Cicero: ORATORIA

[I] Iamne vides, belua, iamne sentis quae sit hominum querela frontis tuae? Nemo queritur Syrum nescio quem de grege noviciorum factum esse consulem. Non enim nos color iste servilis, non pilosae genae, non dentes putridi deceperunt; oculi, supercilia, frons, voltus denique totus, qui sermo quidam tacitus mentis est, hic in fraudem homines impulit, hic eos quibus erat ignotus decepit, fefellit, induxit.

[1] Do you already see, brute, do you already sense what the complaint of men is about your front? No one complains that some Syrian, I know not whom, from the herd of novices has been made consul. For it was not that servile color, not the hairy cheeks, not the rotten teeth that deceived us; the eyes, the supercilia, the front, the visage, finally the whole countenance, which is a kind of silent sermon of the mind—this drove men into fraud; this deceived, deluded, and induced those to whom he was unknown.

Pauci ista tua lutulenta vitia noramus, pauci tarditatem ingeni, stuporem debilitatemque linguae. Numquam erat audita vox in foro, numquam periculum factum consili, nullum non modo inlustre sed ne notum quidem factum aut militiae aut domi. Obrepsisti ad honores errore hominum, commendatione fumosarum imaginum, quarum simile habes nihil praeter colorem.

Few of us knew those muddy vices of yours, few the tardity of your wit, the stupor and debility of your tongue. Your voice was never heard in the forum, never was any trial made of your counsel, no deed, not only not illustrious but not even known, either in military service or at home. You crept into honors through the error of men, by the commendation of smoky images, of which you have nothing similar save the color.

Is mihi etiam gloriabatur se omnis magistratus sine repulsa adsecutum? Mihi ista licet de me vera cum gloria praedicare; omnis enim honores populus Romanus mihi ipsi homini detulit. Nam tu cum quaestor es factus, etiam qui te numquam viderant, tamen illum honorem nomini mandabant tuo.

That fellow was even boasting to me that he had attained all the magistracies without a repulse? I may proclaim such things truly about myself and with glory; for the Roman People conferred all honors upon me, upon me the man himself. For when you were made quaestor, even those who had never seen you nevertheless entrusted that honor to your name.

Aedilis es factus; Piso est a populo Romano factus, non iste Piso. Praetura item maioribus delata est tuis. Noti erant illi mortui, te vivum nondum noverat quisquam.

You were made aedile; it was “Piso” that was made by the Roman people, not this Piso. Likewise the praetorship was handed down to your ancestors. Those dead men were known; you alive, no one yet knew.

Me cum quaestorem in primis, aedilem priorem, praetorem primum cunctis suffragiis populus Romanus faciebat, homini ille honorem non generi, moribus non maioribus meis, virtuti perspectae non auditae nobilitati deferebat. Nam quid ego de consulatu loquar, parto vis anne gesto? Miserum me! cum hac me nunc peste atque labe confero!

When the Roman people made me, first of all, quaestor, then senior aedile, then first praetor by all the votes, they were conferring the honor upon the man, not upon his lineage; upon morals, not upon my ancestors; upon proven virtue, not upon nobility that had only been heard of. For why should I speak about the consulship—won, or rather administered? Wretched me! as I now compare myself with this pest and stain!

Sed nihil comparandi causa loquar ac tamen ea quae sunt longissime disiuncta comprendam. Tu consul es renuntiatus—nihil dicam gravius, quam quod omnes fatentur—impeditis rei publicae temporibus, dissidentibus consulibus, cum hoc non recusares eis a quibus dicebare consul, quin te luce dignum non putarent, nisi nequior quam Gabinius exstitisses. Me cuncta Italia, me omnes ordines, me universa civitas non prius tabella quam voce priorem consulem declaravit.

But I will say nothing for the sake of comparing, and yet I will comprise things that are farthest disjoined. You were proclaimed consul—I will say nothing graver than what all confess—when the times of the commonwealth were impeded, the consuls being at variance, while you did not refuse this to those by whom you were being called consul, namely, that they should not deem you worthy of the light, unless you had turned out more base than Gabinius. Me the whole of Italy, me all the orders, me the entire commonwealth declared prior consul, not sooner by the ballot-tablet than by the voice.

[II] Sed omitto ut sit factus uterque nostrum; sit sane Fors domina campi. Magnificentius est dicere quem ad modum gesserimus consulatum quam quem ad modum ceperimus. Ego kalendis Ianuariis senatum et bonos omnis legis agrariae maximarumque largitionum metu liberavi.

[2] But I omit how each of us came to be; let Fortune indeed be the mistress of the field. It is more magnificent to say in what manner we conducted the consulship than in what manner we obtained it. I, on the Kalends of January, freed the senate and all the good men from the fear of an agrarian law and of the greatest largesses.

Ego agrum Campanum, si dividi non oportuit, conservavi, si oportuit, melioribus auctoribus reservavi. Ego in C. Rabirio perduellionis reo XL annis ante me consulem interpositam senatus auctoritatem sustinui contra invidiam atque defendi. Ego adulescentis bonos et fortis, sed usos ea condicione fortunae ut, si essent magistratus adepti, rei publicae statum convolsuri viderentur, meis inimicitiis, nulla senatus mala gratia comitiorum ratione privavi.

I conserved the Campanian field, if it ought not to be divided; if it ought, I reserved it for better authorities. I, in the case of Gaius Rabirius, defendant on the charge of high-treason, 40 years before my consulship, sustained the interposed authority of the senate against ill-will and defended it. I deprived young men good and brave, but who had used such a condition of fortune that, if they had obtained magistracies, they seemed likely to convulse the status of the commonwealth, by my enmities, of standing in the elections, with no ill favor of the senate.

Ego Antonium conlegam cupidum provinciae, multa in re publica molientem patientia atque obsequio meo mitigavi. Ego provinciam Galliam senatus auctoritate exercitu et pecunia instructam et ornatam, quam cum Antonio commutavi, quod ita existimabam tempora rei publicae ferre, in contione deposui reclamante populo Romano. Ego L. Catilinam caedem senatus, interitum urbis non obscure sed palam molientem egredi ex urbe iussi ut, a quo legibus non poteramus, moenibus tuti esse possemus.

I Antonius my colleague, desirous of a province and machinating many things in the Republic, I mitigated by my patience and compliance. I the province of Gaul, by the Senate’s authority equipped and adorned with army and money, which I exchanged with Antonius, because I judged the times of the Republic to bear thus, in a public assembly I laid down with the Roman people protesting. I L. Catiline, plotting the slaughter of the Senate and the destruction of the city not covertly but openly, I ordered to depart from the city, so that, from him from whom by the laws we could not be safe, by the walls we might be able to be safe.

Ego tela extremo mense consulatus mei intenta iugulis civitatis de coniuratorum nefariis manibus extorsi. Ego faces iam accensas ad huius urbis incendium comprehendi, protuli, exstinxi.

I, in the last month of my consulship, wrenched the weapons, aimed at the throats of the commonwealth, from the nefarious hands of the conspirators. I seized the torches already kindled for the conflagration of this city, brought them forth, and extinguished them.

[III] Me Q. Catulus, princeps huius ordinis et auctor publici consili, frequentissimo senatu parentem patriae nominavit. Mihi hic vir clarissimus qui propter te sedet, L. Gellius, his audientibus civicam coronam deberi a re publica dixit. Mihi togato senatus non ut multis bene gesta, sed ut nemini conservata re publica, singulari genere supplicationis deorum immortalium templa patefecit.

[3] Q. Catulus, the chief of this order and the author of the public counsel, in a most crowded senate named me Father of the Fatherland. To me this most illustrious man who sits beside you, L. Gellius, declared, with these men listening, that a civic crown was owed me by the Republic. For me, in the toga, the Senate— not, as for many, for a well-managed Republic, but, as for no one, for a preserved Republic— by a singular kind of supplication opened the temples of the immortal gods.

Ego cum in contione abiens magistratu dicere a tribuno pl. prohiberer quae constitueram, cumque is mihi tantum modo ut iurarem permitteret, sine ulla dubitatione iuravi rem publicam atque hanc urbem mea unius opera esse salvam. Mihi populus Romanus universus illa in contione non unius diei gratulationem sed aeternitatem immortalitatemque donavit, cum meum ius iurandum tale atque tantum iuratus ipse una voce et consensu approbavit. Quo quidem tempore is meus domum fuit e foro reditus ut nemo, nisi qui mecum esset, civium esse in numero videretur.

When, in the public assembly, as I was departing from my magistracy, I was forbidden by a tribune of the plebs to say what I had determined, and when he allowed me only this, that I should swear, without any hesitation I swore that the commonwealth and this city were safe by the effort of me alone. To me the entire Roman people in that assembly bestowed not the congratulation of a single day but eternity and immortality, when they themselves, under oath, with one voice and consensus, approved my sworn oath, so great and of such a kind. At that very time such was my return home from the forum that no one seemed to be counted in the number of citizens except the one who was with me.

Atque ita est a me consulatus peractus ut nihil sine consilio senatus, nihil non approbante populo Romano egerim, ut semper in rostris curiam, in senatu populum defenderim, ut multitudinem cum principibus, equestrem ordinem cum senatu coniunxerim. Eui breviter consulatum meum.

And thus my consulship has been carried through by me in such a way that I did nothing without the counsel of the senate, nothing without the Roman people approving; that I always defended the Curia on the Rostra, and the people in the senate; that I united the multitude with the principal men, the equestrian order with the senate. I have briefly set forth my consulship.

[IV] Aude nunc, o furia, de tuo dicere! cuius fuit initium ludi compitalicii tum primum facti post L. Iulium et C. Marcium consules contra auctoritatem huius ordinis; quos Q. Metellus—facio iniuriam fortissimo viro mortuo, qui illum cuius paucos paris haec civitas tulit cum hac importuna belua conferam—sed ille designatus consul, cum quidam tribunus pl. suo auxilio magistros ludos contra senatus consultum facere iussisset, privatus fieri vetuit atque id quod nondum potestate poterat obtinuit auctoritate. Tu, cum in kalendas Ianuarias compitaliorum dies incidisset, Sex.

[4] Dare now, O fury, to speak of your own! whose beginning was the Compitalian games, then for the first time held after L. Julius and C. Marcius were consuls, against the authority of this order; which Q. Metellus—I do an injustice to a most brave man now dead, that I should compare that man, of whom this state has borne few equals, with this importunate beast—yet he, consul-designate, when a certain tribune of the plebs had ordered, by his aid, the masters to hold the games contrary to a senatorial decree, as a private citizen forbade them to be held, and that which he was not yet able to obtain by official power he obtained by authority. You, when the day of the Compitalia had fallen on the Kalends of January, Sext.

Clodium, qui numquam antea praetextatus fuisset, ludos facere et praetextatum volitare passus es, hominem impurum ac non modo facie sed etiam oculo tuo dignissimum. Ergo his fundamentis positis consulatus tui triduo post inspectante et tacente te a fatali portento prodigioque rei publicae lex Aelia et Fufia eversa est, propugnacula murique tranquillitatis atque otii conlegia non ea solum quae senatus sustulerat restituta, sed innumerabilia quaedam nova ex omni faece urbis ac servitio concitata. Ab eodem homine in stupris inauditis nefariisque versato vetus illa magistra pudoris et modestiae censura sublata est, cum tu interim, bustum rei publicae, qui te consulem tum Romae dicis fuisse, verbo numquam significaris sententiam tuam tantis in naufragiis civitatis.

You allowed Clodius, who had never before worn the praetexta, to hold the games and to flit about in the praetexta, a foul man and most worthy not only of your countenance but even of your eye. Therefore, with these foundations laid, three days after the start of your consulship, with you looking on and silent, by a fatal portent and prodigy to the republic the Aelian and Fufian Law was overthrown, the bulwarks and walls of tranquillity and leisure; the collegia—not only those which the senate had abolished were restored, but certain innumerable new ones were stirred up from every dreg of the city and from the slave class. By that same man, steeped in unheard-of and nefarious debaucheries, that ancient instructress of modesty and restraint, the censorship, was removed, while you meanwhile, the funeral-pyre of the commonwealth, who say that you were then consul at Rome, never by a word indicated your opinion amid such shipwrecks of the state.

[V] Nondum quae feceris, sed quae fieri passus sis, dico. Neque vero multum interest, praesertim in consule, utrum ipse perniciosis legibus, improbis contionibus rem publicam vexet, an alios vexare patiatur. An potest ulla esse excusatio non dicam male sentienti, sed sedenti, cunctanti, dormienti in maximo rei publicae motu consuli?

[5] I do not yet speak of what you have done, but of what you have allowed to be done. Nor indeed does it matter much, especially in a consul, whether he himself vex the republic with pernicious laws and wicked assemblies, or allow others to vex it. Or can there be any excuse—not to say for one thinking ill, but for one sitting, hesitating, sleeping—for a consul, in the greatest commotion of the republic?

C prope annos legem Aeliam et Fufiam tenueramus, CCCC iudicium notionemque censoriam. Quas leges ausus est non nemo improbus, potuit quidem nemo convellere, quam potestatem minuere, quo minus de moribus nostris quinto quoque anno iudicaretur, nemo tam effuse petulans conatus est, haec sunt, o carnifex! in prooemio sepulta consulatus tui.

For nearly 100 years we had maintained the Aelian and Fufian law, for 400 the judgment and censorial cognizance. Some wicked man did indeed dare to assail these laws, yet no one could tear them up; and no one so extravagantly petulant attempted to diminish that power so as to prevent judgment being rendered concerning our morals every 5th year. These things, O executioner! are buried in the proem of your consulship.

Persequere continentis his funeribus dies. Pro Aurelio tribunali ne conivente quidem te, quod ipsum esset scelus, sed etiam hilarioribus oculis quam solitus eras intuente, dilectus servorum habebatur ab eo qui nihil sibi umquam nec facere nec pati turpe esse duxit. Arma in templo Castoris, o proditor templorum omnium!

Pursue the days contiguous to these funerals. Before Aurelius’s tribunal, with you not even conniving—which itself would have been a crime—but even gazing with eyes more cheerful than you were wont, a levy of slaves was being held by the man who never deemed anything shameful for himself either to do or to suffer. Arms in the temple of Castor, O betrayer of all temples!

vidente te constituebantur ab eo latrone cui templum illud fuit te consule arx civium perditorum, receptaculum veterum Catilinae militum, castellum forensis latrocini, bustum legum omnium ac religionum. Erat non solum domus mea sed totum Palatium senatu, equitibus Romanis, civitate omni, Italia cuncta refertum, cum tu non modo ad eum—mitto enim domestica, quae negari possunt; haec commemoro quae sunt palam—non modo, inquam, ad eum cui primam comitiis tuis dederas tabulam praerogativae, quem in senatu sententiam rogabas tertium, numquam aspirasti, sed omnibus consiliis quae ad me opprimendum parabantur non interfuisti solum verum etiam crudelissime praefuisti.

with you looking on, there were being established by that brigand—by whom that temple, with you as consul, was a citadel of ruined citizens, a receptacle of Catiline’s old soldiers, a little fortress of forensic latrociny, a burial‑mound of all laws and religions. It was not only my house but the whole Palatine packed with the senate, with Roman equites, with the entire citizen‑body, with all Italy, while you not only to that man—I pass over the domestic matters, which can be denied; I recall these which are in the open—not only, I say, to that man to whom at your comitia you had given the first ballot of the prerogative, whom in the senate you used to ask for his opinion third, did you never so much as breathe against, but you not only were present at all the counsels that were being prepared for crushing me, you even most cruelly presided over them.

[VI] Mihi vero ipsi coram genero meo, propinquo tuo quae dicere ausus es? Egere sordidissime Gabinium, sine provincia stare non posse, spem habere a tribuno pl., si sua consilia cum illo coniunxisset, a senatu quidem desperasse; huius te cupiditati obsequi, sicuti ego fecissem in conlega meo; nihil esse quod praesidium consulum implorarem; sibi quemque consulere oportere. Atque haec dicere vix audeo; vereor ne qui sit qui istius insignem nequitiam frontis involutam integumentis nondum cernat; dicam tamen. Ipse certe agnoscet et cum aliquo dolore flagitiorum suorum recordabitur.

[6] To me indeed myself, face-to-face, in the presence of my son-in-law, your kinsman—what did you dare to say? That Gabinius was in the most sordid want, that he could not stand without a province, that he had hope from a tribune of the plebs, if he should have joined his counsels with him, but had despaired of the senate; that you were complying with this man’s cupidity, just as I had done in the case of my colleague; that there was nothing for which I should implore the protection of the consuls; that it behooved each man to consult for himself. And I scarcely dare to speak these things; I fear lest there be anyone who does not yet discern that fellow’s distinguished wickedness, wrapped in the coverings of his brow; I will say it nevertheless. He himself will surely recognize it and will recall his own disgraces with some pain.

Meministine, caenum, cum ad te quinta fere hora cum C. Pisone venissem, nescio quo e gurgustio te prodire involuto capite soleatum, et, cum isto ore foetido taeterrimam nobis popinam inhalasses, excusatione te uti valetudinis, quod diceres vinulentis te quibusdam medicaminibus solere curari? Quam nos causam cum accepissemus—quid enim facere poteramus?—paulisper stetimus in illo ganearum tuarum nidore atque fumo; unde tu nos cum improbissime respondendo, tum turpissime ructando eiecisti. Idem illo fere biduo productus in contionem ab eo cui sicam quandam praebebas consulatum tuum, cum esses interrogatus quid sentires de consulatu meo, gravis auctor, Calatinus credo aliquis aut Africanus aut Maximus et non Caesoninus Semiplacentinus Calventius, respondes altero ad frontem sublato, altero ad mentum depresso supercilio crudelitatem tibi non placere.

Do you remember, you filth, when I came to you at about the fifth hour with Gaius Piso, and you, slippered, came out of I know not what hovel, with your head muffled, and, when with that fetid mouth of yours you had breathed upon us the most loathsome tavern-reek, you resorted to the excuse of your health, saying that you were wont to be treated with certain wine-soaked medicaments? When we had accepted that pretext—for what, indeed, could we do?—we stood for a little while in that stench and smoke of your cookshops; whence you drove us out both by answering most shamelessly and by belching most disgracefully. The same you, about two days later, brought forth into the assembly by the man to whom you were proffering a certain dagger as the price of your consulship, when you were asked what you thought about my consulship, as a weighty authority—some Calatinus, I suppose, or an Africanus or a Maximus, and not Caesoninus the Half-Piacenzan Calventius—you answer, with one eyebrow raised to your forehead and the other pressed down to your chin, that cruelty does not please you.

[VII] Hic te ille homo dignissimus tuis laudibus conlaudavit. Crudelitatis tu, furcifer, senatum consul in contione condemnas? non enim me qui senatui parvi; nam relatio illa salutaris et diligens fuerat consulis, animadversio quidem et iudicium senatus.

[7] Here that man, most worthy of your praises, lauded you with your own praises. Do you, gallows-bird, as consul, in the assembly condemn the senate of cruelty? For you are not condemning me, who obeyed the senate; for that salutary and diligent relatio was the consul’s, while the animadversion and the judgment were the senate’s.

Quae cum reprehendis, ostendis qualis tu, si ita forte accidisset, fueris illo tempore consul futurus. Stipendio me hercule et frumento Catilinam esse putasses iuvandum. Quid enim interfuit inter Catilinam et eum cui tu senatus auctoritatem, salutem civitatis, totam rem publicam provinciae praemio vendidisti?

