---
title: "Against Piso · In L. Calpurnium Pisonem"
author: "Cicero"
translator: "Charles Duke Yonge"
languages: [la, en]
shelf: "Classical Latin"
url: https://scriptura.si/works/cicero-in-pisonem/
cite: "Cicero, tr. Charles Duke Yonge, Against Piso · In L. Calpurnium Pisonem. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/cicero-in-pisonem/"
---

# Against Piso · In L. Calpurnium Pisonem

*Cicero, tr. Charles Duke Yonge*

Cicero’s savage invective against the consul who let him be exiled.

> Latin: ed. Albert Curtis Clark, from the Perseus Digital Library (canonical-latinLit, phi0474.phi027, CC BY-SA 4.0).

> English: Charles Duke Yonge, from the Perseus Digital Library (phi0474.phi027.perseus-eng1). Notes are not included.

> Rows follow the references the two texts share (chapters and sections), cut where both reach the end of a sentence.

## Contents

1. [Sections 2–23](https://scriptura.si/works/cicero-in-pisonem/1.md)
2. [Sections 24–49](https://scriptura.si/works/cicero-in-pisonem/2.md)
3. [Sections 50–75](https://scriptura.si/works/cicero-in-pisonem/3.md)
4. [Sections 76–99](https://scriptura.si/works/cicero-in-pisonem/4.md)

## 1. Sections 2–23

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/cicero-in-pisonem/1/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/cicero-in-pisonem/1/#p-N

[¶0] fr1. O ye immortal gods, what a day is this which has dawned … … What specimen, even the slightest, have you ever given of ability? Of ability, do I say? Rather should I say, what proof have you ever given of being an honourable or a free man? You, who by your complexion seem to throw a doubt on your country, by your speech on your family, by your morals on your name … … This has nothing to do with leading us to think slightly of Placentia, of which place he boasts that he is a native: for my nature does not incline me to his; nor does the dignity of a municipal town, especially of one which has deserved exceedingly well at my hands, allow me to entertain such feelings.

> Latin: fr1. di inmortales! qui hic inluxit dies mihi quidem, patres conscripti, peroptatus, ut hoc portentum huius loci, monstrum urbis, prodigium civitatis viderem! nihil malui; vos fortasse consumptum istum cruciatu aut demersum fluctibus audire malletis. istum mentis et quaedam scelerum offusa caligo et ardentes Furiarum faces excitaverunt. enim iste in scopulum non incidit, quod in telum non inruit? est negare ausus aut potius quid non confessus? enim illo inertius, quid sordidius, quid nequius, quid enervatius, quid stultius, quid abstrusius?, seditiosi, factiosi, perniciosi. minimum specimen in te ingeni? autem? immo ingenui hominis ac liberi: qui colore ipso patriam aspernaris, oratione genus, moribus nomen.

[¶1] fr9. … … There was a certain Insubrian who was both a merchant and a crier; he, when he had come to Rome with his daughter, ventured to call a young man of high birth, named Caesoninus, the son of a most thorough rogue: he gave his daughter in marriage to … him.

> Latin: fr9. non ad contemnendam Placentiam pertinet unde se is ortum gloriari solet; neque enim hoc mea natura fert nec municipi, praesertim de me optime meriti, dignitas patitur. cum a domo ⟨profectus⟩ Placentiae forte consedisset, pauci⟨s post annis⟩ in eam civitatem—nam tum erat … —ascendit. enim Gallus, dein Gallica⟨nus⟩, extremo Placentinus haberi ⟨coeptus⟩ est.

[¶2] fr11. And she became the mother of you, a beast rather than a man. [Concerning Piso's maternal grandfather] … When he had settled on the banks of the Po at Placentia, a few years afterwards he obtained the freedom of that city; for it was a city at that time. For before that he was considered a Gaul; then a man of Gallic extraction; and at last he began to be considered a sort of half-Placentian. … … That Insubrian grandfather of his adopted the elder …

> Latin: fr11. Insuber quidam fuit, idem mercator et praeco: is cum Romam cum filia venisset, adulescentem nobilem, Caesonini hominis furacissimi filium, ausus est appellare ⟨eique⟩ filiam conlocavit. aiunt eum appellatum. homini levi et subito filiam conlocavit. sibi Insuber ille avus adoptavit.

