Cicero: ORATORIA

[1] Cum propter egregiam et singularem Cn. Planci, iudices, in mea salute custodienda fidem tam multos et bonos viros eius honori viderem esse fautores, capiebam animo non mediocrem voluptatem quod, cuius officium mihi saluti fuisset, ei meorum temporum memoriam suffragari videbam. Cum autem audirem meos partim inimicos, partim invidos huic accusationi esse fautores, eandemque rem adversariam esse in iudicio Cn. Plancio quae in petitione fuisset adiutrix, dolebam, iudices, et acerbe ferebam, si huius salus ob eam ipsam causam esset infestior quod is meam salutem atque vitam sua benivolentia praesidio custodiaque texisset.

[1] When, because of the outstanding and singular fidelity of Cn. Plancius, judges, in safeguarding my safety, I saw so many good men to be favorers of his honor, I took no moderate pleasure in mind, because I saw that the memory of my times was casting its vote for him whose service had been for my preservation. But when I heard that partly my enemies, partly the envious, were supporters of this accusation, and that the same thing was an adversary in the trial of Cn. Plancius which had been a helper in the canvass, I grieved, judges, and I bore it bitterly, if his safety were the more beset for this very cause, that he had covered my safety and my life with his benevolence as with a defense and a guardianship.

[2] nunc autem vester, iudices, conspectus et consessus iste reficit et recreat mentem meam, cum intueor et contemplor unum quemque vestrum. video enim hoc in numero neminem cui mea salus non cara fuerit, cuius non exstet in me summum meritum, cui non sim obstrictus memoria benefici sempiterna. itaque non extimesco ne Cn. Plancio custodia meae salutis apud eos obsit qui me ipsi maxime salvum videre voluerunt, saepiusque, iudices, mihi venit in mentem admirandum esse M. Laterensem, hominem studiosissimum et dignitatis et salutis meae, reum sibi hunc potissimum delegisse quam metuendum ne vobis id ille magna ratione fecisse videatur.

[2] now, however, your sight, judges, and that sitting restores and recreates my mind, when I gaze upon and contemplate each one of you. For I see in this company no one to whom my safety has not been dear, no one who does not have the highest merit toward me, no one to whom I am not bound by an everlasting memory of beneficence. And so I do not fear lest the guardianship of my safety by Gnaeus Plancius be a disadvantage with those who themselves most wished to see me safe; and more often, judges, it comes to my mind that Marcus Laterensis, a man most studious of both my dignity and my safety, is to be admired for having chosen this man in particular as a defendant for himself, rather than that it should be feared lest he seem to you to have done that with great reason.

[3] quamquam mihi non sumo tantum neque adrogo, iudices, ut Cn. Plancium suis erga me meritis impunitatem consecutum putem. Nisi eius integerrimam vitam, modestissimos mores, summam fidem, continentiam, pietatem, innocentiam ostendero, nihil de poena recusabo; sin omnia praestitero quae sunt a bonis viris exspectanda, petam, iudices, a vobis ut, cuius misericordia salus mea custodita sit, ei vos vestram misericordiam me deprecante tribuatis. equidem ad reliquos labores, quos in hac causa maiores suscipio quam in ceteris, etiam hanc molestiam adsumo, quod mihi non solum pro Cn. Plancio dicendum est, cuius ego salutem non secus ac meam tueri debeo, sed etiam pro me ipso, de quo accusatores plura paene quam de re reoque dixerunt.

[3] Although I do not assume so much nor arrogate to myself, judges, as to think that Cn. Plancius has obtained impunity by his services toward me. Unless I shall show his most upright life, most modest manners, highest fidelity, continence, piety, innocence, I will refuse nothing of punishment; but if I shall have furnished all that is to be expected from good men, I will ask, judges, from you that to him by whose mercy my safety has been guarded you grant your mercy, I myself pleading. Indeed, in addition to the remaining labors, which in this case I undertake greater than in the others, I also take upon myself this annoyance, that I must speak not only for Cn. Plancius, whose safety I ought to protect no less than my own, but also for myself, about whom the accusers have said almost more than about the matter and the defendant.

[II]

[2]

[4] quamquam, iudices, si quid est in me ipso ita reprehensum ut id ab hoc seiunctum sit, non me id magno opere conturbat; non enim timeo ne, quia perraro grati homines reperiantur, idcirco, cum me nimium gratum illi esse dicant, id mihi criminosum esse possit. quae vero ita sunt agitata ab illis ut aut merita Cn. Planci erga me minora esse dicerent quam a me ipso praedicarentur, aut, si essent summa, negarent ea tamen ita magni ut ego putarem ponderis apud vos esse debere, haec mihi sunt tractanda, iudices, et modice, ne quid ipse offendam, et tum denique cum respondero criminibus, ne non tam innocentia reus sua quam recordatione meorum temporum defensus esse videatur.

[4] Although, judges, if there is anything in me myself blamed in such a way that it is severed from this man, that does not greatly disturb me; for I do not fear that, because grateful men are found very rarely, therefore, when they say that I am excessively grateful to him, this could be criminal to me. But the points that have been agitated by them in such a way that either they say the merits of Cn. Plancius toward me are less than are proclaimed by me myself, or, if they were supreme, nevertheless they deny that they ought to be of such great weight with you as I think, these I must handle, judges, and with moderation, lest I myself give any offense, and only then, when I have responded to the charges, lest the defendant seem to be defended not so much by his own innocence as by the recollection of my times.

[5] sed mihi in causa facili atque explicata perdifficilis, iudices, et lubrica defensionis ratio proponitur. nam, si tantum modo mihi necesse esset contra Laterensem dicere, tamen id ipsum esset in tanto usu nostro tantaque amicitia molestum. vetus est enim lex illa iustae veraeque amicitiae quae mihi cum illo iam diu est, ut idem amici semper velint, neque est ullum amicitiae certius vinculum quam consensus et societas consiliorum et voluntatum.

[5] but to me, in a cause easy and explicated, there is proposed, judges, a very difficult and slippery plan of defense. for, even if it were only necessary for me to speak against Laterensis, yet that very thing would be burdensome in our so great intimacy and so great friendship. for that old law of just and true friendship—which has long existed between him and me—is that friends should always will the same things; nor is there any bond of friendship more certain than the consensus and society of counsels and of wills.

mihi autem non id est in hac re molestissimum, contra illum dicere, sed multo illud magis quod in ea causa contra dicendum est in qua quaedam hominum ipsorum videtur facienda esse contentio.

But for me the most troublesome thing in this matter is not to speak against that man, but far more this: that in that cause one must speak in opposition, in which a certain contention of the very persons themselves seems to have to be undertaken.

[6] quaerit enim Laterensis atque hoc uno maxime urget qua se virtute, qua laude Plancius, qua dignitate superarit. ita, si cedo illius ornamentis, quae multa et magna sunt, non solum huius dignitatis iactura facienda est sed etiam largitionis recipienda suspicio est; sin hunc illi antepono, contumeliosa habenda est oratio, et dicendum est id quod ille me flagitat, Laterensem a Plancio dignitate esse superatum. ita aut amicissimi hominis existimatio offendenda est, si illam accusationis condicionem sequar, aut optime de me meriti salus deserenda.

[6] For Laterensis inquires and presses most of all on this one point: by what virtue, by what laud, by what dignity Plancius has surpassed him. Thus, if I yield to that man’s ornaments, which are many and great, not only must there be a forfeiture of this man’s dignity, but even a suspicion of bribery must be admitted; but if I set this man before that one, the speech must be accounted contumelious, and I must say that which he demands of me, that Laterensis has been surpassed by Plancius in dignity. Thus either the estimation of a most friendly man must be offended, if I follow that condition of accusation, or the safety of one who has most excellently deserved of me must be deserted.

[III] sed ego, Laterensis, caecum me et praecipitem ferri confitear in causa, si te aut a Plancio aut ab ullo dignitate potuisse superari dixero. itaque discedam ab ea contentione ad quam tu me vocas et veniam ad illam ad quam me causa ipsa deducit.

[3] But I, Laterensis, would confess that I am being carried blind and headlong in the cause, if I were to say that you could have been surpassed in dignity either by Plancius or by anyone. And so I will depart from that contention to which you summon me and will come to that to which the cause itself conducts me.

[7] quid? tu in magistratibus dignitatis iudicem putas esse populum? fortasse non numquam est; utinam vero semper esset!

[7] What? Do you think the people are the judge of dignity in the magistracies? Perhaps sometimes they are; would that indeed they were always!

sed est perraro et, si quando est, in eis magistratibus est mandandis quibus salutem suam committi putat; his levioribus comitiis diligentia et gratia petitorum honos paritur, non eis ornamentis quae esse in te videmus. nam quod ad populum pertinet, semper dignitatis iniquus iudex est qui aut invidet aut favet. quamquam nihil potes in te, Laterensis, constituere quod sit proprium laudis tuae quin id tibi sit commune cum Plancio.

but it is very rare, and, if ever it is, it is in the mandating of those magistracies to which they think their own safety is being entrusted; in these lighter elections honor is procured by the diligence and favor of the candidates, not by those ornaments which we see to be in you. For as far as the people pertains, he is always an inequitable judge of dignity who either envies or favors. And yet, Laterensis, you can establish nothing in yourself which is proper to your praise without that being shared in common with Plancius.

[8] sed hoc totum agetur alio loco; nunc tantum disputo de iure populi, qui et potest et solet non numquam dignos praeterire; nec, si a populo praeteritus est quem non oportuit, a iudicibus condemnandus est qui praeteritus non est. nam, si ita esset, quod patres apud maiores nostros tenere non potuerunt, ut reprehensores essent comitiorum, id haberent iudices, quod multo etiam minus esset ferendum. tum enim magistratum non gerebat is qui ceperat, si patres auctores non erant facti; nunc postulatur a vobis ut eius exitio qui creatus sit iudicium populi Romani reprendatis.

[8] but this whole matter will be handled in another place; now I only argue about the right of the people, who both can and is wont sometimes to pass over the worthy; nor, if the one who ought not to have been has been passed over by the people, must he be condemned by the judges who was not passed over. for if it were so, the judges would have that which the Fathers among our ancestors could not hold—that they should be censurers of the elections—which would be much less to be borne. for then the man who had taken a magistracy did not exercise it, if the Fathers had not been made approvers; now it is demanded of you that, to the ruin of him who has been elected, you censure the judgment of the Roman People.

itaque iam quoniam qua nolui ianua sum ingressus in causam, sperare videor tantum afuturam esse orationem meam a minima suspicione offensionis tuae, te ut potius obiurgem, quod iniquum in discrimen adducas dignitatem tuam, quam ut eam ego ulla contumelia coner attingere.

and so now, since I have entered into the case by a doorway I did not wish, I seem to hope that my speech will be so far from the least suspicion of giving you offense, that I would rather objurgate you, because you are bringing your dignity into unjust peril, than attempt to touch it with any contumely.

[IV]

[4]

[9] tu continentiam, tu industriam, tu animum in rem publicam, tu virtutem, tu innocentiam, tu fidem, tu labores tuos, quod aedilis non sis factus, fractos esse et abiectos et repudiatos putas? vide tandem, Laterensis, quantum ego a te dissentiam. si me dius fidius decem soli essent in civitate viri boni, sapientes, iusti, graves, qui te indignum aedilitate iudicavissent, gravius de te iudicatum putarem quam est hoc quod tu metuis ne a populo iudicatum esse videatur.

[9] Do you suppose that your continence, your industry, your spirit for the republic, your virtue, your innocence, your good faith, your labors—because you were not made aedile—have been broken and cast down and repudiated? See at last, Laterensis, how far I dissent from you. By good faith, if there were only ten men in the state—good, wise, just, grave—who had judged you unworthy of the aedileship, I would think a more weighty judgment had been passed upon you than this which you fear may seem to have been judged by the people.

non enim comitiis iudicat semper populus, sed movetur plerumque gratia, cedit precibus, facit eos a quibus est maxime ambitus, denique, etiam si iudicat, non dilectu aliquo aut sapientia ducitur ad iudicandum, sed impetu non numquam et quadam etiam temeritate. non est enim consilium in volgo, non ratio, non discrimen, non diligentia, semperque sapientes ea quae populus fecisset ferenda, non semper laudanda dixerunt. qua re, cum te aedilem fieri oportuisse dicis, populi culpam, non competitoris accusas.

for the people does not always judge in the comitia, but is for the most part moved by favor, yields to entreaties, elects those by whom it is most canvassed; finally, even if it does judge, it is led to judge not by any selection or wisdom, but sometimes by impulse and by a certain temerity as well. for there is no counsel in the crowd, no reason, no discrimination, no diligence, and the wise have always said that the things which the people had done were to be borne, not always to be praised. wherefore, when you say that you ought to have been made aedile, you accuse the people’s fault, not your competitor’s.

[10] Vt fueris dignior quam Plancius—de quo ipso tecum ita contendam paulo post ut conservem dignitatem tuam—sed ut fueris dignior, non competitor a quo es victus, sed populus a quo es praeteritus, in culpa est. in quo illud primum debes putare, comitiis, praesertim aediliciis, studium esse populi, non iudicium; eblandita illa, non enucleata esse suffragia; eos qui suffragium ferant, quid cuique ipsi debeant considerare saepius quam quid cuique a re publica debeatur. sin autem mavis esse iudicium, non tibi id rescindendum est sed ferendum.

[10] Granted that you were more worthy than Plancius—about that very man I will contend with you a little later in such a way as to preserve your dignity—yet, granted that you were more worthy, it is not the competitor by whom you were defeated, but the people by whom you were passed over, that is in fault. In which matter you ought first to think this: in the comitia, especially the aedilician, there is zeal of the people, not judgment; those suffrages are won by blandishment, not enucleated; those who cast a vote consider more often what they themselves owe to each person than what is owed to each by the commonwealth. But if, however, you prefer it to be a judgment, that is not to be rescinded by you but borne.

[V]

[5]

[12] venio iam ad ipsius populi partis ut illius contra te oratione potius quam mea disputem. qui si tecum congrediatur et si una loqui voce possit, haec dicat: 'ego tibi, Laterensis, Plancium non anteposui sed, cum essetis aeque boni viri, meum beneficium ad eum potius detuli qui a me contenderat quam ad eum qui mihi non nimis submisse supplicarat.' respondebis, credo, te splendore et vetustate familiae fretum non valde ambiendum putasse. at vero te ille ad sua instituta suorumque maiorum exempla revocabit; semper se dicet rogari voluisse, semper sibi supplicari; se M. Seium, qui ne equestrem quidem splendorem incolumem a calamitate iudici retinere potuisset, homini nobilissimo, innocentissimo, eloquentissimo, M. Pisoni, praetulisse; praeposuisse se Q. Catulo, summa in familia nato, sapientissimo et sanctissimo viro, non dico C. Serranum, stultissimum hominem—fuit enim tamen nobilis—non C. Fimbriam, novum hominem—fuit enim et animi satis magni et consili—sed Cn. Mallium, non solum ignobilem verum sine virtute, sine ingenio, vita etiam contempta ac sordida.

[12] I come now to the side of the very People, so that I may dispute against you with its oration rather than with my own. Which, if it should meet you and could speak with one voice, would say these things: 'I, Laterensis, did not set Plancius before you, but, since you were equally good men, I conveyed my beneficium rather to him who canvassed me than to him who had not very submissively supplicated me.' You will answer, I suppose, that, relying on the splendor and antiquity of your family, you thought you ought not to be greatly ambitious in canvassing. But he will recall you to his own institutions and to the examples of his ancestors; he will say that he always wished to be asked, always to be supplicated; that he preferred M. Seius—who had not even been able to retain unimpaired his equestrian splendor from the calamity of a judicial trial—to M. Piso, a most noble, most innocent, most eloquent man; that he set before Q. Catulus, born in a most eminent family, a man most wise and most upright, I do not say C. Serranus, a most foolish man—for he was, however, noble—nor C. Fimbrius, a new man—for he was, indeed, of spirit sufficiently great and of counsel—but Cn. Mallius, not only ignoble but without virtue, without ingenium, with a life even despised and sordid.

'desiderarunt te,' inquit, 'oculi mei, cum tu esses Cyrenis;

'my eyes longed for you,' he says, 'when you were in Cyrene;

[13] me enim quam socios tua frui virtute malebam, et quo plus intererat, eo plus aberat a me, cum te non videbam. deinde sitientem me virtutis tuae deseruisti ac reliquisti. coeperas enim petere tribunatum pl. temporibus eis quae istam eloquentiam et virtutem requirebant; quam petitionem cum reliquisses, si hoc indicasti, tanta in tempestate te gubernare non posse, de virtute tua dubitavi, si nolle, de voluntate; sin, quod magis intellego, temporibus te aliis reservasti, ego quoque,' inquiet populus Romanus, 'ad ea te tempora revocavi ad quae tu te ipse servaras.

[13] for I preferred that I rather than your associates enjoy your virtue, and the more it concerned me, the more it was absent from me, when I did not see you. then you deserted and abandoned me thirsting for your virtue. for you had begun to seek the tribunate of the plebs at those times which were demanding that eloquence and virtue; but when you left that petition, if by this you indicated that you were not able to govern in so great a tempest, I doubted your virtue; if that you were unwilling, your will; but if, as I understand more, you reserved yourself for other times, I also,' says the Roman People, 'have recalled you to those times for which you had kept yourself.

pete igitur eum magistratum in quo mihi magnae utilitati esse possis; aediles quicumque erunt, idem mihi sunt ludi parati; tribuni pl. permagni interest qui sint. qua re aut redde mihi quod ostenderas, aut si, quod mea minus interest, id te magis forte delectat, reddam tibi istam aedilitatem etiam neglegenter petenti, sed amplissimos honores ut pro dignitate tua consequare, condiscas censeo mihi paulo diligentius supplicare.'

seek therefore that magistracy in which you can be of great utility to me; whoever the aediles shall be, for me the games are prepared all the same; it matters very greatly who the tribunes of the plebs are. Wherefore either give back to me what you had shown, or, if, which concerns me less, that thing perhaps delights you more, I will grant you that aedileship even if you seek it negligently; but, that you may attain the most ample honors in proportion to your dignity, I advise you to learn to supplicate me a little more diligently.'

[VI]

[6]

[14] haec populi oratio est, mea vero, Laterensis, haec: qua re victus sis non debere iudicem quaerere, modo ne largitione sis victus. nam si, quotienscumque praeteritus erit is qui non debuerit praeteriri, totiens oportebit eum qui factus erit condemnari, nihil iam est quod populo supplicetur, nihil quod diribitio, nihil quod renuntiatio suffragiorum exspectetur. simul ut qui sint professi videro, dicam: 'hic familia consulari est, ille praetoria;

[14] this is the people’s oration, but mine, Laterensis, is this: that the judge ought not to seek by what cause you were defeated, provided only that you were not defeated by largess. for if, whenever he is passed over who ought not to have been passed over, so often it must be that the one who has been made is condemned, there is now nothing for which there should be supplication to the people, nothing for which the diribition, nothing for which the proclamation of the suffrages should be awaited. as soon as I see who have professed, I shall say: 'this man is of a consular family, that one of a praetorian;

[15] reliquos video esse ex equestri loco; sunt omnes sine macula, sunt omnes aeque boni viri atque integri, sed servari necesse est gradus; cedat consulari generi praetorium, ne contendat cum praetorio nomine equester locus.' sublata sunt studia, exstinctae suffragationes, nullae contentiones, nulla libertas populi in mandandis magistratibus, nulla exspectatio suffragiorum; nihil, ut plerumque evenit, praeter opinionem accidet, nulla erit posthac varietas comitiorum. sin hoc persaepe accidit ut et factos aliquos et non factos esse miremur, si campus atque illae undae comitiorum, ut mare profundum et immensum, sic effervescunt quodam quasi aestu ut ad alios accedant, ab aliis autem recedant, tamen nos impetu studiorum et motu temeritatis modum aliquem et consilium et rationem requiremus?

