Quintilian: DECLAMATIONES MAIORES

Cum civitas fame laboraret, misit ad frumenta legatum praestituta die, intra quam rediret. profectus ille emit et ad aliam civitatem tempestate delatus duplo vendidit et duplum frumenti modum comparavit. illo cessante corporibus suorum pasti sunt.

When the city labored under famine, it sent a legate for grain, with a day prescribed within which he should return. Having set out, he bought, and, carried by a storm to another city, sold for double and procured a double measure of grain. While he delayed, they were fed on the bodies of their own.

reversus ad praestitutam diem rei publicae laesae accusatur.

having returned on the appointed day, he is accused of injuring the state.

[1] Quamvis, iudices, innumerabiles me indignandi causae initio statim actionis strangulent, quia nec dicere universas semel possum nec gregatim erumpentes differe gemitus (levior est enim dolor, qui disponitur), primum tamen ille sibi adserit locum, qui est ex hoc iudicii tempore et tam lentae vindictae dilatione ortus animi mei prope dixerim furor, quod hominem tam sceleratum, ut nos quoque fecerit nocentes, legibus accersimus, quod defendi patimur, quod, ut puniatur, precamur, quod damnatus quoque vel morte defungetur, quam nos in illa funestissima fame, dum sepeliri licuit, optavimus, vel exilio, quod hic quantopere contemnat, apparet, qui tam lente in patriam revertitur. quamquam de quo exilio loquar? quantalibet ignominia dimittite domo noxium; habet quo eat.

[1] Although, judges, innumerable causes for indignation choke me straightway at the very beginning of the action, because I can neither say them all at once nor defer the groans bursting out en masse (for pain that is apportioned is lighter), nevertheless that claim first place for itself which has arisen from this moment of the trial and from the postponement of so slow a vengeance—the frenzy of my mind, I might almost say—namely, that we summon by the laws a man so criminal that he has made us guilty too, that we allow him to be defended, that we beg that he be punished, that, even if condemned, he will either be done with it by death—which we, in that most funereal famine, while burial was permitted, chose—or by exile, which how greatly he despises is apparent, since he returns to his fatherland so slowly. Although of what exile shall I speak? With whatever ignominy, dismiss the guilty man from home; he has somewhere to go.

non publicis manibus exeuntem discerpsimus, non, quoniam semel consueramus et bona fide ferarum esse civitas coeperat, hic primus nobis ex tam tardo commeatu placuit cibus? sic enim istum laniari, sic confici, sic consumi oportuit iure nostro. quis credat?

Did we not tear him to pieces with public hands as he was going out? Since we had once grown accustomed, and the city had begun, in bona fide, to be of wild beasts, did not this man, from so tardy a return, please us as the first food? For thus it was proper, by our right, that this man be lacerated, thus finished off, thus consumed. Who would believe it?

ego me ab hoc abstinere potui, cum et esurirem et irascerer?

Could I abstain from this man, when I was both hungry and irate?

[2] Sed frumento occupati sumus, nec quicquam aliud videmus. o quanta es, fames, quae tam grandem iram vicisti! at ego, etiamsi talis ultio contigisset, si me a nefario grassatore rei publicae non lingua sed dentibus vindicassem, nihil tamen irae, nihil vindictae praestiteram; hoc et meis feci.

[2] But we were occupied with grain, and we see nothing else. o how great you are, hunger, you who have conquered so great an ire! But I—even if such an ultion had befallen, if I had vindicated myself upon the nefarious footpad of the republic not with the tongue but with the teeth—I would nonetheless have furnished nothing to anger, nothing to vengeance; this too I did for my own.

aestuant adhuc intra pectus sepulta ventribus nostris cognata viscera, et tumescere intus atque indignari videntur et sera paenitentia redundant. iam enim vacat nobis lugere, iam cibos nostros efferimus, residua cremamus; nam cetera nobiscum sepelientur. o fames inaudita, in qua levius est, quod esurimus!

the kindred viscera, buried in our bellies, still seethe within the breast, and they seem to swell inwardly and to be indignant, and late penitence overflows. For now at last it is free to us to mourn; now we carry out our foods to burial, we cremate the remnants; for the rest will be buried with us. O unheard-of hunger, in which the lighter thing is that we are hungry!

ignoscite tamen, violati manes meorum, hic vos adloquor, ignoscite, quod ora temeravimus, quod ab homine descivimus. non ut infelicem animam sustineremus, non ut invisum spiritum produceremus, fecimus; una causa mortem distulimus, quod, si expirassemus, idem timebamus.

Yet forgive, O violated shades of my own, here I address you; forgive, that we defiled our mouths, that we fell away from humankind. We did it not that we might sustain an ill-fated soul, not that we might prolong a hated spirit; for one cause we deferred death—that, if we had expired, we feared the same thing.

Et ego quidem me consumptis excuso, qui mihi ipsi <nisi> irasci non possum. at iste interim stat, ut videtis, longa via saginatus et satur atque habundans publico commeatu; ad mentionem ciborum nostrorum plenum fastidio vultum trahit et exsangues ac pallidos ad calculum vocat, quasi ego non confitear illum etiam nimium multum attulisse tam pauci<s>. rari per vias interlucent, et quamvis odio eversoris nostri evocatus e latebris suis populus subsellia non inplet. pauci sceleribus pasti, alienis mortibus salvi, quod vivunt, ipsi sibi rei, graves aegra et tabida membra in publicum protulerunt.

And indeed I excuse myself, the provisions consumed, I who cannot be angry at any but myself <nisi>. but that man meanwhile stands, as you see, fattened by the long road and sated and abounding with public commissariat; at the mention of our foods he draws a face full of fastidious disgust and calls the bloodless and pallid to the reckoning, as if I did not confess that he also brought even far too much for so few tam pauci<s>. the few glimmer along the streets, and although summoned from their lairs by hatred of our overturner, the people do not fill the benches. a few, fed on crimes, saved by others’ deaths, in that they live, defendants to themselves, have brought into public their heavy, sick, and tabid limbs.

hae sunt civitatis reliquiae, quas videtis, sic tabuimus, ut miseri nec vivos habeamus nec mortuos. hic est populus, hae vires, hae spes, hae opes. nisi tandem ad vadimonium, legate, venisses, non multorum dierum commeatum habebamus.

these are the relics of the city, which you see; we have so wasted away that, wretched as we are, we have neither the living nor the dead. this is the people, these the forces, these the hopes, these the resources. if at last you had not come to the court appearance, legate, we did not have provisions for many days.

[3] quo nunc tantum frumenti, quo classem commeatu gravem? multum hercule negotiatione tua actum est: frumentum habeo, populum non habeo. nusquam prodest, nusquam opus est: iam licet vendas.

[3] to what end now so much grain? to what end a fleet heavy with provisions? much, by Hercules, has been accomplished by your negotiation: I have grain, I do not have a people. nowhere does it profit, nowhere is there need: now you may sell.

Dum tu salutis publicae nundinator proximum quemque emptorem admittis, dum aut funera nostra vendis aut scelera, dum populo tuo fame moriente alienae civitati legatus es factus, nos interim cibos ex malis invenimus, et fames se ipsa pavit, et miseriae nostrae crudeles factae sunt. patiamur te defendi, si absolvi saltem nos possumus. haec nunc, iudices, ego solus queror, ad me magis pertinent, aliquid proprie passus sum?

While you, a huckster of the public salvation, admit each and every buyer who comes up, while you sell either our funerals or our crimes, while, with your people dying of famine, you were made legate to a foreign city, we in the meantime found foods from evils, and hunger fed itself, and our miseries became cruel. Let us endure your being defended, if at least we can be absolved. These things now, judges, am I alone complaining? do they pertain more to me? have I suffered anything peculiarly my own?

non communem dolorem accusator habeo cum iudice? quisquam in hac vindicta alteri cedit? non publica inopia, non totius populi una mendicitas fuit?

Do I, the accuser, not have a common grief with the judge? Does anyone in this vengeance yield to the other? Was it not a public want, was it not one and the same mendicity of the whole people?

-- nisi, quia funestas epulas et nefarios invenimus cibos, non putamus famem fuisse. in omnes gentes, in omnia ventura saecula proscripti sumus, omnes haec prodigia narrabunt, omnes execrabuntur, nisi qui non credent. famem ipsam infamavimus, et, quod miseris ultimum est, miserationem quoque perdidimus.

-- unless, because we found funereal banquets and nefarious foods, we do not think it was hunger. Among all nations, into all ages to come, we have been proscribed; all will tell these prodigies, all will execrate them, except those who will not believe. We have defamed hunger itself, and, which is the ultimate for the wretched, we have lost commiseration as well.

adhuc tamen una defensio fuit, quod videbamur in haec omnia istius opera inpulsi. si hic innocens est, nostra culpa est.

Yet up to now there was a single defense: that we seemed to have been impelled into all these things by that man’s agency. If this man is innocent, the blame is ours.

Etiamne publica mala narrabo et miseriis nostris convicium faciam? exibunt verba, subsequetur sermo? non alligabitur lingua?

Shall I even relate public evils and make a revilement against our miseries? Will words go forth, will discourse follow? Will the tongue not be bound?

[4] plane nihil non possumus: exponamus ordinem cladis nostrae, et simpliciter omnia indicentur; decet ista nostro ore narrari! sed novimus et nimium meminimus. iudex doceri non debet, opinor; reo indicanda sunt, qui a malis publicis afuit, qui hoc certe maximum debet patriae suae beneficium, quod a fame solus dimissus est.

[4] plainly there is nothing we cannot do: let us expose the order of our disaster, and let everything simply be indicated; it befits that these things be narrated by our mouth! but we know and remember too much. the judge ought not to be taught, I opine; things are to be indicated to the defendant, who was absent from public evils, who surely owes to his fatherland this, the greatest benefaction, that he alone was dismissed from famine.

audi itaque, audi, frumentum istud, quod lucri fecisti, quanti nobis constet.

hear then, hear, that grain, which you have made lucre of, how dearly it costs us.

Aliqui fortasse, iudices, miratur, etiamsi huius feralis anni fructus cessavit, quod tamen illa superior longi temporis beata fecunditas tabuerit, et secum iste dubitat, quid sit in causa, cur civitas opulenta quondam nihil frumenti, nisi in spe, habuerit. sic fit: ubi vicinis civitatibus vendimus, et, undecumque offulsit lucrum, sine respectu salus publica addicitur, in vacuam possessionem fames venit. etiam si quid residui erat, ut carius quidam venderent, ad annonae incendium suppressum est.

Some perhaps, judges, marvel, even if the fruit of this funereal year has ceased, that nevertheless that earlier blessed fecundity of long time has wasted away, and this man debates with himself what may be the cause, why a city once opulent has had no grain, except in hope. Thus it happens: when we sell to neighboring cities, and, from wherever lucre has flashed, the public salvation, without regard, is consigned, hunger comes into vacant possession. Even if anything was left over, in order that certain men might sell it more dearly, it was suppressed, to feed the conflagration of the grain-market.

testor tamen conscientiam vestram, non sumus questi, quamdiu duplo emebamus. non enim vulgaris illa labes frumenti fuit, nec qualis alias ab agricolis accusari solet perfidia terrarum et ingratae messis inritus labor. nova et inaudita abominanda lues, quae nihil homini reliquit praeter hominem.

