Cicero: ORATORIA

[1] Hesterno die, patres conscripti, cum me et vestra dignitas et frequentia equitum Romanorum praesentium, quibus senatus dabatur, magno opere commosset, putavi mihi reprimendam esse P. Clodi impudicam impudentiam, cum is publicanorum causam stultissimis interrogationibus impediret, P. Tullioni Syro navaret operam atque ei se, cui totus venierat, etiam vobis inspectantibus venditaret. Itaque hominem furentem exsultantemque continui simul ac periculum iudici intendi: duobus inceptis verbis omnem impetum gladiatoris ferociamque compressi.

[1] Yesterday, Conscript Fathers, when both your dignity and the frequent attendance of the Roman equestrians present, to whom access to the senate was being granted, had greatly stirred me, I thought that the unchaste impudence of P. Clodius had to be repressed by me, since he was impeding the cause of the publicans by the most foolish interrogations, was rendering service to P. Tullius Syrus, and was even, with you looking on, selling himself to him to whom he had wholly been sold. And so I restrained the man, raging and exulting, as soon as danger was directed at the trial: with two words begun I checked all the onrush and ferocity of the gladiator.

[2] Ac tamen ignarus ille qui consules essent, exsanguis atque aestuans se ex curia repente proripuit, cum quibusdam fractis iam atque inanibus minis et cum illius Pisoniani temporis Gabinianique terroribus: quem cum egredientem insequi coepissem, cepi equidem fructum maximum et ex consurrectione omnium vestrum et ex comitatu publicanorum. Sed vaecors repente sine suo vultu, sine colore, sine voce constitit; deinde respexit et, simul atque Cn. Lentulum consulem aspexit, concidit in curiae paene limine; recordatione, credo, Gabini sui desiderioque Pisonis. Cuius ego de ecfrenato et praecipiti furore quid dicam?

[2] And yet that ignorant fellow, unaware who the consuls were, bloodless and burning, suddenly tore himself out of the Curia, with certain threats already broken and empty, and with the terrors of that Pisonian and Gabinian time; and when I began to pursue him as he was going out, I indeed reaped the greatest fruit both from the rising-up of all of you and from the company of the publicans. But frenzied, suddenly without his own face, without color, without voice, he stood still; then he looked back, and as soon as he caught sight of Gnaeus Lentulus, the consul, he collapsed almost on the threshold of the Curia—by the recollection, I believe, of his Gabinius and the longing for Piso. What shall I say of his unbridled and headlong frenzy?

<An> potest gravioribus a me verbis vulnerari quam est statim in facto ipso a gravissimo viro, P. Servilio, confectus ac trucidatus? cuius si iam vim et gravitatem illam singularem ac paene divinam adsequi possem, tamen non dubito quin ea tela quae coniecerit inimicus quam ea quae conlega patris emisit leviora atque hebetiora esse videantur.

<An> can he be wounded by weightier words from me than he has already, immediately in the very deed, been dispatched and butchered by a most grave man, P. Servilius? Of whom, even if I could now attain that force and that singular and almost divine gravitas, nevertheless I do not doubt that those missiles which an enemy has hurled would seem lighter and more blunt than those which the colleague of his father has launched.

[3] Sed tamen mei facti rationem exponere illis volo qui hesterno die dolore me elatum et iracundia longius prope progressum arbitrabantur quam sapientis hominis cogitata ratio postulasset. Nihil feci iratus, nihil impotenti animo, nihil non diu consideratum ac multo ante meditatum. Ego enim me, patres conscripti, inimicum semper esse professus sum duobus, qui me, qui rem publicam cum defendere deberent, servare possent, cumque ad consulare officium ipsis insignibus illius imperi, ad meam salutem non solum auctoritate sed etiam precibus vestris vocarentur, primo reliquerunt, deinde prodiderunt, postremo oppugnarunt, praemiisque nefariae pactionis funditus una cum re publica oppressum exstinctumque voluerunt; qui quae suo ductu et imperio cruento illo atque funesto supplicia neque a sociorum moenibus prohibere neque hostium urbibus inferre potuerunt, excisionem, inflammationem, eversionem, depopulationem, vastitatem, ea sua cum praeda meis omnibus tectis atque agris intulerunt.

[3] But nevertheless I wish to set forth the rationale of my deed to those who yesterday thought that, uplifted by grief and carried almost too far by anger, I had advanced beyond what the deliberate reasoning of a wise man would have required. I did nothing in anger, nothing with an unbridled spirit, nothing that had not been long considered and long before premeditated. For I, Conscript Fathers, have always professed myself an enemy to two men, who, when they ought to defend me and the republic, and were able to preserve both, and when to the consular office, with the very insignia of that imperium, for my safety they were summoned not only by your authority but even by your prayers, first abandoned, then betrayed, and at last attacked me, and by the rewards of a nefarious pact wished me to be crushed and extinguished root and branch together with the republic; who, the punishments—excision, conflagration, overthrow, depopulation, devastation—which under their own leadership and command, bloody and baleful, they could neither keep from the walls of our allies nor inflict upon the cities of enemies, these they brought, along with their own booty, into all my houses and fields.

[4] Cum his furiis et facibus, cum his, inquam, exitiosis prodigiis ac paene huius imperi pestibus bellum mihi inexpiabile dico esse susceptum, neque id tamen ipsum tantum quantum meus ac meorum, sed tantum quantum vester atque omnium bonorum dolor postulavit. In Clodium vero non est hodie meum maius odium quam illo die fuit cum illum ambustum religiosissimis ignibus cognovi muliebri ornatu ex incesto stupro atque ex domo pontificis maximi emissum. Tum, inquam, tum vidi ac multo ante prospexi quanta tempestas excitaretur, quanta impenderet procella rei publicae.

[4] With these furies and torches, with these, I say, ruinous prodigies and almost the plagues of this empire, I declare that an inexpiable war has been undertaken by me; nor yet has it been undertaken so much according to my own grief and that of my men, as so far as your grief and that of all good men demanded. As for Clodius, my hatred today is not greater than it was on that day when I learned that he, singed by the most sacred fires, had been sent out, in womanly attire, from an incestuous debauch and from the house of the Pontifex Maximus. Then, I say, then I saw and long before I foresaw how great a tempest would be stirred up, how great a squall would hang over the republic.

Videbam illud scelus tam importunum, audaciam tam immanem adulescentis furentis, nobilis, vulnerati non posse arceri oti finibus: erupturum illud malum aliquando, si impunitum fuisset, ad perniciem civitatis. Non multum mihi sane post ad odium accessit.

I saw that crime so importunate, the audacity so monstrous of the furious adolescent, a noble, a wounded man, could not be confined within the bounds of peace: that evil would someday erupt, if it had been left unpunished, to the perdition of the state. Assuredly, not much was added thereafter to my hatred.

[5] Nihil enim contra me fecit odio mei, sed odio severitatis, odio dignitatis, odio rei publicae: non me magis violavit quam senatum, quam equites Romanos, quam omnis bonos, quam Italiam cunctam: non denique in me sceleratior fuit quam in ipsos deos immortalis. Etenim illos eo scelere violavit quo nemo antea: in me fuit eodem animo quo etiam eius familiaris Catilina, si vicisset, fuisset. Itaque eum numquam a me esse accusandum putavi, non plus quam stipitem illum qui quorum hominum esset nesciremus, nisi se Ligurem ipse esse diceret.

[5] For he did nothing against me out of hatred of me, but out of hatred of severity, hatred of dignity, hatred of the commonwealth: he did not violate me more than the senate, than the Roman equestrians, than all good men, than all Italy entire: nor, finally, was he more criminal against me than against the immortal gods themselves. For indeed he violated them by that crime—something which no one before had done: toward me he was of the same mind as even his intimate Catiline would have been, if he had prevailed. And so I never thought that he ought to be accused by me, any more than that stump there, whose sort of men he belonged to we should not have known, unless he himself said that he was a Ligurian.

Quid enim hunc persequar, pecudem ac beluam, pabulo inimicorum meorum et glande corruptum? qui si sensit quo se scelere devinxerit, non dubito quin sit miserrimus; sin autem id non videt, periculum est ne se stuporis excusatione defendat.

For why should I pursue this fellow, a herd-animal and a brute, corrupted by the fodder of my enemies and by acorns? If he has perceived by what crime he has bound himself, I do not doubt that he is most wretched; but if he does not see it, there is danger lest he defend himself by the excuse of stupor.

[6] Accedit etiam quod exspectatione omnium fortissimo et clarissimo viro, T. Annio, devota et constituta ista hostia esse videtur; cui me praeripere desponsam iam et destinatam laudem, cum ipse eius opera et dignitatem et salutem reciperarim, valde est iniquum. Etenim ut P. ille Scipio natus mihi videtur ad interitum exitiumque Carthaginis, qui illam a multis imperatoribus obsessam, oppugnatam, labefactam, paene captam aliquando quasi fatali adventu solus evertit, sic T. Annius ad illam pestem comprimendam, exstinguendam, funditus delendam natus esse videtur et quasi divino munere donatus rei publicae. Solus ille cognovit quem ad modum armatum civem, qui lapidibus, qui ferro alios fugaret, alios domi contineret, qui urbem totam, qui curiam, qui forum, qui templa omnia caede incendiisque terreret, non modo vinci verum etiam vinciri oporteret.

[6] In addition, that sacrificial victim seems, in the expectation of all, to have been vowed and appointed for the most brave and most illustrious man, T. Annius; and it is very inequitable that I should snatch from him a praise already betrothed and destined, since by his agency I myself have recovered both dignity and safety. For just as that P. Scipio seems to me to have been born for the ruin and destruction of Carthage—who, when it had been besieged, assaulted, shaken, almost captured by many commanders, at last, as if by a fated advent, he alone overthrew it—so T. Annius seems to have been born for the repressing, extinguishing, and utterly destroying of that pest, and as if by a divine gift bestowed upon the commonwealth. He alone discerned how an armed citizen—who with stones, with iron, would put some to flight, keep others confined at home; who would terrify the whole city, the Curia, the Forum, all the temples with slaughter and conflagrations—ought not only to be conquered but even to be bound.

[7] Huic ego et tali et ita de me ac de patria merito viro numquam mea voluntate praeripiam eum praesertim reum cuius ille inimicitias non solum suscepit propter salutem meam, verum etiam adpetivit. Sed si etiam nunc inlaqueatus iam omnium legum periculis, inretitus odio bonorum omnium, exspectatione supplici iam non diuturna implicatus, feretur tamen haesitans et in me impetum impeditus facere conabitur, resistam et aut concedente aut etiam adiuvante Milone eius conatum refutabo: velut hesterno die cum mihi stanti tacens minaretur, voce tantum attigi legum initium et iudici. Consedit ille: conticui.

[7] To this man—such a one, and thus deserving in regard to me and to the fatherland—I will never of my own will snatch away, especially that defendant, whose enmity he not only undertook for the sake of my safety, but even sought. But if even now, ensnared already in the perils of all the laws, entangled in the hatred of all good men, involved in the expectation of a punishment now not long deferred, he shall nevertheless be borne along wavering and, though hindered, will try to make an impetus against me, I will resist, and with Milo either conceding or even aiding I will refute his attempt: as yesterday, when, I standing, he in silence threatened me, I merely touched with my voice the beginning of the laws and of the trial. He sat down; I fell silent.

Diem dixisset, ut iecerat: fecissem ut ei statim tertius a praetore dies diceretur. Atque hoc sic moderetur et cogitet, si contentus sit iis sceleribus quae commisit, esse <se> iam consecratum Miloni: si quod in me telum intenderit, statim me esse arrepturum arma iudiciorum atque legum.

If he had named the day, as he had proposed: I would have brought it about that a third day be immediately named to him by the praetor. And let him thus govern himself and consider this: if he is content with those crimes which he has committed, that he is already consecrated to Milo; if he should aim any weapon at me, I shall immediately seize the arms of the courts and of the laws.

[8] Atque paulo ante, patres conscripti, contionem habuit quae est ad me tota delata; cuius contionis primum universum argumentum sententiamque audite; cum riseritis impudentiam hominis, tum a me de tota contione audietis. De religionibus sacris et caerimoniis est contionatus, patres conscripti, Clodius: Publius, inquam, Clodius sacra et religiones neglegi violari pollui questus est! Non mirum si hoc vobis ridiculum videtur: etiam sua contio risit hominem, quo modo ipse gloriari solet, ducentis confixum senati consultis, quae sunt omnia contra illum pro religionibus facta, hominemque eum qui pulvinaribus Bonae deae stuprum intulerit, eaque sacra quae viri oculis ne imprudentis quidem aspici fas est non solum aspectu virili sed flagitio stuproque violarit, in contione de religionibus neglectis conqueri.

[8] And a little before, Conscript Fathers, he held an assembly which has been reported to me in its entirety; hear first the whole argument and purport of that assembly; when you have laughed at the impudence of the man, then you shall hear from me about the whole meeting. About sacred religions and ceremonies, Conscript Fathers, Clodius harangued: Publius, I say, Clodius complained that sacred rites and religions are being neglected, violated, polluted! No wonder if this seems ridiculous to you: even his own assembly laughed at the fellow—who, as he himself is wont to boast, is pinned by two hundred senate-decrees, which have all been made against him on behalf of religion—and that the very man who brought defilement upon the sacred couches of the Bona Dea, and those rites which it is not lawful for the eyes of a man, not even an unwitting one, to behold, he violated not only by a male gaze but by a flagitious outrage and debauchery, to complain in an assembly about religions being neglected.

