Calpurnius Flaccus: CALPURNIUS FLACCUS DECLAMATIONES

UXOR TYRANNICIDA QUINQUE CUM TYRANNO PROXIMI FAMILIAE PUNIANTUR. Quae habebat duos filios et tyrannum virum, tyrannicidium fecit. Praemio impunitatem liberis postulavit; meruit, ex his alter occupavit arcem.

THE WIFE TYRANNICIDE: FIVE CLOSE FAMILY MEMBERS OF THE TYRANT ARE PUNISHED. She who had two sons and a husband the tyrant committed tyrannicide. She demanded impunity for her children as a reward; she deserved it — from these one seized the citadel.

Et eum mater occidit. Petit alteri impunitatem; contradicitur.

And his mother killed him. He asks impunity for the other; he is contradicted.

"Occidam" inquit. Quanta nobis ante patienda sunt, dum occidere tyrannum femina possit et mater velit! "Non possum mortem filii mei videre." Hoc est ergo, quare illum velimus occidere.

"I will kill," she says. How much must be endured by us beforehand, while a woman can kill the tyrant and a mother would wish it! "I cannot endure to see the death of my son." This, then, is why we might desire to kill him.

PARS ALTERA
Petit praemium, non quod accipiat, sed quod accepit. Natus Aethiops Matrona Aethiopem peperit. Arguitur adulterii.

PARS ALTERA
He seeks a reward, not that he may receive it, but that he has received it. An Ethiopian is born; the Matron bore an Ethiopian. She is accused of adultery.

Expers iudicii est amor; non rationem habet, non sanitatem; alioquin omnes idem amaremus. Nonnumquam incredibiliter peccare ratio peccandi est. "Non semper" inquit "similes parentibus liberi nascuntur." Quid tibi cum isto patrocinio est, nisi ut appareat te peccasse securius?

Love is devoid of judgment; it has no reason, no soundness; otherwise we would all love the same. Sometimes the reason for sinning is to sin incredibly. "Not always," he says, "are children born like their parents." What have you to do with that plea, unless that it may make it appear more surely that you have sinned?

Miramur hanc legem esse naturae, ut in sobolem transeant formae, quas quasi descriptas species custodiunt. Sua cuique genti etiam facies manet: rutili sunt Germaniae vultus et flava proceritas; Hispaniae < . . . > Non eodem omnes colore tinguntur. Ex altera parte, qua convexus et deficiens mundus vicinum mittit orientem, illic effusiora corpora, illic collectiora nascuntur.

We marvel that this is a law of nature, that forms pass into offspring, which, as if traced, the species preserve. Each nation even keeps its own face: the visages of Germany are reddish and their stature fair‑blond; of Hispania < . . . > Not all are tinged with the same color. On the other side, where the convex and declining world sends the neighboring east, there more luxuriant bodies are born, there more compact ones arise.

Diversa sunt mortalium genera, nemo tamen est suo generi dissimilis. "Quid ergo?" Inquit "amavi[t] Aethiopem?" Est interdum, iudices, malarum quoque rerum sua gratia, est quaedam formarum voluptas. Miraris, si aliquis non sapienter amat, cum incipere amare non sit sapientis?

The kinds of mortals are diverse, yet no one is dissimilar to his own kind. "What then?" he says, "did I love an Ethiopian?" There is at times, judges, even in evil things their own grace; there is a certain pleasure of forms. Do you marvel if someone does not love wisely, since to begin to love is not the act of a wise man?

Da mihi sanos mulieris oculos: nemo adulter formosus est. Periturae pudicitiae minima in eo est sollicitudo, quemadmodum pereat. Proprium est profanae libidinis nescire, quo cadat.

Give me the sound eyes of a woman: no adulterer is comely. The smallest solicitude for perishing chastity is in him as to how it perishes. It is proper to profane lust not to know into what it will fall.

Vbi semel pudor corruit, nulla inclinatis in vitium animis ruina deformis est. Is demum libidini placuit, in quem non posset mariti cadere suspicio.

Where once modesty has collapsed, there is no unsightly ruin in minds inclined toward vice. He, at last, pleased lust—him into whom a husband's suspicion could not fall.

PARS ALTERA
Ita non maius est argumentum pudicitiae, quod parere voluit, quam impudicitiae, quod <in>feliciter peperit? Vides partum laesis fortasse visceribus excussum: multum fortunae etiam intra uterum licet. Vides sanguinis vitio perustam cutem; colorem putas: istud fortasse infantis iniuria est.

PARS ALTERA
Is not the greater argument of pudicitia, that which wished to give birth, than of impudicitia, which unhappily bore? Do you see a birth perhaps shaken out by injured viscera: much of fortune even within the uterus is permitted. Do you see the skin ruined by a vitium of the blood; you judge the colour: that perhaps is the infant’s injury.

Hoc ipsum, quod alte infuscatam cutem livor infecit, dies longus extenuat. Nivea plerumque membra sole fuscantur, et corpori pallor excedit; quamvis naturaliter fuscos artus umbra cogit albescere. Tantum tempori licet, quantum putas licere naturae.

That very thing — the bruise that stained the deeply darkened skin — a long day lessens. For snowy limbs are commonly darkened by the sun, and pallor departs from the body; although naturally shadow compels dusky limbs to grow pale. As much is permitted to time as you suppose is permitted to nature.

Miles Marianus Miles Marii adulescens propinquum Marii tribunum vim sibi inferentem peremit. Reus est caedis. C D. "Propinquus" inquit "imperatoris occisus est." Macte virtute, adulescens, et Marium vindicasti.

Marian soldier; the young man, son of Marius, killed a kinsman of Marius, the tribune, who had offered violence to him. He is accused of murder. 400. "A kinsman," he said, "of the emperor has been killed." Well done in bravery, young man, and you have avenged Marius.

Ubicumque periclitatur pudicitia, suam legem habet. Quid agis, tribune? Tibi nondum vir est, qui Mario iam miles est?

Wherever chastity is endangered, it has its own law. What do you do, tribune? Are you not yet a man, who is already a soldier for Marius?

Non longe ab eo est miles, ut promittat stuprum, qui rogatus tantummodo negat. Crede, imperator, male de te iudicasset miles tuus, si tribuno pepercisset. Hanc vim Verginius Parricidio fugit, propter hanc Lucretia pectus suum ferro fodit.

Not far from him is a soldier who, when asked, merely refuses to promise the rape. Believe me, emperor, your soldier would have judged you ill if he had spared the tribune. By this violence Verginius fled from parricide; for this reason Lucretia plunged a sword into her own breast.

Pudet me, imperator: feminae exemplis militem tueor. Stuprum minatus est militi tuo: minus est quod nobis Cimbri minantur.

I am ashamed, emperor: by the examples of women I defend a soldier. He has threatened rape to your soldier: what the Cimbri threaten us is less.

PARS ALTERA
Miles tuus, imperator, iam aliquid impudici habet quod ad impudicitiam placet. Tu gladium commilitonis tui cruore tinxisti, quem satis fuit minari.

PARS ALTERA
Your soldier, emperor, already bears something of impudicity that lends itself to lewdness. You stained the sword of your commilitone with his blood, whom it would have sufficed merely to threaten.

Parricida carcerem petens DAMNATUS PARRICIDII ANNO CUSTODIATUR.
Qui sub noverca damnatus est, vult illum pater domi custodire. Ille petit, ut publico carcere servetur.

Parricida carcerem petens DAMNATUS PARRICIDII ANNO CUSTODIATUR.
One condemned for parricide shall be kept in custody. He who is condemned and is under a stepmother, the father wishes to keep him guarded at home. The condemned man requests that he be kept in the public prison.

Iubete quam primum ad illas me impiorum tenebras trahi. Liceat impetrare quod non licet recusare. Ego me umquam crederem tam infelicem, ut mihi aliquis etiam carcerem invideat?

Bid that I be dragged as soon as possible to those darknesses of the impious. Let it be permitted to obtain what it is not lawful to refuse. Would I ever have believed myself so unhappy, that anyone would even begrudge me a prison?

Parum est tibi in cruciatus meos annus et carcer; vereris, ne quem gemitum miseri aures tuae perdant, ne non singulis tormentis meis paterni oculi fruantur, ne laxata vincula desit qui astringat. Non potes adversus damnatum iure patris uti: iam non larem habeo, non sacrum, non patrem, ac, ne damnatum esse paeniteat, non novercam. Video carcerem publicum, saxis ingentibus structum, angustis foraminibus tenuem lucis umbram recipientem.

Too little for you are a year and prison for my torments; you fear lest your ears miss any groan of the wretched, lest paternal eyes partake of each of my tortures, lest, the bonds having been loosened, there be lacking one to tighten them. You cannot employ the right of a father against one condemned: now I have no lar, no sacrum, no father, and, lest he repent having condemned me, not even a stepmother. I see the public prison, built of huge stones, its narrow apertures receiving the thin shade of light.

In hunc rei abiecti robur Tullianumque prospiciunt, et, quotiens iacentes ferrati postis stridor excitat, exanimantur, et alienum supplicium [ex]spectando suum discunt. Sonant verbera, cibus recusantibus spurca manu carnificis ingeritur. Sedet ianitor inexorabili pectore, qui matre flente siccos teneat oculos.

They look toward this stronghold of the thing cast off and the Tullian stronghold, and, whenever the creak of iron at the bolted doors rouses the prostrate, they are struck senseless, and by awaiting another’s punishment they learn their own. The lashes resound; to those refusing food the filthy hand of the executioner thrusts victuals. The doorkeeper sits with an inexorable heart, who, while the mother weeps, keeps his eyes dry.

Inluvies corpus exasperat, manum catenae premunt. Quid est, quod me lex anno reservat, nescioquid diu cogitat? Nimirum de parricidio, etiam cum creditur, non liquet.

Filth exasperates the body, the chains press the hand. What is it that the law keeps me for a year, does it long ponder something? Undoubtedly concerning parricide, even when it is believed, it is not clear.

Aestimate, iudices, quid fugiam, qui hoc postulo! Quid hoc est, iudices, a patre parricida non timeor? Dicam "saevite" cum rogem?

Consider, judges, what should I flee, who demand this! What is this, judges, that I am not feared by a father, a parricide? Shall I say "saevite" — be savage — when I beg?

Dicam "miseremini" cum carcerem rogem?

Shall I say "have mercy" when I ask for prison?

PARS ALTERA
Egone secretum isti conscientiae dabo et ibi te patiar includi, ubi non erubescas? Dignus es, parricida, dignus es videre patrem, si tam grave putas, ut vel carcerem malis. Debeo, iudices, debeo tandem agere mitius pater, si tam graviter sibi damnatus irascitur.

PARS ALTERA
Shall I entrust a secret to that conscience and there endure to be shut up where you do not blush? You are worthy, parricide, you are worthy to see your father, if you deem it so grievous that you would prefer even prison to evils. I must, judges, I must at last act more mildly, father, if, so grievously condemned in himself, he grows angry.

Mirabar, si quis tantum sceleris auderet, qui<n> contemnere carcerem posset. Fugit, odit, avertitur et limen patris execratur: ignoras profecto sortem tuam, si putas aliud iudices debere respicere, quam quod nolis. Hanc lucem patere, si gravis est, hunc diem, si odisti, vide.

I marveled whether any man so full of wickedness would dare—who<n> could contemn the prison. He flees, he hates, he turns away and curses his father’s threshold: you certainly are ignorant of your lot, if you think you ought to look to anything other than what you do not want. Endure this light, if it is grievous; behold this day, if you hate it.

Nihil illi adversus patrem liceret, si parricida non esset. Leno Iuvenes frequenter ad lupanar veniebant. Cum his leno frequenter denuntiasset, ne accederent, foveam fecit et complevit ignibus.

Nothing would be permitted to him against his father, if he were not a parricide. The pimp — young men came frequently to the lupanar. When the pimp had often warned them not to approach, he made a pit and filled it with fires.

Adulescentes cum venissent, exusti sunt. Accusatur a parentibus eorum leno laesae rei publicae. "Denuntiavi" inquit: dii boni, quantum ausus est, cui ne post denuntiationem quidem creditum est!

When the young men had come, they were burned up. The pimp is accused by their parents of injuring the res publica. "I denounced it," he says: "dii boni, how much he dared, to whom not even after the denunciation was any credence given!"

Fuit in illis summa pietas: placuere patribus; summa frugalitas: displicuere lenoni. Tu te iure audes defendere? Nihil ei licet, in quem nihil non licet.

There was in them the highest piety: they pleased their fathers; the highest frugality: they displeased the pimp. Do you dare to defend yourself by right? Nothing is permitted to him in whom nothing is not permitted.

"Denuntiavi" inquit: novimus lenonum minas venales. "Iniuriam" inquit "faciebant mancipiis meis." Quid enim aliud in his quam iniuriam vendis?

"I denounced it," he says: "we know the pimps' venal threats." "They were doing injury to my slaves," he says. For what else in these matters do you sell but injury?

PARS ALTERA
Vbi quid futurum est denuntiatum, culpa patientis est. Decreto reditu exul occisus Adulescens dives nobilis hospitatus apud exulem. Exul scripsit senatui velle se indicare de affectata tyrannide.

