The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero Part 2

XVI. However, let us say no more of that war, in which you were too fortunate. I will not reply even with those jests to which you have said that I gave utterance in the camp. That camp was in truth full of anxiety, but although men are in great difficulties, still, provided they are men, they sometimes relax their minds. But the fact that the same man finds fault with my melancholy, and also with my jokes, is a great proof that I was very moderate in each particular.

You have said that no inheritances come to me. Would that this accusation of yours were a true one; I should have more of my friends and connexions alive. But how could such a charge ever come into your head? For I have received more than twenty millions of sesterces in inheritances. Although in this particular I admit that you have been more fortunate than I. No one has ever made me his heir except he was a friend of mine, in order that my grief of mind for his loss might be accompanied also with some gain, if it was to be considered as such.

But a man whom you never even saw, Lucius Rubrius, of Casinum, made you his heir. And see now how much he loved you, who, though he did not know whether you were white or black, pa.s.sed over the son of his brother, Quintus Fufius, a most honourable Roman knight, and most attached to him, whom he had on all occasions openly declared his heir, (he never even names him in his will,) and he makes you his heir whom he had never seen, or at all events had never spoken to.

I wish you would tell me, if it is not too much trouble, what sort of countenance Lucius Turselius was of; what sort of height; from what munic.i.p.al town he came; and of what tribe he was a member. "I know nothing," you will say, "about him, except what farms he had."

Therefore, he, disinheriting his brother, made you his heir. And besides these instances, this man has seized on much other property belonging to men wholly unconnected with him, to the exclusion of the legitimate heirs, as if he himself were the heir. Although the thing that struck me with most astonishment of all was, that you should venture to make mention of inheritances, when you yourself had not received the inheritance of your own father.

XVII. And was it in order to collect all these arguments, O you most senseless of men, that you spent so many days in practising declamation in another man's villa? Although, indeed, (as your most intimate friends usually say,) you are in the habit of declaiming, not for the purpose of whetting your genius, but of working off the effects of wine. And, indeed, you employ a master to teach you jokes, a man appointed by your own vote and that of your boon companions; a rhetorician, whom you have allowed to say what ever he pleased against you, a thoroughly facetious gentleman; but there are plenty of materials for speaking against you and against your friends. But just see now what a difference there is between you and your grandfather.

He used with great deliberation to bring forth arguments advantageous to the cause he was advocating; you pour forth in a hurry the sentiments which you have been taught by another. And what wages have you paid this rhetorician? Listen, listen, O conscript fathers, and learn the blows which are inflicted on the republic. You have a.s.signed, O Antonius, two thousand acres[14] which is often translated acre also, of land, in the Leontine district, to s.e.xtus Clodius, the rhetorician, and those, too, exempt from every kind of tax, for the sake of putting the Roman people to such a vast expense that you might learn to be a fool. Was this gift, too, O you most audacious of men, found among Caesar's papers? But I will take another opportunity to speak about the Leontine and the Campanian district; where he has stolen lands from the republic to pollute them with most infamous owners. For now, since I have sufficiently replied to all his charges, I must say a little about our corrector and censor himself. And yet I will not say all I could, in order that if I have often to battle with him I may always come to the contest with fresh arms; and the mult.i.tude of his vices and atrocities will easily enable me to do so.

XVIII. Shall we then examine your conduct from the time when you were a boy? I think so. Let us begin at the beginning. Do you recollect that, while you were still clad in the praetexta, you became a bankrupt? That was the fault of your father, you will say. I admit that. In truth, such a defence is full of filial affection. But it is peculiarly suited to your own audacity, that you sat among the fourteen rows of the knights, though by the Roscian law there was a place appointed for bankrupts, even if any one had become so.

XIX. But let us say no more of your profligacy and debauchery. There are things which it is not possible for me to mention with honour; but you are all the more free for that, inasmuch as you have not scrupled to be an actor in scenes which a modest enemy cannot bring himself to mention.