I call your conscience to witness, however: we did not complain, so long as we were buying at double price. For that was not some vulgar blight of grain, nor such as is otherwise wont to be accused by the farmers—the perfidy of the soils and the fruitless labor of an ingrate harvest. It was a new and unheard-of, abominable plague, which left to man nothing except the man.

aut astricta citra conatum sata sub ipsis tabuere sulcis, aut levi rore evocata radix in pulverem incurrit, aut perustis torrido sole herbis moribunda seges palluit. nullus imber sitientis soli pulverem tersit, nulla super arentes campos saltem umbra nubium pependit. calidi spiravere venti, maturitatem praecepit aestus.

either the seed, constricted short of any attempt at growth, melted away beneath the very furrows, or a root evoked by a light dew ran into powder, or, with the grasses scorched by the torrid sun, the moribund standing crop grew pallid. no shower wiped the dust from the thirsty soil, no shadow of clouds hung even for a moment over the arid fields. hot winds blew; the heat forestalled maturity.

etiam sicubi forte ieiunae herbae solum vicerant, vanis tantum aristis spem fefellerunt, et inanis culmos tristis agricola iactavit ventis nihil relicturis.

even where by chance the meager herbage had conquered the soil, they deceived hope with only empty ears, and the sad farmer cast the empty stalks to the winds, which would leave nothing behind.

[5] levia queror: prata exaruerunt, perierunt frondes, germina non exierunt, nuda terra et rudes glebae et aridi fontes erant. nisi haec omnia inter scientes dicerem, poteram videri falso questus de hoc anno, quo tantum frumenti vendidimus. utinam saltem nobis rudem victum silvae ministrassent, et carpere arbu[s]ta, concutere quercum, legere fraga licuisset, et quaecumque primi mortales ante traditos divinitus mitiores cibos contra famem obiecerunt, pestifer annus reliquisset!

[5] I complain of light matters: the meadows have dried up, the fronds have perished, the sprouts did not come forth, there were bare earth and raw clods and arid springs. Unless I were saying all these things among those who know, I could seem to have complained falsely about this year, in which we sold so much grain. Would that at least the woods had supplied us with rough victual, and that it had been permitted to pluck the orchards, to shake the oak, to gather strawberries, and that whatever the first mortals, before gentler foods were divinely handed down, set against hunger, the pestiferous year had left remaining!

non eram delicatus. sed o tristis recordatio, funesta necessitas: nihil habuimus, quo viveremus, praeter famem.

I was not delicate. But, O sad recollection, fatal necessity: we had nothing to live on, except hunger.

Nec tamen in totum queri de numinibus possumus, maria certe secunda experti. si voluisset servare legatus diem, quem illi felicitas temporis dederat, potuit nobis frumentum bis adferre. ut primum tanti mali sensus in civitatem percrebruit, cum iam urgente inopia cotidie malum artius premeret, et praesente fortuna peior tamen esset futuri metus, apparuit nullum ex propinquo esse praesidium, cum finitimas quoque civitates incendium nostrum adussisset.

Nor yet can we altogether complain of the divinities, having certainly experienced favorable seas. If the legate had been willing to keep the day which the felicity of the season had given him, he could have brought us grain twice. As soon as the sense of so great an evil spread through the city, since now, with want urgent, the evil pressed more tightly day by day, and, fortune being present, yet the fear of the future was worse, it appeared that there was no succor from nearby, since our conflagration had singed the neighboring cities as well.

erat quidem aliquid in vicino adhuc frumenti, sed iam nemo vendebat. ergo ut vidimus salutem publicam trans mare petendam, se in curiam quisque cogunt.

there was indeed still some grain in the vicinity, but now no one was selling. therefore, when we saw that the public salvation had to be sought across the sea, each person gathers himself into the curia.

[6] ut arma bello, ut aqua incendio inclamari publice solent, ita uno quodam consensu non aetatibus [ex]spectatis, non honoribus, pariter rettulimus, probavimus, decrevimus, pedibus manibus uimus in sententiam necessitatis, nec ordo nos officiorum moratus est. legationem multi pollicebantur, nec innocentiae iste beneficio vel auctoritatis meritorumque respectu electus est; una causa nos movit, quod se cito rediturum pollicebatur. pecuniam sine numero infudimus, frumentum sine modo mandavimus; quantum potuisset, adferret, festinaret modo.

[6] just as arms are wont to be cried out publicly in war, and water in a conflagration, so by a certain single consensus, with ages not [ex]pected, with honors not waited for, alike we brought the motion, we approved, we decreed; with feet and hands we ushed into the motion of necessity, nor did the order of offices delay us. Many were volunteering for the embassy, nor was that fellow chosen by the favor of innocence or with regard to authority and merits; one cause moved us, that he was promising to return quickly. We poured in money without number, we placed orders for grain without measure; as much as he could, let him bring—only let him make haste.

hoc una voce supplices acclamabamus, ac, ne moraremur, ne hoc quidem diu rogavimus; una tantum vox fuit, quam iste pro quodam praeiudicio amplexus est: 'nihil agis adferendo frumentum, si post illum diem veneris.' nostris manibus legatum in navem tulimus, ac, ne quid morae esset, pro sua quisque portione etiam commeatum dedimus, retinacula incidimus et litus ingressi classem publicis manibus inpulimus. inde fugientia vela longo visu prosecuti facilem emptionem, secundos ventos, placidum mare, non secus <ac si> ipsi navigaremus, precati sumus.

This with one voice we, as suppliants, kept acclaiming, and, so that we might not delay, not even this did we ask long; there was only one utterance, which he embraced as a kind of prejudgment: 'You accomplish nothing by bringing grain, if you come after that day.' With our own hands we carried the legate into the ship, and, lest there be any delay, each man, for his own portion, also furnished provisions; we cut the mooring-ropes and, stepping onto the shore, with public hands we pushed the fleet off. Then, following the fleeing sails with a long gaze, we prayed for an easy purchase, favorable winds, a placid sea, no differently than if we ourselves were sailing.

Quis credat hoc de tam miseris? omnia a diis inpetravimus. scilicet unum superest, ut pro aliena civitate vota solvenda sint.

Who would believe this about such wretches? We have obtained everything from the gods. Clearly one thing remains: that vows be discharged on behalf of a foreign city.

cito pervenit, cito emit, cito rediit, quo voluit. quid prodest? [expectare] alia civitas prior est, et sane religiosus legatus diem expectat.

He arrived quickly, he bought quickly, he returned quickly, to where he wished. What does it profit? [to wait] another city has precedence, and indeed the scrupulous legate awaits the day.

Nos interim coacta primo ex agris pecora diripuimus et, ne venturo saltem anno prospici posset, non reliquimus, qui ararent, boves. iam servis fugas imperavimus, iam procumbentes ante limina principum pauperes in ipsis precibus expirant. plorantibus liberis legatum promittimus.

We meanwhile plundered the livestock, gathered first from the fields, and, so that provision could not be made even for the coming year, we left no oxen to plough. Already we have ordered the slaves to flights, already the poor, prostrate before the thresholds of princes, expire in the very act of their prayers. To the weeping children we promise a legacy.

iam tantum sibi quisque cura est. nihil tamen horum etiamnunc in invidiam legati queror; adhuc prior cursus est, hactenus nostra mala tulimus; in reliqua legatus nos vicarios dedit.

by now each man is only a care to himself. yet I do not even now complain of any of these things to the envy of the legate; thus far the earlier course holds—up to this point we have borne our own evils; for the rest, the legate has appointed us as deputies.

[7] si quicquam tibi humani sanguinis superest, nisi nimia saturitate alienae fortunae cogitatio excidit, respice patriae casum, respice gravissimam fortunam. miseri te misimus, expectant pallidi exsanguesque cives tui, et quicquid extremi spiritus adhuc superest, spe tui trahitur. figura tibi exesos vultus, decrescentem populum, iam praemortuas vires.

[7] if any human blood remains to you—unless by an excessive satiety of another’s fortune your consideration has fallen away—look back upon the fatherland’s calamity, look upon the gravest fortune. We wretches sent you; your citizens, pallid and bloodless, await, and whatever of the last breath still remains is drawn by hope of you. Figure to yourself the eaten-away faces, the diminishing populace, the already pre-mortem strength.

nec quicquam horum potes ignorare: si quid tibi credimus, fame laborantem civitatem vidisti. festina, dum supersunt, quibus legationem renunties, festina, dum mori ultimum est, frumento digni sumus. quid in nos convertis etiam alienae civitatis famem?

Nor can you be ignorant of any of this: if we credit you at all, you have seen a city laboring under famine. Make haste, while there still remain those to whom you may report back the legation; make haste, while dying is still the last resort—we are worthy of grain. Why do you turn upon us even the famine of a foreign city?

quatenus nobis computandum est, propter te duplum mali tulimus.

insofar as it must be computed by us, on account of you we have borne a double measure of harm.

Tu supra frumentum publicum stertis et omnes maris circumvectus oras litora portusque cognoscis, tu inter duas civitates fatorum arbiter alienae conditor, tuae eversor, salutem nostram peregrinis admetiris, et secunda tempestate in patriam ferente contrarios ventos exoptas. nos per arentes effusi campos morientium herbarum omnes radices vellimus, eo quidem fortius, ut, si fieri possit, in venenum incidamus subeuntes insolitis cibis. et sicubi forte uberius paulo pabulum contigit, de pascuis rixa est.

You snore atop the public grain, and, having been carried around all the coasts of the sea, you know the shores and the ports; you, between two states, the arbiter of fates, the founder of a foreign city, the overthrower of your own, you measure out our safety to foreigners, and, when fair weather is bearing you home to the fatherland, you long for contrary winds. We, scattered through arid fields, pluck up all the roots of dying herbs, and all the more stoutly indeed, so that, if it can be, we may fall into poison as we resort to unaccustomed foods. And if anywhere by chance a somewhat more abundant fodder is found, there is a quarrel over the pastures.

amaros fruticum cortices et ramorum male arentium pallidas frondes decerpimus morbidi; nam quicquid fames coegit, corpus admisit. iam passim moriuntur, et pestilentium more pecudum subinde aliquis ex populo in ipsis pascuis procumbit. crebrior cotidie interitus et latior strages, et -- me miserum!

We, morbid, pluck the bitter bark of shrubs and the pale fronds of ill-dried branches; for whatever hunger has compelled, the body has admitted. Already they are dying everywhere, and after the manner of cattle in pestilences, ever and anon someone from the people collapses in the very pastures. More frequent each day the perishing and wider the slaughter, and -- wretched me!

