Quintilian: DECLAMATIONES MAIORES

the rich man, appointed leader, set out to the camp. a rumor arose that he was betraying the republic. the poor man stepped forth into the assembly and accused the rich man of treason.

absente eo populus lapidibus liberos eius occidit. reversus dives est victor a bello, petit ad supplicium filios pauperis. pater se offert.

with him absent, the people killed his children with stones. the rich man returned a victor from the war, and demands the poor man’s sons for punishment. the father offers himself.

contradicit dives. erant enim leges, ut proditor morte puniretur, et calumniator idem pateretur quod reus, si convictus esset.

the rich man contradicts. for there were laws, that a traitor be punished with death, and that a calumniator suffer the same as the accused, if he were convicted.

[1] Expectaveram quidem, ut de inimici mei supplicio non quaereretur, nec me decipi posse credideram in ultione, quam mihi debebat civitas tam liberi doloris, sed quatenus eo malorum novitate perveni, ut in vindicta primum mei consulere leges ac iura velletis, quaeso, ne quis prodesse pauperi velit, quod nec defendi potest nisi genere poenae. plus meretur pati homo, qui, si ipsi creditis, debet occidi. hoc est quin immo, iudices, quod super omnes calamitates meas ferre non possum: videtur sibi satis vixisse pauper, postquam occidit liberos meos.

[1] I had indeed expected that no inquiry would be made about the punishment of my enemy, nor had I believed that I could be deceived in the vengeance which the commonwealth owed me for so unrestrained a grief; but since by the novelty of my misfortunes I have come to this, that in vengeance you should wish first, on my behalf, to consult the laws and the rights, I beg that no one wish to benefit the pauper in a way which cannot even be defended save as a kind of penalty. The man deserves to suffer more, who, if you believe himself, ought to be killed. This is, nay rather, judges, that which beyond all my calamities I cannot bear: the pauper seems to himself to have lived enough, after he killed my children.

operae pretium putat coram impatientia mea felicem consummare patrem, et gaudiorum suorum satietati hoc quoque adicit, ut orbitatem meam liberis suis relinquat. fidem vestram iudices, ne pereat, quod ultioni meae contigit bonus pater! actum erat de solaciis meis, si liberos suos pauper mallet occidi.

He deems it worth the effort, in the presence of my helplessness, to consummate his felicity as a father, and to the satiety of his joys he adds this too: that he bequeath my bereavement to his own children. By your good faith, judges, let not perish what has fallen to my vengeance—a good father! It would have been all over with my consolations, if the poor man were to prefer that his own children be killed.

Illud plane, iudices, etiam in hac pauperis impudentia miror: liberos meos pudore deceptae civitatis occidit, deinde me crudelem vocat, parvulos suos ostendit, allegat, tamquam non ego potius querar hoc de quoquam patre fieri, nec intellegit, quantum debeat ad impatientiam nostri doloris accedere, si passus sum, quod et in ultione miserum est.

That indeed, judges, even in this impudence of the pauper, I marvel at: he killed my children by the shame of a deceived commonwealth, then he calls me cruel, he displays his little children, he alleges, as though I should not rather complain that this be done by any father; nor does he understand how much he ought to add to the impatience of our grief, if I have suffered what is wretched even in vengeance.

[2] facinus est, iudices, quemquam calamitatum suarum invidiam pati. sic ultionem meam debetis aspicere, tamquam et liberos suos pauper occiderit.

[2] it is a crime, judges, for anyone to undergo the invidiousness of his own calamities. thus you ought to look upon my vengeance, as though the poor man too had killed his own children.

Nec me fallit, iudices, plerosque credere callidissimum pauperem nec mori velle, et hoc quod nudat iugulum, pectus opponit, artes esse pro vita. sed ego illum non credo mentiri, ego, qui scio, quid maluissem. numquam hoc adversus nos excogitasset nisi inpatientissimus pater et hanc poenae meae suppliciorumque novitatem de sua pietate commentus est.

