars. I will prove and establish this fact by the registers of the censors, and by the recollection of many individuals. Only let this question be discussed, (and it must be referred to you by virtue of that resolution of the senate which has lately been passed,) and I have plenty to say on the subject of religious places. [sect. 31] When I have spoken of your house,in which, however, a chapel has been put up in such a way that another built it, and you have only got to pull it down,then I will see whether it is necessary for me to speak also of other places. For some people think that it belongs to me to open the armoury of the temple of Tellus. They say that it is not long ago that it was open, and I recollect it myself. Now they say that the most holy part of it, and the place entitled to the greatest reverence, is occupied by a private vestibule. There are many considerations which influence me,[p. 85]namely, this, that the temple of Tellus is put particularly under my care; and that he who took away that armoury said that my house, which was declared free by the decision of the pontiffs, had been adjudged to his brother. I am influenced also at this time of dearness of provisions, of barrenness of the lands, and of scarcity of the crops, by the reverence due to Tellus; and all the more, because, on account of this same prodigy, an atonement is said to be due to Tellus. [sect. 32] Perhaps we are speaking of old stones; although, if this is not laid down in the civil law, still by the law of nature and the common rights of nations the principle has been established, that mortals cannot acquire a prescriptive right to anything as against the immortal gods.

Ch. 15

But we will pass over all things of old date. Shall we also pass over those things which are done at the present time; which we see ourselves? Who knows not that Lucius Piso at this very time has been removing a great and most holy chapel of Diana on the Coeliculan hill? Men who live close to that spot are in court. There are many even belonging to this body who once a year have regularly performed the sacrifices of their family in that very chapel in their appointed place. And do we ask what places the immortal gods are regretting, what it is they are meaning, of what it is that they are speaking? Are we ignorant that some most holy chapels were undermined, blocked up, knocked down, and defiled in the most unseemly possible manner? [sect. 33] Were you able to render my house the property of the gods? With what feelings? You have lost all feeling. With what hand? With that with which you pulled it down. With what voice? With that with which you ordered it to be set on fire. By what law? By one which you did not venture to propose even at the time when you were doing everything with impunity. With what cushion? That which you polluted with your adulteries. With what image? That which you took off from a harlot's tomb and placed on the monument of a general. What has my house which is connected with anything religious except that it touches the wall of an impious and sacrilegious man? Therefore that none of my people may be able unintentionally to look into your house I will raise the roof higher not in order that I may look down upon you, but that you may not be able to see that city which you were desirous to destroy. [p. 86]

Ch. 16 [sect. 34]

But let us now examine the rest of the clauses of the answers of the soothsayers.That ambassadors have been slain contrary to all divine and human law. What is this? I see here a mention of the deputies from Alexandria; and I cannot refute it. For my feelings are, that the privileges of ambassadors are not only fenced round by human protection, but are also guarded by divine laws. But I ask of that man, who, as tribune, filled the forum with judges whom he took out of the prisons,by whose will every dagger is now guided and every cup of poison dispensed,who has made a regular bargain with Hermarchus of Chios,whether he is at all aware that one most active adversary of Hermarchus, of the name of Theodosius, having been sent as ambassador to the senate from a free city, was assassinated with a dagger? and I know to a certainty that that cannot have appeared less scandalous to the immortal gods than the case of the Alexandrians. [sect. 35] Nor am I now attributing every action of this sort to you alone. There would be greater hope of safety if there were no other wicked man but you; but there are more, and on this account you feel more confidence, and we almost distrust the protection of the law. Who is there who is not aware that Plato, a man of high character and high rank in his own country, came from Orestis, which is a free part of Macedonia, to Thessalonica, as an ambassador to our general, as he called himself? and this great general of ours, being angry at not being able to extort money from him, threw him into prison, and sent his own physician to him, who in a most infamous and barbarous manner cut the veins of an ambassador, an ally, a friend, and a freeman. He did not wish his own forces to be made bloody by crime; but he polluted the name of the Roman people with such guilt that it cannot be expiated by any means but his own punishment. What sort of executioner must we think that this man has in his train, when he uses even his physicians not to procure health but to inflict death?

Ch. 17 [sect. 36]

But let us read what follows. That good faith and oaths have been disregarded. What this means by itself, I cannot easily explain; but from that which follows, I suspect that it refers to the manifest perjury of your judges, from whom, some time ago, the money which they had received would have been taken away, if they had not entreated the protection of the senate. And this is the reason why I [p. 87] imagine that they are the persons alluded to, because I lay it down as a fact that that is the most remarkable and notorious perjury ever committed in this city and yet that you yourself are not threatened with the punishment of perjury by those men with whom you conspired. [sect. 37]

And I see that in the answers of the soothsayers this is added: But the ancient and secret sacrifices have been performed with less than due diligence and have been polluted. Are they the soothsayers who say this or the gods of our country and our household gods? I suppose there are many persons to whom a suspicion of this guilt attaches;who but this one man? Is it mentioned obscurely what sacrifices have been polluted? What can be expressed in a plainer, more dignified or more solemn manner? Ancient and secret. I say that Lentulus, a dignified and eloquent orator, did not when he was accusing you, make use of any expressions more frequently than these which now are extracted from the Etruscan books and turned against and applied to you. In truth what sacrifice is there so ancient as this, which we have received from the kings and which is contemporary with the city itself? But what is so secret as that which excludes not only all curious eyes but even all accidental ones? Which not only no wickedness, but which even no unintentional chance can penetrate? That sacrifice no one, ever since the world began, has ever profaned, no one has ever approached no one has ever disregarded no man has ever thought of beholding without horror before Publius Clodius. It is performed by the vestal virgins; it is performed on behalf of the Roman people; it is performed in the house of a supreme magistrate; it is performed with incredible solemnity; it is performed to that goddess whose very name it is not lawful for men to know, and whom that fellow calls Good, because she has pardoned him such enormous wickedness

Ch. 18

She has not pardoned you, believe me. No; unless, perchance, you think yourself pardoned because the judges dismissed you after they had squeezed and drained everything out of you, acquitted by their decision, condemned by all the rest of the citizens; or because you have not been deprived of your eyes, as is, according to the common belief the consequence of such impiety. [sect. 38] For what man ever intentionally [p. 88] beheld those sacred rites before you, so as to enable any one to know what punishment followed that guilt? Could the blindness of your eyes be a greater injury to you than that blindness of your lust? Do not even you feel that those winking eyes of your ancestor²³ were more desirable for you than these glowing eyes of your sister? But, if you observe carefully, you will see that though you have as yet escaped the punishment of men, you have not escaped that of the gods. Men have defended you in a most shameful affair; men have praised you though most infamous and most guilty; men, for a bribe, have acquitted you by their decision, though you all but confessed your guilt; men have felt no indignation at the injuries inflicted on themselves by your lust; men have supplied you with arms, some wishing them to be used against me, and others afterwards intending them to he employed against that invincible citizen. I will quite admit all the kindnesses which men have shown you, and that you need not wish for greater. [sect. 39] But what greater punishment can be inflicted on man by the immortal gods than frenzy and madness? unless, perhaps, you think that those persons, whom in tragedies you see tortured and destroyed by wounds and agony of body, are enduring a more terrible form of the wrath of the immortal gods than those who are brought on the stage in a state of insanity. Those howlings and groans of Philoctetes are not so pitiable (sad though they be) as that exultation of Athamas, or that dream of those who have slain their mother. You, when you are uttering your frantic speeches to the assemblywhen you are destroying the houses of the citizenswhen you are driving virtuous men from the forum with stoneswhen you are hurling burning firebrands at your neighbours' houseswhen you are setting fire to holy temples when you are stirring up the slaveswhen you are throwing the sacred rites and games into confusionwhen you see no difference between your wife and your sisterwhen you do not perceive whose bed it is that you enterwhen you go ranting and raging aboutyou are then suffering that punishment which is the only one appointed by the immortal gods for the wickedness of men. For the infirmity of our bodies is of itself liable to many accidents; moreover, the body itself is often destroyed by some very trivial cause; and [p. 89] the darts of the gods are fixed in the minds of impious men. Wherefore you are more miserable while you are hurried into every sort of wickedness by your eyes, than you would be if you had no eyes at all.

Ch. 19 [sect. 40]

But since enough has been said of all these offences which the soothsayers say have been committed, let us see now what these same soothsayers say that we are being warned of at this time by the immortal gods. They warn us to take care that bloodshed and danger be not brought upon the senators and chief men of the state, through the discord and dissension of the nobles; and that our senators do not become disheartened from being deprived of support by which the provinces may fall under the power of a single master, and our armies be defeated, and a great loss of power ensue. All these are the words of the soothsayers, I am not adding any thing of my own. Who then of the nobles is it who is causing this discord? The same man and that not by any force of his own genius or wisdom but by some blundering of ours which hefor it was not very much concealedeasily perceived. For this consideration makes the present distress of the republic the more shameful, that even by him it is not afflicted in such a way that it may seem to fall like a brave man in battle, having received honourable wounds in front from a gallant foe.

[sect. 41] Tiberius Gracchus overturned the constitution of the state, a man of such great force of character, and eloquence, and dignity, that he fell short in no respect of the surpassing and eminent virtue of his father, and of his grandfather, Africanus, except in the fact of his revolting from the senate. Caius Gracchus followed in his steps. How great was his genius! how great his energy! how impetuous his eloquence! so that all men grieved that all those good qualities and accomplishments were not joined to a better disposition and to better intentions. Lucius Saturninus himself was so furious and almost insane a man, that he was an admirable leader,perfect in exciting and inflaming the minds of the ignorant. For why should I speak of Publius Sulpicius? whose dignity, and sweetness, and emphatic conciseness in speaking was so great that he was able by his oratory to lead even wise men into error, and virtuous men into pernicious sentiments. To be battling with these men, and to be duly struggling with them [p. 90] for the safety of the country, was a very annoying thing to those men who were at that time the governors of the republic, but still that annoyance had a certain sort of dignity in it.

Ch. 20 [sect. 42]

But as for this man, about whom I am now saying so much, O ye immortal gods! what is he? what is his influence? what is there about him to give so great a city, if it does fall, (may the gods avert the omen!) the comfort of at least seeming to have been overthrown by a man? a fellow who, from the moment of his father's death, made his tender age subservient to the lusts of wealthy buffoons; when he had satiated their licentiousness, then he turned to the domestic seduction of his own sister; then, when he had become a man, he devoted himself to the concerns of a province, and to military affairs, and suffered insults from the pirates; he satisfied the lusts even of Cilicians and barbarians: afterwards, having in a most wicked manner tampered with the army of Lucius Lucullus, he fled from thence, and at Rome, the moment of his arrival there, he began to compound with his own relations not to prosecute them, and received money from Catiline to prevaricate in the most shameless manner. From thence he went into Gaul with Murena; in which province he forged wills of dead people, murdered wards, and made bargains and partnerships or wickedness with many. When he returned from Gaul, he appropriated to himself all that most fruitful and abundant source of gain which is derived from the Campus Martius, in such a manner that he (a man wholly devoted to the people!) cheated the people in a most scandalous manner, and also (merciful man that he is!) put the canvassers of the different tribes to death at his own house in the most cruel manner. Then came his quaestorship, so fatal to the republic, to our sacrifices, to our religions observances, to your authority, and to the public courts of justice; in which he insulted gods and men, virtue, modesty, the authority of the senate, every right both human and divine, and the laws and the tribunals of the country. [sect. 43] And this was his first step; this (alas for the miserable times and for our senseless discords!) was the first step of Publius Clodius towards the conduct of the affairs of the republic; this was the path by which he first began to approach and mount up to his present boast of being a friend of the people. For [p. 91] the unpopularity arising from the treaty at Numantia, at the making of which he had been present as quaestor to Caius Mancinus the consul, and the severity displayed by the senate in repudiating that treaty, were a constant source of grief and fear to Tiberius Gracchus; and that circumstance alienated him, a brave and illustrious man, from the wisdom of the senators. And Caius Gracchus was excited by the death of his brother, by affection for him, by indignation, and by the greatness of his own mind, to seek to exact vengeance for the slaughter of a member of his family. We know that Saturninus was led to confess himself a friend of the people out of indignation, because at a time of great dearness of provisions, the senate removed him while he was quaestor from the superintendence of the corn market which belonged to him by virtue of his office, and appointed Marcus Scaurus to manage that business. And it was the breeze of popularity which carried Sulpicius further than he intended, after he had set out in a good cause, and had resisted Caius Julius when seeking to obtain the consulship contrary to the laws.

Ch. 21 [sect. 44]

All these men had a reason,not an adequate one, indeed, (for no one can have an adequate reason for proving a bad citizen to the republic,) but still they had a serious reason, and one connected with some indignation of mind not unbecoming to a man. Publius Clodius came out as a popular character from saffron gowns and turbans, and woman's slippers, and purple bands, and stomachers, and singing, and iniquity, and adultery. If the women had not caught him in this dress, if he had not been allowed to escape by the indulgence of the maid servants, from a place which it was impious for him to enter, the Roman people would have lost their devoted friend, the republic would have been deprived of so energetic a citizen. It is in consequence of this insane conduct, amid our dissensions, for which we are by these recent prodigies admonished by the immortal gods, that one of the patricians has been taken from their number to be made a tribune of the people, in direct violation of the laws. [sect. 45] That which, the year before, his brother Metellus and the senate, which even then was unanimous, had refused, and in the most rigorous manner rejected with one voice and one mind, Cnaeus Pompeius being the first to declare his opinion; (so greatly, after the dissensions of the nobles of which we are now [p. 92] reminded, were circumstances disturbed and altered;) that which his brother when consul opposed being done,which his kinsman and companion, a most illustrious man, who had refused to speak in his favour when he was accused, had utterly prevented,was now effected for him, owing to the dissensions of the nobles, by that man as consul, who, of all others, was bound to be his greatest enemy; and he said that he had done it by the advice of that man whose authority no one could repent having followed. A most shameful and grievous firebrand was thrown into the republic. Your authority was aimed at; and the dignity of the most honourable orders in the city, and the unanimity of all virtuous men, and in short, the entire constitution of the state. For these things were certainly attacked when that flame kindled at that time was directed against me, who had been the principal investigator of these matters. I bore the brunt of the attack, and I alone suffered on behalf of my country; but still I bore it so that you, while you were surrounded by the same flames, saw me wounded first and burning, as it were, in your defence.

Ch. 22 [sect. 46]

The dissensions were not appeased; but the unpopularity of those men, by whom we thought that our cause was espoused, even increased. So, after a time, the very same men being the movers, and Pompeius the chief man, who roused Italy willing to be roused, and the Roman people which regretted me, and you who demanded me back, to take measures for my safety, employing not only his authority but even his prayers, I was restored. Let there be an end of discord, let us at last find rest from our long dissensions. No, that pest will not allow it; he summons these assemblies, he throws everything into confusion and disorder, selling himself sometimes to one party, sometimes to another; and yet not in such a manner that any one thinks himself the more praiseworthy for being praised by him; though at the same time they are glad that those whom they do not like, are abused by him. And I do not marvel at this fellow; for what else can he do? I do marvel at those wise and respectable men; in the first place, that they so easily allow any illustrious man who has deserved well of the republic to be attacked by the voice of a most profligate man; in the second place, that they think, (it would be a most disastrous thing for themselves if the fact [p. 93] were so,) that the real glory and dignity of any one can be impaired by the abuse of an abandoned and worthless man; and lastly, that they do not see, what however, they do seem to me to have some suspicion of, that those frantic and desultory attacks of his may some day or other be turned against themselves. [sect. 47] And it is owing to this undue alienation of some persons from others that those arrows now stick in the republic which, as long as they stuck in me alone, I bore,with pain, indeed, but still not as thinking them of any great importance. Could that fellow, if he had not first given himself up to those men whose minds he thought were alienated from your authority,if he had not, admirable authority that he is! extolled them to the skies with his panegyric,if he had not threatened that he would let loose the army of Caius Caesar (though in that he spoke falsely, but no one contradicted him,) that he would, I say set on that army with hostile standards against the senate-house if he had not cried out that he was doing what he was by the assistance of Cnaeus Pompeius, and at the instigation of Marcus Crassus,if he had not declared (the only word of truth that he spoke) that the consuls had united their cause with him;could he, I say, ever have been so cruel an enemy to me or so wicked a disturber of the republic?

Ch. 23 [sect. 48]

After that, when he saw you recovering your breath after your fear of bloodshed, when he saw your authority rising again above the waves of that slavery, and the recollection of, and regret for me, getting more vivid, then he began on a sudden to sell himself to you, though with the most treacherous design. Then he began to say, both here in this house and in the assemblies of the people, that the Sullan laws had been passed in opposition to the auspices; among which laws was that lex curiata on which the whole of his tribuneship depended, though he was too frantic to see that. He brought forward that most fearless man Marcus Bibulus. He asked him whether he had not always been observing the heavens when Caius Caesar was carrying those laws? He replied, that he always had been observing them at that time. He asked the augurs whether laws which had been passed under these circumstances had been duly passed? They said, such a proceeding was irregular. Some people, virtuous men, and men who had done great service to me, began to extol him; utterly ignorant I imagine, of the lengths to which his [p. 94] madness could carry him. He proceeded further. He began to inveigh against Cnaeus Pompeius, the originator, as he was accustomed to boast, of all his designs. He gained great popularity in the people's eyes. [sect. 49] But then, when he had become elated by the hope that he might be ableas he had by his abominable wickedness crushed, as he fancied him who, though in the garb of peace, had proved the suppressor of domestic warto put down also that great man who had been the conqueror of our foreign wars and foreign enemies, then was seized in the temple of Castor that wicked dagger which was nearly the destroyer of this empire. Then he, against whom no enemy's city had ever long continued shuthe, who had always broken through all straits, trampled on all heights, crushed, by his energy and valour, the opposing weapons of every foe, was himself besieged at home; and, by the counsels which he adopted, relieved me from the reproaches cast on my timidity by some ignorant people. For if it was miserable rather than disgraceful to Cnaeus Pompeius, that bravest of all men who have ever been born, not to be able to go abroad in the sight of men, and to be secluded from all public places, as long as that fellow was tribune of the people, and to put up with his threats, when he said in the public assembly that he wished to build a second piazza in Carinae,²⁴ to correspond to the one on the Palatine Hill; certainly, for me to leave my house was grievous as far as my own private grief was concerned, but glorious if you look only at the interests of the republic.

Ch. 24 [sect. 50]

You see, then, that this fellow, when, as far as his own efforts went, he had been long since overthrown and crushed, was aroused again by the mischievous discords of the nobles; and the first beginnings of his fury were upheld by those who at that time appeared alienated from you. It is by these detractors and enemies that the remainder of the acts of his tribuneship have been defended, even since that tribuneship was over. They are the men who resisted that pest [p. 95] being removed from the republic; they prevented his being prosecuted; they resisted his being reduced to the condition of a private citizen. Is it possible that any virtuous men could have cherished in their bosom and have taken pleasure in, that poisonous and deadly viper? By what bribe were they cajoled? I wish, say they, that there should be some one in the assembly to disparage Pompeius. Can he disparage him by his abuse? I wish that that great man, who has contributed so greatly to my safety, may receive what I say in the same spirit as I say it. At all events, I will say what I feel. I declare to God, that there was no time that fellow appeared to be detracting so much from his exceeding dignity as when he was extolling him with the most extravagant praises. [sect. 51] Was Caius Marius, I pray you, more illustrious when Caius Glaucia was praising him, or when he became angry afterwards and abused him? Or, was this madman, who has been so long rushing headlong on punishment and destruction, more foul-mouthed and shameless when accusing Pompeius than he had been when reviling the whole senate? But I do marvel that though the former conduct may have been pleasing to angry men, the other course should not have been odious to such good citizens. But, lest this should any longer please excellent men, let them just read this harangue of his, of which I speak: in which, shall I say, he extols, or rather debases Pompeius? Undoubtedly he extols him, and says, that he is the only man in the city worthy of the glory of this empire; and hints that he is an exceedingly great friend of his, and that they are entirely reconciled. [sect. 52] And although I do not exactly know what he means yet I am sure that, if he were a friend to Pompeius, he would not praise him. For, if he were his greatest enemy, what could he do more to diminish his credit? Let those, who were glad that he was an enemy to Cnaeus Pompeius, and who, on that account winked at his numerous and enormous crimes, and who sometimes even accompanied his unbridled and furious acts of frenzy with their applause, observe how quickly he has turned round. For now he is praising him; he is inveighing against those men to whom he previously sold himself. What do you suppose he will do if a door to reconciliation with him should become really open to him, when he is so eager to spread a belief in such a reconciliation? [p. 96]

Ch. 25 [sect. 53]

What other dissensions among the nobles can I suppose are pointed out by the immortal gods? For by this expression Publius Clodius is surely not meant nor any one of his gang or of his counselors. The Etruscan books have certain names which may fit some of that class of citizens. Worthless men, rejected candidates, as you shall presently hear, they call them, whose minds and estates are ruined, and utterly alienated from the general welfare. Wherefore when the immortal gods warn us of the discords of the nobles, they speak of the dissensions between illustrious citizens who have deserved well of the republic. When they predict danger and slaughter to the chief men, they leave Clodius safe enough, a man who is as far from the chief men as he is from virtuous or holy men. It is for you and for your safety, O most illustrious and most virtuous citizens, that they see that it behoves them to consult and to provide. [sect. 54] Slaughter of the chief men is indicated; that is added which must inevitably follow the death of the nobles. We are warned to take care that the republic does not fall under the absolute dominion of a single individual. And even if we were not led to this fear by the warning of the gods, still we ourselves, of our own accord, by our own senses and conjectures, should he forced to entertain it. For there is not usually any other termination to dissensions between eminent and powerful men, except either universal destruction, or the domination of the victorious party, or regal power. Lucius Sulla, a most noble and gallant consul, quarreled with Caius Marius, a most illustrious citizen. Each of these men, when defeated, fell so completely that the conqueror became a king. Cinna quarreled with his colleague Octavius. To each of these men prosperity gave kingly power, and adversity brought death. The same Sulla became victorious a second time. [sect. 55] And that time, beyond all question, he exercised regal power, though he re-established the republic. There is at this moment a hatred not concealed but implanted deeply, and burnt as it were into their minds, subsisting between men of the very highest rank. The chief men of the state are at variance. Every occasion is eagerly caught at. That party which is not so powerful as the other is nevertheless waiting for some change of fortune and for some favourable opportunity. That party which without dispute is the more powerful, is still perhaps at times afraid of the [p. 97] designs and opinions of its enemies. Let this discord be which are foreshown by these prodigies will be banished from the state. In a moment that serpent which is at present lurking about here will emerge and be brought to light, and will be strangled, and crushed, and die.

Ch. 26

For the soothsayers warn us to take care that the republic is not injured by secret designs. What designs are more secret than those of that man who dared to say in the public assembly that a suspension of the courts of justice ought to be proclaimed; that the jurisdiction of the judges ought to be interrupted, and the treasury shut and all trials put an end to? Unless perhaps you think that all this confusion and overthrow of the constitution could occur to him all on a sudden, while in the rostrum, and that he was not speaking after mature deliberation. The man is full of wine, lust, and sleep, full of the most inconsiderate and insane rashness; but still it was in his nocturnal vigils, and in a numerous company, that that suspension of justice was planned and concocted. Remember, O conscript fathers, that your ears were being experimented on by that expression, and that a most mischievous road was being made to them by accustoming you to hear it. [sect. 56]

These words follow: That more honour must not he given to worthless citizens and rejected candidates. Let us see who are the rejected candidates; for I will show you afterwards who are the worthless citizens. But still all men must allow that this expression suits that man above all other who is beyond all question the most worthless of all mortals. Who then, are the rejected candidates? Not, I imagine, they who some time or other have failed to attain some honour more by the fault of the city than by their own. For that is a thing which has frequently happened to many most excellent citizens and most honourable men. Those are the rejected candidates meant, whom, when they were proceeding to the most violent measures, when they were preparing exhibitions of gladiators contrary to the laws, when they were bribing in the most open manner, not only strangers, but even their own relations, their neighbours, the men of their own tribe, towns-people and countrymen, all rejected. We are warned not to confer any additional honours on these men. It ought to be [p. 98] a very acceptable admonition that they give us; but still the Roman people itself, of its own accord, without any warning on the part of the soothsayers, has provided against this evil. [sect. 57] O you worthless men, beware; and there is a great multitude of you; but still this man is the leader and chief of the whole band. In truth, if any poet of splendid genius were to wish to bring on the stage one most worthless man, deformed with all sorts of imaginary vices collected from all quarters, he would not, I pledge myself, be able to discover one disgraceful quality which did not exist in this man, and he would pass over many which are deeply implanted and firmly rooted in him.

Ch. 27

In the first place nature attaches us to our parents, and to the immortal gods, and to our country. For at one and the same time we are brought forth to the light, and we are strengthened so as to grow by the breath of heaven which we feel around us, and we are established in a certain abode as citizens and free men. That fellow has jumbled in confusion the name of his parents, and his family sacrifices, and the memory of his family, and his family itself, by the assumption of the name of Fonteius. He has with unpardonable wickedness thrown into confusion the fires of the gods, their thrones, and tables, their secret hearths in the inmost recesses of the house, and sacrifices which were previously secret, and not only unseen by men, but even unheard-of by them; and besides all this he has set fire to the temple of those goddesses by whose aid people come to bring assistance in the case of other fires. [sect. 58]

Why should I mention his country? when in the first place by violence and arms, and dread of personal danger, he drove away from the city and from all the protection afforded him by his country that citizen whom you had decided over and over again to have been the saviour of his country. In the second place, having overthrown the companion of the senate, as I have always said, but its leader as he used to call him, he by violence, bloodshed, and conflagration, threw into confusion the senate itself, the mainstay of the general safety and of the public good sense; he abolished two laws, the Aelian and Fufian laws, which were of especial advantage to the state; he extinguished the censorship; he took away the power of intercession; he abolished the auspices; he armed [p. 99] the consuls, the companions of his wickedness, with the treasury, and provinces, and an army; he sold the kings who were in existence, and he called men kings who were not so; he drove Cnaeus Pompeius to his house with violence and arms; he overthrew the monuments of our generals; he threw down the houses of his enemies; he inscribed his own name on your monuments. The wicked deeds which have been done by him to the injury of his country are innumerable. Why need I tell what he has done to individual citizens, whom he has slain? Why need I count up the allies whom he has plundered? or the generals whom he has betrayed? or the armies with which he has tampered? [sect. 59] Why need I mention what enormous wickednesses they are which he has been guilty of towards himself, and towards his own relations? Who ever showed less mercy to the camp of an enemy than he has shown to every part of his own person? What ship in a public river was ever so open to all men as his youth was? What spendthrifts ever lived in so unrestrained a manner with prostitutes as he did with his own sisters? In short what enormous Charybdis could the poets ever describe or ever imagine, capable of swallowing down such whirlpools as the plunder of the Byzantines and Brogitari which that fellow has sucked down? or what Sulla with such conspicuous and hungry hounds as the Gellii, and Clodii, and Titii with which you see that fellow devouring the rostrum itself? [sect. 60]

Wherefore, and that is the last sentence in the answers of the soothsayers, Beware that the constitution of the republic be not changed. In truth it is only with difficulty, even if we prop it up on all sides, that the constitution, already undermined and resting on all our shoulders, will be able to be kept together.