-- iam fames desinit.

-- now the famine ceases.

[8] quos tester deos? superosne, quos per tantum nefas fugavimus, an inferos, quos nobis permiscuimus, an nostram malam conscientiam omnia nos ante fecisse, quae nemo praeter nos fecit? pecora cecidimus, campos evolsimus, silvas destruximus; novissime nihil relictum est praeter esurientes et mortuos.

[8] Which gods shall I call to witness? the supernal, whom by so great a nefas we have put to flight, or the infernal, whom we have intermingled with ourselves, or our evil conscience, that we have done before all others the things which no one besides us has done? we have slaughtered the herds, we have torn up the fields, we have destroyed the forests; at the last nothing is left except the starving and the dead.

Si qua est fides, libenter hanc partem accusationis subinde differo. adeo, ubi tantum nefas narrandum est, etiam exigua temporum lucra sectari libet. at necesse est reo indicare, qui a malis publicis afuit, quam multis non ad diem venerit.

If there is any credence, I gladly defer this part of the accusation for the moment. so much so that, when so great a nefarious deed must be narrated, it even pleases to pursue the slight profits of time. but it is necessary to indicate to the defendant, who was absent from the public evils, how many times he did not come on the appointed day.

ignoscite, dii hominesque, sceleri quidem ultimo, sed tamen quod fecisse miserrimum est. non habitant una pudor et fames, et cum semel intrarit inpotens domina, feras etiam et ingentes beluas subigit. terram morientes momorderunt.

Forgive, gods and men, the ultimate crime indeed, yet one which it is most miserable to have committed. Modesty and famine do not dwell together; and when once the unbridled mistress has entered, she subdues even wild and huge beasts. The dying bit the earth.

memetipsum, si nil fuisset aliud, comedissem. sed confitendum est; legati beneficio non defuit. postquam omnem patientiam vicerat ignea fames, postquam spes quoque, quae miseris ultima est, omnis abierat, et frumentum totiens sibi frustra promissum animus iam ne cupere quidem audebat, subiit furor et alienatio mentis, et tota sui arbitrii fames facta est.

I would have devoured my very self, if nothing else had existed. But it must be confessed; the legate’s beneficence did not fail me. After fiery hunger had conquered all endurance, after all hope too—which is the last for the wretched—had departed, and the spirit no longer dared even to desire the grain so often promised to it in vain, madness and an alienation of mind came upon me, and hunger became completely the arbiter of itself.

animus malis deriguerat, os insolitis cibis stupebat, feris invidere coepimus. primo tamen furtim et intra suas quisque latebras admisit hoc monstrum, et, si paulo citius venisses, potuisset hoc negari: si quid ex strage corporum defuerat, sepultum putabamus. nec tamen indicavit quisquam, nec deprehendit aliquis.

The mind had been numbed by evils, the mouth was stupefied by unaccustomed foods, we began to envy the feral beasts. At first, however, each one admitted this monster furtively and within his own hiding-places; and, if you had come a little earlier, this could have been denied: if anything was lacking from the carnage of bodies, we supposed it had been buried. Yet no one indicated it, nor did anyone detect it.

nemo, ut hoc faceret, exemplo inpulsus est; se quisque docuit, omnes scire coepimus, postquam omnes fecimus. quotiens tamen, antequam inciperem, in portum cucurri, quamdiu in altum intentus, si quae essent in conspectu naves, oculos fatigavi! tibi, legate, tempus differre facile est, qui tuam tantum partem non vendidisti.

no one, to do this, was impelled by an example; each one taught himself; we all began to know, after we all had done it. How often, however, before I began, I ran to the harbor; how long, intent on the deep, I wearied my eyes, to see whether there were any ships in sight! For you, legate, it is easy to defer the time, you who have not sold even your own part.

tu, quem hebeas diem, videris, ego septimum expectare non possum.

you, consider what day you have; I cannot await the seventh.

[9] Ergo rabidi supra cadavera incubuimus et clausis oculis, quasi visus conscientia acerbior esset, tota corpora morsibus consumpsimus. subit interim horror ex facto et taedium ac detestatio sui et planctus, sed, cum ab infaustis fugimus cibis, urit iterum fames, et quod modo ex ore proiecimus, colligendum est. nunc mihi illa foeda videntur, nunc abominanda, laceri artus et nudata ossa et abrepta cute intus cavum pectus, nunc occurrunt effusa praecordia et lividae carnes et expressum dentibus tabum et exhaustae ossibus medullae.

[9] Therefore, rabid, we lay upon the cadavers and, with eyes closed, as if the sight were more bitter to the conscience, we consumed whole bodies with bites. meanwhile there steals upon us a horror from the deed, and a tedium and a detestation of oneself and a lamentation; but, when we flee from the ill-omened foods, hunger burns again, and what just now we cast from the mouth must be gathered up. now those things seem foul to me, now abominable: torn limbs and stripped bones and a chest hollow within with the skin snatched off; now there come before me the effused precordia and livid flesh and corruption pressed out by the teeth and marrows drained from the bones.

quantulum enim corporis fames relinquebat! nunc illud horreo tempus, si quando aut manus incidit aut facies aut aliquid denique, quod hominem propria nota signat, nunc cibi succurrunt, quos inponere in mensam non ausus sum. confitendum est enim: devoravimus homines et quidem avide, qui diu nihil ederamus, et tamen coepisse difficillimum fuit.

for how scant a bit of body hunger was leaving! now I shudder at that time, whenever either a hand turned up, or a face, or finally anything which marks a man by its proper sign; now there come to mind foods which I did not dare to set upon the table. it must be confessed: we devoured humans, and indeed avidly, we who had eaten nothing for a long time— and yet to begin was most difficult.

postquam ius factum est, postquam nemo erat in civitate, quem confiteri puderet, tum vero iam in posterum prospicimus et funera horreis condimus. retro aguntur exequiae; aut circa <corpora> aut ad rogos pugna est. heres cadaver cernit.

after it had become lawful, after there was no one in the state whom it shamed to confess, then indeed we now look ahead to the future and store funerals in granaries. the obsequies are driven backward; either around the <corpora> or at the pyres there is battle. the heir surveys the cadaver.

novum et incredibile, nisi nossemus, monstrum habuimus: sine rogis pestilentiam. mortium ratio non constitit; perisse cives scio tantum, quia inter viventes non video.

we had a new and incredible—unless we had known it—monster: a pestilence without pyres. no reckoning of deaths was established; I know only that citizens have perished, because I do not see them among the living.

[10] aegri adsidentes timebant et labentem animam supremis domesticorum o~~culis reducebant. primo tamen nihil rogabant suos nisi tantum sepulturam. ut maior urgere necessitas coepit, beneficium factum est expectare, dum moritur.~~

[10] Those sitting beside the sick were afraid, and they would call back the slipping soul with the last kisses of the household. At first, however, they asked nothing of their own except only sepulture. As a greater necessity began to press, it became a benefaction to wait until he died.

nemo adeo adfinis fuit, nemo tam coniunctus, quem pietas abstineret. nostros comedimus, nostros, nam si alienos vellemus, nemo [audebat] cedebat.

No one was so affined, no one so conjoined, whom piety would restrain. We ate our own, our own; for if we wanted others, no one [dared] yielded.

Nihil est tamen, quod indignari velitis; narravi vobis lucrum vestrum: frumentum duplo vendidimus, et callidissimus legatus vicinae civitati inposuit. plena nunc horrea, bonae rationes, onustae naves sunt, et, quo magis gaudeamus tanto bono, pauci sumus. nam quod ad temporis excusationem pertinet, nihil est, opinor, quod aestuet <aliquis: fames> in desertum non incidit populum, nec sane fuit, cur festinaret; etiam nunc expectare poteramus, sola est nostra civitas, quae fame perire non possit.

There is, however, nothing at which you should wish to be indignant; I have told you your profit: we sold the grain at double, and a most cunning legate imposed upon the neighboring city. Now the granaries are full, the accounts good, the ships laden, and, that we may rejoice the more at so great a good, we are few. For as regards the excuse of timing, there is nothing, I suppose, for anyone to be in a heat about: the famine did not fall upon a deserted people, nor indeed was there any reason why it should hurry; even now we could have waited, ours is the only city that cannot perish by famine.

dissimulaturum me putatis istius patrocinia? confiteor, venit ad ultimum diem, adtulit frumentum. gratulemur, quod iam nulla civitas fame laborat.

Do you think I will dissemble that man’s patronage? I confess it: he came at the last day, he brought grain. Let us congratulate ourselves that now no city labors under famine.

O si vires sufficerent, latera durarent, aliquid ex aridis diu faucibus residuae vocis exiret! quanta indignatione opus erat, ubi pro omnibus dolendum est! ~quod cum si universi, qui adsumus, proclamemus, haec tota contio in unam vocem consentiat, non esset tamen futura par crimini invidia; ut omnes accusemus, quota pars queritur!

O if my strength were sufficient, my sides would endure, if something of my residual voice would issue from a throat long parched! with how great indignation there was need, where one must grieve on behalf of all! ~and even if we all, who are present, should proclaim it aloud, if this whole assembly should consent into one voice, still the public odium would not be going to be equal to the crime; grant that we all accuse—what fraction is it that makes complaint!

secum quisque reputet, quae tulerit, quid admiserit. plane immanis belua est et non tantum necessitatis causa per nefas pastus, qui, quod comederit hominem, non irascitur.

Let each man reckon with himself what he has borne, what he has committed. Clearly he is a monstrous beast—and not one fed unlawfully merely by the cause of necessity—who, because he has eaten a human being, does not grow angry.

[11] succurrite, dolor et seri vomitus et ultrix paenitentia, ades, longi ieiunii imperiosa necessitas, et vos intus inplicitae, si quid potestis, admonete, animae, et a ferali ventre prorumpite, dum commissum nefas devoto capite expiamus et quasi lustrata urbe feralem victimam violatis manibus mittimus. decent nos tales hostiae. in iudicium perduxi publicum scelus, et infamatae civitati quaero velamentum.

[11] succor, pain and belated vomiting and avenging penitence, be present, imperious necessity of a long fast, and you, souls entangled within, if you can, admonish, and burst forth from the funereal belly, while we expiate the committed nefarious offense with a devoted head and, as if the city were lustrated, we send the funereal victim with defiled hands. such victims befit us. I have brought the public crime into judgment, and for the disgraced city I seek a veil.

nemo non commisit aliquid; habetis tamen, si vultis, unum et pro omnibus nocentem.

no one has failed to commit something; yet you have, if you wish, one guilty for all.

Rei publicae laesae accuso. mirari vos certum habeo, cum civitas tota consumpta sit, cum populus in se tabuerit, hanc verbi segnitiam, quo perstricta tantummodo patria et leviter, quod aiunt, manu offensa intellegi possit; sed ferenda est, ut in ceteris, haec quoque rerum naturae iniuria, quod non tam inmanibus factis paria verba accommodavit. et fames nostra fames dicitur, et cibi nostri cibi vocantur et res publica nunc laesa.