By reproving these things, you show what sort of consul you would have been at that time, if it had so chanced. By pay, by Hercules, and by grain you would have thought Catiline must be aided. For what, indeed, was the difference between Catiline and the man to whom you sold the authority of the senate, the safety of the state, the whole commonwealth, for the prize of a province?

Quae enim L. Catilinam conantem consul prohibui, ea P. Clodium facientem consules adiuverunt. Voluit ille senatum interficere, vos sustulistis; leges incendere, vos abrogastis; interimere patriam, vos adflixistis. Quid est vobis consulibus gestum sine armis?

For the very measures that I, as consul, prevented L. Catiline from attempting, the consuls aided P. Clodius in carrying out. He wanted to slaughter the Senate—you did away with it; to burn the laws—you abrogated them; to do away with the fatherland—you struck it down. What have you, consuls, accomplished without arms?

Incendere illa coniuratorum manus voluit urbem, vos eius domum quem propter urbs incensa non est. Ac ne illi quidem, si habuissent vestri similem consulem, de urbis incendio cogitassent; non enim se tectis privare voluerunt, sed bis stantibus nullum domicilium sceleri suo fore putaverunt. Caedem illi civium, vos servitutem expetistis.

That band of conspirators wanted to set the city ablaze; you wanted to burn the house of the man on account of whom the city was not burned. And not even they, if they had had a consul like you, would have thought about a conflagration of the city; for they did not wish to deprive themselves of roofs, but thought that, with these things standing, there would be no domicile for their crime. They sought the slaughter of citizens; you sought servitude.

Hic vos etiam crudeliores; huic enim ita fuerat ante vos consules libertas insita ut ei mori potius quam servire praestaret. Illud vero geminum consiliis Catilinae et Lentuli, quod me domo mea expulistis, Cn. Pompeium domum suam compulistis. Neque enim me stante et manente in urbis vigilia neque resistente Cn. Pompeio, omnium gentium victore, umquam se illi rem publicam delere posse duxerunt.

Here in this you are even more cruel; for to this city liberty had been so inborn before your consulships that it was preferable for her to die rather than to serve. That deed, truly, was a twin to the counsels of Catiline and Lentulus: that you drove me from my own house, and you compelled Gnaeus Pompeius into his own house. For neither, with me standing fast and maintaining the city’s vigil, nor with Gnaeus Pompeius, conqueror of all nations, resisting, did they ever reckon that they could destroy the commonwealth for that man.

A me quidem etiam poenas expetistis quibus coniuratorum manis mortuorum expiaretis; omne odium inclusum nefariis sensibus impiorum in me profudistis. Quorum ego furori nisi cessissem, in Catilinae busto vobis ducibus mactatus essem. Quod autem maius indicium exspectatis nihil inter vos et Catilinam interfuisse quam quod eandem illam manum ex intermortuis Catilinae reliquiis concitastis, quod omnis undique perditos conlegistis, quod in me carcerem effudistis, quod coniuratos armastis, quod eorum ferro ac furori meum corpus atque omnium bonorum vitam obicere voluistis?

From me indeed you even sought penalties by which you might expiate the Manes of the dead conspirators; you poured out upon me all the hatred enclosed in the nefarious hearts of the impious. If I had not yielded to their fury, I would have been immolated on Catiline’s pyre, with you as leaders. And what greater indication do you await that there was no difference between you and Catiline than this: that you stirred up that same band from the half-dead remnants of Catiline, that you gathered from everywhere all the ruined, that you emptied the prison upon me, that you armed the conspirators, that you wished to expose my body and the life of all the good to their steel and frenzy?

[VIII] Sed iam redeo ad praeclaram illam contionem tuam. Tu es ille, cui crudelitas displicet? qui, cum senatus luctum ac dolorem suum vestis mutatione declarandum censuisset, cum videres maerere rem publicam amplissimi ordinis luctu, o noster misericors!

[8] But now I return to that illustrious public assembly of yours. Are you the one to whom cruelty is displeasing? you who, when the senate had decreed that its mourning and grief were to be declared by a change of dress, when you saw the commonwealth mourning with the mourning of that most distinguished order, o our merciful one!

quid facis? Quod nulla in barbaria quisquam tyrannus. Omitto enim illud, consulem edicere ut senatus consulto ne obtemperetur, quo foedius nec fieri nec cogitari quicquam potest; ad misericordiam redeo eius cui nimis videtur senatus in conservanda patria fuisse crudelis.

What are you doing? A thing that no tyrant in any barbarian land would do. For I pass over this point—that a consul should issue an edict that a senatorial decree is not to be obeyed—than which nothing fouler can either be done or conceived; I return to the compassion of the man to whom it seems that the senate was too cruel in conserving the fatherland.

Edicere est ausus cum illo suo pari, quem tamen omnibus vitiis superare cupiebat, ut senatus contra quam ipse censuisset ad vestitum rediret. Quis hoc fecit ulla in Scythia tyrannus ut eos quos luctu adficeret lugere non sineret? Maerorem relinquis, maeroris aufers insignia: eripis lacrimas non consolando sed minando.

He dared to issue an edict, together with that colleague of his—whom, however, he was eager to surpass in all vices—that the senate should return to attire contrary to what it had itself voted. What tyrant in any Scythia ever did this, that he would not allow those whom he afflicted with mourning to mourn? You leave the grief, you take away the insignia of grief: you snatch away tears not by consoling but by threatening.

Quod si vestem non publico consilio patres conscripti, sed privato officio aut misericordia mutavissent, tamen id his non licere per interdicta potestatis tuae crudelitatis erat non ferendae; cum vero id senatus frequens censuisset et omnes ordines reliqui iam ante fecissent, tu ex tenebricosa popina consul extractus cum illa saltatrice tonsa senatum populi Romani occasum atque interitum rei publicae lugere vetuisti.

But if the conscript fathers had changed their dress not by public counsel, but by private duty or by misericordia, nevertheless that it was not permitted to them through the interdicts of your potestas—a cruelty not to be borne; but when in fact a full senate had so decreed and all the remaining orders had already done so before, you—consul, dragged out of a shadowy popina with that close-cropped saltatrix—forbade the senate of the Roman people to mourn the fall and destruction of the republic.

[IX] At quaerebat etiam paulo ante de me quid suo mihi opus fuisset auxilio, cur non meis inimicis meis copiis restitissem. Quasi vero non modo ego, qui multis saepe auxilio fuerim, sed quisquam tam inops fuerit umquam qui isto non modo propugnatore tutiorem se sed advocato aut adstipulatore paratiorem fore putaret. Ego istius pecudis ac putidae carnis consilio scilicet aut praesidio niti volebam, ab hoc eiecto cadavere quicquam mihi aut opis aut ornamenti expetebam.

[9] But a little before he was even asking about me what need I had had of his aid, why I had not stood against my enemies with my own forces. As though indeed not only I, who have often been a help to many, but anyone ever had been so needy as to think himself not only safer with that champion, but readier with him as advocate or adstipulator. I, forsooth, wished to lean on the counsel or protection of that brute-beast and putrid flesh; from this cast-out cadaver I was seeking anything either of help or ornament.

Consulem ego tum quaerebam, consulem inquam, non illum quidem quem in hoc maiali invenire non possem, qui tantam rei publicae causam gravitate et consilio suo tueretur, sed qui tamquam truncus atque stipes, si stetisset modo, posset sustinere tamen titulum consulatus. Cum enim esset omnis causa illa mea consularis et senatoria, auxilio mihi opus fuerat et consulis et senatus; quorum alterum etiam ad perniciem meam erat a vobis consulibus conversum, alterum rei publicae penitus ereptum. Ac tamen, si consilium exquiris meum, neque ego cessissem et me ipsa suo complexu patria tenuisset, si mihi cum illo bustuario gladiatore et tecum et cum conlega tuo decertandum fuisset.

I was then seeking a consul, I say a consul—not indeed that sort (whom I could not find in this hog) who would defend so great a cause of the republic by his gravity and counsel, but one who, like a trunk and a block, if only he had stood his ground, could nevertheless sustain the title of the consulship. For since that whole cause of mine was consular and senatorial, I had needed the aid both of the consul and of the senate; of which the one had even been turned by you consuls to my ruin, the other had been utterly wrenched from the republic. And yet, if you ask my counsel, neither would I have yielded, and my fatherland itself would have held me in its own embrace, if it had been necessary for me to fight it out with that gladiator of the funeral pyre and with you and with your colleague.

Alia enim causa praestantissimi viri, Q. Metelli, fuit, quem ego civem meo iudicio cum deorum immortalium laude coniungo; qui C. illi Mario, fortissimo viro et consuli et sextum consuli et eius invictis legionibus, ne armis confligeret, cedendum esse duxit. Quod mihi igitur certamen esset huius modi? cum C. Mario scilicet aut cum aliquo pari, an cum altero barbato Epicuro, cum altero Catilinae lanternario consule?

For there was a different case in the most outstanding man, Quintus Metellus, whom I, in my judgment, as a citizen, conjoin with the praise of the immortal gods; who judged that he must yield to that Gaius Marius—a most brave man and consul, and consul for the 6th time—and to his invincible legions, lest he should clash in arms. What contest, then, would there be for me of this sort? With Gaius Marius, forsooth, or with some peer? Or with the one a bearded Epicurus, with the other Catiline’s lantern-bearing consul?

Neque hercule ego supercilium tuum neque conlegae tui cymbala fugi neque tam fui timidus ut, qui in maximis turbinibus ac fluctibus rei publicae navem gubernassem salvamque in portu conlocassem, frontis tuae nubeculam aut conlegae tui contaminatum spiritum pertimescerem. Alios ego vidi ventos, alias prospexi animo procellas, aliis impendentibus tempestatibus non cessi sed bis unum me pro omnium salute obtuli. Itaque discessu tum meo omnes illi nefarii gladii de manibus crudelissimis exciderunt, cum quidem tu, o vaecors et amens!

Nor, by Hercules, did I flee your supercilious brow nor your colleague’s cymbals, nor was I so timid that—having steered the ship of the commonwealth amid the greatest whirlwinds and waves and having set it safe in harbor—I should grow afraid of the little cloud of your forehead or the contaminated breath of your colleague. I have seen other winds, I have looked out in mind upon other storms; with other tempests impending I did not yield, but twice, as one man, I offered myself for the safety of all. And so, by my departure then, all those nefarious swords fell from the most cruel hands—at a time when you, indeed, O witless and insane one!

cum omnes boni abditi inclusique maererent, templa gemerent, tecta ipsa urbis lugerent, complexus es funestum illud animal ex nefariis stupris, ex civili cruore, ex omni scelerum importunitate conceptum atque eodem in templo, eodem loci vestigio et temporis arbitria non mei solum sed patriae funeris abstulisti.

when all good men, hidden and shut in, were mourning, the temples were groaning, the very roofs of the city were lamenting, you embraced that baleful creature, conceived from nefarious debaucheries, from civil blood, from every importunity of crimes, and in that same temple, on that same footprint of place and the determinations of time, you took away the determinations of a funeral, not of me alone but of the fatherland.

[X] Quid ego illorum dierum epulas, quid laetitiam et gratulationem tuam, quid cum tuis sordidissimis gregibus intemperantissimas perpotationes praedicem? Quis te illis diebus sobrium, quis agentem aliquid quod esset libero dignum, quis denique in publico vidit? cum conlegae tui domus cantu et cymbalis personaret, cumque ipse nudus in convivio saltaret; in quo cum illum saltatorium versaret orbem, ne tum quidem fortunae rotam pertimescebat.

[10] Why should I proclaim the banquets of those days, why your gladness and congratulation, why the most intemperate carousals with your most sordid gangs? Who saw you in those days sober, who saw you doing anything that was worthy of a free man, who, finally, saw you in public? when your colleague’s house resounded with song and cymbals, and when you yourself was dancing naked at a banquet; in which, when he was spinning that dancing circle, not even then did he dread Fortune’s wheel.

Hic autem non tam concinnus helluo nec tam musicus iacebat in suorum Graecorum foetore et caeno; quod quidem istius in illis rei publicae luctibus quasi aliquod Lapitharum aut Centaurorum convivium ferebatur; in quo nemo potest dicere utrum iste plus biberit an vomuerit an effuderit. Tune etiam mentionem facies consulatus aut te fuisse Romae consulem dicere audebis? Quid?

But this man, not so well-composed a glutton nor so musical, was lying amid the stench and mire of his own Greeks; and this of that fellow, in those mournings of the republic, was being bruited about as if some banquet of the Lapiths or Centaurs; in which no one can say whether he imbibed more, or vomited more, or effused more. Will you then even make mention of the consulship, or will you dare to say that you were consul at Rome? What?

tu in lictoribus et in toga praetexta esse consulatum putas? quae ornamenta etiam in Sex. Clodio te consule esse voluisti, his tu, Clodiane canis, insignibus consulatum declarari putas?

do you think the consulship is in the lictors and in the toga praetexta? which ornaments you even wished to be upon Sextus Clodius with you as consul—do you, Clodian dog, think that by these insignia the consulship is proclaimed?

Animo consulem esse oportet, consilio, fide, gravitate, vigilantia, cura, toto denique munere consulatus omni officio tuendo, maximeque, id quod vis nominis ipsa praescribit, rei publicae consulendo. An ego consulem esse putem qui senatum esse in re publica non putavit, et sine eo consilio consulem numerem, sine quo Romae ne reges quidem esse potuerunt? Etenim illa iam omitto.

One ought to be a consul in spirit, in counsel, in faith, in gravity, in vigilance, in care—indeed by upholding the whole office of the consulship in every duty—and most of all, as the very force of the name itself prescribes, by taking counsel for the commonwealth. Am I to think him a consul who did not think that the senate existed in the commonwealth, and shall I reckon him a consul without that council, without which at Rome not even kings were able to exist? Indeed I now pass those things over.

Cum servorum dilectus haberetur in foro, arma in templum Castoris luce et palam comportarentur, id autem templum sublato aditu revolsis gradibus a coniuratorum reliquiis atque a Catilinae praevaricatore quondam, tum ultore, armis teneretur, cum equites Romani relegarentur, viri boni lapidibus e foro pellerentur, senatui non solum iuvare rem publicam sed ne lugere quidem liceret, cum civis is quem hic ordo adsentiente Italia cunctisque gentibus conservatorem patriae iudicarat nullo iudicio, nulla lege, nullo more servitio atque armis pelleretur, non dicam auxilio vestro, quod vere licet dicere, sed certe silentio: tum Romae fuisse consules quisquam existimabit? Qui latrones igitur, si quidem vos consules, qui praedones, qui hostes, qui proditores, qui tyranni nominabuntur?

While a levy of slaves was being held in the forum, and arms were being carried into the Temple of Castor by daylight and openly—yet that temple, with the approach removed by the steps torn up, was held by arms by the remnants of the conspirators and by Catiline’s former prevaricator, then his avenger—while Roman knights were being relegated, good men were driven from the forum with stones, the senate was allowed not only not to help the commonwealth but not even to mourn; while the citizen whom this Order, with Italy and all the nations assenting, had judged the conservator of the fatherland, without any judgment, without any law, without any custom, was driven out by servitude and by arms, not, I will say, by your help (which truly it is permitted to say), but certainly by your silence: will anyone think that there were consuls at Rome then? Who, then, will be named bandits, if indeed you are consuls—who plunderers, who enemies, who traitors, who tyrants?

[XI] Magnum nomen est, magna species, magna dignitas, magna maiestas consulis; non capiunt angustiae pectoris tui, non recipit levitas ista, non egestas animi; non infirmitas ingeni sustinet, non insolentia rerum secundarum tantam personam, tam gravem, tam severam. Seplasia me hercule, ut dici audiebam, te ut primum aspexit, Campanum consulem repudiavit. Audierat Decios Magios et de Taurea illo Vibellio aliquid acceperat; in quibus si moderatio illa quae in nostris solet esse consulibus non fuit, at fuit pompa, fuit species, fuit incessus saltem Seplasia dignus et Capua.

[11] Great is the name, great the aspect, great the dignity, great the majesty of a consul; the narrowness of your breast does not contain it, that levity does not admit it, nor the poverty of spirit; neither does the weakness of talent sustain it, nor the insolence of prosperous circumstances so great a persona, so weighty, so severe. The Seplasia, by Hercules, as I used to hear it said, as soon as it caught sight of you, repudiated a Campanian consul. It had heard of the Decii Magii and had received some report about that Vibellius Taurea; in whom, if that moderation which is wont to be in our consuls was not present, yet there was pomp, there was aspect, there was at least a gait worthy of the Seplasia and of Capua.

Gabinium denique si vidissent duumvirum vestri illi unguentarii, citius agnovissent. Erant illi compti capilli et madentes cincinnorum fimbriae et fluentes purpurissataeque buccae, dignae Capua, sed illa vetere; nam haec quidem quae nunc est splendidissimorum hominum, fortissimorum virorum, optimorum civium mihique amicissimorum multitudine redundat. Quorum Capuae te praetextatum nemo aspexit qui non gemeret desiderio mei, cuius consilio cum universam rem publicam, tum illam ipsam urbem meminerant esse servatam.

Finally, if those perfumers of yours had seen Gabinius as duumvir, they would have recognized him more quickly. There were those coiffed hairs and the dripping fringes of ringlets, and cheeks flowing and purpled—worthy of Capua, but of that old Capua; for this one which now exists overflows with a multitude of most splendid men, most brave men, best citizens, and my very dearest friends. Of whom at Capua no one saw you in the toga praetexta who did not groan with longing for me, by whose counsel they remembered both the whole commonwealth and that very city itself had been preserved.

Me inaurata statua donarant, me patronum unum asciverant, a me se habere vitam, fortunas, liberos arbitrabantur, me et praesentem contra latrocinium tuum suis decretis legatisque defenderant et absentem principe Cn. Pompeio referente et de corpore rei publicae tuorum scelerum tela revellente revocarant. An tum eras consul cum in Palatio mea domus ardebat non casu aliquo sed ignibus iniectis instigante te? Ecquod in hac urbe maius umquam incendium fuit cui non consul subvenerit? At tu illo ipso tempore apud socrum tuam prope a meis aedibus, cuius domum ad meam domum exhauriendam patefeceras, sedebas non exstinctor sed auctor incendi et ardentis faces furiis Clodianis paene ipse consul ministrabas.

They had honored me with a gilded statue, they had enrolled me as their sole patron; they judged that from me they held their life, fortunes, and children; me, present, they had defended against your brigandage by their decrees and embassies, and me, absent, they had recalled, with the chief Gnaeus Pompeius proposing it and, from the body of the commonwealth, plucking out the darts of your crimes. Or were you then consul, when on the Palatine my house was burning—not by some accident, but with fires cast in, you instigating? Has there ever been in this city any greater conflagration to which the consul did not come to the aid? But you at that very time were sitting at your mother-in-law’s, near my house—whose house you had thrown open for my house to be emptied out—not as an extinguisher but as the author of the blaze, and you, almost you yourself as consul, were ministering burning torches to the Clodian Furies.