Nor does it escape me, judges, that very many believe the pauper to be most crafty and not to wish to die, and that this—his baring his throat, his putting forward his breast—are artifices for life. But I do not believe that man to be lying, I, who know what I would have preferred. He would never have thought this up against us, unless, as a most impatient father, he contrived this novelty of my penalty and of torments out of his own piety.

nihil magis de inimico efficere velis, quam quod ipse ferre non possis.

You should wish to effect nothing more against an enemy than what you yourself cannot bear.

Habet hoc mali, iudices, principum innocentia, quod inimicos esse nobis, nisi postquam nocuerint, nescimus, et tunc omnibus patemus insidiis, quotiens nos odit inferior. homo, qui omnem adversus superiora rabiem de sui vilitate sumebat, qui genus libertatis putabat odisse maiores, nulli caritati, nullis inplicitus adfectibus, quod humilis, quod esset abiectus, in furorem se magnae conluctationis exer[c]uit: primus se meum dixit inimicum. o dii deaeque, cuius ego monstri artes pertuli, in cuius feritatis conluctatione duravi?

This, judges, is the ill that the innocence of princes has: that we do not know that they are enemies to us until after they have done harm, and then we lie open to all ambushes, whenever an inferior hates us. A man who drew all his rabidity against superiors from his own vileness, who thought it a kind of liberty to hate his betters, entangled in no charity, in no affections, because he was low, because he was abject, he exercised himself into the frenzy of a great wrestling-struggle: he was the first to declare himself my enemy. O gods and goddesses, what monster’s arts did I endure, in the wrestling with whose ferocity did I harden myself?

inimicum habui neque occidere contentum et mori paratum.

i had an enemy not content with killing and prepared to die.

[3] Gratias ago civitati, quod in illis necessitatibus, in quibus nihil adulationi, nihil praestabatis obsequiis, laudatus sum testimonio periculorum: bellum mihi fatumque publicae sollicitudinis credidistis. sed neque ego rem melioris ducis facere potui, quam quod sine liberis meis profectus sum; non reliquisset illos dux proditurus.

[3] I give thanks to the civic community, that in those emergencies, in which you afforded nothing to adulation, nothing to obsequiousness, I was praised by the testimony of dangers: you entrusted to me the war and the fate of the public solicitude. But neither could I do a deed of a better leader than this, that I set out without my children; a leader about to betray would not have left them.

Non puto, iudices, adhuc quaeri, unde illae falsarum sollicitudinum fabulae repente proruperint, quis primus trepidae civitatis aures rumore complev<er>it, cum videatis, quis sic egerit, ut crederetis. vidit hanc inter metus vestros occasionem, et, quia semper apud sollicitos in deterius prona persuasio est, abusus est hoc, quod poterat videri timere vobiscum. igitur homo, qui nullum conscium meum, nullum mihi crimen obiecit, de mendacii magnitudine fidem veritatis aptavit.

I do not think, judges, that there is still inquiry as to whence those tales of false solicitudes suddenly burst forth, who first filled the ears of a trepid city with rumor, since you see who so acted that you believed. He saw this opportunity amid your fears, and, because among the solicitous persuasion is always prone toward the worse, he abused this—that he could seem to fear along with you. Therefore the man, who alleged no accomplice of mine, no charge against me, fitted the credence of truth to the magnitude of the mendacity.

civitas deinde, cui accusator proditam se esse persuaserat, fecit quicquid hic de me facere potuit: liberos meos, quos inimicus tota sua contione monstraverat, occidit genere quo pereunt innocentes. feretis me, iudices, liberius aliqua dicentem? rem pessimi exempli passus eram, etiam si prodidissem.

Then the state, which the accuser had persuaded that it had been betrayed, did whatever this man could do against me: it killed my children, whom the enemy had displayed to his whole assembly, in the manner in which innocents perish. Will you endure me, judges, speaking somewhat more freely? I had suffered a matter of the worst precedent, even if I had betrayed.

Scio vos, iudices, hoc loco mirari innocentiam meam. ut primum enim mihi calamitates meas nuntius in castra pertulit, non arma proieci, non stationes vallumque deserui; totam orbitatem meam in bella converti, tamquam liberos meos ibi perdidissem. si umquam, iudices, in me habuissent profanae cogitationes locum, si patriam odisse vel pro liberis meis possem, proditorem me feceratis.