[9] Itaque nunc proxima contio eius exspectatur de pudicitia. Quid enim interest utrum ab altaribus religiosissimis fugatus de sacris et religionibus conqueratur, an ex sororum cubiculo egressus pudorem pudicitiamque defendat? Responsum haruspicum hoc recens de fremitu in contione recitavit, in quo cum aliis multis scriptum etiam illud est, id quod audistis, Loca sacra et religiosa profana haberi: in ea causa esse dixit domum meam a religiosissimo sacerdote, P. Clodio, consecratam.

[9] And so now his next assembly is awaited on the subject of chastity. For what difference is there whether, driven away from the most religious altars, he complain about sacred rites and religions, or, having come forth from his sisters’ bedchamber, he defend modesty and chastity? He read aloud in the assembly this recent response of the haruspices about the rumbling, in which, among many other things, there is written also this, that which you have heard, that sacred and religious places are being held as profane: he said that my house was in that case, consecrated by the most religious priest, P. Clodius.

[10] Gaudeo mihi de toto hoc ostento, quod haud scio an gravissimum multis his annis huic ordini nuntiatum sit, datam non modo iustam sed etiam necessariam causam esse dicendi; reperietis enim ex hoc toto prodigio atque responso nos de istius scelere ac furore ac de impendentibus periculis maximis prope iam voce Iovis Optimi Maximi praemoneri.

[10] I rejoice that, in this whole portent—which, I know not whether, is the most grave to have been announced to this order in many years—a cause for speaking has been given to me not only just but even necessary; for you will find from this entire prodigy and response that we are being forewarned, almost now by the very voice of Jupiter Best and Greatest, about that man’s crime and frenzy and about the greatest impending dangers.

[11] Sed primum expiabo religionem aedium mearum, si id facere vere ac sine cuiusquam dubitatione potero; sin scrupulus tenuissimus residere alicui videbitur, non modo patienti sed etiam libenti animo portentis deorum immortalium religionique parebo.

[11] But first I will expiate the religion of my house, if I can do that truly and without anyone’s doubt; but if the thinnest scruple shall seem to remain to anyone, I will obey the portents of the immortal gods and religion not only with a patient but even with a willing mind.

Sed quae tandem est in hac urbe tanta domus ab ista suspicione religionis tam vacua atque pura? Quamquam vestrae domus, patres conscripti, ceterorumque civium multo maxima ex parte sunt liberae religione, tamen una mea domus iudiciis omnibus liberata in hac urbe sola est. Te enim appello, Lentule, et te, Philippe.

But what house, after all, is there in this city so empty and so pure from that suspicion of religion? Although your houses, Conscript Fathers, and those of the other citizens, for by far the greatest part are free in respect to religion, yet my single house alone in this city has been freed by all judgments. For I appeal to you, Lentulus, and to you, Philippus.

Ex hoc haruspicum responso decrevit senatus ut de locis sacris religiosis ad hunc ordinem referretis. Potestisne referre de mea domo, quae, ut dixi, sola in hac urbe omni religione omnibus iudiciis liberata est? Quam primum inimicus ipse in illa tempestate ac nocte rei publicae, cum cetera scelera stilo illo impuro Sex.

From this response of the haruspices the senate decreed that you should refer to this order concerning sacred and religious places. Are you able to report concerning my house, which, as I said, alone in this city has been freed from every religio by all judgments? As soon as the enemy himself, in that tempest and night of the commonwealth, when the other crimes with that impure stylus of Sext...

Clodi ore tincto conscripsisset, ne una quidem attigit littera religionis; deinde eandem domum populus Romanus, cuius est summa potestas omnium rerum, comitiis centuriatis omnium aetatum ordinumque suffragiis eodem iure esse iussit quo fuisset; postea vos, patres conscripti, non quo dubia res esset, sed ut huic furiae, si diutius in hac urbe quam delere cuperet maneret, vox interdiceretur, decrevistis ut de mearum aedium religione ad pontificum conlegium referretur.

when Sextus Clodius, with Clodius’s mouth besmeared, had written it up, he did not touch even a single letter about religion; then the same house the Roman People, in whom is the highest power of all things, in the centuriate comitia by the suffrages of all ages and orders, ordered to be under the same law as it had been; afterwards you, Conscript Fathers, not because the matter was doubtful, but so that a voice might be denied to this Fury, if she should remain in this city any longer, eager as she was to destroy it, decreed that concerning the religion of my dwelling it should be referred to the college of pontiffs.

[12] Quae tanta religio est qua non in nostris dubitationibus atque in maximis superstitionibus unius P. Servili aut M. Luculli responso ac verbo liberemur? De sacris publicis, de ludis maximis, de deorum penatium Vestaeque matris caerimoniis, de illo ipso sacrificio quod fit pro salute populi Romani, quod post Romam conditam huius unius casti tutoris religionum scelere violatum est, quod tres pontifices statuissent, id semper populo Romano, semper senatui, semper ipsis dis immortalibus satis sanctum, satis augustum, satis religiosum esse visum est. At vero meam domum P. Lentulus, consul et pontifex, P. Servilius, M. Lucullus, Q. Metellus, M'. Glabrio, M. Messalla, L. Lentulus, flamen Martialis, P. Galba, Q. Metellus Scipio, C. Fannius, M. Lepidus, L. Claudius rex sacrorum, M. Scaurus, M. Crassus, C. Curio, Sex.

[12] What such great religion is there, in our hesitations and in the greatest superstitions, by whose answer and word we are not freed by a single P. Servilius or M. Lucullus? Concerning the public sacred rites, concerning the greatest games, concerning the ceremonies of the Penates of the gods and of Mother Vesta, concerning that very sacrifice which is performed for the safety of the Roman people—which, after Rome was founded, was violated by the crime of this one chaste guardian of religions, which three pontiffs had determined—that has always seemed to the Roman people, always to the senate, always to the immortal gods themselves sufficiently sacrosanct, sufficiently august, sufficiently religious. But indeed as to my house, P. Lentulus, consul and pontifex, P. Servilius, M. Lucullus, Q. Metellus, M'. Glabrio, M. Messalla, L. Lentulus, flamen of Mars, P. Galba, Q. Metellus Scipio, C. Fannius, M. Lepidus, L. Claudius, king of sacred rites, M. Scaurus, M. Crassus, C. Curio, Sex.

Caesar flamen Quirinalis, Q. Cornelius, P. Albinovanus, Q. Terentius, pontifices minores, causa cognita, duobus locis dicta, maxima frequentia amplissimorum ac sapientissimorum civium adstante, omni religione una mente omnes liberaverunt.

Caesar, the Quirinal Flamen, Q. Cornelius, P. Albinovanus, Q. Terentius, the lesser pontiffs, the case having been examined, the speeches delivered in two places, with the greatest attendance of the most distinguished and most wise citizens standing by, all with one mind freed everyone from every religious scruple.

[13] Nego umquam post sacra constituta, quorum eadem est antiquitas quae ipsius urbis, ulla de re, ne de capite quidem virginum Vestalium, tam frequens conlegium iudicasse. Quamquam ad facinoris disquisitionem interest adesse quam plurimos (ita est enim interpretatio illa pontificum, ut eidem potestatem habeant iudicum), religionis explanatio vel ab uno pontifice perito recte fieri potest (quod idem in iudicio capitis durum atque iniquum est), tamen sic reperietis, frequentiores pontifices de mea domo quam umquam de caerimoniis virginum iudicasse. Postero die frequentissimus senatus te consule designato, Lentule, sententiae principe, P. Lentulo et Q. Metello consulibus referentibus statuit, cum omnes pontifices qui erant huius ordinis adessent, cumque alii qui honoribus populi Romani antecedebant multa de conlegi iudicio verba fecissent, omnesque idem scribendo adessent, domum meam iudicio pontificum religione liberatam videri.

[13] I deny that ever since the sacred rites were established—whose antiquity is the same as that of the city itself—on any matter, not even concerning the capital case of the Vestal virgins, has so full a college judged. Although for the inquiry of a crime it is important that as many as possible be present (for such is that interpretation of the pontiffs, that they have the same power as judges), an exposition of religion can rightly be made even by a single skilled pontiff (which same thing in a capital trial would be harsh and inequitable); nevertheless you will find thus: that more pontiffs have judged about my house than ever about the ceremonies of the virgins. On the next day a most full senate, with you, Lentulus, as consul‑designate, the first in giving an opinion, and with the consuls P. Lentulus and Q. Metellus bringing the matter forward, resolved that, since all the pontiffs who were of this order were present, and since others who preceded in the honors of the Roman people had spoken many words about the judgment of the college, and since all to the same effect were present by writing, my house seemed, by the judgment of the pontiffs, to be freed from religious scruple.

[14] De hoc igitur loco sacro potissimum videntur haruspices dicere, qui locus solus ex privatis locis omnibus hoc praecipue iuris habet, ut ab ipsis qui sacris praesunt sacer non esse iudicatus sit? Verum referte, quod ex senatus consulto facere debetis. Aut vobis cognitio dabitur, qui primi de hac domo sententiam dixistis et eam religione omni liberastis, aut senatus ipse iudicabit, qui uno illo solo antistite sacrorum dissentiente frequentissimus antea iudicavit, aut,—id quod certe fiet,—ad pontifices reicietur, quorum auctoritati fidei prudentiae maiores nostri sacra religionesque et privatas et publicas commendarunt.

[14] About this sacred place, then, the haruspices seem especially to speak, which place alone out of all private places has this prerogative of right, that by those very men who preside over the sacred rites it has been adjudged not to be sacer. But make your report, as you ought to do by the senatorial decree. Either the inquiry will be entrusted to you, who were the first to give an opinion about this house and freed it from every religious obligation, or the senate itself will judge, which before, with that one sole high-priest of the rites dissenting, judged in fullest numbers; or—what will certainly happen—it will be referred back to the pontifices, to whose authority, good faith, and prudence our ancestors commended the sacred things and the religiones, both private and public.

Quid ergo ii possunt aliud iudicare ac iudicaverunt? Multae sunt domus in hac urbe, patres conscripti, atque haud scio an paene cunctae iure optimo, sed tamen iure privato, iure hereditario, iure auctoritatis, iure mancipi, iure nexi: nego esse ullam domum aliam privato eodem quo quae optima lege, publico vero omni praecipuo et humano et divino iure munitam;

What, then, can they judge other than what they have judged? There are many houses in this city, Conscript Fathers, and I hardly know whether almost all are by the best title, yet still by private right, by hereditary right, by right of authority, by right of mancipation, by right of nexus: I deny that there is any other house which, in private law on the same footing as those that are under the best statute, is in public law fortified by every preeminent right, both human and divine;

[15] quae primum aedificatur ex auctoritate senatus pecunia publica, deinde contra vim nefariam huius gladiatoris tot senati consultis munita atque saepta est. Primum negotium isdem magistratibus est datum anno superiore, ut curarent ut sine vi aedificare mihi liceret, quibus in maximis periculis universa res publica commendari solet; deinde, cum ille saxis et ignibus et ferro vastitatem meis sedibus intulisset, decrevit senatus eos qui id fecissent lege de vi, quae est in eos qui universam rem publicam oppugnassent, teneri. Vobis vero referentibus, o post hominum memoriam fortissimi atque optimi consules!

[15] which was first built by the authority of the Senate with public money, then, against the nefarious violence of this gladiator, has been fortified and fenced about by so many senatorial decrees. The first commission was given to the same magistrates in the previous year, that they should see to it that it was permitted for me to build without violence—those magistrates to whom, in the greatest dangers, the whole commonwealth is wont to be commended; then, when that man had brought devastation upon my dwellings with stones and fires and iron, the Senate decreed that those who had done that should be held liable under the law on Violence, which applies to those who have assaulted the entire commonwealth. And it was upon your motion, O consuls, bravest and best since the memory of men!

decrevit idem senatus frequentissimus qui meam domum violasset contra rem publicam esse facturum.

the same most fully attended senate decreed that whoever had violated my house would be acting against the commonwealth.

[16] Nego ullo de opere publico, de monumento, de templo tot senatus exstare consulta quot de mea domo, quam senatus unam post hanc urbem constitutam ex aerario aedificandam, a pontificibus liberandam, a magistratibus defendendam, a iudicibus puniendam putarit. P. Valerio pro maximis in rem publicam beneficiis data domus est in Velia publice, at mihi in Palatio restituta; illi locus, at mihi etiam parietes atque tectum; illi quam ipse privato iure tueretur, mihi quam publice magistratus omnes defenderent. Quae quidem ego si aut per me aut ab aliis haberem, non praedicarem apud vos, ne nimis gloriari viderer; sed cum sint mihi data a vobis, cum ea attemptentur eius lingua cuius ante manu eversa vos mihi et liberis meis manibus vestris reddidistis, non ego de meis sed de vestris factis loquor, nec vereor ne haec mea vestrorum beneficiorum praedicatio non grata potius quam adrogans videatur.