Mark now, O conscript fathers, the rest of his life, which I will touch upon rapidly. For my inclination hastens to arrive at those things which he did in the time of the civil war, amid the greatest miseries of the republic, and at those things which he does every day.

And I beg of you, though they are far better known to you than they are to me, still to listen attentively, as you are doing, to my relation of them. For in such cases as this, it is not the mere knowledge of such actions that ought to excite the mind, but the recollection of them also. Although we must at once go into the middle of them, lest otherwise we should be too long in coming to the end.

He was very intimate with Clodius at the time of his tribunes.h.i.+p; he, who now enumerates the kindnesses which he did me. He was the firebrand to handle all conflagrations; and even in his house he attempted something. He himself well knows what I allude to. From thence he made a journey to Alexandria, in defiance of the authority of the senate, and against the interests of the republic, and in spite of religious obstacles; but he had Gabinius for his leader, with whom whatever he did was sure to be right. What were the circ.u.mstances of his return from thence? what sort of return was it? He went from Egypt to the furthest extremity of Gaul before he returned home. And what was his home? For at that time every man had possession of his own house; and you had no house anywhere, O Antonius. House, do you say?

what place was there in the whole world where you could set your foot on anything that belonged to you, except Mienum, which you farmed with your partners, as if it had been Sisapo?[15]

XX. You came from Gaul to stand for the quaestors.h.i.+p. Dare to say that you went to your own father before you came to me. I had already received Caesar's letters, begging me to allow myself to accept of your excuses; and therefore, I did not allow you even to mention thanks.

After that, I was treated with respect by you, and you received attentions from me in your canva.s.s for the quaestors.h.i.+p. And it was at that time, indeed, that you endeavoured to slay Publius Clodius in the forum, with the approbation of the Roman people; and though you made the attempt of your own accord, and not at my instigation, still you clearly alleged that you did not think, unless you slew him, that you could possibly make amends to me for all the injuries which you had done me. And this makes me wonder why you should say that Milo did that deed at my instigation; when I never once exhorted you to do it, who of your own accord attempted to do me the same service. Although, if you had persisted in it, I should have preferred allowing the action to be set down entirely to your own love of glory rather than to my influence.

You were elected quaestor. On this, immediately, without any resolution of the senate authorizing such a step, without drawing lots, without procuring any law to be pa.s.sed, you hastened to Caesar. For you thought the camp the only refuge on earth for indigence, and debt, and profligacy,--for all men, in short, who were in a state of utter ruin.

Then, when you had recruited your resources again by his largesses and your own robberies, (if, indeed, a person can be said to recruit, who only acquires something which he may immediately squander,) you hastened, being again a beggar, to the tribunes.h.i.+p, in order that in that magistracy you might, if possible, behave like your friend.

XXI. Listen now, I beseech you, O conscript fathers, not to those things which he did indecently and profligately to his own injury and to his own disgrace as a private individual; but to the actions which he did impiously and wickedly against us and our fortunes,--that is to say, against the whole republic. For it is from his wickedness that you will find that the beginning of all these evils has arisen.