I know that you, judges, at this point marvel at my innocence. For as soon as a messenger brought to me in the camp the news of my calamities, I did not cast away my arms, I did not abandon the outposts and the rampart; I turned my whole bereavement into warfare, as though I had lost my children there. If ever, judges, profane thoughts had had a place in me, if I could hate my fatherland even for the sake of my children, you would have made me a traitor.

[4] Necesse est, iudices, hoc primum reversus exclamem: 'ita pauper etiam nunc liberos habet? adhuc inimici mei plena domus est?' o miserae cogitationes, o decepta solacia! sic ego revertebar quasi vindicatus.

[4] It is necessary, judges, that, having returned, I first exclaim this: 'So a pauper even now has children? Is my enemy's house still full?' O wretched thoughts, O deluded solaces! Thus I was returning as if vindicated.

quas ego legionum vestrarum indignationes, quem fortissimi exercitus conpescui dolorem, dum omnibus promitto liberos suos, dum minus pro vindicta mea puto quicquid ipse fecissem! congerantur iam licet adversus omnium mortalium nocentissimum cuncta supplicia, ego tamen maximum ultionis meae solacium perdidi, quod pauperi vos potius debueratis irasci. Quoniam igitur adhuc cum paupere legibus ac iure consisto, liberos eius in supplicium patris peto.

what indignations of your legions, what dolor of the bravest army did I restrain, while I promise everyone their own children, while I deem whatever I myself had done to be too little for my vengeance! let now all punishments be heaped together against the most guilty of all mortals; yet I have lost the greatest solace of my vengeance, that you ought rather to have been angry at the pauper. since therefore even now I stand with the pauper by laws and by right, I request his children for the punishment of the father.

quid satis inprecer homini, qui fecit, ut quisquam deberet sic vindicari?

what is sufficient for me to imprecate upon the man who has brought it about that anyone should have to be avenged in this way?

'Calumniator,' inquit, 'idem patiatur.' permittunt mihi, iudices, calamitates meae queri de hac lege, tamquam parum nobis in ultione prospexerit. contra nos inventus est vindictae modus, quo non debeamus esse contenti. quisquamne mortalium idem vocat facinus et poenam, tantumne doloris venire de suppliciis quantum de calamitatibus putat?

'Calumniator,' he says, 'let him suffer the same.' My calamities, judges, permit me to complain of this law, as though it has provided too little for us in vengeance. Against us there has been devised a mode of retribution with which we ought not to be content. Does anyone of mortals call the crime and the punishment the same—does he think that as much pain comes from punishments as from calamities?

nescit profecto, nescit, quantam patientiam paret mereri, quantum animo membrisque rigoris induat, quod patiaris, agnoscere. innocentia opus est, ut miserum faciat color. constet licet utrimque mortium numerus, totidem nobis ultio cadavera adsignet, plus tamen est de innocentibus, et quicquid patiuntur deprehensi, licet solacio idem sit, aequitate minus est.

He truly does not know, he does not know, how great a patience he prepares to merit, how much rigor he puts upon mind and members, to recognize, by suffering, what it is. Innocence is needed, for color to make one wretched. Though the number of deaths be equal on both sides, though revenge assign to us just as many corpses, yet there is more when they are of innocents; and whatever the apprehended suffer, though it be the same for solace, it is less in equity.

ut idem sit supplicium nocentis et facinus, una ratione efficias, ut illud ferre non possit. frustra aestimatis, quam crudele, quam saevum sit, quod petimus, in quantum excesserit usitata genera poenarum;

so that the punishment of the guilty be the same as the crime, you effect it by one rationale: that he cannot bear it. you estimate in vain how cruel, how savage is what we seek, to what extent it has exceeded the usual genera of penalties;

[5] explicata est, iudices, explicata legis invidia, cum quis, quod patitur, et fecit.

[5] it has been explicated, judges, the law’s odium has been explicated, when someone has also done what he suffers.

Quid, quod hoc solum est poenae genus, in quo non debeat nocens nisi de se queri, et tanto minus debeat esse miserabilis, in quantu<m> maior<e> est quod patitur, invidia? quid aequius excogitari, quid iustius potest? grassatus aliquis est ferro; praebeat et ipse cervices, miscuit noxium virus; refundatur in suum facinus auctorem.