[16] I deny that there exist so many senatorial decrees about any public work, about a monument, about a temple, as about my house, which the senate judged alone, after this city was established, to be built from the public treasury, to be freed by the pontiffs, to be defended by the magistrates, to have punishment inflicted by the judges. To P. Valerius, for very great benefactions to the commonwealth, a house was given publicly on the Velia, but to me on the Palatine it was restored; to him a site, but to me even the walls and the roof; to him one which he himself would protect by private right, to me one which all the magistrates would defend publicly. Which things indeed, if I had either through myself or from others, I would not proclaim before you, lest I seem to glory too much; but since they have been given to me by you, since these are being assailed by the tongue of him whose “hand” you formerly overthrew, and you restored me and my children with your own hands, I speak not of my deeds but of yours, nor do I fear that this my proclamation of your benefactions will seem arrogant rather than grateful.

[17] Quamquam si me tantis laboribus pro communi salute perfunctum ecferret aliquando ad gloriam in refutandis maledictis hominum improborum animi quidam dolor, quis non ignosceret? Vidi enim hesterno die quendam murmurantem, quem aiebant negare ferri me posse, quia, cum ab hoc eodem impurissimo parricida rogarer cuius essem civitatis, respondi me, probantibus et vobis et equitibus Romanis, eius esse quae carere me non potuisset. Ille, ut opinor, ingemuit.

[17] Although, if after I have discharged such labors for the common safety some pang of spirit should at some time carry me up to glory in refuting the maledictions of wicked men, who would not pardon it? For I saw yesterday a certain fellow muttering, who, they said, declared that he could not tolerate me, because, when I was asked by this same most impure parricide of what city I was a citizen, I replied, with you and the Roman equestrians approving, that I belonged to that state which could not have been without me. He, I suppose, groaned.

Quid igitur responderem? quaero ex eo ipso qui ferre me non potest. Me civem esse Romanum?

What then should I reply? I inquire of that very man who cannot endure me. That I am a Roman citizen?

litterate respondissem. An tacuissem? desertum negotium.

i would have responded in writing. Or should I have kept silent? the matter abandoned.

Potest quisquam vir in rebus magnis cum invidia versatus satis graviter inimici contumeliis sine sua laude respondere? At ipse non modo respondet quidquid potest, cum est lacessitus, sed etiam gaudet se ab amicis quid respondeat admoneri.

Can any man, engaged in great matters and entangled with envy, respond with sufficient gravity to an enemy’s contumelies without self-laudation? But he himself not only responds with whatever he can when he is provoked, but even rejoices to be admonished by friends as to what he should respond.

[18] Sed quoniam mea causa expedita est, videamus nunc quid haruspices dicant. Ego enim fateor me et magnitudine ostenti et gravitate responsi et una atque constanti haruspicum voce vehementer esse commotum; neque is sum qui, si cui forte videor plus quam ceteri qui aeque atque ego sunt occupati versari in studio litterarum, his delecter aut utar omnino litteris quae nostros animos deterrent atque avocant a religione. Ego vero primum habeo auctores ac magistros religionum colendarum maiores nostros, quorum mihi tanta fuisse sapientia videtur ut satis superque prudentes sint qui illorum prudentiam non dicam adsequi, sed quanta fuerit perspicere possint; qui statas sollemnisque caerimonias pontificatu, rerum bene gerundarum auctoritates augurio, fatorum veteres praedictiones Apollinis vatum libris, portentorum expiationes Etruscorum disciplina contineri putaverunt; quae quidem tanta est ut nostra memoria primum Italici belli funesta illa principia, post Sullani Cinnanique temporis extremum paene discrimen, tum hanc recentem urbis inflammandae delendique imperi coniurationem non obscure nobis paulo ante praedixerint.

[18] But since my case has been dispatched, let us now see what the haruspices say. For I confess that I have been vehemently moved both by the magnitude of the prodigy and by the gravity of the response and by the single and consistent voice of the haruspices; nor am I the sort of man who—if perchance I seem to anyone to be more than others, who are as much occupied as I, engaged in the study of letters—takes delight in or at all uses those letters which deter and divert our minds from religion. As for me, I have, first, our ancestors as authorities and teachers of the cult of religions, whose wisdom seems to me to have been so great that those men are more than sufficiently prudent who can—not to say attain to their prudence—at least perceive how great it was; they thought that fixed and solemn ceremonies are contained in the pontificate, the authorities for conducting affairs well in augury, the ancient predictions of the fates in the books of Apollo’s seers, the expiations of portents in the discipline of the Etruscans; which indeed is so great that in our memory, first, the baleful beginnings of that Italian War, then the almost final crisis of the time of Sulla and Cinna, and then this recent conspiracy to set the city ablaze and to destroy the imperium, were not obscurely foretold to us a little beforehand.

[19] Deinde, si quid habui oti, etiam cognovi multa homines doctos sapientisque et dixisse et scripta de deorum immortalium numine reliquisse; quae quamquam divinitus perscripta video, tamen eius modi sunt ut ea maiores nostri docuisse illos, non ab illis didicisse videantur. Etenim quis est tam vaecors qui aut, cum suspexit in caelum, deos esse non sentiat, et ea quae tanta mente fiunt ut vix quisquam arte ulla ordinem rerum ac necessitudinem persequi possit casu fieri putet, aut, cum deos esse intellexerit, non intellegat eorum numine hoc tantum imperium esse natum et auctum et retentum? Quam volumus licet, patres conscripti, ipsi nos amemus, tamen nec numero Hispanos nec robore Gallos nec calliditate Poenos nec artibus Graecos nec denique hoc ipso huius gentis ac terrae domestico nativoque sensu Italos ipsos ac Latinos, sed pietate ac religione atque hac una sapientia, quod deorum numine omnia regi gubernarique perspeximus, omnis gentis nationesque superavimus.

[19] Then, if ever I have had any leisure, I have also come to know that many learned and wise men both have said and have left writings about the numen of the immortal gods; which, although I see to be written, as it were, divinely, yet are of such a sort that our ancestors seem to have taught those men, not to have learned from them. For who is so witless that either, when he has looked up into heaven, he does not sense that there are gods, and thinks that those things which are brought about with such Mind that scarcely anyone by any art can pursue the order and necessity of things happen by chance; or that, when he has understood that there are gods, he does not understand that by their numen this so great empire has been born, increased, and retained? As much as we please, Conscript Fathers, let us love ourselves; nevertheless it is not by number that we have surpassed the Spaniards, nor by strength the Gauls, nor by cunning the Carthaginians, nor by arts the Greeks, nor, finally, the Italians themselves and the Latins by that very domestic and native sense of this nation and soil, but by piety and religion and by this one wisdom—that we have perceived that all things are ruled and governed by the numen of the gods—we have surpassed all races and nations.

[20] Qua re, ne plura de re minime loquar dubia, adhibete animos, et mentis vestras, non solum auris, ad haruspicum vocem admovete: Qvod in agro Latiniensi avditvs est strepitvs cvm fremitv. Mitto haruspices, mitto illam veterem ab ipsis dis immortalibus, ut hominum fama est, Etruriae traditam disciplinam: nos nonne haruspices esse possumus? Exauditus in agro propinquo et suburbano est strepitus quidam reconditus et horribilis fremitus armorum.

[20] Wherefore, lest I speak more about a matter least doubtful, bring your spirits to bear, and move your minds—not your ears only—near to the voice of the haruspices: “What was heard in the Latian field was a clatter with a roar.” I pass over the haruspices, I pass over that ancient discipline, handed down to Etruria, as the report of men has it, by the immortal gods themselves: can we not be haruspices ourselves? In a neighboring and suburban field there was distinctly heard a certain hidden crashing and a horrible roaring of arms.

Quis est ex gigantibus illis, quos poetae ferunt bellum dis immortalibus intulisse, tam impius qui hoc tam novo tantoque motu non magnum aliquid deos populo Romano praemonstrare et praecinere fateatur? De ea re scriptum est: Postiliones esse Iovi, Satvrno, Neptvno, Tellvri, dis caelestibvs.

Who is there of those giants, whom the poets relate to have brought war upon the immortal gods, so impious as not to admit that by so new and so great a commotion the gods are portending and presaging something great to the Roman people? On this matter it is written: that there are postilions for Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Tellus, the celestial gods.

[21] Audio quibus dis violatis expiatio debeatur, sed hominum quae ob delicta quaero. Lvdos minvs diligenter factos pollvtosqve. Quos ludos?

[21] I hear to which gods, when violated, expiation is owed; but I inquire on account of what delicts of men. Games performed less diligently and polluted. Which games?

Te appello, Lentule,—tui sacerdoti sunt tensae, curricula, praecentio, ludi, libationes epulaeque ludorum,—vosque, pontifices, ad quos epulones Iovis Optimi Maximi, si quid est praetermissum aut commissum, adferunt, quorum de sententia illa eadem renovata atque instaurata celebrantur. Qui sunt ludi minus diligenter facti, quando aut quo scelere polluti? Respondebis et pro te et pro conlegis tuis, etiam pro pontificum conlegio, nihil cuiusquam aut neglegentia contemptum aut scelere esse pollutum: omnia sollemnia ac iusta ludorum omnibus rebus observatis summa cum caerimonia esse servata.

I address you, Lentulus,—to your priesthood belong the tensae, the race-courses, the precention, the games, the libations and the banquets of the games,—and you, pontiffs, to whom the epulones of Jupiter Best and Greatest bring it, if anything has been omitted or committed, by whose judgment those same things, renewed and restored, are celebrated. Which are the games done less diligently, when or by what crime polluted? You will reply both for yourself and for your colleagues, and even for the college of pontiffs, that nothing has been slighted by anyone’s negligence or polluted by crime: that all the solemn and rightful observances of the games, with everything observed, have been kept with the highest ceremony.

[22] Quos igitur haruspices ludos minus diligenter factos pollutosque esse dicunt? Eos quorum ipsi di immortales atque illa mater Idaea te,—te, Cn. Lentule, cuius abavi manibus esset accepta,—spectatorem esse voluit. Quod ni tu Megalesia illo die spectare voluisses, haud scio an vivere nobis atque his de rebus iam queri liceret.

[22] Which games, then, do the haruspices say were performed less diligently and were polluted? Those whose spectator the immortal gods themselves and that Idaean Mother wished to have you—you, Gnaeus Lentulus, by whose great‑grandfather’s hands she had been received. And if you had not wished to watch the Megalesia on that day, I hardly know whether it would be permitted to us to live and now to complain about these matters.

Vis enim innumerabilis incitata ex omnibus vicis conlecta servorum ab hoc aedile religioso repente <e> fornicibus ostiisque omnibus in scaenam signo dato inmissa inrupit. Tua tum, tua, Cn. Lentule, eadem virtus fuit quae in privato quondam tuo proavo; te, nomen, imperium, vocem, aspectum, impetum tuum stans senatus equitesque Romani et omnes boni sequebantur, cum ille servorum eludentium multitudini senatum populumque Romanum vinctum ipso consessu et constrictum spectaculis atque impeditum turba et angustiis tradidisset.

For an innumerable force of slaves, incited and collected from all the vicinities, by this religious aedile, suddenly, <e> from the vaults and from all the doors into the stage, the signal having been given, admitted, burst in. Then yours—yours, Cn. Lentule—was the same valor as once in your great-grandfather when a private man; you—your name, authority, voice, aspect, your impetus—the standing Senate and the Roman knights and all good men were following, when that man had handed over to a multitude of mocking slaves the Senate and the Roman People, bound by the very session and constricted by the spectacles and hampered by the crowd and narrowness.

[23] An si ludius constitit, aut tibicen repente conticuit, aut puer ille patrimus et matrimus si tensam non tenuit, si lorum omisit, aut si aedilis verbo aut simpuvio aberravit, ludi sunt non rite facti, eaque errata expiantur, et mentes deorum immortalium ludorum instauratione placantur: si ludi ab laetitia ad metum traducti, si non intermissi sed perempti atque sublati sunt, si civitati universae, scelere eius qui ludos ad luctum conferre voluit, exstiterunt dies illi pro festis paene funesti, dubitabimus quos ille fremitus nuntiet ludos esse pollutos?

[23] Or if a player stood still, or the tibicen suddenly fell silent, or if that boy, patrimus and matrimus, did not hold the tensa, if he let slip the strap, or if the aedile erred in a word or with the simpuvium, the games are not done rightly, and those mistakes are expiated, and the minds of the immortal gods are appeased by an instauration of the games: if the games have been led over from joy to fear, if they have not been merely interrupted but destroyed and abolished, if for the entire commonwealth, by the crime of him who wished to transfer the games to mourning, those days became almost funereal instead of festal, shall we hesitate which games that roar proclaims to be polluted?

[24] Ac si volumus ea quae de quoque deo nobis tradita sunt recordari, hanc Matrem Magnam, cuius ludi violati, polluti, paene ad caedem et ad funus civitatis conversi sunt, hanc, inquam, accepimus agros et nemora cum quodam strepitu fremituque peragrare. Haec igitur vobis, haec populo Romano et scelerum indicia ostendit et periculorum signa patefecit. Nam quid ego de illis ludis loquar quos in Palatio nostri maiores ante templum in ipso Matris Magnae conspectu Megalesibus fieri celebrarique voluerunt?