THE OTHER PART
Where anything that is to come is denounced, it is the fault of the sufferer. By decree of return the exile was slain. A young man, rich and noble, was lodged with the exile. The exile wrote to the senate that he wished himself to bring an accusation concerning the alleged tyranny.

Senatus revocandum censuit hoc divite contradicente. Dum revertitur exul, occisus est. Accusatur dives affectatae tyrannidis.

The Senate judged that he should be recalled, the rich man contradicting this. While the exile was returning, he was killed. The rich man is accused of the affected (attempted) tyranny.

Intercepisse te putas indicium? Ipse fecisti. Secundum sententiam divitis pauper non est reversus.

Do you think you intercepted the indicium? You yourself made it. According to the rich man's sententia, the poor man did not return.

Dicturum se de tyrannide pollicetur: quid vis suspicemur? Tu nihil nuntias, sed, unde venisti, venerunt epistulae consecutae. Sed cur de publico statu mandare hospiti noluit?

He promises that he will speak about the tyranny: what do you wish — that we should suspect? You report nothing, but from where you came, letters followed after. But why did he not want to entrust the public state to the guest?

Putatis illum contradixisse? Confessus est. Sceleratis ingeniis et plus quam civilia cupientibus non dominari instar servitutis est.

Do you suppose that he contradicted him? He confessed. To wicked dispositions and to those desiring more than civil things, not to be dominated is a kind of servitude.

Iam pridem [te] arci nostrae tua fortuna minitatur. Supra civilem hanc peraequationem divitiae te elevaverunt. Non sine exemplo timemus: in Manlio quondam potuisse damnatum est.

For a long time your fortune has threatened you from our citadel. Riches have elevated you above this civic equalization. We fear it, not without precedent: once it was possible for Manlius to be condemned.

PARS ALTERA
Non intellego, quemadmodum infamet iste sententiam meam; ego si auditus essem, ille non esset occisus. Inquieta res est homo, cui iam in deterius nihil superest. Egerat mecum illic multa de iudicibus, de ignominia sua.

PART TWO
I do not understand how that man maligns my sentence; if I had been heard, he would not have been killed. A man is an inquiet thing, for whom now nothing worse remains. He was discussing with me there many things about the judges, about his ignominy.

Prodam necesse est affectus hospitis mei: hoc tyrannis videbatur. Dives imperator Pauper et dives inimici. Pauperi duo filii.

I must betray the affections of my guest: this seemed to the tyrant. Dives, the emperor; Pauper and Dives were enemies. Pauper had two sons.

Dives imperator creatus. Rumor ortus est prodi rem publicam a pauperis filiis. Vtrumque torquens pernegantem necavit, corpora eorum extra vallum proici iussit.

A rich man was made emperor. A rumor arose that the republic would be handed over to the poor man’s sons. Torquens, utterly denying both, killed them, and ordered their bodies to be cast outside the rampart.

Quae hostes sepelierunt et recesserunt. Pauper accusat divitem caedis. Numquam, iudices, contra istum tutior veni: quicquid auferri potuit, amisi.

Which the enemies buried and then withdrew. The poor man accuses the rich of the slaughter. Never, judges, did I come safer against this man: whatever could be carried off, I have lost.

Soli omnium torti sunt, donec mentirentur. Ita laniatos miseros, ita confusis lineamentis proici iussit, ut iam nec pater posset agnoscere. Miramini, si ab hostibus sepulti sunt?

They alone of all were tortured, until they should confess falsely. Thus he ordered the wretches to be flayed, thus with their lineaments confounded to be cast out, so that now not even their father could recognize them. Do you marvel, if they were buried by the enemies?

Nullos sic ab isto esse tortos nisi captivos putarent. Proditores putas, quos tam misere tamque crudeliter punitos hostis non vindicavit? "Pauperes erant" inquit "et ideo potuere corrumpi." Age, qui nescit illos ideo perisse, quod divitias nimis oderant?

They thought that no one had been thus tortured by that man except captives. Do you reckon them traitors, whom the enemy, having punished so miserably and so cruelly, did not avenge? "They were poor," he says, "and therefore could be corrupted." Come now: who does not know that they perished for that reason, because they hated riches too much?

Super eculeum corpus extenditur, et irato imperatori tortor non sufficit. Vritur, et flagella ignibus adiuvantur. quaeritis exitum?

Upon the rack the body is stretched out, and the enraged emperor is not satisfied with the torturer. He is burned, and the scourges are aided by fires. Do you ask for the end?

Pernegavit. Tortor inimicus tamen, quod quaerebat, invenit, nos proditores, qui pro te, patria, etiam sub isto militavimus.

He utterly denied it. The hostile torturer, however, found what he was seeking: us, traitors, who for you, for the fatherland, even under this man served as soldiers.

PARS ALTERA
Negas potuisse corrumpi? Pauperes fuerunt. Negas voluisse prodere?

PART TWO
Do you deny that they could have been corrupted? They were poor. Do you deny that they wished to betray?

Inimici. Non possum tibi proditionis argumentum afferre praesentius: quamdiu vixere, pugnatum est. Cum mihi civitas mandaret imperium, quo malo laboraret, intellexit.

Enemies. I cannot bring you a more immediate proof of treason: as long as they lived, there was fighting. When the city entrusted the command to me, he perceived by what evil he was afflicted.

Imperatorem me fecit inimicus. Demens ter triumphalis Ter triumphalis, ter consularis, cum haberet liberos aeque ter triumphales, ter consulares, suspendit se. Liberatus a liberis ab iisdem reus fit dementiae. Omnium calamitatum materia est homo diu felix.

An enemy made me emperor. Insane, thrice triumphal, thrice consular — when he had sons likewise thrice-triumphal, thrice-consular, he hanged himself. Freed by his children, by those same he is charged with madness. A man fortunate for a long time is the material cause of all calamities.

Nesciunt stare successus, et quotiens prodire felicitas non potest, redit. Mori volo; quid me iam fortuna custodit?

Nay, successes do not know how to stand, and as often as felicity cannot go forward, it comes back. I wish to die; what now does fortune keep me for?

PARS ALTERA
Ter consulatum gessisti, ter triumphasti; licet iam velit fortuna mutari, in illius potestate non est fuisse. Quis timeret fortunam, nisi prodisset? Pater excaecatus Cum luxurioso filio pater abdita matre secessit in secretum.

PART TWO
You held the consulship three times, you triumphed three times; though fortune may now wish to be changed, it was not within her power to have been. Who would fear fortune, had she not betrayed? The father, blinded, withdrew into seclusion with his luxurious son and with the hidden mother.

Excaecatus rediit. Petit a filio talionem. Mater se fecisse dicit.

Having been blinded, he returned. He demands from his son the talion (the law of retaliation). The mother says that she did it.

Invenit, iudices, pessimus adulescens, quomodo utrumque excaecaret parentem. Quid te secreto fecisse credamus? Matrem in foro excaecas.

He discovered, judges, a most wicked young man, how he might blind both parents. Why should we believe that you did this in secret? You blind the mother in the forum.

Non vis pro matre verum dicere, cum illa pro te mentiatur. In tantam iuvenis processit amentiam, [ut] propter illum pater ut perderet oculos, mater odisset. Tu me, mulier, excaecare potuisti, quae nec parricidam potes?

You will not wish to speak the truth for your mother, when she lies for you. The young man has advanced into such madness that on his account the father would lose his eyes, the mother would hate him. You could blind me, woman, who cannot even be a parricide?

Vt innocens sis; dum excaecaretur pater, exspectasti? "Non feci" inquit. Non crederem, si confitereris.

So that you may be innocent; while the father was being blinded, did you wait? “I did not do it,” he says. I would not believe, even if you were to confess.

Talis es, adulescens, ut excaecare volueris patrem, ut et excaecari velit mater. Quam sceleratus es. Plus te pater odit, quam eum, a quo excaecatus est. Tantum ausus est integro patre; quid facturus est inter duos caecos?

You are such, young man, that you wished to blind your father, so that your mother might also wish to be blinded. How wicked you are. Your father hates you more than him by whom he was blinded. He dared so much against an intact father; what will he do among two blind men?

Quam miser est pater, cui verum dicendum est, quam misera mater, cui mentiendum! Non eruit oculos quisquis laborat, ut hoc fecerit. Cuius crimen est excaecasse patrem, patrocinium excaecare matrem.

How wretched is the father to whom the truth must be told, how wretched the mother to whom one must lie! He who strives to have done this does not pluck out his eyes. Whose crime it is to have blinded his father, to blind his mother's protector.

Qui fieri potuit, ut mala fuerit uxor, quae tam bona mater est? "Ego feci." Non sceleris, sed matris ista confessio est.

How could it come to pass that the wife was wicked, who is so good a mother? "I did it." That confession is not of crime but of motherhood.

PARS ALTERA
Si neganti, iudices, non vultis, quod proximum est, credite confitenti. Sed si difficile est fateri, etiam cum feceris damni paulum,

PART TWO
If, to the denier, judges, you are not willing to believe what is nearest, believe the confessor. But if it is difficult to confess, even when you have done a little of the damage,

< . . . >

Pater receptis oculis cui erant tres filii, amissis duobus flendo oculos perdidit. Somniavit se recepturum oculos, si tertius filius perisset. Somnium uxori indicavit, illa filio prodidit.

The father, his eyes restored, who had three sons, having lost two, by weeping lost his eyes. He dreamt that he would recover his eyes if the third son were to perish. He disclosed the dream to his wife; she betrayed it to the son.

Suspendit se adulescens, pater recepit oculos. Repudiat uxorem. Agit illa iniusti repudii.

The young man hanged himself; the father recovered his eyes. He repudiates his wife. She brings suit for unjust repudiation.

Ante omnia hoc ad vos meae defero infelicitatis, quod videre coepi, si spectatores oculi tertiae redeunt orbitatis; qui calamitatibus cesserant, parricidio reverterunt. Mirabar profecto, quod in utriusque orbitate solus pater oculos perdidisset. Iussus sum videre, postquam spectatorem tertia orbitas non habebat.

Above all I bring to you this of my misfortune, which I began to perceive: that the eyes of the third son return deprived of sight as spectators; those who had yielded to calamities returned by parricide. I was indeed amazed that, in the blindness of both, only the father had lost his eyes. I was commanded to look, after the third no longer had eyes as a spectator.

Numquid discutiunt recti necessitatem, qui aliquid amore fecerunt? Cessate parumper, exhausti fletus, differ aliquantum, saucium lumen: decet esse oculos duriores, qui scelere reverterunt. Nullum in tali calamitate ab uxore solacium: miserationem meam tunc habuit, post<quam> coepi monere de filio.

Do the righteous dispel necessity, who have done something from love? Cease a little while, exhausted tears; defer somewhat, wounded sight: it is fitting that the eyes be tougher, who returned with crime. There is no solace in such calamity from a wife: she had my pity then, after<quam> I began to admonish concerning the son.

Horret referre animus quod paenitet indicasse. Nec remedia quaerenda sunt, ubi maior<is> supplicii sanatio. "Gratulandum patri est, quod non filius somniavit, debet hoc sola mater audire, vel ut filio caveat, vel ne mariti doleat caecitatem." Arcesso coniugem: "iam" inquam "esse caecus cupio.

My soul shudders to relate what it regrets having revealed. Nor are remedies to be sought where there is a cure for a greater punishment. "The father is to be congratulated that the son did not dream it; this ought to be heard by the mother alone, either so that she warn the son, or lest the husband grieve at the blindness." I summon my wife: "now," I say, "I long to be blind."

Etiam nunc apud me latet quod sola tu nosti." Subito aspectu somnii in metus veni, et, fateor, de filio quidem timui, sed de matre non credidi. Nullum impatientius malum est quam invidia cum calamitate. Qui, ut scelerate viderem, non recepi oculos, sed perdidi caecitatem, vidi miser primum quod ultimum videram: pendebat extinctus, et contentus laqueus adulescentis colla tenuabat.

"Even now that which only you know lies hidden with me." Suddenly, at the sight of the dream, I was seized with fear, and, I confess, I indeed feared for the son, but I did not believe concerning the mother. There is no more impatient evil than envy combined with calamity. Who, that I might wickedly behold, did not avert his eyes but lost them to blindness; miserable, I first saw what I had last seen: he hung, extinguished, and the youth's noose held his neck tight.

Pro nefas! Haec in filium cum oculis meis venerant. O quam putasti nec maritum posse sanari!

What wickedness! These things came upon my son before my very eyes. O how you thought that even the husband could not be healed!

Iam tempus est fletuum, immo iam tempus est caecitatis. Damnati adoptivi Pauper et dives inimici. Pauperi tres filii.

Now is the time for tears, nay now is the time for blindness. The condemned adopted: Pauper, and the rich are enemies. The poor man has three sons.

Quodam tempore visi sunt amici. Petit dives a paupere filios in adoptionem et accepit. Vnus in adulterio deprehensus est et occisus, alius affectatae tyrannidis reus factus est damnatus.

At a certain time friends were seen. The rich man asked the poor man for his sons in adoption and received them. One, having been caught in adultery, was killed; another, made accused of an affected tyranny, was condemned.