What of this, that this is the only kind of penalty in which the guilty ought to complain of none but himself, and all the less ought he be pitiable, in proportion as the envy at what he suffers is greater? what more equitable can be devised, what more just? someone has run amok with the sword; let him too offer his neck; he has mingled noxious venom; let it be returned upon the author into his own crime.

oculos rapuit, effodit; reddat de sua caecitate solacium. in nullo mortalium perferre possum sceleris sui impatientiam. verissima est iustitia vindictae, cum facinus mensura poenae est, et, si naturam ultionis aspicias, optime vindicatur quisque quo modo miser est.

he snatched eyes, gouged them out; let him render from his own blindness a solace. in none of mortals can I endure an impatience of his own crime. most true is the justice of vengeance, when the crime is the measure of the penalty; and, if you look to the nature of retribution, each is best vindicated in the very way in which he is wretched.

Fidem vestram, iudices, ne ideo tantum putetis iustum, quod exigit reus, quia ego recuso. non ferretis me pauperis mortem petentem, si liberos suos optulisset. ex omnibus tamen, quicumque incognita, inaudita passi sunt, nullos hac lege magis vindicandos puto, quam quorum liberos aliquis occidit.

Your good faith, judges, do not therefore think that just merely because the defendant demands it, since I refuse. You would not endure me seeking the death of a poor man, if he had offered his own children. Yet of all, whoever have suffered things unknown and unheard-of, I think none more to be vindicated by this law than those whose children someone has slain.

quid mihi pro hoc redditis, leges? ubi respiro, ubi claudo gemitus, unde sumo solacium? bene, bene admones, dolor: illos, illos, liceat invadere, qui nunc magis amantur, quos orbitas nostra commendat.

What do you render me in return for this, O laws? Where do I breathe again, where do I shut in my groans, whence do I take solace? Well, well you admonish, O grief: those, those, let it be permitted to assail, who now are loved the more, whom our bereavement commends.

sic quoque circumscribimur, nisi totidem sunt, nisi illis par est ac similis aetas et ante omnia optimus pater. deceperas me, fortuna, deceperas, si mihi tam grande fecisset facinus homo, qui liberos non haberet.

Thus too we are circumscribed, unless they are just as many, unless the age is equal and similar to theirs, and, before all, unless there is a most excellent father. You would have deceived me, Fortune, you would have deceived me, if a man who had no children had committed so great a crime against me.

[6] Quid, quod ex omnium scelerum comparatione nihil est detestabilius hominibus, qui leges ipsas faciunt nocentes? vestro mehercules nomine calumniantibus debetis irasci, quorum nefas non potest nisi per iudicum facinus inponere. actum est de rebus humanis, si de criminibus nostris tantundem mendaciis licet, nec ullus innocens hucusque felix est, ut diligentiae fingentium par sit.

[6] Moreover, by the comparison of all crimes, nothing is more detestable than the men who make the laws themselves culpable. By Hercules, you ought to be angry at those who, under your very name, practice calumny, whose nefariousness can impose itself only through the criminal deed of the judges. Human affairs are done for, if equal license is granted to lies regarding our charges, and no innocent is thus far fortunate enough to be a match for the diligence of the fabricators.

quemquamne mortalium in re, quam finxerit, quam conposuerit, <non> invenire aliquid, quod potest probationem vocare et facinus explicare facilitate verborum? magis oderis mendacium, cum simile vero est. quotiens manifestum est aliquem perisse sine causa, calumniantibus irasci debeas, ut possis illis ignoscere, qui crediderunt.

Can any of mortals, in a matter which he has fashioned, which he has composed, not find something that he can call proof and, by the facility of words, explicate the crime? You should hate mendacity the more when it is similar to the truth. Whenever it is manifest that someone has perished without cause, you ought to be angry with the calumniators, so that you may be able to pardon those who believed.

Adicite huic execrationi, quod calumniatus est in bello, quod de proditione, quod de duce, quod haec omnia fecit inimicus. non est, quod se publico tueatur errore, nec in excusationem adferat, tamquam crediderit et ipse fingentibus. nemo sic decipitur, ut de inimico suo mentiatur.