[24] And if we wish to recall the things that have been handed down to us about each god, this Great Mother, whose games were violated, polluted, almost turned to the slaughter and funeral of the state—this one, I say—we have received as traversing fields and groves with a certain clatter and roar. This, then, to you, this to the Roman people both displayed the indications of crimes and laid open the signs of dangers. For why should I speak of those games which on the Palatine our ancestors wished to be performed and celebrated before the temple, in the very sight of the Great Mother, at the Megalesia?

qui sunt more institutisque maxime casti, sollemnes, religiosi; quibus ludis primum ante populi consessum senatui locum P. Africanus iterum consul ille maior dedit, ut eos ludos haec lues impura pollueret! quo si qui liber aut spectandi aut etiam religionis causa accesserat, manus adferebantur, quo matrona nulla adiit propter vim consessumque servorum. Ita ludos eos, quorum religio tanta est ut ex ultimis terris arcessita in hac urbe consederit, qui uni ludi ne verbo quidem appellantur Latino, ut vocabulo ipso et appetita religio externa et Matris Magnae nomine suscepta declaretur—hos ludos servi fecerunt, servi spectaverunt, tota denique hoc aedile servorum Megalesia fuerunt.

which by custom and institutions are most chaste, solemn, religious; at which games P. Africanus, that elder, when consul for the second time, first gave the senate a place before the assembly of the people, only for this impure pestilence to pollute those games! on which, if any free man had approached either for the sake of spectating or even of religion, hands were laid upon him; to which no matron went on account of the violence and the gathering of slaves. Thus the games whose religio is so great that, summoned from the farthest lands, it has settled in this city; which games alone are not even called by a Latin word, so that by the very appellation both the sought external religio and the assumed name of the Great Mother might be declared—these games slaves put on, slaves watched; in fine, under this aedile the Megalesia were entirely a slaves’ festival.

[25] Pro di immortales! qui magis nobiscum loqui possetis, si essetis versareminique nobiscum? Ludos esse pollutos significastis ac plane dicitis.

[25] O immortal gods! how more could you speak with us, if you were and were conversant among us? You have signified that the games are polluted and you plainly say it.

Quid magis inquinatum, deformatum, perversum, conturbatum dici potest quam omne servitium, permissu magistratus liberatum, in alteram scaenam inmissum, alteri praepositum, ut alter consessus potestati servorum obiceretur, alter servorum totus esset? Si examen apium ludis in scaenam caveam<ve> venisset, haruspices acciendos ex Etruria putaremus: videmus universi repente examina tanta servorum inmissa in populum Romanum saeptum atque inclusum, et non commovemur? Atque in apium fortasse examine nos ex Etruscorum scriptis haruspices ut a servitio caveremus monerent.

What more defiled, deformed, perverse, and confounded can be said than that the whole slave element, set free by the permission of the magistrate, was let into one stage and set over the other, so that one assembly was exposed to the power of slaves, and the other was wholly of slaves? If, at the games, a swarm of bees had come onto the stage or into the cavea, we would think the haruspices should be summoned from Etruria: we all see that vast swarms of slaves have been suddenly let loose upon the Roman people, fenced in and shut up, and we are not moved? And perhaps, at the omen of a swarm of bees, the haruspices, from the writings of the Etruscans, would warn us to beware of servitude.

[26] Quod igitur ex aliquo diiuncto diversoque monstro significatum caveremus, id cum ipsum sibi monstrum est, et cum in eo ipso periculum est ex quo periculum portenditur, non pertimescemus? Istius modi Megalesia fecit pater tuus, istius modi patruus? Is mihi etiam generis sui mentionem facit, cum Athenionis aut Spartaci exemplo ludos facere maluerit quam C. aut Appi Claudiorum?

[26] Therefore that which we would beware, if it had been signified by some separate and different prodigy—since that very thing is itself a prodigy, and since in that very thing lies the danger of which danger a portent is given—shall we not be thoroughly afraid? Did your father hold Megalesia of such a sort, your uncle of such a sort? He even makes mention to me of his lineage, when he preferred to put on games after the example of Athenio or Spartacus rather than of a Gaius or an Appius Claudius?

Illi cum ludos facerent, servos de cavea exire iubebant: tu in alteram servos inmisisti, ex altera liberos eiecisti. Itaque qui antea voce praeconis a liberis semovebantur, tuis ludis non voce sed manu liberos a se segregabant. Ne hoc quidem tibi in mentem veniebat, Sibyllino sacerdoti, haec sacra maiores nostros ex vestris libris expetisse?

When they were putting on the games, they used to order slaves to go out from the seating; you sent slaves into one section, and from the other you cast out the freeborn. And so those who previously were kept apart from the freeborn by the voice of the herald, at your games separated the freeborn from themselves not by voice but by hand. Did not even this come into your mind, O Sibylline priest, that our ancestors sought out these rites from your books?

si illi sunt vestri quos tu impia mente conquiris, violatis oculis legis, contaminatis manibus attrectas.

if those are yours whom you with an impious mind seek out, you read with violated eyes, you handle with contaminated hands.

[27] Hac igitur vate suadente quondam, defessa Italia Punico bello atque Hannibale vexata, sacra ista nostri maiores adscita ex Phrygia Romae conlocarunt; quae vir is accepit qui est optimus populi Romani iudicatus, P. Scipio, femina autem quae matronarum castissima putabatur, Q. Claudia, cuius priscam illam severitatem [sacrifici] mirifice tua soror existimatur imitata. Nihil te igitur neque maiores tui coniuncti cum his religionibus, neque sacerdotium ipsum, quo est haec tota religio constituta, neque curulis aedilitas, quae maxime hanc tueri religionem solet, permovit quo minus castissimos ludos omni flagitio pollueres, dedecore maculares, scelere obligares?

[27] Therefore, once upon a time with this seeress urging, Italy, wearied by the Punic war and harassed by Hannibal, our ancestors placed those rites, adopted from Phrygia, at Rome; which were received by the man who was judged the best of the Roman people, P. Scipio, and by the woman who was thought the chastest of the matrons, Q. Claudia, whose ancient strictness of [sacrifice] your sister is reckoned to have wondrously imitated. Nothing, then—neither your forefathers joined with these religions, nor the priesthood itself, by which this whole religion is constituted, nor the curule aedileship, which is especially wont to protect this religion—moved you, so as not to pollute the most chaste games with every flagitium, to maculate them with disgrace, to bind them with crime?

[28] Sed quid ego id admiror? qui accepta pecunia Pessinuntem ipsum, sedem domiciliumque Matris deorum, vastaris, et Brogitaro Gallograeco, impuro homini ac nefario, cuius legati te tribuno dividere in aede Castoris tuis operis nummos solebant, totum illum locum fanumque vendideris, sacerdotem ab ipsis aris pulvinaribusque detraxeris, omnia illa quae vetustas, quae Persae, quae Syri, quae reges omnes qui Europam Asiamque tenuerunt semper summa religione coluerunt, perverteris; quae denique nostri maiores tam sancta duxerunt ut, cum refertam urbem atque Italiam fanorum haberemus, tamen nostri imperatores maximis et periculosissimis bellis huic deae vota facerent, eaque in ipso Pessinunte ad illam ipsam principem aram et in illo loco fanoque persolverent.

[28] But why do I marvel at that? you, after money was received, lay waste Pessinus itself, the seat and domicile of the Mother of the gods, and you sold that whole place and shrine to Brogitarus the Gallo-Greek, a foul and nefarious man, whose envoys were accustomed, when you were tribune, to divide money with you in the Temple of Castor by your agency; you dragged the priest down from the very altars and sacred couches; you overthrew all those things which antiquity, which the Persians, which the Syrians, which all the kings who held Europe and Asia have always cultivated with the highest religion; things which, finally, our ancestors deemed so sacred that, although we had the city and Italy crammed full of shrines, nevertheless our commanders, in the greatest and most perilous wars, would make vows to this goddess, and would pay them in Pessinus itself at that very chief altar and in that place and shrine.

[29] Quod cum Deiotarus religione sua castissime tueretur, quem unum habemus in orbe terrarum fidelissimum huic imperio atque amantissimum nostri nominis, Brogitaro, ut ante dixi, addictum pecunia tradidisti. Atque hunc tamen Deiotarum saepe a senatu regali nomine dignum existimatum, clarissimorum imperatorum testimoniis ornatum, tu etiam regem appellari cum Brogitaro iubes. Sed alter est rex iudicio senatus per nos, pecunia Brogitarus per te appellatus . . . alterum putabo regem, si habuerit unde tibi solvat quod ei per syngrapham credidisti.

[29] Since Deiotarus, by his own religion, was safeguarding it in the chastest way—he whom alone we have in the whole world most faithful to this empire and most loving of our name—you handed it over, as I said before, to Brogitarus, bought by money. And yet this Deiotarus, often judged by the Senate worthy of the royal title, adorned with the testimonies of the most illustrious imperators, you order to be called king together with Brogitarus as well. But the one is king by the judgment of the Senate through us; Brogitarus, by money, is called so by you . . . I shall consider the other a king, if he has the means to pay you what you lent him by syngrapha (promissory note).

Nam cum multa regia sunt in Deiotaro tum illa maxime, quod tibi nummum nullum dedit, quod eam partem legis tuae quae congruebat cum iudicio senatus, ut ipse rex esset, non repudiavit, quod Pessinuntem per scelus a te violatum et sacerdote sacrisque spoliatum reciperavit, ut in pristina religione servaret, quod caerimonias ab omni vetustate acceptas a Brogitaro pollui non sinit, mavultque generum suum munere tuo quam illud fanum antiquitate religionis carere. Sed ut ad haec haruspicum responsa redeam, ex quibus est primum de ludis, quis est qui id non totum in istius ludos praedictum et responsum esse fateatur?

For while there are many regal qualities in Deiotarus, yet this most of all: that he gave you not a single coin; that he did not repudiate that part of your law which was congruent with the judgment of the senate, namely, that he himself should be king; that he recovered Pessinus, which by your crime had been violated and stripped of its priest and sacred things, so that he might preserve it in its pristine religion; that he does not allow the ceremonies received from all antiquity to be polluted by Brogitarus; and that he prefers his son‑in‑law to lack your gift rather than that fane lack the antiquity of its religion. But to return to these responses of the haruspices, of which the first is about the games, who is there who does not confess that that was wholly foretold and answered with reference to that man’s games?

[30] Sequitur de locis sacris, religiosis. O impudentiam miram! de mea domo dicere audes?

[30] Next follows about sacred, religious places. O astonishing impudence! do you dare to speak about my house?

Committe vel consulibus vel senatui vel conlegio pontificum tuam. Ac mea quidem his tribus omnibus iudiciis, ut dixi antea, liberata est; at in iis aedibus quas tu, Q. Seio, equite Romano, viro optimo, per te apertissime interfecto, tenes, sacellum dico fuisse <et> aras. Tabulis hoc censoriis, memoria multorum firmabo ac docebo: agatur modo haec res, quod ex eo senatus consulto quod nuper est factum referri ad vos necesse est, habeo quae de locis religiosis velim dicere.

Commit your case either to the consuls or to the senate or to the college of pontiffs. And as for mine, it has, as I said before, been acquitted by all three judgments; but in that house which you hold—after Q. Seius, a Roman eques, a most excellent man, had been most openly slain through your agency—I say there was a shrine <and> altars. I will strengthen and show this by the censorial tablets and by the memory of many: only let this matter be brought forward, since from that senatorial decree (senatus consultum) which was recently passed it must be referred to you, I have things I would like to say about religious places.

[31] Cum de domo tua dixero, in qua tamen ita est inaedificatum sacellum ut alius fecerit, tibi tantum modo sit demoliendum, tum videbo num mihi necesse sit de aliis etiam aliquid dicere. Putant enim ad me non nulli pertinere magmentarium Telluris aperire. Nuper id patuisse dicunt, et ego recordor.

[31] When I shall have spoken about your house, in which, nevertheless, a little shrine has been so built-in that another made it and for you there is only demolition to be done, then I will see whether it is necessary for me to say something also about other matters. For some think that it pertains to me to open the magmentarium of Tellus. They say that recently it stood open, and I recall it.

Nunc sanctissimam partem ac sedem maximae religionis privato dicunt vestibulo contineri. Multa me movent: quod aedes Telluris est curationis meae, quod is qui illud magmentarium sustulit mea domo pontificum iudicio liberata secundum fratrem suum iudicatum esse dicebat; movet me etiam in hac caritate annonae, sterilitate agrorum, inopia frugum religio Telluris, et eo magis quod eodem ostento Telluri postilio deberi dicitur.

Now they say that the most sanctified part and the seat of the greatest religion is contained in a private vestibule. Many things move me: that the Temple of Tellus is of my curation; that the man who removed that magmentarium used to say that, my house having been liberated by the judgment of the pontiffs, it had been adjudged in favor of his brother; the religion of Tellus also moves me in this dearness of the grain-supply, sterility of the fields, and want of crops; and all the more because by that same portent a postilio is said to be owed to Tellus.

[32] Vetera fortasse loquimur; quamquam hoc si minus civili iure perscriptum est, lege tamen naturae, communi iure gentium sanctum est ut nihil mortales a dis immortalibus usu capere possint. Verum tamen antiqua neglegimus: etiamne ea neglegemus quae fiunt cum maxime, quae videmus? L. Pisonem quis nescit his temporibus ipsis maximum et sanctissimum Dianae sacellum in Caeliculo sustulisse?