I prosecute for an injured Republic. I am sure you marvel, when the whole civitas has been consumed, when the people has wasted away within itself, at this sluggishness of the word, whereby the fatherland can be understood as only grazed and, as they say, lightly struck by the hand; but, as in other matters, this injustice of the nature of things too must be borne, that it has not accommodated words equal to such monstrous deeds. And our hunger is called hunger, and our foods are called foods, and the Republic is now said to be injured.

nec scilicet nisi peracto legitimo ordine reus non punietur. omnia, rogo, scrupulose agantur. videte, ut iure irascamur, qui contra ius viximus.

nor, to be sure, will the accused be punished unless the legitimate order has been completed. let everything, I ask, be conducted scrupulously. see to it that we grow angry by right, we who have lived contrary to law.

immo etiam, si libet, defensionem audiamus, etiam nunc nos moretur. neget laesam rem publicam, quia plus quam laesa est. non enim discussos alicuius operis angulos nec recisas lucorum frondes nec publicarum aedium dispersos parietes obicimus; ac, si videbitur, adiciet forsitan non esse rem publicam, quae perierit.

Nay rather, if it please, let us hear the defense; let it even now detain us. Let it deny that the republic has been injured, because it has been more than injured. For we do not bring as charges the shattered corners of some structure, nor the lopped fronds of groves, nor the scattered walls of public edifices; and, if it shall seem good, he will perhaps add that that is not a republic which has perished.

id enim superest, ut iam hoc nomen extinctum audiamus! procedet eo usque fortasse, ut esurisse nos neget.

for this indeed remains: that we now hear this name extinct! he will perhaps proceed so far as to deny that we have been hungry.

[12] non infitior autem parum proprie hoc legis verbo nefas istius signari non posse. maiores enim ne laedi quidem rem publicam impune voluerunt, ideoque existimo etiam hoc esse comprehensum. nemo autem verebatur, ne absolvi posset crimen lege maius.

[12] I do not deny, however, that the nefariousness of that man cannot very properly be designated by this word of the law. For the ancestors did not wish even that the Republic be harmed with impunity, and therefore I think that this too is comprehended. But no one was afraid that a crime greater than the law could be acquitted.

Quid, quod actionem rei publicae laesae temptat in legem male gestae legationis deflectere? eligit reus crimen, hoc est, noxius crucem optat! non sustineo, iudices, in tanto animi motu argumenta conquirere, nec impetus irae meae in digitos descendit, hoc tamen scio: non cadit in formulam publicus dolor, nec, si adeo iudicibus, quid passi sint, exciderit, ut has ferant cavillationes non diluentis crimen, sed differentis, populus quoque inpunitum nefas sine lapidibus praeteribit.

What of the fact that he attempts to deflect the action for an injured Republic into the law of a badly-conducted legation? The defendant chooses the charge, that is, the guilty man opts for the cross! I do not have the strength, judges, in so great a movement of soul to collect arguments, nor does the onrush of my anger descend into my fingers; this, however, I know: public grief does not fall into a formula, nor, if it has so slipped from the judges what they have suffered that they bear these cavils of one not diluting the crime but deferring it, will the people also pass by a nefarious wrong unpunished without stones.

non praescribes. accusare te male gestae legationis possum? age porro, si occisos obiecero homines, non tu es causa mortium?

You will not plead prescription. Can I accuse you of a mismanaged legation? Come then, further, if I should allege men slain, are you not the cause of the deaths?

si violata sepulcra, non propter te rogos fraudavimus? sed legatus fuisti. quod tamen ipsum quid est aliud, quam rem publicam> tractare?

if violated sepulchers, was it not on your account that we defrauded the pyres? but you were a legate. which, however, itself, what is it other than to handle the commonwealth>?

rem autem qui male agit, ut arbitror, laedit. an existimas hanc legatis dari peccandi licentiam, ut quaecumque scelera in eo officio commiserunt, cum his omnibus hac una lege decidant? o nimium invidendam huius legationis condicionem, si tibi et famem remisit et legem!

But he who conducts a matter badly, as I think, harms it. Or do you suppose that this license to sin is given to legates, that whatever crimes they have committed in that office, by this one law they are absolved of them all? O the exceedingly-to-be-envied condition of this legation, if it has remitted for you both famine and the law!

sed erraverim sane, et, quia nullum in foro nostro iudicium fuit, desuetudine ipsa iura exciderint: quomodo legem meam effugis?

But suppose I have erred, indeed; and, since there was no judgment in our forum, let the laws by desuetude itself have fallen away: how do you evade my law?

[13] nam nisi malis stupeo, duo sunt omnino, quae in eiusmodi crimine quaeri soleant, an laesa sit res publica, an ab eo, qui arguitur, laesa. in quibus si quid tibi fiduciae fuisset, non a criminibus crimina appellares, nec ad alteram poenam transfugeres, sed te ab hac, quae intenditur, tuereris.

[13] For, unless I am stupefied by your misdeeds, there are in all two things that are wont to be inquired into in a charge of this sort: whether the commonwealth has been injured, and whether it has been injured by him who is accused. In which, if you had had any confidence, you would not appeal from charges to charges, nor defect to a different penalty, but would defend yourself against this one which is being aimed.

Dico laesam esse rem publicam. oratione hic opus est, aut reliquorum more accusatorum hoc nunc mihi quaerendum, quomodo res verbis adgravetur? adeo infirma est calamitatium memoria?

I say that the Republic has been harmed. Is there need of oration here, or, after the manner of the rest of the accusers, am I now to be inquiring how the matter may be aggravated by words? Is the memory of calamities so infirm?

quae si posset excidere, non tamen narranda vobis, sed ostendenda erat ruina publica. agedum, si videtur, extra portas prospicite squalida arva et spinis obsitas segetes et semesos arborum truncos. viduis cultore agris errant a fame nostrae innocentes ferae, inanes villae sunt et deserta horrea in ruinam procumbunt.

which, if it could be effaced, yet the public ruin was not to be narrated to you, but to be shown. come now, if it seems good, look out beyond the gates at squalid fields and grainfields overgrown with thorns and the half-consumed trunks of trees. in fields widowed of a cultivator our innocent wild creatures wander because of our famine, the villas are empty, and deserted granaries sink down into ruin.

nullus inversis aratro glebis campus nitet, nullum solum opere renovatur. iam et in sequentem annum famem timeo. redite in domos vestras: videbitis noxios focos et ignes tabo cadaverum extinctos et tecta mortibus gravia; cum maxime inferimus in tumulos ossa insepulta, ducimus opertas exequias, et ad sepulturam residua conferuntur, et tandem cadavera igni permittimus.

No field shines with glebes overturned by the plow; no soil is renewed by toil. Already I fear famine even for the following year. Return to your homes: you will see baneful hearths and fires extinguished by the putrid gore of cadavers, and roofs heavy with deaths; at this very moment we bear into the tumuli the unburied bones, we conduct shrouded obsequies, and for burial the residual remains are conveyed, and at last we commit the cadavers to the fire.

ubi vero universas familias fames extinxit, quae pars maxima est, inanes domus situm ducunt, iacent relictae sine herede sarcinae. invenitur interim clusa domo conditus dominus, si cuius mors famem evasit, quem rimantes non invenere proximi, qui inter suos ultimus decessit. quo vos mitto?

but where indeed famine has extinguished entire families—which is the greatest part—empty houses take on mustiness, and bundles left behind lie without an heir. meanwhile the master is found laid away, the house shut, if anyone’s death has escaped famine—the one whom, searching, those nearest did not find, he who among his own was the last to depart. where am I sending you?

ipsam intuemini contionem, unius deficientis speciem tota civitas habet, cavum macie caput et conditos penitus oculos et laxam cutem, nudos labris trementibus dentes, rigentem vultum et destitutas genas et inanes faucium sinus; prona cervix, tergum ossibus inaequale, infernis imaginibus similes, foeda etiam cadavera. aut si quis talis non est, confiteatur se usque ad saturitatem comedisse.

Behold the assembly itself: the whole city has the appearance of a single person failing— a head hollow with emaciation and eyes sunk deep within and lax skin, teeth naked with trembling lips, a rigid visage and forsaken cheeks and the hollows of the throat empty; a neck bent forward, a back uneven with bones; like infernal images, and the cadavers too are foul. Or if anyone is not such, let him confess that he has eaten up to satiety.

[14] sua quisque consulat misera praecordia, suum ventrem conscientia gravem. dic nunc, legate: 'innocens sum, quod ad illum diem veni.' at ego propter te nocens sum, quod ad illum diem vixi.

[14] Let each consult his own wretched precordia, his own belly weighed down by conscience. Say now, Legate: 'I am innocent, in that I came up to that day.' But I, on account of you, am guilty, in that I lived up to that day.

Quae comparata nobis mala non delicatas lacrimas habent? aliquem populum hostilis exercitus intra portas coegit; solet venire ultima obsessis inopia, sed everti certe licet: victor captivum aut occidet aut pascet. tormenta quidam piratarum tulerunt; felices, quibus contigit innocentia!

Which evils, when compared with ours, do not have delicate tears? a hostile army has forced some people within their gates; extreme indigence is wont to come to the besieged, but at any rate it is permitted to be overturned: the victor will either kill or feed the captive. certain men have borne the torments of pirates; happy they, to whom innocence has fallen by lot!

mors certe finis est, nec saevitia ultra fata procedit. aut etiamsi quis adeo hominem exuit, ut ibi poenam quaerat, ubi sensus doloris non inveniat, nempe tamen cadavera feris obiciet. circumdati sunt quidam flammis, ipsa tamen poena habuit sepulturam.

death is surely the end, nor does savagery proceed beyond the fates. Or even if someone so far strips off the human that he seeks punishment there where he does not find a sense of pain, nevertheless he will cast the corpses to the beasts. Certain men have been surrounded by flames; yet that very punishment had a burial.

nos incendii cinerem perdidimus, nostra etiam ruina tabuit. nostra mala nunc latent: non ignis defunctos cremavit, non ferae laceraverunt, non aves attigerunt, et tamen cadavera mortibus adnumerare non possumus. citra spem convalescendi adflicti sumus, immo etiam citra votum.

we have lost the ash of the conflagration; our very ruin has wasted away. our evils now lie hidden: not did fire cremate the deceased, nor did wild beasts lacerate them, nor did birds touch them, and yet we cannot number the cadavers among deaths. we have been afflicted short of the hope of convalescence—nay, even short of a prayer.

gravior in dies facti paenitentia est, pudet vitae, lucem ac sidera intueri non audeo. cotidie felices mortuos clamo et malae conscientiae facibus agitatus nihil fortunatius in aeterna sede utcumque compositis puto. adeo mors placet: iam etiam cibis nostris invideo!