[15] I see the rest to be from the equestrian order; they are all without blemish, they are all equally good and upright men, but it is necessary that the ranks be preserved; let the praetorian yield to the consular stock, lest the equestrian order contend with the praetorian name.' The zeals are removed, the suffragations extinguished, no contests, no liberty of the people in entrusting magistracies, no expectation of suffrages; nothing, as very often happens, will occur beyond expectation, there will be hereafter no variety of the elections. But if this very often happens, that we marvel both that some have been elected and that some have not been elected, if the Campus and those waves of the elections, like a deep and boundless sea, thus effervesce with a certain as-it-were tide so that they approach some and recede from others, yet shall we in the rush of partisanships and the movement of temerity require some measure and counsel and reason?

[16] qua re noli me ad contentionem vestrum vocare, Laterensis. etenim si populo grata est tabella, quae frontis aperit hominum, mentis tegit datque eam libertatem ut quod velint faciant, promittant autem quod rogentur, cur tu id in iudicio ut fiat exprimis quod non fit in campo? 'hic quam ille dignior' perquam grave est dictu.

[16] For which reason, do not call me into your contention, Laterensis. Indeed, if the ballot‑tablet is pleasing to the people, which uncovers the brow of men, covers the mind, and gives that liberty that they may do what they wish, but promise what they are asked, why do you in the court press that there be done what is not done in the Campus? 'This man rather than that more worthy' is exceedingly grave to say.

quo modo igitur est aequius? sic credo, quod agitur, quod satis est iudici: 'hic factus est.' 'cur iste potius quam ego?' vel nescio vel non dico vel denique quod mihi gravissimum esset, si dicerem, sed impune tamen deberem dicere: 'non recte.' nam quid adsequerere, si illa extrema defensione uterer, populum quod voluisset fecisse, non quod debuisset?

In what way, then, is it more equitable? Thus, I believe, as is done—what suffices for the judge: 'he was elected.' 'Why that man rather than I?' Either I do not know or I do not say, or finally that which would be most burdensome for me, if I were to say it, yet I ought nevertheless to be allowed to say it with impunity: 'not rightly.' For what would you attain, if I were to use that last-resort defense—that the people did what they wished, not what they ought?

[VII]

[7]

[17] quid? si populi quoque factum defendo, Laterensis, et doceo Cn. Plancium non obrepsisse ad honorem, sed eo venisse cursu qui semper patuerit hominibus ortis hoc nostro equestri loco, possumne eripere orationi tuae contentionem vestrum, quae tractari sine contumelia non potest, et te ad causam aliquando crimenque deducere? si, quod equitis Romani filius est, inferior esse debuit, omnes tecum equitum Romanorum filii petiverunt.

[17] What then? If I also defend the deed of the people, Laterensis, and show that Gnaeus Plancius did not creep up to the honor, but came to it by that course which has always lain open to men sprung from this our equestrian rank, can I take away from your speech that contention of your party—which cannot be handled without contumely—and at last bring you down to the actual case and the specific charge? If, because he is the son of a Roman eques, he ought to have been inferior, then all the sons of Roman equites stood for the office along with you.

nihil dico amplius; hoc tamen miror cur huic potissimum irascare qui longissime a te afuit. equidem, si quando, ut fit, iactor in turba, non illum accuso qui est in summa sacra via, cum ego ad Fabianum fornicem impellor, sed eum qui in me ipsum incurrit atque incidit. tu neque Q. Pedio, forti viro, suscenses neque huic A. Plotio, ornatissimo homini familiari meo, et ab eo qui hos dimovit potius quam ab eis qui in te ipsum incubuerunt te depulsum putas.

I say nothing further; this, however, I marvel at—why you are especially wrathful with this man who was farthest from you. Indeed, if ever, as happens, I am tossed in a crowd, I do not accuse the one who is at the top of the Sacred Way, when I am impelled toward the Fabian Arch, but him who runs into me and collides with me. You are angry neither with Q. Pedius, a brave man, nor with this A. Plotius, a most distinguished man, my intimate friend; and you suppose yourself to have been driven off by him who removed these men rather than by those who pressed upon you yourself.

[18] sed tamen haec tibi est prima cum Plancio generis vestri familiaeque contentio, qua abs te vincitur; cur enim non confitear quod necesse est? sed non hic magis quam ego a meis competitoribus et alias et in consulatus petitione vincebar. sed vide ne haec ipsa quae despicis huic suffragata sint.

[18] But yet this is your first contention with Plancius in respect of your race and family, wherein he is beaten by you; for why should I not confess what must be confessed? But not more here than I was beaten by my competitors both at other times and in the canvassing for the consulship. But see lest these very things which you despise have supported him.

sic enim conferamus. est tuum nomen utraque familia consulare. num dubitas igitur quin omnes qui favent nobilitati, qui id putant esse pulcherrimum, qui imaginibus, qui nominibus vestris ducuntur, te aedilem fecerint?

for thus let us compare. your name is consular in both families. do you doubt, then, that all who favor nobility, who think that to be most beautiful, who are led by your images and by your names, have made you aedile?

equidem non dubito. sed si parum multi sunt qui nobilitatem ament, num ista est nostra culpa? etenim ad caput et ad fontem generis utriusque veniamus.

Indeed I do not doubt. But if there are too few who love nobility, is that our fault? For indeed let us come to the head and to the fount of both lineages.

[VIII]

[8]

[19] tu es e municipio antiquissimo Tusculano, ex quo sunt plurimae familiae consulares, in quibus est etiam Iuventia —tot ex reliquis municipiis omnibus non sunt—hic est e praefectura Atinati non tam prisca, non tam honorata, non tam suburbana. quantum interesse vis ad rationem petendi? primum utrum magis favere putas Atinatis an Tusculanos suis?

[19] you are from the most ancient municipium of Tusculum, from which there are very many consular families, among which is even the Juventia — so many from all the remaining municipia together there are not — this man is from the Atinate praefecture, not so ancient, not so honored, not so suburban. How much difference do you wish to reckon for the strategy of canvassing? First, whom do you think more readily favor their own, the Atinates or the Tusculans?

alteri—scire enim hoc propter vicinitatem facile possum—cum huius ornatissimi atque optimi viri, Cn. Saturnini, patrem aedilem, cum praetorem viderunt, quod primus ille non modo in eam familiam sed etiam in praefecturam illam sellam curulem attulisset, mirandum in modum laetati sunt; alteros—credo, quia refertum est municipium consularibus, nam malivolos non esse certo scio—numquam intellexi vehementius suorum honore laetari. habemus hoc nos, habent nostra municipia.

the former—for I can easily know this on account of the vicinity—when they saw the father of this most adorned and best man, Cn. Saturninus, as aedile, and as praetor, because he was the first to bring the curule seat not only into that family but also into that prefecture, rejoiced in a marvelous manner; the latter—I believe, because the municipality is crammed with consulars (for I know for certain that they are not ill-willed)—I have never understood to rejoice more vehemently at the honor of their own. we have this trait; our municipalities have it.

[20] quid ego de me, de fratre meo loquar? quorum honoribus agri ipsi prope dicam montesque faverunt. num quando vides Tusculanum aliquem de M. Catone illo in omni virtute principe, num de Ti. Coruncanio municipe suo, num de tot Fulviis gloriari?

[20] What shall I say of myself, of my brother? whose honors the fields themselves—indeed, I might almost say the mountains—have favored. Do you ever see any Tusculan boasting of that M. Cato, foremost in every virtue, or of Ti. Coruncanius, his fellow townsman, or of so many Fulvii?

verbum nemo facit. at in quemcumque Arpinatem incideris, etiam si nolis, erit tamen tibi fortasse etiam de nobis aliquid, sed certe de C. Mario audiendum. primum igitur hic habuit studia suorum ardentia, tu tanta quanta in hominibus iam saturatis honoribus esse potuerunt.

No one says a word. But on whatever Arpinate you may chance to fall, even if you are unwilling, still you will have to hear perhaps even something about us, but surely about Gaius Marius. First, then, this man had the ardent zeal of his own; then as great as they could be among men already sated with honors.

[21] deinde tui municipes sunt illi quidem splendidissimi homines, sed tamen pauci, si quidem cum Atinatibus conferantur; huius praefectura plena virorum fortissimorum, sic ut nulla tota Italia frequentior dici possit; quam quidem nunc multitudinem videtis, iudices, in squalore et luctu supplicem vobis. hi tot equites Romani, tot tribuni aerarii—nam plebem a iudicio dimisimus, quae cuncta comitiis adfuit— quid roboris, quid dignitatis huius petitioni attulerunt? non enim tribum Teretinam, de qua dicam alio loco, sed dignitatem, sed oculorum coniectum, sed solidam et robustam et adsiduam frequentiam praebuerunt.

[21] Then your townsmen are indeed most splendid men, but yet few, if they are compared with the Atinates; this man’s prefecture is full of most valiant men, such that no place in all Italy can be said to be more thronged; this multitude, judges, you now see, in squalor and in mourning, a suppliant to you. These so many Roman equites, so many tribunes of the treasury—for we dismissed the plebs from the judgment, which was wholly present at the comitia—what strength, what dignity did they bring to this petition? For they supplied not only the Teretina tribe, of which I shall speak in another place, but dignity, and the cast of their eyes, and a solid and robust and assiduous attendance.

nam municipia coniunctione etiam vicinitatis vehementer moventur.

for municipalities are vehemently moved by the conjunction even of vicinity.

[IX]

[9]

[22] omnia quae dico de Plancio dico expertus in nobis; sumus enim finitimi Atinatibus. laudanda est vel etiam amanda vicinitas retinens veterem illum offici morem, non infuscata malivolentia, non adsueta mendaciis, non fucosa, non fallax, non erudita artificio simulationis vel suburbano vel etiam urbano. nemo Arpinas non Plancio studuit, nemo Soranus, nemo Casinas, nemo Aquinas.

[22] everything that I say about Plancius I say as one who has experienced it among us; for we are neighbors to the Atinates. Neighborliness, retaining that ancient custom of duty, is to be praised or even loved, not darkened by malevolence, not accustomed to mendacities, not painted-up, not deceitful, not schooled in the artifice of simulation, whether suburban or even urban. No Arpinate failed to support Plancius, nor any Soran, nor any Casinate, nor any Aquinate.

tractus ille celeberrimus Venafranus, Allifanus, tota denique ea nostra ita aspera et montuosa et fidelis et simplex et fautrix suorum regio se huius honore ornari, se augeri dignitate arbitrabatur, isdemque nunc ex municipiis adsunt equites Romani publice cum legatione <et> testimonio, nec minore nunc sunt sollicitudine quam tum erant studio. etenim est gravius spoliari fortunis quam non augeri dignitate.

that most celebrated tract, the Venafran, the Allifan, and finally that whole region of ours—so rugged and mountainous and faithful and simple and a favorer of its own—considered itself to be adorned by this man’s honor, to be increased in dignity; and now from the same municipalities Roman Knights are present officially with a legation and testimony, nor are they now in less solicitude than then they were in zeal. For it is more grievous to be despoiled of one’s fortunes than not to be increased in dignity.

[23] ergo ut alia in te erant inlustriora, Laterensis, quae tibi maiores tui reliquerant, sic te Plancius hoc non solum municipi verum etiam vicinitatis genere vincebat; nisi forte te Labicana aut Gabina aut Bovillana vicinitas adiuvabat, quibus e municipiis vix iam qui carnem Latinis petant reperiuntur. adiungamus, si vis, id quod tu huic obesse etiam putas, patrem publicanum; qui ordo quanto adiumento sit in honore quis nescit? Flos enim equitum Romanorum, ornamentum civitatis, firmamentum rei publicae publicanorum ordine continetur.

[23] therefore, though there were other things more illustrious in you, Laterensis, which your ancestors had bequeathed to you, yet in this Plancius surpassed you, not only by the kind of his municipality but also by that of his neighborhood; unless perhaps the neighborhood of Labicum or Gabii or Bovillae was helping you, from which municipalities there are now scarcely found those who ask for the meat at the Latin festival. Let us add, if you wish, that which you even think is a disadvantage to him, a father who is a publican; what man does not know how great a help that order is in honor? For the flower of the Roman equestrians, the ornament of the commonwealth, the support of the republic, is contained within the order of the publicans.

[24] quis est igitur qui neget ordinis eius studium fuisse in honore Planci singulare? neque iniuria, vel quod erat pater is qui est princeps iam diu publicanorum, vel quod is ab sociis unice diligebatur, vel quod diligentissime rogabat, vel quia pro filio supplicabat, vel quod huius ipsius in illum ordinem summa officia quaesturae tribunatusque constabant, vel quod illi in hoc ornando ordinem se ornare et consulere liberis suis arbitrabantur.

[24] who is there, then, who would deny that the zeal of that order in advancing the honor of Plancius was singular? and not unjustly, either because his father was he who for a long time has been the chief of the publicans, or because he was uniquely cherished by the allies, or because he canvassed most diligently, or because he made supplication on behalf of his son, or because the highest good offices of this very man toward that order in his quaestorship and tribunate were well attested, or because they thought that, in adorning this man, they were adorning the order and providing for their own children.

[X] aliquid praeterea—timide dicam, sed tamen dicendum est—non enim opibus, non invidiosa gratia, non potentia vix ferenda, sed commemoratione benefici, sed misericordia, sed precibus aliquid attulimus etiam nos. appellavi populum tributim, submisi me et supplicavi; ultro me hercule se mihi etiam offerentis, ultro pollicentis rogavi. valuit causa rogandi, non gratia.

[10] something besides—I will say it timidly, but yet it must be said—for not by resources, not by invidious favor, not by power scarcely to be borne, but by the commemoration of a benefaction, by mercy, by prayers, we too contributed something. I appealed to the people by tribes, I humbled myself and supplicated; by Hercules, I asked even those who of their own accord were offering themselves to me, those who of their own accord were promising. The cause of asking prevailed, not favor.

[25] nec si vir amplissimus, cui nihil est quod roganti concedi non iure possit, de aliquo, ut dicis, non impetravit, ego sum adrogans quod me valuisse dico. nam ut omittam illud quod ego pro eo laborabam qui valebat ipse per sese, rogatio ipsa semper est gratiosissima quae est officio necessitudinis coniuncta maxime. neque enim ego sic rogabam ut petere viderer, quia familiaris esset meus, quia vicinus, quia huius parente semper plurimum essem usus, sed ut quasi parenti et custodi salutis meae.

[25] Nor, if a most distinguished man—one for whom there is nothing that could not by right be conceded to him when asking—did not obtain something from someone, as you say, am I arrogant because I say that I prevailed. For, not to mention that I was laboring on behalf of one who had weight in himself, the very request is always most winning of favor which is most closely conjoined with the duty of relationship. For I was not asking in such a way as to seem to be petitioning because he was my familiar, because a neighbor, because I had always derived very great benefit from this man’s father, but as to, as it were, a parent and guardian of my safety.

non potentia mea sed causa rogationis fuit gratiosa. nemo mea restitutione laetatus est, nemo iniuria doluit, cui non huius in me misericordia grata fuerit.

not my power but the cause of the petition was welcome. no one rejoiced at my restitution, no one grieved at the injury, who was not grateful for this man’s mercy toward me.

[26] etenim si ante reditum meum Cn. Plancio se volgo viri boni, cum hic tribunatum peteret, ultro offerebant, cui nomen meum absentis honori fuisset, ei meas praesentis preces non putas profuisse? an Minturnenses coloni, quod C. Marium e civili ferro atque ex impiis manibus eripuerunt, quod tecto receperunt, quod fessum inedia fluctibusque recrearunt, quod viaticum congesserunt, quod navigium dederunt, quod eum linquentem terram eam quam servarat votis, ominibus lacrimisque prosecuti sunt, aeterna in laude versantur; Plancio, quod me vel vi pulsum vel ratione cedentem receperit, iuverit, custodierit, his et senatui populoque Romano, ut haberent quem reducerent, conservarit, honori hanc fidem, misericordiam, virtutem fuisse miraris?

[26] indeed, if before my return good men in general were of their own accord offering themselves to Cn. Plancius, when this man was seeking the tribunate, to whom my name, though absent, would have been for an honor, do you not think my present entreaties helped him? or are the colonists of Minturnae, because they snatched Gaius Marius from the civil sword and from impious hands, because they received him under a roof, because, weary with hunger and the waves, they refreshed him, because they gathered traveling-money, because they gave a vessel, because, as he was leaving the very land which he had saved, they attended him with vows, omens, and tears, held in eternal praise; and do you marvel that for Plancius—because he received me whether driven out by force or yielding by reason, aided me, guarded me, preserved me for these men and for the senate and Roman people, so that they might have someone to bring back—this good faith, pity, and virtue have been for honor?

[XI]

[11]

[27] vitia me hercule Cn. Planci res eae de quibus dixi tegere potuerunt, ne tu in ea vita de qua iam dicam tot et tanta adiumenta huic honori fuisse mirere. hic est enim qui adulescentulus cum A. Torquato profectus in Africam sic ab illo gravissimo et sanctissimo atque omni laude et honore dignissimo viro dilectus est ut et contuberni necessitudo et adulescentis modestissimi pudor postulabat, quod, si adesset, non minus ille declararet quam hic illius frater patruelis et socer, T. Torquatus, omni illi et virtute et laude par, qui est quidem cum illo maximis vinclis et propinquitatis et adfinitatis coniunctus, sed ita magnis amoris ut illae necessitudinis causae leves esse videantur. fuit in Creta postea contubernalis Saturnini, propinqui sui, miles huius Q. Metelli; cui cum fuerit probatissimus hodieque sit, omnibus esse se probatum sperare debet.

[27] By Hercules, the deeds of Gnaeus Plancius of which I have spoken could have covered even faults; do not you, then, marvel that in that life of which I am now about to speak there were so many and such great aids to this honor. For he is the man who, as a very young man, having set out with Aulus Torquatus into Africa, was so beloved by that most grave and most holy man, most worthy of every praise and honor, as both the intimacy of a tent-companionship and the modesty of a most modest youth required—which, if he were present, that man would declare no less than this man, his cousin on the father’s side and father-in-law, Titus Torquatus, equal to that man in every virtue and praise, who indeed is joined with him by the greatest bonds both of kinship and affinity, but by bonds of love so great that those causes of relationship seem light. Afterwards in Crete he was the tent-companion of Saturninus, his kinsman, a soldier under this Quintus Metellus; to whom, since he was most approved and is so today, he ought to hope that he is approved by all.

in ea provincia legatus fuit C. Sacerdos, qua virtute, qua constantia vir! L. Flaccus, qui homo, qui civis! qualem hunc putent, adsiduitate testimonioque declarant.

In that province the legate was Gaius Sacerdos—what virtue, what constancy in the man! Lucius Flaccus—what a man, what a citizen! What they think of this man they declare by their assiduity and by their testimony.