[¶3] fr13. … Your father wanted a more luxurious son-in-law than Caius Piso did at that time of his distress … I did not give my daughter in marriage to that man whom, when I had the power of choosing from all the world, I should have selected in preference to any one. … … When the whole of your relations arrive in a wagon … … You put out your head, butting at him … … I was sitting next to Pompeius … … Do you not see now, do you not feel, O you beast, what complaints men make of your impudence? No one complains that a Syrian, that a man whom nobody knows, that some one of that body of lately emancipated slaves, was made consul. For that complexion, like that of slaves, and those hairy cheeks and discoloured teeth, did not deceive us: your eyes, your eyebrows, your brow, in short your whole countenance, which is, as it were, a sort of silent language of the mind, led men into error, this it was which led those to whom this man was unknown into mistake and error, and blunders. There were but few of us who were acquainted with those foul vices of yours; few of us who knew the deficiency of your abilities, your stolid manner, and your embarrassed way of speaking. Your voice had never been heard in the forum; no one had had any experience of your wisdom in counsel: you had not only never performed any, I will not say illustrious exploit, but any action at all that was known of either in war or at home. You crept into honours through men's blunders, by the recommendation of some old smoke-dried images, though there is nothing in you at all resembling them except your colour.

> Latin: fr13. … pater tuus socerum quam C. Piso … in illo luctu meo. enim filiam meam conlocavi quem ego, ⟨si mihi⟩ potestas tum omnium fuisset, unum potissimum delegissem. tua illa nescio quibus a terris apportata mater pecudem ex alvo, non hominem effuderit. quae te beluam ex utero, non hominem fudit. Cum tibi tota cognatio serraco advehatur. ista, ficta, fucata sunt omnia. austerum hominem, putavi tristem, putavi gravem, sed video adulterum, video ganeonem, video parietum praesidio, video amicorum sordibus, video tenebris occultantem libidines suas. putavi gravem, video adulterum, video ganeonem. [adsidere Gabinium aut adloqui in curia quisquam audebat.] [quod miser, cum loqui non posset, tacere non poterat?] vides, belua, iamne sentis quae sit hominum querela frontis tuae? queritur Syrum nescio quem de grege noviciorum factum esse consulem. enim nos color iste servilis, non pilosae genae, non dentes putridi deceperunt; oculi, supercilia, frons, voltus denique totus, qui sermo quidam tacitus mentis est, hic in fraudem homines impulit, hic eos quibus erat ignotus decepit, fefellit, induxit. ista tua lutulenta vitia noramus, pauci tarditatem ingeni, stuporem debilitatemque linguae. erat audita vox in foro, numquam periculum factum consili, nullum non modo inlustre sed ne notum quidem factum aut militiae aut domi. ad honores errore hominum, commendatione fumosarum imaginum, quarum simile habes nihil praeter colorem.

[¶4] 2. Will he also boast to me that he obtained even magistracy without one repulse? I am able to make that boast concerning myself with true exultation; for the Roman people did confer all its honours on me in that way-on me, a new man. But when you were made quaestor, even men who had never seen you gave that honour to your name. You were made aedile. A Piso was elected by the Roman people; but not the Piso that you are. The praetorship also was conferred in reality on your ancestors. They, though dead, were well known; but no one had as yet known anything of you, though you were alive. When the Roman people made me quaestor among the first of the candidates, and first aedile, and first praetor, as they did by a unanimous vote, they were paying that compliment to me on my own account and not to my family,—to my habits of life, not to my ancestors,—to my proved virtue, and not to any nobleness of birth of which they had heard.

> Latin: 2. mihi etiam gloriabatur se omnis magistratus sine repulsa adsecutum? ista licet de me vera cum gloria praedicare; omnis enim honores populus Romanus mihi ipsi homini detulit. tu cum quaestor es factus, etiam qui te numquam viderant, tamen illum honorem nomini mandabant tuo. es factus; Piso est a populo Romano factus, non iste Piso. item maioribus delata est tuis. erant illi mortui, te vivum nondum noverat quisquam. cum quaestorem in primis, aedilem priorem, praetorem primum cunctis suffragiis populus Romanus faciebat, homini ille honorem non generi, moribus non maioribus meis, virtuti perspectae non auditae nobilitati deferebat.

[¶5] 3. For why should I speak of my consulship? whether as to the manner in which it was obtained, or in which it was conducted? Wretched man that I am! am I comparing myself to this disgrace and plague of the republic? But I will say nothing with the view of drawing any comparison; but I will bring together those circumstances which are very widely separated. You were declared consul (I will say nothing more severe than what all men admit to be true) at a time when the affairs of the republic were in a state of great embarrassment, when the consuls Caesar and Bibulus were at variance, when you had no objection to those men by whom you were declared consul thinking you undeserving of the light of day if you did not prove more worthless than Gabinius. All Italy, all ranks of men, the entire city declared me the first consul with acclamation even before they gave in their voting tablets. But I say nothing of the circumstances under which each of us was elected. I will allow that chance may have been the mistress of the Campus Martius. It is more to the purpose to say how we conducted ourselves in our respective consulships, than how we obtained them.