[XII] An vero reliquo tempore consulem te quisquam duxit, quisquam tibi paruit, quisquam in curiam venienti adsurrexit, quisquam consulenti respondendum putavit? Numerandus est ille annus denique in re publica, cum obmutuisset senatus, iudicia conticuissent, maererent boni, vis latrocini vestri tota urbe volitaret neque civis unus ex civitate sed ipsa civitas tuo et Gabini sceleri furorique cessisset? Ac ne tum quidem emersisti, lutulente Caesonine, ex miserrimis naturae tuae sordibus, cum experrecta tandem virtus clarissimi viri celeriter et verum amicum et optime meritum civem et suum pristinum morem requisivit; neque est ille vir passus in ea re publica quam ipse decorarat atque auxerat diutius vestrorum scelerum pestem morari, cum tamen ille, qualiscumque est, qui est ab uno te improbitate victus, Gabinius, conlegit ipse se vix, sed conlegit tamen, et contra suum Clodium primum simulate, deinde non libenter, ad extremum tamen pro Cn. Pompeio vere vehementerque pugnavit.

[12] Or indeed, in the remaining time did anyone reckon you a consul, did anyone obey you, did anyone rise to you as you came into the curia, did anyone think one ought to answer when you were consulting? Is that year, finally, to be counted in the commonwealth, when the senate had fallen mute, the courts had fallen silent, the good were mourning, the force of your brigandage was flitting through the whole city, and not one citizen from the state, but the state itself had yielded to your and Gabinius’s crime and frenzy? And not even then did you emerge, mud-clotted Caesoninus, from the most wretched filth of your nature, when at last the virtus of a most illustrious man, awakened, quickly sought both a true friend and a citizen most well-deserving, and sought its own former custom; nor did that man allow, in that republic which he himself had adorned and augmented, the pest of your crimes to linger longer, since yet that man—whatever he is—Gabinius, who is surpassed by you alone in depravity, barely gathered himself, yet gathered himself nonetheless, and against his own Clodius at first with pretense, then not willingly, but in the end truly and vehemently fought on behalf of Gnaeus Pompeius.

Quo quidem in spectaculo mira populi Romani aequitas erat. Vter eorum perisset, tamquam lanista in eius modi pari lucrum fieri putabat, immortalem vero quaestum, si uterque cecidisset. Sed ille tamen agebat aliquid; tuebatur auctoritatem summi viri.

In that spectacle, indeed, there was a wondrous equity of the Roman people. Whichever of the two had perished, they thought, like a lanista in a bout of that sort, that profit was being made—indeed, deathless gain, if both had fallen. But he, however, was doing something; he was safeguarding the authority of the greatest man.

Erat ipse sceleratus, erat gladiator, cum scelerato tamen et cum pari gladiatore pugnabat. Tu scilicet homo religiosus et sanctus foedus quod meo sanguine in pactione provinciarum iceras frangere noluisti. Caverat enim sibi ille sororius adulter ut, si tibi provinciam, si exercitum, si pecuniam ereptam ex rei publicae visceribus dedisset, omnium suorum scelerum socium te adiutoremque praeberes.

He himself was a criminal, he was a gladiator; yet he fought with a criminal and with a gladiator his peer. You, forsooth, a religious and holy man, did not wish to break the compact which you had struck with my blood in the paction of the provinces. For that brother-in-law adulterer had taken care for himself that, if he had given you a province, an army, and money snatched from the bowels of the Republic, you would present yourself as partner and helper of all his crimes.

Itaque in illo tumultu fracti fasces, ictus ipse, cotidie tela, lapides, fugae, deprehensus denique cum ferro ad senatum is quem ad Cn. Pompeium interimendum conlocatum fuisse constabat.

And so, in that tumult, the fasces were broken, he himself was struck, every day there were weapons, stones, flights; and finally there was apprehended with iron at the senate the man who was established to have been stationed for putting Gnaeus Pompeius to death.

[XIII] Ecquis audivit non modo actionem aliquam aut relationem sed vocem omnino aut querelam tuam? Consulem tu te fuisse putas, cuius in imperio, qui rem publicam senatus auctoritate servarat, qui omnis omnium gentium partis tribus triumphis devinxerat, is se in publico, is denique in Italia tuto statuit esse non posse? An tum eratis consules cum, quacumque de re verbum facere coeperatis aut referre ad senatum, cunctus ordo reclamabat ostendebatque nihil esse vos acturos, nisi prius de me rettulissetis?

[13] Has anyone heard not only any action or relation, but your voice at all, or your complaint? Do you think yourself to have been a consul, under whose imperium the man who had preserved the republic by the authority of the senate, who had bound all the parties of all nations by three triumphs, decided that he could not be safe in public—indeed, in Italy? Or were you then consuls when, on whatever matter you had begun to utter a word or to refer to the senate, the whole order was protesting and showing that you would do nothing unless you had first reported about me?

cum vos, quamquam foedere obstricti tenebamini, tamen cupere vos diceretis, sed lege impediri. Quae lex privatis hominibus esse lex non videbatur, inusta per servos, incisa per vim, imposita per latrocinium, sublato senatu, pulsis e foro bonis omnibus, capta re publica, contra omnis leges nullo scripta more, hanc qui se metuere dicerent, consules non dicam animi hominum, sed fasti ulli ferre possunt? Nam si illam legem non putabatis, quae erat contra omnis leges indemnati civis atque integri capitis bonorumque tribunicia proscriptio, ac tamen obstricti pactione tenebamini, quis vos non modo consules sed liberos fuisse putet, quorum mens fuerit oppressa praemio, lingua astricta mercede?

when you, although you were held bound by a treaty, nevertheless said that you were willing, but were hindered by a law. Which “law” did not seem to be a law for private citizens at all—branded in by slaves, cut in by force, imposed by brigandage, with the senate removed, all good men driven from the forum, the commonwealth seized, against all laws, written with no customary form—consuls who said they feared this, can, I will not say the hearts of men, but can any annals endure? For if you did not reckon that to be a law, which was, against all laws, the tribunician proscription of an uncondemned citizen, of unimpaired civil status, and of his goods, and yet you were held bound by a pact, who would think that you were not only consuls but free men, whose mind was oppressed by a bounty, whose tongue was bound fast by a bribe?

Sin illam vos soli legem putabatis, quisquam vos consules tunc fuisse aut nunc esse consularis putet, qui eius civitatis in qua in principum numero voltis esse non leges, non instituta, non mores, non iura noritis? An, cum proficiscebamini paludati in provincias vel emptas vel ereptas, consules vos quisquam putavit? Itaque, credo, si minus frequentia sua vestrum egressum ornando atque celebrando, at ominibus saltem bonis ut consules, non tristissimis ut hostes aut proditores prosequebantur.

But if you alone thought that to be a law, would anyone think you were consuls then, or now to be men of consular rank, you who do not know the laws, the institutions, the morals, the rights of that commonwealth in which you wish to be in the number of the leading men? Or, when you were setting out, in military cloak, into provinces either bought or snatched away, did anyone think you consuls? And so, I suppose, if not with their throng by adorning and celebrating your departure, yet at least with good omens as consuls they escorted you, not with the most gloomy ones as enemies or traitors.

[XIV] Tune etiam, immanissimum ac foedissimum monstrum, ausus es meum discessum illum testem sceleris et crudelitatis tuae in maledicti et contumeliae loco ponere? Quo quidem tempore cepi, patres conscripti, fructum immortalem vestri in me et amoris et iudici; qui non admurmuratione sed voce et clamore abiecti hominis ac semivivi furorem petulantiamque fregistis. Tu luctum senatus, tu desiderium equestris ordinis, tu squalorem Italiae, tu curiae taciturnitatem annuam, tu silentium perpetuum iudiciorum ac fori, tu cetera illa in maledicti loco pones quae meus discessus rei publicae volnera inflixit?

[14] Then also, most monstrous and most foul monster, did you dare to place my departure—that witness of your crime and your cruelty—in the place of abuse and contumely? At that very time I received, Conscript Fathers, the immortal fruit of your love and of your judgment toward me; you who not by murmuring but by voice and outcry shattered the frenzy and petulance of an abject and half‑alive man. Will you set as material for abuse the mourning of the senate, the longing of the equestrian order, the squalor of Italy, the year‑long taciturnity of the curia, the perpetual silence of the courts and the forum, and those other things which my departure inflicted as wounds upon the commonwealth?

Qui si calamitosissimus fuisset, tamen misericordia dignior quam contumelia et cum gloria potius esse coniunctus quam cum probro putaretur, atque ille dolor meus dumtaxat, vestrum quidem scelus ac dedecus haberetur. Cum vero—forsitan hoc quod dicturus sum mirabile auditu esse videatur, sed certe id dicam quod sentio—cum tantis a vobis, patres conscripti, beneficiis adfectus sim tantisque honoribus, non modo illam calamitatem esse non duco sed, si quid mihi potest a re publica esse seiunctum, quod vix potest, privatim ad meum nomen augendum, optandam duco mihi fuisse illam expetendamque fortunam. Atque ut tuum laetissimum diem cum tristissimo meo conferam, utrum tandem bono viro et sapienti optabilius putas sic exire e patria ut omnes sui cives salutem, incolumitatem, reditum precentur, quod mihi accidit, an, quod tibi proficiscenti evenit, ut omnes exsecrarentur, male precarentur, unam tibi illam viam et perpetuam esse vellent?

Which, even if it had been most calamitous, yet would be thought more worthy of mercy than of contumely and to be conjoined rather with glory than with disgrace, and that pain of mine, at least, would be held as your crime and dishonor. But in truth—perhaps what I am about to say may seem marvelous to hear, but surely I will say what I feel—since I have been affected by such great benefactions and such great honors from you, Conscript Fathers, I not only do not reckon that a calamity, but, if anything can be for me severed from the commonwealth, which scarcely can be, in my private capacity, for the augmenting of my name, I judge that fortune to have been one to be desired by me and to be sought. And that I may compare your most joyous day with my most sorrowful, what do you think is more to be wished by a good and wise man: thus to go out from his fatherland that all his fellow citizens pray for his safety, unimpaired condition, and return—which befell me—or, that which befell you when you were setting out, that all should execrate, imprecate evil, and wish that that single road should be perpetual for you?

Mihi me dius fidius in tanto omnium mortalium odio, iusto praesertim et debito, quaevis fuga quam ulla provincia esset optatior.

For me—by Dius Fidius—amid so great a hatred of all mortals, especially a just and due one, any flight would be more to be desired than any province.

[XV] Sed perge porro. Nam si illud meum turbulentissimum tempus tuo tranquillissimo praestat, quid conferam reliqua quae in te dedecoris plena fuerunt, in me dignitatis? Me kalendis Ianuariis, qui dies post obitum occasumque nostrum rei publicae primus inluxit, frequentissimus senatus, concursu Italiae, referente clarissimo ac fortissimo viro, P. Lentulo, consentiente atque una voce revocavit.

[15] But go on further. For if that most turbulent time of mine excels your most tranquil, what shall I compare as to the rest—the things which in you were full of disgrace, in me of dignity? On the Kalends of January (January 1), which day, after our death and setting, first dawned upon the commonwealth, a most crowded Senate, with Italy in concourse, on the motion of that most illustrious and most brave man, P. Lentulus, agreed and with one voice recalled me.

Me idem senatus exteris nationibus, me legatis magistratibusque nostris auctoritate sua consularibusque litteris non, ut tu Insuber dicere ausus es, orbatum patria sed, ut senatus illo ipso tempore appellavit, civem servatoremque rei publicae commendavit. Ad meam unius hominis salutem senatus auxilium omnium civium cuncta ex Italia qui rem publicam salvam esse vellent consulis voce et litteris implorandum putavit. Mei capitis conservandi causa Romam uno tempore quasi signo dato Italia tota convenit.

The same senate commended me to foreign nations, to our legates and magistrates, by its authority and by consular letters—not, as you, an Insubrian, dared to say, deprived of my fatherland, but, as the senate at that very time styled me, a citizen and savior of the republic. For the safety of me, a single man, the senate thought that aid from all the citizens throughout Italy who wished the republic to be safe should be implored by the consul’s voice and letters. For the sake of preserving my life, at one moment, as if a signal had been given, all Italy assembled at Rome.

De mea salute P. Lentuli, praestantissimi viri atque optimi consulis, Cn. Pompei, clarissimi atque invictissimi civis, ceterorumque principum civitatis celeberrimae et gratissimae contiones fuerunt. De me senatus ita decrevit Cn. Pompeio auctore et eius sententiae principe ut, si quis impedisset reditum meum, in hostium numero putaretur, eisque verbis ea de me senatus auctoritas declarata est ut nemini sit triumphus honorificentius quam mihi salus restitutioque perscripta. De me cum omnes magistratus promulgassent praeter unum praetorem, a quo non fuit postulandum, fratrem inimici mei, praeterque duos de lapide emptos tribunos, legem comitiis centuriatis tulit P. Lentulus consul de conlegae Q. Metelli sententia, quem mecum eadem res publica quae in tribunatu eius diiunxerat in consulatu virtute optimi ac iustissimi viri sapientiaque coniunxit.

On behalf of my safety there were very thronged and most welcome public assemblies by P. Lentulus, a most outstanding man and an excellent consul, by Cn. Pompeius, a most illustrious and most unconquered citizen, and by the other chiefs of the state. Concerning me the senate so decreed, with Cn. Pompeius as author and as the leader of that opinion, that, if anyone should have impeded my return, he should be reckoned in the number of enemies; and by these words that senatorial authority about me was declared in such a way that to no one has a triumph been more honorific than the safety and restitution written down for me. About me, when all the magistrates had promulgated measures, except one praetor—from whom it was not to be demanded, the brother of my enemy—and except two tribunes bought for a stone, P. Lentulus the consul carried a law in the comitia centuriata on the opinion of his colleague Q. Metellus, whom the same res publica which had disjoined from me in his tribunate, in the consulship, by the virtue of the best and most just man and by wisdom, united with me.

Quae lex quem ad modum accepta sit quid me attinet dicere? Ex vobis audio nemini civi ullam quo minus adesset satis iustam excusationem esse visam; nullis comitiis umquam neque multitudinem hominum tantam neque splendidiorem fuisse; hoc certe video, quod indicant tabulae publicae, vos rogatores, vos diribitores, vos custodes fuisse tabellarum, et, quod in honoribus vestrorum propinquorum non facitis vel aetatis excusatione vel honoris, id in salute mea nullo rogante vos vestra sponte fecistis.

What concern is it to me to say how that law was received? From you I hear that to no citizen did any sufficiently just excuse seem to exist by which he might not be present; that at no comitia ever was there either so great a multitude of men or a more splendid one; this at any rate I see, as the public records indicate, that you were the rogators, you the diribitors, you the custodians of the ballots, and that which you do not do in the honors of your relatives either by excuse of age or of rank, that in the matter of my safety, with no one asking, you did of your own accord.

[XVI] Confer nunc, Epicure noster ex hara producte non ex schola, confer, si audes, absentiam tuam cum mea. Obtinuisti provinciam consularem finibus eis quos lex cupiditatis tuae, non quos lex generi tui pepigerat. Nam lege Caesaris iustissima atque optima populi liberi plane et vere erant liberi?

[16] Compare now, our Epicurus, brought forth from a sty, not from a school—compare, if you dare, your absence with mine. You obtained a consular province with those boundaries which the law of your cupidity had stipulated, not those which the law for your birth had stipulated. For by Caesar’s most just and best law were the citizens of a free people plainly and truly free?

lege autem ea quam nemo legem praeter te et conlegam tuum putavit omnis erat tibi Achaia, Thessalia, Athenae, cuncta Graecia addicta; habebas exercitum tantum quantum tibi non senatus aut populus Romanus dederat, sed quantum tua libido conscripserat; aerarium exhauseras. Quas res gessisti imperio, exercitu, provincia consulari? Quas res gesserit, quaero!

but by that law which no one except you and your colleague thought to be a law, all Achaia, Thessaly, Athens, all Greece was adjudged to you; you had an army not as great as the senate or the Roman People had given you, but as great as your libido had conscripted; you had drained the treasury. What deeds did you accomplish with your imperium, your army, your consular province? What deeds he accomplished, I ask!

Qui ut venit, statim—nondum commemoro rapinas, non exactas pecunias, non captas, non imperatas, non neces sociorum, non caedis hospitum, non perfidiam, non immanitatem, non scelera praedico; mox, si videbitur, ut cum fure, ut cum sacrilego, ut cum sicario disputabo; nunc meam spoliatam fortunam conferam cum florente fortuna imperatoris. Quis umquam provinciam cum exercitu obtinuit qui nullas ad senatum litteras miserit? tantam vero provinciam cum tanto exercitu, Macedoniam praesertim, quam tantae barbarorum gentes attingunt ut semper Macedonicis imperatoribus idem fines provinciae fuerint qui gladiorum atque pilorum; ex qua aliquot praetorio imperio, consulari quidem nemo rediit, qui incolumis fuerit, quin triumpharit!

Who, when he came, at once—I do not yet recount rapines, not exacted monies, not seized, not imposed sums, not the slayings of allies, not the massacres of guest-friends, not perfidy, not savagery, I do not yet proclaim crimes; soon, if it shall seem good, I will argue as with a thief, as with a sacrilegist, as with an assassin; now I will compare my despoiled fortune with the flourishing fortune of the general. Who has ever held a province with an army who has sent no letters to the Senate? and so great a province with so great an army—Macedonia especially, which so many nations of barbarians border upon, that for Macedonian commanders the boundaries of the province have always been the same as those of swords and javelins—from which province several with praetorian imperium, indeed no one with consular, has returned who, if he came back unscathed, did not celebrate a triumph!

Est hoc novum; multo illud magis. Appellatus est hic volturius illius provinciae, si dis placet, imperator.

This is new; that much more so. This vulture of that province was called, if it please the gods, imperator.

[XVII] Ne tum quidem, Paule noster, tabellas Romam cum laurea mittere audebas? "Misi," inquit. Quis umquam recitavit, quis ut recitarentur postulavit?

[17] Not even then, our Paul, did you dare to send dispatches to Rome with laurel? "I sent them," he says. Who ever recited them, who demanded that they be recited?

Nihil enim mea iam refert, utrum tu conscientia oppressus scelerum tuorum nihil umquam ausus sis scribere ad eum ordinem quem despexeras, quem adflixeras, quem deleveras, an amici tui tabellas abdiderint idemque silentio suo temeritatem atque audaciam tuam condemnarint; atque haud scio an malim te videri nullo pudore fuisse in litteris mittendis, at amicos tuos plus habuisse et pudoris et consili, quam aut te videri pudentiorem fuisse quam soles, aut tuum factum non esse condemnatum iudicio amicorum. Quod si non tuis nefariis in hunc ordinem contumeliis in perpetuum tibi curiam praeclusisses, quid tandem erat actum aut gestum in tua provincia de quo ad senatum cum gratulatione aliqua scribi abs te oporteret? vexatio Macedoniae, an oppidorum turpis amissio, an sociorum direptio, an agrorum depopulatio, an munitio Thessalonicae, an, obsessio militaris viae, an exercitus nostri interitus ferro, fame, frigore, pestilentia?

For it now makes no difference to me whether you, oppressed by the conscience of your crimes, never dared to write to that order which you had despised, afflicted, obliterated, or whether your friends hid the tablets and by their silence condemned your temerity and audacity; and I scarcely know but that I would prefer you to be thought to have had no shame in sending letters, and your friends to have had more both of modesty and of counsel, rather than either that you be thought to have been more modest than you are wont, or that your deed not be condemned by the judgment of your friends. But if by your nefarious insults against this order you had not shut the Curia to yourself forever, what, pray, had been done or transacted in your province about which it ought to be written by you to the senate with any congratulation? the vexation of Macedonia, or the disgraceful loss of towns, or the plundering of the allies, or the depopulation of fields, or the fortification of Thessalonica, or the blockade of the Military Road, or the destruction of our army by iron, hunger, cold, pestilence?