For when, in the consuls.h.i.+p of Lucius Lentulus and Marcus Marcellus, you, on the first of January, were anxious to prop up the republic, which was tottering and almost falling, and were willing to consult the interests of Caius Caesar himself, if he would have acted like a man in his senses, then this fellow opposed to your counsels his tribunes.h.i.+p, which he had sold and handed over to the purchaser, and exposed his own neck to that axe under which many have suffered for smaller crimes. It was against you, O Marcus Antonius, that the senate, while still in the possession of its rights, before so many of its luminaries were extinguished, pa.s.sed that decree which, in accordance with the usage of our ancestors, is at times pa.s.sed against an enemy who is a citizen. And have you dared, before these conscript fathers, to say anything against me, when I have been p.r.o.nounced by this order to be the saviour of my country, and when you have been declared by it to be an enemy of the republic? The mention of that wickedness of yours has been interrupted, but the recollection of it has not been effaced. As long as the race of men, as long as the name of the Roman people shall exist, (and that, unless it is prevented from being so by your means, will be everlasting,) so long will that most mischievous interposition of your veto be spoken of. What was there that was being done by the senate either ambitiously or rashly, when you, one single young man, forbade the whole order to pa.s.s decrees concerning the safety of the republic? and when you did so, not once only, but repeatedly? nor would you allow any one to plead with you in behalf of the authority of the senate; and yet, what did any one entreat of you, except that you would not desire the republic to be entirely overthrown and destroyed; when neither the chief men of the state by their entreaties, nor the elders by their warnings, nor the senate in a full house by pleading with you, could move you from the determination which you had already sold and as it were delivered to the purchaser? Then it was, after having tried many other expedients previously, that a blow was of necessity struck at you which had been struck at only few men before you, and which none of them had ever survived. Then it was that this order armed the consuls, and the rest of the magistrates who were invested with either military or civil command, against you, and you never would have escaped them, if you had not taken refuge in the camp of Caesar.

XXII. It was you, you, I say, O Marcus Antonius, who gave Caius Caesar, desirous as he already was to throw everything into confusion, the princ.i.p.al pretext for waging war against his country. For what other pretence did he allege? what cause did he give for his own most frantic resolution and action, except that the power of interposition by the veto had been disregarded, the privileges of the tribunes taken away, and Antonius's rights abridged by the senate? I say nothing of how false, how trivial these pretences were; especially when there could not possibly be any reasonable cause whatever to justify any one in taking up arms against his country. But I have nothing to do with Caesar. You must unquestionably allow, that the cause of that ruinous war existed in your person.

O miserable man if you are aware, more miserable still if you are not aware, that this is recorded in writings, is handed down to men's recollection, that our very latest posterity in the most distant ages will never forget this fact, that the consuls were expelled from Italy, and with them Cnaeus Pompeius, who was the glory and light of the empire of the Roman people; that all the men of consular rank, whose health would allow them to share in that disaster and that flight, and the praetors, and men of praetorian rank, and the tribunes of the people, and a great part of the senate, and all the flower of the youth of the city, and, in a word, the republic itself was driven out and expelled from its abode. As, then, there is in seeds the cause which produces trees and plants, so of this most lamentable war you were the seed. Do you, O conscript fathers, grieve that these armies of the Roman people have been slain? It is Antonius who slew them. Do you regret your most ill.u.s.trious citizens? It is Antonius, again, who has deprived you of them. The authority of this order is overthrown; it is Antonius who has overthrown it. Everything, in short, which we have seen since that time, (and what misfortune is there that we have not seen?) we shall, if we argue rightly, attribute wholly to Antonius. As Helen was to the Trojans, so has that man been to this republic,--the cause of war, the cause of mischief, the cause of ruin.

The rest of his tribunes.h.i.+p was like the beginning. He did everything which the senate had laboured to prevent, as being impossible to be done consistently with the safety of the republic. And see, now, how gratuitously wicked he was even in accomplis.h.i.+ng his wickedness.

XXIII. He restored many men who had fallen under misfortune. Among them no mention was made of his uncle. If he was severe, why was he not so to every one? If he was merciful, why was he not merciful to his own relations? But I say nothing of the rest. He restored Licinius Lenticula, a man who had been condemned for gambling, and who was a fellow-gamester of his own. As if he could not play with a condemned man; but in reality, in order to pay by a straining of the law in his favour, what he had lost by the dice. What reason did you allege to the Roman people why it was desirable that he should be restored?

I suppose you said that he was absent when the prosecution was inst.i.tuted against him; that the cause was decided without his having been heard in his defence; that there was not by a law any judicial proceeding established with reference to gambling; that he had been put down by violence or by arms; or lastly, as was said in the case of your uncle, that the tribunal had been bribed with money. Nothing of this sort was said. Then he was a good man, and one worthy of the republic. That, indeed, would have been nothing to the purpose, but still, since being condemned does not go for much, I would forgive you if that were the truth. Does not he restore to the full possession of his former privileges the most worthless man possible,--one who would not hesitate to play at dice even in the forum, and who had been convicted under the law which exists respecting gambling,--does not he declare in the most open manner his own propensities?