> Latin: 3. quid ego de consulatu loquar, parto vis anne gesto? me! cum hac me nunc peste atque labe confero! nihil comparandi causa loquar ac tamen ea quae sunt longissime disiuncta comprendam. consul es renuntiatus—nihil dicam gravius, quam quod omnes fatentur—impeditis rei publicae temporibus, dissidentibus consulibus, cum hoc non recusares eis a quibus dicebare consul, quin te luce dignum non putarent, nisi nequior quam Gabinius exstitisses. cuncta Italia, me omnes ordines, me universa civitas non prius tabella quam voce priorem consulem declaravit. omitto ut sit factus uterque nostrum; sit sane domina campi. Magnificentius est dicere quem ad modum gesserimus consulatum quam quem ad modum ceperimus.

[¶6] 4. I, on the first of January, delivered the senate and all virtuous citizens from the fear of an agrarian law and of extravagant largesses. I preserved the Campanian district, if it was not expedient that it should be divided; if it was expedient, I reserved it for more respectable authors of the division. I, in the case of Caius Rabirius, a man on his trial for high treason, supported and defended against envy the authority of the senate which had been interposed forty years before the time of my consulship. I, at the cost of incurring great enmity myself, but without any enmity falling on the senate, deprived some young men—virtuous and brave men indeed but still men in such a peculiar condition that if they had obtained magistracies they would have convulsed the constitution of the republic of the opportunity of canvassing the comitia.

> Latin: 4. Kalendis Ianuariis senatum et bonos omnis legis agrariae maximarumque largitionum metu liberavi. agrum Campanum, si dividi non oportuit, conservavi, si oportuit, melioribus auctoribus reservavi. in C. Rabirio perduellionis reo xl annis ante me consulem interpositam senatus auctoritatem sustinui contra invidiam atque defendi. adulescentis bonos et fortis, sed usos ea condicione fortunae ut, si essent magistratus adepti, rei publicae statum convolsuri viderentur, meis inimicitiis, nulla senatus mala gratia comitiorum ratione privavi.

[¶7] 5. By my patience and complaisant conduct I propitiated Antonius my colleague eager for a province, and cherishing many designs injurious to the republic. I in the public assembly renounced the province of Gaul, fully equipped and well appointed with an army and with funds by the authority of the senate, which I had taken in exchange from Antonius, because I thought it advantageous to the republic at that time that I should do so in spite of the outcry raised by the Roman people against my doing so. I ordered Lucius Catiline planning not obscurely, but openly, the slaughter of the senate and the destruction of the city, to depart from the city in order that you might be protected by our walls from his designs from which our laws were insufficient to defend us. I wrested from the nefarious hands of the conspirators the weapons which in the last month of my consulship were aimed at the throats of the citizens. I seized, and brought to light and extinguished the firebrands which were already kindled for the conflagration of the city.

> Latin: 5. Antonium conlegam cupidum provinciae, multa in re publica molientem patientia atque obsequio meo mitigavi. provinciam Galliam senatus auctoritate exercitu et pecunia instructam et ornatam, quam cum Antonio commutavi, quod ita existimabam tempora rei publicae ferre, in contione deposui reclamante populo Romano. L. Catilinam caedem senatus, interitum urbis non obscure sed palam molientem egredi ex urbe iussi ut, a quo legibus non poteramus, moenibus tuti esse possemus. tela extremo mense consulatus mei intenta iugulis civitatis de coniuratorum nefariis manibus extorsi. faces iam accensas ad huius urbis incendium comprehendi, protuli, exstinxi.

[¶8] 6. Quintus Catulus the chief of this body the great leader of the public council, in the fullest possible house, called me the father of my country. This most illustrious man, who is at this moment sitting close to you, Lucius Gellius, in the hearing of all these people, said that a civic crown was owed to me by the republic. Though I was only clad in the garb of peace, the senate, by an unprecedented sort of supplication, opened the temples of the gods in my honour; not because I had successfully governed the republic, that being a compliment which had been paid to many, but because I had saved it, that being an honour which has never been conferred on any one. When in the assembly of the people, on giving up my office, I was prevented saying what I had intended by the tribune of the people, and when he would only allow me to take the oath, I swore without any hesitation that the republic and this city had been saved by my single exertions.

> Latin: 6. Q. Catulus, princeps huius ordinis et auctor publici consili, frequentissimo senatu parentem patriae nominavit. hic vir clarissimus qui propter te sedet, L. Gellius, his audientibus civicam coronam deberi a re publica dixit. togato senatus non ut multis bene gesta, sed ut nemini conservata re publica, singulari genere supplicationis deorum immortalium templa patefecit. cum in contione abiens magistratu dicere a tribuno pl. prohiberer quae constitueram, cumque is mihi tantum modo ut iurarem permitteret, sine ulla dubitatione iuravi rem publicam atque hanc urbem mea unius opera esse salvam.