[28] in Macedonia tribunus militum fuit, in eadem provincia postea quaestor. primum Macedonia sic eum diligit ut indicant hi principes civitatum suarum; qui cum missi sint ob aliam causam, tamen huius repentino periculo commoti huic adsident, pro hoc laborant, huic si praesto fuerint, gratius se civitatibus suis facturos putant quam si legationem suam et mandata confecerint. L. vero Apuleius hunc tanti facit ut morem illum maiorum qui praescribit in parentum loco quaestoribus suis praetores esse oportere officiis benivolentiaque superarit.

[28] In Macedonia he was a military tribune; in the same province afterwards a quaestor. First, Macedonia loves him so, as these chiefs of their communities indicate; who, although they have been sent for another cause, nevertheless, moved by this man’s sudden peril, sit by him, labor on his behalf, and think that, if they shall have been at hand for him, they will do something more pleasing to their communities than if they completed their legation and mandates. But L. Apuleius sets such a value on this man that he has surpassed that ancestral custom which prescribes that praetors ought to be in the place of parents to their quaestors, in dutiful services and benevolence.

tribunus pl. fuit non fortasse tam vehemens quam isti quos tu iure laudas, sed certe talis, quales si omnes semper fuissent, numquam desideratus vehemens esset tribunus.

He was tribune of the plebs, not perhaps so vehement as those whom you by right praise, but certainly such that, if all had always been of this sort, a vehement tribune would never have been desired.

[XII]

[12]

[29] omitto illa quae, si minus in scaena sunt, at certe, cum sunt prolata, laudantur, ut vivat cum suis, primum cum parente—nam meo iudicio pietas fundamentum est omnium virtutum—quem veretur ut deum—neque enim multo secus est parens liberis—amat vero ut sodalem, ut fratrem, ut aequalem. quid dicam cum patruo, cum adfinibus, cum propinquis, cum hoc Cn. Saturnino, ornatissimo viro? cuius quantam honoris huius cupiditatem fuisse creditis, cum videtis luctus societatem?

[29] I omit those things which, if they are less on the stage, yet certainly, when they are brought forward, are praised—such as that he lives with his own, first with his parent (for, in my judgment, piety is the foundation of all virtues), whom he reveres as a god—for a parent, indeed, is not much otherwise for children—and truly he loves him as a sodalis, as a brother, as an equal. What am I to say of his relations with his paternal uncle, with his affines, with his kinsfolk, with this Cn. Saturninus, a most distinguished man? How great a desire of this honor do you suppose there has been in him, when you see a partnership of mourning?

quid de me dicam qui mihi in huius periculo reus esse videor? quid de his tot viris talibus quos videtis veste mutata? atque haec sunt indicia, iudices, solida et expressa, haec signa probitatis non fucata forensi specie, sed domesticis inusta notis veritatis.

What am I to say of myself, who seem to myself to be a defendant in this man’s peril? What of all these so many such men whom you see with their dress changed? And these are the indicia, judges, solid and impressed—these signs of probity not painted with a forensic appearance, but branded with the domestic marks of truth.

facilis est illa occursatio et blanditia popularis; aspicitur, non attrectatur; procul apparet, non excutitur, non in manus sumitur.

that accosting and popular blandishment is easy; it is looked at, not handled; it appears from afar, it is not examined, it is not taken into the hands.

[30] omnibus igitur rebus ornatum hominem tam externis quam domesticis, non nullis rebus inferiorem quam te, genere dico et nomine, superiorem aliis, municipum, vicinorum, societatum studio, meorum temporum memoria, parem virtute, integritate, modestia aedilem factum esse miraris? hunc tu vitae splendorem maculis aspergis istis? iacis adulteria, quae nemo non modo nomine sed ne suspicione quidem possit agnoscere.

[30] therefore, a man adorned with all things, as much external as domestic, in some matters inferior to you—I mean in birth and in name—superior in others, by the zeal of fellow townsmen, of neighbors, of associations, by the memory of my times, equal in virtue, integrity, modesty—do you marvel that he was made aedile? do you besprinkle that splendor of life with those stains of yours? you hurl charges of adultery, which no one could recognize, not only by name but not even by suspicion.

'bimaritum' appellas, ut verba etiam fingas, non solum crimina. ductum esse ab eo in provinciam aliquem dicis libidinis causa, quod non crimen est, sed impunitum in maledicto mendacium; raptam esse mimulam, quod dicitur Atinae factum a iuventute vetere quodam in scaenicos iure maximeque oppidano.

'bimaritum' you call him, so that you even fabricate words, not only charges. You say that someone was led by him into the province for the sake of libido—which is not a crime, but a lie unpunished in malediction; that a little mime-girl was snatched, which is said to have been done at Atina by the young men under a certain old right over stage-people, and most especially a municipal one.

[31] O adulescentiam traductam eleganter, cui quidem cum quod licuerit obiciatur, tamen id ipsum falsum reperiatur! emissus aliquis e carcere. et quidem emissus per imprudentiam, emissus, ut cognostis, necessarii hominis optimique adulescentis rogatu; idem postea praetoris mandatu requisitus.

[31] O youth so elegantly traduced, to whom indeed, when what was permitted is objected, yet that very thing is found to be false! Someone was released from prison; and indeed released through inadvertence—released, as you have learned, at the request of an intimate of the man and of a most excellent young man; the same person was afterward sought for by the praetor’s mandate.

atque haec nec ulla alia sunt coniecta maledicta in eius vitam de cuius vos pudore, religione, integritate dubitetis.

and these, and no others, are the slanders cast against his life, about whose modesty, religion, and integrity you have doubts.

[XIII] 'pater vero,' inquit, 'etiam obesse filio debet.' O vocem duram atque indignam tua probitate, Laterensis! pater ut in iudicio capitis, pater ut in dimicatione fortunarum, pater ut apud talis viros obesse filio debeat? qui si esset turpissimus, si sordidissimus, tamen ipso nomine patrio valeret apud clementis iudices et misericordis; valeret, inquam, communi sensu omnium et dulcissima commendatione naturae.

[13] 'the father indeed,' says he, 'even ought to harm his son.' O voice harsh and unworthy of your probity, Laterensis! that a father in a capital trial, a father in a contest of fortunes, a father before such men, ought to be a hindrance to his son? who, even if he were most disgraceful, if most sordid, nevertheless by the very paternal name would have weight with clement and merciful judges; he would prevail, I say, by the common sense of all and the most sweet commendation of nature.

[32] sed cum sit Cn. Plancius is eques Romanus, ea primum vetustate equestris nominis ut pater, ut avus, ut maiores eius omnes equites Romani fuerint, summum in praefectura florentissima gradum tenuerint et dignitatis et gratiae, deinde ut ipse in legionibus P. Crassi imperatoris inter ornatissimos homines, equites Romanos, summo splendore fuerit, ut postea princeps inter suos plurimarum rerum sanctissimus et iustissimus iudex, maximarum societatum auctor, plurimarum magister: si non modo in eo nihil umquam reprehensum sed laudata sunt omnia, tamen is oberit honestissimo filio pater qui vel minus honestum et alienum tueri vel auctoritate sua vel gratia possit?

[32] But since Gnaeus Plancius is that Roman knight, of such antiquity of equestrian name that his father, his grandfather, and all his ancestors were Roman knights, and held in the most flourishing prefecture the highest rank both of dignity and of favor; then that he himself, in the legions of the general Publius Crassus, was among the most adorned men, Roman knights, with the highest splendor; that afterwards he was a leader among his own, a most upright and most just judge in very many matters, founder of the greatest companies, master of many—if not only has nothing ever been found fault with in him, but all things have been praised, nevertheless will that father be a hindrance to a most honorable son, who could defend even one less honorable and a stranger either by his authority or by his influence?

[33] 'asperius,' inquit, 'locutus est aliquid aliquando.' immo fortasse liberius. 'at id ipsum,' inquit, 'non est ferendum.' ergo ei ferendi sunt qui hoc queruntur, libertatem equitis Romani se ferre non posse? Vbinam ille mos, ubi illa aequitas iuris, ubi illa antiqua libertas quae malis oppressa civilibus extollere iam caput et aliquando recreata se erigere debebat?

[33] 'He once spoke something somewhat too harshly,' he says. Nay rather, perhaps more freely. 'But that very thing,' he says, 'is not to be borne.' Therefore, are those to be borne who complain of this, that they cannot bear the liberty of a Roman eques? Vbinam is that custom, where is that equity of law, where that ancient liberty which, oppressed by civil ills, ought now to raise its head and, once revived, to lift itself up?

equitum ego Romanorum in homines nobilissimos maledicta, publicanorum in Q. Scaevolam, virum omnibus ingenio, iustitia, integritate praestantem, aspere et ferociter et libere dicta commemorem?

Shall I recount the maledictions of the Roman equites against the most noble men, the publicani against Q. Scaevola, a man excelling all in talent, justice, and integrity, words spoken harshly and fiercely and freely?

[XIV] consuli P. Nasicae praeco Granius medio in foro, cum ille edicto iustitio domum decedens rogasset Granium quid tristis esset; an quod reiectae auctiones essent: 'immo vero,' inquit, 'quod legationes.' idem tribuno pl. potentissimo homini, M. Druso, et multa in re publica molienti, cum ille eum salutasset <et>, ut fit, dixisset: 'quid agis, Grani?' respondit: 'immo vero tu, Druse, quid agis?' ille L. Crassi, ille M. Antoni voluntatem asperioribus facetiis saepe perstrinxit impune: nunc usque eo est oppressa nostra adrogantia civitas ut, quae fuit olim praeconi in ridendo, nunc equiti Romano in plorando non sit concessa libertas.

[XIV] the crier Granius, to the consul P. Nasica, in the middle of the forum—when he, departing home after an edict of iustitium, had asked Granius why he was sad, whether because the auctions had been postponed—“nay rather,” he says, “because the legations.” the same man to the tribune of the plebs, a most powerful man, M. Drusus, and engineering many things in the republic, when he had greeted him and, as happens, had said: “how are you, Granius?” replied: “nay rather you, Drusus—how are you?” he often stung the favor of L. Crassus and M. Antonius with somewhat harsher witticisms, with impunity: now our commonwealth is oppressed by arrogance to such a degree that the liberty which once belonged to a crier in joking is now not conceded to a Roman knight in lamenting.

[34] quae enim umquam Plancio vox fuit contumeliae potius quam doloris? quid est autem umquam questus nisi cum a sociis et a se iniuriam propulsaret? Cum senatus impediretur quo minus, id quod hostibus semper erat tributum, responsum equitibus Romanis redderetur, omnibus illa iniuria dolori fuit publicanis, sed eum ipsum dolorem hic tulit paulo apertius.

[34] For what utterance of Plancius was ever of contumely rather than of sorrow? And when has he ever made a complaint except when he was repelling an injury from his allies and from himself? When the senate was being hindered from returning an answer to the Roman equestrians—something which has always been granted even to enemies—that injustice was a grief to all the publicani (tax‑farmers), but he himself bore that very grief a little more openly.

communis ille sensus in aliis fortasse latuit; hic, quod cum ceteris animo sentiebat, id magis quam ceteri et voltu promptum habuit et lingua.

that common sentiment perhaps lay hidden in others; this man, what he felt in mind along with the rest, he had that, more than the others, manifest both in countenance and in tongue.

[35] quamquam, iudices,—agnosco enim ex me—permulta in Plancium quae ab eo numquam dicta sunt conferuntur. ego quia dico aliquid aliquando non studio adductus, sed aut contentione dicendi aut lacessitus, et quia, ut fit in multis, exit aliquando aliquid si non perfacetum, at tamen fortasse non rusticum, quod quisque dixit, me id dixisse dicunt. ego autem, si quid est quod mihi scitum esse videatur et homine ingenuo dignum atque docto, non aspernor, stomachor cum aliorum non me digna in me conferuntur.

[35] although, judges,—for I acknowledge from myself—very many things are being imputed against Plancius which were never said by him. I, because I sometimes say something, not led by zeal, but either by the contention of speaking or when provoked, and because, as happens with many, sometimes something comes out, if not very facetious, yet perhaps not rustic, whatever anyone has said, they say that I said it. But I, if there is anything which seems to me to be witty and worthy of a freeborn and learned man, do not disdain it; I am vexed when things of others, not worthy of me, are ascribed to me.

nam quod primus scivit legem de publicanis tum cum vir amplissimus consul id illi ordini per populum dedit quod per senatum, si licuisset, dedisset, si in eo crimen est quia suffragium tulit, quis non tulit publicanus? si quia primus scivit, utrum id sortis esse vis, an eius qui illam legem ferebat? si sortis, nullum crimen est in casu; si consulis, <statuis> etiam hunc a summo viro principem esse ordinis iudicatum.

For as to the fact that he first learned of the law about the publicans, at the time when a most distinguished man, the consul, gave to that order through the people what he would have given through the senate, if it had been permitted: if there is a charge in this because he cast his suffrage, what publican did not cast it? If it is because he first knew, do you wish that to be the work of lot, or of the man who was carrying that law? If of lot, there is no crime in a chance event; if of the consul, you also decide that this man too was judged by a most eminent man to be the chief of the order.

[XV]

[15]

[36] sed aliquando veniamus ad causam. in qua tu nomine legis Liciniae, quae est de sodaliciis, omnis ambitus leges complexus es; neque enim quicquam aliud in hac lege nisi editicios iudices es secutus. quod genus iudicum si est aequum ulla in re nisi in hac tribuaria, non intellego quam ob rem senatus hoc uno in genere tribus edi voluerit ab accusatore neque eandem editionem transtulerit in ceteras causas, de ipso denique ambitu reiectionem fieri voluerit iudicum alternorum, cumque nullum genus acerbitatis praetermitteret, hoc tamen unum praetereundum putarit.

[36] but at length let us come to the cause. In which you, under the name of the Licinian law, which is about sodalities, have embraced all the ambitus-laws; for in this law you have followed nothing else except edititious judges. Which kind of judges, if it is equitable in any matter save in this tribal one, I do not understand for what reason the senate would have wished in this one kind that the tribes be published by the accuser, nor transferred the same edition into the other causes; and, concerning ambitus itself, that a rejection of alternate judges be made; and although it omitted no kind of acerbity, yet it thought this one thing should be passed over.

[37] quid? huiusce rei tandem obscura causa est, an et agitata tum cum ista in senatu res agebatur, et disputata hesterno die copiosissime a Q. Hortensio, cui tum est senatus adsensus? hoc igitur sensimus: 'cuiuscumque tribus largitor esset, et per hanc consensionem quae magis honeste quam vere sodalitas nominaretur quam quisque tribum turpi largitione corrumperet, eum maxime eis hominibus qui eius tribus essent esse notum.' ita putavit senatus, cum reo tribus ederentur eae quas is largitione devinctas haberet, eosdem fore testis et iudices.

[37] What? Is the cause of this matter, then, obscure, or was it not both agitated at the time when that business was being handled in the senate, and most copiously argued yesterday by Quintus Hortensius, to whom the senate then assented? This, therefore, was our understanding: ‘of whatever tribe the briber might be, and by this consensus which would be called a sodality rather honorably than truly, by which each man would corrupt his tribe with base bribery, he would be especially well known to those men who were of that tribe.’ Thus the senate thought that, when in the defendant’s case the tribes were to be produced—those which he held bound by bribery—the same persons would be both witnesses and judges.

acerbum omnino genus iudici sed tamen, si vel sua vel ea quae maxime esset cuique coniuncta tribus ederetur, vix recusandum.

an altogether bitter kind of trial; yet, if either one’s own tribe, or that tribe which was most conjoined to each, were assigned, it could scarcely be refused.

[XVI]

[16]

[38] tu autem, Laterensis, quas tribus edidisti? Teretinam, credo. fuit certe id aequum et certe exspectatum est et fuit dignum constantia tua.

[38] But you, Laterensis, which tribes did you publish? The Teretina, I suppose. Surely that was equitable, and surely it was expected, and it was worthy of your constancy.

cuius tu tribus venditorem et corruptorem et sequestrem Plancium fuisse clamitas, eam tribum profecto, severissimorum praesertim hominum et gravissimorum, edere debuisti. at Voltiniam; libet enim tibi nescio quid etiam de illa tribu criminari. hanc igitur ipsam cur non edidisti?

of which tribe you keep shouting that Plancius was the vendor and corrupter and sequester, that tribe, assuredly—especially as it consists of the most severe and most grave men—you ought to have named. but the Voltinian; for it pleases you to accuse I-know-not-what even about that tribe. why then did you not name this very one?

quid Plancio cum lemonia, quid cum Oufentina, quid cum Clustumina? nam Maeciam, non quae iudicaret, sed quae reiceretur, esse voluisti.

what has Plancius to do with the Lemonia, what with the Oufentina, what with the Clustumina? for you wanted the Maecia, not to judge, but to be rejected.

[39] dubitatis igitur, iudices, quin vos M. Laterensis suo iudicio non ad sententiam legis, sed ad suam spem aliquam de civitate delegerit? dubitatis quin eas tribus in quibus magnas necessitudines habet Plancius, cum ille non ediderit, iudicarit officiis ab hoc observatas, non largitione corruptas? quid enim potes dicere cur ista editio non summam habeat acerbitatem, remota ratione illa quam in decernendo secuti sumus?

[39] Do you then doubt, judges, that M. Laterensis, by his own judgment, selected you not according to the sentence (meaning) of the law, but according to some hope of his about the commonwealth? Do you doubt that those tribes in which Plancius has great connections, although he did not publish them, he judged to have been maintained by his good offices, not corrupted by largess? For what can you say why that publication should not have the highest bitterness, once that reasoning is removed which we followed in making our decree?

[40] tu deligas ex omni populo aut amicos tuos aut inimicos meos aut denique eos quos inexorabilis, quos inhumanos, quos crudelis existimes; tu me ignaro, nec opinante, inscio convoces et tuos et tuorum amicorum necessarios, iniquos vel meos vel etiam defensorum meorum, eodemque adiungas quos natura putes asperos atque omnibus iniquos; deinde effundas repente ut ante consessum meorum iudicum videam quam potuerim qui essent futuri suspicari, apud eosque me ne quinque quidem reiectis, quod in proximo reo de consili sententia constitutum est, cogas causam de fortunis omnibus dicere? non enim,

[40] do you pick out of the whole people either your friends or my enemies, or, finally, those whom you deem inexorable, inhuman, cruel; do you, with me unaware, not expecting it, ignorant, convoke both your own and your friends’ close connections, men unfair either to me or even to my defenders, and to the same lot add those whom you think by nature harsh and unjust to all; then do you suddenly pour them out, so that, before the session of my judges, I see—sooner than I could have suspected beforehand—who they are going to be, and before these you compel me, with not even five rejections, which in the case of the last defendant was established by the sentence of the council, to plead a cause touching all my fortunes? for not indeed,

[41] si aut Plancius ita vixit ut offenderet sciens neminem, aut tu ita errasti ut eos ederes imprudens, ut nos invito te tamen ad iudices non ad carnifices veniremus, idcirco ista editio per se non acerba est.

[41] if either Plancius so lived as to knowingly offend no one, or you so erred as unwittingly to put them forth, so that, you being unwilling, we nevertheless came before judges and not before executioners, then on that account that edition in itself is not harsh.

[XVII] an vero nuper clarissimi cives nomen editicii iudicis non tulerunt, cum ex cxxv iudicibus principibus equestris ordinis quinque et lxx reus reiceret, l referret, omniaque potius permiscuerunt quam ei legi condicionique parerent; nos neque ex delectis iudicibus sed ex omni populo, neque editos ad reiciendum sed ab accusatore constitutos iudices ita feremus ut neminem reiciamus?