Add to this execration that he calumniated in war, that concerning treason, that concerning the commander, that he did all these things as an enemy. There is no public error under which he may protect himself, nor can he bring it forward in excuse, as though he himself had believed the feigners. No one is so deceived as to lie about his own enemy.

'rumor,' inquit, 'fuit te prodidisse.' bene admones. hunc primum calumniae tuae obicio rumorem. quis enim, iudices, nesciat hanc famae esse naturam, ut sit primo unius hominis audacia?

'Rumor,' he says, 'was that you had betrayed.' You do well to remind. This rumor I first bring forward against your calumny. For who, judges, does not know that this is the nature of fame, that at first it is the audacity of a single man?

de nulla re locutus est continuo populus, nec quicquam adeo subito statimque notum est, ut in illud pariter omnium sermo consentiat. quam non possit movere civitatem, quem non replere populum, si quid omnibus obviis narres, in nullo non coetu loquaris, et de re, quam cum maxime fingas, iam dicas esse rumorem? quanta tibi deinde mentiendi materia de periculorum nostrorum occasione succurrit?

About no thing has the people at once spoken, nor has anything become so suddenly and straightway known that the talk of all should agree together upon it. What is there that could not move the citizenry, whom of the populace could you not fill, if you tell it to everyone you meet, speak of it in no gathering not at all, and about a matter which you are at that very moment most of all feigning you already say that it is “a rumor”? How much material for lying then occurs to you from the occasion of our perils?

nihil est tam capax malignitatium sermonumque quam bellum. quid interest, unde sumpserit rumor ortum? quod negari non potest, tu contionaris, accusas, tu crimen de fabula facis.

Nothing is so capacious of malignities and discourses as war. What difference does it make whence a rumor has taken its origin? That which cannot be denied—you harangue the assembly, you accuse; you make a charge out of a fable.

in rumore, cuius probationes, cuius argumenta non habes, calumniae genus est primum credere.

In the case of rumor, for which you have neither proofs nor arguments, it is a species of calumny to be the first to believe.

[7] 'Sed,' inquit, 'mori debeo, quia lex, qua te accusavi, hoc proditorem pati iubet.' poteram quidem breviter respondere legem, quae calumniatorem idem pati iubet, eius poenam exigere, quod fecisset, non quod facere voluisset; fingamus tamen non hoc pauperem captasse, quod accidit; cui debet inputari exitus, qui de calumniae tuae fluxit errore? vultis scire, iudices, aliud quaesitum, quam quod lex, ~quae mori iubeat?~ accusavit me eo tempore, quo non poteram damnatus occidi. dic nunc: 'non ego effeci, ut occiderentur liberi tui,' et aude civitatis illud vocare facinus, non tamen ullis efficies artibus, ut non potius miserear rei publicae meae: non minus et illa facinus est passa quam pater: coacta est liberos imperatoris vincentis occidere.

[7] 'But,' he says, 'I ought to die, because the law by which I accused you orders a traitor to suffer this.' I could indeed briefly reply that the law, which orders the calumniator to suffer the same, exacts its penalty for what he had done, not for what he would have wished to do; let us, however, suppose that the poor man did not aim at this which happened; to whom ought the outcome to be imputed, which flowed from the error of your calumny? Do you wish to know, judges, that something other was sought than what the law, ~which would order to die?~ He accused me at the time when I, though condemned, could not be put to death. Say now: 'It was not I who brought it about that your children were killed,' and dare to call that deed the crime of the state, yet by no arts will you bring it about that I do not rather pity my commonwealth: she too has suffered a crime no less than the father: she was compelled to kill the children of a conquering emperor.

Fallitur, iudices, quisquis ullum facinus in rebus humanis publicum putat. persuadentium vires sunt, quicquid civitas facit, et quodcumque facit populus, secundum quod exasperatur, irascitur. sic corpora nostra motum nisi de mente non sumunt, et otiosa sunt membra, donec illis animus utatur.