Tertium pauper repetit. Dives contradicit. Nihil tamen praeter luctus meos gravius quam quod, ubi odia nihil fecere, videatur amicitia plus nocere.

The poor man demands the third back. The rich man contradicts. Nothing, however, more grievous besides my lamentations than that friendship, where hatreds effected nothing, seems to do more harm.

Quicquid esse potuit in paupere, totum dives accepit. Qui si bonum animum in adulescentes meos tenuit, filios ambo perdidimus. Novum audaciae genus: tyrannidem affectat pauperis filius.

Whatever could be in the pauper, the rich man received in full. If he had held a good mind toward my adolescents, we lost both sons. A new kind of audacity: the poor man’s son aims at tyranny.

Vtinam sic filios perdidissem, ut queri de fortuna liceret! Dolere integre non potest, qui urgetur irasci. Scio, quales habuerim: et inimico et diviti placere potuerunt.

Would that I had lost my sons in such wise that to complain of fortune were permitted! He who is driven to anger cannot grieve entirely. I know what sort I had: they could please both an enemy and a rich man.

Divitiae inconstantium animorum [in] summa pernicies. < . . . > Vel velle ad me redire vel nolle: si vult, non delectat qui retinetur invitus; si non vult, iam timeo, quod divitias amare coepit. Permissae licentiae magna securitas est potestas cum moderatione.

Wealth to inconstant minds is, in the highest degree, ruin. < . . . > Either to wish to return to me or not to wish: if he wishes, he does not please who is retained unwillingly; if he does not wish, now I fear, because he has begun to love riches. Permitted licence’s great safety is power with moderation.

Recordare, quantis meis redemerim malis, ne adhuc videremur inimici!

Remember by how great evils I have redeemed myself, lest we still be seen as enemies!

< . . . >

VENEFICII REA TORQUEATUR, DONEC CONSCIOS INDICET.
Amissa uxore, ex qua habebat filium, duxit alteram et de ea suscepit filiam. Adoleverunt ambo infantes.

LET THE WOMAN ACCUSED OF VENEFICIUM BE TORMENTED, UNTIL SHE NAMES HER ACCOMPLICES.
Having lost his wife, by whom he had a son, he took another and by her begot a daughter. Both infants grew up.

Repente ambiguis signis perit adulescens. Pater uxorem accusavit et damnavit. Cum torqueretur, filiam sibi consciam dixit.

Suddenly, by ambiguous signs the young man perished. The father accused his wife and condemned her. While she was being tortured, she declared that her daughter was an accomplice with her.

Petitur puella ex lege ad poenam. adest ei pater. Noverca filios nostros aut insimulatione persequitur aut veneno, quae scelus suum et in domo veneficae et in suppliciis docuit parricidae.

The girl is summoned by law for punishment. Her father is present. The stepmother persecutes our children either by feigning or by poison, a crime which she taught both in the house of a poisoner and in the tortures to the parricide.

Adoleverunt ambo, sed minor filia et praeter sexum multo fratre simplicior. In uno utriusque mortem videtis: cum periit adulescens, et fratri venenum datum est et sorori. O novercae stulta crudelitas: amasset et consciam putaremus?

They both grew to adulthood, but the younger was the daughter, and apart from her sex much more simple than her brother. In one case you see the death of each: when the young man perished, poison was given both to the brother and to the sister. O foolish cruelty of the stepmother: had she loved, would we have supposed her complicit?

Pro nefas! Conscia dicitur, cui frater perit! Cur, postquam adolevit puella, est interemptus adulescens?

What wickedness! She is called complicit, in whose brother perishes! Why, after the girl grew to maturity, was the young man slain?

Tamdiu ergo fuit novercae quieta crudelitas, quamdiu aetas illius ad persuasionem conscientiae perveniret? Modum non habet iracundia metiendi.

Therefore was the stepmother’s quiet cruelty only so long as that girl’s age should come to the persuasion of conscience? Anger has no measure for meting out.

Medicus tyrannicida
TYRANNICIDAE PRAEMIUM.
Tyrannus suspicatus sibi venenum datum ab eo medico, quem in arce habebat, torsit eum; ille pernegavit. Misit ad medicum civitatis.

The tyrannicide doctor
THE TYRANNICIDE'S REWARD.
The tyrant, suspecting that poison had been given to him by that doctor whom he kept in the citadel, had him tortured; the man denied it. He sent for the city’s doctor.

Dixit datum illi ab illo venenum, sed se remedium daturum. Dedit poculum, quo exhausto statim periit tyrannus. Contendunt de praemio.

He said that the poison had been given to him by that man, but that he would give the remedy. He gave a cup, which, when drained, the tyrant immediately perished. They dispute over the reward.

Absit, sanctissimi iudices, ut hanc vos fidem tyrannicidii detrahatis, quam et medicus confirmaverit et tyrannus. Confingunt nocendi voluntatem, postquam sanandi rationem perdiderunt. Poenas meas hinc cogitate, in quibus nec ira nec natura cessavit.

Far be it, most holy judges, that you should detract from this testimony of tyrannicide, which both the physician and the tyrant confirmed. They fabricate a will to harm, after they have lost the means of healing. Consider, then, my punishments from this, in which neither anger nor nature has ceased.

Tolerabilis vis est, ubi ad consuetudinem mali causa necessitatis emergit. Praemium consequitur qui ausus est et confirmare meum venenum et suum remedium polliceri? Vltio quidem illa, non quaestio.

Force is tolerable when, from the custom of evil, the cause of necessity emerges. Does a reward follow him who dared both to confirm my poison and to promise his remedy? Vltio quidem illa, non quaestio.

Tyrranus venenum quaesivit? Se vindicavit! O quam facile gerunt persuasiones illecebramque in contrarium transferuntur virus serpebat interius et artus omnes longa poenarum dilatione languebant: veneficium iam tyrannus agnoverat.

Did the tyrant seek poison? He avenged himself! O how easily persuasions and allurements are turned the other way; the poison was creeping inward and all the limbs languished from the long delay of punishments: the tyrant now recognized the veneficium.

Quia instantem interitum sentiebat, festinans medicum flagitabat. Vnde venenum tam celeriter praeparasti? dicis forte "maior mihi dandi veneni fiebat occasio, quae ex ipsius voluntate veniebat". Nativum hoc genus <ti>moris est, ut ex sensu priore ad cuncta cautior sollicitudo procedat.

Because he felt impending destruction, hastening he demanded a physician. Whence did you prepare the poison so quickly? you say perhaps, “there came to me a greater opportunity for administering poison, which was from his own will.” This kind of native timoris is, that from an earlier sense a more cautious solicitude proceeds to all things.

Nonne iam apud tyrannum cuncta suspecta praesens formido faciebat? Medicum tota arce clamabat, quasi ego de tyrannicidio non negassem. In arce me nec animus deseruit nec venenum.

Was not everything at the tyrant’s already suspicious, present fear making it so? He shouted for the physician throughout the citadel, as if I had not refused tyrannicide. In the citadel neither my spirit deserted me nor the poison.

Abdicatus patrem liberans
ADDICTUS FENERATORI SERVIAT. ABDICATUS DE BONIS PATERNIS NIHIL
habeat. Libertorum bona ad patronos pertineant.

An abdicated man freeing his father
LET THE ADDICT SERVE THE MONEY-LENDER. LET THE ABDICATED HAVE NOTHING FROM PATERNAL GOODS
have. The goods of freedmen pertain to their patrons.

Quidam ex duobus liberis alterum abdicavit. <Abdicatus> addictum postea creditori patrem redemit et manumisit. Quo mortuo ambigunt de bonis abdicatus iure patroni et filius, qui in familia permansit.

One of two children disinherited the other. <Abdicatus>—the disinherited one—being addicted, afterwards redeemed his father from the creditor and manumitted him. At his death they dispute concerning the goods whether, by right, they belong to the patron and to the son who remained in the familia.

Equidem nec avarum me fuisse nec impium docui, nam et redemi patrem et manumisi. "Abdicatus es" inquit. En quem putes doluisse casum meum!

For my part I showed that I was neither avaricious nor impious, for I both redeemed my father and manumitted him. "You are abdicatus," he says. Behold whom you would think had grieved at my misfortune!

Filius dicit beneficio parentis se esse nutritum, eius indulgentia libertatem civitatemque sortitum; at haec ipsa patronus liberto suo contulit, quae filius a parente percepit. Proinde beneficium hereditatis filio datur, patrono redditur. Addictus numquam sperat libertatem; negligenter enim et contumaciter servit, qui servire non novit.

The son says that by the benefaction of his parent he was nourished, and by his indulgence he gained liberty and citizenship; yet these very things the patron bestowed on his freedman which the son received from his parent. Therefore the benefaction of the inheritance is given to the son, but is returned to the patron. An addict never hopes for freedom; for he serves negligently and stubbornly who does not know how to serve.

Quid mihi abdicatorum obicis legem? Ego si quasi filius experirer, merito ut abdicatus expellerer; utor patroni actione, non filii. Quid enim, si non esset manumissus?

Why do you allege against me the law of the abdicati? If I were to prosecute as if a son, I should rightly be expelled as an abdicatus; I employ the patron’s action, not the son’s. For what, then, if he had not been manumitted?

Peculium servi mei peteres? specta defuncti condicionem, quae fuit mortis tempore, non quae aliquando praecessit. Sistitur venalis pater; non festinat hic bonus filius?

Would you claim the peculium of my slave? Consider the condition of the deceased as it was at the time of death, not what had sometime gone before. The father is put up for sale; does not this good son hasten?

Non denique metuit, ne illum redimat abdicatus? Filius incolumi dignitate non potuit explicare quantum abdicatus explicuit? Quotiens se pater paenitere confessus est, quotiens de huius impietate conquestus!

Does he not, at last, fear lest the disinherited man redeem him? Could a son, with his dignity intact, explain as much as the disinherited one explained? How often has the father confessed himself penitent, how often complained of this man's impiety!

Vtinam licuisset addicto exercere ius patrium! Esset hic abdicatus, hic filius. Bona ipsa meo sunt labore quaesita; unde senex testari noluit, ne mihi quasi suum relinqueret, quod meum sciret.

Would that it had been permitted for the dependent to exercise the paternal right! Let that one be the abdicated, let this be the son. The goods themselves were acquired by my labor; wherefore the old man refused to attest, lest he, as it were, leave to me his own things which he knew to be mine.

Tu illud prius consumpsisti patrimonium, illud amplum, illud quod <d>uobus parabatur heredibus. Ego postulo tenue, libertinum, quod vix sufficit ipsius funeri. Hic enim quando sepeliet iacentem, qui noluit redimere venalem?

You first consumed that patrimony, that ample estate, that which was being prepared for two heirs. I demand the slender, a freedman’s share, which scarcely suffices for the very funeral. For when will this man bury the body lying there, who would not redeem what was for sale?

Ter fortis desertor
DESERTOR CAPITE PUNIATUR. TER VIR FORTIS MILITIA VACET. PRAEMIUM
victor imperator accipiat.

Thrice a brave deserter
DESERTER IS PUNISHED WITH DEATH. THRICE A BRAVE MAN IS EXEMPT FROM MILITARY SERVICE. REWARD
let the victorious emperor receive it.

Ter virum fortem imperator coegit ad bellum. Coactus deseruit. Imperator praemio impunitatem desertoris petit.

Three times the emperor compelled the brave man to war. Compelled, he deserted. The emperor seeks the deserter’s impunity by means of a reward.

Desertor contradicit. Aequo animo imperator ferat, si, quem virum fortem senserat obsequentem, desertorem videat contumacem? Nec poenam possum recusare post culpam nec veniam sustinere post gloriam.

The deserter objects. Should the emperor bear it with equanimity, if he sees contumacious the deserter whom he had perceived to be an obsequious brave man? Nor can I refuse punishment after guilt, nor endure pardon after glory.

Miserum me, cuius nec infamia potest latere nec gloria! Non ante rem publicam quam me ipse deserui: et armis et telis honestissimum corpus oneravi et, quod non sine piaculo factum est, consecrata iamdudum arma deposui. Sto et pugno pro legibus; aliter enim fortiter facere iam in hac aetate non possum.

Pity me, whose neither infamy can lie hidden nor glory! Not before the republic but before myself did I desert: and with arms and weapons I burdened my most honorable body and, which was not done without guilt, I laid aside weapons long since consecrated. I stand and fight for the laws with the fist; for otherwise I can no longer do brave deeds in this age.

Grata sunt ei crimina desertoris, apud quem nihil valuerunt privilegia viri fortis. Novum genus damnationis ignoscere. <Mori> volo.

The crimes of a deserter are pleasing to him, before whom the privileges of a brave man were worth nothing. He pardons a new kind of condemnation. <To die> I wish.

Cur enim dubitem per infamiam senex emori, qui etiam iuvenis optavi saepe <per> gloriam?

Why then should I doubt to die as an old man by infamy, who even as a youth often desired to die by glory?

Rapta tacens
LEX RAPTARUM.
Rapta producta ad magistratus tacuit et flevit. Magistratus de raptore supplicium sumpsit.