[¶9] 7. On that day, the entire Roman people gave me in that assembly, not a congratulation to be remembered for the rest of the day, but they gave me immortality and eternal glory, when they themselves swearing also, with one voice and consent approved of my oath couched in such proud and triumphant words. And on that occasion, my return home from the forum was of such a nature that there did not appear to be a single citizen who was not in my train. And my consulship was conducted throughout in such a manner, that I did nothing without the advice of the senate,—nothing without the approbation of the Roman people; that in the rostra I constantly defended the senate,—in the senate-house I was the unwearied advocate of the people; that in that manner, I united the multitude with the chief men, and the equestrian order with the senate. I have now briefly described my consulship.

> Latin: 7. populus Romanus universus illa in contione non unius diei gratulationem sed aeternitatem immortalitatemque donavit, cum meum ius iurandum tale atque tantum iuratus ipse una voce et consensu approbavit. quidem tempore is meus domum fuit e foro reditus ut nemo, nisi qui mecum esset, civium esse in numero videretur. ita est a me consulatus peractus ut nihil sine consilio senatus, nihil non approbante populo Romano egerim, ut semper in rostris curiam, in senatu populum defenderim, ut multitudinem cum principibus, equestrem ordinem cum senatu coniunxerim. breviter consulatum meum.

[¶10] 8. Dare now, O you Fury to describe yours; the beginning of which was the Compitalitian games, then first celebrated since the time that Lucius Metellus and Quintus Marcius were consuls, contrary to the inclination of this order: games which Quintus Metellus (I am doing injury to a gallant man who is dead when I compare him, to whom this city has produced few equals, to this ill-omened beast)—but he, being consul elect when a certain tribune of the people, relying on his own power, had ordered the master of the games to celebrate them in contempt of a resolution passed by the senate, though still a private individual, forbade it to be done, and he carried that point by the weight of his character, which he had not as yet any power to enforce. You, when the day of the Compitalitia had fallen on the first of January, permitted Sextus Clodius, who had never before filled any office which entitled him to wear the pratetexta, to celebrate the games, and to strut about in a praetexta like a profligate man, as he was, a man thoroughly worthy of your countenance and regard.

> Latin: 8. nunc, o furia, de tuo dicere! cuius fuit initium ludi compitalicii tum primum facti post L. Iulium et C. Marcium consules contra auctoritatem huius ordinis; quos Q. Metellus—facio iniuriam fortissimo viro mortuo, qui illum cuius paucos paris haec civitas tulit cum hac importuna belua conferam—sed ille designatus consul, cum quidam tribunus pl. suo auxilio magistros ludos contra senatus consultum facere iussisset, privatus fieri vetuit atque id quod nondum potestate poterat obtinuit auctoritate., cum in Kalendas Ianuarias compitaliorum dies incidisset, Sex. Clodium, qui numquam antea praetextatus fuisset, ludos facere et praetextatum volitare passus es, hominem impurum ac non modo facie sed etiam oculo tuo dignissimum.

[¶11] 9. Therefore, when you had laid this foundation of your consulship, three days after, while you were looking on in silence, the Aelian and Fufian law, that bulwark and wall of tranquillity and peace, was overturned by Publius Clodius, that fatal prodigy and monster of the republic. Not only the guilds which the senate had abolished were restored but countless new ones were established of all the dregs of the city and even of slaves. The same man, immersed in unheard of and impious debaucheries, abolished that old preceptress of modesty and charity, the severity of the censor, while you in the mean time, you sepulchre of the republic, you who say that you were at that time consul at Rome, never by one single word intimated any opinion of your own amid such a terrible shipwreck of the state.

> Latin: 9. his fundamentis positis consulatus tui triduo post inspectante et tacente te a fatali portento prodigioque rei publicae lex Aelia et Fufia eversa est, propugnacula murique tranquillitatis atque oti; conlegia non ea solum quae senatus sustulerat restituta, sed innumerabilia quaedam nova ex omni faece urbis ac servitio concitata. eodem homine in stupris inauditis nefariisque versato vetus illa magistra pudoris et modestiae censura sublata est, cum tu interim, bustum rei publicae, qui te consulem tum Romae dicis fuisse, verbo numquam significaris sententiam tuam tantis in naufragiis civitatis.