Tu vero qui ad senatum nihil scripseris, ut in urbe nequior inventus es quam Gabinius, sic in provincia paulo tamen quam ille demissior. Nam ille gurges atque helluo natus abdomini suo non laudi et gloriae, cum equites Romanos in provincia, cum publicanos nobiscum et voluntate et dignitate coniunctos omnis fortunis, multos fama vitaque privasset, cum egisset aliud nihil illo exercitu nisi ut urbis depopularetur, agros vastaret, exhauriret domos, ausus est—quid enim ille non audeat?—a senatu supplicationem per litteras postulare.

You, indeed, who wrote nothing to the senate, just as in the city you were found more profligate than Gabinius, so in the province you were yet somewhat more abject than he. For that swallowing gulf and glutton, born for his belly, not for praise and glory, when he had deprived Roman knights in the province, and the publicans—joined with us both by goodwill and by dignity—of all their fortunes, and many of their reputation and their very life; when he had done nothing else with that army except to plunder cities, lay waste fields, and drain houses, dared—what indeed will he not dare?—to demand from the senate by letters a supplication.

[XVIII] O di immortales! tune etiam atque adeo vos, geminae voragines scopulique rei publicae, vos meam fortunam deprimitis, vestram extollitis, cum de me ea senatus consulta absente facta sint, eae contiones habitae, is motus fuerit municipiorum et coloniarum omnium, ea decreta publicanorum, ea conlegiorum, ea denique generum ordinumque omnium quae non modo ego optare numquam auderem sed cogitare non possem, vos autem sempiternas foedissimae turpitudinis notas subieritis? An ego, si te et Gabinium cruci suffixos viderem, maiore adficerer laetitia ex corporis vestri laceratione quam adficior ex famae?

[18] O immortal gods! do you then, and indeed you too, twin whirlpools and rocks of the republic, do you press down my fortune and exalt your own, when about me those senatorial decrees were made in my absence, those public assemblies were held, that commotion of all municipalities and colonies took place, those decrees of the publicans, those of the collegia, and finally those of all kinds and orders—things which not only would I never dare to wish, but could not even conceive—while you have incurred everlasting marks of most foul disgrace? Or would I, if I saw you and Gabinius affixed to the cross, be affected with greater joy from the laceration of your body than I am affected from that of your fame?

Nullum est supplicium putandum quo adfici casu aliquo etiam boni viri fortesque possunt. Atque hoc quidem etiam isti tui dicunt voluptarii Graeci: quos utinam ita audires ut erant audiendi; numquam te in tot flagitia ingurgitasses. Verum audis in praesepibus, audis in stupris, audis in cibo et vino.

No punishment is to be reckoned that which, by some accident, can befall even good and brave men. And indeed even those Greek voluptuaries of yours say this: whom would that you listened to as they ought to have been listened to; you would never have ingorged yourself into so many flagitious deeds. But you listen in the sties, you listen in debaucheries, you listen amid food and wine.

Sed dicunt isti ipsi qui mala dolore, bona voluptate definiunt, sapientem, etiam si in Phalaridis tauro inclusus succensis ignibus torreatur, dicturum tamen suave illud esse seque ne tantulum quidem commoveri. Tantam virtutis vim esse voluerunt ut non posset esse umquam vir bonus non beatus. Quae est igitur poena, quod supplicium?

But those very men who define evils by pain and goods by pleasure say that the wise man—even if shut up in Phalaris’s bull and roasted with fires kindled beneath—will nevertheless declare that it is “pleasant” and that he is not moved even the least bit. They have wished the power of virtue to be so great that a good man could never be anything but happy. What, then, is a penalty, what a punishment?

Id mea sententia quod accidere nemini potest nisi nocenti, suscepta fraus, impedita et oppressa mens, bonorum odium, nota inusta senatus, amissio dignitatis.

That, in my opinion, which can befall no one except the guilty, fraud undertaken, a mind impeded and oppressed, the hatred of the good, the note branded in by the Senate, the loss of dignity.

[XIX] Nec mihi ille M. Regulus quem Carthaginienses resectis palpebris inligatum in machina vigilando necaverunt supplicio videtur adfectus, nec C. Marius quem Italia servata ab illo demersum in Minturnensium paludibus, Africa devicta ab eodem expulsum et naufragum vidit. Fortunae enim ista tela sunt non culpae; supplicium autem est poena peccati. Neque vero ego, si umquam vobis mala precarer, quod saepe feci, in quo di immortales meas preces audiverunt, morbum aut mortem aut cruciatum precarer.

[19] Nor does that M. Regulus, whom the Carthaginians, his eyelids cut off, killed by wakefulness, bound upon the machine, seem to me to have been subjected to punishment; nor C. Marius, whom Italy, saved by him, saw sunk in the marshes of the Minturnians, and Africa, conquered by that same man, saw driven out and shipwrecked. For these are the darts of Fortune, not of fault; but punishment is the penalty of sin. Nor indeed would I, if I ever were to pray evils upon you—which I have often done, wherein the immortal gods have heard my prayers—pray for disease or death or torment.

Thyestea est ista exsecratio poetae volgi animos non sapientium moventis, ut tu

That is a Thyestean execration of a poet, moving the minds of the vulgar crowd, not of the wise, as you

"naufragio expulsus uspiam
saxis fixus asperis, evisceratus
latere penderes,"

"expelled by shipwreck somewhere,
fixed to harsh rocks, eviscerated,
may you hang by the flank,"

ut ait ille,

as he says,

"saxa spargens tabo, sanie et sanguine atro".

"spattering the rocks with gore, with sanies and black blood".

Non ferrem omnino moleste, si ita accidisset; sed id tamen esset humanum. M. Marcellus, qui ter consul fuit, summa virtute, pietate, gloria militari, periit in mari; qui tamen ob virtutem in gloria et laude vivit. In fortuna quadam est illa mors non in poena putanda.

I would not take it at all grievously, if it had so happened; but that nevertheless would be human. Marcus Marcellus, who was consul 3 times, with the highest virtue, piety, and military glory, perished at sea; who nevertheless on account of his virtue lives in glory and praise. In a certain kind of fortune that death is to be considered not as a penalty.

Quae est igitur poena, quod supplicium, quae saxa, quae cruces? Esse duos duces in provinciis populi Romani, habere exercitus, appellari imperatores; horum alterum sic fuisse infrenatum conscientia scelerum et fraudum suarum ut ex ea provincia quae fuerit ex omnibus una maxime triumphalis nullam sit ad senatum litteram mittere ausus. Ex qua provincia modo vir omni dignitate ornatissimus, L. Torquatus, magnis rebus gestis me referente ab senatu imperator est appellatus, unde his paucis annis Cn. Dolabellae, C. Curionis, M. Luculli iustissimos triumphos vidimus, ex ea te imperatore nuntius ad senatum adlatus est nullus; ab altero adlatae litterae, recitatae, relatum ad senatum.

What then is the punishment, what the penalty, what the rocks, what the crosses? That there are two leaders in the provinces of the Roman people, that they have armies, that they are entitled imperatores; of these, the one was so overawed by the consciousness of his crimes and frauds that from that province which of all has been uniquely the most triumphal he did not dare to send any letter to the senate. From that same province only recently a man most adorned with every dignity, L. Torquatus, with great deeds achieved, upon my report was styled imperator by the senate; whence in these few years we have seen the most just triumphs of Cn. Dolabella, C. Curio, M. Lucullus; from that province, with you as imperator, no message was brought to the senate; from the other, letters were brought, read aloud, and the matter was brought before the senate.

Di immortales! idne ego optarem ut inimicus meus ea qua nemo umquam ignominia notaretur, ut senatus is qui in eam iam benignitatis consuetudinem venit ut eos qui bene rem publicam gesserint novis honoribus adficiat et numero dierum et genere verborum, huius unius litteris nuntiantibus non crederet, postulantibus denegaret?

Immortal gods! Would I really wish this, that my enemy be branded with that ignominy by which no one ever has been, that the senate—which has now come into such a custom of benignity as to bestow new honors upon those who have well managed the commonwealth, both in the number of days and in the kind of words—should not believe the dispatches of this one man as they announce, should deny when they request?

[XX] His ego rebus pascor, his delector, his perfruor, quod de vobis hic ordo opinatur non secus ac de acerrimis hostibus, quod vos equites Romani, quod ceteri ordines, quod cuncta civitas odit, quod nemo bonus, nemo denique civis est, qui modo se civem esse meminerit, qui vos non oculis fugiat, auribus respuat, animo aspernetur, recordatione denique ipsa consulatus vestri perhorrescat. Haec ego semper de vobis expetivi, haec optavi, haec precatus sum; plura etiam acciderunt quam vellem; nam ut amitteretis exercitum, numquam me hercule optavi. Illud etiam accidit praeter optatum meum, sed valde ex voluntate.

[20] On these things I feed, in these I take delight, in these I thoroughly enjoy myself: that about you this Order opines no differently than about the most bitter enemies; that you the Roman Equestrians, that the other Orders, that the whole Commonwealth hates; that no good man—no one, in fine, who is a citizen, who only remembers that he is a citizen—fails to shun you with his eyes, to spit you out with his ears, to spurn you in mind, to shudder, finally, at the very recollection of your consulship. These things I always sought from you, these I desired, these I prayed for; even more have happened than I wished; for that you should lose your army, by Hercules, I never desired. That too befell beyond my wish, but very much to my satisfaction.

Mihi enim numquam venerat in mentem furorem et insaniam optare vobis in quam incidistis. Atqui fuit optandum. Me tamen fugerat deorum immortalium has esse in impios et consceleratos poenas certissimas.

For it had never come into my mind to wish for you the frenzy and insanity into which you have fallen. And yet it ought to have been wished. Nevertheless, it had escaped me that these are, from the immortal gods, the most certain punishments upon the impious and the most criminal.

Nolite enim ita putare, patres conscripti, ut in scaena videtis, homines consceleratos impulsu deorum terreri furialibus taedis ardentibus; sua quemque fraus, suum facinus, suum scelus, sua audacia de sanitate ac mente deturbat; hae sunt impiorum furiae, hae flammae, hae faces. Ego te non vaecordem, non furiosum, non mente captum, non tragico illo Oreste aut Athamante dementiorem putem, qui sis ausus primum facere—nam id est caput—deinde paulo ante Torquato, sanctissimo et gravissimo viro, premente confiteri te provinciam Macedoniam, in quam tantum exercitum transportasses, sine ullo milite reliquisse? Mitto de amissa maxima parte exercitus; sit hoc infelicitatis tuae; dimittendi vero exercitus quam potes adferre causam?

Do not think so, Conscript Fathers, as you see on the stage, that men criminally wicked are terrified by the impulse of the gods, by the Furies’ burning torches; each man’s own fraud, his own facinous deed, his own crime, his own audacity drives him down from sanity and mind; these are the Furies of the impious, these the flames, these the torches. I would not think you witless, not frenzied, not mind-captured, not more demented than that tragic Orestes or Athamas, you who have dared first to do it—for that is the head—then, a little before, with Torquatus, a most sacred and most grave man, pressing, to confess that you had left the province of Macedonia, into which you had transported so great an army, without a single soldier? I pass over the loss of the greatest part of the army; let this be of your ill-fortune; but truly, for the dismissing of the army, what cause can you bring?

quam potestatem habuisti, quam legem, quod senatus consultum, quod ius, quod exemplum? Quid est aliud furere? non cognoscere homines, non cognoscere leges, non senatum, non civitatem?

what power did you have, what law, what senatorial decree, what legal right, what example? What is madness other than this? not to recognize men, not to recognize the laws, not the Senate, not the commonwealth?

Cruentare corpus suum leve est; maior haec est vitae, famae, salutis suae volneratio. Si familiam tuam dimisisses, quod ad neminem nisi ad ipsum te pertineret, amici te constringendum putarent; praesidium tu rei publicae, custodiam provinciae iniussu populi Romani senatusque dimisisses, si tuae mentis compos fuisses?

To make one’s own body bloody is a light thing; greater is this wounding of one’s life, fame, and safety. If you had dismissed your household, since that concerned no one except yourself, your friends would think you must be constrained; would you have dismissed the presidium of the Republic, the custody of the province, without the order of the Roman People and the Senate, if you had been in possession of your mind?

[XXI] Ecce tibi alter effusa iam maxima praeda quam ex fortunis publicanorum, quam ex agris urbibusque sociorum exhauserat, cum partim eius praedae profundae libidines devorassent, partim nova quaedam et inaudita luxuries, partim etiam in illis locis ubi omnia diripuit emptiones ad hunc Tusculani montem exstruendum; cum iam egeret, cum illa eius intermissa intolerabilis aedificatio constitisset, se ipsum, fascis suos, exercitum populi Romani, numen interdictumque deorum immortalium, responsa sacerdotum, auctoritatem senatus, iussa populi Romani, nomen ac dignitatem imperi regi Aegyptio vendidit. Cum finis provinciae tantos haberet quantos voluerat, quantos optarat, quantos pretio mei capitis periculoque emerat, eis se tenere non potuit; exercitum eduxit ex Syria. Qui licuit extra provinciam?

[21] Behold for you another: after the greatest booty, already poured out, which he had drained from the fortunes of the publicans, from the fields and cities of the allies, when partly deep lusts had devoured that booty, partly a certain new and unheard-of luxury, and partly also purchases in those regions where he plundered everything, for building up this Tusculan mount; when now he was in want, when that intolerable construction of his, once interrupted, had come to a standstill, he sold himself, his fasces, the army of the Roman people, the numen and interdict of the immortal gods, the responses of the priests, the authority of the senate, the commands of the Roman people, the name and dignity of the imperium, to the Egyptian king. Since the boundary of his province was as great as he had willed, as he had desired, as he had bought by the price and peril of my head, he could not keep himself within them; he led the army out of Syria. How was it permitted beyond the province?

Praebuit se mercennarium comitem regi Alexandrino. Quid hoc turpius? In Aegyptum venit, signa contulit cum Alexandrinis.

He presented himself as a mercenary companion to the Alexandrian king. What is more disgraceful than this? He came into Egypt, he joined battle with the Alexandrians.

Quando hoc bellum aut hic ordo aut populus susceperat? Cepit Alexandream. Quid aliud exspectamus a furore eius nisi ut ad senatum tantis de rebus gestis litteras mittat?

When had either this Order or the People undertaken this war? He captured Alexandria. What else do we expect from his fury except that he send letters to the Senate about such great deeds accomplished?

Hic si mentis esset suae, nisi poenas patriae disque immortalibus eas quae gravissimae sunt furore atque insania penderet, ausus esset—mitto exire de provincia, educere exercitum, bellum sua sponte gerere, in regnum iniussu populi Romani aut senatus accedere, quae cum plurimae leges veteres, tum lex Cornelia maiestatis, Iulia de pecuniis repetundis planissime vetat? Sed haec omitto; ille si non acerrime fureret, auderet, quam provinciam P. Lentulus, amicissimus huic ordini, cum et auctoritate senatus et sorte haberet, interposita religione sine ulla dubitatione deposuisset, eam sibi adsciscere, cum, etiam si religio non impediret, mos maiorum tamen et exempla et gravissimae legum poenae vetarent?

If this man were of his own mind, unless he were paying to his fatherland and to the immortal gods those penalties which are most grievous for frenzy and insanity, would he have dared—I pass over his going out from his province, leading forth an army, waging war of his own accord, approaching a kingdom without the order of the Roman people or the senate, things which both many ancient laws, and in particular the Cornelian law of Majesty and the Julian law on Extorted Monies, most plainly forbid? But I omit these; if he were not raging most fiercely, would he dare to appropriate to himself that province which P. Lentulus, a very great friend to this order, when he held it both by the authority of the senate and by lot, a religious scruple having been interposed, had without any hesitation laid down, to enroll it to himself, when, even if religion did not hinder, yet the custom of the ancestors and the precedents and the most grievous penalties of the laws would forbid?

[XXII] Et quoniam fortunarum contentionem facere coepimus, de reditu Gabini omittamus, quem, etsi sibi ipse praecidit, ego tamen os ut videam hominis exspecto; tuum, si placet, reditum cum meo conferamus. Ac meus quidem is fuit ut a Brundisio usque Romam agmen perpetuum totius Italiae viderit. Neque enim regio ulla fuit nec municipium neque praefectura aut colonia ex qua non ad me publice venerint gratulatum.

[22] And since we have begun to make a contention of fortunes, let us pass over the return of Gabinius, which, even if he has cut off for himself, I nonetheless wait to see the man’s visage; your return, if it pleases, let us compare with my own. And mine indeed was such that from Brundisium all the way to Rome a perpetual procession of all Italy could be seen. For there was no region nor municipality nor prefecture or colony from which they did not come to me publicly to offer congratulations.

Quid dicam adventus meos, quid effusiones hominum ex oppidis, quid concursus ex agris patrum familias cum coniugibus ac liberis, quid eos dies qui quasi deorum immortalium festi atque sollemnes apud omnis sunt adventu meo redituque celebrati? Vnus ille dies mihi quidem immortalitatis instar fuit quo in patriam redii, cum senatum egressum vidi populumque Romanum universum, cum mihi ipsa Roma prope convolsa sedibus suis ad complectendum conservatorem suum progredi visa est. Quae me ita accepit ut non modo omnium generum, aetatum, ordinum omnes viri ac mulieres omnis fortunae ac loci, sed etiam moenia ipsa viderentur et tecta urbis ac templa laetari.

What shall I say of my arrivals, what of the outpourings of people from the towns, what of the concourses from the fields of fathers of families with their spouses and children, what of those days which, as though festivals and solemnities of the immortal gods, were celebrated among all by my arrival and return? That one day was to me, indeed, the very image of immortality on which I returned to my fatherland, when I saw the senate come forth and the whole Roman people, when Rome herself seemed to me almost torn from her very seats to advance to embrace her preserver. She received me in such wise that not only men and women of every kind, age, and order, of every fortune and place, but even the very walls and the roofs of the city and the temples seemed to rejoice.

Me consequentibus diebus in ea ipsa domo qua tu me expuleras, quam expilaras, quam incenderas, pontifices, consules, patres conscripti conlocaverunt mihique, quod ante me nemini, pecunia publica aedificandam domum censuerunt. Habes reditum meum. Confer nunc vicissim tuum, quando quidem amisso exercitu nihil incolume domum praeter os illud tuum pristinum rettulisti.

In the days that followed, in that very house from which you had expelled me, which you had pillaged, which you had set on fire, the pontiffs, the consuls, the enrolled fathers installed me; and for me—what, before me, for no one—they decreed, with public money, that a house be built. You have my return. Now compare, in turn, yours, since, with your army lost, you brought home nothing intact except that pristine face of yours.

Qui primum qua veneris cum laureatis tuis lictoribus quis scit? Quos tu Maeandros, dum omnis solitudines persequeris, quae deverticula flexionesque quaesisti? quod te municipium vidit, quis amicus invitavit, quis hospes aspexit?

First, who knows by what way you came with your laurelled lictors? What meanders, while you were pursuing all solitudes, what byways and flexions did you seek out? What municipality saw you, what friend invited, what host beheld you?

Nonne tibi nox erat pro die, solitudo pro frequentia, caupona pro oppido, non ut redire ex Macedonia nobilis imperator sed ut mortuus infamis referri videretur?

Was not night for you instead of day, solitude instead of concourse, a tavern instead of a town—not that you might return from Macedonia as a noble imperator, but that you might seem to be borne back as an infamous dead man?