The abducted woman was silent
LAW OF ABDUCTIONS.
The abducted woman, brought before the magistrates, was silent and wept. The magistrates took punishment upon the abductor.

Puella se interemit. Reus est magistratus, quod causa mortis fuerit. Reum caedis unius arcesso, qui duos pariter occidit.

The girl killed herself. The magistrate is guilty, because he was the cause of the death. Arrest the defendant of one murder, who likewise killed two.

Aditus huic reo misericordiae clausus est; quid enim sperare poterit a lacrimis? Iuvenis etiam facie liberalis, qualem nemo non sibi aut filium optet aut generum. Is cum puellae peteret nuptias, diu peteret et iam sperare coepisset, festinavit ut amator et - quid dicam - "rapuit" an "duxit"? Virgo, quod solum potuit, nihil questa est.

The access to mercy is closed to this accused; for what can he hope from tears? The youth was also of a liberal countenance, such as no one would not wish for himself either as a son or as a son-in-law. When he sought the girl's marriage, after long petitioning and when he had already begun to hope, he hastened as a lover and — what shall I say — "rapuit" or "duxit"? The maiden, as far as she alone could, made no complaint.

Quis non inhorruit, quis tecum, puella, non flevit? Dicat nunc "libuit et licuit": civis haec, an regis oratio est? Nec erat arbiter iudicii sui sed minister alieni.

Who did not shudder, who, girl, did not weep with you? Let him now say “it pleased and it was permitted”: is this speech that of a citizen, or of a king? Nor was he arbiter of his own judgment but the minister of another.

"Tacuit" inquit; o mira et muta sententia! Omnes sciunt lacrimas ex uno misericordiae fonte manare, in amore vel maxime, nam isdem oculis, quibus amatur, et fletur. Miser ille, quem nullo accusatore punisti, miserior illa, quam te vindicare simulasti.

"He is silent," he says; O wondrous and mute sentence! All know that tears flow from the one fountain of mercy, especially in love, for with the same eyes by which one is loved one is also wept for. Wretched that man, whom you punished with no accuser; more miserable that woman, whom you pretended to vindicate.

Quis te, oro, poterit aut liberare flentem aut flere damnatum?

Who, I beg, will be able either to free you while you weep or to weep for you as condemned?

Paedagogus cruciarius
CIVITATEM PEREGRINUS USURPANS VENEAT.
Pauper et dives inimici. Visi sunt in gratiam redisse.

The pedagogue, a torturer
CIVITATEM PEREGRINUS USURPANS VENEAT.
Poor and rich enemies. They appeared to have returned into favor.

Pauper accusatus peregrinitatis venit, emit eum dives et paedagogum filio dedit. Adulescens in adulterio deprehensus occisus est. Agitur paedagogus in crucem.

A poor man, accused of peregrinity, came; a rich man bought him and gave the pedagogue to his son. A youth, caught in adultery, was slain. The pedagogue is driven to the cross (led to be crucified).

Appellat tribunos de iniusto supplicio. Equidem, iudices, propitium mihi divitem semper optavi. Totum me divitis fidei, et ante quam redimerer, addixi.

He appeals to the tribunes about the unjust punishment. Indeed, judges, I have always wished the rich man to be propitious to me. I have wholly devoted myself to the rich man’s faith, and before I was ransomed I pledged myself.

Audio me subito peregrinum, quod nec pater ipse nec mater aliquando prodiderat, nec denique umquam inimicus dives obiecerat. Filio me luxurioso iam et petulanti dedit, quamvis omnia pater ipse curaret et regeret. Imploro auxilium, quod vestri maiores servis iam natis reliquerunt.

I hear that I was suddenly sold as a stranger, a thing neither my father nor my mother ever disclosed, nor indeed ever did any rich enemy allege. They gave me to a son now luxurious and wanton, although my father himself cared for and governed all things. I implore the aid which your ancestors have already left to slaves born (into your household).

Vnum non est in servitutem nasci et libertate multari. Statim credidisti fidum et idoneum iudicasti, sed non esse felicem iam tum scire potuisti. "Occisus est" inquit "filius meus". Si iniuria, interfectorem argue, si iure, leges.

It is not the same to be born into servitude and to be punished by loss of liberty. Immediately you believed him faithful and judged him suitable, yet even then you could have known that he was not fortunate. "My son has been slain," he says. If by injustice, accuse the murderer; if by right, the laws.

Ego illum adulterum feci, credo, luxuria mea servus novicius et pauper ante quam servus. Multa largiebaris, indulgebas omnia, nihil umquam negabas. Armati abdicati Abdicati ad curiam convenerunt armati petentes revocari.

I made him adulterous, I think; my luxury made him a novice and poor rather than a proper servant. You bestowed many things lavishly, you indulged everything, you never denied anything. The armed, the deposed, gathered at the curia — armed, seeking to be recalled.

Vnus ex patribus contradixit. Filius eius se interemit. Idem suadet, ut recipiantur.

One of the fathers contradicted. His son killed himself. The same man urges that they be received.

Peto, ne indulgeatis irae domesticae, cum me videatis publicae paenitere sententiae. Nam, sicut in vita numquam errare felicis est, ita errorem quam primum emendare sapientis. Parentum illa deliberatio fuit, haec iam cunctatio parricidarum est.

I beg you not to indulge domestic anger, since you see me repentant of a public sentence. For, just as in life it is never the lot of the fortunate to err, so it is the part of the wise to amend an error as soon as possible. That was the deliberation of parents; this now is the hesitation of parricides.

"Aetate lapsi sumus, egestate correcti. In hoc vos exoramus loco, in quo etiam hostes superati non frustra supplicaverunt." Ego ille tristis et saevus, cum abdicarem tamen flevi et semper ex eo, licet tacitus, ingemui et opportunum ius restitutionis optavi. Restituet nobis filios auctoritas publica tamquam alia natura.

"We have fallen by age, corrected by poverty. In this place we beseech you, in which even conquered enemies did not supplicate in vain." I, that sad and savage one, when I resigned nevertheless wept, and ever since, though silent, I have sighed and longed for the opportune right of restitution. Public authority will restore to us the sons as if by another nature.

Vereor iam, P. C., Ne sapientior videatur et cautior ille abdicatorum senatus. Fateor, armatorum facie non immerito terremur; <minantur> enim suam mortem. Quemadmodum possum, te, fili carissime, vel in morte revocabo, inferam maiorum sepulcris et elogio, quod optasti, nomen inscribam.

I now fear, P. C., lest that senate of the resigned seem the wiser and more cautious. I admit we are not undeservedly alarmed by the aspect of armed men; for they threaten death. As far as I can, I will recall you, dearest son, even from death, I will lay you in our ancestors’ sepulchers and, with the epitaph you desired, inscribe your name.

Abdicatus immolandus In pestilentia responsum est finem futurum immolato eo, qui patrem non haberet. Offert se abdicatus. Qui abdicavit, contradicit.

The abdicated one must be immolated. In the pestilence it was answered that an end would come by the immolation of him who had no father. The abdicated offers himself. He who abdicated contradicts.

Amplexus sum mortem usque adhuc necessariam, nunc etiam gloriosam. Mori prohibes et intervenis, quominus spiritum, quem fortunae meae debeo, patriae profundam. Quotiens te video, totiens me scio patrem non habere.

I have embraced death hitherto necessary, now even glorious. You forbid and intervene, so that I may not pour forth the spirit which I owe to my fortunes upon my fatherland. As often as I see you, so often I know that I have no father.

Prostitutus ex geminis. Ex duobus geminis alter prostat, alter reddit in senatu causas mortis voluntariae. Vtinam quidem, P. C., Mori vellet frater!

Presented from the twins. Of the two twins one stands forth, the other sets forth in the senate the causes of voluntary death. Would that indeed, P. C., the brother wished to die!

Homini verecundo cur necesse est, ut ea de germano meo dicam, quae tanti habeo perire ne videam? Nostis nos, P. C.; Etenim pluribus noti sumus, quam et aetas et verecundia postulat. Raptus est mihi frater pessimis comitibus et perditis.

Why must a modest man, pray, speak those things concerning my germane brother which I hold so precious that I cannot see them perish? You know us, P. C.; for indeed we are known to more people than both our age and our modesty would demand. My brother has been carried off with the worst and most perditious companions.

Duce namque luxuria et subremigante seu potius velificante nequitia in illos impudicitiae scopulos et ipsa famae suae naufragia delatus. Pro deum atque hominum fidem! Qua in civitate prostitui licet, mori non licet?

For with Luxury as leader, and with Nequity rowing from beneath, or rather setting sail, he was borne upon those rocks of shamelessness and upon the shipwrecks of his own fame. By the faith of gods and men! In what city it is lawful to be prostituted, is it not lawful to die?

An utrumque congruere aestimatis huic ordini, et vitam turpem permittere et ab honesta morte prohibere? Vivere non sustinerem, si hoc in mea vel sorore vidissem. Improbi flagitatores, qui detrimenta pueritiae suae mutuo dedecore compensant.

Do you judge that both things befit this order — to permit a disgraceful life and to bar an honourable death? I would not be able to endure life, had I seen this in my wife or my sister. Shameless ruffians, who make good the losses of their youth by mutual dishonour.

Pictura viri fortis
VIRORUM FORTIUM FACTA PINGANTUR. VIRI FORTES DE PRAEMIO ARMIS
contendant. Fratres fortiter fecerunt.

The painting of a brave man
VIRORUM FORTIUM FACTA PINGANTUR. VIRI FORTES STRIVE FOR A PRIZE BY ARMS.
they contend. The brothers acted bravely.

Pater a minori petit, ut maiori cederet. Non impetravit. Proelio interfecit maiorem minor.

The father asked the younger that he yield to the elder. He did not obtain it. In battle the younger killed the elder.

Petit praemio, ne facta pingantur. Pater contradicit. Si quid precibus contra filium meum possem.

He seeks a reward, that the deeds not be painted. The father objects. If I could by entreaties do anything against my son.

Domi monere quam publice maluissem. Nihil audeo filio dicere, quam quod ab ipso nuper audivi: leges uti valeant. Fuit ille amator et cultor suorum et qui mori mallet quam quicquam mali facere.

I preferred to admonish at home rather than publicly. I dare say nothing to my son except what I lately heard from him: that the laws should prevail. He was a lover and protector of his own, and one who would rather die than do any evil.

"Cede fratri, cede vel patri; victor eris, mihi crede, si cesseris." Didici salvis legibus parricidium posse committi. Cetera iam non sunt narranda, pingenda sunt. Vana et inepta formido est videre non posse quod feceris et colorem timere peius quam sanguinem.

"Yield to your brother, yield even to your father; you will be victor, trust me, if you yield." I learned that, with the laws preserved, parricide can be committed. The rest now are not to be narrated, they must be painted. It is a vain and inept dread to see that which you cannot undo, and to fear a color worse than blood.

Simuletur hoc factum non tantum colore, sed aere, si possit, et lapide et quaecumque nostrorum corporum materia vel ars aemula est. Infecta quemadmodum possunt esse quae facta sunt? Picta quidem interim non sunt, sed in omnibus pectoribus incisa sunt, in oculis, in animis, in ipsis denique tuis manibus.

Let this deed be represented not only in color, but in bronze, if possible, and in stone, and in whatever matter of our bodies or of art is a rival. How, then, can things that have been done be undone? They are not, to be sure, yet painted, but they are carved in every breast, in the eyes, in the minds, and, finally, in your very hands.

Tu victoria clarus es, ille innocentia.

You are renowned by victory, he by innocence.

Privignus tyrannicida
TYRANNICIDAE PRAEMIUM. PRAEMIO CEDERE LICEAT.
Qui novercam habebat, occidit tyrannum.

A stepson, a tyrannicide
TYRANNICIDE'S REWARD. LET IT BE GRANTED AS A REWARD.
He who had a stepmother killed the tyrant.

Cessit novercae praemio. Illa privigni nuptias petit. Contendunt, quis contradicat, maritus an privignus.

She yielded the prize to the stepmother. She seeks the stepson’s marriage. They contend, who would contradict, whether the husband or the stepson.

Cum suo parente contendit, ut mihi videatur melior adhuc privignus esse quam filius. Coepit et hic me sic habere despectui, ut, qui novercae beneficium se dedisse laetatur, a me nec accipere dignetur. Ego primus in domo mea, fateor, erravi, qui uxorem duxi senex, cum iam esset in domo filius et quidem iuvenis.

He contends with his own parent; as it seems to me the stepson is still the better than the son. This stepson also began to hold me in such contempt, that he who rejoices that he has shown a benefit to his stepmother does not deign to accept (anything) from me. I confess that I was the first to err in my house, when, being old, I took a wife, although a son was already in the house, and indeed a young man.

Dum nimium confido pietati, oculos mulieris incestos et infanda desideria nutrivi. Novercae praemio cessit, cum haberet in domo patrem, cui nemo praeferret in tali honore vel matrem. Non privignum ante temptavit?

While I trusted too much in piety, I nourished a woman’s unchaste eyes and unspeakable desires. She yielded the prize to the stepmother, since she had in the house a father, whom no one would prefer in such honour even to a mother. Did she not first try the stepson?