[17] Or indeed did not, quite recently, most illustrious citizens endure not even the very name of an edictal judge, when out of 125 judges, leading men of the equestrian order, the defendant would reject seventy-five and take back fifty, and they rather threw everything into confusion than obey that law and condition; are we, neither from selected judges but from the whole people, nor judges published for rejection but appointed by the accuser, to bear it in such a way that we reject no one?

[42] neque ego nunc legis iniquitatem queror, sed factum tuum a sententia legis doceo discrepare; et illud acerbum iudicium si, quem ad modum senatus censuit populusque iussit, ita fecisses ut huic et suam et ab hoc observatas tribus ederes, non modo non quererer, sed hunc eis iudicibus editis qui idem testes esse possent absolutum putarem, neque nunc multo secus existimo. Cum enim has tribus edidisti, ignotis te iudicibus uti malle quam notis indicavisti; fugisti sententiam legis, aequitatem omnem reiecisti, in tenebris quam in luce causam versari maluisti.

[42] nor am I now complaining of the inequity of the law, but I show that your deed departs from the sense of the law; and if you had carried out that bitter judgment in the way the senate resolved and the people ordered, namely so that you would publish to this man both his own tribe and the tribes observed by him, not only would I not complain, but I would think this man acquitted with those judges published who could be the same as witnesses, nor do I now think much otherwise. For when you published these tribes, you indicated that you preferred to use unknown judges rather than known; you fled the intent of the law, you rejected all equity, you preferred that the cause be handled in darkness rather than in light.

[43] 'Voltinia tribus ab hoc corrupta, Teretinam habuerat venalem. quid diceret apud Voltiniensis aut apud tribulis suos iudices?' immo vero tu quid diceres? quem iudicem ex illis aut tacitum testem haberes aut vero etiam excitares?

[43] 'The Voltinia tribe, corrupted by this man, had held the Terentina for sale. What would he say before the Voltinians or before his tribesmen as his judges?' Nay rather, what would you say? Which judge from among them would you have as a silent witness, or indeed even summon?

etenim si reus tribus ederet, Voltiniam fortasse Plancius propter necessitudinem ac vicinitatem, suam vero certe edidisset. vel si quaesitor huic edendus fuisset, quem tandem potius quam hunc C. Alfium quem habet, cui notissimus esse debet, vicinum, tribulem, gravissimum hominem iustissimumque edidisset? cuius quidem aequitas et ea voluntas erga Cn. Planci salutem quam ille sine ulla cupiditatis suspicione prae se fert facile declarat non fuisse fugiendos tribulis huic iudices cui quaesitorem tribulem exoptandum fuisse videatis.

for indeed, if the defendant were to announce the tribes, perhaps he would have announced the Voltinia because of connection and vicinity, but certainly he would have announced his own. Or if an inquisitor had to be designated for him, whom, pray, rather than this Gaius Alfius whom he has—one to whom he ought to be most well-known, a neighbor, a fellow-tribesman, a most weighty and most just man—would he have designated? The equity of this man, and that disposition toward the safety of Cn. Plancius which he displays without any suspicion of cupidity, readily shows that fellow-tribesmen as judges were not to be shunned by this man, for whom you see that a fellow-tribesman inquisitor ought to have been desired.

[XVIII]

[18]

[44] neque ego nunc consilium reprehendo tuum quod eas tribus quibus erat hic maxime notus edideris, sed a te doceo consilium non servatum senatus. etenim quis te tum audiret illorum, aut quid diceres? sequestremne Plancium?

[44] nor do I now criticize your plan, that you did not announce those tribes in which this man was most well-known, but I show that the counsel of the senate has not been observed by you. For indeed who of those men would then have listened to you, or what would you say? That Plancius was a sequester?

respuerent aures, nemo agnosceret, repudiarent. an gratiosum? illi libenter audirent, nos non timide confiteremur.

their ears would spit it out, no one would recognize him, they would repudiate it. Or a favorite? they would gladly listen, we would not timidly confess it.

noli enim putare, Laterensis, legibus istis quas senatus de ambitu sanciri voluerit id esse actum ut suffragatio, ut observantia, ut gratia tolleretur. semper fuerunt viri boni qui apud tribulis suos gratiosi esse vellent;

Do not, indeed, think, Laterensis, that by those laws which the Senate wished to be sanctioned concerning ambitus (electoral bribery) it was brought about that vote-solicitation (suffragatio), observance, or favor should be taken away. There have always been good men who wished to be in favor among their own tribesmen;

[45] neque vero tam durus in plebem noster ordo fuit ut eam coli nostra modica liberalitate noluerit, neque hoc liberis nostris interdicendum est, ne observent tribulis suos, ne diligant, ne conficere necessariis suis suam tribum possint, ne par ab eis munus in sua petitione respectent. haec enim plena sunt offici, plena observantiae, plena etiam antiquitatis. isto in genere et fuimus ipsi, cum ambitionis nostrae tempora postulabant, et clarissimos viros esse vidimus, et hodie esse volumus quam plurimos gratiosos.

[45] nor indeed has our order been so harsh toward the plebs that it would not wish that it be courted by our moderate liberality; nor should this be forbidden to our children, namely, to pay observance to their fellow-tribesmen, to love them, to be able to make up their own tribe with their necessaries, to look for a like service from them in their own petition. For these things are full of duty, full of observance, full also of antiquity. In this kind we ourselves too have been such, when the seasons of our ambition demanded it, and we have seen most illustrious men to be in favor, and today we wish there to be very many enjoying favor.

decuriatio tribulium, discriptio populi, suffragia largitione devincta severitatem senatus et bonorum omnium vim ac dolorem excitarent. haec doce, haec profer, huc incumbe, Laterensis, decuriasse Plancium, conscripsisse, sequestrem fuisse, pronuntiasse, divisisse; tum mirabor te eis armis uti quae tibi lex dabat noluisse. tribulibus enim iudicibus non modo severitatem illorum, si ista vera sunt, sed ne voltus quidem ferre possemus.

the decuriation of the tribesmen, the distribution (description) of the people, votes bound by largess would arouse the severity of the Senate and the force and pain of all the good. Teach these, bring these forward, press upon this, Laterensis: that Plancius formed decuries, enrolled, was a sequester, made proclamations, distributed; then I shall marvel that you were unwilling to use those arms which the law gave you. For with tribesmen as judges we could endure not only their severity, if those things are true, but not even their very faces.

[46] hanc tu rationem cum fugeris cumque eos iudices habere nolueris quorum in huius delicto cum scientia certissima, tum dolor gravissimus esse debuerit, quid apud hos dices qui abs te taciti requirunt cur sibi hoc oneris imposueris, cur se potissimum delegeris, cur denique se divinare malueris quam eos qui scirent iudicare?

[46] Since you have fled this rationale and have been unwilling to have as judges those whose knowledge in this offense ought to have been most certain and whose grief most grave, what will you say before these men who silently inquire of you why you have imposed this onus upon them, why you have chosen them in preference above all, why, finally, you have preferred that they divine rather than that those who knew should judge?

[XIX] ego Plancium, Laterensis, et ipsum gratiosum esse dico et habuisse in petitione multos cupidos sui gratiosos; quos tu si sodalis vocas, officiosam amicitiam nomine inquinas criminoso; sin, quia gratiosi sint, accusandos putas, noli mirari te id quod tua dignitas postularit repudiandis gratiosorum amicitiis non esse adsecutum. nam ut ego doceo gratiosum esse in sua tribu Plancium,

[19] I, Laterensis, say that Plancius too is in favor and that in his petition he had many of his own eager favorers; whom, if you call sodales, you stain dutiful friendship with a criminal name; but if, because they are men in favor, you think they are to be accused, do not marvel that, by repudiating the friendships of the men in favor, you have not attained that which your dignity demanded. For as I show that Plancius is a man in favor in his own tribe,

[47] quod multis benigne fecerit, pro multis spoponderit, in operas plurimos patris auctoritate et gratia miserit, quod denique omnibus officiis per se, per patrem, per maiores suos totam Atinatem praefecturam comprehenderit, sic tu doce sequestrem fuisse, largitum esse, conscripsisse, tribulis decuriavisse. quod si non potes, noli tollere ex ordine nostro liberalitatem, noli maleficium putare esse gratiam, noli observantiam sancire poena. itaque haesitantem te in hoc sodaliciorum tribuario crimine ad communem ambitus causam contulisti, in qua desinamus aliquando, si videtur, volgari et pervagata declamatione contendere.

[47] because he has done many kindnesses for many, has stood surety for many, has sent very many into operae by his father’s authority and influence, because, finally, by every office, through himself, through his father, through his ancestors, he has encompassed the whole Atinate prefecture, so you, do show that he was a sequester (an escrow-agent), that he bestowed largess, that he drew up lists, that he divided his tribesmen into decuries. But if you cannot, do not remove liberality from our order; do not suppose favor (gratia) to be a crime; do not sanction dutiful observance with a penalty. And so, as you wavered in this tribal charge of the sodalities, you transferred yourself to the common cause of ambitus (electoral bribery), in which let us at last cease, if it seems good, to contend with a commonplace and much-bandied declamation.

[48] sic enim tecum ago. quam tibi commodum est, unam tribum delige; tu doce, id quod debes, per quem sequestrem, quo divisore corrupta sit; ego, si id facere non potueris quod, ut opinio mea fert, ne incipies quidem, per quem tulerit docebo. estne haec vera contentio?

[48] For thus I deal with you. Choose any one tribe that is convenient to you; you—show, as you ought, through what sequester, by which divisor it was corrupted; I, if you cannot do that—which, as my opinion suggests, you will not even begin—will show through whom he carried it. Is this a true contention?

placetne sic agi? num possum magis pedem conferre, ut aiunt, aut propius accedere? quid taces, quid dissimulas, quid tergiversaris?

Does it please to proceed thus? Can I, as they say, press in my step any further, or come closer? Why are you silent, why do you dissimulate, why do you tergiversate?

etiam atque etiam insto atque urgeo, insector, posco atque adeo flagito crimen. quamcumque tribum, inquam, delegeris quam tulerit Plancius, tu ostendito, si poteris, vitium; ego qua ratione tulerit docebo. neque erit haec alia ratio Plancio ac tibi, Laterensis.

Again and again I press and I urge, I harry, I demand and indeed I clamor for the charge. Whatever tribe, I say, you shall have chosen which Plancius carried, you show, if you can, the flaw; I will show by what method he carried it. Nor will this reasoning be different for Plancius than for you, Laterensis.

nam ut quas tribus tu tulisti, si iam ex te requiram, possis quorum studio tuleris explicare, sic ego hoc contendo, me tibi ipsi adversario cuiuscumque tribus rationem poposceris redditurum.

for just as, as to which tribes you carried, if I should now inquire of you, you could explain by whose zeal you carried them, so I contend this: that I will render to you yourself, my adversary, an account of whatever tribe you demand.

[XX]

[20]

[49] sed cur sic ago? quasi non comitiis iam superioribus sit Plancius designatus aedilis; quae comitia primum habere coepit consul cum omnibus in rebus summa auctoritate, tum harum ipsarum legum ambitus auctor; deinde habere coepit subito praeter opinionem omnium, ut, ne si cogitasset quidem largiri quispiam, daretur spatium comparandi. vocatae tribus, latum suffragium, diribitae . longe plurimum valuit Plancius; nulla largitionis nec fuit nec esse potuit suspicio.

[49] But why do I argue thus? as if Plancius had not already at the previous comitia been designated aedile; comitia which the consul first began to hold with the highest authority in all matters, and moreover the proposer of these very laws on ambitus; then he began to hold them suddenly, beyond everyone’s expectation, so that, even if someone had thought of bestowing largess, no time was given for making preparations. The tribes were summoned, the vote was taken, the were counted. By far Plancius prevailed the most; there was not, nor could there be, any suspicion of largess.

ain tandem? una centuria praerogativa tantum habet auctoritatis ut nemo umquam prior eam tulerit quin renuntiatus sit aut eis ipsis comitiis consul aut certe in illum annum; aedilem tu Plancium factum esse miraris, in quo non exigua pars populi, sed universus populus voluntatem suam declararit, cuius in honore non unius tribus pars sed comitia tota comitiis fuerint praerogativa? quo quidem tempore,

So then? Does a single prerogative century have such authority that no one who has ever first carried it has failed to be proclaimed consul either in those very comitia or at least for that year? And you marvel that Plancius was made aedile, in whose case not a small part of the people, but the entire people declared their will, so that in his honor not the portion of one tribe but the whole comitia served as the prerogative for the comitia? At which very time,

[50] Laterensis, si id facere voluisses, aut si gravitatis esse putasses tuae quod multi nobiles saepe fecerunt, ut, cum minus valuissent suffragiis quam putassent, postea prolatis comitiis prosternerent se et populo Romano fracto animo atque humili supplicarent, non dubito quin omnis ad te conversura fuerit multitudo. numquam enim fere nobilitas, integra praesertim atque innocens, a populo Romano supplex repudiata est. sed si tibi gravitas tua et magnitudo animi pluris fuit, sicuti esse debuit, quam aedilitas, noli, cum habeas id quod malueris, desiderare id quod minoris putaris.

[50] Laterensis, if you had wished to do that, or if you had thought it to be of your gravitas—what many nobles have often done—that, when they had prevailed less in the suffrages than they had supposed, afterwards, the comitia having been deferred, they would prostrate themselves and, with broken and humble spirit, supplicate the Roman people, I do not doubt that the whole multitude would have turned itself to you. For hardly ever, especially when intact and innocent, has the nobilitas as a suppliant been repudiated by the Roman people. But if your gravitas and magnitudo of spirit were of more value to you, as they ought to have been, than the aedileship, do not, since you have that which you preferred, desire that which you reckoned of less.

equidem primum ut honore dignus essem maxime semper laboravi, secundo ut existimarer; tertium mihi fuit illud quod plerisque primum est, ipse honos, qui eis denique debet esse iucundus quorum dignitati populus Romanus testimonium, non beneficium ambitioni dedit.

Indeed, first, I have always labored most to be worthy of honor; in the second place, to be esteemed; my third aim was that which is first for most people, the honor itself, which ought, in fine, to be pleasant for those to whose dignity the Roman People gave a testimonial, not a benefaction to ambition.

[XXI]

[21]

[51] quaeris etiam, Laterensis, quid imaginibus tuis, quid ornatissimo atque optimo viro, patri tuo, respondeas mortuo. noli ista meditari atque illud cave potius ne tua ista querela dolorque nimius ab illis sapientissimis viris reprendatur. vidit enim pater tuus Appium Claudium, nobilissimum hominem, vivo fratre suo, potentissimo et clarissimo civi, C. Claudio, aedilem non esse factum et eundem sine repulsa factum esse consulem; vidit hominem sibi maxime coniunctum, egregium virum, L. Volcatium, vidit M. Pisonem ista in aedilitate offensiuncula accepta summos a populo Romano esse honores adeptos.

[51] You also ask, Laterensis, what you should answer to your ancestral images, what to your father—most distinguished and best of men—now dead. Do not brood on those things, and rather take care of this: lest your complaint and excessive grief be reprehended by those most wise men. For your father saw Appius Claudius, a most noble man, while his brother was still alive—Gaius Claudius, a most powerful and most illustrious citizen—not made aedile, and the same man made consul without repulse; he saw a man most closely connected to him, an excellent man, Lucius Volcatius, he saw Marcus Piso—after that little offensiuncula in the aedileship had been received—obtain the highest honors from the Roman people.

avus vero tuus et P. Nasicae tibi aediliciam praedicaret repulsam, quo cive neminem ego statuo in hac re publica fortiorem, et C. Mari, qui duabus aedilitatis acceptis repulsis septiens consul est factus, et L. Caesaris, Cn. Octavi, M. Tulli, quos omnis scimus aedilitate praeteritos consules esse factos.

and indeed your grandfather would also point out to you the aedilician repulse of P. Nasica—than whom I judge no citizen in this republic stronger—and of C. Marius, who, having received two repulses for the aedileship, was made consul seven times, and of L. Caesar, Cn. Octavius, and M. Tullius, all of whom we know, having been passed over for the aedileship, to have been made consuls.

[52] sed quid ego aedilicias repulsas conligo? quae saepe eius modi habitae sunt ut eis qui praeteriti essent benigne a populo factum videretur. tribunus militum L. Philippus, summa nobilitate et eloquentia, quaestor C. Caelius, clarissimus ac fortissimus adulescens, tribuni pl. P. Rutilius Rufus, C. Fimbria, C. Cassius, Cn. Orestes facti non sunt, quos tamen omnis consules factos scimus esse.

[52] But why am I compiling rejections for the aedileship?—which have often been regarded as of such a sort that to those who were passed over it seemed a kindness done by the people. The military tribune L. Philippus, of the highest nobility and eloquence; the quaestor C. Caelius, a most illustrious and most brave young man; the tribunes of the plebs P. Rutilius Rufus, C. Fimbria, C. Cassius, Cn. Orestes were not elected—yet all of whom we know were made consuls.

quae tibi ultro pater et maiores tui non consolandi tui gratia dicent, neque vero quo te liberent aliqua culpa, quam tu vereris ne a te suscepta videatur, sed ut te ad istum cursum tenendum quem a prima aetate suscepisti cohortentur. nihil est enim, mihi crede, Laterensis, de te detractum. <detractum> dico; si me hercule vere quod accidit interpretari velis, est aliquid etiam de virtute significatum tua.

which your father and your ancestors will say to you of their own accord, not for the sake of consoling you, nor indeed in order to free you from any fault which you fear may seem to have been undertaken by you, but to encourage you to hold to that course which you took up from your earliest age. For nothing, believe me, Laterensis, has been taken away from you. <detractum> I say; if, by Hercules, you are willing to interpret truly what has happened, there is even something signified about your virtue.

[XXII] noli enim existimare non magnum quendam motum fuisse illius petitionis tuae, de qua ne aliquid iurares destitisti. denuntiasti homo adulescens quid de summa re publica sentires, fortius tu quidem quam non nulli defuncti honoribus, sed apertius quam vel ambitionis vel aetatis tuae ratio postulabat.

[22] do not, indeed, suppose that that candidature of yours did not cause a certain great commotion, in which you even drew back rather than swear to anything. you, a young man, declared what you felt about the supreme matter of the republic, more bravely indeed than some who have already discharged honors, but more openly than the calculation either of ambition or of your age demanded.

[53] quam ob rem in dissentiente populo noli putare nullos fuisse quorum animos tuus ille fortis animus offenderet; qui te incautum fortasse nunc tuo loco demovere potuerunt, providentem autem et praecaventem numquam certe movebunt. an te illa argumenta duxerunt? 'dubitatis,' inquit, 'quin coitio facta sit, cum tribus plerasque cum Plotio tulerit Plancius?' an una fieri potuerunt, si una tribus non tulissent?

[53] For which reason, with the people dissenting, do not think there were none whose minds your strong spirit offended; men who perhaps could now have removed you from your place while you were incautious, but will certainly never move you when you are provident and precautious. Or did those arguments lead you? 'Do you doubt,' he says, 'that a coalition has been made, since Plancius carried most of the tribes together with Plotius?' Or could they have acted as one, if they had not carried the tribes as one?