Ch. 28

This state was once so firm and so vigorous that it could withstand the indifference of the senate, or even the assaults of the citizens. Now it cannot. There is no treasury. Those who have contracted for the revenues do not enjoy them; the authority of the chief men has fallen; the agreement between the different orders of the state is torn asunder; the courts of justice are destroyed; the votes are all arranged and divided so as to be under the power of a few; the courage of the virtuous citizens, formerly ready at a [p. 100] nod from our order, exists no longer. [sect. 61] Henceforth in vain will you look for a citizen who will expose himself to unpopularity for the welfare of his country. We can then preserve even this state of things which now exists, such as it is, by no other means than by unanimity; for although we may become better off, that cannot even be hoped for as long as he is unpunished. And if we are to be worse off than we are, there is but one step slower, that of death or slavery. And the immortal gods themselves warn us against allowing ourselves to be thrust down into that abyss, since all human counsels have long since failed.

And I, O conscript fathers, should not have undertaken this speech, so melancholy and so serious; not but that owing to the honours conferred on me by the Roman people, and to the numberless distinctions which you have heaped upon me, I am both bound and able to support this character and to play this part; but still, when every one else was silent, I should willingly have remained silent too. All this speech which I have made has not proceeded from my authority, but from my regard for the general religion. My words have, perhaps, been too many, but the whole sentiment has proceeded from the soothsayers. And either you ought never to have referred the prodigies which have been reported to you to them at all, or else you must be influenced by their answers. [sect. 62]

But if other more ordinary and more trifling occurrences have often influenced us, shall not the express voice of the immortal gods influence every one's mind? Do not think that really possible, which you often see in plays, that some god descending from heaven can approach the assemblies of men, and abide on earth, and converse with men. Consider the description of noise which the Latins have reported. Remember that prodigy also, which has not as yet been formally reported, that at almost the same time a terrible earthquake is said to have taken place in the Picenian district, at Potentia, with many other terrible circumstances;these things which we foresee you will fear as impending over the city. [sect. 63] In truth, this ought almost to be considered as the voice and speech of the immortal gods, when the world itself and the air and the earth tremble with a certain unusual agitation, and prophecy to us with an unprecedented and incredible sound. [p. 101] On this emergency we must appoint atonements and prayers as we are ordered; but it is easy to address prayers to those beings who of their own accord point out to us the path of safety. Our own internal quarrels and dissensions must be terminated by ourselves.

THE SPEECH OF M. T. CICERO IN DEFENCE OF CNAEUS PLANCIUS.

THE ARGUMENT.

Cnaeus Plancius had been quaestor in Macedonia when Cicero fled there from Rome, and had been at that time of the greatest assistance to him. He had now been chosen aedile, but was accused by a disappointed candidate, Marcus Laterensis, of bribery and corruption; and Cicero (though there had been a good deal of coldness between them of late, as Plancius when tribune of the people had very much altered towards him and shown an inclination to take the part of his adversaries) defended him in the following speech.

The speech appears to have been spoken in the year A. U. C. 609. Plancius was acquitted.

When, O judges, I saw that on account of the eminent and singular good faith of Cnaeus Plancius, shown in taking care of my safety, so many excellent men were favourers of his cause, I felt no ordinary pleasure, because I saw that the recollection of what happened at the time of my necessities was pleading for him whose kindness had been my preservation. But when I heard that men, some of whom were my enemies, and some of whom were envious of me, favoured this accusation and that the very same thing was now adverse to the interests of Cnaeus Plancius in this trial which had been advantageous to him in his canvass, I was grieved, O judges, and was very indignant at the idea of his safety being endangered for the sole reason that he, by his benevolence, and energy, and vigilance had protected my safety and my life. [sect. 2] But now, O judges, the sight of you, and the fact of such men as you being the judges, strengthens and refreshes my mind, when I look upon and behold each individual of you; for in all this number I see no one to whom my safety has not been dear, no one who has not acted with the greatest [p. 102] kindness towards me, no one to whom I am not under eternal obligations from the recollection of their services. Therefore I do not fear that the care shown by Cnaeus Plancius for my safety will be any injury to him with those men who themselves have wished above all things to see me in safety; and, O judges, it has more frequently come into my mind that it is a strange thing that Marcus Laterensis, a man who has shown the greatest regard for my dignity and safety, should have picked out this man of all the world to institute a prosecution against, than that I have any ground to fear lest he should appear to you to have had good reason for doing so.

[sect. 3] Although I do not assume so much, or claim so much importance for myself, O judges, as to think that Cnaeus Plancius is entitled to impunity on account of his kindness towards me. If I do not display to you that his life is most upright, his habits most virtuous, his good faith unimpeachable,if I do not prove him to be a man of perfect temperance, piety, and innocence, I will not object to your punishing him; but if I establish that he has every quality which may be expected in the character of a virtuous man, then I will beg of you, O judges, to grant, at my entreaty, your pity to that man, through whose pity it is that I myself have been preserved in safety. In truth, in addition to the labour which I am devoting to this cause, in a greater degree than I think necessary in other trials. I have this anxiety also, that I have not only to speak on behalf of Cnaeus Plancius, whose safety I am bound to defend equally with my own, but on behalf of myself also, since the prosecutors have said almost more about me than they have about the merits of the case, and about the real defendant.

Ch. 2 [sect. 4]

Although, O judges, if they have found any fault in me which is not connected with the case of my present client, I am not much disturbed about that; for I am not afraid that, because it is a very rare thing to meet with grateful men, on that account it can really be considered as a charge against me when those men say that I am too grateful. But as for the points that have been urged by them, when they have said either that the services done me by Cnaeus Plancius were of less importance than I make them out to be; or that if they were ever so great, still they ought not to have that weight with you which I considered them entitled to; these [p. 103] points, O judges, must be touched on by me with moderation, indeed, lest I should give any offence myself; and not until I have fully replied to the accusations brought against him, lest my client should seem to have been defended not so much by his own innocence, as by the recollection of his conduct at the time of my necessity. [sect. 5]

But, considering how plain and simple my case is, O judges, the line to be taken by me in defending it is exceedingly difficult and slippery. For if it were merely necessary for me to argue against Laterensis, yet even this would be a very vexatious thing, considering our great friendship and intimacy; for it is an old principle of genuine and real friendship, such as subsists between him and me, that friends should always have the same wishes; nor is there any surer bond of friendship than an agreement in and community of designs and wishes. But the most annoying circumstance to me in the case is, not that I have merely to argue against him, but much more, that I have to argue against him in a cause in which it seems impossible to avoid drawing some comparison between the parties themselves. [sect. 6] For Laterensis asks, and presses this point above all others, in what virtue, in what sort of renown or worth Plancius is superior to himself. And so, if I admit his high qualifications,and he has plenty of them, and important ones tooI must not only run the risk of Plancius losing this dignity which he has obtained, but he must submit also to the suspicion of bribery. If I speak of my client as superior to him, then my speech will be considered insulting, and I shall be supposed to say, (as he puts the question himself,) that Laterensis was surpassed by Plancius in real worth. And so I must either hurt the feelings of a man who is a great friend of mine, if I follow the line taken by the prosecutor, or else I must abandon the safety of one who has behaved to me with the greatest kindness.

Ch. 3

But I, O Laterensis, will confess that I should be conducting this cause in the most blind and headlong manner, if I were to say that you could be surpassed in worth by either Plancius, or any one else. Therefore I will discard that comparison to which you invite me and will proceed to those arguments to which the cause itself naturally conducts me. [sect. 7] What? Do you think that the people is judge of a man's worth? Perhaps it is sometimes. I wish indeed it were so [p. 104] always. But it is very seldom the case, and if it ever is, it is so when the question is concerning the election of those magistrates to whom it considers that its own safety is entrusted. At the less important comitia, honours are gained by the diligence and influence of the candidates, and not by those high qualities which we see exist in you. For, as to what concerns the people, that man must always be an incompetent judge of worth who either envies any one or favours any one, although you cannot, O Laterensis, point to any good quality in yourself, as peculiarly entitled to praise, which Plancius has not in common with you.

[sect. 8] But all this shall be discussed presently. At present I am only arguing about the right of the people, which both can and sometimes does pass over worthy men; and it does not follow because a man has been passed over by the people who ought not to have been, that he who has not been passed over is to be condemned by the judges. For if that were the case, the judges would have that power which the senate itself could not maintain in the times of our ancestors,namely, that of being correctors of the comitia: or a power which is even more intolerable than that; for at that time a man who had been elected did not enter upon the duties of his office if the senators had not approved of his election; but now it is required of you to correct the judgment of the Roman people by the banishment of the man who has been elected by them. Therefore, although I have entered upon the cause by a door which I did not wish to open, still I seem to hope, O Laterensis, that my speech will be so far removed from all suspicion of being intended to give you offence, that I may rather reprove you for bringing your own dignity into an unreasonable contest, than attempt myself to disparage it by any injurious expressions on my part.

Ch. 4 [sect. 9]

Do you think your temperance, your industry, your attachment to the republic, your virtue, your innocence, your integrity, and your exertions disregarded and despised and trampled on, just because you have not been made aedile? See, O Laterensis, how greatly I differ from you in opinion. If, I declare to God, there were only ten virtuous, and wise, and just, and worthy men in this state who had pronounced you unworthy of the aedileship, I should think that decision a much more unfavourable one to you than this has been, on account [p. 105] of which you fear that this may seem to be the opinion of the people. For in the comitia the people does not invariably act in obedience to its judgment; but it is usually influenced by interest, or it yields to entreaties and it elects those by whom it has been canvassed with the greatest assiduity. And lastly if it does proceed according to its judgment, still it is not led to form that judgment by any careful selection, or by wisdom, but more frequently by impulse and what I may even call a sort of precipitation. For there is no wisdom in the common people, no method, no discrimination, no diligence, and wise men have at all times considered the things which the people may have done necessary to be endured, but not at all invariably necessary to be praised. So that when you say that you ought to have been elected aedile, it is the people you are finding fault with, and not your competitor. [sect. 10] Allow that you were more worthy than Plancius (though that point I will contest with you presently, though without at all disparaging your pretensions or character,) still allow that you were more worthy, yet it is not your competitor by whom you have been defeated, but the people by whom you have been passed over, that is in fault.

And in this affair you ought to recollect that at all comitia, and especially at those held for the election of aediles, it is the party spirit of the people, and not their deliberate judgment which bears sway, that their votes are coaxed out of them not extorted by merit, that the voters are more apt to consider what obligations they themselves are under to each individual, than what benefits the republic has received at his hands. But if you insist on it that it is their deliberate judgment, then you must not annul it but bear it. [sect. 11] The people has decided wrongly. Still it has decided. It ought not to have decided so. Still it had the power. I will not bear it. But many most illustrious and wise citizens have borne it. For this is the inalienable privilege of a free people, and especially of this the chief people of the world, the lord and conqueror of all nations, to be able by their votes to give or to take away what they please to or from any one. And it is our duty,ours, I say, who are driven about by the winds and waves of this people, to hear the whims of the people with moderation, to strive to win over their affections when alienated from us, to retain them when we have won them, [p. 106] to tranquilize them when in a state of agitation. If we do not think honours of any great consequence, we are not bound to be subservient to the people; if we do strive for them, then we must be unwearied in soliciting them.

Ch. 5 [sect. 12]

I proceed now to take on myself the part of the people, so as to argue with you in their language rather than in my own. If the people then could meet you, and speak with one voice, it would say this-I, O Laterensis, have not preferred Plancius to you; but, as you were both equally virtuous men, I have conferred my favours on him who entreated me for them, rather than on him who had not solicited me with any great humility. You will reply, I suppose, that you relied on your high character, and the antiquity of your family, and did not think it necessary to canvass very laboriously. But the people will remind you of its own established principles, and of the precedents of its ancestors. It will say that it has always chosen to be asked for these honours, and to be solicited eagerly. It will tell you that it preferred Marcus Seius, a man who was unable to keep even his dignity as a knight undamaged by an adverse decision in a court of justice, to a man of the highest rank, most unimpeachable, and most eloquent Marcus Piso. It will tell you that it preferred to Quintus Catulus, a man of the most illustrious family, a most wise and admirable man, I will not say Caius Seranus a most foolish man, for nevertheless he was a noble; nor Caius Fimbria, a new man, for he was a magnanimous man and a wise counselor; but Cnaeus Mallius, a man not only of no rank or family at all, but utterly destitute of virtue and ability, and of contemptible and sordid habits of life. [sect. 13] My eyes, says the people, looked in vain for you when you were at Cyrene; for I should have preferred reaping the benefit of your virtue myself to letting your companions have it all to themselves; and the more it was an object to me to do so, the more did you keep aloof from me. At all events, I did not see you. Then you deserted and abandoned me, though thirsting for your virtue; for you had begun to offer yourself as a candidate for the tribuneship of the people at a time which was especially in need of your eloquence and virtue; and when you abandoned your canvass for that office, if you intimated by so doing that in such a stormy time you could not take the helm, I had reason to doubt your courage; [p. 107] but if you did so because you did not then choose to assume so much responsibility, then I had grounds for questioning your attachment to me. But if the truth was, as I rather believe, that you reserved yourself for other times, I too, the Roman people will say, have now recalled you to the time for which you had of your own accord reserved yourself. Offer yourself, then, now for that magistracy in which you can be of great use to me. Whoever the aediles are, I shall have the same games prepared for me; but it is of the greatest consequence who are the tribunes of the people. Either, then, give me those exertions of yours which you encouraged me to hope for, or, if your heart is most set on what is of the least consequence to me, how can you expect that I will give you the aedileship, especially when you ask for it with such indifference? But if you wish to gain the most distinguished honours, as most suited to your worth, then learn, I pray you, to solicit them of me with a little more earnestness.

Ch. 6 [sect. 14]

This is what the people says to you. But what I say to you, O Laterensis, is this: that the judge has nothing to do with inquiring why you were defeated, as long as you were not defeated through bribery. For it as often as any man is passed over who ought not to have been passed over, the man who has been elected is to be condemned, there will no longer be any reason for canvassing the people at all. There will be no reason in waiting for the polling or for addressing entreaties to the magistrates or for the final declaration of the state of the poll; the moment that I see who are standing I shall sayThis man is of a consular family that man is of a praetorian one; [sect. 15] I see that all the rest are of equestrian rank; they are all without stain all equally virtuous and upright men but it is necessary that the distinctions of rank should be observed that the praetorian family should yield to the consular, and that the equestrian body should not contend with a praetorian house. There is an end to all eagerness for any candidate, an end to all voting; there are no longer any contests; the people has no longer any liberty of choice in electing magistrates; there is no anxiety to see how the votes will be given; nothing will ever happen, (as is so often the case,) contrary to the general expectation; there will be for the future no variety in the comitia. But if it is constantly happening that we marvel why some men have been [p. 108] elected, and why some men have not; if the Campus Martius and those waves of the comitia, like a deep and wide sea, swell in such a manner, as if through some tide or other, that they approach one party and recede from another; why, when the impulse of party spirit is so great and when so much is done with precipitation, are we to seek for any rational explanation, any deliberate intention or any system in such a case?

[sect. 16] Do not then, O Laterensis, insist on my drawing any comparison between you. In truth, if the voting tablet is dear to the people, which shows the countenances of men, while it conceals their intentions, and which gives them the liberty of doing whatever they please, while they can promise whatever they are asked, why do you require that to be done in a court of justice which is not done in the Campus Martius?This man is more worthy than that man. It is a very grave assertion to make. What then is it more reasonable to say? Say this, (and this is the question, this is sufficient for the judge)This is the man who has been elected. Why should he have been elected rather than I? Either I do not know, or I do not choose to say, or lastly, (which, however, would be a very vexatious thing to me to say, and yet I ought to be able to say with impunity), he ought not to have been. For what would you gain if I were to have recourse to this last defence, that the people had done what it chose, and not what it ought to have done?

Ch. 7 [sect. 17]

What will you say, if, besides, I defend the act of the people, O Laterensis, and prove that Cnaeus Plancius did not creep by underhand means to that honour, but that he arrived at it by the regular course which has at all times been open to men born in this equestrian rank of ours; can I, by this argument expunge from your speech the comparison between you two, which cannot be handled without an appearance of insult, and can I thus bring you at last to the merits of the case itself and of your accusation? If, because he is the son of a Roman knight he ought to have been inferior to you, all the rest who were candidates at the same time with you were the sons of Roman knights. I say no more: but this I do wonder at, why you should be angry with this man above all the rest who was the furthest removed from you. In truth, if, at any time, as is sometimes the case, I am pushed about in the crowd, I do not find fault with [p. 109] that man who is on the very crown of the Via Sacra, when I am pushed up against the arch of Fabius; but with him who was against me and pushes me. But you are not angry with Quintus Pedius, a very gallant man; nor with Aulus Plotius,²⁵ whom I see here, a most accomplished citizen, and my own intimate friend; but you think yourself defeated by him who has also defeated them, rather than by those who were nearest yourself in the number of votes, and who therefore pressed more immediately on you. [sect. 18]

But, nevertheless, you compare yourself with Plancius, in the first place as to your race and family, in which he is beaten by you. For why should not I confess what cannot he denied? But he is not more inferior to you in this respect than I was to my competitors, both on other occasions, and when I was a candidate for the consulship. But beware lest these very particulars for which you look down upon him may have told in his favour. For let us make the comparison in this wayYou are descended from a consular family on both sides. Have you any doubt then that all those who favour the nobility of birth, who think that the finest of all things, who are influenced by the images and great names of your ancestors, all voted for you as aedile. I myself have not a doubt of it. But if the number of those who are thus devoted to high birth is not very large, is that our fault? In truth, let us go back to the head and origin of each of your families.

Ch. 8 [sect. 19]

You are of that most ancient municipal town of Tusculum, from which many of our consular families are derived, among which is also the Juventian family; there have not so many families of that rank proceeded from all the other municipal towns put together. Plancius comes from the prefecture of Atina; certainly a less ancient and distinguished abode, and not so near to the city. How much difference do you think this ought to make in standing for an office? In the first place, which people do you suppose are most eager to support their own fellow-citizens; the people of Atina, or those of Tusculum? The one, (for this is a matter with which I may easily be well acquainted, on account of my neighbourhood to them,) when they saw the [p. 110] father of this most accomplished and excellent man, Cnaeus Saturninus, elected aedile, and afterwards, when they saw him elected praetor, were delighted in a most extraordinary manner, because he was the first man who had ever brought a curule honour, not only into that family, but even into that prefecture. But I never understood that the others (I suppose because that municipality is crammed full of consuls, for I know to a certainty that they are not an ill-natured people) were particularly delighted at any honour obtained by their fellow-citizens. This is our feeling, and it is the feeling of our municipal towns. [sect. 20] Why should I speak of myself; or of my brother? The very fieldsI might almost say, the very hills themselves,supported us in the pursuit of our honours. Do you ever see any man of Tusculum boast of that great man, Marcus Cato, the first man in every sort of virtue, or of Tiberius Coruncanius, though a citizen of their own municipal town, or of all the Fulvii? No one ever mentions them. But if ever you fall in with a citizen of Arpinum, you are forced, whether you will or no, perhaps, to hear something about us, but at all events something about Caius Marius. In the first place, then, Plancius had the ardent zeal of his fellow-citizens in his favour; you had no more than was likely to exist among men who are by this time surfeited with honours. [sect. 21] In the next place, your fellow-citizens are indeed most admirable men, but still they are very few in number if they are compared with the people of Atina. The prefecture to which Plancius belongs is so full of the bravest men, that no city in all Italy can be pronounced more populous. And that multitude you now behold, O judges, in mourning attire and in distress addressing its supplications to you. All these Roman knights whom you see here, all these aerarian tribunes, (for we have sent the common people away from this court, though they were all present at the comitia,)how much strength, how much dignity did they not add to my client's demand of the aedileship? They did not give him only the aid of the Terentian tribe, of which I will speak hereafter, but they added dignity to him, they kept their eyes fixed upon him, they attended him with a solid, and vigorous, and unceasing escort; and even now my own municipal town is greatly interested in his cause, from the sort of connection which the fact of their being neighbours to him engenders. [p. 111]

Ch. 9 [sect. 22]

Everything which I am saying about Plancius, I say having experienced the truth of it in my own case. For we of Arpinum are near neighbours of the people of Atina. It is a neighbourhood to be praised, and even to be loved, retaining the old-fashioned habits of kindness for one another: one not tainted with ill-nature, nor accustomed to falsehood, not insincere, nor treacherous, nor learned in the suburban, or shall I say, the city artifices of dissimulation. There was not one citizen of Arpinum who was not anxious for Plancius, not one citizen of Sora, or of Casinum, or of Aquinum. The whole of that most celebrated district, the territory of Venafrum, and Allifae, in short, the whole of that rugged mountainous faithful simple district, a district cherishing its own native citizens, thought that it was honoured itself in his honour, that its own consequence was increased by his dignity. And from those same municipalities Roman knights are now present here, having been sent by the public authority, commissioned to bear evidence in his favour; nor is their anxiety in his behalf now inferior to the zeal which they displayed then. For, in truth, it is a more terrible thing to be stripped of one's goods than not to attain a dignity.

[sect. 23] Therefore, although the other qualifications, O Laterensis, those which your ancestors bequeathed to you, were more conspicuous in you than in him; yet, on the other hand, Plancius had an advantage over you not only in the zeal of his municipality, but in that of his whole neighbourhood. Unless, indeed, the neighbourhood of Tusculum to Lavicum, or Gabii, or Bovillae was any use to you; municipal towns in which you can now hardly find a single citizen to bear a part in the Latin holidays. I will add, if you like, that which you consider is even an objection to him, that his father is a farmer of the revenues. And who is there who does not know what a great assistance that body of men is to any one in seeking for any honour? For the flower of the Roman knights, the ornament of the state, the great bulwark of the republic is all comprehended in that body. [sect. 24] Who is there, then, who can deny that that body showed extraordinary zeal in aiding Plancius in his contest for honour? And it was very natural that they should, because his father is a man who has for a long time been the head of the company of farmers; and because he was exceedingly beloved by his fellows of that [p. 112] company; and because he canvassed them with the greatest diligence; and because he was entreating them in favour of his son; and because it was notorious that Plancius himself had both in his quaestorship and tribuneship done many kindnesses to that body; and because in promoting him they thought that they were promoting themselves, and consulting the welfare and dignity of their children.

Ch. 10

Something, moreover, (I say it timidly, but still I must say it)something we ourselves contributed to his success; not, indeed, by our riches, not by any invidious exertion of influence, not by any scarcely endurable stretch of power, but by the mention of his kindness to ourselves, by our pity for him, and by our prayers in his behalf. I appealed to the people; I went round the tribes, and besought them; I entreated even those who, of their own accord, offered themselves to me, who volunteered their promises. He prevailed, owing to the motive which I had for soliciting them, not owing to my interest. [sect. 25] Nor, if a most honourable man, to whom there is nothing which may not deservedly be granted at his entreaty, failed, as you say, in obtaining something which he desired, am I arrogant if I say that I did prevail? For, to say nothing of the fact that I was exerting myself in behalf of a man who had great influence himself, that solicitation is always the most agreeable which is the most closely connected with previous obligations and friendship. Nor, indeed, did I ask for him in such a manner as to seem to request it because he was my intimate friend, because he was my neighbour, because I had always been on terms of the greatest intimacy with his father; but I asked as if I were soliciting on behalf of one who was as it were my parent, and the guardian of my safety. It was not my interest but the cause which prompted my requests, which was so influential. No one rejoiced at my restoration, no one grieved at my injury, to whom the pity shown me by this man was not acceptable. [sect. 26] In truth, if before my return, good men in numbers, of their own accord, offered their services to Cnaeus Plancius when he was a candidate for the tribuneship, do not you suppose that, if my name, while I was absent was a credit to him, my entreaties, when I was present, must have been serviceable to him? Are the colonists of Minturnae held in everlasting honour because they saved Caius Marius from the sword of civil war and from the hands of wicked men, because [p. 113] they received him in their houses, because they enabled him to recruit his strength when exhausted with fighting and with tossing on the waves, because they furnished him with means for his journey, and gave him a vessel and when he was leaving that land which he had saved, followed him with tears and prayers, and every good wish? And do you wonder that his good faith and merciful and courageous disposition was a credit to Cnaeus Plancius, who, whether I was expelled by violence, or yielded from a deliberate plan or conduct, received me, assisted me, protected me, and preserved me for these citizens, and for the senate and people of Rome, that they might be able at a subsequent time to restore me?

Ch. 11 [sect. 27]

These circumstances which I have been mentioning might in truth have been sufficient to throw a veil over the vices of Cnaeus Plancius. Do not then wonder that in such a life as I am proceeding to describe, they should have been such numerous and great helps to him in the attainment of honour; for this is he, who, when quite a young man, having gone with Aulus Torquatus into Africa was beloved by that most dignified and holy man, so worthy of every description of praise and honour, to as great a degree as the intimacy engendered by being messmates, and the modesty of a most pure minded youth allowed. And if he were present he would affirm it no less zealously than his cousin who is here present and his father-in-law, Titus Torquatus, his equal in every sort of glory and virtue, who is indeed connected with him in the closest bonds of relationship and connection, but these obligations of affection are so strong that those other reasons for intimacy drawn from relationship appear insignificant. He was in Crete afterwards as the comrade of Saturninus, his relation as a soldier of Quintus Metellus, who is here present, and as he was most highly approved of by them and is so to this day, he has a right to hope that he will be approved of by every one. In that province Caius Sacerdos was the lieutenant,how virtuous, how consistent a man and Lucius Flaccus,what a man, what a citizen was he! and they by their zeal in his behalf, and by their evidence, declare what sort of man they think Plancius. [sect. 28] In Macedonia he was a military tribune. In that same province he was afterwards quaestor. In the first place, Macedonia is so attached to him as these men, the chief men of their respective cities, state [p. 114] it to be; who, though they were sent with another object, still, being moved by his unexpected danger, give him their countenance, sitting here by his side, and put forth all their exertions in his behalf; if they stand by him, they think that they shall be doing what is more acceptable to their fellow-citizens, than if they attend strictly and solely to their embassy, and to the commission that was entrusted to them. But Lucius Appuleius considers him so excellent a man, that by his attentions and kindness to him, he has gone beyond that principle of our ancestors which enjoins that praetors ought to consider themselves as standing in the light of parents to their quaestors. He was a tribune of the people, not perhaps as violent as those men whom you naturally extol, but certainly such a one, that if all had at all times been like him, a violent tribune would never have been wished for or regretted.

