Sallust: SPURIA

I1. Graviter et iniquo animo maledicta tua paterer, M. Tulli, si te scirem iudicio magis quam morbo animi petulantia ista uti. sed cum in te neque modum neque modestiam ullam animadverto, respondebo tibi, ut, si quam male dicendo voluptatem cepisti, eam male audiendo amittas.

11. I would endure your maledictions grievously and with a resentful spirit, Marcus Tullius, if I knew you to employ that petulance by judgment rather than by a disease of mind. But since I observe in you neither measure nor any modesty, I will answer you, so that, if you have taken any pleasure in speaking ill, you may lose it by hearing ill.

2. Ubi querar, quos implorem, patres conscripti, diripi rem publicam atque audacissimo cuique esse praedae? apud populum Romanum? qui ita largitionibus corruptus est, ut se ipse ac fortunas suas venales habeat.

2. Where shall I complain, whom shall I implore, Conscript Fathers, that the Republic is being plundered and is prey to each most audacious man? With the Roman People? who has been so corrupted by largesses that he holds himself and his fortunes for sale.

an apud vos, patres conscripti? quorum auctoritas turpissimo cuique et sceleratissimo ludibrio est. ubiubi M. Tullius leges iudicia rem publicam defendit atque in hoc ordine ita moderatur, quasi unus reliquus e familia viri clarissimi, Scipionis Africani, ac non reperticius, accitus ac paulo ante insitus huic urbi civis.

or with you, conscript fathers? whose authority is a laughingstock to every most base and most criminal person. wherever M. Tullius defends the laws, the judgments, and the republic, and conducts himself in this order as if he were the sole survivor of the family of a most illustrious man, Scipio Africanus, and not a foundling, summoned and only a little before grafted into this city as a citizen.

II1. An vero, M. Tulli, facta tua ac dicta obscura sunt? an non ita a pueritia vixisti, ut nihil flagitiosum corpori tuo putares, quod alicui collibuisset? aut scilicet istam immoderatam eloquentiam apud M. Pisonem non pudicitiae iactura perdidicisti?

21. Or indeed, Marcus Tullius, are your deeds and your words obscure? Or did you not so live from boyhood that you thought nothing flagitious for your body, whatever had pleased someone? Or surely you did not master that immoderate eloquence with Marcus Piso at the expense of chastity?

itaque minime mirandum est, quod eam flagitiose venditas, quam turpissime parasti.

and so it is by no means to be wondered at, that you scandalously vend it, which you most disgracefully acquired.

2. Verum, ut opinor, splendor domesticus tibi animos tollit: uxor sacrilega ac periuriis delibuta, filia matris paelex, tibi iucundior atque obsequentior quam parenti par est. domum ipsam tuam vi et rapinis funestam tibi ac tuis comparasti, videlicet, ut nos commonefacias, quam conversa res sit, cum in ea domo habitares, homo flagitiosissime, quae P. Crassi, viri clarissimi, fuit.

2. But, as I suppose, the domestic splendor lifts your spirits: a wife sacrilegious and besmeared with perjuries, a daughter the mistress-rival of her mother, more pleasant and compliant to you than is fitting toward a parent. You acquired your very house, fatal to you and yours, by force and plunder—namely, so that you might remind us how reversed the situation is, when you, a most scandalous man, were living in that house which was of P. Crassus, a most illustrious man.

III 1. Atque haec cum ita sint, tamen se Cicero dicit in concilio deorum immortalium fuisse, inde missum huic urbi civibusque custodem absque carnificis nomine, qui civitatis incommodum in gloriam suam ponit. quasi vero non illius coniurationis causa fuerit consulatus tuus et idcirco res publica disiecta eo tempore, quo te custodem habebat. sed ut opinor, illa te magis extollunt, quae post consulatum cum Terentia uxore de re publica consuluisti, cum legis Plautiae iudicia domo faciebatis, ex coniuratis aliquos pecunia condemnabas, cum tibi alius Tusculanam, alius Pompeianam villam exaedificabat, alius domum emebat.

3 1. And although these things are so, nevertheless Cicero says that he was in the council of the immortal gods, sent thence as a guardian to this city and its citizens, without the name of executioner, he who sets the commonwealth’s inconvenience into his own glory. As though indeed your consulship had not been on account of that conspiracy, and therefore the republic was scattered at that time when it had you as guardian. But, as I suppose, those things raise you up more, which, after the consulship, you deliberated concerning the republic with your wife Terentia, when you were holding the courts of the Plautian law at home, you were condemning some of the conspirators for money, when one man was building for you the Tusculan villa, another the Pompeian villa, another was buying a house.

qui vero nihil poterat, is erat calumniae proximus, is aut domum tuam oppugnatum venerat aut insidias senatui fecerat, denique de eo tibi compertum erat.

but the one who indeed could do nothing—he was closest to calumny—he had either come to attack your house or had laid an ambush for the senate; in fine, concerning him it had been ascertained by you.

IV 1. Quae si tibi falsa obicio, redde rationem, quantum patrimonii acceperis, quid tibi litibus accreverit, qua ex pecunia domum paraveris, Tusculanum et Pompeianum infinito sumptu aedificaveris, aut si retices, cui dubium potest esse: opulentiam istam ex sanguine et miseriis civium parasti?