[32] Perhaps we are speaking of old things; although if this is less prescribed in civil law, yet by the law of nature, by the common law of the nations, it is sanctified that mortals can take nothing for use from the immortal gods. But indeed we neglect antiquities: shall we even neglect those things which are happening at the very moment, which we see? Who does not know that L. Piso in these very times has removed the very greatest and most sacrosanct shrine of Diana on the Caeliculus?

Adsunt vicini eius loci; multi sunt etiam in hoc ordine qui sacrificia gentilicia illo ipso in sacello stato loco anniversaria factitarint. Et quaerimus di immortales quae loca desiderent, quid significent, de quo loquantur? A Sex.

Neighbors of that place are present; there are many also in this order who have regularly performed the gentile sacrifices, annually, in that very shrine, in the stated place. And we ask what places the immortal gods desire, what they signify, what they are speaking about? From Sext.

Serrano sanctissima sacella suffossa, inaedificata, oppressa, summa denique turpitudine foedata esse nescimus?

Do we not know that by Serranus the most sacred shrines have been dug up, built over, oppressed, and finally defiled with the utmost turpitude?

[33] Tu meam domum religiosam facere potuisti? Qua mente? quam amiseras.

[33] Were you able to make my house religious? With what mind? which you had lost.

Qua manu? qua disturbaras. Qua voce?

With what hand? with which you had demolished it. With what voice?

qua incendi iusseras. Qua lege? quam ne in illa quidem impunitate tua scripseras.

with which you had ordered it to be burned. By what law? one which you had not even written in that impunity of yours.

Quo pulvinari? quod stupraras. Quo simulacro?

At which pulvinar? the one you had defiled. At which simulacrum?

quod ereptum ex meretricis sepulcro <in> imperatoris monumento conlocaras. Quid habet mea domus religiosi nisi quod impuri et sacrilegi parietem tangit? Itaque ne quis meorum imprudens introspicere tuam domum possit ac te sacra illa tua facientem videre, tollam altius tectum, non ut ego te despiciam, sed tu ne aspicias urbem eam quam delere voluisti.

which, snatched from a prostitute’s sepulcher, you had placed the emperor’s monument. What does my house have of anything religious, except that it touches the wall of an impure and sacrilegious one? And so, lest any of my people unwittingly be able to look into your house and see you doing those sacred rites of yours, I will raise the roof higher, not that I may look down upon you, but that you may not look upon the city which you wished to destroy.

[34] Sed iam haruspicum reliqua responsa videamus. Oratores contra ivs fasqve interfectos. Quid est hoc?

[34] But now let us see the remaining responses of the haruspices. Envoys slain contrary to right and divine law. What is this?

De Alexandrinis esse video sermonem; quem ego non refuto. Sic enim sentio, ius legatorum, cum hominum praesidio munitum sit, tum etiam divino iure esse vallatum. Sed quaero ab illo qui omnis indices tribunus e carcere in forum effudit, cuius arbitrio sicae nunc omnes atque omnia venena tractantur, qui cum Hermarcho Chio syngraphas fecit, ecquid sciat unum acerrimum adversarium Hermarchi, Theodosium, legatum ad senatum a civitate libera missum sica percussum?

I see that the discourse is about the Alexandrians; and that I do not refute. For thus do I feel: the right of legates, since it is fortified by the protection of men, is also fenced about by divine law. But I ask of that fellow who, as tribune, poured out all the informers from prison into the forum, at whose discretion all daggers and every poison are now handled, who made syngraphs with Hermarchus the Chian, whether he knows that Hermarchus’s single most ardent adversary, Theodosius, a legate sent to the senate by a free city, was struck by a dagger.

quod non minus quam de Alexandrinis indignum dis immortalibus esse visum certo scio.

which I know for certain seemed no less unworthy to the immortal gods than that concerning the Alexandrians.

[35] Nec confero nunc in te unum omnia. Spes maior esset salutis, si praeter te nemo esset impurus; plures sunt; hoc et tu tibi confidis magis et nos prope iure diffidimus. Quis Platorem ex Orestide, quae pars Macedoniae libera est, hominem in illis locis clarum ac nobilem, legatum Thessalonicam ad nostrum, ut se ipse appellavit, 'imperatorem' venisse nescit?

[35] Nor do I now lay everything upon you alone. The hope of safety would be greater, if besides you no one were impure; there are more; for this reason both you place more confidence in yourself and we, well-nigh with right, lose confidence. Who does not know that Plator from Orestis, which is a free part of Macedonia, a man famous and noble in those regions, came as a legate to Thessalonica to our, as he called himself, 'emperor'?

quem ille propter pecuniam, quam ab eo extorquere non poterat, in vincla coniecit, et medicum intromisit suum qui legato socio amico libero foedissime et crudelissime venas incideret. Securis suas cruentari scelere noluit: nomen quidem populi Romani tanto scelere contaminavit ut id nulla re possit nisi ipsius supplicio expiari. Qualis hunc carnifices putamus habere, qui etiam medicis suis non ad salutem sed ad necem utatur?

whom that man, on account of the money which he could not extort from him, cast into chains, and he introduced his own medic to cut, most foully and most cruelly, the veins of a legate—an ally, a friend, a free man. He did not wish his axes to be bloodied with crime: indeed he has contaminated the name of the Roman people with so great a crime that it can be expiated by nothing except his own punishment. What kind of executioners do we suppose this man to have, who even employs his physicians not for health but for death?

[36] Sed recitemus quid sequatur. Fidem ivsqve ivrandvm neglectvm. Hoc quid sit per se ipsum non facile interpretor, sed ex eo quod sequitur suspicor de tuorum iudicum manifesto periurio dici, quibus olim erepti essent nummi nisi a senatu praesidium postulassent.

[36] But let us recite what follows. Good faith and even the sworn oath neglected. What this may mean in itself I do not easily interpret; but from what follows I suspect it is said of the manifest perjury of your judges, from whom the coins would long ago have been snatched, had they not asked for protection from the Senate.

Qua re autem de iis dici suspicer haec causa est, quod sic statuo, et illud in hac civitate esse maxime inlustre atque insigne periurium, et te ipsum tamen in periuri crimen ab iis quibuscum coniurasti non vocari.

And the reason why I suspect that it is said about them is this: because I thus determine, both that that perjury in this city is most illustrious and signal, and that you yourself nevertheless are not called into the charge of perjury by those with whom you conspired.

[37] Et video in haruspicum responsum haec esse subiuncta: Sacrificia vetvsta occvltaqve minvs diligenter facta pollvtaqve. Haruspices haec loquuntur an patrii penatesque di? Multi enim sunt, credo, in quos huius malefici suspicio cadat. Quis praeter hunc unum?

[37] And I see that in the response of the haruspices these things have been subjoined: The sacrifices, ancient and secret, have been performed less diligently and have been polluted. Do the haruspices say these things, or the native gods and the Penates? For there are, I believe, many upon whom the suspicion of this malefaction may fall. Who besides this one?

Obscure dicitur quae sacra polluta sint? Quid planius, quid religiosius, quid gravius dici potest? vetvsta occvltaqve.

Is it said obscurely which sacred rites have been polluted? What could be said that is more plain, more religious, more grave? ancient and occult.

Nego ulla verba Lentulum, gravem oratorem ac disertum, saepius, cum te accusaret, usurpasse quam haec quae nunc ex Etruscis libris in te conversa atque interpretata dicuntur. Etenim quod sacrificium tam vetustum est quam hoc quod a regibus aequale huius urbis accepimus? quod autem tam occultum quam id quod non solum curiosos oculos excludit sed etiam errantis, quo non modo improbitas sed ne imprudentia quidem possit intrare?

I deny that Lentulus, a grave and eloquent orator, has more often, when he was accusing you, employed any words than these which now are said, out of the Etruscan books, to have been turned against you and interpreted. For indeed what sacrifice is so time-ancient as this which we have received from the kings, coeval with this city? and what so occult as that which excludes not only curious eyes but even those that wander, into which not only depravity but not even inadvertence can enter?

quod quidem sacrificium nemo ante P. Clodium omni memoria violavit, nemo umquam adiit, nemo neglexit, nemo vir aspicere non horruit, quod fit per virgines Vestalis, fit pro populo Romano, fit in ea domo quae est in imperio, fit incredibili caerimonia, fit ei deae cuius ne nomen quidem viros scire fas est, quam iste idcirco Bonam dicit quod in tanto sibi scelere ignoverit. Non ignovit, mihi crede, non: nisi forte tibi esse ignotum putas, quod te iudices emiserunt excussum et exhaustum, suo iudicio absolutum, omnium condemnatum, aut quod oculos, ut opinio illius religionis est, non perdidisti.

which sacrifice indeed no one before P. Clodius in all memory violated, no one ever approached, no one neglected, no man failed to shudder to look upon, which is performed by the Vestal virgins, performed on behalf of the Roman people, performed in the house of one invested with imperium, performed with incredible ceremony, performed for that goddess whose very name it is not lawful for men to know, whom that fellow therefore calls “Good” because she pardoned him in so great a crime of his. She did not pardon, believe me, she did not: unless perhaps you think it is unknown to you that the judges sent you out shaken out and exhausted, by their judgment acquitted, by all condemned, or that you did not lose your eyes, as is the opinion of that religion.

[38] Quis enim ante te sacra illa vir sciens viderat, ut quisquam poenam quae sequeretur id scelus scire posset? An tibi luminis obesset caecitas plus quam libidinis? Ne id quidem sentis, coniventis illos oculos abavi tui magis optandos fuisse quam hos flagrantis sororis?

[38] For who before you, a man, had knowingly seen those sacred rites, so that anyone could know the penalty that would ensue for that crime? Or would blindness of light hinder you more than the blindness of libido? Do you not even sense this—that those half-shut eyes of your great-grandfather would have been more to be desired than these eyes of your inflamed sister?

Tibi vero, si diligenter attendes, intelleges hominum poenas deesse adhuc, non deorum. Homines te in re foedissima defenderunt, homines turpissimum nocentissimumque laudarunt, homines prope confitentem iudicio liberaverunt, hominibus iniuria tui stupri inlata in ipsos dolori non fuit, homines tibi arma alii in me, alii post in illum invictum civem dederunt, hominum beneficia prorsus concedo tibi iam maiora non esse quaerenda:

To you indeed, if you attend diligently, you will understand that the penalties lacking thus far are those of men, not of gods. Men defended you in a most foul matter, men praised one most disgraceful and most guilty, men freed by a judgment a man nearly confessing, to men the injury of your debauch, inflicted upon themselves, was not a grief, men gave you arms—some against me, others afterwards against that unconquered citizen—men’s benefactions I concede outright are no longer to be sought by you as greater:

[39] a dis quidem immortalibus quae potest homini maior esse poena furore atque dementia? nisi forte in tragoediis quos vulnere ac dolore corporis cruciari et consumi vides, graviores deorum immortalium iras subire quam illos qui furentes inducuntur putas. Non sunt illi eiulatus et gemitus Philoctetae tam miseri, quamquam sunt acerbi, quam illa exsultatio Athamantis et quam senium matricidarum.

[39] from the immortal gods, indeed, what greater punishment can there be for a man than fury and dementia? unless perhaps in tragedies you think that those whom you see tortured and consumed by wound and bodily pain undergo more grievous wraths of the immortal gods than those who are presented as frenzied. Not so pitiable are those wailings and groans of Philoctetes—although they are bitter—as that exultation of Athamas and the senility of the matricides.

Tu cum furialis in contionibus voces mittis, cum domos civium evertis, cum lapidibus optimos viros foro pellis, cum ardentis faces in vicinorum tecta iactas, cum aedis sacras inflammas, cum servos concitas, cum sacra ludosque conturbas, cum uxorem sororemque non discernis, cum quod ineas cubile non sentis, tum baccharis, tum furis, tum das eas poenas quae solae sunt hominum sceleri a dis immortalibus constitutae. Nam corporis quidem nostri infirmitas multos subit casus per se, denique ipsum corpus tenuissima de causa saepe conficitur: deorum tela in impiorum mentibus figuntur. Qua re miserior es cum in omnem fraudem raperis oculis quam si omnino oculos non haberes.

You, when you emit Furial voices in the assemblies, when you overturn the homes of citizens, when with stones you drive the best men from the forum, when you hurl burning torches into the roofs of your neighbors, when you inflame sacred shrines, when you incite slaves, when you throw sacred rites and games into confusion, when you do not distinguish wife and sister, when you do not perceive into what bed you enter, then you Bacchize, then you rage, then you pay those penalties which alone for human wickedness have been established by the immortal gods. For the infirmity of our body indeed undergoes many chances by itself; finally the body itself is often exhausted by a very trifling cause: the gods’ darts are fixed in the minds of the impious. Wherefore you are the more wretched when, with eyes, you are swept into every deceit than if you had no eyes at all.

[40] Sed quoniam de iis omnibus quae haruspices commissa esse dicunt satis est dictum, videamus quid idem haruspices a dis iam immortalibus dicant moneri. Monent Ne per optimativm discordiam dissensionemqve patribvs principibvsqve caedes pericvlaqve creentvr avxilioqve divini nvminis deficiantvr, ~ßywa re ad wnwm imperiwm pecvniae redeant exercitvsqve apvlsvs deminvtioqve accedat. Haruspicum verba sunt haec omnia: nihil addo de meo.