Quis, rogo, fructus est impetrare nuptias hominis inviti? Vter [vos] vobis actor utilior vide[re]tur et verior, maritus an caelebs? Filius familias an pater?

Who, I ask, profits by securing the marriage of a man against his will? Which of you would seem the more useful and the truer actor — the husband or the bachelor? The son of the household or the father?

Senior an iuvenis? Qui repudiatur an qui praeponitur? Qui beneficium dedit an qui accepit iniuriam?

An elder or a youth? The one who is repudiated or the one who is preferred? The one who gave the benefit or the one who received the injury?

Mea uxor abducitur, tu quis es? Meum cubile deseritur, ad te dolor iste quid pertinet? "Ego" inquit "praemio cessi." Tu ergo non potes revocare quod dederis eamque reprehendere quam paulo ante laudaveris. Cavendum tibi est, ne, si victus, ut sunt iudiciorum incerta, dicesseris, dicaris iudicio quoque sic cessisse quasi praemio.

My wife is being carried off — who are you? My bed is being deserted — what concern is that sorrow of yours? "I," he says, "have yielded for a prize." Therefore you cannot recall what you have given, nor reproach the woman whom a little before you praised. Beware, lest, if defeated — for the uncertainties of trials are such — you will have spoken, and be declared in judgment likewise to have yielded as if for a prize.

Sic est livoris ingenium: omnia suspicantur qui nihil <l>audant. Das amanti solacium: affers in amore vel iurgium.

Such is the nature of envy: he suspects everything who hears nothing. You give solace to a lover: you bring into love even a quarrel.

Peregrinus cruciarius
CIVITATEM PEREGRINUS USURPANS VENEAT. LICEAT IN MATRIBUS
adulteria vindicare et de iniusto supplicio tribunos appellare.Qui videbatur de civibus natus, cum absente patre eam, quae mater videbatur, in adulterio deprehensam insequeretur armatus, ait illa "non es meus". Perseveravit et occidit. Postea iudicio peregrinus pronuntiatus emptus est ab interfectae patre.

Peregrinus cruciarius
CIVITATEM PEREGRINUS USURPANS VENEAT. LICEAT IN MATRIBUS
let a foreigner usurping citizenship be sold. let it be lawful for mothers
to vindicate adulteries and to call on the tribunes concerning unjust punishment. One who was thought to have been born of citizens, when with his father absent he, armed, pursued her who seemed to be his mother caught in adultery, she said, "non es meus." He persisted and killed her. Afterwards, at the trial, the foreigner, having been pronounced, was bought by the slain woman's father.

Ab eodem agitur in crucem. Reversus peregre is, qui pater videbatur, appellat tribunos de iniusto supplicio. Vixdum reversus in patriam si tamen hanc adversarii vel meam patriam esse concedunt, parabam, tribuni, cognito filii mei casu appellare vos de iniusto supplicio servitutis.

From the same man he is led to the cross. The man who seemed to be the father, returned from abroad, calls upon the tribunes concerning the unjust punishment. Hardly had he returned to the fatherland — if indeed they concede this to be the country of my adversary or of mine — I was preparing, tribunes, having learned the case of my son, to appeal to you about the unjust punishment of servitude.

Sed quatenus socer saevit, ut nec generum velit agnoscere nec nepotem, det et mihi veniam doloris, si non desum filio bene de me, bene de legibus merito, cum ipse vindictam quaerat exigere filiae vel nocenti. Huius ego legibus filiam duxi eamque praegnantem simul vidimus et uteri decem menses ambo numeravimus et natum ex ea pignus accepimus. Sed cum me necessitas peregrinationis abduceret, commendavi avo filium meum.

But insofar as the father‑in‑law rages, so that he wishes to acknowledge neither the son‑in‑law nor the grandson, let him also grant me pardon of my pain, if I have not failed my son in speaking well of myself, nor, deservedly, spoken ill of the laws, since he himself seeks to exact vengeance for his daughter or for the guilty. By these laws I took a daughter in marriage; we both saw her pregnant together and counted 10 months of the womb, and we received the child born of her as a pledge. But when the necessity of foreign travel carried me away, I entrusted my son to his grandfather.

Adulescentulo praecepi, in domo <patris> partibus fungeretur, et, ut plus illi necessitatis imponerem, sententiam vestrae legis ingessi. Denuntiavi postremo futurum ipsius crimen, si non patri paruisset et legi. Adulteram, quae per insanam libidinem stimulis tanti furoris exarserat, ut nec suos agnosceret, interemit.

I bade the young man to discharge the duties in the house of <patris>, and, that I might impose more necessity upon him, I inflicted the sentence of your law. I finally warned that his act would be a crime if he did not obey his father and the law. He put the adulteress to death—she who, stung by insane lust and by the goads of so great a fury, had been kindled to the point that she no longer recognized her own kinsfolk.

Peregrinus esse filius meus post adulterium matris suae coepit. "Occidit" inquit "filiam meam." Grave est, tribuni, in servitute defendere quod in libertate commiseris. Merito mulier suos iam negabat esse quos laeserat.

My son began to be a stranger after his mother’s adultery. "He killed my daughter," he said. It is serious, tribunes, to defend in servitude that which you committed in liberty. Rightly the woman was already denying that those were her own whom she had injured.

Ipsa post tantum furorem iam sua non erat. Illa dixit "meus non est", at ego dico "meus est". Mater armatum timuit, sed pater servientem, quod est maius, agnoscit. Indemnatus carnificem recusans Lege indemnatorum interficiendum pater filium carnifici tradidit.

She herself, after so great a fury, was no longer her own. She said “he is not mine,” but I say “he is mine.” The mother feared the armed man, but the father acknowledged the servant, which is the greater. Having been indemnified, and refusing the executioner whom the Law of the Indemnified prescribed to be put to death, the father handed his son over to the executioner.

ille vult manu patris interfici. Pater ipse, qui fuerat offensus, ultro se non posse facere quod coeperat, confitetur. Quam morigerum sibi filium senex iste formarit, nolo aliud indicium, quam quod, ne patrem laedere<m>, nec mortem recusavi[t]. Mori iussus adulescens in primis adhuc annis, quo tempore et vita carissima est et mors acerba, non quaero vitam.

he desires to be killed by his father's hand. The father himself, who had been offended, voluntarily confesses that he was not able to do what he had begun. How well-mannered this old man had fashioned his son for himself, I will not name another proof than that, so as not to wound his father<m>, nor did he refuse death[t]. Ordered to die, the young man, especially still in his early years, at that time when life is most dear and death bitter, did not seek life.

Si potest, feriat hostiam, quam dis penatibus vovit, satis sibi faciat meo sanguine, immo et ipse suo, dummodo ne per manum vilem ius pietatis infuscet; quia nec iuris ratio permittit, ut adhibeatur adversum eum carnifex, in quem non fuit iudex. Faciat vitae finem qui originem fecit. Non de morte cum patre sed de mortis [patris] genere dissentio.

If he can, let him strike the victim which he vowed to the household gods; let him make satisfaction with my blood, nay even with his own, so long as the law of pietas be not darkened by a base hand; for the reason of law does not permit that an executioner be employed against one for whom there was no judge. Let him put an end to life who made its beginning. My dissent is not about death with the father but about the kind of death [of the father].

Eripere vis vitam, quam dedisti; non infitiabor. Quid per alterum petis? Ius, quod tibi vindicas, experire, nemo te prohibet.

You wish to snatch away the life which you gave; I will not deny it. What do you seek by another means? Try the right which you vindicate to yourself; no one forbids you.

Occide, si potes, confitere, <si> non potes. Nemo umquam magistratum fecit vicarium nec in alio militavit nec sacra gentilicia insitiva stirpe corrupit. Vita mihi tollitur, sed manus paterna debet<ur>. Non potes, pater, legis eiusdem et inrogare supplicium et denegare solacium.

Kill, if you can; confess, <if> you cannot. No one ever made the magistracy a vicarius, nor served as a soldier in another, nor corrupted the sacra gentilicia implanted in the stock. My life is taken from me, but a paternal hand is due. You cannot, father, by the same law both impose punishment and deny solace.

Placabo dexteram meam; cedo tantisper exosculer: o manus olim mea, quae me parvulum saepe gestasti, quam saepe lacrimis puer lavi! Erras, pater, qui facilius existimas huiusmodi caedem videre quam facere.

I will appease my right hand; I yield for the moment and kiss it: O hand once mine, which so often carried me a little child, how often, as a boy, did I wash you with tears! You err, father, who reckon it easier to see such a slaughter than to do it.

Fortis duo praemia
VIRO FORTI DUO PRAEMIA. RAPTARUM LEX. POENA RAPTORIS IN DIEM
tricesimum differatur.

Two rewards for the brave
TO A BRAVE MAN TWO REWARDS. LAW CONCERNING THE ABDUCTED. THE PUNISHMENT OF THE ABDUCTOR IS DEFERRED TO THE 30th DAY
let the punishment of the abductor be deferred to the 30th day.

Ex duobus fratribus unus rapuit. Rapta mortem optavit. Poena dilata est.

Of two brothers one seized (her). The seized woman desired death. The punishment was postponed.

Alter fortiter fecit. Primo praemio petit fratris incolumitatem; impetravit. Secundo raptae mortem postulat.

The other acted boldly. For the first prize he seeks his brother’s safety; he obtained it. For the second he demands the seized woman’s death.

Frater contradicit. Dum dies computo et a rapta bonum nuntium spero, subito nuntiatur fratrem meum venisse victorem. Petitam mihi et veniam putavi pariter et nuptias.

The brother objects. While I count the days and hope for good news from the abducted one, suddenly it is announced that my brother has come back victorious. I thought that the sought thing and mercy had been granted to me alike, and also the marriage.

Nec dii sinant, ut converso iure pro raptore rapta teneatur. Interdum praestat ad gloriam non certare quam vincere. Ego nisi rebus ipsis ostendo, quod amavi, confiteor iniuriam me fecisse, quod rapui.

Nor may the gods permit that, with justice overturned, the seized woman be held in place of the ravisher. Sometimes it is preferable, for the sake of glory, not to contend than to win. I, unless by the very facts themselves I show that I loved (her), confess that I have done an injustice in that I carried her off.

Lex dicit: raptor aut pereat aut ducat. Ergo raptori si poena dimittitur, rapta[e] debetur.

The law says: the raptor must either perish or carry off. Therefore, if the punishment is dismissed for the raptor, the seized woman is owed.

Tria praemia sacerdotis
VIRO FORTI PRAEMIUM. VICARIUM POENAE LICEAT OFFERRE. SACERDOS
Martis damnatum liberet.

Three rewards of the priest
VIRO FORTI PRAEMIUM. LET IT BE PERMITTED TO OFFER A VICARIUM OF PUNISHMENT. SACERDOS
let him free one condemned to Mars.

Sacerdos Martis fortiter fecit. Tres liberi eius deseruerunt. Vnum servavit privilegio sacerdotis, alterum praemio viri fortis.

The priest of Mars acted bravely. Three of his children deserted him. He saved one by the priestly privilege, another by the reward of a brave man.

Offert se pro tertio vicarium. Facilius fuerat amittere filios quam eligere. Hos enim pueros in ipsis sacris deum et altaribus educavi.

He offers himself as vicar for the third. It had been easier to lose his sons than to choose. For I reared these boys in the very sacred rites, before the god and the altars.

Ea propter nimis fretus auxiliis deorum in aciem duxi pueros adhuc teneros, quorum pater adeo iuvenis inventus est, ut et militare posset et vincere. Resisto orbitati suo iure vel sanguine. Dulcis est omnibus vita et iucunda vel miseris huius lucis usura, nec invenio, quis possit vicarius esse nisi filii.

For this reason, too trustful in the auxiliaries of the gods I led the boys, still tender, into the battle-line, whose father was found so young that he could both serve as a soldier and win. I deny to the bereaved their right, whether by law or by blood. Life is sweet to all, and the enjoyment of this light is pleasant even to the wretched, and I find not who could be a vicarius except a son.

Mihi videtur et ille, qui primus hanc condidit legem, nihil aliud cogitasse quam patrem. Meum nunc sanguinem fundo, quem fundere in bello volui. Num iniquum est, aeque ut patiar pro liberis meis quod sum passus paene pro vestris?

It seems to me that even he who first founded this law thought of nothing else but the father. I now pour out my own blood, which I wished to shed in war. Is it unjust, that I should suffer for my children equally what I have suffered almost for yours?

Magis religio polluitur funestato quam mortuo sacerdote. Quod si religio vos tenet, etiam liberis sacerdotis moneo parcatis: ipsi quoque omnia semper in templo pro sacerdote gesserunt. Agricolae antiquas arbores exstirpant, ut novas inserant.

Religion is more polluted by a priest put to death than by a priest dead. But if religion holds you, I also warn you to spare the children of the priest: they too have always carried out all things in the temple on behalf of the priest. Farmers uproot ancient trees so that they may insert new ones.

Horum virtus spectabitur, nostra delabitur. Melior quidem fama seniorum, spes tamen minoribus maior est. Recordatio veniae magnus est stimulus industriae.