'at non nullas punctis paene totidem.' quippe, cum iam facti prope superioribus comitiis declaratique venissent. quamquam ne id quidem suspicionem coitionis habuerit. neque enim umquam maiores nostri sortitionem constituissent aediliciam, nisi viderent accidere posse ut competitores pares suffragiis essent.

'but not none, with points almost the same.' indeed, since in the earlier comitia they had already come near to being elected and declared. although not even that would have carried a suspicion of a coition. for our ancestors would never have established the aedilician sortition, unless they saw that it could happen that competitors were equal in suffrages.

[54] et ais prioribus comitiis Aniensem a Plotio Pedio, Teretinam Plancio tibi esse concessam; nunc ab utroque eas avolsas, ne in angustum venirent. quam convenit nondum cognita populi voluntate hos quos iam tum coniunctos fuisse dicis iacturam suarum tribuum, quo vos adiuvaremini, fecisse; eosdem, cum iam essent experti quid valerent, restrictos et tenacis fuisse? etenim verebantur, credo, angustias.

[54] and you say that in the earlier comitia the Aniensis was conceded to you by Plotius Paedius, the Teretina by Plancius; now that from both these were torn away, lest they come into a tight corner. How is it consistent that, with the people’s will not yet known, these men whom you say were already then conjoined made a jettison of their own tribes, in order that you might be helped; yet the same men, when they had already learned what they could avail, were close and tight‑fisted? For indeed, they were afraid, I suppose, of narrow straits.

quasi res in contentionem aut in discrimen aliquod posset venire. sed tamen tu A. Plotium, virum ornatissimum, in idem crimen vocando indicas eum te adripuisse a quo non sis interrogatus. nam quod questus es pluris te testis habere de Voltinia quam quot in ea tribu puncta tuleris, indicas aut eos testis te producere qui, quia nummos acceperint, te praeterierint, aut te ne gratuita quidem eorum suffragia tulisse.

as if the matter could come into contention or into some crisis. But yet you, by calling A. Plotius, a most distinguished man, into the same charge, indicate that you have snatched up one by whom you were not interrogated. For when you complained that you have more witnesses from the Voltinia than the number of points you carried in that tribe, you indicate either that you produce as witnesses those who, because they have taken money, passed you by, or that you did not carry even their suffrages when gratis.

[XXIII]

[23]

[55] illud vero crimen de nummis quos in circo Flaminio deprehensos esse dixisti caluit re recenti, nunc in causa refrixit. neque enim qui illi nummi fuerint nec quae tribus nec qui divisor ostendis. atque is quidem eductus ad consules qui tum in crimen vocabatur se inique a tuis iactatum graviter querebatur.

[55] But that charge, indeed, about the coins which you said were apprehended in the Circus Flaminius, was hot when the affair was fresh; now, in the case, it has cooled. For you show neither what those coins were, nor which tribe, nor what divisor. And the man who at that time was being called into the charge, when brought before the consuls, complained grievously that he was unjustly bandied about by your partisans.

qui si erat divisor, praesertim eius quem tu habebas reum, cur abs te reus non est factus? cur non eius damnatione aliquid ad hoc iudicium praeiudici comparasti? sed neque tu haec exhibes neque eis confidis; alia te ratio, alia cogitatio ad spem huius opprimendi excitavit.

If he was a divisor, especially the divisor of the man whom you had as a defendant, why was he not made a defendant by you? Why did you not, by his condemnation, procure some prejudgment for this trial? But you neither exhibit these things nor do you confide in them; another plan, another cogitation has aroused you to the hope of crushing this man.

magnae sunt in te opes, late patet gratia; multi amici, multi cupidi tui, multi fautores laudis tuae. multi huic invident, multis etiam pater, optimus vir, nimium retinens equestris iuris et libertatis videtur; multi etiam communes inimici reorum omnium, qui ita semper testimonium de ambitu dicunt quasi aut moveant animos iudicum suis testimoniis, aut gratum populo Romano sit, aut ab eo facilius ob eam causam dignitatem quam volunt consequantur.

great are the resources in you, your favor extends widely; many friends, many who are desirous of you, many supporters of your renown. Many envy this man; to many also the father, an excellent man, seems too much a retainer of the right and liberty of the equestrian order; many too are the common enemies of all defendants, who always give testimony about electoral bribery as if either they moved the minds of the judges by their testimonies, or it were pleasing to the Roman people, or by it for that reason they might more easily obtain the dignity they desire.

[56] quibuscum me, iudices, pugnantem more meo pristino non videbitis; non quo mihi fas sit quicquam defugere quod salus Planci postulet, sed quia neque necesse est me id persequi voce quod vos mente videatis, et quod ita de me meriti sunt illi ipsi quos ego testis video paratos ut eorum reprehensionem vos vestrae prudentiae adsumere, meae modestiae remittere debeatis. illud unum vos magno opere oro atque obsecro, iudices, cum huius quem defendo, tum communis periculi causa, ne fictis auditionibus, ne disseminato dispersoque sermoni fortunas innocentium subiciendas putetis.

[56] with whom, judges, you will not see me contending in my former wonted manner; not because it would be right for me to shun anything that the safety of Plancius demands, but because it is not necessary that I prosecute with my voice what you behold with your mind, and because those very men whom I see prepared as witnesses have so deserved of me that you ought to assume their reprehension to your own prudence and remit it to my modesty. This one thing I greatly beg and beseech you, judges, both for the sake of this man whom I defend and for the cause of the common peril: do not think that the fortunes of the innocent should be subjected to fabricated auditiones, to talk disseminated and dispersed abroad.

[57] multi amici accusatoris, non nulli etiam nostri iniqui, multi communes obtrectatores atque omnium invidi multa finxerunt. nihil est autem tam volucre quam maledictum, nihil facilius emittitur, nihil citius excipitur, latius dissipatur. neque ego, si fontem maledicti reperietis, ut neglegatis aut dissimuletis umquam postulabo.

[57] many friends of the accuser, not a few even of our own unfair ones, many common detractors and enviers of all, have fabricated many things. nothing, however, is so winged as malediction—slander; nothing is more easily sent forth, nothing more swiftly caught up, and it is more widely scattered. nor, if you discover the source of the slander, will I ever demand that you neglect it or dissemble it.

sed si quid sine capite manabit, aut si quid erit eius modi ut non exstet auctor, qui audierit <autem> aut ita neglegens vobis esse videbitur ut unde audierit oblitus sit, aut ita levem habebit auctorem ut memoria dignum non putarit, huius illa vox volgaris 'audivi' ne quid innocenti reo noceat oramus.

but if anything should leak out without a head, or if anything should be of such a kind that no author exists, the one who has heard it, however, will either seem to you so negligent as to have forgotten whence he heard it, or will have so slight an author that he did not think it worthy of remembrance; we pray that this common phrase “I heard” may not harm an innocent defendant.

[XXIV]

[24]

[58] sed venio iam ad L. Cassium, familiarem meum, cuius ex oratione ne illum quidem Iuventium tecum expostulavi, quem ille omni et humanitate et virtute ornatus adulescens primum de plebe aedilem curulem factum esse dixit. in quo, Cassi, si ita tibi respondeam, nescisse id populum Romanum, neque fuisse qui id nobis narraret, praesertim mortuo Congo, non, ut opinor, admirere, cum ego ipse non abhorrens a studio antiquitatis me hic id ex te primum audisse confitear. et quoniam tua fuit perelegans et persubtilis oratio, digna equitis Romani vel studio vel pudore, quoniamque sic ab his es auditus ut magnus honos et ingenio et humanitati tuae tribueretur, respondebo ad ea quae dixisti, quae pleraque de ipso me fuerunt; in quibus ipsi aculei, si quos habuisti in me reprehendendo, tamen mihi non ingrati acciderunt.

[58] But I come now to L. Cassius, my familiar, from whose oration I did not even expostulate with you about that Juventius, whom he said—a young man adorned with every humanity and virtue—to have been the first from the plebs made curule aedile. In which matter, Cassius, if I should answer you thus: that the Roman people did not know that, nor was there anyone to relate it to us, especially with Congo dead, you would not, as I suppose, marvel, since I myself, not averse to the study of antiquity, confess that here I first heard this from you. And since your oration was very elegant and very subtle, worthy of a Roman knight in either zeal or modesty, and since you were so heard by these men that great honor was paid both to your talent and to your humanity, I will respond to the things you said, most of which were about me myself; in which the stings themselves, if you had any in censuring me, nevertheless did not befall me ungratefully.

[59] Quaesisti utrum mihi putarem, equitis Romani filio, faciliorem fuisse ad adipiscendos honores viam an futuram esse filio meo, quia esset familia consulari. ego vero quamquam illi omnia malo quam mihi, tamen honorum aditus numquam illi faciliores optavi quam mihi fuerunt. quin etiam, ne forte ille sibi me potius peperisse iam honores quam iter demonstrasse adipiscendorum putet, haec illi soleo praecipere—quamquam ad praecepta aetas non est gravis—quae rex ille a Iove ortus suis praecepit filiis: vigilandum est semper; multae insidiae sunt bonis.

[59] You asked whether I thought, as the son of a Roman knight, that the way to attain honors had been easier for me, or would be for my son, because he would be of a consular family. As for me, although I prefer everything for him rather than for myself, nevertheless I have never wished the approaches to honors to be easier for him than they were for me. Nay rather, lest perchance he think that I have already won honors for him rather than shown the path for obtaining them, I am accustomed to enjoin upon him these things—although he is not at an age to be burdened with precepts—which that king sprung from Jove enjoined upon his sons: one must always keep vigil; many ambushes await good men.

id quod multi invideant— Nostis cetera. nonne, quae scripsit gravis et ingeniosus poeta, scripsit non ut illos regios pueros qui iam nusquam erant, sed ut nos et nostros liberos ad laborem et ad laudem excitaret?

a thing which many envy— You know the rest. Surely what the grave and ingenious poet wrote, he wrote not for those royal boys who by now were nowhere to be found, but to rouse us and our children to labor and to laud?

[60] quaeris quid potuerit amplius adsequi Plancius, si Cn. Scipionis fuisset filius. magis aedilis fieri non potuisset, sed hoc praestaret, quod ei minus invideretur. etenim honorum gradus summis hominibus et infimis sunt pares, gloriae dispares.

[60] You ask what more Plancius could have attained, if he had been the son of Gnaeus Scipio. He could not have been more an aedile, but he would have this advantage, that he would be less envied. For the grades of honors are equal for the highest men and the lowest, but those of glory are unequal.

[XXV] quis nostrum se dicit M'. Curio, quis C. Fabricio, quis C. Duellio parem, quis <A.> Atilio Calatino, quis Cn. et P. Scipionibus, quis Africano, Marcello, maximo? tamen eosdem sumus honorum gradus quos illi adsecuti. etenim in virtute multi sunt adscensus, ut is maxime gloria excellat qui virtute plurimum praestet; honorum populi finis est consulatus; quem magistratum iam octingenti fere consecuti sunt.

[25] who among us says that he is equal to M'. Curio, who to C. Fabricius, who to C. Duellius, who to <A.> Atilius Calatinus, who to Cn. and P. Scipio, who to Africanus, to Marcellus, to Maximus? nevertheless we have attained the same grades of honors that they attained. for in virtue there are many ascents, so that he most excels in glory who most surpasses in virtue; the end of the people’s honors is the consulship; which magistracy almost 800 have already obtained.

Horum, si diligenter quaeres, vix decimam partem reperies gloria dignam. sed nemo umquam sic egit ut tu: 'cur iste fit consul? quid potuit amplius, si L. Brutus esset, qui civitatem dominatu regio liberavit?' honore nihil amplius, laude multum.

Of these, if you inquire diligently, you will scarcely find a tenth part worthy of glory. But no one ever has proceeded thus as you: 'Why is that man made consul? What more could he have achieved, if he were L. Brutus, who liberated the state from royal domination?' in honor, nothing more; in praise, much.

sic igitur Plancius nihilo minus quaestor est factus et tribunus pl. et aedilis quam si esset summo loco natus, sed haec pari loco orti sunt innumerabiles alii consecuti.

Thus therefore Plancius was made quaestor and tribune of the plebs and aedile none the less than if he had been born of the highest rank, but these offices have been attained by innumerable others sprung from an equal rank.

[61] profers triumphos T. Didi et C. Mari et quaeris quid simile in Plancio. quasi vero isti quos commemoras propterea magistratus ceperint quod triumpharant, et non, quia commissi sunt eis magistratus in quibus re bene gesta triumpharent, . rogas quae castra viderit; qui et miles in Creta hoc imperatore et tribunus in Macedonia militum fuerit, et quaestor tantum ex re militari detraxerit temporis quantum in me custodiendum transferre maluerit. quaeris num disertus sit.

[61] You bring forward the triumphs of T. Didius and C. Marius and ask what is similar in Plancius—just as though those whom you mention had for that reason obtained magistracies because they had triumphed, and not, because magistracies were entrusted to them in which, the affair having been well conducted, they might triumph, . You ask what camps he has seen; he who was both a soldier in Crete under this commander and a tribune of soldiers in Macedonia, and who, as quaestor, subtracted only so much time from military affairs as he preferred to transfer to the guarding of me. You ask whether he is eloquent.

[62] immo, id quod secundum est, ne sibi quidem videtur. num iuris consultus. quasi quisquam sit qui sibi hunc falsum de iure respondisse dicat.

[62] Rather—so far as the second point—he does not even seem so to himself. Is he a jurisconsult? As if there were anyone who would say that this man has given him a false response on law.

omnes enim istius modi artes in eis reprehenduntur qui, cum professi sunt, satis facere non possunt, non in eis qui se afuisse ab istis studiis confitentur. virtus, probitas, integritas in candidato, non linguae volubilitas, non ars, non scientia requiri solet. Vt nos in mancipiis parandis quamvis frugi hominem si pro fabro aut pro tectore emimus, ferre moleste solemus, si eas artis quas in emendo secuti sumus forte nesciunt, sin autem emimus quem vilicum imponeremus, quem pecori praeficeremus, nihil in eo nisi frugalitatem, laborem, vigilantiam esse curamus, sic populus Romanus deligit magistratus quasi rei publicae vilicos; in quibus si qua praeterea est ars, facile patitur, sin minus, virtute eorum et innocentia contentus est.

for all arts of that sort are blamed in those who, when they have professed them, cannot satisfy, not in those who confess that they have been absent from those studies. Virtue, probity, integrity in a candidate are usually required, not volubility of tongue, not art, not science. As we, in procuring slaves, if we buy a man, however frugal, for a smith or for a plasterer, are wont to take it ill if perchance they do not know those crafts which we had in view in buying; but if we buy someone to set in as a steward, to put in charge of the herd, we care that there be in him nothing except frugality, labor, vigilance, so the Roman People chooses magistrates as the stewards of the Republic; in whom, if there is any art besides, it easily permits it; if not, it is content with their virtue and innocence.

quotus enim quisque disertus, quotus quisque iuris peritus est, ut eos numeres qui volunt esse? quod si praeterea nemo est honore dignus, quidnam tot optimis et ornatissimis civibus est futurum?

for how few are eloquent, how few are expert in law—so few that you could count even those who wish to be? but if, besides, no one else is worthy of honor, what, pray, will become of so many most excellent and most well-ornamented citizens?

[XXVI]

[26]

[63] iubes Plancium de vitiis Laterensis dicere. nihil potest nisi eum nimis in se iracundum putavisse. idem effers Laterensem laudibus.

[63] You bid Plancius to speak of the vices of Laterensis. He can say nothing except that he supposed him too irascible toward himself. The same man exalts Laterensis with laudations.

facile patior id te agere multis verbis quod ad iudicium non pertineat, et id te accusantem tam diu dicere quod ego defensor sine periculo possim confiteri. atqui non modo confiteor summa in Laterense ornamenta esse sed te etiam reprehendo quod ea non enumeres, alia quaedam inania et levia conquiras. 'Praeneste fecisse ludos.' quid?

I readily endure your doing with many words what does not pertain to the judgment, and your, as accuser, saying for so long that which I, as defender, can confess without danger. And yet I not only confess that in Laterensis there are the highest distinctions, but I even reprehend you because you do not enumerate them, and you hunt up certain other empty and trivial things. ‘He made games at Praeneste.’ What?

alii quaestores nonne fecerunt? 'Cyrenis liberalem in publicanos, iustum in socios fuisse.' quis negat? sed ita multa Romae geruntur ut vix ea quae fiunt in provinciis audiantur.

did not other quaestors do so? 'at Cyrene he was liberal toward the publicani, just toward the allies.' who denies it? but so many things are transacted at Rome that scarcely are the things which are done in the provinces heard of.

[64] non vereor ne mihi aliquid, iudices, videar adrogare, si de quaestura mea dixero. quamvis enim illa floruerit, tamen eum me postea fuisse in maximis imperiis arbitror ut non ita multum mihi gloriae sit ex quaesturae laude repetendum. sed tamen non vereor ne quis audeat dicere ullius in Sicilia quaesturam aut clariorem aut gratiorem fuisse.

[64] I do not fear, judges, that I may seem to arrogate anything to myself, if I speak about my quaestorship. For although that flourished, yet I think that afterwards I was such a man in the greatest commands that not very much glory need be sought back for me from the praise of the quaestorship. But nonetheless I do not fear that anyone would dare to say that anyone’s quaestorship in Sicily was either more illustrious or more pleasing.

vere me hercule hoc dicam: sic tum existimabam, nihil homines aliud Romae nisi de quaestura mea loqui. frumenti in summa caritate maximum numerum miseram; negotiatoribus comis, mercatoribus iustus, mancipibus liberalis, sociis abstinens, omnibus eram visus in omni officio diligentissimus; excogitati quidam erant a Siculis honores in me inauditi.

Truly, by Hercules, I will say this: at that time I supposed that men at Rome were talking of nothing else except my quaestorship. In a period of extreme dearness I had sent a very great quantity of grain; to negotiators I was affable, to merchants just, to contractors liberal, toward the allies self-restrained; I seemed to all most diligent in every duty; certain unheard-of honors toward me had been devised by the Sicilians.

[65] itaque hac spe decedebam ut mihi populum Romanum ultro omnia delaturum putarem. at ego cum casu diebus eis itineris faciendi causa decedens e provincia Puteolos forte venissem, cum plurimi et lautissimi in eis locis solent esse, concidi paene, iudices, cum ex me quidam quaesisset quo die Roma exissem et num quidnam esset novi. cui cum respondissem me e provincia decedere: 'etiam me hercule,' inquit, 'ut opinor, ex Africa.'

[65] and so I was departing with this hope, that I thought the Roman people would of their own accord confer everything upon me. But when I, by chance, at that time—leaving the province for the sake of making my journey—had happened to come to Puteoli, where very many and the most fashionable are wont to be in those parts, I almost collapsed, judges, when a certain fellow asked me on what day I had left Rome and whether there was anything new. When I replied to him that I was departing from the province, “Yes, by Hercules,” he says, “as I suppose, from Africa.”

[XXVII] huic ego iam stomachans fastidiose: 'immo ex Sicilia,' inquam. tum quidam, quasi qui omnia sciret: 'quid? tu nescis,' inquit, 'hunc quaestorem Syracusis fuisse?' quid multa?

[27] To this fellow I, now irked, disdainfully: 'Rather, from Sicily,' I say. Then someone, as if he knew everything: 'What? do you not know,' he says, 'that this man was quaestor at Syracuse?' In short, what need of many words?

destiti stomachari et me unum ex eis feci qui ad aquas venissent.