[¶12] 10. I have not yet said what you did yourself, but only what you allowed to be done. Nor does it make much difference, especially in a consul whether he himself harnesses the republic with pernicious laws mid infamous harangues, or allows others to harass it. Can there be any excuse for a consul, I will not say being disaffected to the state, but sitting with his hands before him dawdling and sleeping amid the greatest commotions of the republic? For nearly a hundred years had we possessed the Aelian and Fufian law; for four hundred years had we enjoyed the censor's power of deciding on, and animadverting on, the conduct of citizens; laws which I will not say no wicked man has ever dared to uproot, but which no one has ever been able to uproot, a power which no one, not if he were ever so profligate has ever attempted to diminish so as to prevent a formal judgment from being passed every fifth year on our morals.

> Latin: 10. quae feceris, sed quae fieri passus sis, dico. vero multum interest, praesertim in consule, utrum ipse perniciosis legibus, improbis contionibus rem publicam vexet, an alios vexare patiatur. potest ulla esse excusatio non dicam male sentienti, sed sedenti, cunctanti, dormienti in maximo rei publicae motu consuli? c prope annos legem Aeliam et Fufiam tenueramus, cccc iudicium notionemque censoriam. leges ausus est non nemo improbus, potuit quidem nemo convellere, quam potestatem minuere, quo minus de moribus nostris quinto quoque anno iudicaretur, nemo tam effuse petulans conatus est, haec sunt, o carnifex! in prooemio sepulta consulatus tui.

[¶13] 11. These things now, O worst of men, are entombed in the bosom of your consulship. Proceed on to the days which followed their funeral obsequies. In front of the tribunal of Aurelius, while you were not only shutting your eyes to the measure, which of itself would have been wicked enough, but while you were looking on with a more delighted countenance than usual, a levy of slaves was had by that man who never considered anything too infamous for him either to say or to do. Arms (O you betrayer of all temples) were placed in the temples of Castor by that robber, while you were looking on, to whom that temple, while you were consul, was a citadel for profligate citizens,—a receptacle for the veteran soldiers of Catiline,—a castle for forensic robbery, and the sepulchre of all law and of all religion. Not only my house, but the whole Palatine Hill, was crowded by the senate, by Roman knights, by the entire city, by the whole of Italy, while you not only never once came near that Cicero (for I omit all mention of domestic circumstances, which perhaps you would deny, and speak only of those facts which were done openly and are notorious)—you never, I say, came near that Cicero to whom all the comitia in which you were elected consul had given the first tablet of the prerogative tribe, but who in the senate was the third person whose opinion you asked; but more, you were present, yes, and you presided in the most cruel manner, over all the counsels which were entertained for the purpose of crushing me.

> Latin: 11. continentis his funeribus dies. Aurelio tribunali ne conivente quidem te, quod ipsum esset scelus, sed etiam hilarioribus oculis quam solitus eras intuente, dilectus servorum habebatur ab eo qui nihil sibi umquam nec facere nec pati turpe esse duxit. in templo Castoris, o proditor templorum omnium! vidente te constituebantur ab eo latrone cui templum illud fuit te consule arx civium perditorum, receptaculum veterum Catilinae militum, castellum forensis latrocini, bustum legum omnium ac religionum. non solum domus mea sed totum Palatium senatu, equitibus Romanis, civitate omni, Italia cuncta refertum, cum tu non modo ad eum—mitto enim domestica, quae negari possunt; haec commemoro quae sunt palam—non modo, inquam, ad eum cui primam comitiis tuis dederas tabulam praerogativae, quem in senatu sententiam rogabas tertium, numquam aspirasti, sed omnibus consiliis quae ad me opprimendum parabantur non interfuisti solum verum etiam crudelissime praefuisti.

[¶14] 12. But what was it that you dared to say to me myself, in the presence of my son-in-law, your own relation? “That Gabinius was a beggar, without either house or property; that he could not exist if he did not obtain a province; that you had hopes from a tribune of the people, if you united your plans to his; that you had no hope at all from the senate; that you were complying with his covetousness as I had done in the case of my colleague; that there was no reason why I should implore the protection of the consuls; that every one ought to take care of his own interests.” And these things I scarcely venture to say. I am afraid that there may be some one who does not clearly see his enormous wickedness, concealed as it is under his impenetrable countenance; still I will say it: he himself, at all events, will recognise the truth, and will feel some pain in recollecting his crimes.

> Latin: 12. vero ipsi coram genero meo, propinquo tuo quae dicere ausus es? sordidissime Gabinium, sine provincia stare non posse, spem habere a tribuno pl., si sua consilia cum illo coniunxisset, a senatu quidem desperasse; huius te cupiditati obsequi, sicuti ego fecissem in conlega meo; nihil esse quod praesidium consulum implorarem; sibi quemque consulere oportere. haec dicere vix audeo; vereor ne qui sit qui istius insignem nequitiam frontis involutam integumentis nondum cernat; dicam tamen. certe agnoscet et cum aliquo dolore flagitiorum suorum recordabitur.