Ch. 12 [sect. 29]

I say nothing of those things which if they are less brought on the stage than others, still at all events are always praised when they do come to light; for instance, how he lives among his own relations; in the first place with his father, (for in my opinion filial affection is the foundation of all the virtues,) whom he venerates as a god, (and indeed a parent does not stand in a very different relation to his children,) but loves as a companion, as a brother, as a friend of his own age. Why should I speak of his conduct to his uncle? to his connections? to his relations? to this Cnaeus Saturninus whom you see in court, a most gallant man? And you may judge how desirous this man was of his attaining honour, when you see how he partakes of his grief. Why should I speak of myself? for I seem to myself, now that he is in danger, to be put on my own defence too. Why should I speak of all these virtuous men whom you see in court, with their garments changed for mourning robes? But these are all solid and well marked proofs, O judges; these are evidences of integrity, not coloured by forensic artifice, but deeply dyed with the indelible marks of truth. All that running about and caressing of the people is very easy work; it is looked at at a distance, not taken into the hand and examined; it makes a fine show if you do not get too near and shake it.

[sect. 30] I say, then, that this man is adorned with every high quality, both such as are eminent abroad and amiable at [p. 115] home. I admit that he was inferior to you in some points, such as those of name and family; but in others I assert that he was superior to every one within the recollection of the present generation, in the zeal of his fellow-citizens, and neighbours, and of the companies of farmers in his behalf; equal to any one in virtue, integrity, and modesty; and yet do you wonder at his being elected aedile?

Do you try to defile the brilliancy of such a life as this with those imputations? You impute adulteries to him which no one can recognise, not only by having ever heard any one's name mentioned, but even by having heard a suspicion breathed against him. You call him twice-married, in order to invent new words, and not only new accusations. You say that some one was taken by him into his province to gratify his lust; but that is not an accusation, but a random lie, ventured on from the expectation of impunity. You say that an actress was ravished by him. And this is said to have happened at Atina, while he was quite young, by a sort of established licence of proceeding towards theatrical people, well known in all towns. [sect. 31] O how elegantly must his youth have been passed, when the only thing which is imputed to him is one that there was not much harm in, and when even that is found to be false. He released some one from prison illegally. The man you allude to was discharged out of ignorancedischarged, as you know, at the request of an intimate friend and a most virtuous young man; and the same man was arrested subsequently again. And these, and no others, are all the faults which you can discover to attribute to him throughout the whole of his life, while at the same time you affect to doubt his virtue, and religion, and integrity.

Ch. 13

But his father, says the prosecutor, ought to be considered an objection to the son. O what a harsh expression, how unworthy of your honesty, O Laterensis! To say that in a capital trial, that in a contest where all his fortunes are at stake, a father ought to be an objection to his son in the eyes of such men as these judges! when even if he were ever so mean, or ever so sordid, still, by the mere name of father, he would have weight with mild and merciful judges; would have weight I say, because of the common feelings of all men, and through the sweet recommendation of nature. [sect. 32] But as that Cnaeus Plancius is a Roman knight, whose rank [p. 116] as such is of that antiquity that his father, his grandfather, and all his ancestors were Roman knights before him, and in a most flourishing prefecture²⁶ occupied the highest position both for rank and influence; secondly, as he himself while serving in the legions under Publius Crassus as general, enjoyed a character of the highest respectability among a number of most accomplished men, Roman knights; as he was after that the chief man among his fellow-citizens, a most incorruptible and upright judge in many causes, a promoter of many companies, and president of some;if not only no fault has ever been found with him, but if the whole of his conduct has been universally praised; shall we still be told that such a father shall be an objection to a most honourable son, when he would be able by his authority, or, if not, by his interest, to protect a less honourable man, or one entirely unconnected with him? [sect. 33] He has at times, says he, said some very harsh things. Perhaps he may have spoken rather freely. But that speaking freely, as you term it, says he, is not to be borne. Are then those men to be borne who complain that they cannot bear the freedom of a Roman knight? Where are our old customs? Where is our equality of privileges? Where is that ancient liberty, which, having been overwhelmed by civil disasters, ought by this time to be raising its head and to be at last recovered and assuming a more erect attitude again? Need I recount the abuse directed by the Roman knights against even the noblest men, or that of the harsh, ferocious, unbridled expressions of the farmers against Quintus Scaevola, a man superior to all others in genius, justice, and integrity?

Ch. 14

Granius, the crier, replied to the consul Publius Nasica in the middle of the forum, when he, after a suspension of all judicial proceedings had been proclaimed, as he was returning home, had asked Granius why he was sad; was it because all the auctions were postponed? Rather, said he, [p. 117] because they have sent back the ambassadors. The same man made this answer to a tribune of the people, Marcus Drusus, a most influential man, but one who was causing great disturbances in the republic. When Drusus had saluted him, as is the fashion, and had said, How do you do, O Granius? he replied, I should rather ask, O Drusus, what are you doing? And he often reproved with impunity the designs of Lucius Crassus and Marcus Antonius, with still harsher witticisms. At present the state is to such a degree oppressed by your arrogance, that the freedom of laughing in which a crier used to be indulged, is more than is now allowed to a Roman knight in making lamentations. [sect. 34] For what expression was ever used by Plancius which was not dictated by grief rather than by insult? And what did he ever complain of, except at times when he was protecting his companions or himself from injury? When the senate was hindered from making a reply to a representation of the Roman knights,a thing which was invariably given even to enemies,that injury was a great grief to all the farmers of the revenue and that indignation this man did not care to conceal. Their common feelings may perhaps have been disguised by others, but the sentiments which my client shared with the rest he revealed more plainly than the rest both by his countenance and by his language.

[sect. 35] Although, O judges, (for thus much I know of my own knowledge,) many things are attributed to Plancius which were never said by him. In my own case, because I sometimes say something, not from any deliberate intention, but either in the heat of speaking, or because I have been provoked; and because as is natural, among the many things which I say in this manner something comes out at times if not excessively witty, still perhaps not altogether stupid, the consequence is that, whatever anyone else says people say that I have said. But I, if it is anything clever and worthy of a well-educated and learned man have no great objection but I am very angry when the sayings of other men are attributed to me, which are utterly unworthy of me. For, because he was the first person to give his vote for the law concerning the farmers, at the time when that most illustrious man the consul gave that privilege to that order of men by a vote of the people, which if he had have done it, he would have given them by a vote of the senate, if it be a crime in him [p. 118] to have given his vote for it, I ask what farmer was there who did not vote for it? If the charge be that he was the first to vote, is that the fault of chance, or of the man who proposed the law? If it was the effect of chance, then there can be no crime in what happened by chance. If it was by the choice of the consul, then it adds to the renown of Plancius that he was considered the chief man of his order by so illustrious a man.

Ch. 15 [sect. 36]

But let us at last come to the merits of the case; in which, under cover of the Licinian law, which relates to treating,²⁷ you have embraced all the laws relating to bribery. Nor have you had any other object in view in dwelling on this law, except the power which it gave you of selecting your judges. And if this sort of tribunal is an equitable one in any other case except that of bribing the tribes, I do not understand why, in this one description of prosecution alone, the senate has allowed the tribes from which the judges are taken to be selected by the prosecutor, and has not given the same power of selection in other cases also. In actual prosecutions for bribery, it has directed the tribunal to be formed by each party striking off judges alternately; and though it omitted no other species of severity to the defendant, still it thought it ought to omit this. [sect. 37] What? Is the reason of this conduct still obscure? was it not mooted when that matter was discussed in the senate, and argued most abundantly by Hortensius yesterday, who carried all the senate with him? This, then, was our opinion, that if he had bribed any tribe by means of this hospitalitywhich the treating would be called by people more solicitous to give it a respectable name than a true one;if he had, I say, corrupted any tribe by disgraceful bribery, he must be known to have done so by the men who belonged to that tribe above all others. Accordingly, the senate thought that when those tribes were selected is the judges of the accused person, which he was said to have corrupted by bribery, they would serve both as witnesses of the truth and as judges. It is altogether a very severe sort [p. 119] of tribunal; but still, if either his own tribe, or one with which he was especially connected, was proposed to a man as that which was to judge him, it could hardly be refused.

Ch. 16 [sect. 38]

But in this case, O Laterensis, what tribes did you select? The Terentian tribe, I suppose. That certainly was an equitable proceeding, and certainly one that was expected, and it was quite worthy of your wisdom and firmness. The tribe of which you keep crying out that Plancius had been the seller, and corrupter, and briber; that tribe, especially since it consists, as it does, of most virtuous and highly respectable men, you ought to have chosen. Did you choose the Voltinian tribe? for you have taken it into your head to connect some charge or other with that tribe. Why, then, did you not select that tribe? What had Plancius to do with the Lemonian tribe? What had he to do with the Ufentian? or with the Crustumine? for as for the Maecian tribe, you selected that to be one, not to judge, but to be rejected. [sect. 39] Have you any doubt, then, O judges, that Marcus Laterensis selected you on his own judgment having regard not to the spirit of the law, but to some hope which he had himself formed with reference to the state? Have you any doubt that when he avoided selecting those tribes among which Plancius had extensive connections, the reason was that he judged that they had been won over by legitimate attention and kindness, not corrupted by bribery? For what reason can he allege why that power of selection given to the prosecutor is not a measure of great severity towards the defendant, if it is adopted without the consideration which determined us to pass such a law? [sect. 40] Are you to choose out of all the people either those who are personal friends of your own, or personal enemies to me, or men whom you consider inexorable, inhuman and cruel? Are you, without my knowing, or suspecting, or dreaming of such a step, to choose your own connections and those of your friends, personal enemies to me and to my counsel? And are you to add to them those whom you think by nature harsh and unfriendly to all the world? And are you then to produce them all of a sudden, so that I see the bench of judges who are to try me before I can form the least idea who they are going to be? And are you to compel me to plead my cause, one in which all my fortunes are at stake, before those men, without having the power of rejecting even five, which was [p. 120] a privilege allowed to the last man who was put on his trial by the decision of the judges themselves? [sect. 41] For it does not follow because Plancius has lived in such a manner as never willfully to offend any one, or because you have made such a mistake as unintentionally to select such men that we find we are come before judges, and not before executioners, that on that account that selection, if looked at by itself, is not a severe measure.

Ch. 17

Was it not lately the case that some most illustrious citizens would not endure the idea of a judge selected by the prosecutor, (when, out of a hundred and twenty-five judges, the chief men of the equestrian order, the defendant rejected seventy-five, and retained fifty,) and preferred throwing the whole business into confusion, to obeying that law and complying with those terms? And shall we put up with judges chosen not out of the select body of judges, but out of the whole people, and not proposed to us with a power of striking off the obnoxious ones, but appointed by the prosecutor in such a way that we have no power to object to a single one?

[sect. 42] I am not now complaining of the injustice of the law, but I am showing that your conduct is at variance with the spirit of the law; and I not only should not complain of the severity of that proceeding, if you had acted as the senate intended and as the people decreed, and had proposed to him as judges his own tribe, and those which he had paid attentions to; but, if you had given him those men as judges who ought also to have served as witnesses, I should think him acquitted at once. And even now my opinion is not very different. For when you proposed these tribes, you showed plainly that you preferred having judges who were unknown rather than such as were known; you evaded the intention of the law; you discarded every principle of justice; you preferred enveloping the case in obscurity to throwing light upon it. The Voltinian tribe was corrupted by him. He had bought the Terentian tribe. [sect. 43] What could he say then before men of the Voltinian tribe, or before his own tribesmen, if they were his judges? Yes, what rather could you say yourself? What judge of all the number could you find who might be a silent witness of those matters, or which of them could you summon as such? In truth, if the defendant himself were to propose the tribes which were to furnish his judges, Plancius perhaps [p. 121] would have proposed the Voltinian tribe on account of his neighbourhood to and connection with it; but most unquestionably he would have proposed his own. And if he had had to propose the president of the court whom would he have been more likely to propose than this very Caius Alfius, who is the president to whom he ought to be thoroughly well-known, his own neighbour, a man of his own tribe, a most respectable and upright man? Whose impartiality and desire for the safety of Cnaeus Plancius which, without the least suspicion of being influenced by any covetous motives he makes no concealment of, declares plainly enough that my client had no reason to avoid having men of his own tribe for judges, when you see that a man of his own tribe for president was a most desirable thing for him.

Ch. 18 [sect. 44]

Nor am I now finding fault with your prudence in not giving him those tribes to which he was best known, but I am proving that the intention of the senate was disregarded by you. In truth which of all these men would listen to you? Or what could you say? Could you say that Plancius was guilty of the depository of the money to be used in bribery? Men's ears would reject the assertion. No one would endure it. All would turn away from it. That he was a very acceptable man to the tribes? They would hear that willingly. We ourselves should not be afraid to allow that. For do not think, O Laterensis, that the effect of those laws which the senate has thought fit to establish concerning bribery has been to put an end to the recommendation of candidates to attentions being paid to electors, or to personal influence. There have always been virtuous men who have been anxious to have influence among the men of their own tribe. [sect. 45] Nor, indeed, has our order ever been so harsh towards the common people, as to be unwilling to have it courted by moderate liberality on our part. Nor are our children to be forbidden to pay attention to the men of their own tribe or to show regard for them or to canvass them on behalf of their friends, or to expect a similar service from them when they are themselves candidates for any office. For all these things are only acts of mutual kindness and politeness, and are sanctioned by ancient customs and precedent. That was on our conduct when the occasions of our ambition required it; and such we have seen to be the course of most illustrious men; and even [p. 122] at the present day we see many men alive to the necessity of keeping up their interests. It was the dividing the men of a tribe into decuries, the classification of the whole people, and the attempt to bind men's votes by bribes, that provoked the severity of the senate, and the energetic indignation of all good men. Allege this, prove this, direct your attention to this point, O Laterensis, that Plancius divided the tribes into decuries, that he classified the people, that he was an agent with whom money was deposited, that he promised money, that he distributed it; and then I shall wonder at your not having chosen to use the weapons which the law has armed you with. For with judges taken from the men of our own tribe, I need not say we could not if those things were true, bear their severity, but we could not even look them in the face. [sect. 46] But, after having avoided this line of conduct, and declined having those men for judges, who, as they must have had the most certain knowledge of such conduct, were bound to feel the greatest indignation at it what will you say before those men who silently ask of you why you have imposed this burden upon them; why you have chosen them above all men; why you prefer having them to proceed by guesswork, rather than those men to decide who had means of knowing the truth?

Ch. 19

I, O Laterensis, say that Plancius himself is a popular man, and that he had to assist him in his canvass many men eager in his cause, who were also popular men. And if you call them agents to treat people, you are polluting a kind and zealous friendship, by a very insidious name. But if, because they are popular, you think them on that account objects for prosecution, then do not wonder that you yourself, after repudiating the friendship of popular men, failed in attaining what your real worth demanded for you.

[sect. 47] But now, as I prove that Plancius was a popular man in his tribe, because he has been kind to many of them, because he has been security for many of them, because he has procured employment for many of them by means of the authority and interest of his father, and because he has bound the whole prefecture of Atina to himself by all the kindness displayed by himself, by his father, and by his ancestors; I call on you to prove in an equally convincing manner, that he was an agent for receiving money to be spent in bribery; that he [p. 123] was himself a briber; that he classified the people; that he divided the tribes into decuries. And if you cannot, do not deny our order the exercise of a legitimate liberality; do not think that popularity is a crime; do not enact a punishment to be inflicted for courteous attentions.

And accordingly, as you were forced to hesitate about this charge of corrupting a tribe by means of treating, you had recourse to a general accusation of bribery. And in examining this, let us, if you please, cease awhile to contend in vulgar and random declamation. [sect. 48] For I will argue with you in this way. Do you choose any one tribe you please, and prove, as you are bound to do, what agent received the money for corrupting it, and who distributed the money among the men of the tribe. And if you cannot do that, which in my opinion you will not even begin to attempt, I will show you the means to which he owes his success. Is not this a fair challenge? Do not you like to proceed in this manner? Can I come to closer quarters, as they say, or can I meet you on a fairer field? Why are you silent? Why do you conceal your intentions? Why do you seek to shirk off? Again and again I press upon you, and keep close to you; I pursue you, I ask for, I even demand some definite accusation. Whatever tribe, I say, you select, whose votes Plancius received, you show, if you can, any flaw in that one instance. I will then show you by what means he really did gain its vote, and the principle shall be exactly the same in his case, and, O Laterensis, in yours. For as you, if I were to ask you, may be able to explain to me through whose influence it was that you gained the affection of these tribes who voted for you, so do I assert that I will explain to you, our adversary, the means by which we gained the vote of any tribe you choose to inquire about.

Ch. 20 [sect. 49]

But why do I argue in this manner? Just as if Plancius had not already been elected aedile in the former comitia. Which comitia were begun to be held by the consul, a man in every respect of the very highest authority, and the author of those very laws concerning bribery. And besides, he began to hold them very suddenly, contrary to any one's expectation; so that, even if any one had formed the design of committing bribery, he would never have had time to manage it. The tribes were summoned; the votes were [p. 124] given; counted up, declared. Plancius was by far the highest of all on the poll.²⁸ There neither was nor could there be any suspicion of bribery. Is it not the case that the one prerogative century carries such weight with it that no one has ever gained the vote of that, but what he has been declared consul either at that very comitia, or at all events consul for the year? And yet do you wonder that Plancius was elected aedile when it was not a small portion of the people, but the whole people that had declared their good-will towards him? when it was not a portion of one tribe, but the whole comitia which were prerogative comitia in his behalf? [sect. 50] And at that time if you, O Laterensis, had been inclined, or if you had thought it consistent with your gravity to do what many men of high birth have often done, who, having gained a great many fewer votes than they had expected, afterwards, when the comitia had been adjourned, have prostrated themselves, and, with broken spirits and in a humble tone, had addressed supplications to the Roman people, I do not question but that the whole multitude would have turned towards you. For nobility, especially when upright and innocent has never, when appearing as a suppliant, been rejected by the Roman people. But if your personal dignity and character for magnanimity was, as it ought to have been, of more importance to you than the aedileship, then, since you have that which you preferred, do not regret that which you thought of less consequence. I myself, in truth, have always striven most zealously, in the first place, to be worthy of honour; in the second place, to be considered so. The third consideration with me, though with most men it is the first, has been the honour itself; but that is a thing which ought to be acceptable to those men in whose case the Roman people has conferred it on them as a testimony to their worth, and not as a favour granted to their assiduity in canvassing for it.

Ch. 21 [sect. 51]

You ask also, O Laterensis, what answer you can make to the images of your ancestors; how you are to excuse yourself to that most accomplished and excellent man your [p. 125] deceased father? Never think about those things. Take care rather lest that querulousness and excessive grief of yours be reproved by those men of consummate wisdom. For your father saw that Appius Claudius a most noble man, even in the lifetime of his own father a most influential and most illustrious citizen, Caius Claudius, failed in his endeavour to obtain the aedileship, and yet that he was afterwards elected consul without a repulse. He saw that a man most closely connected with himself a most illustrious citizen, Lucius Volcatius, and he saw that Marcus Piso too, having both sustained a slight defeat in the matter of the aedileship, received afterwards the very highest honours from the Roman people. But your grandfather could tell you also of the rejection of Publius Nasica, when he stood for the aedileship, though I am sure that a greater citizen has never existed in this republic, and of Caius Marius too, who was twice rejected when a candidate for the aedileship, and yet was seven times made consul, and of Lucius Caesar and of Cnaeus Octavius and of Marcus Tullius, every one of whom we know were beaten for the aedileship, and were elected consul afterwards. [sect. 52]

But why am I hunting up instances of men having failed as candidates for the aedileship, when it is an office which has often been discharged in such a way that the people appeared to have been doing a kindness to the men who had been passed over. Lucius Philippus, a man of the highest truth and most distinguished eloquence failed in his election to military tribune. Caius Caelius, a most illustrious and admirable young man, was beaten for the quaestorship. Publius Rutilius Rufus, Caius Fimbria, Caius Cassius, Cnaeus Orestes all stood in vain for the tribuneship of the people. And yet we know that every one of these men were afterwards made consuls. And your father and your ancestors will of their own accord tell you this not with the object of comforting you, nor to excuse you from any fault which you fear that you must seem to have been guilty of, but with a view of encouraging you to persevere in that course which you have followed from your earliest youth. No credit believe me, O Laterensis, has been lost by you. Lost, do I say? I declare solemnly, if you were to come to a right appreciation of what has happened, an especial testimony has been borne to your virtue. [p. 126]

Ch. 22

For think not that there was not a great impression made by the circumstances of your offering yourself as a candidate for that office from all competition for which you subsequently withdrew, rather than swear to a particular thing. You then, being quite a young man, declared plainly what were your sentiments about public affairs: speaking more boldly, indeed, than some men who had already attained the honours of the state, and more undisguisedly than regard to your ambition, or to your age, required. [sect. 53] And, therefore, among the people so disparaged your pretensions, you must not think that there were none who had taken offence at the intrepid spirit which you then displayed; who were able, perhaps, to keep you, incautious as you were, from arriving at that rank, but will never be able to move you when you are on your guard and watchful against them.

Have these arguments had any influence with you? Have you any doubt, says he, that a coalition was entered into against me, when you see that Plancius and Plotius gained the votes of the majority of the tribes? But could they have acted in concert if the tribes did not give their votes in concert? But some of the tribes gave almost the very same number of votes for each of them. Yes, when at the preceding comitia those two had been already almost elected and declared. Although even that fact would not necessarily involve any suspicion of a coalition. For our ancestors would never have established a rule of casting lots for the aedileship, if they had not seen that it was possible that the competitors should have had an equal number of votes. [sect. 54] And you say that at the preceding comitia the tribe of the Anio was given up by Plotius to Pedius, and the Terentian tribe by Plancius to you; but now, that they are taken away from both Pedius and you, lest they should run the contest too fine. What a probable story it is, that before the inclination of the people was ascertained, those men, who you say had already joined their forces, should have thrown away their own tribes in order to assist you, and that the same men should afterwards have been close and stingy, when they had tried and found out how strong they were. They were afraid, I suppose, of a close contest. As if the matter could come to a close point, or as if there could be any danger. But nevertheless, do you bring the same charge against Aulus Plotius, a most [p. 127] accomplished man? or do you admit that you have only attacked the man who never requested you to spare him?²⁹ For as for your having complained that you had more witnesses concerning the case of the Voltinian tribe, than you had received votes in that tribe, you show by that, either that you are bringing forward those men as witnesses who passed you over because they had taken a bribe, or else that you could not get their votes though they were paid nothing for them.

Ch. 23 [sect. 55]

But as for that charge about the money which you say was seized in the Flaminian Circus, it made a great noise while the matter was recent, but now it has got quite cold. For you have never explained what money that was, nor what were the tribes which were to receive it, nor who was to distribute it to them. And he, indeed, who was then impeached on this account, being brought before the consuls complained that he had been shamefully treated by your partisans. For if he acted as the distributor of the money particularly for that man whom you were prosecuting, why was he also not prosecuted by you? Why did you get some appearance of a decision having been already come to in this cause by his conviction? But the fact is that you have no proofs to advance, nor do you place the slightest reliance on any. It is quite another motive and another consideration which has induced you to cherish the hope of crushing this man. You have great resources; very extensive influence many friends; many eager partisans; many favourers of your credit: many are envious of my client, to many too his father a most excellent man, appears to be too great a stickler for the freedom and privileges of the equestrian order. Many too are the common enemies of every defendant, men who always give their evidence on trials for bribery and corruption in such a way as if they could influence the minds of the judges by their evidence, or as if it were pleasing to the Roman people, and as if, on that account, they would the more easily attain that dignity which they are desirous of. [sect. 56] But you shall not see me, O judges, contending with those men in my former fashion; not because it is right for me to shirk anything which the safety of Plancius requires, but because it is neither necessary, that I should follow up that argument with my voice, [p. 128] which you already see with your mind; and because those very men whom I see already as witnesses, have deserved so well of me, that you ought to take upon your own prudence the task of reproving them, and to excuse my modesty from that task.

This one thing I beg and entreat of you, O judges, both for the sake of this man whom I am defending, and out of regard to the common danger; not to think that the fortunes of innocent men are to be placed at the mercy of reports which people falsely pretend that they have heard, or of vague and uncertain conversation. [sect. 57] Many friends of the prosecutor, some men, too, who are personal enemies of ours, many general and universal calumniators, and men who envy everybody, have invented heaps of things. But there is nothing which travels so fast as slander; nothing is more easily sent abroad, nothing is received more rapidly, nothing is spread more extensively. Nor will I, if you can ever trace the origin of a calumny, ever require you to disregard it or conceal it. But if anything gets abroad without a head, or if there be any report of such a nature that no author of it can be found; if he who has heard it appears to you either so careless as to have forgotten where he heard it; or if he knows his authority to be so insignificant that he is ashamed to confess that he recollects who he is,then I do beg of you not to let that common expression, I heard that [gap in text: * * * *] , injure an innocent man upon his trial.

Ch. 24 [sect. 58]

But I come now to Lucius Cassius, my own intimate friend, and I have not as yet made any complaint about that Juventius whom that young man, accomplished in every virtue and in every branch of polite learning, mentions in his speech, and says that he was the first man of the common people who was ever made a curule aedile. And with reference to that case, if, O Cassius, I were to reply to you that the Roman people knew nothing of that fact and that there is no one who can tell us anything about him, especially now that Longinus is dead, you would not wonder, I imagine, when I myself, who am not at all inclined to neglect the study of antiquity, confess that I first heard of this fact in this place, from your mouth. And since your oration was very elegant and very ingenious; worthy both of the learning and modesty of a Roman knight, and since you were listened to by these [p. 129] men with such attention as did great honour both to your abilities and to your character as a gentleman and a scholar, I will reply now to what you said, of which the greater part concerned me myself, and in which the very stings, if you did put out any in your reproof of me, were still not disagreeable to me. [sect. 59]

You asked me whether I thought that the road to the attainment of honours had been easier to me the son of a Roman knight, than it would be to my son, who was now of a consular family. But although I would rather that all good fortune fell to his lot than to my own, still I have never wished for him that the road to honour might be more easy to him than I have found it myself. Moreover, lest he should by chance think that I have procured him honours myself rather than pointed out to him the path by which he might arrive at them, I am accustomed to read him this lesson (although his age is not exactly the age to attend to instruction,) which the great son of Jupiter is represented teaching his children,
Men must always be vigilant; there are many snares in the path of virtuous men. You know the rest do you not?
That which many men envy [gap in text: * * * *] ³⁰ Which that wise and ingenious poet wrote not in order to excite those boys who were no longer in existence to toil and the desire of glory but to encourage us and our children in such pursuits. [sect. 60] You ask what more Plancius could have got if he had been the son of Cnaeus Scipio. He could not have been made an aedile more than he is; but he would have gained this, that he would not be so much envied. In truth the degrees of honour are equal in the case of the highest and the lowest citizens, but the glory of arriving at them is unequal.