The virtue of these will be admired, ours will fade away. Indeed the reputation of the elders is better, yet the hope for the younger ones is greater. The remembrance of pardon is a great stimulus to diligence.

Non interest, orbitas, uno me vulnere ferias an pluribus. Dedisti mihi liberos, fortuna, rapuisti; concedit alios res publica; nec hos relinques? Quis me feriet?

It makes no difference, O bereavement, whether you strike me with one wound or with many. You gave me children, Fortune, you seized them; the state grants others; will you not leave even these? Who will smite me?

Carnifex innocentem, an commilito laureatum? Vbi denique? Hic inter aras et altaria, ubi publica vota suscepi, an in campo, ubi nuper aquilas et signa protexi?

Shall the executioner strike the innocent, or the comrade-in-arms crowned with laurel? Where, finally? Here among the aras and altaria, where I undertook public vows, or on the field, where recently I defended the eagles and the standards?

Vos, duo liberi, omnibus in vita bonis, hunc et ipsi vitae meae praefero. Factus est mihi suo periculo carior, sed et meo: vos mihi honore[m] praestantes, hic sanguine. Si mihi non licet pro filio, peribo cum filio.

You two children, surpassing all good things in life, this one I even prefer to my own life. He has become dearer to me by his danger, and also by mine: you excelling me in honor, he in blood. If it is not permitted me to die for my son, I will perish with my son.

Fortis inimicum divitem servans
VIRO FORTI PRAEMIUM. DESERTOR CAPITE PUNIATUR.
Pauper et dives inimici.

A brave man saving a rich enemy
VIRO FORTI PRAEMIUM. DESERTOR CAPITE PUNIATUR.
The poor man and the rich are enemies.

Belli tempore dives se promisit fortiter facturum, si sibi mors pauperis decerneretur. Decreta est. Ambo processerunt in proelium: pauper fortiter fecit, dives deseruit.

In wartime the rich man boldly promised that he would act bravely, if the poor man’s death were assigned to him. It was decreed. Both advanced into the battle: the poor man fought bravely, the rich man deserted.

Petit pauper praemio divitis incolumitatem. Dives contradicit. Sero coepit hic miles, iudices, mortem contemnere.

The poor man seeks, as his prize, the safety (incolumity) of the rich. The rich man objects. This soldier, judges, began too late to scorn death.

Ego tacui cum peterer, hic vivere iubetur et queritur. Expectavi diu divitem, ut ille potius quod promisit, impleret. Ab ipso quoque divite inire debeo maximam gratiam: quod ille debebat, ego solvi.

I was silent when I was asked; this man is ordered to live and complains. I waited long for the rich man, that he might rather fulfill what he promised. From the very rich man I must also owe the greatest gratitude: what he owed, I was paid.

Idem in praemio facio quod in proelio: servo civem, commilitonem meum protego. Idem eris in aevum, qui semper adhuc fueris. Dives fortis inimicus duorum Dives duobus pauperibus inimicus.

I do the same in reward as in battle: I save a citizen, I protect my comrade-in-arms. You will be the same for ever, whoever you have hitherto been. A brave rich man is an enemy of two; a rich man is hostile to two poor men.

Promisit se fortiter facturum, si sibi mors unius decerneretur. Decreta est. Alter C. D. Dives fortiter fecit.

He promised that he would act valiantly, if to him the death of one were decreed. It was decreed. The other, C. D. Dives, acted valiantly.

Petit praemio mortem illius, qui contradixerat. alter C. D. Ego quidem verba facturus in alterius periculo nuper in meo tacui, cum praemium peteret iniustum, qui per leges necdum posset petere vel iustum. Per tot innocentium capita grassatur: hunc relinquit, hunc arripit; hunc timore punit, hunc morte.

He seeks as a prize the death of the man who had contradicted him. the other C. D. I indeed, about to speak when another’s peril was at stake, lately kept silent in my own danger, since he sought an unjust prize, who by the laws could not yet seek even a just one. He preys upon so many innocent heads: he lets this one go, he seizes that one; he punishes this one with fear, that one with death.

Fortis dives inimici alteram filiam petens Pauper et dives inimici. Pauperi duae filiae. Belli tempore promisit se dives fortiter facturum, si in matrimonium sibi pauperis una filia daretur.

A brave rich man, an enemy, seeking the other daughter. The poor man and the rich man are enemies. The poor man has two daughters. In the time of war the rich man bravely promised that he would do it, if one daughter of the poor man were given to him in marriage.

Populus tacente paupere decrevit. Dives fortiter fecit. Puella se interemit.

With the poor man silent, the people decreed. The rich man did boldly. The girl killed herself.

Petit dives aliam. Pauper C. D. Priusquam fortiter faceret, postulavit, confisus id sollicito extorquere se populo, quod impetrare a victore non posset. Ducat dives aliquam, sed aequalem, ducat volentem.

The rich man seeks another. The poor man C. D. — before he could act bravely — demanded, trusting that he could extort from the anxious people that which he could not obtain from the victor. Let the rich man take someone, but an equal; let him take one willing.

Velis enim nolis, suspecta res est amator inimicus. Squalor et maeror, gemitus et luctus: inimici filia talis adamatur? Pauper et dives: iniquum est matrimonium.

Whether willing or unwilling, the matter is suspect: the amator is inimicus. Squalor and maeror, gemitus and luctus: is the inimicus’ filia thus adamatur? Pauper and dives: the matrimonium is iniquum.

Ne pecora quidem iugum nisi paria succedunt. Ego autem quid faciam? Laqueum filiae solvam, an flammeum superponam?

Not even herds will take a yoke unless they are paired equals. But what shall I do? Shall I undo the daughter's noose, or shall I place the flammeum—the bridal veil—over her?

Facem nubenti praeferam, an rogum iacentis accendam? Aliter enim merces in timore promittitur, aliter honos in pace praestatur. Festinabit ad laqueum, properabit ad mortem.

Shall I hold a torch before the bridegroom, or kindle the pyre of the one lying there? For wages are promised one way in fear, honor is conferred another way in peace. He will hasten to the noose, he will hurry to death.

Non creditis patri? Credite vel sorori. Si vicerit, ad patrem revertetur, si victa fuerit, ad sororem.

Do you not believe the father? Believe, then, at least the sister. If she wins, she will return to her father; if she is defeated, to her sister.

Nepos ex meretricio susceptus Qui habebat filios frugi et luxuriosum, <luxuriosum> ob amore<m> meretricis abdicavit. Abdicatus se ad meretricem contulit. Illic cum aegrotare coepisset, misit ad patrem et commendavit illi filium de meretrice susceptum rogans, ut eum in familiam recipiat, et obiit.

A grandson taken in from a courtesan. He had sons, frugal and luxurious, <luxurious> — on account of his love<m> for the courtesan he disinherited them. Having been disinherited, he betook himself to the courtesan. There, when he began to fall ill, he sent to his father and commended to him the son taken from the courtesan, begging that he receive him into the family, and he died.

Vult illum senex in familiam recipere. reus est alteri filio dementiae. Necesse est me hodie in hac causa amplius dolere quam dicere.

The old man wishes to receive him into the family. He is accused by the other son of madness. Today, in this cause, it is necessary for me to grieve more than to speak.

Pius est sine dubio filius, qui in patre mentis errorem morbo potius assignat et fato quam moribus. Miseranda potius in meo patre quam accusanda dementia est. Multum potest abdicatio, cum timetur; post ex pudore iam liberius erratur.

The son is without doubt pious, who attributes the error of mind in his father to disease and to fate rather than to morals. Dementia in my father is to be pitied rather than accused. Abdication avails greatly when it is feared; afterwards, from shame, one more freely errs.

Vos interrogo, iudices, utrum sit sanus, qui et suos abdicat et adoptat alienos. Adoptio sancta res est, quidni, quae beneficia naturae et iuris imitatur. In quo puero nescio, quid sit indignius, utrum patris origo quod est dubia, an matris origo quod certa est.

I ask you, judges, whether he is sound who both disinherits his own and adopts another’s. Adoption is a holy thing, why not, which imitates the benefits of nature and of law. Regarding that boy I do not know which is more disgraceful: whether the father’s origin, which is doubtful, or the mother’s origin, which is certain.

Dixit ille suum filium, dixit ut amator, dixit immo ipse iam parum sanus.

He called him his son, he spoke as a lover, he said, indeed, that he himself was by now somewhat unsound.

Adulterae soror et mater
ET MATRES ET SORORES IN ADULTERIO DEPREHENSAS LICEAT OCCIDERE.
Quidam cum sororem deprehendisset, occidit. Furorem passus resipiit.

The adulteress's sister and mother
ET MATRES ET SORORES IN ADULTERIO DEPREHENSAS LICEAT OCCIDERE.
AND WHETHER MOTHERS AND SISTERS CAUGHT IN ADULTERY MAY BE KILLED.
A certain man, when he had caught his sister, killed her. Having endured frenzy, he recovered his senses.

Invenit et matrem. Non occidit. Abdicatur a patre.

He found also his mother. He did not kill her. Let him be disinherited by his father.

Soror erravit, insaniendum est; mater adulteravit, domo patria carendum est. Hic exitus venit, ut, ex quo malo furor coeperat, ex eo sanitas nasceretur. Voluit me explorare fortuna, an agnoscerem meos.

The sister erred; one must go mad; the mother committed adultery; she must be deprived of house and fatherland. This outcome came, that from the very evil where fury had begun, from that same (evil) sanity would be born. Fortune wished to test me, whether I would recognize my own.

Si haec poena adulterae, quid pudori super? O importuna sanitas, ideone redisti, ut mihi adulterium matris ostenderes? Abdicatus hic iterum quasi furiosus errabo, sed certe sine mente secura.

If this is the punishment of an adulteress, what remains for shame? O importunate sanity, did you return for this, that you might show me my mother's adultery? Abdicated, I shall wander here again as if mad, but certainly without a secure mind.

Desertor pater oratoris et militis Qui filios habebat unum oratorem, alterum militem, reus proditionis factus est. Pendente iudicio miles fortiter fecit. Petit praemio abolitionem iudicii.

A deserter, the father of an orator and of a soldier, who had two sons, one an orator, the other a soldier, was made defendant of treason. With the trial pending the soldier acted bravely. He seeks, as his praemium, the abolition of the judgment.

Contradicit frater orator. Quemadmodum vixerit pater, apparet in liberis. Publicae utilitatis est omnium reorum iudicari causas, ne aut nocens evadat poenam aut innocens patiatur infamiam.

The brother, an orator, contradicts. How the father lived appears in his children. It is for the public good that the cases of all the accused be judged, lest either the guilty escape punishment or the innocent suffer infamy.

Gloria quantum nobis honoris attulerit, tantum virtutis exposcit. Innocentiam patris dum liberare quaeris, infamas. Homini verecundo in eiusmodi crimine longe gravior est fama quam poena.

As much as glory has brought us honor, it demands an equal measure of virtue. While you seek to free the father's innocence, you defame it. For a modest man, in a crime of this sort, reputation is far more grievous than punishment.

Vetus, iudices, dictum est, ut aurum igni, itidem innocentiam iudicio spectari solere. Melius est patri virtutum tuarum argumento te prodesse quam praemio. Amator meretricis dominae Meretrix servum suum amantem se in crucem agit.

An old saying, judges, runs that as gold is wont to be tried by fire, so innocence is wont to be tried by judgment. It is better to benefit your father by the proof (argumento) of your virtues than by a reward. The lover of a prostitute’s mistress — the prostitute herself — drives her own slave, loving him, to the cross.

Appellat tribunos ille de iniusto supplicio. Miror quidem a muliere tam comi crucis nomen auditum, quae nullum umquam nisi amore cruciaverit. Amor animi peculiare secretum est.

He calls the tribunes about the unjust supplicium. I indeed marvel that from a woman so comely the name of the cross has been heard, who ever has crucified no one except by love. Love is the peculiar secret of the animus.

Accusatur a nobis amor et homo, qui deum nostrum patitur? Esset meum crimen aut error, si te solus adamassem.

Are love and man accused by us, he whom our god endures? Would it have been my crime or error, if I had loved you alone.

Raptam pater vinculis tenens
RAPTA RAPTORIS MORTEM AUT INDOTATAS NUPTIAS PETAT.
Raptam pater vinculis continet, raptor duci ad magistratus desiderat. Nihil equidem leges clementius paraverunt, quam quod de lege raptarum non licet alii iudicare.

Holding the seized woman in chains
RAPTURED WOMAN SHALL SEEK THE RAPTOR’S DEATH OR DOWRYLESS NUPTIALS.
The father holds the seized woman in chains; the abductor desires that she be led to the magistrates. Indeed the laws have provided nothing more clement than that, concerning the law of the abducted, it is not permitted for others to judge.

Medius his nemo est. Sum reus, sed exhibe iudicem meum! Pro deum atque hominum fidem!

There is no mediator in these matters. I am a defendant, but produce my judge! By the faith of gods and men!

In qua civitate raptor solutus est, in ea rapta vincitur? Mater et noverca invicem reae Repudiata est a marito quae filium habebat. Petit assidue, ut reconciliaretur.