Then in this same tribunes.h.i.+p, when Caesar while on his way into Spain had given him Italy to trample on, what journeys did he make in every direction! how did he visit the munic.i.p.al towns! I know that I am only speaking of matters which have been discussed in every one's conversation, and that the things which I am saying and am going to say are better known to every one who was in Italy at that time, than to me, who was not. Still I mention the particulars of his conduct, although my speech cannot possibly come up to your own personal knowledge. When was such wickedness ever heard of as existing upon earth? or such shamelessness? or such open infamy?

XXIV. The tribune of the people was borne along in a chariot, lictors crowned with laurel preceded him; among whom, on an open litter, was carried an actress; whom honourable men, citizens of the different munic.i.p.alities, coming out from their towns under compulsion to meet him, saluted not by the name by which she was well known on the stage, but by that of Volumnia.[16] A car followed full of pimps; then a lot of debauched companions; and then his mother, utterly neglected, followed the mistress of her profligate son, as if she had been her daughter-in-law. O the disastrous fecundity of that miserable woman!

With the marks of such wickedness as this did that fellow stamp every munic.i.p.ality, and prefecture, and colony, and, in short, the whole of Italy.

To find fault with the rest of his actions, O conscript fathers, is difficult, and somewhat unsafe. He was occupied in war; he glutted himself with the slaughter of citizens who bore no resemblance to himself. He was fortunate--if at least there can be any good fortune in wickedness. But since we wish to show a regard for the veterans, although the cause of the soldiers is very different from yours; they followed their chief; you went to seek for a leader; still, (that I may not give you any pretence for stirring up odium against me among them,) I will say nothing of the nature of the war.

When victorious, you returned with the legions from Thessaly to Brundusium. There you did not put me to death. It was a great kindness! For I confess that you could have done it. Although there was no one of those men who were with you at that time, who did not think that I ought to be spared. For so great is men's affection for their country, that I was sacred even in the eyes of your legions, because they recollected that the country had been saved by me.

However, grant that you did give me what you did not take away from me; and that I have my life as a present from you, since it was not taken from me by you; was it possible for me, after all your insults, to regard that kindness of yours as I regarded it at first, especially after you saw that you must hear this reply from me?

XXV. You came to Brundusium, to the bosom and embraces of your actress. What is the matter? Am I speaking falsely? How miserable is it not to be able to deny a fact which it is disgraceful to confess!

If you had no shame before the munic.i.p.al towns, had you none even before your veteran army? For what soldier was there who did not see her at Brundusium? who was there who did not know that she had come so many days' journey to congratulate you? who was there who did not grieve that he was so late in finding out how worthless a man he had been following?

Again you made a tour through Italy, with that same actress for your companion. Cruel and miserable was the way in which you led your soldiers into the towns; shameful was the pillage in every city, of gold and silver, and above all, of wine. And besides all this, while Caesar knew nothing about it, as he was at Alexandria, Antonius, by the kindness of Caesar's friends, was appointed his master of the horse.

Then he thought that he could live with Hippia[17] by virtue of his office, and that he might give horses which were the property of the state to Sergius the buffoon. At that time he had selected for himself to live in, not the house which he now dishonours, but that of Marcus Piso. Why need I mention his decrees, his robberies, the possessions of inheritances which were given him, and those too which were seized by him? Want compelled him; he did not know where to turn. That great inheritance from Lucius Rubrius, and that other from Lucius Turselius, had not yet come to him. He had not yet succeeded as an unexpected heir to the place of Cnaeus Pompeius, and of many others who were absent. He was forced to live like a robber, having nothing beyond what he could plunder from others.