[40] But since enough has been said about all those things which the haruspices say have been committed, let us see what those same haruspices say that we are now warned of by the immortal gods. They warn that, through the discord of the Optimates and through dissension, slaughters and dangers should not be created for the Fathers and the chiefs, and that they not be forsaken by the aid of the divine numen; that, in the matter of money, things return to a single command; and that a repulse of the army and a diminution ensue. These are all the words of the haruspices: I add nothing of my own.

Quis igitur optimatium discordiam molitur? Idem iste, nec ulla vi ingeni aut consili sui, sed quodam errore nostro; quem quidem ille, quod obscurus non erat, facile perspexit. Hoc enim etiam turpius adflictatur res publica quod ne ab eo quidem vexatur, ut tamquam fortis in pugna vir acceptis a forti adversario vulneribus adversis honeste cadere videatur.

Who then is contriving the discord of the Optimates? That same fellow, and not by any force of his own ingenium or counsel, but by a certain error of ours; which indeed he, because it was not obscure, easily saw through. For the commonwealth is afflicted all the more disgracefully in this, that it is not even harried by him in such a way that it might seem to fall honorably, like a brave man in battle, having received wounds to the front from a brave adversary.

[41] Ti. Gracchus convellit statum civitatis, qua gravitate vir, qua eloquentia, qua dignitate! nihil ut a patris avique Africani praestabili insignique virtute, praeterquam quod a senatu desciverat, deflexisset. Secutus est C. Gracchus, quo ingenio, qua eloquentia, quanta vi, quanta gravitate dicendi!

[41] Tiberius Gracchus wrenches the constitution of the state, what a man, with what gravity, with what eloquence, with what dignity! so that he had swerved in nothing from the surpassing and distinguished virtue of his father and of his grandsire Africanus, except that he had seceded from the senate. Gaius Gracchus followed, of what talent, what eloquence, how great force, how great gravity of speaking!

ut dolerent boni non illa tanta ornamenta ad meliorem mentem voluntatemque esse conversa. Ipse Saturninus ita fuit effrenatus et paene demens ut actor esset egregius et ad animos imperitorum excitandos inflammandosque perfectus. Nam quid ego de Sulpicio loquar?

so that the good were pained that those such great ornaments had not been converted to a better mind and will. Saturninus himself was so unbridled and almost demented that he was an outstanding actor and perfect for rousing and inflaming the minds of the unskilled. For why should I speak about Sulpicius?

cuius tanta in dicendo gravitas, tanta iucunditas, tanta brevitas fuit, ut posset vel ut prudentes errarent, vel ut boni minus bene sentirent perficere dicendo. Cum his conflictari et pro salute patriae cotidie dimicare erat omnino illis qui tum rem publicam gubernabant molestum; sed habebat ea molestia quandam tamen dignitatem.

whose gravity in speaking was so great, whose jocundity so great, whose brevity so great, that he could, by speaking, effect either that the prudent should err, or that good men should judge less well. To contend with such men and to fight daily for the safety of the fatherland was assuredly troublesome to those who were then governing the commonwealth; yet that trouble nevertheless had a certain dignity.

[42] Hic vero de quo ego ipse tam multa nunc dico, pro di immortales! quid est, quid valet, quid adfert, ut tanta civitas, si cadet,—quod di omen obruant!—a viro tamen confecta videatur? qui post patris mortem primam illam aetatulam suam ad scurrarum locupletium libidines detulit, quorum intemperantia expleta in domesticis est germanitatis stupris volutatus; deinde iam robustus provinciae se ac rei militari dedit, atque ibi piratarum contumelias perpessus etiam Cilicum libidines barbarorumque satiavit; post exercitu L. Luculli sollicitato per nefandum scelus fugit illim, Romaeque recenti adventu suo cum propinquis suis decidit ne reos faceret, a Catilina pecuniam accepit ut turpissime praevaricaretur.

[42] But this man indeed, of whom I myself am now saying so many things—by the immortal gods!—what is he, what is his worth, what does he bring, that so great a commonwealth, if it should fall—may the gods overwhelm that omen!—should nevertheless seem to have been finished off by a single man? who, after his father’s death, delivered that first span of his youth to the lusts of wealthy buffoons; when their intemperance was sated, he wallowed in domestic debaucheries of siblinghood’s incest; then, now grown robust, he gave himself to a province and to the military sphere, and there, having endured the insults of pirates, he even satisfied the lusts of the Cilicians and of the barbarians; afterwards, the army of L. Lucullus having been tampered with through unspeakable crime, he fled from there, and at Rome, upon his recent arrival, he came to a settlement with his own relatives that he should not make them defendants; he took money from Catiline in order to prevaricate most disgracefully.

Inde cum Murena se in Galliam contulit, in qua provincia mortuorum testamenta conscripsit, pupillos necavit, nefarias cum multis scelerum pactiones societatesque conflavit; unde ut rediit, quaestum illum maxime fecundum uberemque campestrem totum ad se ita redegit ut homo popularis fraudaret improbissime populum, idemque vir clemens divisores omnium tribuum domi ipse suae crudelissima morte mactaret.

Thence, when with Murena he betook himself into Gaul, in which province he drew up the testaments of the dead, murdered wards, and with many men fused nefarious pacts and associations of crimes; whence, when he returned, he so drew to himself that most fertile and abundant campestral profit that, though a man of the people, he most shamelessly defrauded the people, and the same man, styled gentle, at his own house slaughtered with a most cruel death the distributors of bribes of all the tribes.

[43] Exorta est illa rei publicae, sacris, religionibus, auctoritati vestrae, iudiciis publicis funesta quaestura, in qua idem iste deos hominesque, pudorem, pudicitiam, senatus auctoritatem, ius, fas, leges, iudicia violavit. Atque hic ei gradus—o misera tempora stultasque nostras discordias!—P. Clodio gradus ad rem publicam hic primus et aditus ad popularem iactationem atque adscensus. Nam Ti. Graccho invidia Numantini foederis, cui feriendo, quaestor C. Mancini consulis cum esset, interfuerat, et in eo foedere improbando senatus severitas dolori et timori fuit, eaque res illum fortem et clarum virum a gravitate patrum desciscere coegit; C. autem Gracchum mors fraterna, pietas, dolor, magnitudo animi ad expetendas domestici sanguinis poenas excitavit; Saturninum, quod in annonae caritate quaestorem a sua frumentaria procuratione senatus amovit eique rei M. Scaurum praefecit, scimus dolore factum esse popularem; Sulpicium ab optima causa profectum Gaioque Iulio consulatum contra leges petenti resistentem longius quam voluit popularis aura provexit.

[43] There sprang up that quaestorship fatal to the commonwealth, to sacred rites, to religions, to your authority, to public judgments, in which that same fellow violated gods and men, modesty, chastity, the authority of the senate, human law and divine law, statutes, and courts. And this step for him—O wretched times and our foolish discords!—this was Publius Clodius’s first step toward public life and an entrance to populist vaunting and an ascent. For, to Tiberius Gracchus, the odium of the Numantine treaty—at the striking of which, when he was quaestor to the consul Gaius Mancinus, he had been present—and, in disapproving that treaty, the severity of the senate was a cause of grief and fear; and that matter drove that brave and famous man to defect from the gravity of the fathers. But Gaius Gracchus was stirred by his brother’s death, by pietas, by pain, by greatness of mind, to seek penalties for kindred blood. We know that Saturninus, because in a dearness of the corn-supply the senate removed him, a quaestor, from his frumentary procuration and appointed M. Scaurus over that business, became a populist out of resentment. Sulpicius, setting out from the best cause and resisting Gaius Julius as he sought the consulship against the laws, was borne by the popular breeze farther than he wished.

[44] Fuit in his omnibus etsi non iusta,—nulla enim potest cuiquam male de re publica merendi iusta esse causa,—gravis tamen et cum aliquo animi virilis dolore coniuncta: P. Clodius a crocota, a mitra, a muliebribus soleis purpureisque fasceolis, a strophio, a psalterio, a flagitio, a stupro est factus repente popularis. Nisi eum mulieres exornatum ita deprendissent, nisi ex eo loco quo eum adire fas non fuerat ancillarum beneficio emissus esset, populari homine populus Romanus, res publica cive tali careret. Hanc ob amentiam in discordiis nostris, de quibus ipsis his prodigiis recentibus a dis immortalibus admonemur, arreptus est unus ex patriciis cui tribuno plebis fieri non liceret.

[44] In all these there was, although not a just cause—for no cause can be just for anyone to deserve ill of the commonwealth—yet something grave and conjoined with a certain manly pain of spirit: P. Clodius, from a crocota, from a mitra, from women’s sandals and purple little fillets, from a strophium, from a psaltery, from infamy, from debauchery, was suddenly made a man of the people. Unless the women had caught him thus adorned, unless from that place, to which it had not been lawful for him to approach, he had been let out by the help of maidservants, the Roman people would lack a “popular” man, the republic such a citizen. On account of this madness, amid our dissensions—about which, by these very recent prodigies, we are warned by the immortal gods—one was snatched up from the patricians, to whom it was not permitted to become tribune of the plebs.

[45] Quod anno ante frater Metellus et concors etiam tum senatus, senatus principe Cn. Pompeio sententiam dicente, excluserat acerrimeque una voce ac mente restiterat, id post discidium optimatium, de quo ipso nunc monemur, ita perturbatum itaque permutatum est ut, quod frater consul ne fieret obstiterat, quod adfinis et sodalis clarissimus vir, qui illum reum non laudarat, excluserat, id is consul efficeret in discordiis principum qui illi unus inimicissimus esse debuerat, eo fecisse auctore se diceret cuius auctoritatis neminem posset paenitere. Iniecta fax est foeda ac luctuosa rei publicae; petita est auctoritas vestra, gravitas amplissimorum ordinum, consensio bonorum omnium, totus denique civitatis status. Haec enim certe petebantur, cum in me cognitorem harum omnium rerum illa flamma illorum temporum coniciebatur.

[45] What a year before Metellus the Brother and the senate—then still concordant, with Gnaeus Pompeius, the princeps of the senate, delivering his opinion—had excluded and most sharply with one voice and mind had resisted, that, after the split of the Optimates, about which very thing we are now being admonished, was so disturbed and so transmuted that what Metellus the Brother, as consul, had opposed lest it be done, what an affine and companion, a most illustrious man, who had not praised that defendant, had excluded—this that consul brought to effect amid the discords of the leading men, he who ought to have been the one most inimical to that man; and he said that he had done it with that man as author, at whose authority no one could repent. A foul and mournful torch has been cast into the commonwealth; your authority was sought, the gravitas of the most ample orders, the consensus of all good men, finally the whole status of the citizenry. For these things assuredly were being sought, when that flame of those times was being hurled upon me, the cognitor of all these matters.

Excepi et pro patria solus exarsi, sic tamen ut vos isdem ignibus circumsaepti me primum ictum pro vobis et fumantem videretis.

I took it upon myself and, for the fatherland, I alone blazed up, yet in such a way that you, enclosed by the same fires, might see me first struck on your behalf and smoking.

[46] Non sedabantur discordiae, sed etiam crescebat in eos odium a quibus nos defendi putabamur. Ecce isdem auctoribus, Pompeio principe, qui cupientem Italiam, flagitantis vos, populum Romanum desiderantem non auctoritate sua solum, sed etiam precibus ad meam salutem excitavit, restituti sumus. Sit discordiarum finis aliquando, a diuturnis dissensionibus conquiescamus.

[46] The discords were not being soothed, but even hatred was growing against those by whom we were thought to be defended. Behold, by these same authors, by Pompey the princeps—who stirred up Italy eager, you importunately demanding, the Roman people longing, not by his authority only but even by entreaties, to the rescue of my safety—we have been restored. Let there at last be an end of discords; from long-standing dissensions let us find repose.

Non sinit eadem ista labes; eas habet contiones, ea miscet ac turbat ut modo <se his, modo> vendat illis, nec tamen ita ut se quisquam, si ab isto laudatus sit, laudatiorem putet, sed ut eos quos non amant ab eodem gaudeant vituperari. Atque ego hunc non miror—quid enim faciat aliud?—: illos homines sapientissimos gravissimosque miror, primum quod quemquam clarum hominem atque optime de re publica saepe meritum impurissimi voce hominis violari facile patiuntur, deinde si existimant perditi hominis profligatique maledictis posse, id quod minime conducit ipsis, cuiusquam gloriam dignitatemque violari, postremo quod non sentiunt, id quod tamen mihi iam suspicari videntur, illius furentis ac volaticos impetus in se ipsos posse converti.

That same taint does not allow it; he holds those assemblies, he mixes and throws them into turmoil, so that now <himself to these, now> he sells to those—and yet not in such a way that anyone, if he has been praised by that fellow, would think himself more praiseworthy, but rather that they rejoice that those whom they do not love are vituperated by that same man. And I do not marvel at this man—for what else indeed should he do?—: I marvel at those most wise and most weighty men, first because they easily allow that any famous man and one who has often deserved exceedingly well of the commonwealth be assailed by the voice of a most impure man; next, if they think that by the maledictions of a ruined and profligate man there can be violated—something which least conduces to their own benefit—anyone’s glory and dignity; finally, because they do not perceive—though now they seem to me to suspect it—that that mad man’s and flighty impulses can be turned against themselves.