He is mistaken, judges, whoever thinks any crime in human affairs to be public. It is the power of the persuaders, whatever the civitas does; and whatever the people do, they grow angry in proportion to how they are exasperated. Thus our bodies do not take motion except from the mind, and the members are idle, until the spirit makes use of them.

nihil est facilius quam in quemlibet adfectum movere populum; nulli, cum coimus, sua cogitatio, sua mens, ulla ratio praesto est, nec habet ulla turba prudentiam singulorum, sive quod minus publicos capimus affectus, sive neglegentior est, qui se non putat solum debere rationem, et multi fiducia facimus omnium. quam non possit rem publicam turbare, confundere, si quis repente proclamet: 'prodidit vos imperator vester, addixit, et nunc ille liberos habet?' si mehercules post hanc, inimice, vocem templa monstrasses, sacrilegum continuo flagrasset incendium, si convelli simulacra voluisses, fecisset omne de numinibus suis facinus audacia. vis scire tuum esse, quicquid civitas fecit?

nothing is easier than to move the people into any affect whatsoever; to no one, when we come together, is his own thought, his own mind, any reason at hand, nor does any crowd possess the prudence of individuals, either because we less apprehend public affects, or because he is more negligent who does not think that he alone owes an account, and as many we act with a confidence drawn from everyone. how could one not be able to disturb, to confound the commonwealth, if someone should suddenly proclaim: ‘your emperor has betrayed you, has sold you over, and now he has his children?’ if, by Hercules, after this utterance, enemy, you had pointed out the temples, a sacrilegious conflagration would immediately have blazed; if you had wished the statues to be torn down, audacity would have perpetrated every crime upon its divinities. do you wish to know that whatever the state did is yours?

gloriareris illo, si prodidissem.

you would boast of him, if I had betrayed.

[8] Non est, iudices, quod vos a gravitate iustitiae dolor ultionis abducat; quod mortem suam inimicus offert, non petit illud, nisi quisquis ipse non debet occidi. seposita igitur paulisper lege mei doloris hoc tantum ab adfectibus vestris omnium mortalium nomine peto, ne cui nocenti poenae praestetur arbitrium. infinitam, iudices, sceleribus aperitis audaciam, si poenam licet eligere condemnato, nec iam ulla[m] mortalium innocentiam trepidatione contineas, si patitur deprehensus quisque quod maluit.

[8] Judges, let not the pain of vengeance draw you away from the gravity of justice; that an enemy offers his own death—no one seeks that, except whoever himself ought not to be killed. Therefore, with the law of my grief set aside for a little while, this only I ask from your affections, in the name of all mortals: that to no guilty man be granted the discretion of the penalty. You open, judges, an infinite audacity for crimes, if it is permitted for the condemned to choose the punishment; nor will you any longer hold the innocence of mortals in check by trepidation, if each person apprehended suffers what he preferred.

levat omnes cruciatus, omnem dolorem praeparata mentem conposuisse patientia. fallitur quisquis humana tormenta sola nominum atrocitate metitur; nulla poena est nisi invito. non habemus ullum nisi ab impatientia dolorem, et, ut aliquid crudele, saevum sit, metus faciunt.

Patience, having composed a prepared mind, lightens all torments, all pain. Whoever measures human torments by the atrocity of names alone is mistaken; there is no penalty except to the unwilling. We have no pain except from impatience, and fears are what make anything cruel, savage.

supplicium quisquam vocat ad quod prosilitur, quod exposcitur, quod circa se non habet moras? illo, per fidem, illo trahite damnatos, quo non sequantur. tunc est poena, cum periturus trepidat, haeret, cum restringit supremo vincla conatu.

Does anyone call that “punishment” to which one springs forth, which is demanded, which has no delays about it? Thither, by your good faith, thither drag the condemned, where they do not follow. Then it is a penalty, when the one about to perish trembles, hesitates, when with a final effort he tightens the bonds.

volo perituri prius videre pallorem, audire gemitus, volo circumspiciat, volo queratur. fidem vestram, iudices, ne nocentibus supplicii sui contingat electio! minus iniquum est, ut evadat nocens poenam, quam ut contemnat.