However, we will say nothing of these things, which are acts of a more hardy sort of villany. Let us speak rather of his meaner descriptions of worthlessness. You, with those jaws of yours, and those sides of yours, and that strength of body suited to a gladiator, drank such quant.i.ties of wine at the marriage of Hippia, that you were forced to vomit the next day in the sight of the Roman people. O action disgraceful not merely to see, but even to hear of! If this had happened to you at supper amid those vast drinking cups of yours, who would not have thought it scandalous? But in an a.s.sembly of the Roman people, a man holding a public office, a master of the horse, to whom it would have been disgraceful even to belch, vomiting filled his own bosom and the whole tribunal with fragments of what he had been eating reeking with wine. But he himself confesses this among his other disgraceful acts. Let us proceed to his more splendid offences.

XXVI. Caesar came back from Alexandria, fortunate, as he seemed at least to himself; but in my opinion no one can be fortunate who is unfortunate for the republic. The spear was set up in front of the temple of Jupiter Stator, and the property of Cnaeus Pompeius Magnus--(miserable that I am, for even now that my tears have ceased to flow, my grief remains deeply implanted in my heart,)--the property, I say, of Cnaeus Pompeius the Great was submitted to the pitiless, voice of the auctioneer. On that one occasion the state forgot its slavery, and groaned aloud, and though men's minds were enslaved, as everything was kept under by fear, still the groans of the Roman people were free. While all men were waiting to see who would be so impious, who would be so mad, who would be so declared an enemy to G.o.ds and to men as to dare to mix himself up with that wicked auction, no one was found except Antonius, even though there were plenty of men collected round that spear[18] who would have dared anything else. One man alone was found to dare to do that which the audacity of every one else had shrunk from and shuddered at. Were you, then, seized with such stupidity,--or, I should rather say, with such insanity,--as not to see that if you, being of the rank in which you were born, acted as a broker at all, and above all as a broker in the case of Pompeius's property, you would be execrated and hated by the Roman people, and that all G.o.ds and all men must at once become and for ever continue hostile to you? But with what violence did that glutton immediately proceed to take possession of the property of that man, to whose valour it had been owing that the Roman people had been more terrible to foreign nations, while his justice had made it dearer to them.

XXVII. When, therefore, this fellow had begun to wallow in the treasures of that great man, he began to exult like a buffoon in a play, who has lately been a beggar, and has become suddenly rich. But, as some poet or other says,--

"Ill gotten gain comes quickly to an end."

It is an incredible thing, and almost a miracle, how he in a few, not months, but days, squandered all that vast wealth. There was an immense quant.i.ty of wine, an excessive abundance of very valuable plate, much precious apparel, great quant.i.ties of splendid furniture, and other magnificent things in many places, such as one was likely to see belonging to a man who was not indeed luxurious, but who was very wealthy. Of all this in a few days there was nothing left. What Charybdis was ever so voracious? Charybdis, do I say? Charybdis, if she existed at all, was only one animal.

The ocean, I swear most solemnly, appears scarcely capable of having swallowed up such numbers of things so widely scattered, and distributed in such different places, with such rapidity. Nothing was shut up, nothing sealed up, no list was made of anything. Whole storehouses were abandoned to the most worthless of men. Actors seized on this, actresses on that, the house was crowded with gamblers, and full of drunken men, people were drinking all day, and that too in many places, there were added to all this expense (for this fellow was not invariably fortunate) heavy gambling losses. You might see in the cellars of the slaves, couches covered with the most richly embroidered counterpanes of Cnaeus Pompeius. Wonder not, then, that all these things were so soon consumed. Such profligacy as that could have devoured not only the patrimony of one individual, however ample it might have been, (as indeed his was) but whole cities and kingdoms.

And then his houses and gardens! Oh the cruel audacity! Did you dare to enter into that house? Did you dare to cross that most sacred threshold? and to show your most profligate countenance to the household G.o.ds who protect that abode? A house which for a long time no one could behold, no one could pa.s.s by without tears! Are you not ashamed to dwell so long in that house? one in which, stupid and ignorant as you are, still you can see nothing which is not painful to you.