Ch. 25

Who of us would call himself equal to Marcus Carius, or to Caius Fabricius or to Caius Duilius? Who reckons himself a match for Atilius Calatinius or for Cnaeus and Publius Scipio or for Africanus, Marcellus or Maximus? And yet we have arrived at the same degree of rank that they [p. 130] did. In truth, in virtue there are many steps; so that he is the most eminent in renown, who is the superior in virtue. The summit of the honours conferred by the people is the consulship. And by this time nearly eight hundred men have obtained that. And of this eight hundred, if you examine carefully, you will find hardly one tenth of the number worthy of such a preeminence. But yet no one ever went on as you do. Why is that man made consul? What could he have got more if he had been Lucius Brutus, who delivered the city from the tyranny of the kings? He could have got no higher rank certainly, but he would have much more glory. And in the same manner, therefore, Plancius has been made quaestor, and tribune of the people, and aedile, just as much as if he had been a man of the highest rank by birth; but a countless number of other men, born in the same rank as he, have also attained these honours. [sect. 61] You speak of the triumphs of Titus Didius, and Caius Marius; and ask what there is like these exploits in Plancius. As if those men whom you are speaking of obtained their magistracies because they had triumphed, and did not on the contrary triumph after having performed great achievements, because those magistracies were entrusted to them. You ask what campaigns he has served; when he was a soldier in Crete, while Metellus, who is here in court, was commander-in-chief, and military tribune in Macedonia; and when he was quaestor he only abstracted just so much time from his attention to his military duties as he thought it better to devote to protecting me.

[sect. 62] You ask whether he is an eloquent man. At all events, what is the next best thing to being so, he does not think himself one. Is he a lawyer? As if there were any one who complains that he has given him a false answer in a point of law. For all such acts as that are open to criticism in the case of men who, after they have professed an acquaintance with them, are unable to satisfy people's expectations; not in the case of men who confess that they have never paid any attention to those pursuits. What is usually required in a candidate is virtue, and honesty, and integrity, not volubility of tongue, or an acquaintance with any particular art or science. As we, when we are procuring slaves, are annoyed if we have bought a man as a smith or a plasterer, and find, [p. 131] however good a man he may be, that he knows nothing of those trades which we had in view in buying him; but if we have bought a man to give him charge of our property as steward, or to employ him to look after our stock, then we do not care for any other qualities in him except frugality, industry, and vigilance; so the Roman people elects magistrates to be as it were stewards of the republic, and if they are masters of some accomplishment besides, the people have no objection, but if not, they are content with their virtue and innocence. For how few men are eloquent; how few are skillful lawyers, even if you include all those in your calculation who wish to be so! But if no one else is worthy of honour, what on earth is to become of so many most virtuous and most accomplished citizens?

Ch. 26 [sect. 63]

You request Plancius to mention any faults of Laterensis. He cannot mention any, unless he thinks him too ill-tempered towards himself. At the same time you extol Laterensis highly yourself. I have no particular objection to your spending a number of words on what has nothing to do with the trial, and to your occupying so much time, while conducting the prosecution, in saying what I, who am the counsel for the defence can admit without any danger. And I do not only admit that every sort of high quality is to be found in Laterensis, but I even find fault with you, for not enumerating his chief excellences, but descending to look for trifling and insignificant subjects for panegyric. You say That he celebrated games at Praeneste. Well; have not other quaestors done the same? That at Cyrene he was liberal towards the farmers of the revenue, and just towards the allies. Who denies it? but so many important transactions take place at Rome, that it is difficult for those things which are done in the provinces to get heard of. [sect. 64] I have no fear, O judges, of appearing to assume too much credit to myself, if I speak of my own quaestorship. For although I got great credit in it, still I consider that I have been employed since that in the highest offices of the state, so that I have no need to seek for much glory from the credit I gained in my quaestorship; but still I do not fear that any one will venture to say that anybody's quaestorship in Sicily has been either more acceptable to the people, or has gained a higher reputation for the quaestor. Indeed, I can say this with truth, [p. 132] I, too, at that time thought that men at Rome were talking of nothing else except my quaestorship. At a time of great dearness, I had sent an immense quantity of corn to Rome. I had been affable to the traders, just to the merchants, liberal to the citizens of the municipal towns, moderate as regards the allies, and in every respect I appeared to have been most diligent in the discharge of every part of my duty. Some perfectly unheard-of honours were contrived for me by the Sicilians. [sect. 65] Therefore I left my province with the hope that the Roman people would come forward of its own accord to pay me every sort of honour. But when one day by chance at that time, I, on my road from the province, had arrived in the course of my journey at Puteoli, at a time which great numbers of the wealthiest men are accustomed to spend in that district, I almost dropped with vexation when some one asked me what day I had left Rome, and whether there was any news there. And when I had replied that I was on my road from my province, Oh yes, said he, from Africa, I suppose.

Ch. 27

On this, I, angry and disgusted, said, No; from Sicily. And then, some one else, with the air of a man who knew everything, said, What! do not you know that Cicero has been quaestor at Syracuse? I need not make a long story of it; I gave over being angry, and was content to be considered one of those who had come to Puteoli for the waters. [sect. 66] But I do not know, O judges, whether what happened then did not do me more good than if every one had congratulated me. For after I learnt from this that the people of Rome had deaf ears, but very sharp and active eyes, I gave up thinking what men would have said of me; but took care that they should every day see me in their presence: I lived in their sight; I stuck to the forum; neither my porter nor even sleep was allowed to prevent any one from having access to me. Need I say anything about my time which was devoted to business, when even my leisure time was never my own? For the very orations which you say, O Cassius, that you are in the habit of reading when you are at leisure, I wrote on days of festival and on holidays, so that I never was at leisure at all. In truth, I have always thought that saying of Marcus Cato, which he put at the head of his Origines, a splendid and admirable one: That eminent and great men ought to lay down a regular plan for their leisure [p. 133] as well as for their business. And, therefore, if I have any credit, I hardly know how much I have; it has all been acquired at Rome and earned in the forum. And public events have sanctioned my private counsels in such a way that even at home I have had to attend to the general interests of the republic, and to preserve the city while in the city. The same road, O Cassius, is open to Laterensis, the same path by virtue to glory. [sect. 67] And it will be the easier to him perhaps on this account that I have mounted up hither without having any family interest to push me on and relying solely on my self; but his admirable virtues will be assisted by the recommendation which the virtues of his ancestors supply him with.

However, to return to Plancius, he has never been absent from the city unless any lot which he may have drawn or some law, or some necessity compelled him to be so. He did not excel in those things in which some men perhaps do but he did excel in diligence, he did excel in paying attention to his friends, he did excel in liberality. He kept himself before men's eyes; he stood for offices; he has followed at all times that course of life by which, while there is less danger that way of incurring unpopularity, the greatest number of new men have attained the same honours which he has.

Ch. 28 [sect. 68]

For as to what you say, O Cassiusthat I am not under greater obligations to Plancius than I am to all good men, because my safety was equally dear to all of them,I confess that I am under obligations to all good men. But even those men to whom I am under obligations, good men and virtuous citizens, said at the comitia for the election of the aediles, that they themselves were under some obligations to Plancius on my account. However grant that I am under obligations to many people and among others to Plancius, ought it therefore to make me bankrupt; ought I not rather, when each man's turn comes, to pay them all this debt which I acknowledge, whenever it is demanded? Although, being in debt for money and for kindness are two different things. For the man who pays money, the moment he does so, no longer has that which he has paid, and he who owes is in debt. But the man who shows his gratitude by requiting a kindness, still preserves the feeling; and he who feels it, requites the kindness by the mere fact of his feeling it. Nor shall I cease to be under obligations to Plancius even if I requite his service [p. 134] to me now; [sect. 69] nor should I have been less grateful to him as far as my inclination went, if this trouble had not befallen him. You ask of me, O Cassius, what I could do more for my own brother, who is most dear to me,what I could do more for my own children, than whom nothing can be more delightful to me, than I am doing for Plancius? And you do not see that the very affection which I feel for them, stimulates and excites me to defend the safety of Plancius, too. For they have nothing more at heart than the safety of the man by whom they know that my safety was ensured; and I myself never look on them without recollecting that it is by his means that I was preserved to them, and remembering his great services done to me.

You relate that Opimius was condemned, though he himself had been the saviour of the republic. You add to him Calidius, by whose law Quintus Metellus was restored to the state; and you find fault with my prayers on behalf of Cnaeus Plancius, because Opimius was not released on account of his services, nor Calidius on account of those of Quintus Metellus.

Ch. 29

As for Calidius, I will only state this in answer to you, which I saw myself. That Quintus Metellus Pius, when consul, at the comitia for the election of praetors, for which office Quintus Calidius was standing, addressed supplications to the Roman people, and did not hesitatethough he was consul at the time, and a man of the very highest rankto call him his patron and the patron of his most noble family. [sect. 70]

And now I ask of you whether you think that, if Calidius had been on his trial, Metellus Pius, if he had been able to be at Rome, or his father, if he had been alive, would have done for him what I am doing on the trial of Cnaeus Plancius? I wish, indeed, that the misfortune of Opimius could be eradicated from men's memories. But it is to be considered as a wound inflicted on the republic, as a disgrace to this empire, as the infamy of the Roman people, and not as a judicial verdict. For what more terrible blow could those judgesif indeed they deserve to be called judges, and not parricides of their countryinflict on the republic, than they did when they drove that man out of the state, who as praetor had delivered the republic from a war waged against it by its neighbours, and as consul, from one carried on against it by its own citizens? [p. 134]

[sect. 71] But you say that I make out the kindness done me by Plancius to have been greater than it really was, and as you say, I exaggerate it in speaking of it as if I were bound to regulate my gratitude by your estimate and not by my own. What great service was it after all that he did you? Was it that he did not put you to death? Say rather that he prevented me from being put to death. And, while speaking on this point, O Cassius, you even acquitted my enemies and said that no plots had been laid by them against my life. And Laterensis advanced the same assertion. Wherefore I will presently say a little more on that head. At present I only ask of you whether you think it was but a slight hatred which my enemies had conceived against me? Did any barbarians ever entertain such savage and cruel feelings against an open enemy? Or do you suppose that there was in those men any regard for fame or any fear of punishment when you saw them during the whole of that year brandishing their swords in the forum, menacing the temples with conflagration, and disturbing the whole city with their violence? Unless, perhaps, you think that they spared my life because they had no apprehension of my return. Do you think that there was any one so wholly destitute of sense as not to think that if these men were permitted to live, and if the city and the senate-house were allowed to remain standing, I also ought certainly to be restored if I too remained alive? Wherefore you, being such a man and such a citizen as you are, ought not to say that my enemies were too moderate to attack my life, when the fact is that it was preserved by the fidelity of my friends.

Ch. 30 [sect. 72]

I will now reply to you, O Laterensis, perhaps less vigorously than I have been attacked by you and certainly in a manner not more destitute of consideration for, or of friendly feeling towards you than your manner was towards me. For in the first place that was rather a harsh thing for you to say, that in what I was saying about Plancius I was speaking falsely, and inventing statements to suit the emergency. I suppose, forsooth, I, like a wise man, planned how I might appear bound to another by the greatest bonds of kindness and gratitude when I was in reality a free man and under no obligation at all. Why need I have done so? Had I not plenty of reasons besides for defending Plancius? were [p. 136] not my own intimacy with him, my neighbourhood to him, and my friendship for his father, sufficiently cogent motives? And even if they had not existed, I had reason to fear, I suppose, lest I should be doing a discreditable thing in defending a man of his high respectability and worth. It must have been a very clever idea of mine to pretend that I owed everything to that man who was about to owe everything to me! But this is a thing which even common soldiers do against their will, and they are reluctant to give a civic crown to a citizen, and to confess that they have been saved by any one; not because it is discreditable to have been protected in battle, or to be saved out of the hands of the enemy, (for in truth that is a thing which can only happen to a brave man, and to one fighting hand to hand with the enemy,) but they dread the burden of the obligation, because it is an enormous thing to be under the same obligation to a stranger that one is to a parent. [sect. 73] But because others deny kindnesses which they have received, even when they are of less importance, in order not to appear under any obligation, am I on that account speaking falsely, when I say that I am bound to a man by his previous services done to me, for which it is quite impossible for me to make any adequate return? Are you ignorant of this, O Laterensis?you who being, as you were, a great friend of mine, and willing to share with me even the danger with which my life was at that time threatened,when you had escorted me in that hope of my sad and bitter agony and departure from the city not only with your tears, but also with your courage and your person, and with all your resources,when you had in my absence defended with all your means, and all your power of protection, my children and my wife, were always pressing this statement upon me, that you willingly allowed and granted that I should employ all my zeal in contributing to the honour of Cnaeus Plancius because you said that the services which he had done me were acceptable to you yourself also. [sect. 74]

And is not even that oration, which is the first which I made in the senate after my return, a proof that I am saying nothing new now,nothing just to meet the emergency? For as in that I returned thanks to very few by name, because it was quite impossible to enumerate all those who had served me, (and it would have been a crime to press over any [p. 137] one,) and because I had therefore laid down a rule for myself to name those men only who had been the leaders and standard-bearers as it were in our cause; still among them I returned thanks to Plancius by name. Let the oration be readwhich, on account of the importance of the business was pronounced from a written paper, in which I, cunning fellow that I must have been, gave myself up to a man to whom I was under no very great obligation and bound myself to the slavery of this duty which I am now discharging by this undying testimony against myself. I do not wish to recite the other things which I committed to writing. I pass them over, that I may not seem to bring them up now on this emergency, or to avail myself of that description of learning which appears to be more suitable to my private studies than to the usages of courts of justice.

Ch. 31 [sect. 75]

And you keep crying out, O Laterensis, How long are you going to keep on saying this? You did no good in the case of Cispius; people have got tired of your entreaties. Will you object to me what I did in the case of Cispius, who had indeed deserved well of me, but whom I defended, having you for a witness in his favour, and at your especial request? And will you say How long to a man who you say was unable to obtain what he begged on behalf of Cispius? For to say How long to a man who exerted himself for one friend alone and who did not succeed in his object is rather like laughing at a person than reproving him, unless perhaps, I, above all other men, have behaved in such a manner in the courts of justice, have lived in such a manner with those men who are the judges and among themunless I am such an advocate of defendants on their trial and unless I am, and always have been, such a citizen in the republic, as to deserve to he held up by you as the only person who never ought to obtain anything from the judges by my entreaties. [sect. 76]

And then you object to me a tear which I shed at the trial of Cispius. For this is what you said I saw your tear. See now how I repent of having given you cause to say so. You might have seen not only a tear but many tears, and weeping and sobbing. Was I to abstain from showing my grief at the danger of a man who was so far moved by the tears of my family in my absence that he laid aside the enmity which he had conceived against me, and was not only [p. 138]no opposer of my safety, (as my enemies had expected that he would have been,) but was even a great defender of it? [sect. 77] And you, O Laterensis, who then said that my tears were a grateful sight, now wish to found an accusation against me on them.

Ch. 32

You say that the tribuneship of Plancius did not bring any assistance to my dignity. And in this place, (as you can do with the greatest truth,) you enumerate the godlike services done to me by Lucius Racilius, a most gallant and sensible man. And I never have concealed, and I shall at all times openly assert, that I am under the very greatest obligations to him, as I am to Cnaeus Plancius; for he never thought any contest, or any enmity, or any danger even of his life too great for him to encounter for the sake of my welfare, or of that of the republic. And I wish that the Roman people were not prevented by the violence and injustice of wicked men from proving to him their gratitude by their acts, and measuring it by the extent of my own. But if Plancius did not make the same exertions in my favour when he was tribune, you ought to think, not that his inclination was wanting, but that I, being already under such vast obligations to Plancius, was now content with the services of Racilius. [sect. 78]

Do you think that the judges will be the less inclined to do anything for my sake, because you accuse me of gratitude? Or, when the senators themselves, in that resolution of the senate which was passed in the monument of Marius,³¹ in which my safety was recommended to all nations, returned thanks to Plancius alone, (for he was the only defender of my safety, of all the magistrates or vice-magistrates, to whom the senate thought it proper to return thanks on my behalf,) shall I think that I myself am not bound to show my gratitude to him? And when you see all these things, what do you suppose must be my feelings towards you, O Laterensis? Do you think that there is any danger, or any labour, or any [p. 139] contest of so arduous a nature that I would shun it if it could advance not only your safety, but even your dignity? And I am so much the more, I will not say miserable, (for that is an expression which is inconsistent with the character of a virtuous man) but severely tried not because I am under obligations to many people, (for gratitude for kindness received is a very light burden) but because circumstances often happen, on account of the quarrels of some men who have deserved well of me with one another which make me fear that it is impossible for me to appear grateful to them all at the same time. [sect. 79] But I must weigh in my own scales not only what I owe to each individual, but also of what importance the case is to each person, and what the necessities of each require of me at the particular moment.

Ch. 33

What is at stake now on your part is this,your eager wishes, or even, if you like, your reputation and the glory of the aedileship. But on the side of Cnaeus Plancius, it is his safety, his rights as a Roman and a citizen which are in peril. You wished me to be safe; he even ensured every safety by his actions. Yet I am torn asunder and rent in pieces by griefI do grieve that in a contest where the stakes are so unequal, you should be offended by my conduct, but, I declare most solemnly, I would much rather endanger my own safety on your behalf than abandon the safety of Cnaeus Plancius to your hostility in this contest. [sect. 80] In truth, O judges, while I wish to be adorned with every virtue, yet there is nothing which I can esteem more highly than the being and appearing grateful. For this one virtue is not only the greatest, but is also the parent of all the other virtues. What is filial affection, but a grateful inclination towards one's parents?who are good citizens, who are they who deserve well of their country both in war and at home but they who recollect the kindness which they have received from their country?who are pious men who are men attentive to religious obligations, but they who with proper honours and with a grateful memory acquit themselves to the immortal gods of the gratitude which they owe to them?what pleasure can there be in life, if friendships be taken away?and, moreover, what friendship can exist between ungrateful people? [sect. 81] Who of us has been liberally educated, by whom his bringers up, and his teachers, and his governors, and even [p. 140] the very mute place itself in which he has been brought up and taught, are not preserved in his mind with a grateful recollection?who ever can have, or who ever had such resources in himself as to be able to stand without many acts of kindness on the part of many friends?and yet no such acts can possibly exist, if you take away memory and gratitude. I, in truth, think nothing so much the peculiar property of man, as the quality of being bound, not only by a kindness received, but by even the intimation of good-will towards one; and I think nothing so inconsistent with one's idea of a mannothing so barbarous or so brutalas to appear, I will not say unworthy of, but surpassed by kindness.

[sect. 82] And as this is the case, I will succumb, O Laterensis, to your accusation; and in that very particular in which there cannot by any possibility be any excess,namely, in gratitude, I will confess that I have gone to excess, since you insist upon it that it is so. And I will entreat you, O judges, to bind that man to you by a kindness, in whom the only fault that those who blame him find with him is that they accuse him of being immoderately grateful. And that ought not to prevail with you so as to make you think lightly of my gratitude, when he said that you were neither guilty men nor litigious men, so that there was the less reason for your allowing me any great influence over you: as if in my intercourse with my friends I did not always prefer that these abilities of mine (if indeed I have any abilities) should be at the service of my friends, rather than they should become necessary to them. In truth, I do venture to say this of myself, that my friendship has been a pleasure to more men than those to whom it has been a protection; and I should greatly repent of my past life; if there was no room in my friendship for any one who was not either a litigious person or a guilty one.

Ch. 34 [sect. 83]

But somehow or other you have repeated over and over again, and have dwelt upon the assertion, that you did not choose to connect this case with the games, lest I, according to my usual custom, should say something about the sacred cars, for the sake of exciting pity; as I had done before in the case of other aediles. No doubt you got something by this; for you deprived me of an embellishment of my speech. I shall be laughed at now if I make any mention [p. 141] of the sacred cars, after you have predicted that I should do so. And without the sacred cars what can I find to say? And here you added, too, that this was the reason why I by my law had established the penalty of banishment in cases of bribery, that I might be able to sum up my orations in ways more calculated to excite pity. Does he not, when he says all this, seem to you to be arguing against some teacher of declamation, and not with one who is a pupil, as I may say, of the real toils of the forum? [sect. 84] Yes, for I was not at Rhodes, says he (He means that I was) But I was, says he, (I thought he was going to say, at Vacca,³² ) twice at Nicaea, in Bithynia If the place gives a person any handle for finding fault with one, I know not why you should think Nicaea stricter than Rhodes if we are to examine into the cause, then you were in Bithynia with the greatest credit, and I was at Rhodes with no less. For as to the point on which you found fault with me, namely, that I had defended too many people, I wish that you who are able to do it and others too, who shirk it, were willing to relieve me of this labour. But the effect of your diligence, who weigh causes so carefully that you reject almost all of them, is that nearly all causes come to me who am not able to deny anything to men who are in misery and distress. [sect. 85]

You reminded me also, since you had been in Crete that something might have been said against your offering yourself as a candidate, and that I let that opportunity slip. Which of us, then, is more covetous of a smart saying? I, who did not say what might have been said, or you, who said it even against yourself? You were fond of saying that you had sent home no letters with accounts of your exploits, because mine, which I had sent to some one or other, had injured me. But I am not aware that they did injure me I am quite sure that they might have been of service to the republic.

Ch. 35 [sect. 86]

These things are, however, of but little importance; but those points are serious and weighty, that you wish now to find fault with, and in an underhand manner, to accuse my departure from the city, which you had often wept over. For you have said that assistance was not wanting to me, but that I was wanting to those who were willing to assist me. But I confess that, because I saw that aid was not wanting to me, I did on that account spare that aid; for who is there who does not know what was the state of things at that time.what danger and what a storm there was in the republic? Was it fear of the tribunes, or was it the frenzy of the consuls which influenced me? Was it a very formidable thing for me to fight with the sword with the relics of those men, whom, when they were flourishing with their strength unimpaired, I had defeated without the sword? The basest and most infamous consuls in the memory of man,as both the beginning of their conduct and as their recent termination of those affairs, show them to have been, (one of whom lost his army, and the other sold it,)having bought their provinces, had deserted the senate, and the republic, and all good men. When no one knew what were the feelings of those men who by means of their armies, and their arms, and their riches, were the most powerful men in the state, then that voice, rendered insane by its infamous debaucheries, made effeminate by its attendance on holy altars, kept crying out in a most ferocious manner that both these men and the consuls were acting in concert with him.

Needy men were armed against the rich, abandoned men against the good, slaves against their masters. [sect. 87] The senate was with me, even changing its garments in token of the danger; a measure which was adopted by public resolution for no one else except myself in the memory of man. But recollect who were then our enemies with the name of consuls. The only men since the city was built who ever prevented the senate from complying with a resolution of the senate, and who by their edict took away, not indeed grief, from the conscript fathers, but the power of deciding on the reasons for their grief. The whole equestrian order was with me; whom, indeed, that dancing consul of Catiline's used to frighten in the assemblies of the people with menaces of proscription. All Italy was assembled, and terrified with fear of civil war and devastation.

Ch. 36

I admit, O Laterensis, that I might have availed myself of these assistants, zealous in my behalf, and in a state of great excitement as they were. But the contest must have been decided not by right, nor by the laws, nor by argument; [p. 143] for, in truth, that assistance of my own, which has often been placed so readily at the disposal of others, would not especially in so good a cause have been wanting to me myself. We must have fought with armsyes, with arms I say; and it would have been destruction to the republic for arms to have been employed by slaves and leaders of slaves for the slaughter of the senate and of the virtuous citizens. [sect. 88]

I confess that it would have been a fine thing for the wicked to have been conquered by the good, if I could have seen the end of the victory (which, in truth I could not). For where should I have found to stand by me so brave a consul as Lucius Opimius or as Caius Marius or as Lucius Flaccus? under whom, as her leaders, the republic did put down wicked men with armed citizens, or if I could not get men as fearless as those, yet where could I find men as just as Publius Mucius, who, after Tiberius Gracchus had been slain, defended Publius Scipio and asserted that the aims which he as a private individual had taken up, had been taken up in strict accordance with the law? We, then, should have had to fight with the consuls. I say no more, except this one thing; I saw that there were formidable adversaries ready to dispute the victory with us, and no one who would avenge us if we fell. [sect. 89] If, then, I was wanting to these aids to the cause of my safety, because I was unwilling to do battle for it, I will then confess, as you say, that assistance was not wanting to me, but that I myself was wanting to the assistance which I had. But if, the greater I saw the zeal of good men in my behalf, the more I thought it my duty to consult their interests and to spare them, do you find fault with me for the same conduct which was considered a credit to Quintus Metellus and which is to this day, and always will be, his greatest glory? for it is well knownas you may hear from many who were present at the timethat he departed greatly against the will of all good men; and there is not the slightest doubt that he would have had the best of it if they had come to a struggle and a trial of arms. Therefore, though he was defending his own actions, and not those of the senate, though it was his own opinion that he was resolutely upholding and not the welfare of the republic,still when he endured that voluntary wound he surpassed in glory and credit the justest and most illustrious triumphs of all the Metelli; because he would not be the [p. 144] cause of even those wickedest of citizens being slain, and because he provided against the danger of any good man being involved in their slaughter. And should I,seeing such great danger before us, as, if I were defeated, the total destruction of the republic must ensue, and if I got the better, an endless contest would follow, should I, I say, give any one reason to style me the destroyer of the republic, after having been its saviour?

Ch. 37 [sect. 90]

You say that I was afraid of death. But I should think it wrong to accept even immortality at the expense of the welfare of the republic; much less should I be willing to die, if by that means I was to damage the commonwealth. For as for those men who have given up their lives for the sake of the state, (although you may say that I am talking foolishly,) I have never considered that they had met with death so much as with immortality. But if I had at that time fallen by the weapons and hands of wicked men, the republic would for ever have lost the civil guardian of its safety. Moreover, if any violence of disease, or if nature itself had carried me off, still the resources of posterity would have been diminished, because by my death the opportunity would have been lost of showing what great zeal of the senate and people of Rome was to be exerted in retaining me. Should I, if I had ever had any extravagant fondness for life, have challenged the weapons of all those parricides in the month of December of the year of my consulship, when, if I had remained quiet for twenty days longer, they would all have fallen on the vigilance of other consuls? Wherefore, if fondness for life when contrary to the interests of the republic is shameful, at all events a desire for death in my case, which must have been accompanied with injury to the state, would have been more shameful still.