I want first to see the pallor of the one about to perish, to hear the groans; I want him to look around, I want him to lament. By your good faith, judges, let it not befall the guilty to have the election of their own punishment! It is less iniquitous that a guilty man should evade the penalty than that he should contemn it.

mortem vero damnatis quisquis praestat, indulget, nec sunt ulla beneficia poenarum. fallitur quisquis illam velut omnium suppliciorum summam putat; occidi non est poena sed exitus. neque enim habet impatientiam aut dolorem, quod possis aspicere quasi fatum.

But whoever grants death to the condemned indulges them, and there are no benefactions of punishments. He is deceived whoever thinks it the sum of all punishments; to be killed is not a penalty but an exit. For it involves neither suffering nor pain, a thing you can regard as, as it were, fate.

quid, si liberos relinquas, immo si serves? quam felix exitus est plenusque laetitiae! lucri facit mortis atrocitatem, quisquis laudatus occiditur.

What, if you leave children, nay rather if you save them? How happy an exit it is and full of joy! Whoever is praised as he is killed makes the atrocity of death a profit.

[9] 'Me,' inquit, 'occidite.' non habet liberos, inimice, non habet, quisquis hoc te velle miratur. saeve, crudelis, ego tibi permittam mori? et quid iam mihi melius optem?

[9] 'Kill me,' he says, 'kill.' He has no children—enemy, he has none—whoever marvels that you wish this. Savage, cruel one, shall I permit you to die? And what now could I wish better for myself?

vides quantum feceris nefas: idem pro liberis meis offerre non potui. tu vero parvulos tuos tene, ut in isto potius moriantur amplexu. tu nunc quoque non evades, non effugies: quacumque te duxerit orbitas, sequar; effundam, si quod paraveris venenum, subtraham omne ferrum, incidam quoscumque strinxeris nexus, ab omni revocabo praecipitio.

You see how great a nefarious wrong you have done: I could not offer the same on behalf of my children. But you, hold your little ones, so that they may rather die in that embrace. Even now you will not escape, you will not flee: wherever bereavement leads you, I will follow; I will pour out whatever poison you have prepared, I will take away every blade, I will cut through whatever bonds you have drawn tight, I will call you back from every precipice.

etiam occisis liberis tuis non idem patieris, inimice, nisi vixeris.

even with your children slain you will not suffer the same, enemy, unless you live.

Nec vereor, iudices, ne putetis utriusque nostrum orbitatem simili esse ratione tractandam. admoventur es ecce contra lacrimas meas liberi, quos nemo nosset. patris innocentis occisi sunt parvuli, quos nunc circa templa ferretis, circa quos se celebraret vestra laetitia.

Nor do I fear, judges, that you may think the bereavement of each of us ought to be handled by a similar rationale. Behold, children are set before my tears, children whom no one knew. The little ones of an innocent father have been slain, whom now you would be carrying around the temples, around whom your rejoicing would celebrate itself.

facinus est, iudices, minorem esse transactarum mortium miserationem.

It is a crime, judges, that the compassion for deaths already past is less.

Non invenio, quemadmodum liberis prodesse debeat odium patris; perierunt etiam illi, quorum nec pater debebat occidi.

I do not find how the hatred of the father ought to profit the children; even those have perished whose father ought not to have been slain.

Me miserum, quod sic quoque multa habiturus es, quibus ego, qui vindicabor, invideam: osculaberis ante perituros, alloqueris, accipies suprema mandata et moriturum te continuo promittes. exonerabis gemitus tuos, cum meorum sepulcra numerabis, siccabit oculos, quod meam nunc quoque respicies vacuam domum. me miserum!

Alas for me, that even thus you will also have many things, at which I, who shall be avenged, will feel envy: you will kiss those about to perish, you will address them, you will receive their last mandates, and you will immediately promise that you yourself are about to die. you will unburden your groans, when you count the sepulchres of my own, it will dry your eyes, that you will even now look upon my house empty. alas for me!

pauperis tantum solacium futurum est, quod pares sumus.

the only solace of the poor will be, that we are equals.

[10] quid, quod in ipsa conparatione mortis non idem patientur liberi tui? occidentur uno fortassis ictu, et erit ultio manibus contenta carnificis. parvulos meos occidit quicquid fuit tota civitate telorum, omnis sexus, omnis aetas, omnis infirmitas.