The penitence for the deed grows heavier by the day; I am ashamed of life, and I do not dare to look upon the light and the stars. Every day I proclaim the dead happy, and, agitated by the torches of a bad conscience, I deem nothing more fortunate than those, however laid to rest, in the eternal seat. To such a degree does death please me: now I even envy our food!

Praeterita differo; ipsa ex nimia cupiditate nocet habundantia. desideratos diu cibos avide haurimus et lassam famem saturitate strangulamus. morimur adhuc etiam frumento tuo.

I defer the things past; abundance itself harms through excessive cupidity. we avidly gulp the foods long desired and strangle weary hunger with satiety. we die even now also from your grain.

[15] atqui ceterae rei publicae partes, quae sunt ad usum populi comparatae, et leviore cum damni sensu pereunt et facile remedium accipiunt, cum reparari possit amissum: opera restituam, aerarium replebo, naves, arma reficiam. hic vulnus altissime penetrat, hic ipsa vitalia feriuntur, ubi populus ruit, ubi continuis funeribus omnis sexus atque aetas semel sternitur. exhausta est civitas et desolatae domus, triste florentis quondam fortunae indicium laxi muri.

[15] And yet the other parts of the commonwealth, which are prepared for the use of the people, perish with a lighter sense of loss and easily receive a remedy, since what has been lost can be repaired: I will restore the works, I will refill the treasury, I will refit ships and arms. Here the wound penetrates most deeply, here the very vitals are struck, where the people collapse, where by continuous funerals every sex and age is at once laid low. The city is exhausted and the households desolated, the slack walls a sad indication of a once-flourishing fortune.

quam multi in civitate nostra perierint, quaeritis? minima quidem portio est, sed etiam ex hoc intellegi potest: esurienti populo satis fuerunt.

How many in our city have perished, you ask? A very small portion indeed, but even from this it can be understood: they were enough for a starving people.

Plurimum tamen interest, quomodo perierint. felix pestilentia, felix proeliorum strages, denique omnis mors facilis! fames aspera vitalia haurit, praecordia carpit, animi tormentum, corporis tabes, magistra peccandi, durissima necessitatium, deformissima malorum.

Nevertheless, it matters very much how they have perished. Fortunate the pestilence, fortunate the slaughter of battles, in fine every death is easy! Harsh famine drains the vital parts, plucks at the precordia; a torment of the mind, a wasting of the body, a teacher of sinning, the hardest of necessities, the most deformed of evils.

haec ad humile opus nobiles manus mittit, haec alienis pedibus mendicantes prosternit, haec saepe sociorum fidem fregit, haec venena populis publice dedit, haec in parricidium pios egit. adhuc tamen unum videbatur remedium non expectare mortis diem et tabescentem cotidie spiritum supervenientibus malis subducere. nam in fame nemo quidem mortibus inmunis est.

This sends noble hands to humble work, this prostrates beggars at others’ feet, this has often broken the good faith of allies, this has given venoms to peoples publicly, this has driven the pious into parricide. Yet still one remedy seemed to be not to await the day of death, and to withdraw the spirit, wasting away day by day, from the supervening evils. For in famine no one indeed is immune from deaths.

At non tua culpa fames coepit; sed vulneratum iugulasti, titubantem stravisti, fumantem incendisti. ne quid inique faciam, dividenda sunt mala: primam famem fortunae inputo, ultimam tibi. moram tuam itineribus separo.

But not by your fault did the famine begin; but a man wounded you cut the throat of, the staggering you laid low, the smoking you set ablaze. Lest I do anything iniquitous, the evils must be divided: I impute the first hunger to Fortune, the last to you. Your delay I separate from the journeys.

denique ex eo inopiam tibi obicio, ex quo propter te tuli. itaque caritas annonae, rarum frumentum, caedes ac direptio pecorum fuerint fortunae, fuerint anni, fuerint temporum; aliam condicionem habent civium mortes et cadaverum dira laceratio et peiores inopia cibi. haec fames iam tua est.

Finally, from that point I upbraid you with the scarcity, from which I endured it on your account. And so let the dearness of the grain-supply (annona), the scarcity of grain, the slaughter and direption of herds be attributed to Fortune, to the year, to the seasons; the deaths of citizens, the dire laceration of corpses, and even worse things born of the want of food have another condition. This famine now is yours.

[16] Puta me nihil in praesentia dicere nisi hoc unum: tardius quam potueras venisti. nondum tibi obicio duplicata tempora nec remensum totiens mare nec graves ancoras, nondum tantam moram, quanta legationi satis esset. si innocentes essemus, populum septem diebus perdidisses.

[16] Suppose me to say nothing for the present except this one thing: you came slower than you could have. I do not yet charge you with duplicated times, nor with the sea re-crossed so many times, nor with the heavy anchors, not yet with so great a delay as would suffice for a legation. If we were innocent, you would have destroyed the people in seven days.

angustos humani spiritus terminos fames fecit. morimur, deficimus; festina misericors, omnes excipe auras; etiamsi tota secundis flatibus vela tetenderint venti, tamen remis adiuva. salutem publicam vehis, spiritum populi tui reportas, omnium nostrum in ista classe navigant animae.

Famine has made narrow the limits of human spirit. We are dying, we are failing; hasten, merciful one, catch every breeze; even if the winds have stretched the sails full with favorable blasts, still aid with the oars. You carry public salvation, you bring back the spirit of your people; in that fleet the souls of all of us are sailing.

iuramus per tuum reditum, effusi per gradus templorum vota suscipimus, tendimus manus; nam, quas feriamus hostias, non habemus. quid spem publicam ad ancoras alligas? non stat interim dies, et plenis velis mors venit.

we swear by your return, poured out along the steps of the temples we take up vows, we stretch forth our hands; for we do not have victims to smite. why do you bind public hope to anchors? the day meanwhile does not stand still, and with full sails death comes.

festina, merita tua non conditores aequaverint, non ipsi dii plus praestiterint. tibi nos, tibi liberos nostros, tibi quicquid homini iocundum est, tibi debemus quicquid vicinae civitati praestitisti. non dico illa, quae poteram: 'puta caerulus imber in naves ruit, classis inter fluctus latet, nec inter canentes collisarum aquarum spumas vela dinoscimus; egerit ex fundo harenas mare, micant ignes, intonat caelum, scissis rudentibus tempestas sibilat, denique sidus hibernum conditur, tu tamen persevera: frumentum vehis.' nihil horum necesse est feliciter naviganti.

Hasten; your deserts not even the founders would have equalled, nor would the gods themselves have furnished more. To you we owe ourselves, to you our children, to you whatever is jocund to a human being; to you we owe whatever you have provided to the neighboring city. I do not say those things which I could: “Suppose a cerulean rain rushes upon the ships, the fleet lies hidden among the waves, nor among the singing foams of waters dashed together do we discern the sails; the sea has heaved sands from its bottom, fires flash, the sky thunders, with the ropes rent the tempest hisses; finally the wintry star is hidden—yet you persist: you convey grain.” None of this is necessary for one sailing prosperously.

festina; quererer, si naves commeatu tardasses. dum velocitatis ratio haberetur, mallem accipere dimidium.

Make haste; I would complain, if you had delayed the ships for the convoy. So long as regard were had for speed, I would rather receive half.

[17] non delicati sumus, non luxuriae quaeritur abundantia; unde spiritum sustineamus, unde mortem differamus, in praesenti quantulumcumque; si plus opus fuerit, redibis.

[17] we are not delicate; no abundance for luxury is sought; only that by which we may sustain our spirit, by which we may defer death, for the present, however small; if more shall be needed, you will return.

Siccae fauces sunt, aeger anhelitus os tendit. iam frustra in sinu parentium liberi plorant, et nondum editi conceptus intra uterum famem sentiunt. iam nemo dives est.

Dry are the throats, a sickly panting stretches the mouth. Now in vain children weep in the bosom of their parents, and conceptions not yet brought forth feel hunger within the uterus. Now no one is rich.

auras captamus et rore vescimur, et iam spirare tormentum est. cotidie vires deficiunt: iam non imus in litus, sed repimus. in editis scopulis populus sedet, dum naves expectat, in pascua non redit.

we grasp at the airs and feed on dew, and now to breathe is torment. daily our strengths fail: now we do not go to the shore, but we crawl. on lofty crags the populace sits, while it awaits ships, it does not return to the pastures.

aquas ingredimur, et unus ad te spectantium rictus est, et, cum defecerunt omnia, expirant. te, te expectantes intentis oculis morimur, in mare mortui cadunt. quotiens sole percussa nubes refulsit, navem putamus, quotiens fractus vento fluctus incanuit, vela interpretamur.

we enter the waters, and there is one open-mouthed look of those gazing toward you, and, when all things have failed, they expire. you, you—awaiting you with eyes intent we die; into the sea the dead fall. as often as a cloud struck by the sun gleamed, we think it a ship; as often as a wave broken by the wind grew white, we interpret it as sails.

o mobiles miserorum spes! ad unaquaeque solacia ab unoquoque quomodo mutantur>. 'haec certe navis est; ecce vela panduntur, propius appellitur et accedendo crescit. nostra est, suos in utramque partem ventos habuit, nostris votis gubernati flatus sunt.' haec dicimus, at illa interim transvolat.

O fickle hopes of the wretched! How at each and every solace they are changed by each and every one>. 'This surely is the ship; look, the sails are being spread, she is being brought in nearer, and by approaching she grows. She is ours; she has had her own winds on both sides, the breaths have been governed by our vows.' We say these things, but meanwhile that one flies past.

fletus inde et desperatio et lucis odium. nihil enim gravius quam destitutae spes torquent. ne interrogare quidem licuit aut quaerere; nemo applicabat.

thence weeping and desperation and hatred of the light. for nothing torments more grievously than hopes left destitute. not even to ask or to inquire was permitted; no one came alongside.

ergo incerti omnium rerum pependimus, nihil quisquam cognovit. saltem si scire licuisset, ubi frumentum vendidisses; ipsi petissemus. iam quomodo ad singula momenta temporum mutabantur animi!

Therefore we hung suspended, uncertain about all things; no one learned anything. At least, if it had been permitted to know where you had sold the grain; we ourselves would have sought it. And now—how at each single moment of time the spirits were changing!

'bene est, serenus sol occidit, purus se dies tollit, ad nos venti ferunt. iam veniet.'

'it is well, the serene sun sets, the pure day lifts itself, the winds bear toward us. now he will come.'

[18] pendet interim fames, et illud, quod iam diu cogitat, differt, ita tamen, ut subinde computet, quot dies ad mortem supersint. numquid profecit? meministis, cum contrarii venti flare coepissent, et in altum fluctus a terra volarent, quanta conploratio, quanti planctus fuerint: 'retinebitur, stabit, laborabit!'

[18] meanwhile hunger hangs in suspense, and he defers that thing which he has long been pondering, yet in such a way that he continually computes how many days to death remain. Has he made any progress? You remember, when contrary winds began to blow, and the waves from the land were flying into the deep, what lamentation, what beatings of the breast there were: 'it will be held back, it will stand, it will labor!'