[¶15] 13. Do you recollect you infamous fellow, when about the fifth hour of the day I came to you with Caius Piso, that you came out of some hovel or other with your head wrapped up, and in slippers? and when you, with that fetid breath of yours, had filled us with the odour of that vile cookshop, that you made the excuse of your health, because you said that you were compelled to have recourse to some vinous remedies? and when we had admitted the pretence, (for what could we do?) we stood a little while amid the fumes and smell of your gluttony, till you drove us away by filthy language and still more filthy behaviour?

> Latin: 13. , caenum, cum ad te quinta fere hora cum C. Pisone venissem, nescio quo e gurgustio te prodire involuto capite soleatum, et, cum isto ore foetido taeterrimam nobis popinam inhalasses, excusatione te uti valetudinis, quod diceres vinulentis te quibusdam medicaminibus solere curari? nos causam cum accepissemus—quid enim facere poteramus?—paulisper stetimus in illo ganearum tuarum nidore atque fumo; unde tu nos cum improbissime respondendo, tum turpissime ructando eiecisti.

[¶16] 14. About two days afterwards you were brought forward in the assembly of the people by that man with whom you had shared your consulship in that manner; and when you were asked what were your sentiments respecting my consulship, you, a very grave authority, some Calatinus, I suppose, or Africanus, or Maximus, surely not a Caesoninus half-Placentian Calventius, make answer, lifting one eyebrow up to your forehead, and depressing the other down to your chin, “that you did not approve of its entirety.” On this, that noble man, so exceedingly worthy of being admitted into your counsels, praised you. Do you, then, you scoundrel, do you as consul condemn the senate for cruelty before an assembly of the people? For you are not condemning one who only obeyed the senate;—for that salutary and diligent report of the conspiracy was the work of the consul; the sentence and the punishment were the act of the senate. And when you find fault with them, you show what sort of consul you would have been at that time, if by chance it had so happened. You, I make no doubt would have considered that Catiline deserved to be aided with pay and provisions. For, what was the difference between Catiline and that man to whom you sold the authority of the senate, the safety of the state, and the whole republic, for the reward of a province?

> Latin: 14. illo fere biduo productus in contionem ab eo cui sicam quandam praebebas consulatum tuum, cum esses interrogatus quid sentires de consulatu meo, gravis auctor, Calatinus credo aliquis aut Africanus aut et non Caesoninus Semiplacentinus, respondes altero ad frontem sublato, altero ad mentum depresso supercilio crudelitatem tibi non placere. te ille homo dignissimus tuis laudibus conlaudavit. tu, furcifer, senatum consul in contione condemnas? non enim me qui senatui parui; nam relatio illa salutaris et diligens fuerat consulis, animadversio quidem et iudicium senatus. cum reprehendis, ostendis qualis tu, si ita forte accidisset, fueris illo tempore consul futurus. me hercule et frumento Catilinam esse putasses iuvandum. enim interfuit inter Catilinam et eum cui tu senatus auctoritatem, salutem civitatis, totam rem publicam provinciae praemio vendidisti?

[¶17] 15. For the consuls assisted Clodius while doing those very things which Catiline was only attempting when I as consul defeated his machinations. He, indeed, wished to massacre the senate; you two abolished it. He wished to destroy the laws by fire and sword; you two abrogated them. He wished the country to perish; you two aided him. What, during your consulship, was ever accomplished except by force of arms? That band of conspirators wished to fire the city; you two sought to burn the house of that man, to whom it was owing that the city was not burnt. And even these men, if they had a consul like you, would never have thought of burning the city: For they did not wish to deprive themselves of their homes; but as long as those consuls flourished, they thought that there would be no home for their wickedness. They desired the slaughter of the citizens; you desired to bring them to slavery; and in this were even more cruel than they; for, until your consulship, the spirit of liberty was so deeply implanted in this people, that they would have thought it preferable to die rather than to become slaves.

> Latin: 15. enim L. Catilinam conantem consul prohibui, ea P. Clodium facientem consules adiuverunt. ille senatum interficere, vos sustulistis; leges incendere, vos abrogastis; interimere patriam, vos adflixistis. est vobis consulibus gestum sine armis? illa coniuratorum manus voluit urbem, vos eius domum quem propter urbs incensa non est. ne illi quidem, si habuissent vestri similem consulem, de urbis incendio cogitassent; non enim se tectis privare voluerunt, sed his stantibus nullum domicilium sceleri suo fore putaverunt. illi civium, vos servitutem expetistis. vos etiam crudeliores; huic enim populo ita fuerat ante vos consules libertas insita ut ei mori potius quam servire praestaret.