[47] Atque ex hac nimia non nullorum alienatione a quibusdam haerent ea tela in re publica quae, quam diu haerebant in uno me, graviter equidem sed aliquanto levius ferebam. An iste nisi primo se dedisset iis quorum animos a vestra auctoritate seiunctos esse arbitrabatur, nisi eos in caelum suis laudibus praeclarus auctor extolleret, nisi exercitum C. Caesaris—in quo fallebat, sed eum nemo redarguebat—nisi eum, inquam, exercitum signis infestis in curiam se inmissurum minitaretur, nisi se Cn. Pompeio adiutore, M. Crasso auctore, quae faciebat facere clamaret, nisi consules causam coniunxisse secum, in quo uno non mentiebatur, confirmaret, tam crudelis mei, tam sceleratus rei publicae vexator esse potuisset?

[47] And from this excessive alienation of certain men there now stick in the commonwealth those missiles which, so long as they were sticking in me alone, I did indeed bear grievously, but yet somewhat more lightly. Would that fellow, unless he had first surrendered himself to those whose minds he supposed to be sundered from your authority, unless, as a distinguished author, he extolled them to the sky with his praises, unless he threatened that the army of Gaius Caesar—in which he was mistaken, but no one refuted him—unless, I say, that army he would launch with hostile standards into the Curia, unless he shouted that what he was doing he did with Gnaeus Pompey as helper and Marcus Crassus as authorizer, unless he affirmed that the consuls had joined their cause with him, in which one point he was not lying—could he have been so cruel an assailant of me, so criminal a tormentor of the commonwealth?

[48] Idem postea quam respirare vos a metu caedis, emergere auctoritatem vestram e fluctibus illis servitutis, reviviscere memoriam ac desiderium mei vidit, vobis se coepit subito fallacissime venditare; tum leges Iulias contra auspicia latas et hic et in contionibus dicere, in quibus legibus inerat curiata illa lex quae totum eius tribunatum continebat, quam caecus amentia non videbat. Producebat fortissimum virum, M. Bibulum; quaerebat ex eo, C. Caesare leges ferente de caelo semperne servasset; semper se ille servasse dicebat. Augures interrogabat, quae ita lata essent rectene lata essent; illi vitio lata esse dicebant.

[48] The same man, after he saw that you were breathing again from the fear of slaughter, that your authority was emerging out of those waves of servitude, that the memory and longing for me were reviving, began suddenly to peddle himself to you most deceitfully; then he began to say, both here and in the mass-meetings, that the Julian laws had been passed contrary to the auspices, in which laws that Curiate law was included which encompassed his whole tribunate, which he, blind with insanity, did not see. He would bring forward a most brave man, M. Bibulus; he would ask of him whether, when Gaius Caesar was carrying the laws, he had always observed from the sky; he would say that he had always observed. He would question the augurs whether measures that had been so carried had been carried rightly; they said that they had been carried with a flaw.

Ferebant in oculis hominem quidam boni viri et de me optime meriti, sed illius, ut ego arbitror, furoris ignari. Longius processit; in ipsum Cn. Pompeium, auctorem, ut praedicare est solitus, consiliorum suorum, invehi coepit; inibat gratiam a non nullis.

Some good men, and men who had deserved exceedingly well of me, were bearing the man in their very eyes, but were unaware of that man’s, as I judge, fury. He proceeded further; he began to inveigh against Gnaeus Pompeius himself, the author—as he was accustomed to proclaim—of his counsels; he was entering into favor with some.

[49] Tum vero elatus spe posse se, quoniam togatum domestici belli exstinctorem nefario scelere foedasset, illum etiam, illum externorum bellorum hostiumque victorem adfligere; tum est illa in templo Castoris scelerata et paene deletrix huius imperi sica deprensa; tum ille cui nulla hostium diutius urbs umquam fuit clausa, qui omnis angustias, omnis altitudines moenium obiectas semper vi ac virtute perfregit, obsessus ipse est domi meque non nulla imperitorum vituperatione timiditatis meae consilio et facto suo liberavit. Nam si Cn. Pompeio, viro uni omnium fortissimo quicumque nati sunt, miserum magis fuit quam turpe, quam diu ille tribunus plebis fuit, lucem non aspicere, carere publico, minas eius perferre, cum in contionibus diceret velle se in Carinis aedificare alteram porticum, quae Palatio responderet, certe mihi exire domo mea ad privatum dolorem fuit luctuosum, ad rationem rei publicae gloriosum.

[49] Then indeed he was elated by the hope that, since he had defiled by a nefarious crime the togate extinguisher of a civil war, he could also strike down that man too, that victor of external wars and of enemies; then that accursed dagger, almost deleterious to this Empire, was seized in the temple of Castor; then he, to whom no city of enemies was ever long closed, who by force and virtue has always broken through all straits and all heights of walls thrown up against him, was himself besieged at home, and he freed me—despite no small censure by the inexperienced of my timidity—by his counsel and his deed. For if to Cn. Pompeius, the one man bravest of all whoever have been born, it was more miserable than shameful, so long as that tribune of the plebs was in office, not to look upon the light, to be deprived of the public, to endure his threats, when in the assemblies he would say that he wished on the Carinae to build a second portico to answer the Palatine, surely for me to go out from my house was mournful for my private grief, glorious for the interest of the republic.

[50] Videtis igitur hominem per se ipsum iam pridem adflictum ac iacentem perniciosis optimatium discordiis excitari, cuius initia furoris dissensionibus eorum qui tum a vobis seiuncti videbantur sustentata sunt. Reliqua iam praecipitantis tribunatus etiam post tribunatum obtrectatores eorum atque adversarii defenderunt; ne a re publica rei publicae pestis removeretur restiterunt, etiam ne causam diceret, etiam ne privatus esset. Etiamne in sinu atque in deliciis quidam optimi viri viperam illam venenatam ac pestiferam habere potuerunt?

[50] You see, therefore, a man who, all by himself, long since shattered and lying prostrate, is now being roused by the pernicious dissensions of the optimates, the beginnings of whose frenzy were sustained by the dissensions of those who then seemed sundered from you. The remaining parts of his already headlong tribunate even after the tribunate were defended by the detractors and adversaries of those men; they resisted lest a pest of the commonwealth be removed from the commonwealth—yes, even lest he should have to plead his case, even lest he should be a private citizen. And could certain most excellent men even keep that viper—venomous and pestiferous—in their very bosom and among their delights?

quo tandem decepti munere? 'Volo,' inquiunt, 'esse qui in contione detrahat de Pompeio.' Detrahat ille vituperando? Velim sic hoc vir summus atque optime de mea salute meritus accipiat ut a me dicitur; dicam quidem certe quod sentio.

By what, then, boon were they deceived? “I wish,” they say, “there to be someone who in the assembly detracts from Pompey.” Is he to drag him down by vituperating? I would that that most eminent man, who has most excellently deserved on behalf of my safety, take this as it is said by me; I will indeed surely say what I think.

Mihi me dius fidius tum de illius amplissima dignitate detrahere cum illum maximis laudibus ecferebat videbatur.

To me—by Dius Fidius—it then seemed that I was detracting from that man’s most ample dignity at the very time when he was exalting him with the greatest praises.

[51] Vtrum tandem C. Marius splendidior cum eum C. Glaucia laudabat, an cum eundem iratus postea vituperabat? An ille demens et iam pridem ad poenam exitiumque praeceps foedior aut inquinatior in Cn. Pompeio accusando quam in universo senatu vituperando fuit? quod quidem miror, cum alterum gratum sit iratis, alterum esse tam bonis civibus non acerbum.

[51] Which then was C. Marius more splendid—when C. Glaucia was praising him, or when, later, in anger, he was vituperating that same man? Or was that demented fellow, long since headlong to penalty and destruction, fouler or more polluted in accusing Cn. Pompeius than in vituperating the entire senate? At which indeed I marvel, since the one is pleasing to the angry, the other is not bitter to such good citizens.

Sed ne id viros optimos diutius delectet, legant hanc eius contionem de qua loquor; in qua Pompeium ornat,—an potius deformat? certe laudat, et unum esse in hac civitate dignum huius imperi gloria dicit, et significat se illi esse amicissimum et reconciliationem esse gratiae factam.

But lest this delight the most excellent men any longer, let them read this assembly-speech of his of which I speak; in it he adorns Pompey,—or rather does he deform him? certainly he praises, and says that there is in this state one man worthy of the glory of this command, and indicates that he is most friendly to him and that a reconciliation of favor has been effected.

[52] Quod ego quamquam quid sit nescio, tamen hoc statuo, hunc, si amicus esset Pompeio, laudaturum illum non fuisse. Quid enim, si illi inimicissimus esset, amplius ad eius laudem minuendam facere potuisset? Videant ii qui illum Pompeio inimicum esse gaudebant, ob eamque causam in tot tantisque sceleribus conivebant, et non numquam eius indomitos atque ecfrenatos furores plausu etiam suo prosequebantur, quam se cito inverterit.

[52] As to which, although I do not know what it is, yet I determine this: that this man, if he were a friend to Pompey, would not have been going to praise him. For what, if he had been most inimical to him, could he have done more to lessen his praise? Let those see who rejoiced that that man was hostile to Pompey, and for that reason were conniving at so many and so great crimes, and sometimes were even accompanying his untamed and unbridled furors with their own applause, how quickly he has inverted himself.

Nunc enim iam laudat illum: in eos invehitur quibus se antea venditabat. Quid existimatis eum, si reditus ei gratiae patuerit, esse facturum, qui tam libenter in opinionem gratiae inrepat?

For now indeed he already praises that man: he inveighs against those to whom he previously peddled himself. What do you suppose he will do, if a return of favor shall lie open to him—he who so gladly creeps into the mere appearance of favor?

[53] Quas ego alias optimatium discordias a dis immortalibus definiri putem? nam hoc quidem verbo neque P. Clodius neque quisquam de gregalibus eius aut de consiliariis designatur. Habent Etrusci libri certa nomina quae in id genus civium cadere possint: Deteriores, repvlsos, quod iam audietis, hos appellant quorum et mentes et res sunt perditae longeque a communi salute diiunctae.

[53] What other dissensions of the Optimates would I suppose to be defined—settled—by the immortal gods? For by this word neither P. Clodius nor anyone of his herd nor of his counselors is designated. The Etruscan books have certain names that can fall upon that genus of citizens: “the Worse,” “the Repulsed” (as you will now hear), so they call those whose minds and fortunes are ruined and sundered far from the common safety.

Qua re cum di immortales monent de optimatium discordia, de clarissimorum et optime meritorum civium dissensione praedicunt; cum principibus periculum caedemque portendunt, in tuto conlocant Clodium, qui tantum abest a principibus quantum a puris, quantum ab religiosis.

Wherefore, when the immortal gods warn about the discord of the Optimates, when they foretell the dissension of the most illustrious and best-deserving citizens; when they portend peril and slaughter for the leaders, they place Clodius in safety, who is as far removed from the leaders as from the pure, as from the religious.

[54] Vobis, o carissimi atque optimi cives, et vestrae saluti consulendum et prospiciendum vident. Caedes principum ostenditur; id quod interitum optimatium sequi necesse est adiungitur; ne in unius imperium res recidat admonemur. Ad quem metum si deorum monitis non duceremur, tamen ipsi nostro sensu coniecturaque raperemur; neque enim ullus alius discordiarum solet esse exitus inter claros et potentis viros nisi aut universus interitus aut victoris dominatus ac regnum.

[54] They perceive that provision must be made for you, O dearest and best citizens, and for your safety. A slaughter of the leading men is shown; and this is added, that the extinction of the Optimates must necessarily follow; we are warned lest the state fall back into the rule of one. To which fear, even if we were not led by the warnings of the gods, nevertheless we ourselves would be swept by our own sense and conjecture; for no other outcome of discords among illustrious and potent men is wont to be, except either an all‑encompassing destruction or the dominion and kingship of the victor.

Dissensit cum Mario, clarissimo civi, consul nobilissimus et fortissimus, L. Sulla; horum uterque ita cecidit victus ut victor idem regnaverit. Cum Octavio conlega Cinna dissedit; utrique horum secunda fortuna regnum est largita, adversa mortem. Idem iterum Sulla superavit; tum sine dubio habuit regalem potestatem, quamquam rem publicam reciperarat.

Dissented with Marius, a most illustrious citizen, the most noble and most brave consul, L. Sulla; of these two, each so fell vanquished that the same man, the victor, reigned. Cinna quarreled with his colleague Octavius; to each of these favorable fortune lavished kingship, adverse fortune death. The same Sulla overcame again; then without doubt he had regal power, although he had recovered the republic.

[55] Inest hoc tempore haud obscurum odium, atque id insitum penitus et inustum animis hominum amplissimorum; dissident principes; captatur occasio. Qui non tantum opibus valent nescio quam fortunam tamen ac tempus exspectant: qui sine controversia plus possunt, ii fortasse non numquam consilia ac sententias inimicorum suorum extimescunt. Tollatur haec e civitate discordia: iam omnes isti qui portenduntur metus exstinguentur, iam ista serpens, quae tum hic delitiscit, tum se emergit et fertur illuc, compressa atque inlisa morietur.

[55] There exists at this time no obscure hatred, and that implanted deep within and branded upon the minds of the most distinguished men; the leaders are at odds; the occasion is being hunted for. Those who are not only strong in resources nevertheless await, I know not what fortune and the right time; those who without controversy can do more perhaps sometimes exceedingly fear the counsels and opinions of their enemies. Let this discord be removed from the commonwealth: already all those fears which are portended will be extinguished; already that serpent, which now skulks here, now emerges and betakes itself thither, once pressed down and dashed to pieces will die.