XXVIII. When you behold those beaks of s.h.i.+ps in the vestibule, and those warlike trophies, do you fancy that you are entering into a house which belongs to you? It is impossible. Although you are devoid of all sense and all feeling,--as in truth you are,--still you are acquainted with yourself, and with your trophies, and with your friends. Nor do I believe that you either waking or sleeping, can ever act with quiet sense. It is impossible but that, were you ever so drunk and frantic,--as in truth you are,--when the recollection of the appearance of that ill.u.s.trious man comes across you, you should be roused from sleep by your fears, and often stirred up to madness if awake. I pity even the walls and the roof. For what had that house ever beheld except what was modest, except what proceeded from the purest principles and from the most virtuous practice? For that man was, O conscript fathers, as you yourselves know, not only ill.u.s.trious abroad, but also admirable at home; and not more praiseworthy for his exploits in foreign countries, than for his domestic arrangements. Now in his house every bedchamber is a brothel, and every dining-room a cookshop. Although he denies this:--Do not, do not make inquiries.

He is become economical. He desired that mistress of his to take possession of whatever belonged to her, according to the laws of the Twelve Tables. He has taken his keys from her, and turned her out of doors. What a well-tried citizen! of what proved virtue is he! the most honourable pa.s.sage in whose life is the one when he divorced himself from this actress.

But how constantly does he harp on the expression "the consul Antonius!" This amounts to say "that most debauched consul," "that most worthless of men, the consul." For what else is Antonius? For if any dignity were implied in the name, then, I imagine, your grandfather would sometimes have called himself "the consul Antonius."

But he never did. My colleague too, your own uncle, would have called himself so. Unless you are the only Antonius. But I pa.s.s over those offences which have no peculiar connexion with the part you took in hara.s.sing the republic; I return to that in which you bore so princ.i.p.al a share,--that is, to the civil war; and it is mainly owing to you that that was originated, and brought to a head, and carried on.

XXIX. Though you yourself took no personal share in it, partly through timidity, partly through profligacy, you had tasted, or rather had sucked in, the blood of fellow-citizens: you had been in the battle of Pharsalia as a leader; you had slain Lucius Domitius, a most ill.u.s.trious and high-born man; you had pursued and put to death in the most barbarous manner many men who had escaped from the battle, and whom Caesar would perhaps have saved, as he did some others.

And after having performed these exploits, what was the reason why you did not follow Caesar into Africa; especially when so large a portion of the war was still remaining? And accordingly, what place did you obtain about Caesar's person after his return from Africa? What was your rank? He whose quaestor you had been when general, whose master of the horse when he was dictator, to whom you had been the chief cause of war, the chief instigator of cruelty, the sharer of his plunder, his son, as you yourself said, by inheritance, proceeded against you for the money which you owed for the house and gardens, and for the other property which you had bought at that sale. At first you answered fiercely enough, and that I may not appear prejudiced against you in every particular, you used a tolerably just and reasonable argument. "What, does Caius Caesar demand money of me? why should he do so, any more than I should claim it of him? Was he victorious without my a.s.sistance? No, and he never could have been. It was I who supplied him with a pretext for civil war, it was I who proposed mischievous laws, it was I who took up arms against the consuls and generals of the Roman people, against the senate and people of Rome, against the G.o.ds of the country, against its altars and healths, against the country itself. Has he conquered for himself alone? Why should not those men whose common work the achievement is, have the booty also in common?" You were only claiming your right, but what had that to do with it? He was the more powerful of the two.