[¶18] 16. But that pair of you, acting on the designs of Catiline and Lentulus, expelled me from my house, and confined Cnaeus Pompeius to his; for they did not think that as long as I stood firm, and remained in the city exerting all my vigilance for its defence, and as long as Cnaeus Pompeius, the conqueror of all the world, opposed them, they should ever be able utterly to destroy the republic. You sought even to inflict punishment on me, by which you might make atonement to the shades of the dead conspirators. You poured forth upon me all the hatred which had been long nursed in the wicked feelings of impious men. And if I had not yielded for a while to their frenzy, I should have been murdered in the tomb of Catiline, under your leadership. But what greater proof do you want that there is no real difference between you and Catiline, than is the fact, that you awakened again that same band from the half-dead relics of Catiline's army? that you collected all abandoned men from all quarters? that you let loose against me the dregs of the prisons? that you armed conspirators? that you sought to expose my person and the lives of all good men to their frenzy and to their swords?

> Latin: 16. vero geminum consiliis Catilinae et Lentuli, quod me domo mea expulistis, Cn. Pompeium domum suam compulistis. enim me stante et manente in urbis vigilia neque resistente Cn. Pompeio, omnium gentium victore, umquam se illi rem publicam delere posse duxerunt. A me quidem etiam poenas expetistis quibus coniuratorum manis mortuorum expiaretis; omne odium inclusum nefariis sensibus impiorum in me profudistis. ego furori nisi cessissem, in Catilinae busto vobis ducibus mactatus essem. autem maius indicium exspectatis nihil inter vos et Catilinam interfuisse quam quod eandem illam manum ex intermortuis Catilinae reliquiis concitastis, quod omnis undique perditos conlegistis, quod in me carcerem effudistis, quod coniuratos armastis, quod eorum ferro ac furori meum corpus atque omnium bonorum vitam obicere voluistis?

[¶19] 17. But I come back now to that splendid harangue of yours. You are the man who disapprove of cruelty, are you? you who, when the senate had decided on displaying its grief and indignation by a change of their garments, and when you saw that the whole republic was grieving in the mourning of its most honourable order, you, O merciful man, what do you do? Why, what no tyrant in any country of barbarians ever dreamt of. For, I say nothing of the fact of a consul issuing an edict, that the senate should not obey a resolution of the senate; an action than which none more shameful can either be done or imagined. I return to the merciful disposition of that man, who thinks that the senate were over cruel in preserving the country.

> Latin: 17. iam redeo ad praeclaram illam contionem tuam. es ille, cui crudelitas displicet? qui, cum senatus luctum ac dolorem suum vestis mutatione declarandum censuisset, cum videres maerere rem publicam amplissimi ordinis luctu, o noster misericors! quid facis? nulla in barbaria quisquam tyrannus. enim illud, consulem edicere ut senatus consulto ne obtemperetur, quo foedius nec fieri nec cogitari quicquam potest; ad misericordiam redeo eius cui nimis videtur senatus in conservanda patria fuisse crudelis.

[¶20] 18. He with his mate—whom however he was desirous to surpass in all vices—dared to issue an edict that the senate should return to its usual dress contrary to the resolution which that body itself had passed. What tyrant in any part of Scythia ever behaved in such a way as not to permit those men to mourn whom he was loading with misery? You leave them their grief, you take away the emblems of grief, you take away their tears not by comforting them but by threatening them. But even if the conscript fathers had changed their attire not in consequence of any public resolution, but out of private affection or pity still it would have been an intolerable stretch of power that your interdict should prohibit them from doing so; but when the senate in a full house had passed a resolution to that effect, and all the other orders in the state had already changed their attire, then you, a consul, dragged out of a dark dirty cookshop, with that shaved dancing girl of yours, forbade the senate of the Roman people to mourn for the setting and death of the republic. But a little time before, he even asked me what need I had of his assistance? why I had not resisted my enemies with my own resources? Just as if not only I who had often been of assistance to many others, but as if any one were ever in so wholly desperate a condition as to consider himself not only safer if he had that man for a protector but more ready for the struggle if he had him only for an advocate or seconder.