Monent enim eidem Ne occvltis consiliis res pvblica laedatvr. Quae sunt occultiora quam eius qui in contione ausus est dicere iustitium edici oportere, iuris dictionem intermitti, claudi aerarium, iudicia tolli? nisi forte existimatis hanc tantam conluvionem illi tantamque eversionem civitatis in mentem subito in rostris cogitanti venire potuisse.

For they warn this same man not to let the Republic be harmed by occult counsels. What counsels are more occult than those of one who, in an assembly, dared to say that a iustitium ought to be proclaimed, that jurisdiction be interrupted, that the treasury be closed, that the courts be abolished? Unless perhaps you think that such a foul congeries, and such an overthrow of the state, could have come into his mind suddenly as he was thinking on the Rostra.

Est quidem ille plenus vini stupri somni, plenusque inconsideratissimae ac dementissimae temeritatis; verum tamen nocturnis vigiliis, etiam coitione hominum, iustitium illud concoctum atque meditatum est. Mementote, patres conscripti, verbo illo nefario temptatas auris nostras et perniciosam viam audiendi consuetudine esse munitam.

He, to be sure, is full of wine, of debauchery, of sleep, and full as well of the most inconsiderate and most demented rashness; yet nevertheless by nocturnal vigils, even by a coition (gathering) of men, that iustitium— that cessation of the courts— was concocted and premeditated. Remember, Conscript Fathers, that by that nefarious word our ears were tempted, and that a pernicious way for hearing has been fortified by custom.

[56] Sequitur illud, Ne deterioribvs repvlsisqve honos avgeatvr. Repulsos videamus, nam deteriores qui sint, post docebo. Sed tamen in eum cadere hoc verbum maxime qui sit unus omnium mortalium sine ulla dubitatione deterrimus, concedendum est.

[56] Next comes this: “That honor not be augmented for the worse and for those who have suffered a repulse.” Let us look at the repulsed, for who the worse are I will teach later. But nevertheless it must be conceded that this term falls most especially upon that man who is, without any hesitation, the worst of all mortals.

Qui sunt igitur repulsi? Non, ut opinor, ii qui aliquando honorem vitio civitatis, non suo, non sunt adsecuti; nam id quidem multis saepe optimis civibus atque honestissimis viris accidit. Repulsi sunt ii quos ad omnia progredientis, quos munera contra leges gladiatoria parantis, quos apertissime largientis non solum alieni sed etiam sui, vicini, tribules, urbani, rustici reppulerunt: hi ne honore augeantur monent.

Who, then, are the rejected? Not, as I suppose, those who at some time have failed to attain an honor by the fault of the community, not by their own; for that has indeed often happened to many most excellent citizens and most honorable men. Rejected are those whom, as they push forward to everything, as they prepare gladiatorial shows contrary to the laws, as they most openly lavish gifts not only with others’ but even with their own money, their neighbors, fellow tribesmen, townsmen, and countryfolk have repelled: these they admonish should not be augmented with honor.

Debet esse gratum quod praedicunt, sed tamen huic malo populus Romanus ipse nullo haruspicum admonitu sua sponte prospexit.

What they predict ought to be welcome, but nevertheless against this evil the Roman people themselves, with no admonition of the haruspices, have of their own accord looked ahead.

[57] Deteriores cavete; quorum quidem est magna natio, sed tamen eorum omnium hic dux est atque princeps; etenim si unum hominem deterrimum poeta praestanti aliquis ingenio fictis conquisitisque vitiis deformatum vellet inducere, nullum profecto dedecus reperire posset quod in hoc non inesset, multaque in eo penitus defixa atque haerentia praeteriret. Parentibus et dis immortalibus et patriae nos primum natura conciliat; eodem enim tempore et suscipimur in lucem et hoc caelesti spiritu augemur et certam in sedem civitatis ac libertatis adscribimur. Iste parentum nomen, sacra, memoriam, gentem Fonteiano nomine obruit; deorum ignis, solia, mensas, abditos ac penetralis focos, occulta et maribus non invisa solum, sed etiam inaudita sacra inexpiabili scelere pervertit, idemque earum templum inflammavit dearum quarum ope etiam aliis incendiis subvenitur.

[57] Beware the more depraved; of whom indeed there is a great nation, but yet of them all this man is leader and princeps; for if some poet of outstanding ingenium should wish to bring on stage one single most-depraved man, deformed with feigned and hunted-up vices, he could assuredly find no disgrace which would not be in this one, and he would pass by many things deeply fixed and clinging in him. Nature first conciliates us to our parents and to the immortal gods and to the fatherland; for at the same time we are taken up into the light, and we are augmented by this celestial spirit, and we are ascribed to a fixed seat of citizenship and liberty. That man has overwhelmed the name, sacred rites, memory, clan of his parents under the Fonteian name; the gods’ fire, thrones, tables, hidden and inner sanctums of the hearth, secret rites not only unseen by males, but even unheard-of, he has perverted by an inexpiable crime, and this same man set ablaze the temple of those goddesses by whose help aid is brought even to other conflagrations.

[58] Quid de patria loquar? qui primum eum civem vi, ferro, periculis urbe, omnibus patriae praesidiis depulit quem vos patriae conservatorem esse saepissime iudicaritis, deinde everso senatus, ut ego semper dixi, comite, duce, ut ille dicebat, senatum ipsum, principem salutis mentisque publicae, vi, caede incendiisque pervertit; sustulit duas leges, Aeliam et Fufiam, maxime rei publicae salutaris, censuram exstinxit, intercessionem removit, auspicia delevit, consules sceleris sui socios aerario, provinciis, exercitu armavit, reges qui erant vendidit, qui non erant appellavit, Cn. Pompeium ferro domum compulit, imperatorum monumenta evertit, inimicorum domus disturbavit, vestris monumentis suum nomen inscripsit. Infinita sunt scelera quae ab illo in patriam sunt edita.

[58] What shall I say of the fatherland? he who first drove out of the city by force, by steel, by dangers, from all the defenses of the fatherland, that citizen whom you have most often judged to be the conservator of the fatherland; then, with the Senate—companion, as I have always said; leader, as he used to say—overthrown, he subverted the Senate itself, the princeps of safety and of the public mind, by force, slaughter, and conflagrations; he removed two laws, the Aelian and the Fufian, most salutary to the republic; he extinguished the censorship, removed the intercession, obliterated the auspices; he armed the consuls, accomplices of his crime, with the Aerarium, with provinces, with an army; he sold kings who existed, he styled as kings those who did not; he drove Cn. Pompeius home at sword-point; he overturned the monuments of commanders, he shattered the houses of enemies, he inscribed his own name upon your monuments. Infinite are the crimes which by that man have been committed against the fatherland.

Quid? quae in singulos civis quos necavit, socios quos diripuit, imperatores quos prodidit, exercitus quos temptavit?

What? what of the acts against individual citizens whom he killed, allies whom he despoiled, commanders whom he betrayed, armies which he tampered with?

[59] Quid vero? ea quanta sunt quae in ipsum se scelera, quae in suos edidit! Quis minus umquam pepercit hostium castris quam ille omnibus corporis sui partibus?

[59] But indeed? how great are those crimes which he committed against his very self, which against his own! Who ever spared the camps of enemies less than he spared all the parts of his own body?

quae navis umquam in flumine publico tam vulgata omnibus quam istius aetas fuit? quis umquam nepos tam libere est cum scortis quam hic cum sororibus volutatus? quam denique tam immanem Charybdim poetae fingendo exprimere potuerunt, quae tantos exhauriret gurgites quantas iste Byzantiorum Brogitarorumque praedas exsorbuit?

what ship ever on the public river was so made common to all as that fellow’s age was? what playboy ever wallowed so freely with harlots as this man with his sisters? and finally, what so monstrous a Charybdis were poets able, by their feigning, to portray, as would drain such whirlpools as the spoils of the Byzantines and the Brogitarians that he gulped down?

aut tam eminentibus canibus Scyllam tamque ieiunis quam quibus istum videtis, Gelliis, Clodiis, Titiis, rostra ipsa mandentem?

or Scylla with hounds so eminent and so famished as those with which you see this man, the Gellii, the Clodii, the Titii, chewing the very Rostra?

[60] Qua re, id quod extremum est in haruspicum responso, providete Ne rei pvblicae statvs commvtetvr; etenim vix haec, si undique fulciamus iam labefacta, vix, inquam, nixa in omnium nostrum umeris cohaerebunt. Fuit quondam ita firma haec civitas et valens ut neglegentiam senatus vel etiam iniurias civium ferre posset. Iam non potest.

[60] Wherefore, as to that which is the last item in the response of the haruspices, see to it that the status of the republic not be changed; for indeed scarcely will these things, even if we buttress on every side what is already made to totter, scarcely, I say, leaning upon the shoulders of us all, cohere. Once this commonwealth was so firm and strong that it could endure the negligence of the senate and even the injuries of citizens. Now it cannot.

Aerarium nullum est, vectigalibus non fruuntur qui redemerunt, auctoritas principum cecidit, consensus ordinum est divulsus, iudicia perierunt, suffragia descripta tenentur a paucis, bonorum animus ad nutum nostri ordinis expeditus iam non erit, civem qui se pro patriae salute opponat invidiae frustra posthac requiretis.

There is no treasury, those who have redeemed the tax revenues do not enjoy them, the authority of the leading men has fallen, the consensus of the orders is torn apart, the courts have perished, the suffrages, pre-assigned, are held by a few, the spirit of the good, ready at the nod of our order, will no longer be forthcoming, a citizen who sets himself against ill-will for the safety of the fatherland you will hereafter seek in vain.

[61] Qua re hunc statum qui nunc est, qualiscumque est, nulla alia re nisi concordia retinere possumus; nam ut meliore simus loco ne optandum quidem est illo impunito; deteriore autem statu ut simus, unus est inferior gradus aut interitus aut servitutis; quo ne trudamur di immortales nos admonent, quoniam iam pridem humana consilia ceciderunt. Atque ego hanc orationem, patres conscripti, tam tristem, tam gravem non suscepissem, non quin hanc personam et has partis, honoribus populi Romani, vestris plurimis ornamentis mihi tributis, deberem et possem sustinere, sed tamen facile tacentibus ceteris reticuissem; sed haec oratio omnis fuit non auctoritatis meae, sed publicae religionis. Mea fuerunt verba fortasse plura, sententiae quidem omnes haruspicum, ad quos aut referri nuntiata ostenta non convenit aut eorum responsis commoveri necesse est.

[61] Wherefore this status which now is, whatever it is, we can retain by no other thing than concord; for that we be in a better position is not even to be wished with that man unpunished; but that we be in a worse status, there is a single lower step—either extinction or servitude; from being thrust into which the immortal gods admonish us, since long ago human counsels have failed. And I would not have undertaken this oration, Conscript Fathers, so sad, so grave, not that I would not both owe and be able to sustain this person and these parts, by the honors of the Roman people, by your very many adornments conferred upon me, but yet I would easily have kept silence while the rest were silent; but this whole speech was not of my authority, but of the public religion. My words perhaps were more, but the judgments indeed are all the haruspices’, to whom it is not unfitting either that the reported ostenta be referred, or that one be moved by their responses.

[62] Quod si cetera magis pervulgata nos saepe et leviora moverunt, vox ipsa deorum immortalium non mentis omnium permovebit? Nolite enim id putare accidere posse quod in fabulis saepe videtis fieri, ut deus aliqui delapsus de caelo coetus hominum adeat, versetur in terris, cum hominibus conloquatur. Cogitate genus sonitus eius quem Latinienses nuntiarunt, recordamini illud etiam quod nondum est relatum, quod eodem fere tempore factus in agro Piceno Potentiae nuntiatur terrae motus horribilis cum quibusdam ~multis metuendisque rebus: haec eadem profecto quae prospicimus impendentia pertimescetis.

[62] But if other portents, more widely publicized and lighter, have often moved us more, will not the very voice of the immortal gods move the minds of all? Do not think that what you often see happen in fables can occur—that some god, having descended from heaven, should approach gatherings of men, be conversant upon the earth, converse with human beings. Consider the kind of sound which the Latinians reported; recall also that which has not yet been related—that at nearly the same time in the Picene countryside, at Potentia, a horrible earthquake is announced, together with certain many and fear-inspiring things: these same things, assuredly, which we foresee as impending, you will dread.

[63] Etenim haec deorum immortalium vox, haec paene oratio iudicanda est, cum ipse mundus, cum maria atque terrae motu quodam novo contremiscunt et inusitato aliquid sono incredibilique praedicunt. In quo constituendae nobis quidem sunt procurationes et obsecratio, quem ad modum monemur. Sed faciles sunt preces apud eos qui ultro nobis viam salutis ostendunt: nostrae nobis sunt inter nos irae discordiaeque placandae.

[63] For indeed this is to be judged the voice of the immortal gods, this almost an oration, when the world itself, when the seas and the lands, shudder with a certain new and unaccustomed motion and proclaim something with an incredible sound. In this matter, procurations and obsecration are to be established by us, in the way we are admonished. But prayers are easy with those who of their own accord point out to us the way of salvation: our angers and discords among ourselves are to be placated by us.