[XXIII] Romam vero ipsam, o familiae non dicam Calpurniae sed Calventiae, neque huius urbis sed Placentini municipi, neque paterni generis sed bracatae cognationis dedecus! quem ad modum ingressus es? quis tibi non dicam horum aut civium ceterorum sed tuorum legatorum obviam venit? Mecum enim L. Flaccus, vir tua legatione indignissimus atque eis consiliis quibus mecum in consulatu meo coniunctus fuit ad conservandam rem publicam dignior, mecum fuit tum cum te quidam non longe a porta cum lictoribus errantem visum esse narraret; scio item virum fortem in primis, belli ac rei militaris peritum, familiarem meum, Q. Marcium, quorum tu legatorum opem in proelio imperator appellatus eras cum longe afuisses, adventu isto tuo domi fuisse otiosum.

[23] But into Rome itself—O disgrace not, I will say, of the Calpurnian but of the Calventian family, not of this city but of the Placentine municipium, not of your paternal lineage but of your trousered kinship!—in what manner did you make your ingress? Who came to meet you—not, I will say, of these or of the other citizens, but of your own legates? For with me was L. Flaccus, a man most unworthy of your legation and more worthy of those counsels by which, joined with me in my consulship for the preserving of the Republic, he was associated; he was with me at the time when someone was telling that you had been seen not far from the gate wandering with your lictors. I know likewise that a man brave among the foremost, skilled in war and in the military art, my intimate, Q. Marcius—by whose aid, of those legates of yours, you had been styled imperator in a battle when you were far away—was at home idle on that arrival of yours.

Sed quid ego enumero qui tibi obviam non venerint? quin dico venisse paene neminem ne de officiosissima quidem natione candidatorum, cum volgo essent et illo ipso et multis ante diebus admoniti et rogati? Togulae lictoribus ad portam praesto fuerunt; quibus illi acceptis sagula reiecerunt, catervam imperatori suo novam praebuerunt.

But why should I enumerate those who did not come to meet you? Why not say that hardly anyone came, not even from the most officious nation of candidates, although they had, in crowds, been warned and asked both on that very day and many days before? Little togas were ready for the lictors at the gate; having received these, they threw off their little sagums, and provided their emperor with a new troop.

Sic iste a tanto exercitu tantae provinciae triennio post Macedonicus imperator in urbem se intulit ut nullius negotiatoris obscurissimi reditus umquam fuerit desertior. In quo me tamen, qui esset paratus ad se defendendum, reprehendit. Cum ego eum Caelimontana introisse dixissem, sponsione me ni Esquilina introisset homo promptus lacessivit; quasi vero id aut, ego scire debuerim aut vestrum quisquam audierit aut ad rem pertineat qua tu porta introieris, modo ne triumphali, quae porta Macedonicis semper pro consulibus ante te patuit; tu inventus es qui consulari imperio praeditus ex Macedonia non triumphares.

Thus did that fellow, after three years, as a Macedonian commander, from so great an army of so great a province, carry himself into the city, that the return of no most obscure merchant was ever more deserted. In this, however, he reproaches me—he who was prepared to defend himself. When I had said that he had entered by the Caelimontane Gate, the forward man challenged me with a wager that he had entered by the Esquiline; as if indeed either I ought to have known that, or any of you had heard it, or it pertained to the matter by what gate you entered—provided only it was not the triumphal one, which gate has always stood open to proconsuls for Macedonian triumphs before you; you are found to be the one who, endowed with consular imperium, did not triumph from Macedonia.

[XXIV] At audistis, patres conscripti, philosophi vocem. Negavit se triumphi cupidum umquam fuisse. O scelus, o pestis, o labes!

[24] But you have heard, conscript fathers, the philosopher’s voice. He denied that he had ever been desirous of a triumph. O crime, O pestilence, O stain!

Cum exstinguebas senatum, vendebas auctoritatem huius ordinis, addicebas tribuno pl. consulatum tuum, rem publicam evertebas, prodebas caput et salutem meam una mercede provinciae, si triumphum non cupiebas, cuius tandem te rei cupiditate arsisse defendes? Saepe enim vidi qui et mihi et ceteris cupidiores provinciae viderentur triumphi nomine tegere atque celare cupiditatem suam. Hoc D. Silanus consul in hoc ordine, hoc meus etiam conlega dicebat.

When you were extinguishing the senate, you were vending the authority of this order, you were knocking down your consulship to the tribune of the plebs at auction, you were overturning the commonwealth, you were betraying my head and safety for the single price of a province—if you were not desirous of a triumph, by the desire of what thing, pray, will you defend that you were inflamed? For I have often seen those who seemed to me and to the rest more desirous of a province to cover and conceal their cupidity under the name of a triumph. This the consul D. Silanus said in this order; this my colleague also was saying.

Neque enim quisquam potest exercitum cupere aperteque petere, ut non praetexat cupiditatem triumphi. Quod si te senatus populusque Romanus aut non appetentem aut etiam recusantem bellum suscipere, exercitum ducere coegisset, tamen erat angusti animi atque demissi iusti triumphi honorem dignitatemque contemnere. Nam ut levitatis est inanem aucupari rumorem et omnis umbras etiam falsae gloriae consectari, sic est animi lucem splendoremque fugientis iustam gloriam, qui est fructus verae virtutis honestissimus, repudiare.

For no one can desire an army and openly canvass for it without cloaking it with the desire for a triumph. But even if the Senate and People of Rome had compelled you, either not eager or even refusing, to undertake a war and lead an army, nevertheless it was of a narrow and abject spirit to contemn the honor and dignity of a just triumph. For just as it is a mark of levity to angle for empty rumor and to pursue every shadow even of false glory, so it is of a mind fleeing light and splendor to repudiate just glory, which is the most honorable fruit of true virtue.

Cum vero non modo non postulante atque cogente sed invito atque oppresso senatu, non modo nullo populi Romani studio sed nullo ferente suffragium libero, provincia tibi ista manupretium fuerit eversae per te et perditae civitatis, cumque omnium tuorum scelerum haec pactio exstiterit ut, si tu totam rem publicam nefariis latronibus tradidisses, Macedonia tibi ob eam rem quibus tu velles finibus traderetur: cum exhauriebas aerarium, cum orbabas Italiam iuventute, cum mare vastissimum hieme transibas, si triumphum contemnebas, quae te, praedo amentissime, nisi praedae ac rapinarum cupiditas tam caeca rapiebat? Non est integrum Cn. Pompeio consilio iam uti tuo; erravit enim; non gustarat istam tuam philosophiam; ter iam homo stultus triumphavit. Crasse, pudet me tui.

But when not only with the senate not demanding or compelling but with it unwilling and oppressed, not only with no zeal of the Roman people but with no free man casting a vote, that province was to you the hand-price of a commonwealth overthrown and ruined by you, and when this compact stood forth as the sum of all your crimes: that, if you had handed over the whole republic to nefarious bandits, Macedonia for that reason would be delivered to you with whatever boundaries you wished—when you were draining the treasury, when you were bereaving Italy of its youth, when you were crossing the most vast sea in winter—if you were scorning a triumph, what, most demented brigand, was hurrying you on so blindly, if not the cupidity for booty and rapine? It is not open to Cn. Pompeius now to use your counsel; for he erred; he had not tasted that philosophy of yours; three times now the foolish man has triumphed. Crassus, I am ashamed of you.

Quid est quod confecto per te formidolosissimo bello coronam illam lauream tibi tanto opere decerni volueris a senatu? P. Servili, Q. Metelle, C. Curio, L. Afrani, cur hunc non audistis tam doctum hominem, tam eruditum, prius quam in istum errorem induceremini? C. ipsi Pomptino, necessario meo, iam non est integrum; religionibus enim susceptis impeditur.

What is the reason that, with the most formidable war finished by you, you have so greatly wished that that laurel crown be decreed to you by the Senate? P. Servili, Q. Metelle, C. Curio, L. Afrani, why did you not listen to this man so learned, so erudite, before you were led into that error? For C. Pomptinus himself, my close associate, it is now no longer open; for he is impeded by religious obligations undertaken.

O stultos Camillos, Curios, Fabricios, Calatinos, Scipiones, Marcellos, Maximos! o amentem Paulum, rusticum Marium, nullius consili patres horum amborum consulum, qui triumpharint!

O foolish Camilli, Curii, Fabricii, Calatini, Scipios, Marcelli, Maximi! o mad Paulus, rustic Marius, of no counsel the fathers of these two consuls, who have triumphed!

[XXV] Sed quoniam praeterita mutare non possumus, quid cessat hic homullus, ex argilla et luto fictus Epicurus, dare haec praeclara praecepta sapientiae clarissimo et summo imperatori genero suo? Fertur ille vir, mihi crede, gloria; flagrat, ardet cupiditate iusti et magni triumphi. Non didicit eadem ista quae tu. Mitte ad eum libellum et, si iam ipse coram congredi poteris, meditare quibus verbis incensam illius cupiditatem comprimas atque restinguas.

[25] But since we cannot change what is past, why does this little fellow, an Epicurus molded from clay and mud, delay to give these splendid precepts of wisdom to his son-in-law, a most illustrious and highest general? That man, believe me, is borne along by glory; he blazes, he burns with the desire for a just and great triumph. He has not learned those same things that you have. Send to him a booklet, and, if now you can meet him face to face, meditate with what words you may compress and extinguish his inflamed desire.

Valebis apud hominem volitantem gloriae cupiditate vir moderatus et constans, apud indoctum eruditus, apud generum socer. Dices enim, ut es homo factus ad persuadendum, concinnus, perfectus, politus ex schola: "quid est, Caesar, quod te supplicationes totiens iam decretae tot dierum tanto opere delectent? in quibus homines errore ducuntur, quas di neglegunt; qui, ut noster divinus ille dixit Epicurus, neque propitii cuiquam esse solent neque irati." Non facies fidem scilicet, cum haec disputabis; tibi enim et esse et fuisse videbit iratos.

You will prevail with a man fluttering in a cupiditas of glory by being a moderate and constant man, with an unlearned man by being learned, with a son-in-law by being a father-in-law. For you will say—since you are a man made for persuading, neat, perfect, polished from the school: "What is it, Caesar, that the supplications so often now decreed for so many days delight you so greatly? in which men are led by error, which the gods neglect; who, as that divine Epicurus of ours said, are wont to be neither propitious to anyone nor angry." You will not, forsooth, win credence when you dispute these things; for it will seem to you that they are, and have been, angry with you.

Vertes te ad alteram scholam; disseres de triumpho: "quid tandem habet iste currus, quid vincti ante currum duces, quid simulacra oppidorum, quid aurum, quid argentum, quid legati in equis et tribuni, quid clamor militum, quid tota illa pompa? Inania sunt ista, mihi crede, delectamenta paene puerorum, captare plausus, vehi per urbem, conspici velle. Quibus ex rebus nihil est quod solidum tenere, nihil quod referre ad voluptatem corporis possis.

You will turn yourself to another school; you will discourse about the triumph: "What, after all, has that chariot, what the commanders bound before the chariot, what the simulacra of towns, what the gold, what the silver, what the legates on horseback and the tribunes, what the shout of the soldiers, what that whole pomp? These are empty things, believe me, delectations almost of boys: to fish for applause, to be carried through the city, to wish to be looked at. From these matters there is nothing that you can hold as solid, nothing that you can refer to the pleasure of the body."

Quin tu me vides qui, ex qua provincia T. Flamininus, L. Paulus, Q. Metellus, T. Didius, innumerabiles alii levitate et cupiditate commoti triumpharunt, ex ea sic redii ut ad portam Esquilinam Macedonicam lauream conculcarim, ipse cum hominibus quindecim male vestitis ad portam Caelimontanam sitiens pervenerim; quo in loco mihi libertus praeclaro imperatori domum ex hac die biduo ante conduxerat; quae vacua si non fuisset, in campo Martio mihi tabernaculum conlocassem. Nummus interea mihi, Caesar, neglectis ferculis triumphalibus domi manet et manebit. Rationes ad aerarium continuo, sicut tua lex iubebat, detuli, neque alia ulla in re legi tuae parvi.

Why, you see me, who—from the same province from which Titus Flamininus, Lucius Paulus, Quintus Metellus, Titus Didius, and innumerable others, stirred by levity and cupidity, triumphed—returned from it in such a way that at the Esquiline Gate I trampled the Macedonian laurel underfoot, and I myself, with fifteen men poorly clad, arrived thirsty at the Caelimontane Gate; at which place my freedman had rented a house for the “renowned general” two days before this day; which, if it had not been vacant, I would have pitched a little tent for myself in the Campus Martius. Meanwhile my ready money, Caesar, with the triumphal courses neglected, stays and will stay at home. I submitted the accounts to the treasury immediately, just as your law was ordering, nor in any other matter did I esteem your law of little account.

Quas rationes si cognoris, intelleges nemini plus quam mihi litteras profuisse. Ita enim sunt perscriptae scite et litterate ut scriba ad aerarium qui eas rettulit perscriptis rationibus secum ipse caput sinistra manu perfricans commurmuratus sit:
"ratio quidem hercle apparet, argentum oichetai."
Hac tu oratione non dubito quin illum iam escendentem in currum revocare possis.

If you come to know these accounts, you will understand that letters have profited no one more than me. For they are written out so cleverly and literately that the scribe at the treasury who carried them in, the accounts having been written up, rubbing his head with his left hand, muttered to himself:
"the account, by Hercules, is clear; the silver has made off."
With this speech I have no doubt that you could call him back even as he is already mounting the chariot.

[XXVI] O tenebrae, o lutum, o sordes, o paterni generis oblite, materni vix memor! ita nescio quid istuc fractum, humile, demissum, sordidum, inferius etiam est quam ut Mediolanensi praecone, avo tuo, dignum esse videatur. L. Crassus, homo sapientissimus nostrae civitatis, specillis prope scrutatus est Alpis ut, ubi hostis non erat, ibi triumphi causam aliquam quaereret; eadem cupiditate vir summo ingenio praeditus, C. Cotta, nullo certo hoste flagravit.

[26] O darkness, O mire, O filth, O forgetter of your paternal lineage, scarcely mindful of your maternal! so that there is—I know not what—something broken, low, downcast, sordid, even lower than to seem worthy of a Mediolanese herald, your grandfather. Lucius Crassus, a most wise man of our commonwealth, almost scrutinized the Alps with probes so that, where there was no enemy, there he might seek some cause for a triumph; by the same cupidity, a man endowed with the highest talent, Gaius Cotta, burned, with no definite enemy.

Eorum neuter triumphavit, quod alteri illum honorem conlega, alteri mors peremit. Inrisa est abs te paulo ante M. Pisonis cupiditas triumphandi, a qua te longe dixisti abhorrere. Qui etiam si minus magnum bellum gesserat, ut abs te dictum est, tamen istum honorem contemnendum non putavit.

Of them, neither triumphed, because for the one a colleague took away that honor, for the other death did. A little before, M. Piso’s desire of triumphing was ridiculed by you, from which you said you abhorred far. He, even if he had waged a less great war, as was said by you, nevertheless did not think that that honor ought to be contemned.

Tu eruditior quam Piso, prudentior quam Cotta, abundantior consilio, ingenio, sapientia quam Crassus, ea contemnis quae illi "idiotae," ut tu appellas, praeclara duxerunt. Quos si reprehendis quod cupidi coronae laureae fuerint, cum bella aut parva aut nulla gessissent, tu tantis nationibus subactis, tantis rebus gestis minime fructum laborum tuorum, praemia periculorum, virtutis insignia contemnere debuisti. Neque vero contempsisti, sis, licet Themista sapientior, sed os tuum ferreum senatus convicio verberari noluisti.

You—more learned than Piso, more prudent than Cotta, more abundant in counsel, talent, and wisdom than Crassus—despise those things which they, “idiots,” as you call them, deemed splendid. If you criticize them because they were desirous of the laurel crown when they had waged wars either small or none, you, with so many nations subdued and so many exploits achieved, ought least of all to have despised the fruit of your labors, the rewards of your dangers, the insignia of valor. Nor indeed did you despise them, even if you should be wiser than Themista, but you were unwilling that your iron face be scourged by the senate’s reviling.

Iam vides—quoniam quidem ita mihimet fui inimicus ut me tecum compararem—et digressum meum et absentiam et reditum ita longe tuo praestitisse ut mihi illa omnia immortalem gloriam dederint, tibi sempiternam turpitudinem inflixerint. Num etiam in hac cotidiana adsidua urbanaque vita splendorem tuum—, gratiam, celebritatem domesticam, operam forensem, consilium, auxilium, auctoritatem, sententiam senatoriam nobis aut, ut verius dicam, cuiquam es infimo ac despicatissimo antelaturus?

Now you see—since indeed I was so an enemy to myself as to compare myself with you—both that my departure and my absence and my return have so far surpassed yours that all those things have given me immortal glory, and have inflicted upon you everlasting turpitude. Surely not even in this quotidian, assiduous, and urban life are you going to put your splendor—, favor, domestic celebrity, forensic work, counsel, aid, authority, senatorial opinion before us, or, to speak more truly, before anyone most low and most despicable?

[XXVII] Age, senatus odit te—quod eum tu facere iure concedis—adflictorem ac perditorem non modo dignitatis et auctoritatis sed omnino ordinis ac nominis sui; videre equites Romani noli possunt, quo ex ordine vir praestantissimus et ornatissimus, L. Aelius, est te consule relegatus, plebs Romana perditum cupit, in cuius tu infamiam ea quae per latrones et per servos de me egeras contulisti; Italia cuncta exsecratur, cuius idem tu superbissime decreta et preces repudiasti. Fac huius odi tanti ac tam universi periculum, si audes. Instant post hominum memoriam apparatissimi magnificentissimique ludi, quales non modo numquam fuerunt, sed ne quo modo fieri quidem posthac possint possum ullo pacto suspicari.

[27] Come now, the senate hates you—which you concede it does justly—as a bruiser and destroyer not only of its dignity and authority but indeed of its whole order and name; the Roman equites cannot bear to look upon you, from which order a most outstanding and most ornamented man, L. Aelius, was, with you as consul, relegated; the Roman plebs longs for your destruction, upon whose disrepute you have shifted those things which you had carried out against me through brigands and through slaves; all Italy execrates you, whose decrees and petitions you likewise most arrogantly repudiated. Make trial of this hatred, so great and so universal, if you dare. The most elaborately prepared and most magnificent games are imminent within living memory—such as not only have never been, but I cannot by any means even suspect how they could hereafter be brought to be.

Da te populo, committe ludis. Sibilum metuis? Vbi sunt vestrae scholae?

Give yourself to the people, commit yourself to the games. Do you fear hissing? Where are your schools?

Ne acclametur times? Ne id quidem est curare philosophi. Manus tibi ne adferantur?

Do you fear that there be acclamation? Not even that is the philosopher’s concern to care about. Do you fear that hands be laid upon you?

Dolor enim est malum, ut tu disputas; existimatio, dedecus, infamia, turpitudo: verba atque ineptiae. Sed de hoc non dubito; non audebit accedere ad ludos. Convivium publicum non dignitatis causa inibit, nisi forte ut cum P. Clodio, hoc est cum amoribus suis, cenet, sed plane animi sui causa: ludos nobis "idiotis" relinquet.

For pain is an evil, as you argue; estimation (reputation), disgrace, infamy, turpitude: words and ineptitudes. But about this I do not doubt; he will not dare to approach the games. He will not enter a public banquet for the sake of dignity, unless perhaps so as to dine with P. Clodius, that is, with his amours, but plainly for the sake of his own inclination: he will leave the games to us “idiots.”