I ceased fuming and made myself one of those who had come to the waters.

[66] sed ea res, iudices, haud scio an plus mihi profuerit quam si mihi tum essent omnes gratulati. nam postea quam sensi populi Romani auris hebetiores, oculos autem esse acris atque acutos, destiti quid de me audituri essent homines cogitare; feci ut postea cotidie praesentem me viderent, habitavi in oculis, pressi forum; neminem a congressu meo neque ianitor meus neque somnus absterruit. ecquid ego dicam de occupatis meis temporibus, cui fuerit ne otium quidem umquam otiosum?

[66] but that matter, Judges, I hardly know whether it profited me more than if at that time all had congratulated me. For after I perceived the ears of the Roman people to be rather dull, but their eyes to be keen and acute, I ceased to think what men would be about to hear concerning me; I contrived that thereafter every day they should see me in person—I lived in their eyes—I pressed the Forum; from an encounter with me neither my doorkeeper nor sleep deterred anyone. What am I to say of my occupied times, I for whom not even leisure has ever been leisurely?

nam quas tu commemoras, Cassi, legere te solere orationes, cum otiosus sis, has ego scripsi ludis et feriis, ne omnino umquam essem otiosus. etenim M. Catonis illud quod in principio scripsit Originum suarum semper magnificum et praeclarum putavi, 'clarorum virorum atque magnorum non minus oti quam negoti rationem exstare oportere.' itaque si quam habeo laudem, quae quanta sit nescio, parta Romae est, quaesita in foro; meaque privata consilia publici quoque casus comprobaverunt, ut etiam summa res publica mihi domi fuerit gerenda et urbs in urbe servanda.

for those orations, Cassius, which you mention you are wont to read when you are at leisure, I wrote these during the games and on holidays, so that I might never be idle at all. For indeed that saying of M. Cato, which he wrote at the beginning of his Origins, I have always judged magnificent and illustrious: ‘that for famous and great men an account of leisure ought to exist no less than of business.’ And so, if I have any praise—how great it is I do not know—it was won at Rome, sought in the forum; and my private counsels too the public crises have approved, so that even the supreme affair of the commonwealth had to be conducted by me at home, and the city had to be preserved within the city.

[67] eadem igitur, Cassi, via munita Laterensi est, idem virtuti cursus ad gloriam, hoc facilior fortasse quod ego huc a me ortus et per me nixus ascendi, istius egregia virtus adiuvabitur commendatione maiorum. sed ut redeam ad Plancium, numquam ex urbe is afuit nisi sorte, lege, necessitate; non valuit rebus isdem quibus fortasse non nulli, at valuit adsiduitate, valuit observandis amicis, valuit liberalitate; fuit in oculis, petivit, ea est usus ratione vitae qua minima invidia novi homines plurimi sunt eosdem honores consecuti.

[67] Therefore, Cassius, the same way has been paved for Laterensis, the same course for virtue to glory—perhaps easier in this respect, that I have climbed hither sprung from myself and relying on myself, whereas that man’s outstanding virtue will be aided by the commendation of his ancestors. But to return to Plancius: he was never away from the city except by lot, by law, by necessity; he did not prevail by the same resources by which perhaps some others did, but he did prevail by assiduity, by showing observance to his friends, by liberality; he was before men’s eyes, he canvassed, he used that plan of life by which, with the least envy, very many new men have attained those same honors.

[XXVIII]

[28]

[68] nam quod ais, Cassi, non plus me Plancio debere quam bonis omnibus, quod eis aeque mea salus cara fuerit, ego me debere bonis omnibus fateor. sed etiam ei quibus ego debeo boni viri et cives comitiis aediliciis aliquid se meo nomine Plancio debere dicebant. verum fac me multis debere et in eis Plancio; utrum igitur me conturbare oportet, an ceteris, cum cuiusque dies venerit, hoc nomen quod urget nunc cum petitur dissolvere?

[68] For as to what you say, Cassius, that I do not owe more to Plancius than to all good men, because my safety was equally dear to them, I confess that I owe to all good men. But even those to whom I am in debt—good men and citizens—were saying at the aedilician comitia that, in my name, they owed something to Plancius. Granted; suppose that I owe to many, and among them to Plancius: is it then I that ought to be thrown into confusion, or should the others, when each one’s day has come, discharge this account which now presses, now that he is a candidate?

quamquam dissimilis est pecuniae debitio et gratiae. nam qui pecuniam dissolvit, statim non habet id quod reddidit; qui autem debet, is retinet alienum; gratiam autem et qui refert habet, et qui habet in eo ipso quod habet refert. neque ego nunc Plancio desinam debere, si hoc solvero, nec minus ei redderem voluntate ipsa, si hoc molestiae non accidisset.

Although the indebtedness of money and of gratitude is dissimilar. For he who pays money immediately no longer has that which he has rendered back; but he who owes retains what is another’s; gratitude, however, both he who returns it has, and he who has it, in that very thing which he has, returns it. Nor shall I now cease to owe Plancius, if I shall have discharged this; nor would I render him less by the will itself, if this annoyance had not happened.

quaeris a me,

you ask me,

[69] Cassi, quid pro fratre meo, qui mihi est carissimus, quid pro meis liberis, quibus nihil mihi potest esse iucundius, amplius quam quod pro Plancio facio facere possim, nec vides istorum ipsorum caritate ad huius salutem defendendam maxime stimulari me atque excitari. nam neque illis huius salute a quo meam sciunt esse defensam quicquam est optatius, et ego ipse numquam illos aspicio quin, cum per hunc me eis conservatum esse meminerim, huius meritum in me recorder. Opimium damnatum esse commemoras, servatorem ipsum rei publicae, Calidium adiungis, cuius lege Q. Metellus in civitatem sit restitutus; reprehendis meas pro Plancio preces, quod neque Opimius suo nomine liberatus sit neque Metelli Calidius.

[69] Cassius, what more could I do for my brother, who is most dear to me, what for my children, than which nothing can be more delightful to me, than what I do for Plancius, could I do? and do you not see that by love for those very persons I am most especially goaded and stirred to defend this man’s safety. For to them nothing is more to be desired than the safety of this man, by whom they know mine to have been defended, and I myself never look upon them without, since I remember that through this man I have been preserved for them, recalling this man’s merit toward me. You remind us that Opimius was condemned, the very savior of the Republic; you add Calidius, by whose law Q. Metellus was restored to citizenship; you censure my prayers on behalf of Plancius, because neither was Opimius acquitted by his own name nor Calidius by the Metelli.

[XXIX] de Calidio tibi tantum respondeo quod ipse vidi, Q. Metellum Pium consulem praetoriis comitiis petente Q. Calidio populo Romano supplicasse, cum quidem non dubitaret et consul et homo nobilissimus patronum esse illum suum et familiae nobilissimae dicere.

[29] concerning Calidius I make only this reply, which I myself saw: that Quintus Metellus Pius, a consul, while Quintus Calidius was seeking the praetorship at the praetorian comitia, supplicated the Roman people—since indeed he did not hesitate, both as consul and as a most noble man, to say that that man was his patron and the patron of a most noble family.

[70] quo loco quaero ex te num id in iudicio Calidi putes quod ego in Planci facio, aut Metellum Pium, si Romae esse potuisset, aut patrem eius, si vixisset, non fuisse facturum. nam Opimi quidem calamitas utinam ex hominum memoria posset evelli! volnus illud rei publicae, dedecus huius imperi, turpitudo populi Romani, non iudicium putandum est.

[70] At this point I ask you whether you think that in the trial of Calidius that should be done which I am doing in that of Plancius, or that Metellus Pius, if he had been able to be at Rome, or his father, if he had lived, would not have done it. For would that the calamity of Opimius could be torn out from the memory of men! That wound of the republic, that disgrace of this empire, the turpitude of the Roman people, is not to be considered a judgment.

quam enim illi iudices, si iudices et non parricidae patriae nominandi sunt, graviorem potuerunt rei publicae infligere securim quam cum illum e civitate eiecerunt qui praetor finitimo, consul domestico bello rem publicam liberarat? at enim nimis ego magnum beneficium Planci facio et,

for what heavier axe could those judges—if they are to be called judges and not parricides of their fatherland—have inflicted upon the Republic than when they cast out from the state that man who, as praetor, had freed the Republic from a neighboring war, as consul from a domestic war? But indeed I am assigning too great a benefaction to Plancius, and,

[71] ut ais, id verbis exaggero. quasi vero me tuo arbitratu et non meo gratum esse oporteat. 'quod istius tantum meritum?' inquit; 'an quia te non iugulavit?' immo vero quia iugulari passus non est.

[71] as you say, I exaggerate it in words. As though indeed it ought to be at your arbitration and not my own that I be grateful. 'What so great a merit has that fellow?' he says; 'or because he did not slit your throat?' No, rather because he did not allow himself to be slaughtered.

quo quidem tu loco, Cassi, etiam purgasti inimicos meos meaeque vitae nullas ab illis insidias fuisse dixisti. posuit hoc idem Laterensis. quam ob rem paulo post de isto plura dicam; de te tantum requiro, utrum putes odium in me mediocre inimicorum fuisse—quod fuit ullorum umquam barbarorum tam immane ac tam crudele in hostem?—an fuisse in eis aliquem aut famae metum aut poenae quorum vidisti toto illo anno ferrum in foro, flammam in delubris, vim in tota urbe versari.

At which point, Cassius, you even purged my enemies and said that there had been no ambushes by them against my life. Laterensis posited this same thing. Wherefore a little later I will say more about that fellow; of you I only inquire whether you think the hatred against me on the part of my enemies was moderate—what of any barbarians was ever so monstrous and so cruel toward a foe?—or that there was in them any fear either for reputation or of punishment, you who saw throughout that whole year steel in the forum, flame in the shrines, and violence rampant in the whole city.

Nisi forte existimas eos idcirco vitae meae pepercisse quod de reditu meo nihil timerent. et quemquam putas fuisse tam excordem qui vivis his, stante urbe et curia rediturum me, si viverem, non putaret? quam ob rem non debes is homo et is civis praedicare vitam meam, quae fidelitate amicorum conservata sit, inimicorum modestia non esse appetitam.

Unless perhaps you suppose that they therefore spared my life because they feared nothing about my return. And do you think that anyone was so witless that, with these men alive, and the city and the Curia standing, he would not have thought that I, if I lived, would return? Wherefore you ought not, as such a man and such a citizen, to proclaim that my life, which was preserved by the fidelity of friends, was not assailed thanks to the moderation of my enemies.

[XXX]

[30]

[72] respondebo tibi nunc, Laterensis, minus fortasse vehementer quam abs te sum provocatus, sed profecto nec considerate minus nec minus amice. nam primum fuit illud asperius me, quae de Plancio dicerem, ementiri et temporis causa fingere. scilicet homo sapiens excogitavi quam ob rem viderer maximis benefici vinculis obstrictus, cum liber essem et solutus.

[72] I will answer you now, Laterensis, perhaps less vehemently than I have been provoked by you, but assuredly no less considerately nor less amicably. For, first, that was rather harsher—to say that I was lying about what I said concerning Plancius and feigning it for the occasion. Of course, a wise man, I devised why I might seem to be bound by the greatest chains of benefaction, when I was free and unshackled.

quid enim? mihi ad defendendum Plancium parum multae, parum iustae necessitudines erant familiaritatis, vicinitatis, patris amicitiae? quae si non essent, vererer, credo, ne turpiter facerem, si hoc splendore et hac dignitate hominem defenderem.

Why then? Had I too few, not sufficiently rightful connections—of familiarity, of neighborhood, of his father’s friendship—for defending Plancius? And if these were not, I suppose I should fear lest I act disgracefully, if I were to defend a man of this splendor and this dignity.

fingenda mihi fuit videlicet causa peracuta ut ei quem mihi debere oporteret ego me omnia debere dicerem. at id etiam gregarii milites faciunt inviti ut coronam dent civicam et se ab aliquo servatos esse fateantur, non quo turpe sit protectum in acie ex hostium manibus eripi—nam id accidere nisi forti viro et pugnanti comminus non potest—, sed onus benefici reformidant, quod permagnum est alieno debere idem quod parenti.

Obviously a very acute pretext had to be fabricated by me, so that to him who ought to owe me I should say that I owe everything. But even rank-and-file soldiers do this unwillingly: to give the civic crown and to admit that they have been saved by someone—not because it is shameful that a rescued man be snatched in the battle-line from the hands of enemies (for that cannot befall any but a brave man fighting at close quarters)—but they shrink from the onus of a benefaction, since it is a very great thing to owe to someone else the same as to a parent.

[73] ego, cum ceteri vera beneficia etiam minora dissimulent, ne obligati esse videantur, eo me beneficio obstrictum esse ementior cui ne referri quidem gratia posse videatur? an hoc tu, Laterensis, ignoras? qui cum mihi esses amicissimus, cum vel periculum vitae tuae mecum sociare voluisses, cum me in illo tristi et acerbo luctu atque discessu non lacrimis solum tuis sed animo, corpore, copiis prosecutus esses, cum meos liberos et uxorem me absente tuis opibus auxilioque defendisses, sic mecum semper egisti, te mihi remittere atque concedere ut omne studium meum in Cn. Planci honore consumerem, quod eius in me meritum tibi etiam ipsi gratum esse dicebas.

[73] I—while the rest dissemble true benefits, even smaller ones, lest they seem to be obligated—am I to lie that I am bound by a benefit to which gratitude does not even seem able to be returned? Or are you unaware of this, Laterensis? you who, since you were most friendly to me, since you were willing to share even the danger of your life with me, since in that sad and bitter mourning and departure you accompanied me not only with your tears but with your spirit, body, and resources, since in my absence you defended my children and wife with your means and aid, thus have you always dealt with me, waiving and conceding to me that I might expend all my zeal in the honor of Cn. Plancius, because you said that his merit toward me was pleasing even to you yourself.

[74] nihil autem me novi, nihil temporis causa dicere, nonne etiam est illa testis oratio quae est a me prima habita in senatu? in qua cum perpaucis nominatim egissem gratias, quod omnes enumerari nullo modo possent, scelus autem esset quemquam praeteriri, statuissemque eos solum nominare qui causae nostrae duces et quasi signiferi fuissent, in his Plancio gratias egi. recitetur oratio, quae propter rei magnitudinem dicta de scripto est; in qua ego homo astutus ei me dedebam cui nihil magno opere deberem, et huius offici tanti servitutem astringebam testimonio sempiterno.

[74] But that I am saying nothing new, nothing for the sake of the occasion, is not that oration also a witness, which was the first delivered by me in the Senate? In it, when I had given thanks by name to a very few—since all could in no way be enumerated, and yet it would be a crime for anyone to be passed over—and had resolved to name only those who had been the leaders and, as it were, the standard-bearers of our cause, among these I expressed thanks to Plancius. Let the oration be recited, which, on account of the magnitude of the matter, was spoken from a written text; in it I, an astute man, was giving myself over to one to whom I should owe nothing of great moment, and I was binding myself into the servitude of this so great a service by an everlasting testimony.

nolo cetera quae a me mandata sunt litteris recitare; praetermitto, ne aut proferre videar ad tempus aut eo genere uti litterarum quod meis studiis aptius quam consuetudini iudiciorum esse videatur.

I do not wish to recite the rest which have been committed by me to letters; I pass them over, lest I either seem to bring them forward for the moment or to employ that genre of letters which may appear more apt to my studies than to the custom of the courts.

[XXXI]

[31]

[75] atque etiam clamitas, Laterensis: 'quo usque ista dicis? nihil in Cispio profecisti; obsoletae iam sunt preces tuae.' de Cispio mihi igitur obicies, quem ego de me bene meritum, quia te teste cognoram, te eodem auctore defendi? et ei dices 'quo usque?' quem negas, quod pro Cispio contenderim, impetrare potuisse?

[75] And you even shout, Laterensis: “How long will you say these things? You accomplished nothing in the case of Cispius; your entreaties are now obsolete.” Will you then throw Cispius in my teeth—him whom, as one who had deserved well of me, since I had learned it with you as witness, I defended on that same authority of yours? And will you say “how long?” to the very man whom you allege could not obtain what I strove for on behalf of Cispius?

nam istius verbi 'quo usque' haec poterat esse invidia: 'datus est tibi ille, condonatus est ille; non facis finem; ferre non possumus.' ei quidem qui pro uno laborarit <et> id ipsum non obtinuerit dici 'quo usque?' inridentis magis est quam reprehendentis; nisi forte ego unus ita me gessi in iudiciis, ita et cum his et inter hos vixi, is in causis patronus, is in re publica civis et sum et semper fui, solus ut a te constituar qui nihil a iudicibus debeam umquam impetrare.

For that phrase ‘how long,’ this could have been the grievance: ‘that fellow was assigned to you, that fellow was condoned to you; you do not make an end; we cannot endure it.’ To say ‘how long?’ to a man who has toiled on behalf of a single person <and> has not obtained that very thing is more the part of a mocker than of a reprover; unless perhaps I alone so conducted myself in the courts, so lived both with these men and among these men—such a patron in causes, such a citizen in the commonwealth as I am and always have been—that I alone should be set down by you as the one who ought never to obtain anything from the judges.

[76] et mihi lacrimulam Cispiani iudici obiectas. sic enim dixisti: 'vidi ego tuam lacrimulam.' vide quam me verbi tui paeniteat. non modo lacrimulam sed multas lacrimas et fletum cum singultu videre potuisti.

[76] and you reproach me with the little tear before the Cispian judge. For thus you said: 'I saw your little tear.' See how I regret your word. You could have seen not only a little tear but many tears and weeping with sobbing.

an ego, qui meorum lacrimis me absente commotus simultates, quas mecum habebat, deposuisset meaeque salutis non modo non oppugnator, ut inimici mei putarant, sed etiam defensor fuisset, huius in periculo non significarem dolorem meum?

Shall I, who—when moved by the tears of my own in my absence—would have laid aside the feuds which he had with me, and would have been not only not an assailant of my safety, as my enemies had supposed, but even a defender—shall I not signify my grief at this man’s peril?

[77] tu autem, Laterensis, qui tum lacrimas meas gratas esse dicebas, nunc easdem vis invidiosas videri.

[77] But you, Laterensis, who then said that my tears were grateful, now wish those same to seem invidious.

[XXXII] negas tribunatum Planci quicquam attulisse adiumenti dignitati meae, atque hoc loco, quod verissime facere potes, L. Racili, fortissimi et constantissimi viri, divina in me merita commemoras. cui quidem ego, sicut Cn. Plancio, numquam dissimulavi me plurimum debere semperque prae me feram; nullas enim sibi ille neque contentiones neque inimicitias neque vitae dimicationes nec pro re publica nec pro me defugiendas putavit. atque utinam quam ego sum in illum gratus, tam licuisset per hominum vim et iniuriam populo Romano ei gratiam referre!

[32] you deny that the tribunate of Plancius brought any aid to my dignity, and at this point, as you can most truly do, you commemorate the divine services toward me of L. Racilius, a most brave and most steadfast man. To whom indeed I, as to Gnaeus Plancius, have never concealed that I owe very much, and I will always carry this openly before me; for he thought that no contests, nor enmities, nor life-and-death struggles, whether for the commonwealth or for me, were to be shunned by himself. And would that, as I am grateful to him, so it had been permitted to the Roman people to repay him their gratitude, despite the violence and injustice of men!

sed si non eadem contendit in tribunatu Plancius, existimare debes non huic voluntatem defuisse sed me, cum tantum iam Plancio deberem, Racili beneficiis fuisse contentum.

but if Plancius did not strive for the same things in his tribunate, you ought to think that will was not lacking to him, but that I, since I already owed so much to Plancius, was content with the benefits of Racili.