At, si diis placet, legatus noster tum maxime bene navigabat. nos in hac fortuna, in tam gravi casu, in eiusmodi cogitationibus sumus; tu sinus maris circuis, et per omnis curvatorum litorum ambitus terram legis. sic fit, ut te iuvet diu navigare.

But, if it pleases the gods, our legate was just then most especially navigating well. We, in this fortune, in so grave a case, are in such cogitations; you go around the bays of the sea, and through all the circuits of the curved shores you coast the land. Thus it comes about that it pleases you to navigate for a long time.

nullus amoenus praetermittitur portus, nulla celebris civitas invisitata transitur. mentior? etiam ad esurientis adplicas.

No pleasant harbor is passed over, no celebrated city is gone by unvisited. Am I lying? You even put in to the starving.

dein, si quam tu maris iniuriam quereris, non feram te morantem; quomodo satis accusabo vendentem? spiritus nostros transcribis, salutem nostram exponis, quae diu inaestimabilis fuit, innocentiam publicam vendis. frumentum non naufragio perdidimus, non latrocinio; lucro perimus!

then, if you complain of any injury of the sea, i will not endure your delaying; how shall i sufficiently accuse the seller? you transfer our lives on the ledger, you expose our safety, which for a long time was inestimable, you sell the public innocence. we did not lose the grain by shipwreck, not by piracy; by lucre we perish!

tempestas quoque aliquam navem in meum litus impingeret, nec ex classe numerosa omnes fluctus exhausisset. perit frumentum, quia classis venit in portum. ita nos alienae civitatis legatum misimus, et vilia ac devota capita vicinorum deliciis morimur.

A storm too would have driven some ship onto my shore, nor would the waves have swallowed all from the numerous fleet. The grain perishes, because the fleet comes into port. Thus we have sent a legate of a foreign state, and we—cheap and doomed heads—die for the delights of our neighbors.

nobis nihil iam residui spiritus superest, nos in conspectu mortis stamus, nos legatum frumentumque nostrum ore aperto expectamus; classis nostra vecturam facit et vicinarum civitatum copias reconducit. paene a conspectu nostro vela conversa sunt: quantulo minus quam con<g>esti frumenti pulverem vidimus? tantum iam temporis transiit, ex quo pecuniam contulimus, legatum creavimus.

for us no remnant of breath now remains, we stand in the sight of death, we with open mouth await the legate and our grain; our fleet is doing the freight-carrying and is bringing back the supplies of the neighboring cities. the sails were almost turned away from our very sight: how little short were we of seeing the dust of the heaped-up grain? so much time has already passed since we contributed the money, since we appointed the legate.

iam dinumeratis temporibus, quae secundi venti breviora fecerunt, cotidie spero, et sane prope est. at legatus meus ad emendum modo proficiscitur.

now, with the times counted up—which favorable winds have made shorter—I hope daily, and indeed it is near. But my legate only now sets out to purchase.

[19] tibi ergo tot civium mortis inputo, tibi stragem populi, tibi liberum parentumque miserrimas poenas, tibi quicquid passi sumus, tibi, quod gravius est, quicquid fecimus.

[19] therefore I impute to you so many deaths of citizens, to you the slaughter of the people, to you the most wretched penalties of children and parents, to you whatever we have suffered, to you—what is more grievous—whatever we have done.

Et scilicet speras, ut tantam sceleris invidiam ab animis nostris duplae pecuniae strepitus avertat? nescis, quam multa vendideris. 'duplo vendidi.' ita infelicitas mea cocionanti tibi lenocinata est: 'quod fame perire cives meos patior, quod, ut vestram civitatem servem, meam everto, quod a tam vicinis litoribus classem torqueo, quod ad diem redire non possum, quod pretium constituitis, quid occultum datis?

And of course you hope that the clatter of double-money will avert from our minds so great an odium of your crime? you do not know how many things you have sold. 'I sold at double.' Thus my infelicity has played the pander to you, the huckster: 'that I allow my citizens to perish with hunger, that, in order to save your city, I overturn my own, that from shores so near I keep the fleet beating about, that I cannot return by the appointed day, what price do you fix, what do you give under the table?

duplum? patrocinio meo quantulum lucror?' at nos inepti ac vesani de fame querebamur, gravis nobis inopia, intolerabilis et misera accersita mors videbatur. non agimus gratias industriae legati?

‘Double? By my patronage, how little lucre do I gain?’—and yet we, inept and mad, were complaining about hunger; want seemed to us grievous, a death procured, intolerable and miserable. Do we not give thanks for the industry of the legate?

res publica nostra locupletior perit. sacrosanctus mercator oportunum, opinor, invenit mercis exactum. miror hercules, si tam bene negotium gesseras, quomodo nobis pecuniam non retuleris.

Our republic, richer, perishes. The sacrosanct merchant found, I suppose, an opportune exaction of the merchandise. By Hercules, I marvel: if you had conducted the business so well, how is it that you did not bring the money back to us?

'duplo vendidi.' decepisti vicinam civitatem, circumscripsisti; itaque queritur? 'duplo vendidi.' hoc enim unum supererat, ut devectum tantidem venderes! 'habita est itineris ratio, habita usurarum.' ego vero malo quod tam magno vendidisti.

'I sold for double.' You deceived the neighboring city, you overreached; and therefore he complains? 'I sold for double.' For indeed this alone was left over, that you sell what was transported for the same amount! 'A reckoning was had of the journey, a reckoning of usury.' But I for my part prefer that you sold for so great a price.

apparet enim te nihil coactum. sed si semel ponis hastam salutis, si redemptores vitae admittis, et nos admone; melius vendis. nos quicquid in domibus habemus, quicquid in templis, quicquid civitas suum vocat, congerere parati sumus.

for it appears that you were compelled by nothing. but if once you set up the auction-spear of safety, if you admit redeemers of life, then also notify us; you sell better. we are prepared to heap together whatever we have in our houses, whatever in the temples, whatever the commonwealth calls its own.

frumentum pecunia remetimur, libertatem nostram addicimus, fines publicos tradimus. omnia licet eadem vicina civitas polliceatur, plus non potest.

we redeem the grain with money, we surrender our liberty, we hand over the public boundaries. even if the neighboring city promises the same things, it cannot do more.

[20] prosit mihi quod apud negotiatores solet: in antecessus dedi. triplum, quadruplum, quantum poposceris accipe, et illa pecunia frumentum licet vicinis adferas. si nobis nihil de commeatu nostro partiris, nos vicinae civitati vendemus; liceat servire, ubi frumentum est.

[20] Let what is customary among merchants profit me: I have paid in advance. Take triple, quadruple, as much as you demand, and with that money you may bring grain to the neighbors. If you share nothing of our supply with us, we will sell to the neighboring city; let it be permitted to serve where the grain is.

non exigua res est: pro vita, pro sepultura, pro innocentia licemur. non potest hic commeatus tam care emi quam expectari.

It is no small matter: we bid for life, for burial, for innocence. This supply cannot here be bought so dearly as it can be waited for.

'Sed nisi vendidissem,' inquit, 'fame laboranti civitati, timui, ne raperet.' et ita utique occupare voluisti, ut nobis iniuriam tu potissimum faceres? multum mehercules vos fallit opinio, iudices, si ullam causam ita evidentem deferri posse in forum putatis, cui nulla ne mendacii quidem velamenta contingant. opinione sua defenditur, et, quae res minime coargui potest, utitur se teste.

'But unless I had sold,' he says, 'to the city laboring under famine, I feared it would be snatched.' And thus by all means you wanted to preempt, so that you, of all people, would do an injury to us? By Hercules, your opinion greatly deceives you, judges, if you think any cause so evident can be brought into the forum to which no veils, not even those of mendacity, would cling. It is defended by its own opinion, and that which can least be confuted uses itself as a witness.

ne nos periremus, non timuisti, ne repetiti commeatus post diem nostrae mortis applicarentur, non timuisti. nostris certe malis quamquam nihil poterat accidere inopinatum, tamen inter metus tempestatium et ancipites incerti maris casus, confiteor, ne frumentum salva classe perderemus, non timuimus. non dico: 'ut maxima vis parata sit, ut more inmanis latrocinii turba raptorum litus premat, vel repugna vel fuge vel roga, incensurum naves depressurumque minitare.

that we might not perish, you did not fear; that the renewed convoys of supply would make landfall after the day of our death, you did not fear. In our ills, certainly—although nothing could befall unexpectedly—yet amid the fears of tempests and the ambivalent hazards of the uncertain sea, I confess, we did not fear that we should lose the grain, provided the fleet was safe. I do not say: 'Suppose a very great force be prepared, suppose a crowd of rapacious plunderers, in the manner of inhuman piracy, press the shore: either resist or flee or negotiate; threaten that you will set the ships on fire and sink them.'

potius quam totum frumentum utique populo pereat, partire vel gratis, dum nobis aliquid, quo respiremus, adferas.' illud quo certe nihil asperius accideret, rapi patere; faciat fortuna quod voluerit, legatus a praecepto non recedat.

rather than that all the grain should in any case perish for the people, distribute it even gratis, so long as you bring us something by which we can catch our breath.' Allow that thing, than which surely nothing harsher would befall, to be seized; let Fortune do what she will, let the legate not depart from his instructions.

[21] refer nobis saltem iniuriam nostram, mitte nuntios; ira famem differemus, rapiemus furentes arma, et se in obsidionem civitatis inimicae sine dilectu populus effundet. vastabo interim fines, hoc est, per aliena prata pascar. si qua in villis deprehendero pecora, diripiam; bellum me alet.

[21] report to us at least our grievance, send messengers; in wrath we will defer hunger, we, frenzied, will seize arms, and without a levy the populace will pour itself out into the siege of the hostile city. meanwhile I will devastate the borders, that is, I shall pasture through another’s meadows. if I catch any herds in the villas, I will despoil them; war will feed me.

citius ad frumentum perveniemus, quam tu cum frumento redibis. adiuvabunt pugnantem iusta sacramenta. si contigerit aequum fortunae iudicium, non meos tantum commeatus recipiam; si minus, certe dabitur bene mori.

we shall reach the grain more quickly than you will come back with the grain. Just oaths will aid the combatant. If Fortune’s equitable judgment should befall, I shall recover not only my own provisions; if not, surely it will be granted to die well.

liceat et manum conserere, in aciem confligere: condant se postea licet muris, in longius obsidio eat, interim certe hostium potius cadaveribus vivemus.

let it also be permitted to engage hand-to-hand, to join battle in the battle-line: even if afterward they hide themselves within walls, let the siege go on longer; meanwhile surely we will live rather on the corpses of the enemy.

Sed nulla vis fuit, nulla exterior iniuria; tuum certe commeatum nemo rapuit. iure miseri sumus, et ex stipulatu legati nostri perimus. vendidit quantum voluit quanti voluit, et, ut hoc ad nostras accederet moras, fortasse diu cocionatus est.