In the city in which the raptor is set free, is the rapta held bound there? Mother and stepmother are mutually guilty. She who had a son was repudiated by her husband. She petitions continually that she be reconciled.

Non impetravit. Postremo ait: "vindicabo me." Superduxit ille puero novercam. Obiit puer signis ambiguis cruditatis et veneni.

He did not obtain it. At last he said, "I will vindicate myself." That man imposed a stepmother on the boy. The boy died from ambiguous signs of crudity and of poison.

Reas se invicem faciunt repudiata mater et noverca superducta. Totum noverca commisit, quae uno tempore et maritum miserae praeripuit et filium. Comparate, iudices, non ante rerum argumenta quam nomina.

The repudiated mother and the superimposed stepmother make one another guilty. The whole matter was wrought by the stepmother, who at one time snatched away both the husband from the wretched woman and her son. Compare, judges, the arguments of the facts, not the names first.

Quid matri deliquerat filius? Neque enim temere sic filius de levi causa quasi privignus occiditur. "Repudiata es" inquit; mariti haec culpa, non filii est, nec matris officium repudio deponitur, sed uxorium nomen amittitur.

What had the son done wrong to his mother? For a son is not therefore rashly killed, as if a stepchild, for a slight cause. "You are repudiated," he says; this is the husband's fault, not the son's, nor is the mother's duty set aside by repudiation, but the name of wife is lost.

Dolor orbitatis conscientia facinoris augetur, et, si grave est amittere filios, longe gravius occidere. Nonne hoc dicit: "sola dominabor, cum et hic veneno meo perierit et illa mendacio"? Iudicasti, pater, qui et repudiatam non accusando absolvisti et uxorem novam non defendendo damnasti.

The pain of losing children is heightened by the consciousness of the crime, and, if it is grievous to lose sons, far more grievous is it to have killed them. Does she not say this: "I alone will rule, when this one has perished by my poison and that one by my mendacity"? You judged, father, who both acquitted the repudiated woman by not accusing her and condemned the new wife by not defending her.

Speciosus desertor
DESERTOR DUCI SERVIAT. VIRO FORTI PRAEMIUM.
Pauper et dives inimici.

The handsome deserter
LET THE DESERTER SERVE THE LEADER. A REWARD FOR A BRAVE MAN.
The poor and the rich are enemies.

Dives creatus est imperator. Pauper sub illo cum filio specioso adulescente militavit. Pauper fortiter fecit, adulescens deseruit.

A rich man was made emperor. A poor man served under him with his son a handsome young man, in the army. The poor man acted bravely, the young man deserted.

Dives iure erit, pater praemio petit, ut occidatur. Filium meum si liberare non licet, saltem liceat occidere. Creditis, iudices, quod filio meo bene inimicus velit, pater nolit?

He will be rich by right; the father asks for a reward that he be killed. If it is not permitted to free my son, at least let it be permitted to kill him. Do you believe, judges, that because one very hostile to my son desires it, the father does not desire it?

Profiteor mortem me filii mei non quidem velle, sed malle. Vos cogitate, quanto sint mala illa graviora, quorum sunt etiam remedia crudelia. O fili, morere constanter!

I profess that I do not indeed will the death of my son, but would rather it be so. Think, you, how much more grievous are those evils whose remedies are likewise cruel. O son, die steadfastly!

Fac hoc saltem quasi meus filius. Filius meretricis suae redemptor Diversas meretrices amabant pater et filius. Pater filio pecuniam dedit, ut amatam patris redimeret.

Do this at least as if you were my son. The son was the redeemer of his own courtesan. Father and son loved different prostitutes. The father gave money to the son so that he might redeem the father’s beloved.

Ille suam redemit. Abdicatur. Rideri me, iudices, opinabar a patre, cum se quoque amare dicebat.

He redeemed his own. Let him be disinherited. Judges, I thought I was being laughed at by my father, when he likewise said that he loved himself.

Pater quod patior, agnoscit! Quid in me pater reprehendat, ignoro: et amandam meretricem consentit et emendam. Sciebas utique, quid mallem.

The father acknowledges what I suffer! What the father reproves in me, I do not know: and he consents that the prostitute be loved and be bought. You certainly knew which I would prefer.

<Im>paria sunt nobis in amore tormenta: primum, quod amor velis nolis in senectute frigidior est. Dementiae reus a tribus filiis Ex tribus filiis duo patrem dementiae accusaverunt et superati secundum legem puniti sunt. Tertius instituit accusare.

<Im>the torments are not equal for us in love: first, that love, whether you will or not, is colder in old age. He was accused of madness by three sons. Of the three sons, two accused their father of madness and, having been overpowered, were punished according to the law. The third undertook to accuse.

Reddit pater causam mortis voluntariae. Filius C. D. Quid tam potest esse <di>versum? Eius hic ab eo mors impeditur, cuius in altero iudicio vita reprehenditur In illis, P. C., Iudiciis gravior mihi fuit vindicta quam poena.

The father gives an account of the cause of the voluntary death. The son C. D. What can be so versum? Here his death is prevented by the one whose life is blamed in another judgment. In those, P. C., trials, vengeance was more grievous to me than the penalty.

Mors a vobis dabitur sive dementi remedium sive sapienti solacium. Natura mihi tres liberos dedit, fortunaque duos sustulit: videturne vobis iusta causa esse moriendi? Immo iam sera.

Death will be given by you either as a remedy to the demented or as a solace to the wise. Nature gave me three children, and fortune took away two: does it seem to you a just cause for dying? Nay — now it is late.

Fortis viri filius tyranno deditus Absentis viri fortis filium tyrannus petit sibi dedi denuntians bellum. Accepit. Regresso eo suadetur bellum tyranno indici.

The son of a brave man devoted to the tyrant. The son of a brave man who was absent the tyrant seeks to be given to himself, threatening war. He accepted. On his return he is urged that war be declared against the tyrant.

Vir fortis contradicit. Profiteor me filium nec desiderare nec habere. Nescio, an hoc bellum fuerit in tempore suo iustum; nunc certe coepit esse iam serum.

The brave man objects. I profess that I neither desire nor have a son. I do not know whether this war was just in its own time; now certainly it has already begun to be late.

"At enim filius viri fortis est." Quid? Hoc non erat, cum dabatur? O fili, si tamen hoc nomen, quod natura dedit, fortuna non abstulit, agnosce te filium viri fortis, vince feliciter, id est, peri fortiter!

"But indeed he is the son of a brave man." What? Was this not so when he was given? O son, if yet this name, which nature gave, fortune has not taken away, acknowledge yourself the son of a brave man; conquer happily, that is, perish bravely!

Haec est enim tua iam sola victoria.

For this indeed is now your sole victory.

Morietur, antequam nubat
VENEFICII SIT ACTIO.
Adulescens petit nuptias virginis a patre. Pater virginis ad uxorem retulit.

He will die before he marries.
VENEFICII SIT ACTIO.
A young man asks the father for the virgin's marriage. The virgin's father gave her as a wife.

Illa respondit: "ante morietur, quam illi nubat." Pater eidem adulescenti despondit et diem nuptiis dixit. Intra diem puella obiit dubiis signis cruditatis et veneni. Quaestionem cum de familia pater haberet, ex ancillis una confessa est adulterium cum illo iuvene matris intercessisse.

She answered, "she will die before she marries him." The father betrothed the same young man to her and set a day for the wedding. Within the day the girl died, with dubious signs of cruelty and poisoning. When the father made inquiry among the household, one of the maidservants confessed that she had brought about an adulterous affair between that young man and the mother.

Pater accusat veneficii matrem. Quaeritur, filiam cruditate an veneno interfeceris, nam et cruditas virginis crimen est matris. "Morietur, ante quam nubat", et mortua est.

The father accuses the mother of poisoning. It is asked whether you killed the daughter by crudity (cruelty) or by poison, for the virgin’s crudity is also the mother’s crime. "She will die before she marries," and she died.

O impiam divinationem vel potius denuntiationem! o infelix puella! Ego tibi parabam nuptias, mater exequias.

O impious divination, or rather denunciation! O unhappy girl! I was preparing nuptials for you; a mother (was preparing) funeral rites.

Placuit in te sponso tuo similitudo materna. Ego te, fateor, occidi, dum cum matre contendo.

It pleased that a motherly likeness be in you toward your betrothed. I, I confess, killed you, while I strove with your mother.

Rapta ab ephebo stuprata
RAPTARUM LEX.
Rapuit quidam virginem et ephebo, quem amabat, tradidit stuprandam. Rapta ad magistratus producta mortem ephebi petit.

Seized by an ephebe, violated
RAPTARUM LEX.
A certain man seized a virgin and handed her over to an ephebe, whom he loved, to be violated. Brought before the magistrates, the raped woman sought the death of the ephebe.

Offert se ille, qui rapuit. Ego, iudices, rapui, ego domum duxi, ego pariter inclusi, ego vim duobus feci. Perire mihi satius est quam hunc videre pereuntem.

He who seized offers himself. I, judges, seized, I led (her) home, I likewise confined (her), I did violence to two. It is better for me to perish than to see him perish.

Callide, puella, commenta es: unum petis, ut duos pariter occidas.

Clever girl, you have contrived: you ask one thing, that you may kill two at once.

Orba confessa sacrilegium
MAGISTRATUS DE CONFESSO SUMAT SUPPLICIUM. DE INIUSTO SUPPLICIO
tribunos appellare liceat. Quae quattuor liberos habebat, amissis tribus et marito detracta est a filio, cum laqueum induisset.

A bereft woman confessed the sacrilege
MAGISTRATE SHALL TAKE PUNISHMENT FROM THE CONFESSED. CONCERNING UNJUST PUNISHMENT
it is lawful to appeal to the tribunes. She, who had four children, three having been lost and deprived of her husband, was dragged by her son after she had put on the noose.

sacrilegium in civitate commissum est. Adiit ipsa magistratus et dixit a se factum. Vult de illa supplicium sumere.

A sacrilege was committed in the city. She herself went to the magistrate and said it had been done by her. She wants the magistrate to exact punishment for that.

Appellat pro ea filius tribunos de iniusto supplicio. Cum subito fortuna, sicut solet, ipsa suis muneribus invidit. "Alius" inquit "pro alio agere non potest": alius est ergo qui filius est?

Her son appeals to the tribunes on her behalf about the unjust punishment. But suddenly Fortune, as she is wont, begrudged her her gifts. “Alius,” he says, “pro alio agere non potest”: is he, then, an alius who is a son?

Confessio voluntaria suspecta est. Confessionem sceleris appellas vocem doloris. Misericordiae vestrae maximum munus est servare nolentem.

A voluntary confession is suspect. You call the confession of a crime a voice of pain. The greatest munus of your mercy is to preserve the unwilling.

Raptor excaecatus
TALIONIS SIT ACTIO. RAPTARUM LEX.
Quidam rapuit et in raptu a puella excaecatus est.

An abductor blinded
TALIONIS SIT ACTIO. RAPTARUM LEX.
A certain man carried off and, in the abduction, was blinded by the girl.

Producta ad magistratus mortem optavit. Raptor exigit talionem. Imperare poenam meam, non agere debebas nec esse eadem iudex et carnifex.

Brought before the magistrates, she chose death. The raptor demands talionem. You ought not to command my punishment, nor to act, nor to be one and the same iudex and carnifex.

Habet quisque nostrum suam legem: rapta capitis, excaecatus oculorum. Tu enim, puella, quid passa es? Virginitate caruisti. Sollemne in his <annis> damnum, ut non dixerim votum.

Each one of us has his own law: for the raped, the head; for the blinded, the eyes. For you, girl, what did you suffer? You were bereft of virginity. A solemn loss in these <years>, so great—so as not to call it a vow.

Erepta autem mihi lux est, ante quam morerer. O oculi, quos ego primus adamavi! Digna fortuna vos ulta est, ut, qui me perdidistis, mecum periretis.

But light was snatched from me before I could die. O eyes, which I first loved! A worthy fortune has avenged you, so that those who ruined me might perish with me.

Soror infamis immolanda Infamis erat in sororem virginem. Occisus est lege indemnatorum. lues orta est.

An infamous sister to be immolated. Infamy was upon the sister, the virgin. He was killed by the law of the indemnified. pestilence arose.

Respondit oraculum virginem immolari debere. Offert se illa, quae infamabatur in fratrem. Pater C. D. Dilexerunt enim se mutuo fratres ultra meum votum.

The oracle answered that the virgin must be immolated. She who was being defamed concerning her brother offered herself. Father C. D. They had, in truth, loved one another mutually, brothers beyond my vow.

O fortuna crudelis! Abstulisti mihi filium: relinque vel filiam. Partiamur vel saltem liberos meos.

O cruel Fortune! You have taken from me my son: leave me at least a daughter. Let us share, or at least my children.

Nemo de polluto grege hostiam sumit. Quis hanc hostiam perimet, pater, sacerdos an carnifex? Quamvis haec fortasse desideret ipso illo gladio perire, quo frater occisus est.

No one takes a victim from a polluted flock. Who will destroy this victim, father, the priest or the executioner? Although perhaps she herself longs to perish by that very sword by which her brother was slain.