[78] an vero putas idcirco minus libenter iudices mea causa esse facturos quod me esse gratum crimineris? an, cum patres conscripti illo senatus consulto quod in monumento Mari factum est, quo mea salus omnibus est gentibus commendata, uni Cn. Plancio gratias egerint— unus enim fuit de magistratibus defensor salutis meae—cui senatus pro me gratias agendas putavit, ei ego a me referendam gratiam non putem? atque haec cum vides, quo me tandem in te animo putas esse, Laterensis?

[78] Or do you truly think that for that reason the judges will act the less willingly in my case because you make it a charge that I am grateful? Or, when the Conscript Fathers, by that senatorial decree which was made at the Monument of Marius, by which my safety was commended to all nations, gave thanks to Cn. Plancius alone—for he alone among the magistrates was the defender of my safety—to whom the senate thought thanks ought to be given on my behalf, am I not to think that gratitude ought to be repaid by me to him? And since you see these things, with what mind, pray, do you suppose me to be toward you, Laterensis?

ullum esse tantum periculum, tantum laborem, tantam contentionem quam ego non modo pro salute tua sed etiam pro dignitate defugerim? quo quidem etiam magis sum non dicam miser—nam hoc quidem abhorret a virtute verbum—sed certe exercitus, non quia multis debeo—leve enim est onus benefici gratia—, sed quia <nomina> saepe concurrunt, propter aliquorum bene de me meritorum inter ipsos contentiones, ut eodem tempore in omnis verear ne vix possim gratus videri.

is there any danger so great, any labor so great, any contention so great that I would have shrunk from it not only for your safety but even for your dignity? by which indeed I am all the more—I will not say wretched, for that word is abhorrent to virtue—but certainly over-wearied, not because I owe many—for the burden of gratitude for a benefit is light—but because <nomina> often collide, on account of disputes among certain men who have deserved well of me among themselves, so that at the same time I fear with respect to all that I can scarcely seem grateful.

[79] sed ego haec meis ponderibus examinabo, non solum quid cuique debeam sed etiam quid cuiusque intersit, et quid a me cuiusque tempus poscat.

[79] but I will weigh these things on my own scales, not only what I owe to each, but also what is the interest of each, and what each one’s time demands of me.

[XXXIII] agitur studium tuum vel etiam, si vis, existimatio, laus aedilitatis; at Cn. Planci salus, patria, fortunae. salvum tu me esse cupisti; hic fecit etiam ut esse possem. distineor tamen et divellor dolore et in causa dispari offendi te a me doleo; sed me dius fidius multo citius meam salutem pro te abiecero quam Cn. Planci salutem tradidero contentioni tuae.

[33] your zeal is at stake, or even, if you wish, your estimation, the praise of the aedileship; but the safety of Cn. Plancius, his fatherland, his fortunes. you wished me to be safe; this man even made it so that I could be. yet I am constrained and torn asunder by pain, and in a disparate cause I grieve that you have been offended by me; but, by Dius Fidius, I would much more quickly cast away my own safety for you than I would surrender the safety of Cn. Plancius to your contention.

[80] etenim, iudices, cum omnibus virtutibus me adfectum esse cupio, tum nihil est quod malim quam me et esse gratum et videri. haec enim est una virtus non solum maxima sed etiam mater virtutum omnium reliquarum. quid est pietas nisi voluntas grata in parentes?

[80] indeed, judges, while I desire to be endowed with all virtues, yet there is nothing I would prefer more than that I both be grateful and seem so. For this is the one virtue not only the greatest but also the mother of all the remaining virtues. What is piety if not a grateful will toward parents?

qui sunt boni cives, qui belli, qui domi de patria bene merentes, nisi qui patriae beneficia meminerunt? qui sancti, qui religionum colentes, nisi qui meritam dis immortalibus gratiam iustis honoribus et memori mente persolvunt? quae potest esse vitae iucunditas sublatis amicitiis?

who are good citizens, who in war, who at home well-deserving of the fatherland, if not those who remember the fatherland’s benefactions? who are holy, who cultivators of religion, if not those who render to the immortal gods the deserved gratitude with just honors and a mindful mind? what pleasantness of life can there be with friendships removed?

quae porro amicitia potest esse inter ingratos?

What friendship, moreover, can there be among ingrates?

[81] quis est nostrum liberaliter educatus cui non educatores, cui non magistri sui atque doctores, cui non locus ipse ille mutus ubi alitus aut doctus est cum grata recordatione in mente versetur? cuius opes tantae esse possunt aut umquam fuerunt quae sine multorum amicorum officiis stare possint? quae certe sublata memoria et gratia nulla exstare possunt.

[81] Who among us, liberally educated, is there for whom his educators, for whom his masters and doctors, for whom not even that very mute place where he was nourished or taught does not revolve in his mind with grateful recollection? whose resources can be or ever were so great as to be able to stand without the offices of many friends? which surely, with remembrance and gratitude taken away, can in no way subsist.

equidem nihil tam proprium hominis existimo quam non modo beneficio sed etiam benivolentiae significatione adligari, nihil porro tam inhumanum, tam immane, tam ferum quam committere ut beneficio non dicam indignus sed victus esse videare. quae cum ita sint,

indeed I reckon nothing so proper to a human being as to be bound not only by a benefaction but even by a signification of benevolence; nothing furthermore so inhuman, so immense, so feral as to commit that you seem—not to say unworthy of a benefaction, but—overcome by it. Since these things are so,

[82] iam succumbam, Laterensis, isti tuo crimini meque in eo ipso in quo nihil potest esse nimium, quoniam ita tu vis, nimium gratum esse concedam petamque a vobis, iudices, ut eum beneficio complectamini quem qui reprehendit in eo reprehendit quod gratum praeter modum dicat esse. neque enim illud ad neglegendam meam gratiam debet valere quod dixit idem, vos nec nocentis nec litigiosos esse, quo minus me apud vos valere oporteret. quasi vero in amicitia mea non haec praesidia, si quae forte sunt in me, parata semper amicis esse maluerim quam necessaria.

[82] now I will succumb, Laterensis, to that charge of yours, and I will concede that I am—precisely in that point in which nothing can be too much, since you so will it—too grateful; and I will petition you, judges, to embrace him with a benefaction, the man whom he who reproaches me reproaches on this ground, that he says I am grateful beyond measure. For that remark of his ought not to avail for neglecting my gratitude, namely that you are neither favorers of the guilty nor of the litigious, so that it should be the less fitting that I have weight with you; as though in my friendship I had preferred that these protections, if there are any in me, be always prepared for my friends rather than only when they are necessary.

etenim ego de me tantum audeo dicere, amicitiam meam voluptati pluribus quam praesidio fuisse, meque vehementer vitae meae paeniteret, si in mea familiaritate locus esset nemini nisi litigioso aut nocenti.

For indeed I dare to say only this about myself, that my friendship has been a pleasure to more people than a protection, and I should vehemently repent of my life, if in my familiarity there were room for no one except the litigious or the nocent.

[XXXIV]

[34]

[83] sed haec nescio quo modo frequenter in me congessisti saneque in eo creber fuisti, te idcirco in ludos causam conicere noluisse ne ego mea consuetudine aliquid de tensis misericordiae causa dicerem, quod in aliis aedilibus ante fecissem. non nihil egisti hoc loco; nam mihi eripuisti ornamentum orationis meae. deridebor, si mentionem tensarum fecero, cum tu id praedixeris; sine tensis autem quid potero dicere?

[83] but somehow you have frequently piled these points up against me, and indeed in this you were assiduous: that for this reason you were unwilling to put off the case to the games, lest I, according to my custom, say something about the sacred chariots (tensae) for the sake of compassion, which I had done before in the case of other aediles. You have not accomplished nothing in this; for you have snatched from me an ornament of my speech. I shall be laughed at if I make mention of the tensae, since you have foretold it; but without the tensae what will I be able to say?

hic etiam addidisti me idcirco mea lege exsilio ambitum sanxisse ut miserabiliores epilogos possem dicere. non vobis videtur cum aliquo declamatore, non cum laboris et fori discipulo disputare?

Here too you added that I therefore, by my law, sanctioned electoral bribery with exile, so that I might be able to deliver more pitiable epilogues. Does it not seem to you that you are disputing with some declaimer, and not with a disciple of toil and of the forum?

[84] 'Rhodi enim,' inquit, 'ego non fui'—me volt fuisse—'sed fui,' inquit— putabam in Vaccaeis dicturum—'bis in Bithynia.' si locus habet reprehensionis ansam aliquam, nescio cur severiorem Nicaeam putes quam Rhodum; si spectanda causa est, et tu in Bithynia summa cum dignitate fuisti et ego Rhodi non minore. nam quod in eo me reprehendisti quod nimium multos defenderem, utinam et tu, qui potes, et ceteri, qui defugiunt, vellent me labore hoc levare! sed fit vestra diligentia, qui causis ponderandis omnis fere repudiatis, ut ad nos pleraeque confluant, qui miseris et laborantibus negare nihil possumus.

[84] 'For at Rhodes,' he says, 'I was not'—he wishes that I had been—'but I was,' he says—I was thinking he would say among the Vaccaei—'twice in Bithynia.' If the place affords any handle of reprehension, I do not know why you deem Nicaea severer than Rhodes; if the cause is to be looked at, both you were in Bithynia with the highest dignity, and I at Rhodes with no less. For as to this that you blamed me, that I defended too many, would that both you, who can, and the others, who flee the task, were willing to lighten me of this labor! But it happens through your diligence, you who, in weighing causes, almost all of them you repudiate, that most of them flow together to us, we who can deny nothing to the wretched and the hard‑pressed.

[85] admonuisti etiam, quod in Creta fuisses, dictum aliquod in petitionem tuam dici potuisse; me id perdidisse. Vter igitur nostrum est cupidior dicti? egone qui quod dici potuit non dixerim, an tu qui etiam ipse in te dixeris?

[85] You also reminded me that, because you had been in Crete, some dictum could have been said against your petition; that I had missed it. Which of us, then, is more desirous of a saying? I, who did not say what could have been said, or you, who have even yourself said it against yourself?

te aiebas de tuis rebus gestis nullas litteras misisse, quod mihi meae quas ad aliquem misissem obfuissent. quas ego mihi obfuisse non intellego, rei publicae video prodesse potuisse.

you were saying that you had sent no letters about your deeds, because my letters, which I had sent to someone, would have been detrimental to me. Those I do not understand to have harmed me; I see that they could have profited the republic.

[XXXV]

[35]

[86] sed sunt haec leviora, illa vero gravia atque magna, quod meum discessum, quem saepe defleras, nunc quasi reprehendere et subaccusare voluisti. dixisti enim non auxilium mihi sed me auxilio defuisse. ego vero fateor me, quod viderim mihi auxilium non deesse, idcirco illi auxilio pepercisse.

[86] but these things are lighter; those indeed are grave and great—that you wished now, as if to censure and to sub-accuse, my departure, which you had often bewailed. For you said that it was not aid that failed me, but that I failed aid. I, for my part, confess that, because I saw aid was not lacking to me, on that account I spared that man the aid.

qui enim status, quod discrimen, quae fuerit in re publica tempestas illa quis nescit? tribunicius me terror an consularis furor movit? decertare mihi ferro magnum fuit cum reliquiis eorum quos ego florentis atque integros sine ferro viceram?

For who does not know what the status, what the crisis, what that tempest was in the commonwealth? Did a tribunician terror or a consular fury move me? Was it a great thing for me to fight it out with iron against the remnants of those whom I had, while they were flourishing and intact, conquered without iron?

consules post hominum memoriam taeterrimi atque turpissimi, sicut et illa principia et hi recentes rerum exitus declararunt, quorum alter exercitum perdidit, alter vendidit, empti provinciis a senatu, a re publica, a bonis omnibus defecerant; qui exercitu, qui armis, qui opibus plurimum poterant cum quid sentirent nesciretur, furialis illa vox nefariis stupris, religiosis altaribus effeminata secum et illos et consules facere acerbissime personabat; egentes in locupletis, perditi in bonos, servi in dominos armabantur.

the consuls, since the memory of man, most foul and most disgraceful, as both those beginnings and these recent outcomes of affairs declared—one of whom lost the army, the other sold it—having been purchased with provinces by the Senate, had deserted the commonwealth, the Republic, and all good men; those who could do the most by army, by arms, by resources, when it was unknown what they felt, that frenzied voice, effeminated by nefarious debaucheries at religious altars, was resounding most bitterly that both they and the consuls should act along with it; the needy were being armed against the wealthy, the ruined against the good, slaves against their masters.

[87] at erat mecum senatus, et quidem veste mutata, quod pro me uno post hominum memoriam publico consilio susceptum est. sed recordare qui tum fuerint consulum nomine hostes, qui soli in hac urbe senatum senatui parere non siverint edictoque suo non luctum patribus conscriptis sed indicia luctus ademerint. at erat mecum cunctus equester ordo; quem quidem in contionibus saltator ille Catilinae consul proscriptionis denuntiatione terrebat.

[87] but the Senate was with me, and indeed with their clothing changed, which for me alone, beyond the memory of men, was undertaken by public counsel. But recall who then were enemies under the name of consuls, who alone in this city did not allow the senate to obey the senate, and by their edict took from the Enrolled Fathers not mourning, but the tokens of mourning. But the entire equestrian order was with me; whom indeed in the public assemblies that dancer-consul of Catiline was terrifying by a denunciation of proscription.

at tota Italia convenerat; cui quidem belli intestini et vastitatis metus inferebatur.

but all Italy had come together; upon which, indeed, the fear of civil war and of devastation was being imposed.

[XXXVI] hisce ego auxiliis studentibus atque incitatis uti me, Laterensis, potuisse confiteor, sed erat non iure, non legibus, non disceptando decertandum—nam profecto, praesertim tam bona in causa, numquam, quo ceteri saepe abundarunt, id mihi ipsi auxilium meum defuisset—armis fuit, armis, inquam, fuit dimicandum; quibus a servis atque a servorum ducibus caedem fieri senatus et bonorum rei publicae exitiosum fuisset.

[36] With these auxiliaries, zealous and incited, I confess, Laterensis, that I could have made use; but it was not by right, not by the laws, not by disputation that it had to be fought out—for assuredly, especially in so good a cause, never, in that wherein others have often abounded, would that aid of my own have failed me myself—it was by arms, by arms, I say, that one had to contend; by which, at the hands of slaves and of the leaders of slaves, a slaughter of the senate and of the good men would have been wrought, and it would have been ruinous to the commonwealth.

[88] vinci autem improbos a bonis fateor fuisse praeclarum, si finem tum vincendi viderem, quem profecto non videbam. Vbi enim mihi praesto fuissent aut tam fortes consules quam L. Opimius, quam C. Marius, quam L. Flaccus, quibus ducibus improbos civis res publica vicit armatis, aut, si minus fortes, at tamen tam iusti quam P. Mucius, qui arma quae privatus P. Scipio ceperat, ea Ti. Graccho interempto iure optimo sumpta esse defendit? esset igitur pugnandum cum consulibus.

[88] However, I admit it would have been illustrious for the wicked to be conquered by the good, if I could see then a limit to conquering—which indeed I did not see. For where would there have been at hand for me consuls either as brave as L. Opimius, as C. Marius, as L. Flaccus, under whose leadership the republic conquered armed wicked citizens; or, if less brave, yet at least as just as P. Mucius, who defended that the arms which P. Scipio, a private man, had taken up were, with Tiberius Gracchus slain, assumed with the best right? Therefore it would have to be fought against the consuls.

nihil dico amplius nisi illud: victoriae nostrae gravis adversarios paratos, interitus nullos esse ultores videbam.

I say nothing further except this: for our victory I saw formidable adversaries prepared; for our destruction I saw no avengers.

[89] hisce ego auxiliis salutis meae si idcirco defui quia nolui dimicare, fatebor id quod vis, non mihi auxilium, sed me auxilio defuisse; sin autem, quo maiora studia in me bonorum fuerunt, hoc eis magis consulendum et parcendum putavi, tu id in me reprehendis quod Q. Metello laudi datum est hodieque est et semper erit maximae gloriae? quem, ut potes ex multis audire qui tum adfuerunt, constat invitissimis viris bonis cessisse, nec fuisse dubium quin contentione et armis superior posset esse. ergo ille cum suum, non cum senatus factum defenderet, cum perseverantiam sententiae suae, non salutem rei publicae retinuisset, tamen ob illam , quod illud voluntarium volnus accepit, iustissimos omnium Metellorum et clarissimos triumphos gloria et laude superavit, quod et illos ipsos improbissimos civis interfici noluit et ne quis bonus interiret in eadem caede providit; ego tantis periculis propositis cum, si victus essem, interitus rei publicae, si vicissem, infinita dimicatio pararetur, committerem ut idem perditor rei publicae nominarer qui servator fuissem?

[89] By these auxiliaries of my safety—if for that reason I was lacking because I did not wish to fight—I will confess what you will: not that help failed me, but that I failed my help; but if, the greater the zeal of good men toward me was, by so much the more I thought they must be consulted and spared, do you reproach me for that which to Q. Metellus was accounted for praise, and even today is and always will be of the highest glory? As you can hear from many who were present then, it is agreed that he yielded, the good men being most unwilling, nor was there any doubt that by contest and arms he could have been superior. Therefore he—when he would have been defending his own deed, not that of the senate, when he would have kept the perseverance of his own opinion, not the safety of the commonwealth—nevertheless on account of that , because he accepted that voluntary wound, surpassed in glory and praise the most righteous and most illustrious triumphs of all the Metelli, in that he was unwilling that even those most wicked citizens be slain and he provided that no good man should perish in the same slaughter; should I, with such great dangers set before me—since, if I had been conquered, the destruction of the commonwealth; if I had conquered, an infinite struggle would have been prepared—have brought it to pass that I be named the same destroyer of the commonwealth who had been its savior?

[XXXVII]

[37]

[90] mortem me timuisse dicis. ego vero ne immortalitatem quidem contra rem publicam accipiendam putarem, nedum emori cum pernicie rei publicae vellem. nam qui pro re publica vitam ediderunt—licet me desipere dicatis—numquam me hercule eos mortem potius quam immortalitatem adsecutos putavi.

[90] You say that I feared death. Indeed, I would not consider that even immortality ought to be accepted against the republic, much less that I would wish to die with the ruin of the republic. For those who have given their life for the republic—though you may say that I am foolish—by Hercules, I have never thought that they attained death rather than immortality.

ego vero si tum illorum impiorum ferro ac manu concidissem, in perpetuum res publica civile praesidium salutis suae perdidisset. quin etiam si me vis aliqua morbi aut natura ipsa consumpsisset, tamen auxilia posteritatis essent imminuta, quod peremptum esset mea morte id exemplum qualis futurus in me restituendo fuisset senatus populusque Romanus. an, si umquam vitae cupiditas in me fuisset, ego mense Decembri mei consulatus omnium parricidarum tela commossem?