[sect. 91] For as for your boasting that you were a free man in the republic, I confess that you are, and I rejoice at it, and I also congratulate you on that account; but as for your denying that I am free also, as to that particular I will neither allow you nor any one else to continue in your mistake any longer.

Ch. 38

For if any one thinks that my independence has suffered any diminution, because I do not now differ in opinion with all those same men with whom I was formerly accustomed to differ; in the first place, if I show myself grateful [p. 145] to those who have deserved well of me, I do not cease to be attacked with the accusation of being a man of too good a memory, and too grateful. But if, without any injury to the republic, I sometimes show a regard to my own safety and that of my family, at all events I not only do not deserve to be blamed for this, but, even if I were to wish myself to run on ruin, there are good men who would entreat me not to do so.

[sect. 92] But the republic itself, if it were able to speak, would plead with me, that as I had always served her interests, and never my own, and as I had received a reward from her not such as I ought, rich and abundant, but mingled with exceeding bitterness, now at length to serve myself, and to consult the interests of my family; and would urge not only that she herself had received enough from me, but that she even feared that she had made me but an inadequate return for all the services which I had rendered her.

[sect. 93] But what will you say if I think nothing of all these things, and if I persevere in the same course in the republic which I have always pursued? will you still ask what is become of my independence? which you make to consist in the fact of our struggling for ever with any one with whom we have at any time had a contest. But this is all nonsense; for we ought at all times to act as if we were standing in some revolving orb of the republic, and as that turns round we ought to choose that part to which the advantage and safety of the republic direct us.

Ch. 39

But I do not call Cnaeus Pompeius the author, and prime cause, and defender of my safety, (for these things demand perhaps a recollection of the kindness and gratitude for it from a man in his private capacity,) but I say this, which has reference to the common welfare of the republic; should not I defend that man whom every one admits to be the first man in the republic? should I be wanting to the praises of Caius Caesar, when I see them celebrated first of all by numerous and most honourable decisions of the Roman people, and now too by those of the senate, to which body I have always devoted myself? In that case, in truth, I should confess that I had never formed any opinion with reference to the welfare of the republic, but that I was guided solely by my friendship for or enmity towards particular persons. [sect. 94] [p. 146]

When I see a ship holding on its course with favourable winds, if it does not proceed towards that port which I at one time thought best, but to some other no less safe and tranquil than that, shall I rather strive with the tempest even at the risk of danger, instead of yielding to it and being guided by it, especially when there is a hope of safety in such a line of conduct? But I have learnt these principles, I have seen and read them in books, written records have handed down to us these memorials of wise and most illustrious men, both in this republic and in other cities, and show that the same opinions have not at all times been upheld by the same men, but that they have adopted whatever sentiments the constitution of the republic, the state of affairs at the time, and the considerations of peace and concord pointed out as desirable. And this is what I am doing, O Laterensis, and what I always shall do; and the independence which you profess to look for in me, and which I have never lost, I never will lose, and yet on the other hand I will not believe it to consist in obstinacy, but in moderation.

Ch. 40 [sect. 95]

Now I come to your last assertion, when you said that, while I was extolling so highly the services which Plancius had done me, I was making a castle out of a sewer, and worshipping a stone taken from a sepulchre as a god; and that I had never been in the least danger of any one forming plots against me, or of death. And therefore I will in a few words, and not reluctantly, explain the circumstances of that time. For there is nothing that has happened during my lifetime which has got abroad less, or which has been seldomer talked about by me, or which has been less heard of and which is less commonly known by men in general. For I, O Laterensis,on departing from that general conflagration of laws and justice, and the senate, and all good men, at a time when my house threatened while burning itself to set fire to the city and to all Italy, if I did not remain perfectly quiescent,I, I say, intended to proceed to Sicily, which was all united like one family in my favour, and which was at that time governed by Caius Virgilius, with whom I was most intimately connected both by the long duration of our acquaintance, and by friendship, and by his belonging to some of the same guilds as my brother, and by our common attachment to the republic. [sect. 96] See, now, the blackness of those times. When the [p. 147] very island itselfI may almost saywished to come forward to meet me, that praetor, repeatedly harassed as he was by the harangues and attacks of that same tribune of the people, on account of his attachment to the republic, would not consent (I will not use a stronger term) to my coming to Sicily. What shall I say? Shall I say that Caius Virgilius, that that excellent citizen and man had forgotten his regard for me, the recollection of the days of our companionship, and all regard for piety, humanity, and good faith? Nothing of the sort, O judges, was the case; he was only afraid that he might not be able by his own unassisted strength to make a stand against that tempest which we even, when supported by you, had been unable to encounter. Then, my plans being thus suddenly changed, I determined to proceed by land from Vibo to Brundusium, for the severity of the weather prevented any attempt at proceeding by sea.

Ch. 41 [sect. 97]

As all those municipal towns which are between Vibo and Brundusium were in my interest, O judges, they, though many people threatened me, and though they were in great alarm themselves, rendered my journey safe to me. I arrived at Brundusium, or, I should rather say, I arrived outside the walls. I avoided entering the city which was of all others the most friendly to me and which would have allowed itself to be destroyed before it would have permitted me to be torn from its embrace. I went to the villa of Marcus Laenius Flaccus; and though he had every sort of fear before his eyes,though he was threatened with confiscation of his property, and exile and death, yet he chose to encounter all these things, if they were to happen rather than abandon the design of protecting my life. I, placed by his hands and by those of his father, a most sensible and virtuous man, and by those of his brother and both his sons in a safe and trustworthy ship, and being escorted by their prayers and vows for my return, departed thence to go to Dyrrachium, which was devoted to my interests. [sect. 98] And when I had come thither, I ascertainedas indeed I had heard beforethat Greece was full of wicked and abandoned men, whose impious weapons and destructive firebrands my consulship had wrested from their hands. And before they could hear that I had arrived in those districts, and although they were many days' journey from them, I proceeded into Macedonia to Plancius. But as [p. 148] soon as ever Plancius heard that I had crossed the sea.(listen, listen, I say, and take notice, O Laterensis, that you may know how much I owe to Plancius, and that you may confess at last that what I am doing I am doing out of proper gratitude and piously; and that the trouble which he took for my safety, if it is not to do him any good, ought at all events not to be any injury to him,)as soon, I say, as he heard that I had arrived at Dyrrachium, he immediately came to me himself, without his lictors, without any of the insignia of his office, and with his robe changed for one of morning. [sect. 99]

Oh, how bitter to me, O judges, is the recollection of that time and place, when he fell on my neck, when he embraced me, and bedewed me with his tears, and was unable to speak for grief! O circumstance cruel to be heard of, and impious to be beheld! O all the remainder of those days and nights during which he never left me, until he had conducted me to Thessalonica, and to his official house as quaestor! Here I will say nothing at present about the praetor of Macedonia, beyond this, that he was always a most excellent citizen, and a friend to me; but that he felt the same fear that the rest did; and that Cnaeus Plancius was the only manI will not say, who had no such fearbut who, even if those things were to happen which were dreaded, was willing to encounter and endure them in my company and for my sake. [sect. 100] For even when Lucius Tubero, my intimate friend, who had been lieutenant to my brother, had come to me on his return from Asia, and had revealed to me in the most friendly spirit the treacherous designs which he heard were formed against me by the banished conspirators, and when I was preparing therefore to go into Asia on account of the connection subsisting between that province and my brother and myself, he would not allow me to depart. He, Plancius, I say, detained me by force and by a close embrace, and for many months never departed from me, discarding his character as a quaestor and assuming that of my companion.

Ch. 42 [sect. 101]

O what miserable nights of watching did you pass, O Cnaeus Plancius! O what tearful vigils! O what bitter nights! O what a miserable task was that which you undertook of protecting my life! if I, now that I am alive, am unable to be of any service to you, though perhaps I might have been of some if I had been dead. For I recollect, I [p. 149] well recollect, and I never shall forget, that night when I, miserable man that I was, and led on by ungrounded hopes, made you who were watching over me, and sitting by me, and lamenting, some vain and empty promises. I promised that, if I were restored to my country, then I would in person show my gratitude; but, if chance deprived me of life, or if any greater violence prevented my return, then I undertook that these men, these whom we see here, (for what others could I then be thinking of?) would make you a fitting return on my behalf, for all your exertions. Why do you fix your eyes upon me now? Why do you claim the performance of my promise? Why do you implore my observance of good faith? I was not promising you at that time anything from my own resources, but from the good-will of these men towards me. I saw that these men were mourning for me; that they were groaning for me; that they were willing to do battle in defence of my rights and safety, even at the hazard of their own livesI, as well as you, was hearing every day of the regret, and grief, and complaints of these men; and now I fear that I may be able to make you no other return beyond tears, of which you yourself shed plenty for my distresses. [sect. 102] For what can I do more than grieve? more than weep? more than consider your safety bound up with my own? The same men who gave me safety are the only men who have the power to give it to you. But I (rise up and stand forward, I beg you,) will cling to you and embrace you; and I will profess myself, not only one who prays to the judges to protect your fortunes, but one who will be your companion and partner in them. And, as I hope, no one will be of so cruel and inhuman a disposition, nor so unmindfulI will not say of the services which I have done the good, but of the services which the good have done meas to tear away and separate the saviour of my very existence as a citizen from me. I beg of you, O judges, to save a man who has been, not loaded with kindnesses by me, but the guardian of my safety. I am not striving in his behalf with wealth, and authority, and influence; but with prayers, and tears, and appeals to your mercy. And his unhappy and most virtuous father, whom you see before you, joins his entreaties to mine; we, being as it were two parents of his, pray your mercy for our one son. [sect. 103]

Do not, O judges, I entreat you in the name of yourselves, [p. 150] of your fortunes, and of your children, give joy to my enemies, especially to those whom I have made my enemies by labouring for your safety, by allowing them to boast that you have by this time forgotten me, and that you have shown yourselves enemies to the safety of the man by whom my safety was ensured. Do not crush my spirit not only with grief, but also with fear that your kind regard for myself is altered; allow me to pay the man from you, that which I repeatedly promised him because I relied on you. [sect. 104]

And you, O Caius Flavius,³³ you I beg and entreatyou who were the partner of my counsels during my consulship, and the sharer of my dangers, and my assistant in the exploits which I performed; and who have at all times wished me to be not only safe, but prosperous also and flourishing,I entreat you, I say, to preserve for me, by the instrumentality of these men, that man to whom it is owing that you see me preserved to them and to you. It is not only my own tears, but yours also, O Flavius, and yours too, O judges, that hinder me from saying more: and by them Ithough I am in a state of great apprehensionam induced to hope that you will show yourselves the same men with reference to the saving of Plancius that you did in my case; since by those tears which I now behold, I am reminded of those which you so repeatedly and abundantly shed for my sake.

THE SPEECH OF M. T. CICERO IN DEFENCE OF PUBLIUS SESTIUS.

THE ARGUMENT.

Publius Sestius, when tribune of the people, had been one of those who had exerted themselves most strenuously to promote Cicero's recall, and had shown himself most devoted to his interest, though some coolness had sprung up between them afterwards owing to Sestius's thinking that Cicero was not sufficiently sensible of his obligations to him. Having, however, become very obnoxious to all the friends of Catiline's party, Clodius instigated Marcus Tullius Albonovanus to prosecute him on an accusation of having been guilty of violence and breaches of the peace during his tribunate and they both expected that Cicero would be neutral in the cause, but he went of his own accord to Sestius, and offered to undertake his defence. Pompeius attended this trial as a friend to Sestius, but Caesar sent his friend Vatinius to give evidence against him. (See the next speech.)

This speech was delivered A. U. C. 698.

Sestius was unanimously acquitted.

If any one in times past, O judges, was used to wonder what was the reason why in a republic of such power, and in an empire of such dignity, there were not found any great number of citizens endowed with so fearless and magnanimous a spirit as to dare to expose themselves and their personal safety to danger on behalf of the constitution of the state and of the general liberty; from henceforward he must wonder if he ever sees any virtuous or intrepid citizens, rather than if he occasionally finds one timid, and caring more for his own interests than for those of the republic. For without calling to mind and considering the case of each separate individual, you can see at one survey those men who joined the senate and all virtuous citizens in raising up our afflicted country, and delivering it from a horde of domestic robbers, now with sad countenances and mourning garments struggling as defendants for their freedom, for their characters, for their rights as citizens, for their fortunes, and for their children; and those who have polluted, and attacked, and thrown into confusion, [p. 152] and overturned all divine and human laws, going about the city merry and joyful, and, while they are without any provocation, contriving danger for the bravest and best of the citizens, in no fear whatever for themselves.

[sect. 2] And though there is much that is scandalous in such a state of things, yet is there nothing more intolerable than that they now seek to employ not their bands of robbers, not men desperate through want and wickedness, but you yourselves, the best men in the city, for the purpose of bringing us and other most virtuous men into danger. And they now think that, as they were unable to destroy them by stones, and swords, and firebrands, by violence, and personal force, and armed bands, they will be able to effect their purpose through the instrumentality of your authority, your integrity, and your judicial decisions.

But, O judges, since I am compelled now to exert that voice in order to ward off danger from them, which I had hoped to be able to devote to returning thanks to, and to commemorating the kindness of those men who have conferred the greatest services on me, I entreat you to allow that voice to be useful to them to whose exertions it is owing that it has been restored at all to myself, and to you and to the Roman people.

Ch. 2 [sect. 3]

And although the case of Publius Sestius has been summed up by Quintus Hortensius, that most illustrious and most eloquent man; and though nothing has been omitted by him which he could possibly urge either in the way of complaint over the condition of the republic, or of argument for the defendant; still I will come forward also to speak for him, lest my exertions in defence should appear to be wanting to that man to whom it is owing that they are not wanting to every one of the citizens. And I consider, O judges, that in this case, and now speaking as I am at the close of it, the part which belongs to me is to argue the matter on grounds of affection, rather than to defend my client by an appeal to the strict law; to employ complaints rather than eloquence, and to display my grief rather than my ability. [sect. 4] And, therefore, if I plead with more vehemence or more freedom than those who have spoken before me, I beg of you to listen to my speech with much indulgence, and to make all the allowance for it that you think is due to pious grief and just [p. 153] indignation. For no man's grief can be more intimately connected with his duty than this present grief of mine, being caused as it is by the peril of a man who has done me the greatest possible services. Nor is any indignation more praiseworthy than that with which I am inflamed by the wickedness of those men, who have thought it their business to declare war against all the defenders of my safety. [sect. 5] But since his other counsel have spoken of each separate charge, I will speak of the entire state of the case as affecting Publius Sestius of his conduct throughout his life of his natural disposition, of his habits, of his incredible affection for all good men, of his zeal for the preservation of the general safety and tranquillity; and I will endeavourif it be only possible for me to succeedto prevent anything, in all this miscellaneous and general defence, from appearing omitted by me which has any connection either with this investigation before you, or with the defendant, or with the republic.

And since the tribuneship of Publius Sestius was placed by fortune itself in the most critical period of the state, and amid the ruins of the overthrown and prostrate republic, I will not approach those most important and serious topics before I have first shown you by what beginnings, and on what foundations, the great glory was built up which he gained under the most trying circumstances.

Ch. 3 [sect. 6]

Publius Sestius, O judges, was born (as most of you know) of a wise and conscientious and strict father, who, after he had been appointed as the first tribune of the people among a number of most noble men and in a prosperous time of the republic, was not so eager to obtain the other honours of the state as to seem worthy of them. By the advice of that father, he married the daughter of a most honourable and thoroughly tried man Caius Albinus by whom he had this boy whom you see here, and a daughter who is now married. My client was so highly esteemed by these two men of the highest class of old-fashioned virtue, that he was beyond all things beloved by and agreeable to both of them. The death of his daughter took away from Albinus the name of his father-in-law, but it did not take away the affection and good-will engendered by that connection. And to this very day he is very fond of him, as you may judge by his constant attendance here, and by his anxiety for him, and by his [p. 154] frequent solicitations to you on his behalf. [sect. 7] He married a second wife, while his father was still alive, the daughter of a most virtuous but most unfortunate man, Caius³⁴ Scipio. And with respect to this man, the piety of Publius was shown in a most remarkable way, and one acceptable to all men, for he immediately went to Massilia³⁵ to see and comfort his father-in-law, cast out as he was by the waves of the republic, lying in a foreign land, a man who ought to have stood in the footsteps of his ancestors. And he conducted his daughter to him, in order to induce him, by that unexpected sight and embrace, to lay aside, if not all, at least some part of his sorrow; and as long as he lived he supported with the most unceasing attentions the sorrow of the father and the desolate condition of his daughter.

I might here say a great deal about his liberality, his attention to his domestic duties, his conduct as military tribune, and his great moderation in his province in the discharge of the duty of that magistracy; but I keep always in my view the dignity of the republic, which summons me to the consideration of herself, and exhorts me to pass over these minor points.

[sect. 8] My client, O judges, was indeed, by lot the quaestor of Caius Antonius, my colleague, but by his sharing in all my counsels he was in effect mine. I am prevented by scruples concerning the pledge of confidence, as I interpret it, under which such duties are performed, from explaining to you how much information he brought to me, and what great foresight he displayed. And of Antonius I will only say this one thing; that in that time of exceeding fear and danger to the state, he never once attempted either to remove by any denial or to allay by any concealment the general apprehensions of all men, or the especial suspicion conceived by some persons with respect to himself. And if you were accustomed with truth, while I was occupied in supporting and restraining that colleague of mine, to praise my indulgence to him, united as it was with the greatest watchfulness over the interests of the republic, almost equal praise ought to be given to Publius Sestius, who kept such a watch on his own consul that he [p. 155] seemed to him to be a good quaestor, and to all of you to be a most excellent citizen.

Ch. 4 [sect. 9]

Moreover, when that conspiracy had burst forth from its hiding place and from darkness, and stalked about in arms through the city, he came with the army to Capua; which city we suspected, on account of its exceeding resources and advantages in time of war, was likely to have attempts made on it by that impious and wicked band. And he drove Marcus Aulanus, a military tribune devoted to Antonius, headlong out of Capua; a profligate man, and one who without much disguise had mixed in the intrigues of the conspiracy at Pisaurum, and in other parts of the Gallic territory. He also took care to get rid of Caius Marcellus out of that city, after he had not only come to Capua, but, as if from a fondness for warlike arms, had frequently visited a very numerous troop of gladiators. On which account that illustrious body of Roman settlers which is at Capua, which, on account of the way in which I preserved the safety of that city during my consulship, has adopted me as their only patron, returned the greatest thanks to this Publius Sestius, when he was at my house; and at this very time those same men, changing only their name, and appearing as colonists, and decurions,most gallant and virtuous men that they are!come forward to give evidence, and to declare the services done to them by Publius Sestius, and to inform you of their public vote according to which they entreat you to protect him from danger. [sect. 10]

Read, I beg, O Publius Sestius, what the decurions³⁶ of Capua decreed, in order that your childish voice may be able to give some hint to our adversaries what it appears likely to be able to do when it has acquired strength. [The decree of the decurions is read.] I am not having a decree read which has been dictated by any obligations of neighbourhood, or clientship, or relation of public hospitality, or which was passed because of a canvass for it, or because of the recommendation of some powerful man. I am reciting to you the expression of a recollection of dangers which have been passed through, the declaration of a most honourable service done to a people, a present return of [p. 156] kindness, and a testimony of past events. [sect. 11] And at that very time when Sestius had released Capua from fear, and the senate and all good men, by the detection and crushing of all domestic enemies, had, under my guidance, delivered the city from the greatest dangers, I sent letters to summon him from Capua with that army which he had at that time with him. And the moment he had read the letters, he flew to the city with inconceivable rapidity. And in order that you may thoroughly call to mind the atrocity of those times, listen to the letters, and stir up your memories to a contemplation of the time that is gone by. [The letters of Cicero, the consul, are read.]

Ch. 5

By this arrival of Publius Sestius, the attacks and attempts of the new tribunes of the people, who then, in the last days of my consulship, were endeavouring to give me trouble on account of the deeds which I had performed, and all the over violent designs of the conspiracy, were checked. [sect. 12] And after it was perceived that while Cato, as tribune of the people, a most fearless and excellent citizen, defended the republic, the senate and the Roman people by themselves, without any assistance from the military, could easily uphold both their own majesty and the dignity of those men who had defended the general safety at their own personal risk, Sestius with that army of his followed Antonius with the greatest possible rapidity. Here why need I mention by what conduct he stirred up the consul to act with energy? or how many motives for exertion he suggested to that man, desirous, perhaps, of victory, but still too much afraid of the common dangers and chances of warfare and of battle? That would be a very long story; but thus much I will say briefly. If the courage of Marcus Petreius had not been most admirable; if his virtue in state affairs had not been faultless; if his influence among the soldiers had not been overpowering; if his experience in military affairs had not been most surprising; and if, above all, Publius Sestius had not cooperated with him in exciting, encouraging, reproving, and spurring on Antonius,winter would have overtaken them before the end of that war, and Catiline, when he had emerged from those frosts and snows of the Apennines, and, having the whole summer before him, had begun to plunder the roads of Italy and the folds of the shepherds, would never have been [p. 157] destroyed without enormous bloodshed, and most miserable devastation extending over the whole of Italy. [sect. 13]

These then were the feelings which Publius Sestius brought to his tribuneship that I may forbear to speak of his quaestorship,and come at last to things nearer to ourselves. Although I must not omit to speak of that singular integrity of his in the province of which I lately saw traces in Macedonia, not lightly imprinted to celebrate something for a short time, but fixed in the everlasting recollection of that province. But, however, we will pass over all these things, though not with out turning back and fixing one last look upon them.

Ch. 6

Let us come with eager zeal and rapid course to his tribuneship, since that has been for some time inviting us to contemplate it, and since it occupies a large portion of my speech. [sect. 14] And that tribuneship has already been spoken of by Quintus Hortensius in such a way that his speech not only appears to contain a complete defence to every count of the accusation, but would even be worth recollecting as laying down admirable rules for the principles and system on which a man ought to proceed in discharging the duties of a public office. But still since the entire tribuneship of Publius Sestius did nothing but uphold my name and my cause, I think it necessary for me, O judges, if not to discuss the whole matter with precision at all events to speak of it in a tone of lamentation.

And if while speaking on this subject I were inclined to inveigh against some men with something like severity, who would not make allowance for my attacking those men with some freedom of expression by whose wickedness and frenzy I had myself been injured? But I will proceed with moderation, and I will be guided rather by what is suitable to the present time than to my indignation. If there be any people who secretly are vexed at my safety, let them conceal themselves; if there be any who have at any time done anything against me and who now are silent and quiet, let us also forget it; if there be any who are puffed up to behave insolently, and who still wish to attack me, we will bear with them as far as they can be borne with, nor shall my language offend any one except those who so put themselves in my way that I shall appear not to have attacked them, but to have run accidentally against them. [sect. 15] [p. 158]

But it is necessary, before I begin to speak of the tribuneship of Publius Sestius, to lay before you all the circumstances of the shipwreck of the republic the preceding year; to the repairing which, and to the restoration of the general safety all the words, and actions, and thoughts of Publius Sestius will be found to have been devoted.

Ch. 7

That year, the whole republic being in a state of great commotion, and many people being in just fear, had been like a bow bent against me alone, as men ignorant of state affairs used commonly to say; but in reality against the whole republic, by the transference to the common people of a furious and profligate man, angry with me, but a far more zealous enemy to tranquillity and the general safety. This man, that most illustrious of citizens, and, though many tried to alienate him from me, most friendly to me, Cnaeus Pompeius, had bound by every sort of security, and promise, and oath to do nothing during his tribuneship contrary to my interest. But that wicked man, sprung as it were from the very dregs of every sort of wickedness, thought that he should not be doing enough in the way of violating his engagements, unless he terrified the man who was so eager to guard against danger for another, by personal danger to himself. [sect. 16] This foul and savage brute, hampered as he was by the auspices, tied down by the precedents of our ancestors, fettered by the bonds of holy laws, was on a sudden released by the consul,³⁷ who, as I imagine, was either won over by entreaties, or, as many people thought, influenced by hostility to me, and to at all events was ignorant and unsuspicious of the impending crimes and misfortunes. And that tribune of the people, if he was successful in his design of throwing the republic into confusion, did not owe it to any energy of his own. For what energy could there be in the life of a man maddened by the infamy of his brother, by his own adultery with his sister, and by every sort of unheard-of licentiousness? [sect. 17]

But that, forsooth, did seem like a fortune appointed for the republic by fate itself, that that blind and senseless tribune of the people should find twomust I call them consuls? must I honour by this name the overthrowers of this empire, the betrayers of your dignity, the enemies of all good men? men who thought that they had been adorned [p. 159] with those fasces, and with all the other insignia of supreme honour and command, for the purpose of destroying the senate, of crushing the equestrian order, and extinguishing all the rights and established principles of our ancestors. And, I beg you in the name of the immortal gods, if you do not yet wish to recall their wickedness and the wounds which they have burnt into the republic, still turn your recollection to their countenances and their gait. Their actions will more easily present themselves to your minds if you bring their faces before your eyes.

Ch. 8 [sect. 18]

The one reeking with perfume, with curled hair looking with disdain on the agents of his debaucheries and the old plagues of his youthful age, formerly when tossed and driven about by the troops³⁸ of usurers lest in that Scyllaean state of debt he should be dashed up against the Maenian³⁹ column, fled into the harbour of the tribuneship. He despised the Roman knights, he threatened the senate, he sold himself to the artisans, and proclaimed openly that they had saved him from being prosecuted for bribery; and he was used to say, moreover, that he hoped to obtain a province from them, even though it were against the will of the senate; and if he did not get a province, he did not think it possible for him to remain in safety. [sect. 19] The other, O ye good gods! how horrible was his approach, how savage, how terrible was he to look at! You would say that you were beholding some one of those bearded men,an example of the old empire, an image of antiquity, a prop of the republic. His garments were rough, made of this purple worn by the common people you see around us, nearly brown; his hair so rough that at Capua, in which he, for the sake of becoming entitled to have an image of himself, was exercising the authority of a decemvir, it seemed as if he would require the whole Seplasia⁴⁰ to make it decent. Why need I speak of his eyebrow? which at that time did not seem to men to be an ordinary brow, but a pledge of [p. 160] the safety of the republic. For such great gravity was in his eye, such a contraction was there of his forehead, that the whole republic appeared to be resting on that brow, as the heavens do on Atlas. [sect. 20] This was the common conversation of every one: He is, however, a great and firm support to the republic; we have some one to oppose to that pollution, to that mud; I declare solemnly by his mere look he will check the licentiousness and levity of his colleague; the senate will have some one this year whom it can follow; good men will not be in want of an adviser and a leader this year. And men congratulated me most especially, because I was likely to have not only a friend and connection, but also a fearless and dignified consul as an ally against a frantic and audacious tribune of the people.