<Speciosus filius peremptus>
INDEMNATOS LIBEROS LICEAT OCCIDERE.
Tyrannus finitimae civitatis sub minis belli adulescentem speciosum postulavit. Civitas decrevit.

<Handsome son slain>
LET IT BE PERMITTED TO KILL UNPUNISHED CHILDREN.
The tyrant demanded, under threats of war, from the neighboring city a handsome youth. The city decreed.

Pater illum lege indemnatorum peremit. Reus est laesae rei publicae. Amplius leges impossibilia desiderant?

The father killed him by the law of the indemnified. He is accused of treason against the republic. Do laws any longer demand impossibilities?

Interemi iam mori volentem et commodavi misero manum. Feci quod licebat: occidi filium; sed ingens pater praemium retuli: occisus est, ante quam moreretur. Perit homo, sed pudor vivit.

I killed one already wishing to die, and I lent a hand to the wretched man. I did what was lawful: I killed the son; but the mighty father repaid the reward: he was slain before he could die. Man perishes, but pudor (shame/modesty) lives.

Indemnatus raptoris filius
LEX RAPTARUM. INDEMNATOS LIBEROS LICEAT OCCIDERE.
Quidam rapuit et fugit.

The indemnified abductor’s son
LEX RAPTARUM. INDEMNATOS LIBEROS LICEAT OCCIDERE.
A certain man abducted and fled.

De raptu puella concepit et peperit. Reverso raptore puella mortem raptoris optavit. Filium ille indemnatum vult occidere.

From the abduction the girl conceived and gave birth. On the abductor's return the girl desired the abductor’s death. He wishes to kill the indemnified son.

Rapta contradicit. Nisi forte moleste tulit quod et non et hunc ipsa damnavit. Iam cum illo meo errore vel fato voluntaria profectione transegeram; hic me, iudices, hic puer prodidit.

The abducted woman contradicts. Unless, perhaps, she took it amiss that she had both said “no” and herself condemned this man. Now with that, by my error or by fate, I had already brought the matter to pass by a voluntary departure; this one, judges, this boy betrayed me.

Si perseverat in mea poena, hunc mater occidet. Dicere me raptorem nemo debebat post intervallum, post exilium, post meum filium. "Non est" inquit "filius tuus; nuptiis enim sollemnibus non est natus." Cuius ergo?

If he persists in causing me harm, his mother will kill him. No one ought to have called me an abductor after the lapse, after the exile, after my son. "He is not your son," he says; "for he was not born in the solemn nuptials." Whose, then?

Nisi faces accenderit et fescennina cecinerit, pater esse non poterit? Perquam es inhumana: non vis esse patrem, qui te fecerit matrem! Vir fortis et orator Vir fortis et orator consulatum petebant.

Unless he lights torches and chants fescennine verses, will he not be able to be a father? You are exceedingly inhuman: you do not wish to be the father of him who made you a mother! A brave man and an orator, a brave man and an orator, sought the consulship.

Quam vestra iudicia plus ad cuiusque iudices proficiunt merita privata quam publica. Postremo, quod maxime voluntatem plebis offendit, rogare non nosti. Orare et exorare nostrum est, qui hinc etiam nomen accepimus.

Your judgments advance private merits to each man's judges more than public ones. Lastly, what most offends the will of the plebs, you do not know how to ask. To beg and to entreat is ours, we who from this very thing have even received our name.

Adulter uxoris Ex duobus filiis <pater> alteri uxorem dedit, alter incidit in adversam valetudinem. Medici dixerunt animi esse languorem. Quaerenti patri fratris uxorem se amare confessus est.

The wife's adulterer. Of two sons the <father> gave a wife to one, the other fell into a hostile illness. The physicians said it was a languor of the mind. When asked by his father, he confessed that he loved his brother's wife.

Petit pater a filio, ut matrimonio cederet; impetravit. Inventos in adulterio postea fratrem et uxorem secundus maritus occidit. Abdicatur a patre.

The father asks his son to yield to marriage; he obtained it. Finding them in adultery, the second husband killed the brother and the wife. He is disinherited by his father.

Sero me, sanctissimi iudices, abdicare patet: ius enim ad hoc redit, ut excusare compellar, non quod extrema non tulerim, sed quod illa priora toleraverim. Qui capitis poenas a suo fratre pro uxore dilecta petit, quid ipse meruerit, ostendit. Crimen superius huic imputare non possum, nam frater ignovit.

It is late for me, most holy judges, to be disowned: for the right has recourse to this, to compel excuse, not that I did not endure the extremes, but that I endured those earlier things. He who seeks capital penalties from his own brother for a beloved wife shows what he himself has merited. I cannot impute to him a charge prior to this, for the brother forgave.

Quantum tibi nuptiarum cessione praestiteri<n>t, adulterio probaverunt. Tibi liberas et perpetes noctes, sibi furtiva commercia et amorum pericula reliquerunt. Ignosce amantibus, si vere amasti.

As much as they conferred upon you by cession of marriages praestiteri<n>t, they proved by adultery. To you they left free and perpetual nights; to themselves, furtive commerce and the perils of love. Forgive those who love, if you truly loved.

Infamis in nurum
ADULTERUM CUM ADULTERA LICEAT OCCIDERE. REUS CAEDIS ADVOCATUM
quem volet, eligat. Erat infamis in nurum.

There was a notorious man about the daughter‑in‑law
IT IS LAWFUL TO KILL AN ADULTERER TOGETHER WITH THE ADULTERESS. THE DEFENDANT IN A SLAUGHTER CASE MAY CHOOSE
whichever advocate he wishes. There was a notorious man regarding the daughter‑in‑law.

Invenit adulescens incertum quem adulterum capite velato. Vxorem solam peremit. Fit reus caedis.

A young man found an unknown person whom he took to be an adulterer, his head veiled. He killed the wife alone. He is made accused (reus) of the killing.

Advocatum patrem postulat. Contradicit. Accusator obicit, quod adultero pepercerim, pater dolet, quod nurum eius occiderim.

He demands his father as advocate. He opposes. The accuser objects that I spared the adulterer; the father grieves that I have killed his daughter‑in‑law.

Adulter occidi maluit quam videri. Habet adulter poenam suam: cruciatur conscientia, pudore torquetur, et, si interim tectus evasit, inveniet illum postremo vel fama. Pauper imperator imperium recusat Pauper et dives inimici.

The adulterer would rather be killed than be seen. The adulterer has his punishment: his conscience is crucified, he is tormented by shame, and if meanwhile he escaped hidden, he will find himself discovered at last even by fame. The poor man refuses imperial power. Poor and rich are enemies.

Belli tempore dives creatus est imperator. qui cum bis fugatus esset, pauper legem tulit, ut, qui ter fugatus esset, in crucem tolleretur. Tertio dives fugatus est et in crucem latus.

In time of war a rich man was made emperor. When he had been put to flight twice, the poor man enacted a law that whoever had been put to flight three times should be lifted upon a cross. The rich man was put to flight a third time and was carried to the cross.

Filius divitis fert rogationem, ut imperium transferatur ad pauperem. Pauper contradicit. Habes, pater, grande solacium: reliquisti superstitem legem.

The son of the rich brings a rogation, that the empire be transferred to the poor. The poor man objects. You have, father, great consolation: you left behind a surviving law.

Procede, legumlator, ad bellum, muta stilum gladio, lorica togam. Iam fortunae satis fecimus, et hostes, vel dum vincimur, fatigavimus. In victoriam paene succedis alienam.

Proceed, lawgiver, to war; change the stylus for the sword, the cuirass for the toga. Now we have done enough for Fortune, and we have wearied the enemies, even while we are being conquered. In victory you almost achieve another's.

Raptor duarum filium nutriens
LEX RAPTARUM.
Quidam duas rapuit. Productae ad magistratus altera nuptias, altera mortem petit.

An abductor rearing two daughters
LAW OF THE RAPT.
A certain man seized two (women). Brought before the magistrates, one seeks nuptials, the other seeks death.

Magistratus humaniorem sententiam secuti sunt. Post factas nuptias illa quod virgo perpessa est quem conceperat, peperit; exposuit. Raptor suscepit, qui tunc erat maritus alterius, et alere coepit.

The magistrates followed a more humane judgment. After the marriages were celebrated, the maiden who had conceived suffered and gave birth; she exposed the child. The raptor, who at that time was the husband of another, took it up and began to rear it.

Reus est uxori malae tractationis. Venit ad vos pia mulier accusatura pietatem. Infantem adhuc iussit feris canibus et diris alitibus exponi.

He stands accused of cruel treatment of his wife. A pious woman comes to you, about to accuse his impiety. He even ordered the infant, still (a babe), to be exposed to wild dogs and dire birds.

Puto, patris similis apparuit, unde matrem tam graviter offendit. Nam qui potest expositum praeterire? "Ignoscere non potui." Tu me docueras puella misereri.

I think he appeared like his father, whence he so gravely offended the mother. For who can pass by an exposed one? "I could not forgive." You had taught me, girl, to feel pity.

De matre nihil meminit: o gratum infantis errorem: te existimat matrem. Disce, infelix puer, natalium tuorum, disce fortunam: pariter nos ambos mulier afflixit et pariter factum alia servabit.

He remembers nothing of his mother: O welcome error of the infant: he esteems you his mother. Learn, unhappy boy, of your natal origins, learn your fortune: alike a woman has afflicted both of us, and alike another woman will preserve the deed.

Vir fortis gladiator
INFAMIS NON MILITET.
Vir fortis in piratas incidit. Rescripsit patriae de redemptione.

A brave man, a gladiator
A DISGRACED MAN MUST NOT SERVE AS A SOLDIER.
The brave man fell in with pirates. He wrote back to his fatherland concerning the redemption (ransom).

Illa cessante redemit eum lanista et rudem ei in arena dedit. Reverso belli tempore denuntiat militiam imperator. Omnia fieri posse credidi, cum me fortuna servum ex libero et gladiatorem de viro forte fecisset.

With her gone the lanista ransomed him and gave him, raw, into the arena. With the time of war returned the imperator proclaimed military service. I believed that all things could happen, since fortuna had made me a servus from a liber and a gladiator from a vir fortis.

Imperator vobis ingerit militem, cuius operam non esse rei publicae necessariam proxime non redimendo iudicastis. Veniam a vobis, iudices, postulo, quod gladiator infamis in iudicio loquor. Erravi, iudices, fateor, erravi, qui semper credidi immortalitatem esse pro re publica mori, cum fama etiam viventium consenescat: gladiatorem me fecit non pirata, sed patria.

The emperor imposes upon you a soldier, whose service you judged not necessary to the republic by failing to redeem him recently. I ask pardon from you, judges, because I speak in court as a disgraced gladiator. I erred, judges, I confess, I erred — I who always believed that immortality consists in dying for the republic, since even the fame of the living grows old: it was not a pirate but the fatherland that made me a gladiator.

Sed o virtus, in adversis comes, sola tu me secuta in carcerem, tu in ludum, virum fortem tu sola non decipis. Scitis me, iudices, periculum contemnere, sed non contemno flagitium. Vtrum igitur gladiatorem negat [negat] aliquis infamem, an negat gladiatorem?

But O virtus, companion in adversities, you alone followed me into prison, you into the ludus; you alone do not deceive a brave man. You know, iudices, that I despise danger, but I do not despise infamy. Does anyone therefore deny [deny] the gladiator to be infamous, or deny that he is a gladiator?

Vtrumque mendacium est: neque enim condicione gladiatoria quicquam est humilius in vulgo nec meo nomine quicquam nobilius in ludo. "Fortunae" inquit "fuit." Quousque fortunam facimus humanorum negotiorum ream? Esto, fortuna fecit, ut caperer: quis fecit, ut nemo redimeret?

Both are lies: for nothing is more degrading in the common view than the gladiatorial condition, nor is there anything more noble by my name in the arena. "It was Fortune's," he says. How long shall we make Fortune the defendant of human affairs? Be it so, Fortune made it that I was taken: who made it that no one ransomed me?

Et, si victoria solita provenerit, post rudem triumphabo? Invicem adoptati Pauper et dives inimici. Visi sunt in gratiam rediisse.

And if the customary victory should come about, shall I afterwards triumph over the raw novice? Conversely, the adopted — poor and rich — became enemies. They seemed to have returned into favour.

Dederunt invicem filios adoptandos. Dives occidit lege indemnatorum quem acceperat. Qui est apud pauperem, reddidit in senatu causam mortis voluntariae.

They gave one another sons to be adopted. The rich man killed, under the law of indemnities, the one he had taken. He who was with the poor man presented the case of voluntary death to the senate.

Pauper contradicit. Vtinam, P. C., Liberis nostris exire de vita nisi nobis arbitris non liceret! Perquam indignum est, si utrumque pignus amittam, et quod dedit aliquando natura et quod nunc substituit amicitia.

The poor man objects. Would that, P. C., it were not permitted for our children to leave life except with us as arbiters! It is very unworthy, if I am to lose both pledges — that which nature once gave and that which now friendship supplies.

Amo enim iuvenem, quem non genui meo sanguine, sed redemi.

For I love a young man, whom I did not beget by my blood, but redeemed.