[10] What then, that in the very comparison of death your children will not suffer the same? They will be slain perhaps by one stroke, and the vengeance will be content with the hands of the executioner. My little ones whatever missiles there were in the whole city killed—every sex, every age, every infirmity.

nihil est crudelius morte hominum, quos populus occidit, et solus hic exitus est, a quo non est nec cadaveribus salva reverentia. hoc me nunc conplorare tantum putatis, quod non sum liberis meis ante satiatus? miser ego nec ad cadavera accessi, non in sepulcra maiorum meis manibus intuli, nec licuit super ipsa corpora proclamare: 'non feci!'

Nothing is more cruel than the death of humans whom the populace kills, and this is the only exit, from which not even for the cadavers is reverence kept safe. Do you think that this is all I now bewail, that I was not earlier sated with my children? Wretched I, I did not even approach the cadavers, I did not with my own hands carry them into the sepulchres of the ancestors, nor was it permitted to cry aloud over the bodies themselves: 'I did not do it!'

Qualem ego illum, patria, perdidi diem, cum duces ab explicito bello revertuntur! non me laetae cinxere legiones, non effusi obviam cives triumphali circa currus meos exultavere laetitia; sequebar captivos meos tristior victor, maestus undique claudebat exercitus, occurrentium lacrimae propinquorum et erubescentis circa me populi timida solacia. o successuum quoque nostrorum misera condicio!

What a day, fatherland, I lost, when the leaders return from a war brought to a close! The joyous legions did not surround me, the citizens poured out to meet me did not exult with triumphal gladness around my chariots; I, a sadder victor, was following my captives, the army, mournful, was enclosing me on every side, the tears of my kinsmen running to meet me, and the timid consolations of the people blushing around me. O the wretched condition of even our successes!

ergo ego victoriam meam non narrabo sine fletu, nemo amicorum propinquorumque coram me de bello meo loquetur?

Therefore shall I not narrate my victory without tears, will no one of my friends and kinsmen speak before me of my war?

[11] nihil est crudelius calamitate, quam gaudia reducunt. quotiens redierit ille laetus vobis in supplicia mea dies, lugubres mihi ferte vestes, renovate, servuli, planctus, parate solacia, propinqui. nulli liberi inpatientius desiderantur, quam qui propter patrem videntur occisi

[11] nothing is more cruel than a calamity which joys bring back. as often as that day, joyful for you, returns into my torments, bring me mourning garments, renew, little servants, the plaints, prepare consolations, kinsmen. no children are longed for more impatiently than those who seem to have been slain on account of their father

Sed verum, iudices, fatendum est: timeo mehercules, ne par solaciis meis non sim, ne me iste, quo pro liberis irascor, affectus in media ultione destituat. sed adiuvate, miseremini, propinqui, adiuvate, amici, et, si forte defecero, tu ultionem meam, popule, consumma. timeo mehercules ne, cum carnifex propius accesserit, subito proclamem: 'iam malo patrem!' sed si quis est pudor, oculi, differte lacrimas, abite, gemitus; horridum, trucem debeo praebere et miserum.

But truly, judges, it must be confessed: by Hercules, I fear lest I be not equal to my solaces, lest that affect, with which I am enraged on behalf of my children, desert me in the midst of vengeance. But help, take pity, kinsmen; help, friends; and if by chance I should fail, you, O people, consummate my vengeance. By Hercules, I fear lest, when the executioner has come nearer, I suddenly cry out: 'Now I prefer a father!' But if there is any shame, eyes, defer the tears; away, groans; I ought to present myself horrid, truculent, and miserable.

deprehendam, omnium mortalium callidissime, hunc, quem simulas, quem nunc imitaris adfectum. Tunc sciemus, quo animo rogaveris, ut potius ipse morereris. sed si bene novi capax omnium malorum scelerumque pectus, inimice, vives et libenter et fortiter et quasi vindicatus.

I will apprehend, most crafty of all mortals, this affect which you feign, which you now imitate. Then we shall know with what animus you asked that you yourself should rather die. But if I know well the breast capable of all evils and crimes, enemy, you will live both willingly and bravely, and as if vindicated.