Therefore, stopping all your expostulations, he sent his soldiers to you, and to your sureties, when all on a sudden out came that splendid catalogue of yours. How men did laugh! That there should be so vast a catalogue, that their should be such a numerous and various list of possessions, of all of which, with the exception of a portion of Misenum, there was nothing which the man who was putting them up to sale could call his own. And what a miserable sight was the auction. A little apparel of Pompeius's, and that stained, a few silver vessels belonging to the same man, all battered, some slaves in wretched condition, so that we grieved that there was anything remaining to be seen of these miserable relics. This auction, however, the heirs of Lucius Rubrius prevented from proceeding, being armed with a decree of Caesar to that effect. The spendthrift was embarra.s.sed. He did not know which way to turn. It was at this very time that an a.s.sa.s.sin sent by him was said to have been detected with a dagger in the house of Caesar. And of this Caesar himself complained in the senate, inveighing openly against you. Caesar departs to Spain, having granted you a few days delay for making the payment, on account of your poverty. Even then you do not follow him. Had so good a gladiator as you retired from business so early? Can any one then fear a man who was as timid as this man in upholding his party, that is, in upholding his own fortunes?

x.x.x. After some time he at last went into Spain; but, as he says, he could not arrive there in safety. How then did Dolabella manage to arrive there? Either, O Antonius, that cause ought never to have been undertaken, or when you had undertaken it, it should have been maintained to the end. Thrice did Caesar fight against his fellow-citizens; in Thessaly, in Africa, and in Spain. Dolabella was present at all these battles. In the battle in Spain he even received a wound. If you ask my opinion, I wish he had not been there. But still, if his design at first was blameable, his consistency and firmness were praiseworthy. But what shall we say of you? In the first place, the children of Cnaeus Pompeius sought to be restored to their country. Well, this concerned the common interests of the whole party.

Besides that, they sought to recover their household G.o.ds, the G.o.ds of their country, their altars, their hearths, the tutelar G.o.ds of their family; all of which you had seized upon. And when they sought to recover those things by force of arms which belonged to them by the laws, who was it most natural--(although in unjust and unnatural proceedings what can there be that is natural?)--still, who was it most natural to expect would fight against the children of Cnaeus Pompeius? Who? Why, you who had bought their property. Were you at Narbo to be sick over the tables of your entertainers, while Dolabella was fighting your battles in Spain?

And what a return was that of yours from Narbo? He even asked why I had returned so suddenly from my expedition. I have just briefly explained to you, O conscript fathers, the reason of my return. I was desirous, if I could, to be of service to the republic even before the first of January. For, as to your question, how I had returned; in the first place, I returned by daylight, not in the dark; in the second place, I returned in shoes, and in my Roman gown, not in any Gallic slippers, or barbarian mantle. And even now you keep looking at me; and, as it seems, with great anger. Surely you would be reconciled to me if you knew how ashamed I am of your worthlessness, which you yourself are not ashamed of. Of all the profligate conduct of all the world, I never saw, I never heard of any more shameful than yours. You who fancied yourself a master of the horse, when you were standing for, or I should rather say begging for the consuls.h.i.+p for the ensuing year, ran in Gallic slippers and a barbarian mantle about the munic.i.p.al towns and colonies of Gaul from which we used to demand the consuls.h.i.+p when the consuls.h.i.+p was stood for and not begged for.

x.x.xI. But mark now the trifling character of the fellow. When about the tenth hour of the day he had arrived at Red Rocks, he skulked into a little petty wine-shop, and, hiding there, kept on drinking till evening. And from thence getting into a gig and being driven rapidly to the city, he came to his own house with his head veiled. "Who are you?" says the porter. "An express from Marcus." He is at once taken to the woman for whose sake he had come; and he delivered the letter to her. And when she had read it with tears, (for it was written in a very amorous style, but the main subject of the letter was that he would have nothing to do with that actress for the future; that he had discarded all his love for her, and transferred it to his correspondent,) when she, I say, wept plentifully, this soft-hearted man could bear it no longer; he uncovered his head and threw himself on her neck. Oh the worthless man! (for what else can I call him?