But there was no force, no external injury; certainly no one seized your supply convoy. Justly we are wretched, and by the stipulation of our legate we perish. He sold as much as he wished for whatever price he wished, and, so that this might be added to our delays, perhaps he haggled for a long time.

omnis cum fide persoluta pecunia est. hoc qui colligo? qui quanti voluit vendit, iudices, potest non vendere.

All the money has been paid in full in good faith. What do I infer from this? He who sold for whatever price he wished, judges, can choose not to sell.

nam, per fidem, si rapere alienum frumentum et possunt et volunt, quid ita duplam pecuniam solvunt? nam quomodo in magna inopia quicquid emi potest vile est, ita, cum possis habere gratuitum, duplo carum est.

for, by good faith, if they both can and wish to seize another’s grain, why do they pay double the money? for just as, in great inopia (want), whatever can be bought is cheap, so, when you can have it gratuitous, it is doubly dear.

Sed mihi credite: color iste patrocinii est et diu in saturo otio cogitata defensio. non potest similis usquam fames fuisse.

But believe me: that is a coloring of advocacy and a defense long cogitated in sated leisure. There cannot have been a similar famine anywhere.

[22] nos grave huius anni sidus adflavit, nostrum hoc fatum fuit, quos non tantum sata sed etiam empta fallunt, qui nostra pecunia, nostra classe, nostro legato, nostro vento, felicissimo cursu commeatum tamen perdidimus. nos a frumento longius sumus, ad illam civitatem potuit frequenter accedere negotiator, saepius adplicari onusta classis. itaque non misere legatos, nullus illis commeatus longius petendus fuit.

[22] a baleful star of this year breathed upon us; this was our fate—by whom not only the sown crops but even the purchased fail—who with our money, our fleet, our legate, our wind, with a most felicitous course, nevertheless lost the convoy of provisions. we are farther from grain; to that city a negotiator could frequently draw near, more often could a laden fleet put in. and so they did not send legates; no provisions had to be sought farther afield for them.

quod felicissima annona, affluentibus copiis, fortunatis opibus contigit, nihil emerunt nisi devectum. quare nulla causa istius, quem fingis, metus fuit, nulla utique vis. Forum legisti, et, quia adhuc supererat tempus, obiter negotiatus es.

because, when the grain-market was most felicitous, with affluent supplies and fortunate resources, they bought nothing except what had been conveyed in. therefore there was no cause for that fear which you are fabricating—assuredly no force at all. you made your way through the Forum, and, because time still remained, you did some business in passing.

'Rapturos putavi.' quid dicis, scelerate? et cum hoc timeres, adplicabas? onustus viator apud latrones hospitaris, commeatum publicum in scopulos annonae inpingis et plenae frumento classis ancoras ad famem ducis?

'I thought they would carry it off.' What are you saying, scoundrel? And while you feared this, you were putting in? A laden traveler, you take lodging among brigands; you dash the public convoy upon the rocks of the grain-supply, and do you lead the anchors of a fleet full of grain toward famine?

non praecidis medium mare, non velut inhospitales Syrtis aut voracem Charybdim praetervehens tota in fugam vela torquebis? nusquam est periculosius legationis tuae naufragium: tu, ut cogi posses, tu, ut auferri frumentum posset, effecisti. tantum habituri sumus, quantum reliquerit pudor esurientium.

Will you not cut across the mid-sea? Will you not, as though passing the inhospitable Syrtis or the voracious Charybdis, twist all your sails into flight? Nowhere is the shipwreck of your legation more perilous: you made it so that you could be coerced, you made it so that the grain could be carried off. We shall have only as much as the shame of the starving will have left.

quid te duplo frumentum iactas vendidisse? potuerunt nihil solvere; quod refers, alienum beneficium est.

Why do you vaunt that you sold the grain at double? They could pay nothing; what you report is another’s benefit.

Alterum confingitur hoc loco mendacium: 'tempestate,' inquit, 'appulsus sum.' ita plane; infelix navigator es et cuius votis aurae non respondeant.

Another lie is fabricated at this point: 'by a storm,' he says, 'I was driven ashore.' Just so; you are an unlucky navigator, and one whose prayers the breezes do not answer.

[23] nescimus te duplo melius navigasse quam speraveramus, nescimus singulis commeatibus bina itinera confecta, nescimus in una legatione ventos quater secundos? sat erat verbo negare quod verbo ponitur. remove hanc spem eludendae mendacio civitatis.

[23] we do not know you to have sailed twice as well as we had hoped, we do not know that with each convoy two journeys were completed, we do not know that in one legation the winds were favorable four times? It would have sufficed to deny by a word what is posited by a word. Remove this hope of eluding the commonwealth by a lie.

quo damno probas tempestatem, quid amisisti? frumentum certe totum venit in portum, nec laborasse, tamquam nimium onustas, naves simulaveris; duplum adferre poterant. non vexata armamenta turbatosque funes aut scissos velorum sinus quereris; classis statim exiit et, quod magnum integrae signum est, cito redit.

By what damage do you prove a tempest? What have you lost? The grain, surely, all came into port, nor could you pretend that the ships labored as if overladen; they could have brought double. You do not complain of battered rigging and disordered ropes, or of the torn bellies of the sails; the fleet put out at once and, which is a great sign of soundness, returns quickly.

porro tempestas in unum agebat angulum? nihil potuerunt obliquata vela deflectere? non potes ultra procedere; citra applica.

Furthermore, did the storm drive into a single corner? Could the sails, set obliquely, do nothing to deflect? You cannot proceed beyond; put in on this side.

effuge raptores, effuge non dimissuros. si aliud fieri non potest, cum tempestate decide, naufragio in desertum litus inpinge. Quid devitata procella prodest, quid subducta nubium minis classis?

Flee the plunderers, flee those who will not let you go. If nothing else can be done, go down with the tempest; by shipwreck, dash upon a deserted shore. What does it profit to have shunned the squall, what good is a fleet hauled up from the menaces of the clouds?

in portu naufragium fecimus et frumentum ad ancoras perdidimus.

we made shipwreck in port and lost the grain at anchor.

'Ego vero,' inquit, 'attuli, et quidem duplum.' o nos felices! rumpamus saturitate praecordia, pascamur in praeteritum et famem cruditate pensemus! frumentum attulisti?

'I indeed,' he says, 'have brought it, and indeed double.' o we happy ones! let us burst our precordia with satiety, let us feed upon the past and compensate our hunger with crudity! have you brought grain?

quid, quod medicina mortuorum sera est? quid, quod nemo aquas infundet in cinerem? quid, quod extincto populo etiam novendialis tarde venit?

What of the fact that the medicine of the dead is too late? What of the fact that no one will pour waters upon ash? What of the fact that, with the people extinct, even the novendial rite comes late?

quid, quod iam ego frumentum non desidero? naufrago tabulam abstulisti, mortuo adplicas navem. duplum est?

what of the fact that now I do not desire grain? you have taken away the plank from the shipwrecked man; to a dead man you bring a ship alongside. is that the double?

infunde in sepulcra et admetire tumulis! ibi sunt, qui mandaverunt. quid aliud effecisti adferendo frumentum, quam ut nos, quod adhuc fecimus, paeniteret?

Pour into the sepulchers and measure out to the tumuli! There are those who gave the orders. What else have you effected by bringing grain, except that we should repent of what we have done hitherto?

nunc me magis pudet, nunc cibos meos obiurgo; potui heri non comedisse.

now I am more ashamed, now I objurgate my food; I could have not eaten yesterday.

[24] o nefas, in quo me scelere commeatus deprehendit! sicine paria fecimus: adhuc nihil habuimus, sed nunc licet reponamus? quis autem umquam pensabit necessaria supervacuis?

[24] O outrage, in what crime has the supply-train caught me! Is it thus that we have made things equal: up to now we had nothing, but now may we put it back? Who, moreover, will ever weigh the necessaries against the superfluities?

duplum attulisti, sed illis, qui perierunt, nihil, sed non possumus iam non fecisse quod fecimus, sed plerumque sera pro nullis sunt, et temporum ista momentis aut pretiosa fiunt aut vilia. vis scire, quantum inter hoc tempus et illud intersit? tempta igitur forum tuum; totum hoc non potes dimidio vendere.

you have brought a double amount, but for those who perished, nothing; but we can no longer not have done what we have done; yet for the most part belated things count as nothing, and by the moments of time these things become either precious or cheap. do you wish to know how much difference there is between this time and that? try, then, your market-place; you cannot sell all this at half-price.

Superest adhuc unum patrocinium, in quo spes omnis profligatae causae consistat: 'ad diem veni.' ~stare hoc certe~, iudices, nam ferri non potest, exundat altius dolor. pudorem publicum quamvis proiectum et iam olim sepultum hucusque protrahis? cur non expectavimus, cur famem non ad constitutum distulimus, cur ad tantum nefas accessimus?

One sole defense still remains, in which all the hope of the prostrated cause consists: 'I came on the day.' ~let this certainly stand~, judges, for it cannot be borne; the pain surges higher. Do you drag public shame, though cast away and long since buried, this far? Why did we not wait, why did we not defer hunger to the appointed time, why did we come to such a nefarious crime?

in hac lance publica causa, iudices, pendet: aut iste tarde fecit aut nos cito. hoc videlicet exspectasti, et, ne captiosum esset officio tuo maturius redisse, ex industria tempus trivisti. non tempestas in causa fuit, non vis ulla vicinae civitatis; una ratione moratus es: nondum erat tempus.

on this scale the public cause, judges, hangs: either that man acted late or we too early. This, forsooth, you awaited; and, lest it be a captious thing for your office to have returned too early, you deliberately trifled away the time. It was not a storm that was the cause, nor any force of a neighboring city; by one reason you were delayed: it was not yet the time.

adeone nobis miseriae publicae exciderunt, adeo insperato frumento obstipuimus, ut haec audienda sint? ultimum omnis memoriae reum una vox innocentem facit? populatorem eversoremque civitatis nisi ad supremum damnabo, absolvatur; publicus reus redit.

Have the public miseries so slipped from us, have we been so astounded by the unlooked-for grain, that such things should be listened to? Does a single voice make innocent the uttermost defendant in all memory? If I do not condemn the ravager and overthrower of the city to the supreme penalty, let him be acquitted; the public defendant returns.

[25] 'Illum,' respondet, 'diem dedimus.' tu tamen, si interpellatus tempestatibus serius venisses, excusares mare et ambiguos flatus, et tibi bonam causam habere videreris, cum diceres: 'ante non potui.' et nos hoc cogitavimus, his casibus ampliavimus tempus. nos illum tibi diem dedimus, sed quid attinet? citius emisti, quam speravimus, supra votum nostrum navigasti; ad proximum litus mature classis adplicata est.