Ch. 9

And as to one of them, no one was mistaken in him; for who could suppose it possible for a man rising suddenly from the long darkness of brothels and scenes of debauchery in which he had lain, to hold the helm of so vast an empire, and to undertake the guidance of the republic in so important a voyage, amid such threatening waves?a man worn out with wine and gluttony, and lewdness and adultery?a man who, beyond his hopes, had been placed in the highest rank through the influence of others, when his drunken eyes were unable not merely to gaze on the impending storm, but even to stand any unusual glare of light? [sect. 21] But the other did deceive many men in every point; for he was recommended to men's favourable opinion by the fact of his high birth, which is of itself a very powerful recommendation, for all virtuous men naturally look with favour on noble birth, both because it is advantageous for the republic that nobly born men should be worthy of their ancestors, and because the recollection of men who are illustrious, and who have deserved well of the republic, has its influence over us even after they are dead. And because men saw him always morose, always taciturn, always neglectful of his appearance and coarse-looking, and because his name was such that frugality appeared a quality innate in his family, they favoured him, and rejoiced, and in their hopes called him a man fashioned after the model of the integrity of his ancestors, forgetting the family of his mother. [sect. 22] But I, (I will tell the plain truth, O judges,)I myself never thought that there could be so much wickedness, audacity, [p. 161] and cruelty in any man as, to my own cost and that of the republic, I have experienced that there was in him. I knew the man was worthless inconsistent and that it was a pure mistake that made men think well of him deceived by the appearance of his youth. His disposition, in truth, was concealed by his countenance, and his vices within walls, but this sort of disguise is never continued, nor so well maintained that it cannot be seen through by inquisitive eyes.

Ch. 10

We saw the course of his life his indolence and sloth; those who were in the least acquainted with him saw his secret licentiousness. Moreover, he gave us, by his conversation, plenty of handles to enable us to grasp and comprehend his inmost feelings. [sect. 23] Being a very learned man, he used to praise philosophers,I don't know which, and indeed he could not tell their names himself;but still he used to praise those above all others who were said to be beyond all the rest the admirers and panegyrists of pleasures: of what sort of pleasure,of pleasure enjoyed at what times and in what manner he never inquired but the name itself he devoured with all the energy of his mind and body. And he used to say that those same philosophers were right when they said that wise men do everything for the sake of themselves, that no man in his senses has any business to trouble himself about the government of the republic; that nothing is better than a life of ease, full of, and loaded with, all sorts of pleasures and he used to say that those men who said that men ought to regard their own dignity, and to consult the interests of the republic, and to have a regard in every action of life to duty and not to advantage, that men ought to undergo dangers on behalf of their country, and to encounter wounds and to seek even death for its sake, were crazy and mad. [sect. 24] And from these incessant and daily conversations of his, and because I saw who the men were with whom he lived in the more retired part of his house, and because his house itself (as I may say) smoked so as to emit a steam from his discourse, and to show what he was about, I made up my mind that nothing good was to be looked for from such a trifler; but at the same time certainly that no evil need be feared. But the fact is, O judges, that, if you give a sword to a little child, or to a powerless and decrepit old man, he himself by his own violence cannot injure any one, but still if the sword touches the [p. 162] naked body of even the strongest man, it is possible that he may be wounded by the mere sharpness and power of the weapon; in like manner, when the consulship had been given as a sword to enervated and worn-out men, who, of their own strength, would never be able to wound any one, they, armed with the name of supreme command, murdered the republic. They openly made a treaty with the tribune of the people, to receive from him whatever provinces they chose, and an army, and as much money as they chose, on this condition,that they themselves were the first to hand over the afflicted republic in fetters to the tribune. And they thought that that treaty could be ratified in my blood. [sect. 25] And when this matter was divulged, (for such enormous wickedness could not be dissembled or hidden for any length of time,) motions are proposed at one and the same time by the same tribune, concerning my destruction and concerning the provinces of the consuls, allotting them to each of them by name.

Ch. 11

On this, the senate being anxious, you knights being in a state of great excitement, all Italy being agitated,in short, all citizens of every sort and of every rank, thought that they must seek help for the republic from the consuls and from the supreme power, while they were the only men, besides that frantic tribune,those two whirlwinds (so to say) of the republic,who not only did not come to the assistance of their falling country, but who even grieved that it was falling so slowly. They were every day solicited both by the complaints of all good men, and by the direct entreaties of the senate, to undertake my cause, to act on my behalf, and to bring some proposition before the senate. They attacked all the most eminent men of that body, not only refusing their request but even laughing at it. [sect. 26] But when on a sudden an incredible multitude from the whole city, and from all Italy, had assembled at the Capitol, they all decided that they should put on mourning garments and defend me in every possible way by their private resources, since the republic was destitute for the time of its public leaders. At the same time the senate was assembled in the temple of Concord, a temple which of itself recalled the recollection of my consulship, when the whole body in tears addressed this curled consul with entreaties; for the other rough and fierce-looking one was keeping himself at home on purpose. With what haughtiness did [p. 163] that filthy fellow, that pest of the republic, reject the prayers of that most honourable body, and the tears of the most illustrious citizens. How did that glutton and devourer of his country scorn me! For why should I say devourer of his patrimony, which he lost while engaged in some sort of trade? You, I say,you, O Roman knights,you and all virtuous men changed your garments, and in the cause of my safety threw yourselves at the feet of that most profligate debauchee. You and your prayers were alike trampled on by that robber. A man of extraordinary integrity, magnanimity, wisdom, and firmness, Lucius Ninnius made a motion to the senate concerning the republic and the senate in a full house passed a resolution that they should change their garments for my safety.

Ch. 12 [sect. 27]

Alas for that day, O judges, fatal to the senate and to all good men! grievous to the republic! bitter for me as far as my domestic grief was concerned, but glorious as relates to my fame in the eyes of posterity. For what since the first beginning of human memory, can any one produce more splendid than for all good men by their own tacit agreement as individuals and for the whole senate by public resolution to have changed their garments and put on mourning for the sake of a single citizen? And that change of dress was not adopted at that time for the sake of averting a calamity from me by entreaty, but to show their grief at that which had befallen me. For to whom could they address their entreaties, when all were in mourning alike, and when the fact of a man's not having changed his dress was a sufficient proof of his being an ill-disposed person? After this change of garments had taken place, and while the city was in such grief, I say nothing of what that tribune, that plunderer of all things both human and divine, proceeded to do; a fellow who ordered all the most noble youths, and the most honourable Roman knights who were eager to entreat him to ensure my safety, to attend at his house, and who then exposed them to the swords and stones of his troop of artisans. I am speaking now of the consuls, on whose good faith the republic had a right to rely. [sect. 28] Frightened out of his wits, he flies from the senate with a mind and countenance less agitated than it would have been a few years before, if he had fallen in with a crowd of his creditors. He convenes an assembly. He, the consul, addresses them in such a speech as even Catiline himself, [p. 164] if he had been victorious, would never have delivered. He said that men were greatly mistaken if they thought that the senate had any power in the republic; and that the Roman knights should suffer severely for that day on which, in my consulship, they had appeared with their swords on the Capitoline Hill: that the time had come for those who had been in fear (he evidently meant the conspirators) to avenge themselves. If he had said no more than this, he would have been worthy of the last extremity of punishment; for a mischievous speech of a consul can of itself undermine the republic. But see now what he did. [sect. 29] In that assembly he banished Lucius Lamia, who was exceedingly attached to me on account of the exceeding intimacy which subsisted between me and his brother and his father, and who was also willing to encounter even death itself for the sake of the republic; and issued an edict that he should remove two hundred miles from the city because he had dared to address solicitations to him on behalf of a citizen,of a citizen who had deserved well of the state, and who was his own friend,and on behalf of the republic.

Ch. 13

What can you do with this man? or for what punishment can you reserve this profligate citizen,I should rather say this impious enemy? who, to pass over other particulars of his character, and other actions which belong to him in common with his infamous and savage colleague, has this one thing to boast of peculiar to himself, that he expelled from the city and banished (I will not say a Roman knight, I will not say a most accomplished and virtuous man, I will not say a citizen deeply attached to the republic, I will not say a man who was only joining his own lamentations for the calamity of his friend and of the republic to those of the senate and of all good men; it is enough to say that)he, the consul, banished a Roman citizen without any trial, by his own simple edict. [sect. 30] The Latin allies had never anything worse to submit to than (and it was a case of very rare occurrence) the being ordered by the consul to depart from the city. And they had the power then of returning to their own cities, to their own household gods; and in that general disaster no peculiar ignominy was attached by name to any single individual. But what is the case here? Is the consul to banish, by his edict, Roman citizens from their household gods? is he to [p. 165] expel them from their country? is he to select whom he pleases? to condemn and banish men by name? If he had supposed that you, who are now sitting here, would continue to exist in the republic,if he had supposed that any image of the courts of justice would remain or that there would be the least vestige of the old constitution left in the state would he even have dared to wipe the senate out of the republic in this way? to reject the prayers of the Roman knights? in short, to overturn the rights and liberties of all the citizens by new and unheard of edicts? [sect. 31]

Although you are listening to me, O judges, with the greatest attention, and with exceeding kindness, still I fear that some of you may, perchance, marvel why I am so prolix, and what is my object in tracing things back so far, or what connection the offences of those men who harassed the republic before the tribuneship of Publius Sestius have with his cause now. But my desire is to show that all the counsels of Publius Sestius, and the whole object of his tribuneship, was to remedy the misfortunes of the afflicted and ruined republic as far as was in his power. And pardon me, if in laying open those wounds, I appear to say rather too much about myself; for you and all good men decided that that disaster which befell me was the heaviest possible blow to the republic. And Publius Sestius is now on his trial, not on his own account, but on mine for as he devoted all the powers of his tribuneship to the promotion of my safety it is inevitable that I should look upon my own cause in past time as united with the defence which I am now making for him.

Ch. 14 [sect. 32]

The senate then was in grief, the city wore an appearance of mourning, its garments having been changed in accordance with the public resolution of the senate. There was no municipal town in all Italy, no colony, no prefecture, no company of men concerned in farming the public revenues, no guild or council,no public body, in short, of any kind whatever,which had not passed most honourable resolutions concerning my safety, when all on a sudden the two consuls issue an edict that the senators are to return to their former dress. What consul ever prohibited the senate from obeying its own decrees? What tyrant ever forbade men who were miserable to mourn? Is it a small thing, O Piso,for I will say nothing about Gabinius, that you have deceived men to such a degree as to disregard the authority of the senate? to [p. 166] despise the advice of every virtuous man? to betray the republic? to crush a citizen of consular rank? that you must dare also to issue an edict that men are not to mourn for a disaster affecting me, and themselves, and the republic, and are not to show their grief by changing their garments? Whether that change of garment was assumed as a token of grief, or as a form of solicitation, who ever was so cruel before as to forbid any one mourning for himself, or entreating for others? [sect. 33] What? Are not men accustomed of their own accord to change their garments on the occasion of danger to their friends? Is there no one who will change it ever for you, O Piso? will not even those men do so whom you have appointed as your lieutenants, not only without any resolution of the senate to authorize such a step, but even in defiance of a vote of that body? shall, then, whoever pleases mourn for the misfortune of a desperate man, of a traitor to the commonwealth, and shall not the senate be allowed to mourn for the danger of a citizen, strong above all men in the good-will of all virtuous men, who has deserved admirably well of his country, which he has saved, especially when with his danger is combined danger to the whole state?

Those same consuls, (if, indeed, it is proper to call those men consuls who, every one thinks, deserve not only to be eradicated from men's memories, but to have their names erased from the consular registers,) after the treaty about the provinces had been ratified, being brought forward to the assembly in the Flaminian Circus by that fury and pest of his country, amid universal grief on the part of all of you, gave their verbal sanction and formal decision in approval of all the things which that fellow had then uttered against me and against the republic.

Ch. 15

In the presence and sight of these same consuls, a law was passed that the auspices were to have no validity; that no one was to interrupt any proceeding by declaring that he was taking them; that no one was to have the power of arresting a law by his veto; that it should be lawful to pass a law on all days of festival; that the Aelian⁴¹ and Fufian laws should have no validity. And who is there who can fail to see that by [p. 167] that one motion, the entire constitution was destroyed? [sect. 34] In the presence and sight of these same consuls, a levy of slaves was held before the tribunal of Aurelius, under pretence of filling up the guilds, when men were enrolled according to their streets, and divided into decuries, and stirred up to violence, and battle, and slaughter, and plunder. It was while these same men were consuls, that arms were openly carried into the temple of Castor, and the steps of the temple were pulled up; armed men occupied the forum and the assemblies of the people; slaughters and stonings of people took place; there was no senate, no magistrates were left; one man by arms and piratical violence seized on all the power of all the magistrates not by any power of his own, but having bribed the two consuls to desert the republic by the treaty respecting the provinces, he insulted every one, domineered over every one, made promises to some held down many by terror and fear and gained over more by hope and promises.

[sect. 35] And when such was the state of all things, O judges,when the senate had no leaders or traitors, or I should rather say open enemies, in the place of leaders,when the equestrian order was being put on its trial by the consuls,when the authority of all Italy was trampled on,when some men were banished by name others frightened away by terror and danger,when the temples were full of arms and the forum of armed men; and when those facts were not concealed by the silence of the consuls, but were openly approved of by them by their speeches and their formal decision,when we all of us saw the city not yet perhaps razed and destroyed, but at all events already stormed and in the power of the enemy,nevertheless relying on the exceeding zeal of the virtuous part of the citizens, we would have resisted, O judges, even these enormous evils.

Ch. 16 [sect. 36]

But there were other grounds for fear, and other reasons for anxiety and suspicion, O judges, which influenced me at that time. For I will explain to you this day, O judges, all the principles of my conduct and of my designs; and I will not be wanting to your great desire of hearing the truth, nor to this multitude, the greatest which within my recollection, has ever appeared in any court of justice. For if I, in so good a cause, when supported so zealously by the senate, and by such an inconceivable unanimity on the part of all [p. 168] virtuous men, ready to act in my behalf, and when all Italy was stirred up and braced for the contest,yielded to the fury of a tribune of the people, one of the most despicable of men; if I was afraid of the trifling but audacious characters of those most contemptible consuls, then I should be forced to confess that I was too timid, that I was a man of no courage, of no decision, and of no wisdom. [sect. 37] For what was there in the case of Quintus Metellus similar to mine? Although all good men considered that he had right on his side, yet the senate did not espouse his cause by any public resolution, nor did any separate body of men by any private vote, nor had all Italy undertaken the advocacy of his cause by their decrees. For he had shown greater regard for some sort of private credit of his own, than for the manifest welfare of the republic, when he alone had refused to swear to a law which had been passed by means of violence; and lastly, his great bravery appeared to be exercised with this qualification, that his own credit for consistency was not to be sacrificed to his affection for his country. But he had to contend against the invincible army of Caius Marius; he had for an enemy Caius Marius, the preserver of his country, now for the sixth time administering the affairs of the republic as consul. He had to contend against Lucius Saturninus, now for a second time tribune of the people; a vigilant man, and one who in a popular cause conducted himself, if not with moderation, at all events with due regard to the prejudices of the people, and in a very disinterested spirit. He yielded, lest, being conquered by brave men, he should fall disgracefully, or lest, if conqueror himself, he should deprive the republic of many gallant citizens.

[sect. 38] But my cause was embraced openly by the senate, with the greatest energy by the equestrian order, by all Italy by means of public resolutions, and by all good men with the greatest earnestness, as if it were their own personal quarrel. I had performed achievements with regard to which I had not been the sole originator of them, but the leader of the universal inclination of all the citizens; and which were designed to promote not my own single glory, but the common safety of all the citizensI may almost say of all nations. And I had performed them in such a manner that all men were bound at all times to uphold and defend my conduct.[p. 169]

Ch. 17

And I had to contend not against a victorious army, but against a lot of hired artisans, men excited with the hope of plundering the city. I had for an enemy,not Caius Marius, the terror of our enemies, the hope and support of his country,but two ill-omened monsters whom want and the immensity of their debts and fickleness and a wicked disposition, had delivered over to the tribune of the people as his slaves. [sect. 39] Nor had I to contend against Saturninus, who was seeking to satisfy his own indignation with great earnestness of mind, because he knew that the superintendence of the import of provisions had been, as an intentional insult, transferred from him while he was quaestor at Ostia, to the chief man both of the senate and of the city, Marcus Scaurus. But I had to struggle with the debauched favourite of wealthy buffoons, with the adulterer of his sister, with the very high-priest of lewdness, with a poisoner, with a forger of wills, with an assassin, with a robber; and ifas was very easy to be done, as ought to have been done, and as many most virtuous and brave citizens entreated me to doI had overcome those men by force and arms, I had no reason to fear that any one would reprove me for having repelled force by force, or grieve for the death of those abandoned citizens, or, as I should rather call them, domestic enemies. But these were the things which had weight with me. That Fury was in the habit of crying out in all the assemblies that all the things which he was doing to the prejudice of my safety, he was doing with the approval of Cnaeus Pompeius a most illustrious man, and both then and now a most intimate friend of mine as far as he was able to show himself such. Marcus Crassus a most gallant man with whom I had every imaginable intimacy of friendship, was announced by that same pest to be most hostile to my fortunes. Caius Caesar, who had no right to he alienated from me as far as any action of mine could have deserved such feelings on his part, was constantly stated by the same man in his daily harangues to be a most determined enemy to my safety. [sect. 40]

These three men he said he was going to avail himself of as his advisers in forming all his plans, and as his assistants in all his actions: of whom he said that one had the most numerous army in Italy; and that the other two, who were private men at that time, could easily get an army a-piece if [p. 170] they chose, and that they would do so. And while he menaced me, he threatened me, not with a judicial decision of the people, nor with any legal or legitimate sort of contest, nor with any discussion or regular trial of our dispute, but with violence, and arms, and armies, and generals, and camps.

Ch. 18

What then? Did the harangue of an enemy, especially so foolish a one as that, and aimed as it was so wickedly against the most illustrious men, move me? No. It was not his speech, but the silence of those men against whom that most infamous speech was directed that influenced me. For theyalthough the real cause of their silence was quite a different oneappeared, nevertheless, to men who were afraid of everything, by their very silence to speak, and by their forbearing to deny his assertions, to confess them.

[sect. 41] But they, being then under the influence of excessive fear, because they thought that those actions and all the events of the preceding year were being undermined by the praetors, and annulled by the senate and by the chief men of the city, were unwilling to alienate a popular tribune of the people from their interests, and were in the habit of saying that their own dangers touched them more nearly than mine. But still Crassus said that my cause ought to be undertaken by the consuls, and Pompeius implored the aid of their good faith; and he said that he, though a private individual, would not desert the cause which was taken up by public authority. And as he was most anxious for my welfare, and eager beyond measure for the preservation of the republic, certain men, trained for that purpose, warned him to be more careful; and said that a plot was laid against his life, to be carried into execution in my house; and they kept this suspicion alive in him, some by letters, some by messengers, some by coming and talking to him about it; so that he, though most certainly he had no fear of me, yet thought it necessary to guard against them, lest they should attempt anything against him and lay the blame on me. But Caesar himself, who those men, ignorant of the truth, thought was angry with me most especially, was at the gates, was in military command; his army was in Italy, and in that army he had appointed to a command the brother of that very tribune of the people, my enemy.

Ch. 19 [sect. 42]

When I saw all this (for there was no secret about it), that the senate, without which the constitution could not [p. 171] stand, was entirely abolished out of the city; that the consuls whose duty it was to be the leaders of the public counsels, had so managed matters that by their means the great public council was entirely destroyed; that those men who had the greatest influence were held up to every assembly, (falsely indeed, but still in a way calculated to strike my friends with great fear,) as the great approvers of my ruin; that assemblies were held every day in opposition to me; that no one ever uttered a word in defence of me or of the republic that the standards of the legions were believed to be unfurled against your lives and properties, (falsely indeed, but still they were believed to be so,) that the veteran troops of the conspirators, and that ill-omened army of Catiline, once routed and defeated, was now recruited under a new leader and under the existing unexpected chances of circumstances;when I saw all these things, what was I to do, O judges? [sect. 43] For I know well that at that time it was not your zeal that was wanting to me, but more nearly my energy that was wanting to second your zeal. Was I, a private individual, to struggle in arms against a tribune of the people? No doubt the good would have defeated the wicked, the brave would have defeated the inactive; he would have been slain who could by no other remedy be prevented from being the ruin of the republic. What would have happened next? What would have become of the remains of his party? What would have been the end? Was there any doubt that the blood of the tribune especially when not shed in consequence of any public resolution would have had the consuls for its avengers? especially when we recollect that that fellow had said in the public assembly that I must either perish once or be victorious twice. What was the meaning of my having to conquer twice? Why no doubt that after I had struggled against that most senseless tribune of the people, I should have to struggle with the consuls and with all those who would avenge him. But for myself, [sect. 44] if I alone was to have perished, and if that incurable and deadly wound would not also have been inevitably inflicted on the republic, with which he threatened itI should have preferred at that time, O judges, to perish once rather than conquer twice. For that second struggle would have been such, that whether we were conquered or conquerors, we should have been alike unable to preserve the republic. What would have [p. 172] happened if in the first struggle, being overcome by the violence of the tribune, I had fallen in the forum, with many virtuous citizens? The consuls, I imagine, would have convened the senate, which they had already expunged from the state; they would summon men to arms who had decided that the republic should not be upheld, no not even by a change of garments; they would, no doubt, have been sure to revolt from the tribune of the people after my death, who had intended the same hour to be that of my ruin and of their own reward!

Ch. 20 [sect. 45]

That one thing remained for me which, perhaps, some men of bold, and energetic, and magnanimous mind will say,You should have struggled, you should have resisted, you should have fought to the death. With respect to which idea, I call you to witness, you my country, and you, O household gods, and gods of my country, that it was for the sake of your abodes and temples, that it was on account of the safety of my own fellow-citizens, which has always been dearer to me than my own life, that I avoided combat and bloodshed. In truth, O judges, if it had happened to me when I was sailing in some ship with my friends, that many pirates coming from many parts threatened to overwhelm that vessel with their fleets, unless they surrendered me alone to them; if the crew had refused to do so, and had preferred rather to perish with me than to surrender me to the enemy, I should have thrown myself into the sea in order to save the rest, rather than bring those who were so devoted to me, if not to certain death, at all events into great danger of their lives.

[sect. 46] But when, after the helm had been wrested from the senate, so many armed fleets appeared ready to attack the vessel of the republic, tossed about on the deep by the tempests of sedition and discord, unless I alone were surrendered; when proscription, and plunder, and massacre were threatened; when some stood aloof from defending me from suspicion that their doing so might bring themselves into danger, and some were prompted by their long-standing hatred of all good men, and some envied me, and some thought that I was in their way, and some wished to revenge some grief or other which they had suffered, and some were influenced by hatred of the republic itself, and of the present state and tranquillity of good men, and on account of all these numerous and [p. 175] various causes were demanding me alone to be given up to them,was I to fight against them to the extreme, I will not say destruction, but danger at all events, of you and your children, rather than by myself encounter and endure on behalf of all that evil which was impending over all?

Ch. 21 [sect. 47]

No doubt the wicked would have been defeated. Still they would have been citizens and they would have been defeated by that man as a private individual, who as consul, without any appeal to arms, had preserved the republic. But suppose the good men had been defeated, what would have remained? Do not you see that the state would have fallen into the hands of the slaves? Was even I myself as some people think to encounter death with entire equanimity? What? Was I at that time seeking to avoid death? or was there anything which I could think more desirable for myself, or at the very time that I was accomplishing these great exploits amid that multitude of wicked men, were not death and exile constantly present to my eyes? Were not these very events, even at the moment of my performance of those exploits, prophesied as it were by me as parts of my destiny? Or was life worth preserving at a time when all my family and friends were in such grief when there was such confusion such misery such destruction of everything which either nature or fortune had given me? Was I so stupid? so ignorant of affairs? so destitute of all sense and all ability? Had I heard nothing? Had I seen nothing? Had I learnt nothing myself by reading or by inquiry? Was I ignorant that the duration of life is brief, that of glory everlasting? that, as death was appointed for all men, it was desirable that life, which must some day or other be given up to necessity, should appear to have been made a present of to one's country rather than reserved for the claim of nature? Was I ignorant that there had been this dispute between the wisest men? that some said that the souls and senses of men were extinguished by death; but that others thought that the minds of wise and brave men were then in the greatest degree sensible and vigorous when they had departed from the body? And one of these alternatives would seem to show, that to be deprived of feeling was not a thing to be avoided; the other alternative must evidently be very desirable, to become possessed of a more perfect sensation. [sect. 48] [p. 174]

Lastly, as I had always considered everything with reference to what was becoming, and had never thought anything in life desirable if unaccompanied by propriety, was I, a man of consular rank, who had performed such great deeds, likely to be afraid of death, which even Athenian maidens, daughters I fancy of king Erectheus, are said to have despised in the cause of their country? Especially when I was a member of that city from which Mucius went forth when he penetrated,by himself, into the camp of king Porsena, and endeavoured to slay him, at the imminent risk of his own life; from which, in the first instance, Decius the father, and many years afterwards his son, endowed with his father's virtue, went forth when, while their armies were drawn up in battle array, they devoted themselves and their own lives to ensure the safety and victory of the Roman army; from which a countless host of others besides have gone forth, and with the greatest equanimity have encountered death, some for the sake of gaining glory, and some with the object of encountering disgrace; and while I, myself, remember that in this city the father of this Marcus Crassus, a most gallant man, put himself to death with that same hand with which he had often scattered death among the enemy, that he might not live to see his enemy victorious.