Solet enim in disputationibus suis oculorum et aurium delectationi abdominis voluptates anteferre. Nam quod vobis iste tantum modo improbus, crudelis, olim furunculus, nunc vero etiam rapax, quod sordidus, quod contumax, quod superbus, quod fallax, quod perfidiosus, quod impudens, quod audax esse videatur, nihil scitote esse luxuriosius, nihil libidinosius, nihil protervius, nihil nequius. Luxuriem autem nolite in isto hanc cogitare.

For in his disputations he is accustomed to prefer the pleasures of the abdomen to the delectation of the eyes and ears. For whereas to you that fellow seems only just wicked, cruel, once a petty pilferer, now indeed even rapacious; that he is sordid, contumacious, proud, fallacious, perfidious, impudent, audacious—know that nothing is more luxurious, nothing more libidinous, nothing more insolent, nothing more base. But do not think in him this kind of luxury.

Est enim quaedam quae, quamquam omnis est vitiosa atque turpis, est tamen ingenuo ac libero dignior. Nihil apud hunc lautum, nihil elegans, nihil exquisitum—laudabo inimicum—quin ne magno opere quidem quicquam praeter libidines sumptuosum. Toreuma nullum, maximi calices, et ei, ne contemnere suos videatur, Placentini; exstructa mensa non conchyliis aut piscibus, sed multa carne subrancida.

There is, in fact, a certain sort which, although it is altogether vicious and base, is nevertheless more fitting for a freeborn and free man. Nothing at this fellow’s is luxurious, nothing elegant, nothing exquisite—I will praise an enemy—indeed not even anything particularly sumptuous except his lusts. No chased work; goblets of the largest size, and those, lest he appear to contemn his own, Piacentine; a table heaped up not with shellfish or fishes, but with much somewhat-rancid meat.

Servi sordidati ministrant, non nulli etiam senes; idem coquus, idem atriensis; pistor domi nullus, nulla cella; panis et vinum a propola atque de cupa; Graeci stipati quini in lectis, saepe plures; ipse solus; bibitur usque eo dum de dolio ministretur. Vbi galli cantum audivit, avum suum revixisse putat; mensam tolli iubet.

Slaves in filthy garb serve, some of them even old men; the same man is cook, the same man hall-steward; no baker at home, no cellar; bread and wine from a huckster and out of a vat; Greeks crammed five to a couch, often more; he himself alone; the drinking goes on until it is ladled from the cask. When he has heard the cock-crow, he thinks his grandfather has revived; he orders the table to be taken away.

[XXVIII] Dicet aliquis: "unde haec tibi nota sunt?" Non me hercules contumeliae causa describam quemquam, praesertim ingeniosum hominem atque eruditum, cui generi esse ego iratus ne si cupiam quidem possum. Est quidam Graecus qui cum isto vivit, homo, vere ut dicam—sic enim cognovi—humanus, sed tam diu quam diu aut cum aliis est aut ipse secum. Is cum istum adulescentem iam tum hac dis irata fronte vidisset, non fastidivit eius amicitiam, cum esset praesertim appetitus; dedit se in consuetudinem sic ut prorsus una viveret nec fere umquam ab eo discederet.

[28] Someone will say: "how are these things known to you?" By Hercules, I will not describe anyone for the sake of contumely, especially an ingenious and erudite man, at which kind I cannot be angry, not even if I should wish. There is a certain Greek who lives with that fellow, a man, to speak truly—for thus I have known him—humane, but only so long as he is either with others or by himself. When he had seen that young man already then with this brow angered at the gods, he did not disdain his friendship, especially since he was being sought after; he gave himself into intimacy in such a way that he quite lived as one with him and hardly ever departed from him.

Non apud indoctos sed, ut ego arbitror, in hominum eruditissimorum et humanissimorum coetu loquor. Audistis profecto dici philosophos Epicureos omnis res quae sint homini expetendae voluptate metiri; rectene an secus, nihil ad nos aut, si ad nos, nihil ad hoc tempus; sed tamen lubricum genus orationis adulescenti non acriter intellegenti et saepe praeceps. Itaque admissarius iste, simul atque audivit voluptatem a philosopho tanto opere laudari, nihil expiscatus est, sic suos sensus voluptarios omnis incitavit, sic ad illius hanc orationem adhinnivit, ut non magistrum virtutis sed auctorem libidinis a se illum inventum arbitraretur.

I do not speak among the unlearned but, as I judge, in a company of the most erudite and most humane men. You have assuredly heard it said that Epicurean philosophers measure all things that are to be sought by a human by pleasure; whether rightly or otherwise, it is nothing to us, or, if it is to us, nothing for this time; but nevertheless it is a slippery kind of discourse for a youth not understanding keenly, and often headlong. And so that stallion, as soon as he heard that pleasure was so greatly praised by the philosopher, having found out nothing, so stirred up all his voluptuary senses, so neighed toward this speech of his, that he thought he had found in him not a teacher of virtue but an author of lust.

Graecus primo distinguere et dividere, illa quem ad modum dicerentur; iste "claudus," quem ad modum aiunt, "pilam", retinere quod acceperat, testificari, tabellas obsignare velle, Epicurum diserte dicere existimare. Dicit autem, opinor, se nullum bonum intellegere posse demptis corporis voluptatibus. Quid multa?

The Greek at first to distinguish and divide how those things were being said; that “lame man,” as they say, “the ball,” to hold on to what he had received, to take testimony, to want to seal the tablets, to reckon that Epicurus speaks eloquently. He says, however, I suppose, that he cannot understand any good with the pleasures of the body removed. Why say more?

Graecus facilis et valde venustus nimis pugnax contra imperatorem populi Romani esse noluit.

The affable and very charming Greek did not wish to be excessively pugnacious against the emperor of the Roman people.

[XXIX] Est autem hic de quo loquor non philosophia solum sed etiam ceteris studiis quae fere Epicureos neglegere dicunt perpolitus; poema porro facit ita festivum, ita concinnum, ita elegans, ut nihil fieri possit argutius. In quo reprehendat eum licet, si qui volet, modo leviter, non ut improbum, non ut audacem, non ut impurum, sed ut Graeculum, ut adsentatorem, ut poetam. Devenit autem seu potius incidit in istum eodem deceptus supercilio Graecus atque advena quo tot sapientes et tanta civitas.

[29] Moreover, this man of whom I speak is thoroughly polished not in philosophy alone but also in the other pursuits which they commonly say the Epicureans neglect; and he composes a poem so festive, so well-concinnated, so elegant, that nothing could be made more argute. In this respect let anyone who wishes censure him—provided it be lightly—not as a wicked man, not as a rash man, not as an impure man, but as a little Greek, as an assenter, as a poet. He came upon—or rather, stumbled upon—this fellow, the Greek and newcomer, deceived by the same superciliousness by which so many wise men and so great a commonwealth were deceived.

Revocare se non poterat familiaritate implicatus et simul inconstantiae famam verebatur. Rogatus, invitatus, coactus ita multa ad istum de ipso quoque scripsit ut omnis libidines, omnia stupra, omnia cenarum conviviorumque genera, adulteria denique eius delicatissimis versibus expresserit, in quibus, si qui velit, possit istius tamquam in speculo vitam intueri; ex quibus multa a multis et lecta et audita recitarem, ni vererer ne hoc ipsum genus orationis quo nunc utor ab huius loci more abhorreret; et simul de ipso qui scripsit detrahi nihil volo. Qui si fuisset in discipulo comparando meliore fortuna, fortasse austerior et gravior esse potuisset; sed eum casus in hanc consuetudinem scribendi induxit philosopho valde indignam, si quidem philosophia, ut fertur, virtutis continet et offici et bene vivendi disciplinam; quam qui profitetur gravissimam sustinere mihi personam videtur.

He could not withdraw himself, entangled by familiarity, and at the same time he was fearing the reputation of inconstancy. Asked, invited, compelled, he wrote to that man so many things about him, about himself too, that he expressed all his libidinous desires, all his debaucheries, all the kinds of dinners and convivial gatherings, and finally his adulteries, in most delicate verses, in which, if anyone should wish, he might behold that man’s life as in a mirror; from which I would recite many items, both read and heard by many, did I not fear that this very genus of oration which I now employ would be out of harmony with the custom of this place; and at the same time I do not wish anything to be detracted from the very man who wrote. Who, if he had enjoyed better fortune in procuring a disciple, perhaps could have been more austere and more grave; but chance led him into this habit of writing, very unworthy for a philosopher, since indeed philosophy, as it is said, contains the discipline of virtue and of duty and of living well; and he who professes it seems to me to sustain the most weighty persona.

Sed idem casus illum ignarum quid profiteretur, cum se philosophum esse diceret, istius impurissimae atque intemperantissimae pecudis caeno et sordibus inquinavit.
Qui modo cum res gestas consulatus mei conlaudasset, quae quidem conlaudatio hominis turpissimi mihi ipsi erat paene turpis, "non illa tibi," inquit, "invidia nocuit sed versus tui." Nimis magna poena te consule constituta est sive malo poetae sive libero. "Scripsisti enim: Cedant arma togae." Quid tum?

But that same accident, while he said he was a philosopher, befouled him—ignorant of what he was professing—with the mud and filth of that most foul and most intemperate beast.
He who but just now, after he had highly praised the achievements of my consulship—which commendation, indeed, from a most base man was to me myself almost base—said, “Not that envy harmed you, but your verses.” An excessively great penalty was established with you as consul, whether for a bad poet or for a free one. “For you wrote: Let arms yield to the toga.” What then?

"Haec res tibi fluctus illos excitavit." At hoc nusquam opinor scriptum fuisse in illo elogio quod te consule in sepulcro rei publicae incisum est: "VELITIS IVBEATIS VT, QVOD M. CICERO VERSVM FECERIT," sed "QVOD VINDICARIT."

"This matter aroused those waves for you." But I suppose this was nowhere written in that inscription which, when you were consul, was incised on the tomb of the Republic: "MAY YOU WILL AND ORDER THAT, BECAUSE M. CICERO HAS MADE A VERSE," but "BECAUSE HE HAS VINDICATED."

[XXX] Verum tamen, quoniam te non Aristarchum, sed Phalarin grammaticum habemus, qui non notam apponas ad malum versum, sed poetam armis persequare, scire cupio quid tandem in isto versu reprehendas: "Cedant arma togae." "Tuae dicis," inquit, "togae summum imperatorem esse cessurum." Quid nunc te, asine, litteras doceam? Non opus est verbis sed fustibus. Non dixi hanc togam qua sum amictus, nec arma scutum aut gladium unius imperatoris, sed, quia pacis est insigne et oti toga, contra autem arma tumultus atque belli, poetarum more tum locutus hoc intellegi volui, bellum ac tumultum paci atque otio concessurum.

[30] But yet, since we have you not as an Aristarchus, but as a Phalaris-grammarian, who do not affix a mark to a bad verse, but pursue the poet with arms, I wish to know what at last you censure in that verse: "Let arms yield to the toga." "You say," he says, "that to your toga the highest general will yield." What now—should I teach you letters, you ass? There is no need of words but of cudgels. I did not say this toga with which I am cloaked, nor arms as the shield or sword of one commander; but, since the toga is the insignia of peace and leisure, while arms are of tumult and of war, speaking then in the manner of poets I wished this to be understood: that war and tumult will yield to peace and leisure.

Quaere ex familiari tuo Graeco illo poeta; probabit genus ipsum et agnoscet neque te nihil sapere mirabitur. "At in altero illo," inquit, "haeres: Concedat laurea laudi." Immo me hercule habeo tibi gratiam; haererem enim nisi tu me expedisses. Nam, cum tu timidus ac tremens tuis ipse furacissimis manibus detractam e cruentis fascibus lauream ad portam Esquilinam abiecisti, iudicasti non modo amplissimae sed etiam minimae laudi lauream concessisse.

Ask that Greek poet who is your intimate; he will approve the very genus and will recognize it, nor will he be surprised that you know nothing. “But on that other one,” he says, “you stick: Concedat laurea laudi.” Nay rather, by Hercules, I am grateful to you; for I would be sticking if you had not extricated me. For when you, timorous and trembling, with your own most thievish hands, cast away at the Esquiline Gate the laurel stripped from the bloody fasces, you judged that the laurel had conceded not only to the most ample laud but even to the least.

Atque ista oratione hoc tamen intellegi, scelerate, vis, Pompeium inimicum mihi isto versu esse factum, ut, si versus mihi nocuerit, ab eo quem is versus offenderit videatur mihi pernicies esse quaesita. Omitto nihil istum versum pertinuisse ad illum; non fuisse meum, quem quantum potuissem multis saepe orationibus scriptisque decorassem, hunc uno violare versu. Sed sit offensus primo; nonne compensavit cum uno versiculo tot mea volumina laudum suarum?

And by that speech you nevertheless want, scoundrel, this to be understood: that Pompey was made my enemy by that verse, so that, if the verse has harmed me, my ruin may seem to have been sought from him whom that verse offended. I pass over that that verse had nothing to do with him; that it was not my part to violate with a single verse the man whom, as much as I could, I had often adorned with many speeches and writings. But grant that he was offended at first; did he not compensate for one little versicle with all my volumes of his praises?

Quod si esset commotus, ad perniciemne non dicam amicissimi, non ita de sua laude meriti, non ita de re publica, non consularis, non senatoris, non civis, non liberi, in hominis caput ille tam crudelis propter versum fuisset?

But even if he had been stirred, would he, for a verse, have been so cruel as to aim at a man’s head—at the ruin, I will not say, of a most intimate friend, nor of one so deserving in regard to his own praise, nor so in regard to the commonwealth, no, not even of a consular, nor of a senator, nor of a citizen, nor of a free man?

[XXXI] Tu quid, tu apud quos, tu de quo dicas, intellegis? Complecti vis amplissimos viros ad tuum et Gabini scelus, neque id occulte; nam paulo ante dixisti me cum eis confligere quos despicerem, non attingere eos qui plus possent, quibus iratus esse deberem. Quorum quidem—quis enim non intellegit quos dicas?—quamquam non est causa una omnium, tamen est omnium mihi probata.

[31] Do you understand what you say, before whom, and about whom? You wish to entangle most eminent men into your and Gabinius’s crime—and not covertly; for a little before you said that I clash with those whom I despise, that I do not touch those who have more power, with whom I ought to be angry. Of whom indeed—who does not understand whom you mean?—although there is not one single cause for all, nevertheless the causes of all are approved by me.

Me Cn. Pompeius multis obsistentibus eius erga me studio atque amori semper dilexit, semper sua coniunctione dignissimum iudicavit, semper non modo incolumem sed etiam amplissimum atque ornatissimum voluit esse. Vestrae fraudes, vestrum scelus, vestrae criminationes insidiarum mearum, illius periculorum nefarie fictae, simul eorum qui familiaritatis licentia suorum improbissimorum sermonum domicilium in auribus eius impulsu vestro conlocarant, vestrae cupiditates provinciarum effecerunt ut ego excluderer omnesque qui me, qui illius gloriam, qui rem publicam salvam esse cupiebant, sermone atque aditu prohiberentur; quibus rebus est perfectum ut illi plane suo stare iudicio non liceret, cum certi homines non studium eius a me alienassent, sed auxilium retardassent. Nonne ad te L. Lentulus, qui tum erat praetor, non Q. Sanga, non L. Torquatus pater, non M. Lucullus venit?

Gnaeus Pompeius has always loved me, despite many opposing, because of his zeal and love toward me; he has always judged me most worthy of his own conjunction; he has always wished me not only safe but even most ample and most adorned. Your frauds, your crime, your criminations of my plots, the dangers to him nefariously fabricated, together with those who, by the license of familiarity, had, at your impulse, established a domicile of their most shameless discourses in his ears, your cupidities for provinces—these brought it to pass that I was excluded, and that all who wanted me, who wanted his glory, who wanted the commonwealth to be safe, were barred from speech and from access; by which things it was perfected that it was plainly not permitted to him to stand by his own judgment, since certain men had not alienated his goodwill from me, but had delayed his help. Did not L. Lentulus, who then was praetor, did not Q. Sanga, did not L. Torquatus the father, did not M. Lucullus come to you?

qui omnes ad eum multique mortales oratum in Albanum obsecratumque venerant ut ne meas fortunas desereret cum rei publicae salute coniunctas. Quos ille ad te et ad tuum conlegam remisit, ut causam publicam susciperetis, ut ad senatum referretis; se contra armatum tribunum pl. sine publico consilio decertare nolle; consulibus ex senatus consulto rem publicam defendentibus se arma sumpturum. Ecquid, infelix, recordaris quid responderis?

all of whom, and many people besides, had come to him to his Alban estate to entreat and beseech that he not desert my fortunes, conjoined with the safety of the commonwealth. These he sent back to you and to your colleague, that you should take up the public cause, that you should bring it before the senate; that he was unwilling to contend against an armed tribune of the plebs without public counsel; when the consuls, by decree of the senate, were defending the commonwealth, he would himself take up arms. Do you, unhappy man, remember at all what you answered?

in quo illi omnes quidem, sed Torquatus praeter ceteros furebat contumacia responsi tui: te non esse tam fortem quam ipse Torquatus in consulatu fuisset aut ego; nihil opus esse armis, nihil contentione; me posse rem publicam iterum servare, si cessissem; infinitam caedem fore, si restitissem. Deinde ad extremum neque se neque generum neque conlegam suum tribuno pl. defuturum. Hic tu hostis ac proditor aliis me inimiciorem quam tibi debere esse dicis?

in which all of them indeed, but Torquatus beyond the rest, was raging at the contumacy of your reply: that you were not so brave as Torquatus himself had been in his consulate, or I; that there was no need of arms, no need of contention; that I could save the republic again, if I had yielded; that there would be endless slaughter, if I resisted. Then, at the last, that neither he nor his son-in-law nor his colleague would be wanting to the tribune of the plebs. Here do you, an enemy and a traitor, say that I ought to be more inimical to others than to you?

[XXXII] Ego C. Caesarem non eadem de re publica sensisse quae me scio; sed tamen, quod iam de eo his audientibus saepe dixi, me ille sui totius consulatus eorumque honorum quos cum proximis communicavit socium esse voluit, detulit, invitavit, rogavit. Non sum propter nimiam fortasse constantiae cupiditatem adductus ad causam; non postulabam ut ei carissimus essem cuius ego ne beneficiis quidem sententiam meam tradidissem. Adducta res in certamen te consule putabatur, utrum quae superiore anno ille gessisset manerent, an rescinderentur.

[32] I know that C. Caesar did not feel the same about the commonwealth as I; but yet, as I have often said about him with these men listening, he wished me to be a partner of his whole consulship and of those honors which he shared with his closest associates—he made the offer, invited, entreated. I was not drawn to his cause, perhaps on account of too great a desire for constancy; I did not demand to be dearest to him, I who had not surrendered my opinion even to his benefits. With you as consul, it was thought that the matter was brought into contest, whether the things which he had done in the previous year should stand, or be rescinded.

Quid loquar plura? Si tantum ille in me esse uno roboris et virtutis putavit ut quae ipse gesserat conciderent, si ego restitissem, cur ego non ignoscam, si anteposuit suam salutem meae? Sed praeterita mitto.

Why should I say more? If he thought that in me alone there was so much robustness and virtue that the things he himself had done would collapse, if I had resisted, why should I not forgive, if he preferred his own safety to mine? But I pass over the past.