[25] 'That day,' he replies, 'we granted.' you, however, if interrupted by tempests you had come later, would excuse the sea and the ambiguous blasts, and you would seem to have a good cause for yourself, when you said: 'before I could not.' and we considered this, by these cases we amplified the time. we granted you that day, but what does it avail? you bought more quickly than we hoped, you sailed beyond our wish; to the nearest shore the fleet was promptly brought alongside.

ego tibi possum satis irasci? felicitatem nostram perdidisti. ergo, quantum in te, tempus consumptum est, dies excessit; peius pati nihil possumus, sed pessima diu patimur.

Can I be angry enough with you? You have lost our felicity. Therefore, so far as in you lies, time has been consumed, the day has passed; we can suffer nothing worse, but we suffer the worst things for a long time.

inputas nobis propitios ventos et secundum mare et civitatis opulentae liberalitatem, quae tantum frumenti vendidit, quantum duobus populis satis esset. quantumlibet velocitate tua glorieris, computa, si placet, quando primum conterminos portus onusta classe deprehenderis; quam tarde a vicina civitate venisti!

you ascribe to us the propitious winds and a following sea and the liberality of an opulent city, which sold so much grain as would be enough for two peoples. however much you may glory in your speed, reckon, if it pleases you, when first you came upon the bordering ports with a fleet laden; how slowly you came from a neighboring city!

At etiam, si dis placet, animo defenditur et quam causam vexandae civitatis habuerit, quaerit. istud ego interrogare debueram. non ubique, iudices, morandum est: alioquin, si quid requirere vellem, multa occurrissent.

But even, if it please the gods, he is defended by intention, and he asks what cause he had for vexing the city. That I ought to have asked. One must not linger everywhere, judges: otherwise, if I wished to inquire, many things would have occurred.

solent enim negotiatores praeter haec aperta pretia privatum aliquid ac proprium stipulari, utique cum alienam rem vendunt. potest fieri, ut primo lucrari voluerit pretium, serius deinde subvenerit reddendae rationis dicendaeque causae cogitatio. veniit fortasse frumentum lucro, redemptum est patrocinio.

For merchants are accustomed, besides these open prices, to stipulate something private and proper, especially when they sell another’s property. It can happen that at first he wished to profit from the price, and later then the thought occurred of rendering an account and of stating a cause. The grain perhaps was sold at a profit; it was redeemed by patronage.

potest fieri, ut aliquam gratiam speraverit a civitate servata; occulta quaedam in civitate sua odia, quae plerumque ex inanibus causis oboriuntur, habuerit.

it can come to pass that he hoped for some favor from a state preserved; he may have had certain hidden hatreds in his own state, which for the most part arise from empty causes.

[26] multa succurrunt, sed, si qua est, iudices, dicenti fides, ego nihil invidiosius reputo, quam quod civitatem suam sine causa perdidit.

[26] Many things come to mind; but, if there is, judges, any credence for the speaker, I reckon nothing more invidious than that he lost his own city without cause.

Quaecumque ratio, quodcumque propositum fuit, audi quae passi sumus, postquam redire potuisti. transeo tormenta nostrae inopiae, maciem corporis, vulsos terra destrictosque ramis cibos, quod aris altaria non inposuimus, quod populus corporibus suis vias stravit, quod mendicus, quem rogaret, non habuit. non obiciam tibi famem.

Whatever the rationale, whatever the purpose was, hear what we have suffered, after you were able to return. I pass over the torments of our indigence, the emaciation of the body, the foods torn from the earth and scraped with branches, that upon the altars we did not place altar-offerings, that the people paved the roads with their bodies, that the beggar had no one to ask. I will not reproach you with hunger.

o tristis recordatio, o tormentis omnibus conscientia gravior, rumpe ferreum pectus, et ardentia scelera viventisque intus epulas excute! luctantur intra viscera animae, et uterum funeribus gravidum in os agunt. credibiles fabulas fecimus, felices miserias, scelera innocentia.

o sad recollection, o conscience heavier than all torments, break the iron breast, and shake out the burning crimes and the living banquets within! the souls wrestle within the viscera, and they drive into the mouth a womb gravid with funerals. we have made fables credible, miseries happy, crimes innocence.

omnes quascumque clades fama vulgavit, solacia hinc petant, hinc audient occisos sine sanguine, sepultos sine ignibus <homines hominibus> cibos. si quis mentitus est Cyclopas, Laestrygonas, Sphingas aut inguinibus virginis latratum Siciliae litus et quaecumque miser didici domi committens, [quaere] hinc argumentum, hinc fidem accipiant. quaedam plane falsa sunt: sol in ortus non occidit, nec ad humanorum viscerum epulas diem vertit.

let all the calamities whatsoever that rumor has broadcast seek solaces from here; from here they will hear of men slain without blood, buried without fires, food. if anyone has fabricated Cyclopes, Laestrygonians, Sphinxes, or the shore of Sicily barked by a maiden’s loins, and whatever things, a wretch, I learned by comparing them at home, [quaere] from here let them take an argument, from here let them receive credence. certain things are plainly false: the sun does not set in the east, nor does it turn the day toward banquets of human viscera.

vidit nos funeribus pastos et ad eviscerata corpora inluxit. publice monstra commissa sunt, et inexpiabile nefas uno ore civitas fecit. poenis nostris iam ne fames quidem satis est.

The sun has seen us fed on funerals and has shone upon eviscerated bodies. Publicly monstrous deeds have been committed, and the citizenry with one voice has wrought an inexpiable abomination. For our punishments, now not even hunger is enough.

hoc non immanes ferae faciunt, et quamvis sensu careant muta animalia, pleraque tamen innocentibus cibis vescuntur, utique quae mansuerunt inter homines.

Not even monstrous wild beasts do this, and although mute animals lack sense, yet most feed on innocent foods, especially those that have been tamed among men.

[27] etiam si qua alienis membris inprimunt dentem, mutuo tamen laniatu abstinent, nec est ulla supra terras adeo rabiosa belua, cui non imago sua sancta sit. nos, quibus divina providentia mitiores cibos concessit, quibus sociare populos, mutuo gaudere comitatu, sidera oculis animisque cernere datum est, busta nos fecimus: nigros sanie dentes pallidis cadaveribus inpressimus, et inter horrorem ac famem restrictis labris morsa abrupimus. cadavera rogis devoluta sunt, et ad funera tamquam ad naves concurrimus.

[27] even if some impress the tooth into others’ limbs, yet they abstain from mutual laceration, nor is there any beast so rabid upon the earth to which its own image is not sacred. we, to whom divine providence has granted milder foods, to whom it has been given to ally peoples, to rejoice mutually in companionship, to behold the stars with eyes and minds, we have made funeral pyres: we have pressed black, gore-soaked teeth into pale corpses, and between horror and hunger, with lips drawn tight, we snapped off morsels. the corpses were rolled down onto the pyres, and we flocked to the funerals as if to ships.

deficit aliquis extremo iam spiritu pendens; tamen durat, quia prius moriturum alterum putat. invicem expectant, et, si spei figuratione tardius cadit, morsibus pugna<nt>. non in omnibus mortes expectantur: pater liberos esurit, et oppressa decimo mense mater sibi parit: redit in uterum laceratus infans. cludunt domos, ne quis funus eripiat; solae sunt divitiae mortium.

Someone is failing, now hanging by his last breath; yet he endures, because he thinks the other will die first. They await one another, and, if by the figuration of hope he falls more slowly, they fight with bites. Not in all cases are deaths awaited: a father hungers for his children, and a mother, oppressed in the tenth month, bears for herself; the infant, lacerated, returns into the womb. They shut their houses, lest anyone snatch away a funeral; the only riches are those of deaths.

velut infaustae aves supra expirantes stamus. secreta miseri petunt, in solitudinem fugiunt, et, ubi nulla spes vitae superest, mortis suas abscondunt; iam morituri ad feras confugiunt!

like ill-omened birds we stand above the expiring. the wretched seek secret places, they flee into solitude, and, where no hope of life remains, they hide their deaths; now those about to die take refuge with the wild beasts!

[28] Dehisce, terra, et hanc noxiam civitatem, si hoc saltem fas est, haustu aliquo ad inferos conde. caelestes auras contaminato spiritu polluimus, et sideribus ac diei graves invidiam saeculo facimus. nullas iam spero fruges, propitios deos non mereor.

[28] Gape open, earth, and, if at least this is permitted by divine law, with some draught consign this noxious city down to the underworld. We pollute the celestial airs with a contaminated spirit, and we render the stars and the day grievously odious to our age. I now hope for no crops; I do not merit gods propitious.

quomodo me a scelere meo divellerem, in quas ultimas terras, quae inhospitalia maria conderem? ~meum sine conscientia~: urunt animum intus scelerum faces, et, quotiens facta reputavi, flagella mentis sonant. ultrices video furias, et in quamcumque me partem converti, occurrunt umbrae meorum.

how could I tear myself away from my crime, into what farthest lands, into what inhospitable seas might I bury myself? ~mine without conscience~: the torches of crimes burn the soul within, and, as often as I have recounted the deeds, the scourges of the mind crack. I see the avenging Furies, and into whatever direction I turn myself, the shades of my own meet me.

habitat nescio quae in pectore meo poena, et, ne morte saltem hos metus effugiam, occupant gravia apud inferos supplicia, volucris rota et fugacibus cibis elusus senex. adeo ne apud inferos quidem ulla poena est fame maior. et ille haec patitur, qui hominem apposuit epulandum.

Some I-know-not-what punishment dwells in my breast, and, lest I at least escape these fears by death, grave punishments in the infernal regions seize me—the winged wheel and the old man deluded by fugacious foods. So much so that not even in the underworld is any punishment greater than hunger. And that man suffers these things, who set forth a human being to be feasted upon.

nobis imminet saxum, nobis stridunt ferreae turres, nostris causis urna iam stetit, nobis vivax ipsum crescit iecur, quia illic quoque viscera tantum aves laniant. excipiunt nos in proximo litore inhumatae nostrorum animae. miserum me, verane haec sunt, an mens aspicit?

for us a rock overhangs, for us the iron towers screech, for our case the urn has now been set, for us the very liver itself grows long-lived, because there too the birds lacerate the viscera only. on the nearest shore the unburied souls of our own receive us. wretched me—are these things true, or does the mind behold?

laceros video manes et truncas partibus suis umbras. quid hoc est? non de sepulcris insurgunt, non aliquo terrarum haustu procedunt umbrae nostrorum; de populo exeunt.

I see lacerated manes and shadows truncated of their own parts. What is this? They do not rise from sepulchres, nor do the shades of our own proceed by any swallowing of the earth; they go out from the populace.

illuc ite, illi taedas intendite, illum anguibus petite et tam longae morae exigite rationem. vobis dicat: 'duplum attuli', vobis dicat: 'ad diem veni'. ego, si huius poenam videro, possum reddere rationem, quod vixi.

go thither, there brandish torches, assail him with serpents, and exact a reckoning for so long a delay. let him say to you: 'I have brought double', let him say to you: 'I came on the due day'. I, if I shall have seen his punishment, can render an account for having lived.