Ch. 22 [sect. 49]

Influenced by these and many other considerations, I saw that, if my death were the destruction of the common cause of the state, no one would ever live who would venture to undertake the defence of the safety of the republic against wicked citizens. Therefore, I feared that the result would be, not only if I were put to death by violence, but even if I died from natural causes, that the example of a man labouring for the preservation of the republic would perish with me. For if, while all good men were so eager for it, I were not restored by the senate and people of Rome, (and most unquestionably that could never have happened if I had been killed first,) who would ever dare afterwards to encounter the very slightest unpopularity for the sake of having anything to do with the affairs of the republic? I, therefore, saved the republic, O judges, by my departure. At the expense of my own grief and misery I averted slaughter, and devastation, and conflagration, and plunder, from you and from your children. And I, by myself, twice saved the republic once with glory, once [p. 175] with misery. That I will never so far deny that I have the feelings of a man as to boast that I felt no grief when I was deprived of my most excellent brother, of my most beloved children, of my most faithful wife, of the sight of you, my fellow-citizens, of my country, and of my rank as a senator. If those had been my feelings, what obligation would you be under to me, if for your sake I had only abandoned those things which I considered of no value? This, in my opinion, ought to be considered by you a most certain token of my exceeding devotion to my country, that though I could not be absent from her without the deepest grief, yet I preferred to endure this grief, rather than to allow her to be destroyed by wicked citizens. [sect. 50]

I recollected, O judges, that that godlike man, sprung from the same district as myself, for the preservation of this empire, Caius Marius, in extreme old age, when he had escaped from violence little short of a pitched battle, first of all hid his aged body up to his neck in the marshes and from thence crossed over in a very little boat to the most desolate regions of Africa, avoiding all harbours and all inhabited countries. And he preserved his own life, that he might not fall unavenged, for the most uncertain hopes, but still for his country. Should not I, who (as many men in the senate said during my absence) had the safety of the republic bound up with my life, and who on that account was by the public order of the senate, recommended by the letters of the consuls to the protection of foreign nations,should not I, I say, have been betraying the republic if I had neglected the preservation of my own life? In the city now since I have been restored there lives in my person an example of the public good faith, an instance of its being worth men's while to defend the republic. And if this example is preserved for ever who is there who can fail to see that this city will be immortal?

Ch. 23 [sect. 51]

For the foreign wars waged against us by foreign kings, countries, and nations, have long been so completely put down, that they are treating them, to our own great credit, as people whom we can allow to remain at peace. Moreover it has not been a common thing for unpopularity to attach itself to any one of the citizens on account of any warlike triumphs. We often have to resist domestic evils and the counsels of audacious citizens; and it is indispensable to [p. 176] retain in the republic a remedy for these dangers; all which, O judges, you would have lost if the power of declaring its grief at my position had been taken from the senate and people of Rome by my death. Wherefore, I warn you, O young men, and I enjoin you by the right which belongs to me to do so, you who have a regard for propriety, for the republic, and for glory, not to be slow, if at any time any necessity summons you to defend the republic against worthless citizens, and not, from any recollection of what has happened to me, to shun bold counsels. [sect. 52] In the first place, there is no danger of any one ever falling in with such consuls as these, especially if these are requited as they deserve. In the second place, there never will again, I hope, be an instance of any wicked man saying that he is attacking the republic with the approval and assistance of virtuous citizens, while they keep silence; nor of such a man's threatening citizens in the garb of peace with the terrors of an armed soldiery; nor will there be any excuse for a general stationed with his army at the gates, allowing the terror of his name to be used as an instrument for opposing and alarming the citizens. For the senate will never be so oppressed as to have no power of even entreating or lamenting; the equestrian order will never be bound hand and foot so completely as to allow Roman knights to be banished by the consul. But yet even after all these things had happened, and many other more important events also, which I pass over designedly, still you see that, after a short interval of suffering, I was recalled to the enjoyment of my former dignity by the voice of the republic.

Ch. 24 [sect. 53]

But to return to that point which is the one which I have particularly proposed to myself to establish in this speech; namely, that the republic was afflicted and oppressed by every sort of calamity that year owing to the wickedness of the consuls. First of all, on that very day which was fatal to me and grievous to all good men, when I had torn myself from the embrace of my country and from your sight, O fellow-citizens, and when from fear of danger to you, not to myself, I had yielded to the frenzy, and wickedness, and treachery, and arms, and threats of one man, and had abandoned my country, which was the dearest of all things to me, out of affection for my country herself; when not only men but the very houses and temples of the city were lamenting [p. 177] that misfortune which befell me,so horrible, so lamentable, and so sudden; when no one of you could bear the sight of the forum, or of the senate house, or of the light of day; on that very day, do I say? at that very hour, at that very same moment, at that very instant of ruin to me and to the republic, their provinces were decreed to Gabinius and to Piso. O ye immortal gods, guardians and preservers of this city and empire, what monsters of wickedness, what crimes have you beheld in the republic! That citizen was expelled who, in compliance with the authority of the senate, had defended the republic with the cooperation of all good men and he was expelled, not because of any other charge being brought against him, but expressly because he had done so. And he was expelled without any trial, by violence, by stones, by arms, by bodies of slaves excited to sedition. A law was passed after the forum had been desolated and abandoned, and given over to assassins and to slaves; a law to prevent the passing of which the senate had changed its dress and gone into mourning. [sect. 54] The city being in this state of confusion, the consuls did not allow even one night to elapse between my misfortune and their acquisition of plunder. Instantly, the moment that I was struck down, they flew to drink my blood, and, while the republic was still breathing, to carry off and divide my spoils. I say nothing of their mutual congratulations, of their banquets, of their division of the treasury, of their liberality, of their hopes, of their promises, of their booty of the joy of a few amid the universal mourning. My wife was attacked, my children sought for in order to be murdered, my son-in-law,yes, my son-in-law, Piso, was rejected as a suppliant by Piso the consul after he had thrown himself at his feet; my property was plundered and carried off to the houses of the consuls; my house was burnt on the Palatine Hill; the consuls passed the time in revels and joy. But even if they were rejoiced at my distress, they ought to have been moved at the dangers of the city.

Ch. 25 [sect. 55]

But, however, to give up dwelling on my own case, recollect the rest of the calamities of that year. For by that means you will most easily perceive what a rigorous application of all sorts of remedies the republic required from the next magistrates, and what a multitude of laws wanted remedying, both such as had been passed, and such as had been [p. 178] only proposed. For some were passed while those consuls (shall I say, were silent respecting them? Yes, rather while they) actually approved of them; laws, that the notice of the censors and the most important decisions of the most holy magistrates should be abolished; that not only those ancient guilds which had existed before should be restored in defiance of the resolution of the senate, but that innumerable new ones should be established by one gladiator; that by abandoning the collection of the half as, and third of an as, nearly one-fifth part of our revenues should be destroyed; that Syria should be given to Gabinius instead of Cilicia, which he had bargained for, if he succeeded in betraying the republic; that one glutton should have the power of deliberating twice over about the same thing, and that he might propose a new law for the purpose of changing his province, after one law had been actually passed on that subject.

Ch. 26 [sect. 56]

I say nothing about that law which at one swoop destroyed all religious observances, all the privileges attached to the auspices, to the civil magistrates, and all the enactments which refer to the common law, and to the time of proposing laws; I say nothing about all the internal misfortunes which afflicted us; we saw even foreign nations shaken by the insanity of that year.

By a law proposed by a tribune of the people, the priest of the Mighty Mother at Pessinus was expelled and stripped of his priesthood; and that shrine of the most holy and most ancient of all religious ceremonies was sold for a large sum to Brogitarus, a profligate man, and unworthy of any such sacred character; especially as he had desired it not for the purpose of doing honour to the goddess, but only of profaning her temple. People were styled kings by the people, who would never have even asked for such a title from the senate: condemned exiles were brought back to Byzantium at the very time when citizens, who had not been condemned, were being driven from the city. [sect. 57] King Ptolemaeus, who, if he had not as yet been himself styled an ally by the senate, was at all events the brother of that king, who, while his cause was identical with his, had long since received that honour from the senate; and was of the same family, sprung from the same ancestors as his brother, and had the same claims from the antiquity of his alliance; who, lastly, was a king, and if [p. 179] not yet an ally, still most certainly not an enemy; was enjoying the kingdom which had belonged to his father and his grandfather in peace and quiet, relying on the sovereign power of the Roman people in a condition of royal ease and tranquillity. While he was never thinking of any such thing, never suspecting any such thing, a motion was made and put to the vote of the same troop of labourers and artisans that he while sitting on his throne, with his purple and sceptre and all the other ensigns of royal authority, should be placed at the mercy of a public crier;a motion was made, I say that the Roman people, which has been in the habit of restoring their kingdoms even to those kings whom they have subdued in war, should order that a king who was a friend of the nation, who was not even said to have done them any injury, who had never had any claim preferred against him or any demand for the restitution of anything, should have all his property confiscated and sold with his own person and liberty.

Ch. 27 [sect. 58]

That year was a year of many cruel, of many shameful, of many turbulent proceedings, but I know not whether I ought not deservedly to call this the nearest in iniquity to that crime which their wickedness committed against me. Our ancestors determined that that celebrated Antiochus called the Great, after he had been subdued in a long and arduous struggle by land and seas, should be king over the districts within Mount Taurus. They gave Asia, of which they deprived him, to Attalus, that he should be king over that district. With Tigranes, king of the Armenians, we waged a serious war of very long duration; he having, I may almost say, challenged us, by inflicting wanton injuries on our allies. He was not truly a vigorous enemy on his own power and on his own account, but he also defended with all his resources and protected in his territory, that most active enemy of this empire, Mithridates, after he had been driven from Pontus; and after he had been defeated by Lucullus that most excellent man and most consummate general, he still remained in his former mind, and kept up a hostile feeling against us with the remainder of his army. And yet this man did Cnaeus Pompeiusafter he had seen him in his camp as a suppliant and in an abject conditionraise up and placed on his head again the royal crown which he himself had taken off, and, having imposed certain conditions [p. 180] on him, ordered to continue king. And he thought it no less glorious for himself and for this empire, that the king should be known to he restored by him, than if he had kept him in bonds. [sect. 59] Therefore, Tigraneswho was himself an enemy of the Roman people, and who received our most active enemy in his territories, who struggled against us, who fought pitched battles with us, and who compelled us to combat almost for our very existence and supremacyis a king to this day, and has obtained by his entreaties the name of a friend and ally, which he had previously forfeited by his hostile and warlike conduct.

That unhappy king of Cypruswho was always our ally, always our friend, concerning whom no single unfavourable suspicion was ever reported to the senate or to our commanders in those partshas now, as they say, while alive and beholding the light, been seized and sold with all his means of support, and all his royal apparel. Here is a good reason for other kings thinking their own fortunes stable, when by this example, handed down to recollection from that fatal year, they see that one tribune and six hundred journeymen have power to despoil them of all their fortunes, and strip them of their whole kingdom!

Ch. 28 [sect. 60]

But they even designed to stain the character of Marcus Cato by that transaction; ignorant of the extent of such a man's wisdom, and integrity, and magnanimity, and virtue; which is tranquil during a terrible tempest, and shines amid the darkness, and, though driven from its proper position,⁴² still remains, and clings to his country, and shines at all times by its own unassisted light, and is never tarnished by the dirt or disgrace of others. Their object was, not to do honour to Marcus Cato, but to banish him. They did not think that they were entrusting that commission to him, but imposing it on him; and said openly in the assembly, that [p. 181] they had cut Marcus Cato's tongue out, which had always spoken so freely against all extraordinary commissions. They will feel, I trust, in a short time, that that freedom of his still continues; and even if that be possible that it exists in a still greater degree from this circumstance, that Marcus Cato, even when he despaired of being any longer able to do any good by his authority, still with his voice and with every expression of indignation struggled against those consuls and, after my departure, weeping for my misfortune and for that of the republic, attacked Piso in such language, that he made that most abandoned and most shameless man almost repent of his bargain about the province

[sect. 61] Why, then, did he obey the law?as if he had not already sworn to obey other laws also which he considered to have been unjustly passed. He does not give in to such rash counsels, as to think himself at liberty to deprive the republic of his services as a citizen, when he can do no good to the republic. While I was consul and when he was tribune of the people elect he voluntarily exposed his own life to danger he delivered that opinion, the unpopularity of which be saw would be so great as to imperil his life. He spoke with vehemence; he acted with energy, what he felt he stated in the most open manner. He was the lender and the adviser and main advocate of those measures,not that he did not see his own danger, but in such a storm as that which was threatening to overwhelm the republic, he thought that he ought not to think of anything but the dangers of his country.

Ch. 29 [sect. 62]

His tribuneship followed. Why need I speak of his extraordinary magnanimity, and of his incredible virtue? You remember that day on which, when the temple was occupied by his colleague,⁴³ and while we were all alarmed for the life of that good man and that great citizen, he himself came most courageously into the temple, stilled the clamours of the men by his authority and checked the violence of the wicked by his intrepidity. Then, indeed, he encountered danger, but he encountered it for an adequate reason and how great that motion was, it is not necessary for me to say at present. But if he had not obeyed that most wicked motion with respect to the affairs of Cyprus, the same disgrace would nevertheless have attached to the republic. For after the kingdom had been confiscated, the motion was made about Cato mentioning [p. 182] him expressly by name. And suppose he had refused to obey it, can you doubt that violence would have been used towards him, since in that case all the acts of that year would have seemed to be undermined by that one man? [sect. 63]

And he saw this also: since the stain attached to the republic of having confiscated that kingdom, a stain which no one could efface; he thought it more advantageous, that whatever good could arise to the republic out of those evils, should be secured by him rather than by others. And if, by any means whatever, he had been expelled out of the city at that time, he would have borne it easily. In truth, could he,who in the former year had absented himself from the senate, though, if he had come thither, he would have been able to have me as the partner of all his counsels which concerned the government of the state,could he, I say, have continued with equanimity in this city then, after I had been expelled, and with me the whole senate too, and when his own opinions had been condemned? But he yielded to the same time to which we did; to the same frenzy, to the same consuls, to the same threats, and plots, and dangers that we did ourselves. We, indeed, suffered the greatest misfortune of the two, but his indignation and grief of mind was not less than our own.

Ch. 30 [sect. 64]

It is the consuls who ought to complain of these numerous and enormous injuries done to our allies, and to kings, and to free states. Kings and foreign nations have always been under the protection of that magistracy. But have any words of the consuls been heard on the subject? Although, indeed, who would listen to them if they wanted to complain ever so much? Could they make any complaint about the king of Cyprus, who not only did not defend me while I was still standing,me, a fellow-citizen, who had no charge brought against me, who was attacked only as a screen to conceal the attacks intended for my country,but who did not even protect me after I had fallen? I had yielded, if you assert that the common people was alienated from me, (which it was not) to unpopularity; if you think that everything was thrown into confusion, to the times; if violence was at the bottom of it, to arms; if there was a confederacy against me, to a bargain made by the magistrates; if there was danger to all the citizens, then I had yielded to the one great consideration, the safety of the republic. [sect. 65] Why, when a motion was [p. 183] brought forward concerning the status of a citizen, (I do not say what sort of citizen,) and the confiscation of his property; when it was enacted by the sacred laws and by the laws of the Twelve Tables that it was not lawful to decree a privilegium against any one nor to make any motion affecting a man's rights as a citizen;why, I say, was the voice of the consuls never heard? Why was the rule established that year,as far as those two pests of this empire could effect its establishment,that any citizen might lawfully be driven out of the city by name by the mob of artisans in a state of excitement, and by the contrivance of a tribune of the people? [sect. 66] But what measures were proposed that year? what promises were made to many? what engagements were committed to writing? what hopes were entertained? what designs formed?What shall I say? what spot on the whole surface of the globe was not allotted to some one or other? what whole business was there, which could be thought of or wished for or imagined of which the management was not already given and assigned to somebody? what description of command, what province, what contrivance for finding out or amassing money was overlooked? what district or territory in the whole earth was there of any tolerable extent in which some kingdom or other was not marked out for somebody? and what king was there who did not think that year either that he could buy what he had not, or else that he must ransom what he had? Who was there who asked for any province or for any money or for any appointment as lieutenant or as ambassador from the senate? If men had been condemned for acts of violence, restitution of their fines was made to them; by every means the way to the consulship was smoothed for that priest who was so devoted to the people. The good groaned at these things; the wicked cherished hopes; the tribune of the people was active; the consuls were assisting him.

Ch. 31 [sect. 67]

About this time a little later than he himself would approve, Cnaeus Pompeius, greatly against the will of those men who by their own contrivances and by false alarms had turned away the inclination of that most virtuous and gallant man from the defence of my safety, awakened again that habit which he had of devotion to the cause of the good government of the republic, which had been, I will not say lulled asleep, but a little checked and blasted by some sort of [p. 184] suspicion. That man, who by his virtuous valour had subdued the most wicked of citizens, and the most active of foreign enemies, and the mightiest nations, and kings, and savage and hitherto unheard-of tribes, and a countless host of pirates, and also the slaves; who, having put a happy end to every war by land and sea, had made the boundaries of the empire of the Roman people co-equal with the extent of the world; would not allow that republic to be overturned by the wickedness of a few men, which, he himself had repeatedly saved, not only by his counsels, but even by his own blood; he came to the succour of the public cause; he resisted the remainder of those men's measures by his authority; he addressed to the authorities complaints as to what had already happened. [sect. 68] Some inclination towards a better state of things appeared to arise. The senate, in a full house, passed a decree respecting my return, on the first of June, without a single dissenting voice, on the motion of Lucius Ninnius, whose good faith and virtue never wavered in my cause. Somebody of the name of Ligus, some obscure fellow, some contemptible addition to my enemies, interposed his veto. The affair and our cause were now in such a state that we seemed to look up, and to be coming to life again. Whoever had had the slightest participation in the wickedness of Clodius as connected with my sufferings, wherever he came, or in whatever trial he appeared, was sure to be condemned. Not a man was found who would admit that he had given a vote against me. My brother had departed from Asia, with every appearance of mourning, but with far deeper grief at his heart. As he came towards the city, the whole city went forth to meet him with tears and groans. The senate was speaking with unusual freedom. The Roman knights were constantly meeting. That excellent man Piso, my son-in-law,⁴⁴ who was not allowed time to receive the reward of his affection, either from me or from the Roman people, kept beseeching his relation to give him back his father-in-law. The senate refused to entertain any proposition whatever till the consuls had made a motion concerning me.

Ch. 32 [sect. 69]

And as the facts of the case were now notorious, and as the consuls, by their bargain respecting the provinces, had parted with all their freedom of action, and when they [p. 185] were asked in the senate to deliver their opinions respecting me as private men,⁴⁵ said that they were afraid of that law of Clodius: as those men could not stand this state of things any longer, they formed a plan to murder Cnaeus Pompeius and when that was detected and when the assassins had been taken with the arms in their hands, he remained shut up in his own house as long as my enemy continued tribune. Eight tribunes supported a motion for my return, from which it was understood that my friends had increased in my absence and that, too, while I was in a situation in which some whom I had thought to be my friends were not able to show⁴⁶ it; but the fact was that they had always the same inclination but not always the same freedom of action; for of the nine tribunes who were at that time in my interest one, while I was absent, dropped off from me, who took his surname from the images of the Aelii, though he looks more as if he be longed to their nation than to their family.⁴⁷

[sect. 70] Accordingly, in this year when the new magistrates had been elected, when all good men turned their hopes towards them and began to found expectations of a better state of things on their honesty, Publius Lentulus, as the chief, took up my cause with his authority and by the open declaration of his sentiments, in spite of the resistance of Piso and Gabinius; and when eight tribunes made a motion in my behalf, he spoke in favour of it in a speech very honourable to me. And though he thought that it would redound greatly to his glory, and would secure him gratitude as having performed a most important service to the state, if that cause was not as yet proceeded with, but was reserved entire for his consulship, still he preferred having my business settled at once by others, to having it accomplished after delay by himself.

Ch. 33 [sect. 71]

In the meantime Publius Sestius, O judges, the tribune elect, undertook a journey to Caius Caesar, for the sake of my safety. What he effected, how much real good he did, has nothing to do with the matter. I think indeed if Caesar was, as I believe him to have been, well-inclined towards [p. 186] us, that Sestius did me no good at all; if Caesar was a little angry with me, he did not do much good; but still you see the unwearied activity and loyalty of the man.

I now come to the tribuneship of Sestius; for he undertook this journey for the sake of the republic when he was only tribune elect. He thought that it concerned the unanimity of the citizens, and the facility of accomplishing what he had at heart, to show that Caesar's mind was not averse to the business.

That year passed away. Men seemed to breathe, not from having actually attained their wishes, but from their hopes of recovering the republic. Two vultures in the robe of war⁴⁸ went forth with evil omens and the execrations of the citizens. I only wish that everything had happened to them which men then prayed might happen; and then we should not have lost the province of Macedonia, nor our cavalry, and those gallant cohorts in Syria. [sect. 72] The tribunes of the people enter on their office, who had all pledged themselves to bring forward a motion concerning me. The chief of them is bought over by my enemies, whom men, laughing at him amid their indignation, were used to call Gracchus; since it was the fate of the city, that even that weasel escaped out of the brambles should attempt to gnaw a hole in the republic. But the other fellow, Serranus,not the Serranus⁴⁹ from the plough, but the one from the deserted granary of Gavius Olelus, where you might count⁵⁰ the grains,being inserted among the Atilii Calatini, on a sudden, after the names had been entered on the tablets, withdrew his name from the list.

The first of January arrives; you are better acquainted with what ensued than I am; however, I say what I have heard. You know what a numerous attendance of the senate there [p. 187] was, what expectation of the people, what a concourse of deputies from all Italy; how great too was the virtue and activity and authority of Publius Lentulus, the consul; and also how very moderate towards me was the behaviour of his colleague, who, though he said that he had taken a dislike to me on account of a disagreement between us on the affairs of the republic, still said that he would give it up to the conscript fathers and to the critical times of the republic.

Ch. 34 [sect. 73]

Then Lucius Cotta, being asked his opinion first, said what was most worthy of the republic,that nothing had been done respecting me justly, nothing according to the usages of our ancestors, nothing according to the laws that no one could be removed out of the city without a regular trial, that it not only was illegal for any law to be passed, but that no decision even could be come to except at the comitia centuriata, that that was all violence, a flame arising from the confusion of the republic, and the agitated state of the times, when all rights and all courts of justice were destroyed, that when a great revolution was impending, I turned aside a little, and out of hope of future tranquillity, had shunned the present waves and tempests. Wherefore, as I had when absent delivered the republic from no less serious dangers than I had previously when present, he said that it was fitting that I should not only be restored, but also complimented by the senate. He also discussed many other points with great wisdom, arguing that that most insane and profligate enemy of modesty and chastity had framed the law which he had enacted concerning me in such a manner, in such language and with such statements of fact that even if it had been legally proposed and earned still it could not have had any force. Wherefore he said, that as I was not away because of any law, I ought to be recalled not by a law but by the authority of the senate.

[sect. 74] There was no one who did not say that this opinion was most sound. But Cnaeus Pompeius, who was asked his opinion after him, having expressed his approval of the opinion of Cotta, and praised it, said that he, for the sake of my tranquillity, in order that I might be in no subsequent danger from any popular disturbance, voted that the kindness of the Roman people should be added to the authority of the senate in my behalf. When all had vied with one another, each one [p. 188] speaking about my safety in a more dignified and complimentary manner than the other, and when in fact a unanimous vote was just taking place, up rose, as you know, Atilius Gavianus; and he did not dare to interpose his veto, although he had been bought for that purpose, but he asked a night to deliberate on the matter. Then ensued a great outcry of the senate, and loud complaints and entreaties: his father-in-law threw himself at his feet. He pledged himself to cause no delay the next day. He was believed. The senate broke up. In the meantime that deliberate gentleman, in the course of the long night that intervened, got his wages doubled. Only a very few days followed during the whole month of January on which it was lawful for a senate to be held; but still nothing was discussed except my business.

Ch. 35 [sect. 75]

While the senate was being hindered by every sort of delay, and mockery, and false pretence, there came at last the day appointed for the discussion of my case, the twenty-fifth of January. The chief proposer of the motion, a man most friendly to me, Quintus Fabricius, occupied the temple some time before daybreak. On that day Sestius was quite quiet, the very man who is now on his trial for violence. He, the advocate and defender of my cause, takes no step at all, but waits to see the maneuvers of my enemies. What next? How do these men conduct themselves by whose contrivance Publius Sestius is now put upon his trial? As they had occupied the forum, and the place for the comitia, and the senate-house, at an early period of the night, with a number of armed men and slaves, they fall on Fabricius, lay violent hands on him, slay some men, and wound many. [sect. 76] They drive away by force Marcus Cispius, a most gallant and virtuous man and a tribune of the people, as he was coming into the forum; they make a great slaughter in the forum; and all of them, with drawn and bloody swords, looked about with their eyes for, and demanded with their cries, my brother, a most virtuous man, a most brave one, and one most devoted to me. And he willingly, such was his grief, and so great his regret for me, would have exposed his body to their weapons, not with a view of resisting them, but with the object of meeting death, if he had not preserved his life in the hope of my return. However, he endured some violence from those wicked robbers; and as he had come down for the purpose of begging [p. 189] the safety of his brother from the Roman people, having been driven from the rostra, he lay down in the place of the comitia, and covered himself with the corpses of slaves and freedmen, and defended his life that day by the protection which night and flight afforded him, not by that of the laws or courts of justice. [sect. 77] You recollect, O judges, that on that day the Tiber was filled with the corpses of the citizens, that the sewers were choked up; that blood was wiped up out of the forum with sponges; so that all men thought that such a vast number and such a magnificent show of gladiators could not have been provided by any private individual, or plebeian, but must be the exhibition of some patrician and man of praetorian rank.

Ch. 36 Neither before this time nor even on this most turbulent day itself was there any word of accusation uttered against Sestius. But there was great violence used in the forum. No doubt of that. When was there ever greater? We have often seen men pelted with stones; not so often, but still too often have we seen swords but such great slaughter as this,such vast heaps of corpses piled up who ever beheld in the forum, except perhaps on that miserable day of Cinna and Octavius? With what animosity did the parties fight! For, indeed, seditious disturbances often arise from the pertinacity or firmness with which some magistrate has exercised his veto or from the fault and wickedness of some proposer of a law having held out hopes of great advantage or great bribes to the ignorant; they arise from the rivalry of the magistrates; they arise gradually from clamour at first, and afterwards from some division of the assembly it is unwillingly, and slowly, and seldom that acts of violence are resorted to. But who ever heard before of a sedition in the night, when not a word had been spoken, when no assembly had been summoned and when no law had been read? [sect. 78] Is it probable that a Roman citizen, or that any free man, should have descended with a sword into the forum before daybreak, in order to prevent a law from being passed respecting me, unless he were one of those men who have been fattened up this long time on the blood of the republic by that destructive and wicked citizen?

Here now I ask the prosecutor himself, who complains that Sestius used to keep a great multitude and a large guard about him during his tribuneship, whether he had them with [p. 190] him on that day? Certainly, most undeniably, he had not; and therefore the party of the republic was defeated; and it was defeated, not by unfavourable auspices, not by any exercise of the veto, not by the suffrages of any assembly, but by violence, by force of arms, by bloodshed. For if the praetor had given notice to Fabricius, and had said that he was observing the auspices, the republic would have received a blow, but still one which it could have lamented. If his colleague had interrupted Fabricius with his veto, he would have injured the republic, but still he would have injured the republic in a legal and regular manner. Are you to send raw gladiators, got together in expectation of the aedileship, with a pack of assassins let loose out of the jails, into the forum before dawn? Are you to drive the magistrates down from the temple? Are you to cause a great massacre? to desolate the forum? and then, when you have carried everything by violence and arms, to accuse a man who has protected himself with a guard, not for the purpose of opposing you, but of defending his own life?