Me ut Cn. Pompeius omnibus studiis suis, laboribus, vitae periculis complexus est, cum municipia pro me adiret, Italiae fidem imploraret, P. Lentulo consuli, auctori salutis meae, frequens adsideret, senatus sententiam praestaret, in contionibus non modo se defensorem salutis meae sed etiam supplicem pro me profiteretur, huius voluntatis eum quem multum posse intellegebat, mihi non inimicum esse cognorat, socium sibi et adiutorem, C. Caesarem, adiunxit. Iam vides me tibi non inimicum sed hostem, illis quos describis non modo non iratum sed etiam amicum esse debere; quorum alter, id quod meminero, semper aeque mihi amicus fuit ac sibi, alter, id quod obliviscar, sibi aliquando amicior quam mihi. Deinde hoc ita fit ut viri fortes, etiam si ferro inter se comminus decertarint, tamen illud contentionis odium simul cum ipsa pugna armisque deponant.

As Gnaeus Pompeius embraced me with all his zeal, labors, and perils of life—when he approached the municipalities on my behalf, implored the faith of Italy, sat often beside Publius Lentulus the consul, the author of my safety, secured the judgment of the senate, and in the public assemblies avowed himself not only the defender of my safety but even a suppliant for me—he added to himself as partner and helper in this disposition Gaius Caesar, whom he understood to be very powerful and had come to know was not unfriendly to me. Now you see that I ought to be to you not an unfriendly person but an enemy, and to those whom you describe I ought to be not only not angry but even a friend: of whom the one—as I shall remember—has always been as much a friend to me as to himself, the other—as I shall forget—was at times more a friend to himself than to me. Then this thus comes about, that brave men, even if they have fought hand-to-hand with steel among themselves, nevertheless lay down that hatred of contention along with the fight itself and with their arms.

Neque me ille odisse potuit umquam, ne tum quidem cum dissidebamus. Habet hoc virtus, quam tu ne de facie quidem nosti, ut viros fortis species eius et pulchritudo etiam in hoste posita delectet.

Nor could that man ever hate me, not even then when we were at variance. Virtue has this, which you do not know even by sight: that its appearance and pulchritude, even when placed in an enemy, delights brave men.

[XXXIII] Equidem dicam ex animo, patres conscripti, quod sentio, et quod vobis audientibus saepe iam dixi. Si mihi numquam amicus C. Caesar fuisset, si semper iratus, si semper aspernaretur amicitiam meam seque mihi implacabilem inexpiabilemque praeberet, tamen ei, cum tantas res gessisset gereretque cotidie, non amicus esse non possem; cuius ego imperium, non Alpium vallum contra ascensum transgressionemque Gallorum, non Rheni fossam gurgitibus illis redundantem Germanorum immanissimis gentibus obicio et oppono; perfecit ille ut, si montes resedissent, amnes exaruissent, non naturae praesidio sed victoria sua rebusque gestis Italiam munitam haberemus. Sed cum me expetat, diligat, omni laude dignum putet, tu me a tuis inimicitiis ad simultatem veterem vocabis, sic tuis sceleribus rei publicae praeterita fata refricabis?

[XXXIII] I for my part will speak from the heart, Conscript Fathers, what I feel, and what I have already often said with you listening. If Gaius Caesar had never been a friend to me, if he had always been angry, if he always spurned my friendship and presented himself to me as implacable and inexpiable, still, when he had achieved such great things and was achieving them day by day, I could not but be a friend to him; and in commending his imperium I do not put forward the rampart of the Alps against the ascent and crossing of the Gauls, nor the fosse of the Rhine, overflowing with those surges, against the most savage tribes of the Germans; he brought it to pass that, even if the mountains had subsided and the rivers had dried up, we should have Italy fortified not by the defense of nature but by his victory and his deeds. But since he seeks me, cherishes me, thinks me worthy of every praise, will you summon me from your enmities back to an old feud, thus by your crimes rubbing raw again the past destinies of the republic?

Quod quidem tu, qui bene nosses coniunctionem meam et Caesaris, eludebas, cum a me trementibus omnino labris, sed tamen cur tibi nomen non deferrem requirebas. Quamquam, quod ad me attinet,
"numquam istam imminuam curam infitiando tibi,"
tamen est mihi considerandum quantum illi tantis rei publicae negotiis tantoque bello impedito ego homo amicissimus sollicitudinis atque oneris imponam. Nec despero tamen, quamquam languet iuventus nec perinde atque debebat in laudis et gloriae cupiditate versatur, futuros aliquos qui abiectum hoc cadaver consularibus spoliis nudare non nolint, praesertim tam adflicto, tam inopi, tam infirmo, tam enervato reo, qui te ita gesseris ut timeres ne indignus beneficio videreris, nisi eius a quo missus eras simillimus exstitisses.

Which indeed you, who knew well my conjunction with Caesar, were making sport of, when from me, with lips altogether trembling, yet you kept inquiring why I did not bring a name before you. Although, as far as concerns me,
"I will never lessen that care by denying it to you,"
nevertheless I must consider how much solicitude and burden I, a most intimate friend, will impose upon that man, hampered as he is by such great public affairs and so great a war. Nor do I despair, however, although the youth languishes and does not, as it ought, occupy itself in the desire of praise and glory, that there will be some who will not be unwilling to strip this cast-down corpse of its consular spoils, especially with so shattered, so needy, so infirm, so enervated a defendant, you who have borne yourself in such a way that you feared you would seem unworthy of the benefit, unless you had turned out most similar to him by whom you were sent.

[XXXIV] An vero tu parum putas investigatas esse a nobis labis imperi tui stragisque provinciae? quas quidem nos non vestigiis odorantes ingressus tuos sed totis volutationibus corporis et cubilibus persecuti sumus. Notata a nobis sunt et prima illa scelera in adventu cum, accepta pecunia a Dyrrachinis ob necem hospitis tui Platoris, eius ipsius domum devertisti cuius sanguinem addixeras, eumque servis symphoniacis et aliis muneribus acceptis timentem multumque dubitantem confirmasti et Thessalonicam fide tua venire iussisti.

[34] Or do you really think the stains of your command and the wreckage of the province have been insufficiently investigated by us? which indeed we have pursued not by sniffing out your steps by their footprints but through the whole rollings of your body and your beds. We have marked also those first crimes at your arrival, when, money having been received from the Dyrrachini for the murder of your host Plator, you turned aside into the house of that very man whose blood you had adjudged; and him, fearful and very much hesitating, with symphoniac slaves and other gifts accepted, you reassured and ordered to come to Thessalonica under your pledge of good faith.

Quem ne maiorum quidem more supplicio adfecisti, cum miser ille securibus hospitis sui cervices subicere gestiret, sed ei medico quem tecum tu eduxeras imperasti ut venas hominis incideret; cum quidem tibi etiam accessio fuit ad necem Platoris Pleuratus eius comes, quem necasti verberibus summa senectute confectum. Idemque tu Rabocentum, Bessicae gentis principem, cum te trecentis talentis regi Cotyi vendidisses, securi percussisti, cum ille ad te legatus in castra venisset et tibi magna praesidia et auxilia a Bessis peditum equitumque polliceretur, neque eum solum sed etiam ceteros legatos qui simul venerant; quorum omnium capita regi Cotyi vendidisti. Denseletis, quae natio semper oboediens huic imperio etiam in illa omnium barbarorum defectione Macedoniam C. Sentio praetore tutata est, nefarium bellum et crudele intulisti, eisque cum fidelissimis sociis uti posses, hostibus uti acerrimis maluisti.

Whom you did not visit with punishment even after the custom of the ancestors, when that wretch was eager to place his neck beneath the axes of his host, but you ordered his physician, whom you had brought out with you, to cut the man’s veins; and indeed there was even an addition for you to the slaughter of Plator—Pleuratus, his companion—whom you killed with beatings, worn out by extreme old age. And likewise you struck down with the axe Rabocentus, a prince of the Bessian nation, after you had sold yourself for three hundred talents to King Cotys, when he had come to you into the camp as an envoy and was promising to you great garrisons and auxiliaries of foot and horse from the Bessi—not him alone, but also the other envoys who had come at the same time—whose heads, all of them, you sold to King Cotys. Against the Denseletae—a nation always obedient to this imperium, which even in that defection of all the barbarians protected Macedonia with Gaius Sentius as praetor—you brought a nefarious and cruel war, and though you could have used them as most faithful allies, you preferred to use them as most bitter enemies.

Ita perpetuos defensores Macedoniae vexatores ac praedatores effecisti; vectigalia nostra perturbarunt, urbes ceperunt, vastarunt agros, socios nostros in servitutem abduxerunt, familias abripuerunt, pecus abegerunt, Thessalonicensis, cum de oppido desperassent, munire arcem coegerunt.

Thus you have made the perpetual defenders of Macedonia into vexators and depredators; they have perturbed our revenues, captured cities, devastated the fields, abducted our allies into servitude, snatched away families, driven off the livestock; they forced the Thessalonians, when they had despaired of the town, to fortify the citadel.

[XXXV] A te Iovis Vrii fanum antiquissimum barbarorum sanctissimumque direptum est. Tua scelera di immortales in nostros milites expiaverunt; qui cum novo genere morbi adfligerentur neque se recreare quisquam posset, qui semel incidisset, dubitabat nemo quin violati hospites, legati necati, pacati atque socii nefario bello lacessiti, fana vexata hanc tantam efficerent vastitatem. Cognoscis ex particula parva scelerum et crudelitatis tuae genus universum.

[35] From you the fane of Jupiter Urius, most ancient and most sacred among the barbarians, was despoiled. The immortal gods have expiated your crimes upon our soldiers; when they were afflicted with a new kind of disease and no one who had once fallen into it could recover himself, no one doubted that violated guest-friends, ambassadors slain, the peaceful and allies provoked by a nefarious war, shrines vexed, had produced so great a devastation. You recognize from a small particle the whole genus of your crimes and cruelty.

Quid avaritiae, quae criminibus infinitis implicata est, summam nunc explicem? Generatim ea quae maxime nota sunt dicam. Nonne sestertium centiens et octogiens, quod quasi vasari nomine in venditione mei capitis ascripseras, ex aerario tibi attributum Romae in quaestu reliquisti?

What of avarice, which is entangled in infinite crimes, should I now unfold the sum? I will speak by categories the things that are most well-known. Was it not the case that the eighteen million sesterces which, under the title of “vasarium” in the sale of my head, you had entered as assigned to yourself from the treasury, you left at Rome in profitable gain?

Nonne, cum CC talenta tibi Apolloniatae Romae dedissent ne pecunias creditas solverent, ultro Fufidium, equitem Romanum, hominem ornatissimum, creditorem debitoribus suis addixisti? Nonne, hiberna cum legato praefectoque tuo tradidisses, evertisti miseras funditus civitates, quae non solum bonis sunt exhaustae sed etiam nefarias libidinum contumelias turpitudinesque subierunt? Qui modus tibi fuit frumenti aestimandi, qui honorarii?

Did you not, when the Apolloniatae had given you 200 talents at Rome so that they might not pay the monies on loan, moreover adjudge Fufidius, a Roman knight, a most adorned man, the creditor, to his debtors? Did you not, when you had handed over the winter-quarters with your legate and your prefect, utterly overturn the wretched communities, which were not only exhausted of their goods but also underwent nefarious contumelies and turpitudes of lusts? What measure had you for the valuing of grain, what for the honorarium?

si quidem potest vi et metu extortum honorarium nominari. Quod cum peraeque omnes, tum acerbissime Bottiaei, Byzantii, Cherronesus, Thessalonica sensit. Vnus tu dominus, unus aestimator, unus venditor tota in provincia per triennium frumenti omnis fuisti.

if indeed a fee extorted by force and fear can be called an honorarium. Which, while all alike felt it, yet most bitterly the Bottiaeans, the Byzantines, the Chersonese, Thessalonica felt. You alone were the master, the sole appraiser, the sole seller of all the grain in the whole province for three years.

[XXXVI] Quid ego rerum capitalium quaestiones, reorum pactiones, redemptiones, acerbissimas damnationes, libidinosissimas liberationes proferam? Tantum locum aliquem cum mihi notum esse senseris, tecum ipse licebit quot in eo genere et quanta sint crimina recordere. Quid?

[36] Why should I bring forward the inquisitions of capital matters, the pactions of defendants, redemptions, the most bitter condemnations, the most libidinous liberations? Only, when you perceive that some locality is known to me, you yourself will be free to recall with yourself how many and how great the crimes are in that category. What?

illam armorum officinam ecquid recordaris, cum omni totius provinciae pecore compulso pellium nomine omnem quaestum illum domesticum paternumque renovasti? Videras enim grandis iam puer bello Italico repleri quaestu vestram domum, cum pater armis faciendis tuus praefuisset. Quid?

that armory workshop—do you remember it at all, when, with all the cattle of the whole province driven together, under the name of hides you renewed all that domestic and paternal profit? For you had seen, already a big boy, in the Italic War, your house being filled with profit, when your father had presided over the making of arms. What?

vectigalem populi Romani provinciam, singulis rebus quaecumque venirent certo portorio imposito, servam tuis publicanis a te factam esse meministi? Quid? centuriatus palam venditos, quid?

Do you remember that you made a revenue-paying province of the Roman People, with a fixed portorium (customs-duty) imposed on each item, whatever was put up for sale, a slave to your publicani (tax-farmers)? What? centurioncies openly sold, what?

per tuum servolum ordines adsignatos, quid? stipendium militibus per omnis annos a civitatibus mensis palam propositis esse numeratum? quid?

through your little slave the ranks assigned, what? that the stipend to the soldiers, through all the years, has been counted out by the communities, with tables publicly set forth? what?

illa in Pontum profectio et conatus tuus, quid? debilitatio atque abiectio animi tui Macedonia praetoria nuntiata, cum tu non solum quod tibi succederetur sed quod Gabinio non succederetur exsanguis et mortuus concidisti, quid? quaestor aediliciis reiectis praepositus, legatorum tuorum optimus abs te quisque violatus, tribuni militares non recepti, M. Baebius, vir fortis, interfectus iussu tuo?

that expedition into Pontus and your attempt, what? the debilitation and abjection of your spirit, when the praetorian Macedonia was announced, when you collapsed bloodless and dead not only because you were being succeeded but because Gabinius was not being succeeded, what? a quaestor, the aedilician officials having been rejected, put in charge, the best of your legates each violated by you, military tribunes not received, M. Baebius, a brave man, slain by your order?

Quid quod tu totiens diffidens ac desperans rebus tuis in sordibus, lamentis luctuque iacuisti, quod populari illi sacerdoti sescentos ad bestias amicos sociosque misisti, quod, cum sustentare vix posses maerorem tuum doloremque decessionis, Samothraciam te primum, post inde Thasum cum tuis teneris saltatoribus et cum Autobulo, Athamante, Timocle, formosis fratribus, contulisti, quod inde te recipiens in villa Euchadiae, quae fuit uxor Execesti, iacuisti maerens aliquot dies atque inde obsoletus Thessalonicam omnibus inscientibus noctuque venisti, quod, cum concursum plorantium ac tempestatem querelarum ferre non posses, in oppidum devium Beroeam profugisti? quo in oppido cum tibi spe falsa, quod Q. Ancharium non esse successurum putares, animos rumor inflasset, quo te modo ad tuam intemperantiam, scelerate, renovasti!

What of the fact that you so often, diffident and despairing about your affairs, lay in filth, lamentations, and mourning, that to that popular priest you sent six hundred friends and associates to the beasts, that, when you could scarcely sustain your grief and the pain of decession, you betook yourself first to Samothrace, then from there to Thasos with your tender dancers and with Autobulus, Athamas, Timocles, the handsome brothers, that from there, taking yourself back, in the villa of Euchadia, who was the wife of Execestes, you lay grieving for several days, and then, shabby, you came to Thessalonica with all unaware and by night, that, when you could not bear the concourse of those weeping and the tempest of complaints, you fled into the out-of-the-way town of Beroea? And in that town, when a rumor had inflated your spirits with false hope, because you thought that Q. Ancharius would not be succeeding, in what manner did you, criminal, renew yourself to your intemperance!

[XXXVII] Mitto aurum coronarium quod te diutissime torsit, cum modo velles, modo nolles. Lex enim generi tui et decerni et te accipere vetabat nisi decreto triumpho. In quo tu acceptam iam et devoratam pecuniam, ut in Achaeorum centum talentis, evomere non poteras, vocabula tantum pecuniarum et genera mutabas.

[37] I pass over the crown-gold which tormented you for a very long time, since at one moment you wished it, at another you did not. For the law for your order forbade both its being decreed and your accepting it unless a triumph had been decreed. In which matter, the money already accepted and devoured—as in the Achaeans’ hundred talents—you were not able to vomit back; you were only changing the names and kinds of moneys.

Mitto diplomata tota in provincia passim data, mitto numerum navium summamque praedae, mitto rationem exacti imperatique frumenti, mitto ereptam libertatem populis ac singulis qui erant adfecti praemiis nominatim, quorum nihil est quod non sit lege Iulia ne fieri liceat sanctum diligenter. Aetoliam, quae procul a barbaris disiuncta gentibus, in sinu pacis posita, medio fere Graeciae gremio continetur, o Poena et Furia sociorum! decedens miseram perdidisti.

I pass over the diplomas issued everywhere throughout the province, I pass over the number of ships and the sum of the booty, I pass over the account of grain exacted and requisitioned, I pass over the freedom snatched from peoples and from individuals who had been singled out by name for privileges—of which there is nothing that has not been most scrupulously consecrated by the Julian law as not permitted to be done. Aetolia, which, far removed from barbarian nations, set in the bay of peace, is contained almost in the bosom of Greece—O Punishment and Fury of the allies!—as you were departing you ruined in misery.

Arsinoen, Stratum, Naupactum, ut modo tute indicasti, nobilis urbis atque plenas, fateris ab hostibus esse captas. Quibus autem hostibus? Nempe eis quos tu Ambraciae sedens primo tuo adventu ex oppidis Agrianum atque Dolopum demigrare et aras et focos relinquere coegisti.

Arsinoe, Stratus, Naupactus—as just now you yourself indicated—renowned and well-stocked cities, you confess to have been captured by enemies. But by which enemies? Surely by those whom you, sitting at Ambracia at your first advent, compelled—the Agriani and the Dolopes—to emigrate from their towns and to leave their altars and hearths.

Hoc tu in exitu, praeclare imperator, cum tibi ad pristinas cladis accessio fuisset Aetoliae repentinus interitus, exercitum dimisisti, neque ullam poenam quae tanto facinori deberetur non maluisti subire quam quemquam numerum tuorum militum reliquiasque cognoscere.

This you, at the exit, illustrious imperator, when to your former defeats there had been an accession—the sudden extinction of Aetolia—dismissed the army, and you preferred to undergo any penalty that would be owed to so great a crime rather than to recognize any number of your soldiers and the remnants.