But indeed, if then I had fallen by the sword and hand of those impious men, the Republic would have lost forever the civic bulwark of its safety. Nay more, even if some force of disease or nature itself had consumed me, nevertheless the aids for posterity would have been diminished, since by my death there would have been destroyed that example of what the Senate and the Roman People would prove to be in restoring me. Or, if ever a desire of life had been in me, would I, in the month of December of my consulship, have stirred up the weapons of all parricides?

quae, si xx quiessem dies, in aliorum vigiliam consulum recidissent. quam ob rem, si vitae cupiditas contra rem publicam est turpis, certe multo mortis cupiditas mea turpior fuisset cum pernicie civitatis.

which, if I had kept quiet for 20 days, would have fallen back upon the vigilance of other consuls. Wherefore, if a desire for life is disgraceful against the commonwealth, certainly my desire for death would have been much more disgraceful, along with the ruin of the state.

[91] nam quod te esse in re publica liberum es gloriatus, id ego et fateor et laetor et tibi etiam in hoc gratulor; quod me autem negasti, in eo neque te neque quemquam diutius patiar errare.

[91] For as to your having boasted that you are free in the republic, that I both acknowledge and rejoice at, and I even in this congratulate you; but as to your having denied the same of me, in that I will not suffer you nor anyone to err any longer.

[XXXVIII] nam si quis idcirco aliquid de libertate mea deminutum putat quod non ab omnibus isdem a quibus antea solitus sum dissentire dissentiam, primum, si bene de me meritis gratum me praebeo, nonne desino incurrere in crimen hominis nimium memoris nimiumque grati? sin autem aliquando sine ullo rei publicae detrimento respicio etiam salutem cum meam tum meorum, certe non modo non sum reprehendendus sed etiam, si ruere vellem, boni viri me ut id ne facerem rogarent.

[38] for if anyone on that account thinks that something of my liberty has been diminished, because I do not disagree with all the same people with whom I was formerly accustomed to disagree, first, if I show myself grateful to those who have well merited of me, do I not cease to incur the charge of a man too mindful and too grateful? but if, however, at some time, without any detriment to the Republic, I also have regard for safety both my own and that of my own, certainly not only am I not to be blamed, but even, if I were willing to rush to ruin, good men would ask me not to do that.

[92] res vero ipsa publica, si loqui posset, ageret mecum ut, quoniam sibi servissem semper, numquam mihi, fructus autem ex sese non, ut oportuisset, laetos et uberes, sed magna acerbitate permixtos tulissem, ut iam mihi servirem, consulerem meis; se non modo satis habere a me sed etiam vereri ne parum mihi pro eo quantum a me haberet reddidisset.

[92] But the republic itself, if it could speak, would plead with me that, since I had always served it, never myself, and had borne from it fruits not, as it ought to have been, cheerful and abundant, but intermixed with great acerbity, I should now serve myself, take counsel for my own; that it not only has enough from me, but even fears lest it has rendered back to me too little in proportion to how much it has had from me.

[93] quid? si horum ego nihil cogito et idem sum in re publica qui fui semper, tamenne libertatem requires meam? quam tu ponis in eo, si semper cum eis quibuscum aliquando contendimus depugnemus.

[93] What then? If I consider none of these things and am in the commonwealth the same man I have always been, will you nevertheless require my liberty?—which you posit as consisting in this: that we should always fight it out with those with whom we have at some time contended.

quod est longe secus. stare enim omnes debemus tamquam in orbe aliquo rei publicae, qui quoniam versatur, eam deligere partem ad quam nos illius utilitas salusque converterit.

which is far otherwise. For we all ought to stand as if in some orbit of the republic, which, since it revolves, to choose that part to which its utility and safety shall have turned us.

[XXXIX] ego autem Cn. Pompeium non dico auctorem, ducem, defensorem salutis meae—nam haec privatim fortasse officiorum memoriam et gratiam quaerunt—sed dico hoc quod ad salutem rei publicae pertinet: ego eum non tuear quem omnes in re publica principem esse concedunt? ego C. Caesaris laudibus desim, quas primum populi Romani, nunc etiam senatus, cui me semper addixi, plurimis atque amplissimis iudiciis videam esse celebratas? tum hercule me confitear non iudicium aliquod habuisse de utilitate rei publicae, sed hominibus amicum aut inimicum fuisse.

[39] but as for me, I do not call Cn. Pompeius the author, leader, defender of my safety—for these things perhaps privately seek the remembrance and gratitude of duties—but I say this which pertains to the safety of the commonwealth: shall I not defend him whom all concede to be the chief in the commonwealth? shall I be lacking in the praises of C. Caesar, which I see to have been celebrated first by the Roman people, now also by the senate, to which I have always devoted myself, by very many and very ample judgments? then, by Hercules, I would confess that I have had no judgment about the utility of the commonwealth, but that I have been a friend or an enemy to men.

[94] an, cum videam navem secundis ventis cursum tenentem suum, si non eum petat portum quem ego aliquando probavi, sed alium non minus tutum atque tranquillum, cum tempestate pugnem periculose potius quam illi, salute praesertim proposita, obtemperem et paream? ego vero haec didici, haec vidi, haec scripta legi; haec de sapientissimis et clarissimis viris et in hac re publica et in aliis civitatibus monumenta nobis litterae prodiderunt, non semper easdem sententias ab isdem, sed quascumque rei publicae status, inclinatio temporum, ratio concordiae postularet, esse defensas. quod ego et facio, Laterensis, et semper faciam libertatemque quam tu in me requiris, quam ego neque dimisi umquam neque dimittam, non in pertinacia, sed in quadam moderatione positam putabo.

[94] Or, when I see a ship holding its course with favorable winds, if it does not seek that harbor which I once approved, but another no less safe and tranquil, should I fight with the storm, perilously, rather than comply with it and obey it, especially with safety set before us? I indeed have learned these things, have seen these things, have read these things written; the monuments and the letters have handed down to us from the wisest and most illustrious men, both in this republic and in other cities, that it was not always the same opinions from the same men that were defended, but whatever the status of the republic, the inclination of the times, the rationale of concord demanded. This I both do, Laterensis, and will always do; and the liberty which you require in me, which I have neither ever dismissed nor will dismiss, I shall think is placed not in obstinacy, but in a certain moderation.

[XL]

[40]

[95] nunc venio ad illud extremum in quo dixisti, dum Planci in me meritum verbis extollerem, me arcem facere e cloaca lapidemque e sepulcro venerari pro deo; neque enim mihi insidiarum periculum ullum neque mortis fuisse. cuius ego temporis rationem explicabo brevi neque invitus. nihil enim est ex meis temporibus quod minus pervagatum, quodque minus aut mea commemoratione celebratum sit aut hominibus auditum atque notum.

[95] Now I come to that final point, in which you said that, while I was extolling in words Plancus’s merit toward me, I was making a citadel out of a sewer and venerating a stone from a sepulcher as a god; for that there had been no danger to me either of plots or of death. The account of that time I will set forth briefly and not unwillingly. For there is nothing from my times that is less pervaded abroad, and that is less either celebrated by my commemoration or heard and known by men.

ego enim, Laterensis, ex illo incendio legum, iuris, senatus, bonorum omnium cedens, cum mea domus ardore suo deflagrationem urbi atque Italiae toti minaretur, nisi quievissem, Siciliam petivi animo, quae et ipsa erat mihi sicut domus una coniuncta et obtinebatur a C. Vergilio, quocum me uno vel maxime cum vetustas tum amicitia, cum mei fratris conlegia tum rei publicae causa sociarat.

For I, Laterensis, withdrawing from that conflagration of the laws, of right, of the Senate, and of all good men, when my house by its own ardor threatened a deflagration to the city and to all Italy unless I kept quiet, sought Sicily in mind—a place which itself also was to me joined as if a single home and was held by Gaius Vergilius, with whom I, more than with any one man, had been associated both by long-standing ties and by friendship, both by my brother’s colleagueship and by the cause of the republic.

[96] vide nunc caliginem temporum illorum. Cum ipsa paene insula mihi sese obviam ferre vellet, praetor ille, eiusdem tribuni pl. contionibus propter eandem rei publicae causam saepe vexatus, nihil amplius dico nisi me in Siciliam venire noluit. quid dicam?

[96] see now the murk of those times. When the island itself almost wished to come to meet me, that praetor, often vexed by the assemblies of the same tribune of the plebs on account of the same cause of the republic, I say nothing more except that he did not want me to come into Sicily. What shall I say?

C. Vergilio, tali civi et viro, benivolentiam in me, memoriam communium temporum, pietatem, humanitatem, fidem defuisse? nihil, iudices, est eorum sed, quam tempestatem nos vobiscum non tulissemus, metuit ut eam ipse posset opibus suis sustinere. tum consilio repente mutato Brundisium terra petere contendi; nam maritimos cursus praecludebat hiemis magnitudo.

That to C. Vergilius, such a citizen and man, benevolence toward me, the memory of our common times, piety, humanity, faithfulness were lacking? None of these, judges; but a tempest which we would not have borne even with you, he feared he could not sustain by his own resources. Then, my plan suddenly changed, I strove to make for Brundisium by land; for the magnitude of the winter precluded maritime courses.

[XLI]

[41]

[97] Cum omnia illa municipia quae sunt a Vibone Brundisium in fide mea, iudices, essent, iter mihi tutum multis minitantibus magno cum suo metu praestiterunt. Brundisium veni vel potius ad moenia accessi; urbem unam mihi amicissimam declinavi, quae se potius exscindi quam e suo complexu ut eriperer facile pateretur. in hortos me M. Laeni Flacci contuli.

[97] Since all those municipalities which are from Vibo to Brundisium, judges, were in my faith, they provided me a safe journey, though many were threatening, with great fear for themselves. I came to Brundisium, or rather I approached the walls; I turned aside from the one city most friendly to me, which would sooner suffer itself to be torn down than easily allow that I be snatched from its embrace. I betook myself into the gardens of M. Laenius Flaccus.

cui cum omnis metus, publicatio bonorum, exsilium, mors proponeretur, haec perpeti, si acciderent, maluit quam custodiam mei capitis dimittere. cuius ego et parentis eius, prudentissimi atque optimi senis, et fratris et utriusque filiorum manibus in navi tuta ac fideli conlocatus, eorumque preces et vota de meo reditu exaudiens Dyrrachium, quod erat in fide mea, petere contendi.

to whom, when every fear—publication of goods, exile, death—was set forth, he preferred to endure these, if they should happen, rather than to let go the custody of my life. Placed by the hands of him and of his father, a most prudent and best old man, and of his brother and of both his sons, on a safe and faithful ship, and hearing their prayers and vows for my return, I hastened to seek Dyrrachium, which was in my allegiance.

[98] quo cum venissem, cognovi, id quod audieram, refertam esse Graeciam sceleratissimorum hominum ac nefariorum, quorum impium ferrum ignisque pestiferos meus ille consulatus e manibus extorserat; qui ante quam de meo adventu audire potuissent, cum a me abessent aliquot dierum viam, in Macedoniam ad Planciumque perrexi. hic vero simul atque mare me transisse cognovit—audi, audi atque attende, Laterensis, ut scias quid ego Plancio debeam, confiteareque aliquando me quod faciam et grate et pie facere; huic autem, quae pro salute mea fecerit, si minus profutura sint, obesse certe non oportere! nam simul ac me Dyrrachium attigisse audivit, statim ad me lictoribus dimissis, insignibus abiectis, veste mutata profectus est.

[98] when I had come there, I learned—what I had heard—that Greece was replete with most criminal and nefarious men, from whose hands that consulship of mine had wrenched the impious sword and the pestiferous fire; and, before they could hear of my arrival, since they were at a distance from me of a journey of several days, I proceeded into Macedonia and to Plancius. This man indeed, as soon as he learned that I had crossed the sea—hear, hear and attend, Laterensis, so that you may know what I owe to Plancius, and may at last confess that what I do I do both gratefully and piously; and that, as for this man, the things which he has done for my safety, if they are less likely to be of use, certainly ought not to harm him! For as soon as he heard that I had touched at Dyrrachium, immediately he set out to me, his lictors dismissed, his insignia cast aside, his attire changed.

[99] O acerbam mihi, iudices, memoriam temporis illius et loci, cum hic in me incidit, cum complexus est conspersitque lacrimis nec loqui prae maerore potuit! O rem cum auditu crudelem tum visu nefariam! o reliquos omnis dies noctesque eas quibus iste a me non recedens Thessalonicam me in quaestoriumque perduxit!

[99] O how bitter to me, judges, the memory of that time and place, when this man fell upon me, when he embraced me and besprinkled me with tears, nor could he speak for grief! O a thing both cruel to hear and nefarious to behold! o the rest of all the days and those nights during which this man, not departing from my side, led me to Thessalonica and to the quaestorian quarters!

hic ego nunc de praetore Macedoniae nihil dicam amplius nisi eum et civem optimum semper et mihi amicum fuisse, sed eadem timuisse quae ceteros; Cn. Plancium fuisse unum, non qui minus timeret sed, si acciderent ea quae timerentur, mecum ea subire et perpeti vellet.

Here I, now, will say nothing further about the praetor of Macedonia except that he was always both an excellent citizen and a friend to me, but that he had feared the same things as the others; that Cn. Plancius was the one man—not because he feared less, but that, if the things which were feared should befall, he was willing to undergo and to endure them with me.

[100] qui, cum ad me L. Tubero, meus necessarius, qui fratri meo legatus fuisset, decedens ex Asia venisset easque insidias quas mihi paratas ab exsulibus coniuratis audierat ad me animo amicissimo detulisset, in Asiam me ire propter eius provinciae mecum et cum meo fratre necessitudinem comparantem non est passus; vi me, vi, inquam, Plancius et complexu suo retinuit multosque mensis a capite meo non discessit, abiecta quaestoria persona comitisque sumpta.

[100] he—when Lucius Tubero, my close associate, who had been legate to my brother, had come to me as he was departing from Asia and had, with a most friendly mind, conveyed to me those ambushes which he had heard were prepared against me by the conspired exiles—did not allow me to go into Asia, as I was arranging to form a connection of that province both with myself and with my brother; by force, by force, I say, Plancius, and with his own embrace, held me back, and for many months did not depart from my very side, having cast off the quaestorian persona and assumed that of a companion.

[XLII]

[42]

[101] O excubias tuas, Cn. Planci, miseras, o flebilis vigilias, o noctes acerbas, o custodiam etiam mei capitis infelicem! si quidem ego tibi vivus non prosum, qui fortasse mortuus profuissem. memini enim, memini neque umquam obliviscar noctis illius cum tibi vigilanti, adsidenti, maerenti vana quaedam miser atque inania falsa spe inductus pollicebar, me, si essem in patriam restitutus, praesentem tibi gratias relaturum; sin aut vitam mihi fors ademisset aut vis aliqua maior reditum peremisset, hos, hos—quos enim ego tum alios animo intuebar?—omnia tibi illorum laborum praemia pro me persoluturos.

[101] O your watches, Gnaeus Plancius, miserable; O lamentable vigils; O bitter nights; O the unlucky guardianship even of my very head! if indeed I, alive, do not profit you, who perhaps, dead, would have profited. I remember, I remember, nor shall I ever forget, that night when to you—keeping watch, sitting by, grieving—I, wretched, induced by false hope, was promising certain vain and empty things: that, if I were restored to my fatherland, I, being present, would render thanks to you; but if either chance had taken my life from me or some greater force had destroyed my return, these, these—whom, indeed, was I then beholding with my mind if not them?—would pay to you, on my behalf, all the rewards of those labors.

quid me aspectas, quid mea promissa repetis, quid meam fidem imploras? nihil tibi ego tum de meis opibus pollicebar, sed de horum erga me benivolentia promittebam; hos pro me lugere, hos gemere, hos decertare pro meo capite vel vitae periculo velle videbam; de horum desiderio, luctu, querelis cotidie aliquid tecum simul audiebam; nunc timeo ne tibi nihil praeter lacrimas queam reddere, quas tu in meis acerbitatibus plurimas effudisti.

why do you look upon me, why do you demand my promises back, why do you implore my good faith? I was then promising you nothing from my own resources, but was promising on the basis of these men’s benevolence toward me; these I saw mourning for me, these groaning, these willing to fight it out for my head even at the peril of life; about their longing, their grief, their complaints I was daily hearing something together with you; now I fear that I may be able to render you nothing except tears, which you poured out in very great number amid my hardships.

[102] quid enim possum aliud nisi maerere, nisi flere, nisi te cum mea salute complecti? salutem tibi idem dare possunt qui mihi reddiderunt. te tamen—exsurge, quaeso!—retinebo et complectar, nec me solum deprecatorem fortunarum tuarum sed comitem sociumque profitebor; atque, ut spero, nemo erit tam crudeli animo tamque inhumano nec tam immemor non dicam meorum in bonos meritorum, sed bonorum in me, qui a me mei servatorem capitis divellat ac distrahat.

[102] For what else can I do but mourn, but weep, but embrace you together with my safety? Those same men who restored safety to me can grant it to you. You, however—rise up, I pray!—I will hold fast and embrace, and I will declare myself not only a petitioner for your fortunes but a companion and associate; and, as I hope, there will be no one of so cruel a mind and so inhuman, nor so unmindful—I will not say of my merits toward good men, but of the good men’s toward me—who would tear and wrench from me the savior of my life.

non ego meis ornatum beneficiis a vobis deprecor, iudices, sed custodem salutis meae, non opibus contendo, non auctoritate, non gratia, sed precibus, sed lacrimis, sed misericordia, mecumque vos simul hic miserrimus et optimus obtestatur parens, et pro uno filio duo patres deprecamur.

I do not beseech from you, judges, one adorned with my benefactions, but a guardian of my safety; I do not contend by resources, nor by authority, nor by favor, but by prayers, by tears, by mercy; and together with me this most wretched and best parent implores you, and on behalf of one son two fathers beseech.

[103] nolite, iudices, per vos, per fortunas, per liberos vestros inimicis meis, eis praesertim quos ego pro vestra salute suscepi, dare laetitiam gloriantibus vos iam oblitos mei salutis eius a quo mea salus conservata est hostis exstitisse; nolite animum meum debilitare cum luctu tum etiam metu commutatae vestrae voluntatis erga me; sinite me, quod vobis fretus huic saepe promisi, id a vobis ei persolvere.

[103] do not, judges, by yourselves, by your fortunes, by your children, give joy to my enemies—especially to those whom I undertook for your safety—boasting that you, now forgetful of me, have shown yourselves an enemy to the safety of him by whom my safety was preserved; do not debilitate my spirit both with grief and also with fear of your will changed toward me; allow me to pay to him from you that which, relying on you, I often promised to this man.

[104] teque, C. Flave, oro et obtestor, qui meorum consiliorum in consulatu socius, periculorum particeps, rerum quas gessi adiutor fuisti, meque non modo salvum semper sed etiam ornatum florentemque esse voluisti, ut mihi per hos conserves eum per quem me tibi et his conservatum vides. plura ne dicam tuae me etiam lacrimae impediunt vestraeque, iudices, non solum meae, quibus ego magno in metu meo subito inducor in spem, vos eosdem in hoc conservando futuros qui fueritis in me, quoniam istis vestris

[104] and you, Gaius Flavius, I beg and I adjure, you who were a partner of my counsels in my consulship, a sharer in dangers, an assistant in the affairs which I carried out, and you wished me not only always to be safe but also adorned and flourishing, that through these men you preserve for me him through whom you see me preserved for you and for these. Lest I say more, your tears too hold me back, and yours, judges, not only my own, by which I, though in great fear, am suddenly led into hope, that you will be the same in preserving this man as you have been toward me, since by those your