Ch. 37 [sect. 79]

But not even since that time has Sestius endeavoured to take care to be able, being defended by his people around him, to discharge the duties of his magistracy in the forum, and to conduct the affairs of the republic in safety. Therefore, relying on the sacred nature of his office as tribune, as he considered that he was armed by sacred laws, not only against violence and weapons, but also against words and interruption in speaking, he came into the temple of Castor,he gave notice to the consul that he could not proceed because he was observing the auspices; when on a sudden that band of Clodius, which had already been repeatedly victorious in the slaughter of citizens, raises an outcry, hurries forward, attacks him. Some fall with their swords on the tribune unarmed and unprovided, and some with pieces of fences and with clubs; and he at length, having received many wounds, and been weakened and disabled by the injuries which he had received from these men, fell down in an almost lifeless state, and was only saved from actual death by their believing that he was dead. For when they saw him lying on the ground with numberless wounds and gashes, scarcely breathing, pale and exhausted, they at last left off wounding him, more because they were tired, [p. 191] and because they were mistaken, thinking him dying than from any feelings of pity or moderation. [sect. 80]

And now Sestius is on his trial for violence! Why is this? Because he is alive. But that is no fault of his. One last blow was wanting; and if that had been added he would have yielded up his last breath. Accuse Lentidius; he did not wound him in the right place; accuse Sabinius that fellow from Reate, and ask why he was so prompt to cry out that the man was dead. But why accuse Sestius himself? Was not there enough of him for their swords? Did he resist? Did he not stand to be killed as gladiators are often ordered to do?

Ch. 38 Is this of itself a proof of violence not to be able to die? Or this, that a tribune of the people profaned a temple with blood? Or this, that when he had been carried away and had begun to come to himself, he did not order himself to he carried back again? Where is the crime for which you blame him? [sect. 81] Or this I ask, O judges, if on that day that family of Clodius had done what it wished,if Publius Sestius, who was left for dead had really been slain, would you have had recourse to arms? Would you have roused yourselves up to the courage of your fathers and to the valour of your ancestors? Would you at last have endeavoured to wrest the republic out of the hands of that deadly robber? Or would you even then have remained quiet and dawdled, and been afraid, when you saw the republic overwhelmed and taken possession of by the most impious assassins and by slaves? If then you would have avenged his death, if you had any idea of continuing free men, and of retaining the constitution, do you think that you ought to hesitate as to what you ought to say, and feel, and think, and decide as to his virtue now that he is alive? [sect. 82]

But even those very parricides, whose unbridled frenzy is nourished by long impunity, were thrown into such consternation by the violence of their deed, that if the belief of the death of Sestius had lasted a little longer, they would have done as they were thinking of, and have slain their own friend Gracchus, for the sake of attributing the crime to us. That clown, however, being rather wary, (for those wicked men could not conceal their design,) perceived that his own blood was sought for for the purpose of extinguishing the unpopularity of this atrocity of Clodius, and got hold of a [p. 192] cloak belonging to a mule-driver, in which he had originally come to Rome to the comitia, and put a mower's basket on his head, and when some were asking for Numerius, and some for Quintius, he was saved by the mistake of the double name.⁵¹ And you are all aware that he was in danger until it was ascertained that Sestius was alive; and if that had not been discovered a little sooner than I could have wished, they would not, indeed, have been able to transfer the odium of the death of their hired tool to those on whom they expected to shift it; but they would have diminished the infamy of their abominable wickedness by one crime which every one would have been glad of. [sect. 83] And if Publius Sestius had then yielded up, in the temple of Castor, that life which he hardly retained, I have no doubt that if only the senate had continued to exist and if the majesty of the Roman people had ever recovered, a statue would at some future time have been erected to him in the forum, as to a man who had been slain in the cause of the republic.

Nor, indeed, would any one of those men to whom you see that statues after their death have been erected by our ancestors in that place in the rostra, deserve to be thought more of than Publius Sestius, either as respects the cruelty of their death, or their attachment to the republic: if, when he had undertaken the cause of a citizen oppressed by undeserved misfortune,the cause of a friend,the cause of a man who had done great services to the republic,the cause of the senate, the cause of Italy, the cause of the republic; and when, in obedience to the requirements of religion and to the auspices, he had given notice to the magistrates of what omens he had observed, he had been slain by those impious pests of their country in the light of day, openly, within the sight of gods and men, in a most holy temple, in a most holy cause, and while invested with a most holy magistracy. Will any one, then, say that the life of that man ought to be stripped of its proper dignity and honour, when you would have thought his death entitled to the honour of an everlasting monument?[p. 193]

Ch. 39 [sect. 84] You brought, says he, you levied, you got together a band of men. What was he going to do with them? To besiege the senate? to expel citizens who had not been condemned? to plunder men's property? to set fire to buildings? to plunder private houses? to him the temples of the immortal gods? to expel the tribunes of the people from the rostra by force of arms? to sell whatever provinces he pleased to whomsoever he pleased? to give men the title of king? to restore to free cities, by means of our lieutenants and ambassadors, men who had been condemned for capital offences? to blockade the chief man of the state in his house with armed bands? It was to effect all these objects, I suppose, which could never possibly be attained unless the republic were overwhelmed by armed men, that Publius Sestius got together his multitude of men, and his troops, as you call them. But the pear was not yet ripe. The circumstances of the case did not as yet invite good men to have recourse to such means for their protection. We were defeated not indeed by that body alone, but still not entirely without its agency. You were all mourning in silence. [sect. 85]

The forum had been taken in the preceding year; the temple of Castor having been occupied by runaway slaves, as if it had been a fortress! not a word was said against such conduct. Everything was done by the clamour and impetuosity, and violence, and assaults of men desperate through indigence and through their natural audacity. And you endured that it should be so. The magistrates were driven from the temples; others were altogether cut off from all approach to them or to the forum. No one offered any resistance. Gladiators were taken out of the praetor's train and introduced into the senate and confessed that they had been thrown into prison by Milo, that they had been released by Serranus. Yet no mention was made of these things. The forum was strewed with the corpses of Roman citizens murdered in a nocturnal massacre. There not only was no new sort of investigation into such events instituted, but even the old courts of justice were abolished. You saw a tribune of the people lying down stricken to the ground with more than twenty wounds and almost dead; the house of another tribune of the people, a man of godlike virtue (for I will say what I think myself, and what all men agree [p. 194] with me in thinking,) a man of most eminent, unheard-of, unprecedented greatness of mind, and wisdom, and integrity, was attacked with fire and sword by the army of Clodius.

Ch. 40 [sect. 86]

And while speaking on this topic you praise Milo, and you praise him deservedly. For what man have we ever seen of more admirable virtue? a man who, without any expectation of reward beyond this, which is now thought an old-fashioned and contemptible thingnamely, the esteem of the good, has voluntarily encountered every sort of danger, and the most arduous labours, and the most severe contests, and the most bitter enmities? who appears to me to be the only citizen who has shown not only by words but by actions what ought to be done, and what was necessary to be done, in the republic by the leading men; that such men's duty was to resist the wickedness of audacious men, men who would overturn the republic, by means of the laws, and of the courts of justice; but that if the laws were inefficient, if there were no courts of justice, if the republic was seized and held in subjection by the violence and conspiracy and armed force of audacious men, then that it was absolutely necessary for our lives and liberties to be defended by armed guards and by troops. To think in this way is a sign of prudence; to act in accordance with such sentiments is a proof of bravery; to think rightly, and to act bravely at the same time, is a proof of perfect and consummate virtue.

[sect. 87] Milo, as tribune of the people, entered on the administration of the affairs of the republic: and I will dilate yet further in his praise; not because he is more anxious to be praised than to be respected, or because I have any particular wish to give him this reward of praise in his presence, especially as I cannot find words equal to his exploits; but because I think that if I prove that the conduct of Milo has been approved of by the voice of the prosecutor, you will think with reference to this accusation, that the cause of Sestius stands on the same ground. Titus Annius, then, entered on the administration of the affairs of the republic with the feeling that he wished to restore to his country a citizen who had been undeservedly driven from it. The case was a plain one; his conduct was consistent supported by the unanimous consent and concord of every one. He had his colleagues for assistants, the greatest possible zeal in his favour of one of the [p. 195] consuls, and the disposition of the other was nearly friendly. Of the praetors, one was unfavourable; the enthusiasm of the senate in the cause was extraordinary, the feelings of all the Roman knights were roused to further it, Italy was on the tiptoe of expectation. There were only two enemies who had been brought over to create obstacles; and if those despicable and contemptible men could not support the weight of so important a business, he saw that he should not be able by any means to accomplish the object which he had undertaken to effect. He laboured with all his influence, with all his prudence,he laboured by means of the cooperation of the highest order in the state he laboured exciting others by the example of the virtuous and brave citizens,he meditated with incessant diligence on what conduct was worthy of the republic and of himself, on his own station and character, on what hopes he ought to entertain on what return he ought to make to his ancestors for what he had received from them.

Ch. 41 [sect. 88]

That gladiator saw that he could not be a match for such wisdom as that of Milo, if he proceeded according to ordinary usage. He resorted to arms, to firebrands, to daily slaughter, to conflagration and plunder, with his army. He began to attack his house, to meet him on his journeys, to provoke him by violence, to try and alarm him. He had but little effect on a man of consummate wisdom and consummate firmness; but although indignation of mind, and an innate love of liberty, and prompt and excellent valour, encouraged that gallant man to break down and repel violence by violence, especially now that violence was so repeatedly offered, still so great was the moderation of the man, and so excessive his prudence, that he restrained his indignation, and would not avenge himself by the same conduct as that by which he had been provoked; but he resolved rather to entangle in the toils of the law that fellow who was exulting and dancing in triumph over all the murders which he had committed in the republic. [sect. 89] He came down to the court to accuse him. Who ever did so, so peculiarly for the sake of the republic? having no private enmity of his own to urge him on, having no reward in prospect being persuaded by no entreaty on the part of any one, nor even by any general expectation that he was going to take such a step. The fellow's courage was shaken. For when such a man as Milo was the prosecutor, he [p. 196] had no hope of such an infamous tribunal as his former one. See now the praetor, the consul, and the tribune of the people, propose new edicts of a new sort: That no one be brought before the court as a defendant; that no one be summoned before the judges; that no investigations take place; that no one be allowed to make any mention to any one, of judges, or courts of justice. What was a man to do who was born for virtue, and dignity, and glory, when the violence of wicked men was fortified in this way, by the destruction of all laws and courts of justice? Was tribune of the people to place his life at the mercy of a private individual? was a most virtuous man to hold his life at the will of a most thoroughly wicked one? or, was he to abandon the cause which he had undertaken? was he to keep at home? He thought it would be a base thing to be defeated, or to be frightened from his purpose. In truth, he thought it for the advantage of the republic, since he was not able to employ the laws against him, that he should not show any fear of his violence, with respect either to personal peril to himself, or to the danger of the republic.

Ch. 42 [sect. 90]

How, then, can you accuse Sestius with reference to this fact of his having provided himself with a guard, when at the same time you praise Milo? Is it legal for that man to provide himself with a guard who is defending his own house, who is repelling fire and sword from his altars and his fire-side, who seeks to be allowed to present himself with safety in the forum, in the temples of the gods, and in the senate-house; but do you think that man who is warned by the wounds which he sees every day over his whole person, to defend his head, and his neck, and his throat, and his sides, by some protection or other, deserving to be prosecuted for violence? [sect. 91] For who of you, O judges, is ignorant that the nature of things has been such, that at one time men, before there was any natural or civil law fully laid down, wandered in a straggling and disorderly manner over the country, and had just that property which they could either seize or keep by their own personal strength and vigour, by means of wounds and bloodshed? Those men, therefore, who showed themselves to be the most eminent for virtue and wisdom, they, having considered the character of men's aptitude for instruction and of their natural disposition, collected into one place those [p. 197] who were previously scattered abroad, and brought them over from their former savage way of life to justice and mildness of manners. Then came those constitutions devised for the utility of man, which we call commonwealths. Then came collections of men which were subsequently called states; then men surrounded with walls sets of houses joined together, which we now call cities, and divine and human laws began to be recognised.

[sect. 92] And there is no point in which there is so much difference between this manner of life, polished by civilization and that savage one, as in the fact of law being the ruling principle of the one, and violence of the other. If we do not choose to be guided by one we must adopt the other. Do we wish violence to be put an end to? Law must inevitably prevail; that is to say, courts of justice must, for in them all law and justice are comprehended. Do we disapprove of courts of justice, or are they destroyed or suspended? In a moment violence must be supreme. Everybody sees this. Milo saw it and acted in such a manner as to try the power of law and to banish violence. He wished to avail himself of the one, in order that courage and virtue might defeat audacity; he had recourse to the other from compulsion, in order to prevent virtue and courage from being defeated by audacity. And the principle of conduct of Publius Sestius was the same if not in prosecuting Clodius, (for, it does not follow that exactly the same details of conduct are to be pursued by every one,) still at all events in the necessity of defending his safety, and in preparing a defence against force and personal violence.

Ch. 43 [sect. 93]

O ye immortal gods! what an end do you show to us? what hope of the republic do you hold out to us? How few men will be found of such virtue and courage as to embrace the cause of the republic when it is the justest of causes? and to consult the interests of the virtuous part of the community? and to seek no glory but that which is solid and genuine? when he knows that of those two monsters so nearly fatal to the republic, Gabinius and Piso, one is every day amassing a countless sum of gold from the peaceful and opulent treasuries of Syria; and is waging war on quiet tribes, in order to pour into the deep and bottomless gulf of his lusts their ancient and hitherto untasted and undiminished riches; and is building in a most conspicuous [p. 198] place a villa of such a size, that that villa, of which that very man, when tribune of the people, once unfolded a picture in the assembly of the people, in order (virtuous man and free from all taint of covetousness that he was) to excite odium against a most virtuous and brave citizen, appears now little more than a hut by the side of it. [sect. 94] The other man first of all sold peace for an enormous sum to the Thracians and Dardani. Then, in order that they might be able to make up the money which they were to pay him, he gave up Macedonia to them to ravage and plunder. Moreover, he distributed the property of their creditors, Roman citizens, among their Greek debtors; he exacted immense sums from the people of Dyrrachium, he plundered the Thessalians, he exacted a fixed sum of money from the Achaeans every year; and, above all, in no public or consecrated place has he left one statue, or picture, or ornament. Who, I say, will embrace the cause of the republic when he knows all this, and when he sees that these men are so triumphant who deserve most richly, according to every law in existence, every sort of penalty, and every extremity of punishment? and that these two men whom you see here are brought to trial? I say nothing of Numerius, and Serranus, and Aelius, the mere dregs of the sedition of Clodius; but still, even these go triumphantly about as you behold; nor, as long as ever you are in a state of apprehension for yourselves, will they ever be alarmed for themselves.

Ch. 44 [sect. 95]

For why need I speak of the aedile himself, who has even commenced legal proceedings against Milo, and instituted a prosecution against him for violence? Not that Milo will ever be induced by any injury to himself to repent that he behaved with such virtue, and with such firmness of mind towards the republic; but what will be the thoughts of the young men who see all these things? The man who has attacked and destroyed and burnt the public monuments, and the sacred holdings, and the houses of his enemies; who was constantly escorted by assassins, fenced round by armed guards, and surrounded by a band of informers, of whom there is far too great a plenty; who stirred up even a foreign band of wicked men, and bought a lot of slaves ready for bloodshed, and who in his tribuneship poured the whole contents of the prisons into the forum, now struts about as an aedile, and accuses the [p. 199] man who did to some extent check his exulting frenzy. And the man who has hitherto defended himself in such a manner, that, as a private individual he has been defending his own household gods, and in his public capacity the privileges of his tribuneship and the auspices, has been prevented by the authority of the senate from prosecuting that man with moderation by whom he himself has been prosecuted in a most nefarious manner.

[sect. 96] This, in truth, is the question which you put to me earnestly and most repeatedly while pleading in behalf of the prosecution,namely, what I mean by the race of best men? For this is what you said. You ask a question which it is very desirable for the youth of the city to learn and not very difficult for me to explain, and with respect to it, I will, O judges, say a few words. And, as I think what I say will not be wholly unconnected with the advantage of those who hear me nor with my duty, nor with the very case which we are arguing of Publius Sestius.

Ch. 45

There have always in this city been two kinds of men who have been ambitious of being concerned in affairs of state, and of arriving at distinction by such a course and of these two kinds one wish to be considered popular men and the others wish both to be and to be considered of the party of the best men in the state. Those whose object it was that whatever they did and whatever they said should be agreeable to the multitude, were the popular party; but those who conducted themselves in such a way as to induce all the best men to approve of their counsels were considered of the best party.⁵² [sect. 97]

Who then are they? Every good man. If you ask what are their numbers, they are innumerable. For if they were not, we could not stand. They are the chief men of the public council; they are those who follow their school they are the men of the highest orders of the state to whom the senate house is open; they are the citizens of the municipal towns and Roman citizens who dwell in the country; they are men engaged in business; there are even some freedmen of the [p. 200] best party. The number, as I have said, of this party is widely scattered in various directions; but the entire body (to prevent all mistakes) can be described and defined in a few words. All men belong to the best party, who are not guilty of any crime, nor wicked by nature, nor madmen, nor men embarrassed by domestic difficulties. Let it be laid down, then, that these men (this race, as you call them) are all those who are honest and in their senses, and who are well off in their domestic circumstances. Those who are guided by their wishes, who consult their interests and opinions in the management of the republic, are the partisans of the best men, and are themselves accounted best men, most wise and most illustrious citizens, and chief men in the state.

[sect. 98] What then, is the object proposed to themselves by these directors of the republic, which they are bound to keep their eyes fixed upon, and towards which they ought to direct their course? That which is most excellent and most desirable to all men in their senses, and to all good and happy men,ease conjoined with duty. Those who seek this are all best men; those who effect it are considered the chief leaders in and the preservers of their states. For men ought not to he so elated by the dignity of the affairs which they have undertaken to manage, as to have no regard to their ease; nor ought they to dwell with fondness on any sort of ease which is inconsistent with dignity.

Ch. 46

[sect. 99] And of this easy dignity these are the foundations, these are the component parts, which ought to he upheld by the chief men, and to be defended even at the hazard of their lives: religious observances, the auspices, the civil power of magistrates, the authority of the senate, the laws, the usages of one's ancestors, the courts of justice, the jurisdiction of the judges, good faith, the provinces, the allies, the glory of the empire, the whole affairs of the army, the treasury. To the defender and advocate of all these things, numerous and important as they are, is a task to employ great courage, great ability, and great firmness. In truth, in such a vast number of citizens, there is a great multitude of those men, who either, from fear of punishment, because they are conscious of their own misdeeds, are anxious for fresh changes and revolutions in the republic; or who, on account of some innate insanity of mind, feed upon the discords and seditions of the [p. 201] citizens; or else who, on account of the embarrassment of their estates and circumstances, had rather burn in one vast common conflagration, than in one which consumed only themselves. And when these men have found instigators, leaders in and promoters of their own objects and vices, their waves are stirred up in the republic, so that those men must watch who have demanded for themselves the helm of the country, and they must strive with all their skill and with all their diligence, in order that they may be able to preserve these things which I have just now called its foundations and component parts, and so keep in their course and reach that harbour of ease and dignity. [sect. 100]

If, O judges, I were to deny that this path is rugged and difficult, and full of danger and snares, I should speak falsely, especially as I have not only always been aware that it was so, but have been alive to its perils and labours more than any other man.

Ch. 47

The republic is attacked by greater forces and more numerous bodies than those by which it is defended because audacious and abandoned men are impelled on by a nod, and are even of their own accord excited by nature to be enemies to the republic. And somehow or other good men are slower in action, and overlooking the first beginnings of things, are at last aroused by necessity itself so that some times through their very delays and tardiness of movement while they wish to retain their ease even without dignity, they, of their own accord, lose both. [sect. 101] But those who are desirous to be defenders of the republic, if they be fickle men, soon give up the task; if they be at all timid men, they abandon it; and those alone remain and endure everything for the sake of the republic, who are such men as your father was, O Marcus Scaurus, who resisted all seditious men, from the time of Caius Gracchus to that of Quintus Varius, whom no violence, no threats, and no unpopularity ever shook; or such as Quintus Metellus, the uncle of your mother; who, when as censor he had branded a man most flourishing in the popular esteem, Lucius Saturninus, and when he had expunged a pretended Gracchus from the list of the citizens, in spite of the violence of an excited mob, and when he alone had refused to swear obedience to a law which he considered had not been legally enacted, preferred to abandon the city rather [p. 202] than his opinion; or, (to leave off quoting ancient examples, of which there is an abundance worthy of the glory of this empire, while yet I avoid naming any one who is now alive,) such as Quintus Catulus lately was, whom neither the tempest of danger nor the breeze of honour could ever move from his straight course, either by hope or fear.

Ch. 48 [sect. 102]

Imitate those men, I beg you in the name of the immortal gods, you who seek for dignity, and praise, and glory. These examples are honourable; these are godlike; these are immortal; these are celebrated in fame, and are committed to the eternal recollection of our annals, and are handed down to posterity. It is a labour, I do not deny it. The dangers are great, I admit it,
The path of virtuous men is full of snares. That is a most true saying. The poet says further,
But to demand those honours which excite
The general envy and desire of all,
And yet to shun the toil and ceaseless care
Which can alone conduct to such a goal,
Is purest ignorance.

The same poet says in another place, (a sentence which wicked citizens are inclined to catch at,) Let them hate me, as long as they fear. For he gave those admirable precepts to the young men. [sect. 103] But nevertheless this path and this system of undertaking public affairs was formerly more formidable, as in many particulars the desire of the multitude and the whim of the people were at variance with the interests of the republic. A law for the establishment of the ballot was brought forward by Lucius Cassius. The people thought that its liberties were at stake; the chief men of the state dissented, and in a matter affecting the safety of the nobles, they feared the rashness of the multitude, and the licentiousness of the ballot. Tiberius Gracchus brought forward an Agrarian law. It was very acceptable to the people; the fortunes of the poorer classes appeared likely to be established by it. The nobles strove against it, because they saw that discord was excited by it; and because, as the object of it was to deprive the wealthy men of their ancient possessions, they thought that by it the republic was being deprived of its [p. 203] defenders. Caius Gracchus brought forward a law respecting corn. It was a very pleasing proposal to the common people at Rome; for food was to be supplied to them in abundance without any trouble. The good resisted it because they thought that its effect would be to lead the common people away from industry to idleness, and because the treasury was likely to be drained by such a measure.

Ch. 49 [sect. 104]

There have been also many cases within our own recollection, which I pass over on purpose, in which the desire of the people has been at variance with the wisdom of the nobles. At present there is no subject on which the people need disagree with its chosen magistrates and with the nobles; it is not demanding anything, nor is it eager for a revolution, and it is fond of its own tranquillity, and pleased with the dignity and worth of every eminent man, and with the glory of the whole republic. Therefore seditious and turbulent men, because they cannot at present stir up the Roman people by any bribery, since the common people, having gone through some most violent seditious and discords, appear for the most for ease and tranquillity, now hold packed assemblies, and do not concern themselves about saying or proposing what those men who are present in the assembly may like to hear, but they contrive by bribery and corruption that whatever they say may appear to be what those men wish to hear.

[sect. 105] Do you think that the Gracchi, or that Saturninus, or that any one of those ancient men who were considered devoted to the interests of the people, had ever any hired fellows in their assemblies? No one of those men ever stooped to such a course. For the mere liberality of their proposed laws, and the hope of the advantage which was held out to them, excited the multitude sufficiently without any bribery. Therefore, in those times, those men who set up for friends of the people, were hindered in their plans by wise and honourable men, but they were great men in the opinion of the populace, and received every sort of honour from them. They were applauded in the theatre; they gained whatever they sought for by their suffrages; men loved their names, their language, their countenances, their very gait. But those who opposed this class of men were accounted wise and great men; they had great influence in the senate, great influence among all [p. 204] good men; but they were unpopular with the multitude; their inclinations were frequently thwarted by the suffrages of the populace; and if any one of them at any time received any applause in the theatre, he began to be afraid that he had done something wrong; but at the same time, if there was anything of more than ordinary importance under discussion, then that same populace was chiefly influenced by the authority of those men.

Ch. 50 [sect. 106]

Now, unless I am mistaken, the state is in such a condition, that if you take away the artisans who are hired to support the party of these wicked men, everybody in the republic appears to be of the same opinion. In truth, there are three places in which the opinion and inclination of the Roman people may be ascertained in the greatest degree; the assembly, the comitia, and the meetings at the games and at exhibitions of gladiators. What assembly has there been of late years, which has not been a packed and bribed one, but a genuine one, in which the unanimity of the Roman people has not been very perceivable? Many assemblies were held concerning me by that most wicked gladiator, to which no one ever went who was unbribed, no one who was an honest man; no good man could endure to behold that ill-omened countenance, or to listen to that frantic voice. Those assemblies were, I admit that those assemblies of abandoned men were necessarily turbulent. [sect. 107] Publius Lentulus, too, held an assembly, also about my affairs. There was a vast flocking to it of the whole Roman people; all ranks of society, all Italy stood side by side in that assembly. He argued my cause with the greatest authority, and the greatest fluency of language amid such silent attention and such visible approbation from every one, that nothing so pleasing appeared ever to have fallen on the ears of the Roman people. Cnaeus Pompeius was brought forward by him, who displayed himself then not only as the main author of my safety, but even as a suppliant to the Roman people. His oration also was one of great weight and was pleasing to the assembly. And I assert that no opinion of his ever carried more authority with it; and that no eloquence of his was ever more agreeable. With what silent attention were the other chief men of the city listened to while speaking in my behalf; [sect. 108] whom I do not mention in this place, only lest my speech, if I say too little of any one, [p. 205] should seem ungrateful and if I were to say enough of each individual, interminable.

Turn now to the harangue of that same enemy of mine concerning me the same person of whom those great men had been speaking, delivered in the Campus Martins, to a genuine assembly of the people. Who was there who (I will not say approved of it but who) did not think it a most scandalous thing that he should be allowed to live and breathe at all, much less to speak? Who was there who did not think that the republic was polluted by his voice and that he himself, if he only listened to him was implicated in his wickedness?

Ch. 51 [sect. 109]

I come now to the comitia, whether those for electing magistrates or for enacting laws. We often see many laws passed. I say nothing of those which are passed in such a manner that scarcely five men, and those only of the lowest class, can be found to give a vote for them. He says that at the time of that ruin of the republic he carried a law respecting me, whom he called a tyrant and the destroyer of liberty. Who is there who will confess that he gave a vote when this law was passed against me? But when, in compliance with the same resolution of the senate, a law was passed about me in the comitia centuriata who is there who does not profess that then he was pres