[XXXVIII] Atque ut duorum Epicureorum similitudinem in re militari imperioque videatis, Albucius, cum in Sardinia triumphasset, Romae damnatus est; hic cum similem exitum exspectaret, in Macedonia tropaea posuit; eaque quae bellicae laudis victoriaeque omnes gentes insignia et monumenta esse voluerunt noster hic praeposterus imperator amissorum oppidorum, caesarum legionum, provinciae praesidio et reliquis militibus orbatae ad sempiternum dedecus sui generis et nominis funesta indicia constituit; idemque, ut esset quod in basi tropaeorum inscribi incidique posset, Dyrrachium ut venit decedens, obsessus est ab eis ipsis militibus quos paulo ante Torquato respondit benefici causa a se esse dimissos. Quibus cum iuratus adfirmasset se quae deberentur postero die persoluturum, domum se abdidit; inde nocte intempesta crepidatus veste servili navem conscendit Brundisiumque vitavit et ultimas Hadriani maris oras petivit, cum interim Dyrrachii milites domum in qua istum esse arbitrabantur obsidere coeperunt et, cum latere hominem putarent, ignis circumdederunt. Quo metu commoti Dyrrachini profugisse noctu crepidatum imperatorem indicaverunt.

[38] And so that you may see the likeness of two Epicureans in military affairs and command: Albucius, after he had celebrated a triumph in Sardinia, was condemned at Rome; this man, while he expected a similar outcome, set up trophies in Macedonia; and those things which all nations have wished to be the insignia and monuments of martial praise and victory, this our preposterous general set up as deadly tokens of towns lost, legions slaughtered, a province bereft of garrison and of the remaining soldiers, to the everlasting disgrace of his stock and name; and the same man, in order that there might be something that could be inscribed and engraved on the base of the trophies, when he came to Dyrrachium as he was departing, was besieged by those very soldiers whom, a little before, he had replied to Torquatus had been dismissed by him as a favor. To these men, when under oath he had affirmed that he would pay what was owed on the next day, he hid himself at home; then, in the dead of night, sandal‑shod and in a slave’s garb, he boarded a ship, avoided Brundisium, and sought the farthest shores of the Adriatic Sea, while meanwhile the soldiers of Dyrrachium began to besiege the house in which they supposed that fellow to be, and, since they thought the man was hiding, they surrounded it with fires. Moved by this fear, the Dyrrachini disclosed that the sandal‑shod general had fled by night.

Illi autem statuam istius persimilem, quam stare celeberrimo in loco voluerat ne suavissimi hominis memoria moreretur, deturbant, adfligunt, comminuunt, dissipant. Sic odium quod in ipsum attulerant, id in eius imaginem ac simulacrum profuderunt. Quae cum ita sint—non enim dubito quin, cum haec quae excellunt me nosse videas, non existimes mediam illam partem et turbam flagitiorum tuorum mihi esse inauditam—nihil est quod me hortere, nihil est quod invites; admoneri me satis est.

But they, however, the statue very like that man, which he had wished to stand in a most celebrated place lest the memory of a most sweet man should die, they topple, dash down, break to pieces, scatter. Thus the hatred which they had brought against him they poured out upon his image and simulacrum. Since these things are so—for I do not doubt that, since you see that I know these things which stand out, you do not suppose that that whole middle portion and throng of your disgraces is unheard by me—there is nothing for which you should exhort me, nothing for which you should invite me; to be admonished is enough for me.

Admonebit autem nemo alius nisi rei publicae tempus, quod mihi quidem magis videtur quam tu umquam arbitratus es appropinquare.

However, no one else will admonish except the time of the republic, which indeed seems to me to be approaching more than you have ever supposed.

[XXXIX] Ecquid vides, ecquid sentis, lege iudiciaria lata, quos posthac iudices simus habituri? Neque legetur quisquis voluerit, nec quisquis noluerit non legetur; nulli conicientur in illum ordinem, nulli eximentur; non ambitio ad gratiam, non iniquitas ad aemulationem conitetur; iudices iudicabunt ei quos lex ipsa, non quos hominum libido delegerit. Quod cum ita sit, mihi crede, neminem invitum invitabis; res ipsa et rei publicae tempus aut me ipsum, quod nolim, aut alium quempiam aut invitabit aut dehortabitur.

[39] Do you see at all, do you sense at all, with the judicial law passed, what judges we shall hereafter have? Neither will whoever wishes be chosen, nor will it follow that whoever does not wish will therefore not be chosen; none will be hurled into that order, none withdrawn from it; neither ambition will strive toward favor, nor iniquity toward emulation; the judges will be those whom the law itself, not those whom the caprice (libido) of men, has selected. Since this is so, believe me, you will invite no one unwilling; the matter itself and the time of the Republic will either invite or dissuade me myself—which I would not wish—or someone or other.

Equidem, ut paulo ante dixi, non eadem supplicia esse in hominibus existimo quae fortasse plerique, damnationes, expulsiones, neces; denique nullam mihi poenam videtur habere id quod accidere innocenti, quod forti, quod sapienti, quod bono viro et civi potest. Damnatio ista quae in te flagitatur obtigit P. Rutilio, quod specimen habuit haec civitas innocentiae. Maior mihi iudicum et rei publicae poena illa visa est quam Rutili.

Indeed, as I said a little before, I do not reckon the same punishments among men as perhaps the majority do—condemnations, expulsions, executions; in fine, that which can befall the innocent, the brave, the wise, the good man and citizen seems to me to carry no penalty at all. That condemnation which is being clamored for against you befell Publius Rutilius, the very specimen of innocence which this city possessed. That penalty seemed to me greater upon the judges and the commonwealth than upon Rutilius.

L. Opimius eiectus est e patria, is qui praetor et consul maximis rem publicam periculis liberarat. Non in eo cui facta est iniuria sed in eis qui fecerunt sceleris et conscientiae poena permansit. At contra bis Catilina absolutus est, emissus etiam ille auctor tuus provinciae, cum stuprum Bonae deae pulvinaribus intulisset.

L. Opimius was cast out from his fatherland, he who as praetor and consul had liberated the commonwealth from the greatest dangers. The penalty of crime and of conscience did not remain upon him to whom the injury was done, but upon those who committed it. But on the contrary Catiline was acquitted twice, and even that author of your province was released, when he had brought defilement upon the couches of the Bona Dea.

Quis fuit in tanta civitate qui illum incesto liberatum, non eos qui ita iudicarant pari scelere obstrictos arbitraretur?

Who was there in so great a state who, that man having been acquitted of incest, would not reckon those who had thus judged to be bound by an equal crime?

[XL] An ego exspectem dum de te V et LXX tabellae diribeantur, de quo iam pridem omnes mortales omnium generum, aetatum, ordinum iudicaverunt? Quis enim te aditu, quis ullo honore, quis denique communi salutatione dignum putat? Omnes memoriam consulatus tui, facta, mores, faciem denique ac nomen a re publica detestantur.

[40] Shall I wait until 75 ballots concerning you are sorted, you about whom long since all mortals of every kind, age, and order have judged already? For who deems you worthy of access, who of any honor, who, finally, of the common salutation? All abominate, as removed from the commonwealth, the memory of your consulship, your deeds, your morals, and finally even your face and your name.

Legati qui una fuerunt alienati, tribuni militum inimici, centuriones, et si qui ex tanto exercitu reliqui milites exstant non dimissi abs te sed dissipati, te oderunt, tibi pestem exoptant, te exsecrantur. Achaia exhausta, Thessalia vexata, laceratae Athenae, Dyrrachium et Apollonia exinanita, Ambracia direpta, Parthini et Bulidenses inlusi, Epirus excisa, Locri, Phocii, Boeotii exusti, Acarnania, Amphilochia, Perrhaebia, Athamanumque gens vendita, Macedonia condonata barbaris, Aetolia amissa, Dolopes finitimique montani oppidis atque agris exterminati; cives Romani qui in eis locis negotiantur te unum suum sociorumque depeculatorem, vexatorem, praedonem, hostem venisse senserunt. Ad horum omnium iudicia tot atque tanta domesticum iudicium accessit sententiae damnationis tuae, occultus adventus, furtivum iter per Italiam, introitus in urbem desertus ab amicis, nullae ad senatum e provincia litterae, nulla ex trinis aestivis gratulatio, nulla triumphi mentio; non modo quid gesseris sed ne quibus in locis quidem fueris dicere audes.

the legates who were together with you were alienated, the military tribunes were inimical, the centurions, and, if any soldiers remain from so great an army, not dismissed by you but dispersed, hate you, wish ruin upon you, execrate you. Achaia exhausted, Thessaly vexed, Athens lacerated, Dyrrachium and Apollonia emptied out, Ambracia sacked, the Parthini and the Bulidenses mocked, Epirus cut down, the Locri, Phocians, Boeotians burned, Acarnania, Amphilochia, Perrhaebia, and the nation of the Athamanians sold, Macedonia given over to barbarians, Aetolia lost, the Dolopes and the neighboring mountaineers exterminated from towns and fields; the Roman citizens who do business in those places perceived that you alone had come as the embezzler of their and their allies’ goods, a harrier, a robber, an enemy. To the judgments of all these, so many and so great, there has been added a domestic judgment: the sentence of your condemnation, a hidden arrival, a furtive journey through Italy, an entrance into the city deserted by friends, no letters to the senate from the province, no congratulation from your three summer seasons, no mention of a triumph; you dare to say not only not what you have done, but not even in what places you have been.

Ex illo fonte et seminario triumphorum cum arida folia laureae rettulisses, cum ea abiecta ad portam reliquisti, tum tu ipse de te "FECISSE VIDERI" pronuntiavisti. Qui si nihil gesseras dignum honore, ubi exercitus, ubi sumptus, ubi imperium, ubi illa uberrima supplicationibus triumphisque provincia? Sin autem aliquid sperare potueras, si cogitaras id quod imperatoris nomen, quod laureati fasces, quod illa tropaea plena dedecoris et risus te commentatum esse declarant, quis te miserior, quis te damnatior, qui neque scribere ad senatum a te bene rem publicam esse gestam neque praesens dicere ausus es?

From that source and seedbed of triumphs, when you brought back dry leaves of laurel, when you cast them aside and left them at the gate, then you yourself pronounced about yourself “TO HAVE SEEMED TO HAVE DONE.” And if you had achieved nothing worthy of honor—where is the army, where the expenditures, where the command, where that most abundant province for supplications and triumphs? But if you could have hoped for something, if you had conceived that which the name of imperator, the laurel-wreathed fasces, those trophies full of disgrace and laughter declare that you contrived—who is more wretched than you, who more condemnable, you who dared neither to write to the senate that the commonwealth had been well managed by you nor to say it in person?

[XLI] An tu mihi cui semper ita persuasum fuerit non eventis sed factis cuiusque fortunam ponderari, neque in tabellis paucorum iudicum sed in sententiis omnium civium famam nostram fortunamque pendere, te indemnatum videri putas, quem socii, quem foederati, quem liberi populi, quem stipendiarii, quem negotiatores, quem publicani, quem universa civitas, quem legati, quem tribuni militares, quem reliqui milites qui ferrum, qui famem, qui morbum effugerunt, omni cruciatu dignissimum putent, cui non apud senatum, non apud equites Romanos, non apud ullum ordinem, non in urbe, non in Italia maximorum scelerum venia ulla ad ignoscendum dari possit, qui se ipse oderit, qui metuat omnis, qui suam causam nemini committere audeat, qui se ipse condemnet? Numquam ego sanguinem expetivi tuum, numquam illud extremum quod posset esse improbis et probis commune supplicium legis ac iudici, sed abiectum, contemptum, despectum a ceteris, a te ipso desperatum et relictum, circumspectantem omnia, quicquid increpuisset pertimescentem, diffidentem tuis rebus, sine voce, sine libertate, sine auctoritate, sine ulla specie consulari, horrentem, trementem, adulantem omnis videre te volui; vidi. Qua re si tibi evenerit quod metuis ne accidat, equidem non moleste feram; sin id tardius forte fiet, fruar tamen tua et indignitate et timiditate, nec te minus libenter metuentem videbo ne reus fias quam reum, nec minus laetabor cum te semper sordidum, quam si paulisper sordidatum viderem.

[41] Do you think that to me—who has always been so persuaded that a person’s fortune is weighed not by events but by deeds, and that our reputation and fortune hang not on the tablets of a few judges but on the sentences of all citizens—you seem uncondemned, you whom the allies, the federates, the free peoples, the tributaries, the merchants, the publicans, the entire commonwealth, the legates, the military tribunes, the remaining soldiers who escaped the sword, hunger, and disease, deem most worthy of every torment; to whom no pardon for forgiving can be granted before the senate, nor before the Roman equestrians, nor before any order, neither in the city nor in Italy, for the greatest crimes; who hates himself, who fears all, who dares to commit his cause to no one, who condemns himself? Never did I seek your blood, never that ultimate punishment of law and judgment which could be common to the wicked and the upright; but that, cast down, scorned, looked down upon by the rest, despaired of and abandoned by yourself, looking all around, terrified at whatever had creaked, distrustful of your own affairs, without voice, without liberty, without authority, without any consular semblance, bristling, trembling, flattering everyone—I wished to see you; I have seen. Wherefore, if what you fear may happen to you should befall, I for my part shall not take it hard; but if that should happen somewhat more slowly, I shall nevertheless take pleasure both in your unworthiness and in your timidity, nor will I any less gladly see you fearing that you may become a defendant than as a defendant, nor shall I rejoice less when I see you always sordid, than if I saw you sordid for a little while.

FRAGMENTA

FRAGMENTS

[1] Quint. IX. 4, 76,: Pro di inmortales! qui hic inluxit dies mihi quidem patres conscripti, peroptatus, ut hoc portentum huius loci, monstrum urbis, prodigium civitatis viderem!

[1] Quint. 9. 4, 76,: By the immortal gods! what a day has dawned here, for me indeed, Conscript Fathers, most longed-for, that I might see this portent of this place, the monster of the city, the prodigy of the commonwealth!

[2] Codex Cusanus I: Equidem nihil malui; vos fortasse consumptum istum cruciatu aut demersum fluctibus audire malletis.

[2] Codex Cusanus 1: As for me, I preferred nothing; you perhaps would rather hear that fellow consumed by torture or demersed in the waves.

[3] Codex Cusanus 3 et Quint. IX. 3, 47: Perturbatio istum mentis et quaedam scelerum offusa caligo et ardentes Furiarum faces excitaverunt.

[3] Codex Cusanus 3 and Quint. 9. 3, 47: A perturbation of mind and a certain suffused gloom of crimes and the ardent torches of the Furies have roused that man.

[4] Codex Cusanus I: Quem enim iste in scopulum non incidit, quod in telum non inruit?

[4] Codex Cusanus 1: For what rock did that man not strike against, upon what weapon did he not rush?

[5] Codex Cusanus I: Quid est negare ausus aut potius quid non confessus?

[5] Codex Cusanus 1: What has he dared to deny, or rather, what has he not confessed?

[6] Codex Cusanus I: Quid enim illo inertius, quid sordidius, quid nequius, quid enervatius, quid stultius, quid abstrusius?

[6] Codex Cusanus I: For what is more inert than that man, what more sordid, what more nefarious, what more enervated, what more stupid, what more abstruse?

[7] Codex Cusanus I: Turbulenti, seditiosi, factiosi, perniciosi.

[7] Codex Cusanus 1: Turbulent, seditious, factious, pernicious.

[8] Ascon. I, II: Quod minimum specimen in te ingeni? Ingeni autem?

[8] Ascon. 1, 2: What least specimen is there in you of ingenuity? But of ingenuity?

immo ingenui hominis ac liberi: qui colore ipso patriam aspernaris, oratione genus, moribus nomen.

nay, rather of a freeborn man and a free one: you spurn by your very color your fatherland, by your speech your genus, by your morals your name.

[9] Ascon. I, II: Hoc non ad contemnendam Placentiam pertinet unde se is ortum gloriari solet; neque enim hoc mea natura fert nec municipi, praesertim de me optime meriti, dignitas patitur.

[9] Ascon. 1, 2: This does not pertain to contemning Placentia, whence he is accustomed to boast himself sprung; for neither does my nature bear this, nor does the dignity of the municipality, especially one that has most excellently deserved of me, allow it.

[10] Ascon. I,I: Hic cum a domo profectus Placentiae forte consedisset, paucis post annis in eam civitatem—nam tum erat ...—ascendit. Prius enim Gallus, dein Gallicanus, extremo Placentinus haberi coeptus est.

[10] Ascon. 1,1: Here, when, having set out from home, he had chanced to settle at Placentia, a few years later he was enrolled into that city—for at that time it was ...—. For earlier he began to be considered first a Gaul, then a Gallican, finally a Placentine.

[11] Ascon. I,I: Insuber quidam fuit, idem mercator et praeco: is cum Romam cum filia venisset, adulescentem nobilem, Caesonini hominis furacissimi filium, ausus est appellare eique filiam conlocavit. Calventium aiunt eum appellatum.

[11] Ascon. 1,1: There was a certain Insubrian, likewise a merchant and a praeco (auction-crier): when he had come to Rome with his daughter, he dared to address a noble adolescent, the son of Caesoninus, a most thievish man, and he settled his daughter upon him in marriage. They say he was called Calventius.

[12] Arus. Mess. I. VII, III: homini levi et subito filiam conlocavit.

[12] Arus. Mess. 1. 7, 3: he bestowed his daughter in marriage to a man of levity and sudden temper.

[13] Arus. III: Maiorem sibi Insuber ille avus adoptavit.

[13] Arus. 3: That grandfather Insuber adopted the elder for himself.

[14] Ascon. I, II: Lautiorem ... pater tuus socerum quam C. Piso ... in illo luctu meo. Ei enim filiam meam conlocavi quem ego, si mihi potestas tum omnium fuisset, unum potissimum delegissem.

[14] Ascon. 1, 2: More splendid ... your father as a father-in-law than G. Piso ... in that my mourning. For I settled my daughter with him, whom I—if at that time the power over all choices had been mine—would have chosen as the one above all.

[14 B] Codex Cusanus I: unum potissimum delegissem.

[14 B] Codex Cusanus 1: I would have chosen one above all.

[15] Codex Cusanus I: Te tua illa nescio quibus a terris apportata mater pecudem ex alvo, non hominem effuderit. Quae te beluam ex utero, non hominem fudit.

[15] Codex Cusanus I: Your mother, that one brought from I‑know‑not‑what lands, may have poured out from her belly a beast, not a man. She who bore you a brute from the womb, not a man.

[16] Quintil. VIII, 3, 21: Cum tibi tota cognatio serraco advehatur.

[16] Quintilian 8, 3, 21: When your whole cognation is conveyed to you by a dray-cart.

[17] Codex Cusanus II: Simulata ista, ficta, fucata sunt omnia.

[17] Codex Cusanus II: Those things are simulated, fictitious, fucated; all of it.

[18] Codex Cusanus II: Putavi austerum hominem, putavi tristem, putavi gravem, sed video adulterum, video ganeonem, video parietum praesidio, video amicorum sordibus, video tenebris occultantem libidines suas.

[18] Codex Cusanus II: I supposed an austere man, I supposed a sad one, I supposed a grave one, but I see an adulterer, I see a debauchee, I see him under the shelter of walls, I see him in the sordidness of friends, I see him concealing his libidinous desires in darkness.

[18 B] Grillius, Rhet. M. III: putavi gravem, video adulterum, video ganeonem.

[18 B] Grillius, Rhet. M. 3: I thought him grave, I see an adulterer, I see a glutton.

[19] Arus. III: Neque adsidere Gabinium aut adloqui in curia quisquam audebat.

[19] Arus. 3: Nor did anyone dare to sit beside Gabinius or to address him in the curia.

[20] Quint. VIII, 5, 18: Quid quod miser, cum loqui non posset, tacere non poterat?

[20] Quint. 8, 5, 18: What of the fact that the wretched man, when he could not speak, was not able to be silent?