there is no more suitable expression for me to use,) was it for this that you disturbed the city by nocturnal alarms, and Italy with fears of many days' duration, in order that you might show yourself unexpectedly, and that a woman might see you before she hoped to do so? And he had at home a pretence of love; but out of doors a cause more discreditable still, namely, lest Lucius Plancus should sell up his sureties. But after you had been produced in the a.s.sembly by one of the tribunes of the people, and had replied that you had come on your own private business, you made even the people full of jokes against you. But, however, we have said too much about trifles. Let us come to more important subjects.

x.x.xII. You went a great distance to meet Caesar on his return from Spain. You went rapidly, you returned rapidly in order that we might see that, if you were not brave, you were at least active. You again became intimate with him; I am sure I do not know how. Caesar had this peculiar characteristic; whoever he knew to be utterly ruined by debt, and needy, even if he knew him also to be an audacious and worthless man, he willingly admitted him to his intimacy. You then, being admirably recommended to him by these circ.u.mstances, were ordered to be appointed consul, and that too as his own colleague. I do not make any complaint against Dolabella, who was at that time acting under compulsion, and was cajoled and deceived. But who is there who does not know with what great perfidy both of you treated Dolabella in that business? Caesar induced him to stand for the consuls.h.i.+p. After having promised it to him, and pledged himself to aid him, he prevented his getting it, and transferred it to himself. And you endorsed his treachery with your own eagerness.

The first of January arrives. We are convened in the senate. Dolabella inveighed against him with much more fluency and premeditation than I am doing now. And what things were they which he said in his anger, O ye good G.o.ds! First of all, after Caesar had declared that before he departed he would order Dolabella to be made consul, (and they deny that he was a king who was always doing and saying something of this sort,)--but after Caesar had said this, then this virtuous augur said that he was invested with a pontificate of that sort that he was able, by means of the auspices, either to hinder or to vitiate the comitia, just as he pleased; and he declared that he would do so. And here, in the first place, remark the incredible stupidity of the man. For what do you mean? Could you not just as well have done what you said you had now the power to do by the privileges with which that pontificate had invested you, even if you were not an augur, if you were consul?

Perhaps you could even do it more easily. For we augurs have only the power of announcing that the auspices are being observed, but the consuls and other magistrates have the right also of observing them whenever they choose. Be it so. You said this out of ignorance. For one must not demand prudence from a man who is never sober. But still remark his impudence. Many months before, he said in the senate that he would either prevent the comitia from a.s.sembling for the election of Dolabella by means of the auspices, or that he would do what he actually did do. Can any one divine beforehand what defect there will be in the auspices, except the man who has already determined to observe the heavens? which in the first place it is forbidden by law to do at the time of the comitia. And if any one has been observing the heavens, he is bound to give notice of it, not after the comitia are a.s.sembled, but before they are held. But this man's ignorance is joined to impudence, nor does he know what an augur ought to know, nor do what a modest man ought to do. And just recollect the whole of his conduct during his consuls.h.i.+p from that day up to the ides of March.

What lictor was ever so humble, so abject? He himself had no power at all; he begged everything of others; and thrusting his head into the hind part of his litter, he begged favours of his colleagues, to sell them himself afterwards.

x.x.xIII. Behold, the day of the comitia for the election of Dolabella arrives. The prerogative century draws its lot. He is quiet. The vote is declared; he is still silent. The first cla.s.s is called.[19]

Its vote is declared. Then, as is the usual course, the votes are announced. Then the second cla.s.s. And all this is done faster than I have told it. When the business is over, that excellent augur (you would say he must be Caius Laelius,) says,--"We adjourn it to another day." Oh the monstrous impudence of such a proceeding! What had you seen? what had you perceived? what had you heard? For you did not say that you had been observing the heavens, and indeed you do not say so this day. That defect then has arisen, which you on the first of January had already foreseen would arise, and which you had predicted so long before. Therefore, in truth, you have made a false declaration respecting the auspices, to your own great misfortune, I hope, rather than to that of the republic. You laid the Roman people under the obligations of religion; you as augur interrupted an augur; you as consul interrupted a consul by a false declaration concerning the auspices.