4 1. If I cast these charges at you falsely, render an account: how much patrimony you received, what has accrued to you from litigations, from what money you procured a house, and you built the Tusculan and the Pompeian (villa) with infinite expenditure; or, if you keep silent, to whom can it be doubtful that you amassed that opulence from the blood and miseries of citizens?

2. Verum, ut opinor, homo novus Arpinas, ex M. Crassi familia, illius virtutem imitatur, contemnit simultatem hominum nobilium, rem publicam caram habet, neque terrore neque gratia removetur a vero, amicitia tantum ac virtus est animi.

2. But, as I think, the Arpinate new man, from the family of M. Crassus, imitates that man’s virtue, despises the rivalry of noble men, holds the commonwealth dear, and is removed from the truth neither by terror nor by favor; in his animus there is only friendship and virtue.

V1. Immo vero homo levissimus, supplex inimicis, amicis contumeliosus, modo harum, modo illarum partium, fidus nemini, levissimus senator, mercennarius patronus, cuius nulla pars corporis a turpitudine vacat, lingua vana, manus rapacissimae, gula immensa, pedes fugaces: quae honeste nominari non possunt, inhonestissima. atque is cum eius modi sit, tamen audet dicere: laquo;o fortunatam natam me consule Romam! raquo; te consule fortunatam, Cicero?

51. Nay rather, a man of extreme levity, suppliant to enemies, contumelious to friends, now of these, now of those parties, faithful to no one, a most frivolous senator, a mercenary patron, of whom no part of the body is free from turpitude, a vain tongue, most rapacious hands, an immense gullet, fugitive feet: things which cannot be named honorably, most dishonorable. And although he is of this sort, yet he dares to say: laquo;o fortunate Rome, born with me as consul! raquo; Fortunate under your consulship, Cicero?

immo vero infelicem et miseram, quae crudelissimam proscriptionem eam perpessa est, cum tu perturbata re publica metu perculsos omnes bonos parere crudelitati tuae cogebas, cum omnia iudicia, omnes leges in tua libidine erant, cum tu sublata lege Porcia, erepta libertate omnium nostrum vitae necisque potestatem ad te unum revocaveras.

Nay rather, ill-fated and wretched, she who endured that most cruel proscription, when, the republic thrown into confusion, you were compelling all good men, stricken with fear, to obey your cruelty; when all judgments and all laws were at your lust; when you, the Porcian Law removed and the liberty of us all snatched away, had recalled to yourself alone the power of life and death.

VI1. Atque parum quod impune fecisti, verum etiam commemorando exprobras neque licet oblivisci his servitutis suae. egeris, oro te, Cicero, profeceris quidlibet, satis est perpessos esse. etiamne aures nostras odio tuo onerabis, etiamne molestissimis verbis insectabere?

61. And it is too little that you have done it with impunity; indeed by recalling it you even upbraid, nor is it permitted for these men to forget their servitude. You may have done, I beg you, Cicero, you may have achieved whatever you please, it is enough that we have endured. Will you even burden our ears with your hatred, will you even assail us with the most troublesome words?

laquo;cedant arma togae, concedat laurea linguae. raquo; quasi vero togatus et non armatus ea, quae gloriaris, confeceris, atque inter te Sullamque dictatorem praeter nomen imperii quicquam interfuerit.

laquo;let arms yield to the toga, let the laurel yield to the tongue. raquo; as if, forsooth, you, in the toga and not under arms, had accomplished the things you boast of, and as if between you and the dictator Sulla there had been anything different beyond the name of command.

VII1. Sed quid ego plura de tua insolentia commemorem? quem Minerva omnis artis edocuit, Iuppiter Optimus Maximus in concilio deorum admisit, Italia exulem humeris suis reportavit. oro te, Romule Arpinas, qui egregia tua virtute omnis Paulos, Fabios, Scipiones superasti, quem tandem locum in hac civitate obtines?

VII1. But why should I recount further of your insolence? You, whom Minerva has instructed in all the arts, whom Jupiter Best and Greatest admitted into the council of the gods, whom Italy carried back upon her shoulders, an exile. I beg you, Romulus of Arpinum, you who by your outstanding virtue have surpassed all the Pauli, the Fabii, the Scipios—what place, pray, do you hold in this commonwealth?

quae tibi partes rei publicae placent? quem amicum, quem inimicum habes? cui in civitate insidias fecisti, ancillaris; cuius ope de exsilio tuo Dyrrhachio redisti, eum insequeris.

what parties of the commonwealth are pleasing to you? whom do you have as friend, whom as enemy? the man against whom you have laid plots in the city, you play the handmaid to; the one by whose aid you returned from your exile at Dyrrhachium, you pursue.

quos tyrannos appellabas, eorum potentiae faves; qui tibi ante optimates videbantur, eosdem dementes ac furiosos vocas. Vatini causam agis, de Sestio male existimas. Bibulum petulantissimis verbis laedis, laudas Caesarem.

those whom you used to call tyrants, you favor the power of those; those who formerly seemed to you the Optimates, these same you call demented and furious. You plead the case of Vatinius, you think ill of Sestius. You wound Bibulus with the most petulant words, you praise Caesar.

quem maxime odisti, ei maxime obsequeris. aliud stans, aliud sedens sentis de re publica. his male dicis, illos odisti, levissime transfuga, neque in hac neque in illa parte fidem habens.

He whom you hate most, to him you most obsequiously defer. Standing you think one thing, sitting another, about the republic. You speak ill of these, you hate those—most frivolous turncoat—having fidelity in neither this side nor that.