> Latin: 18. est ausus cum illo suo pari, quem tamen omnibus vitiis superare cupiebat, ut senatus contra quam ipse censuisset ad vestitum rediret. hoc fecit ulla in Scythia tyrannus ut eos quos luctu adficeret lugere non sineret? relinquis, maeroris aufers insignia; eripis lacrimas non consolando sed minando. si vestem non publico consilio patres conscripti, sed privato officio aut misericordia mutavissent, tamen id his non licere per interdicta potestatis tuae crudelitatis erat non ferendae; cum vero id senatus frequens censuisset et omnes ordines reliqui iam ante fecissent, tu ex tenebricosa popina consul extractus cum illa saltatrice tonsa senatum populi Romani occasum atque interitum rei publicae lugere vetuisti. quaerebat etiam paulo ante de me quid suo mihi opus fuisset auxilio; cur non meis inimicis meis copiis restitissem. vero non modo ego, qui multis saepe auxilio fuerim, sed quisquam tam inops fuerit umquam qui isto non modo propugnatore tutiorem se sed advocato aut adstipulatore paratiorem fore putaret.

[¶21] 19. Was I, forsooth, anxious to lean on the counsel or protection of that piece of senseless cattle, of that bit of rotten flesh? was I likely to seek for any support or ornament for myself from that contemptible carcass? I suppose I was looking for a consul, I say, but one (that I was not likely to find in that hog) who might uphold the cause of the republic with his dignity and wisdom, not one who like a stock or like a trunk of a tree, if he only stood upright, might maintain the title of consul. For as the whole of my cause was the cause of a consul and of the senate, I had need of the assistance of the consul and senate; one of which sources of aid was even turned by you when you were consuls to my injury; the other was entirely suspended, if not abolished in the republic. But if you ask what were my intentions; I would not have yielded, and the republic should still have retained me in its embrace, if I had only had to contend with contemptible gladiators, and with you, and with your colleague. For the cause of that most admirable man Quintus Metellus was a wholly different one; a citizen whom, in my opinion, I consider equal in glory to the immortal gods;

> Latin: 19. istius pecudis ac putidae carnis consilio scilicet aut praesidio niti volebam, ab hoc eiecto cadavere quicquam mihi aut opis aut ornamenti expetebam. ego tum quaerebam, consulem inquam, non illum quidem quem in hoc maiali invenire non possem, qui tantam rei publicae causam gravitate et consilio suo tueretur, sed qui tamquam truncus atque stipes, si stetisset modo, posset sustinere tamen titulum consulatus. Cum enim esset omnis causa illa mea consularis et senatoria, auxilio mihi opus fuerat et consulis et senatus; quorum alterum etiam ad perniciem meam erat a vobis consulibus conversum, alterum rei publicae penitus ereptum. tamen, si consilium exquiris meum, neque ego cessissem et me ipsa suo complexu patria tenuisset, si mihi cum illo bustuario gladiatore et tecum et cum conlega tuo decertandum fuisset.

[¶22] 20. who thought it best for him to leave the city in order to avoid a contest with Caius Marius—a most gallant man, a consul, yes, a man who had been consul six times—and with his invincible legions. For what contest like this lay before me? Should I have had to fight with Caius Marius or with any one like him, or rather with one consul who was a sort of barbarian Epicurus, and with the other, a mere hut-boy of Catiline's? I was not, in truth, afraid of your supercilious looks, or of the cymbals and castanets of your colleague; nor was I so nervous, after having guided the vessel of the state amid the most terrible storms and billows of the republic, and placed it safe in harbour, as to fear the little cloud which gathered on your brow, or the polluted breath of your colleague. They were other gales which I beheld threatening; they were other storms which my mind foresaw;

> Latin: 20. Alia enim causa praestantissimi viri, Q. Metelli, fuit, quem ego civem meo iudicio cum deorum immortalium laude coniungo; qui C. illi Mario, fortissimo viro et consuli et sextum consuli et eius invictis legionibus, ne armis confligeret, cedendum esse duxit. mihi igitur certamen esset huius modi? cum C. Mario scilicet aut cum aliquo pari, an cum altero barbato Epicuro, cum altero Catilinae lanternario consule? hercule ego supercilium tuum neque conlegae tui cymbala fugi neque tam fui timidus ut, qui in maximis turbinibus ac fluctibus rei publicae navem gubernassem salvamque in portu conlocassem, frontis tuae nubeculam aut conlegae tui contaminatum spiritum pertimescerem.

[¶23] 21. and I did not so much yield to those other storms which were impending, but rather exposed myself alone to them to secure the safety of all the rest of the citizens. Accordingly at that time, on my departure, all those wicked swords fell from the hands of those most cruel men; when you, O senseless and insane man,—while all good men shut themselves up and hid themselves out of grief, and lamented for the temples, and bewailed the very houses of the city,—you, I say, embraced that fatal monster, the progeny of nefarious licentiousness, and civil bloodshed, and the foulness or every sort of wickedness, and the impunity of every crime; and in the same temple, at that very same time and in the very same place, you forbade the senate to express its opinion not only on my destruction, but on that of their country.

> Latin: 21. Alios ego vidi ventos, alias prospexi animo procellas, aliis impendentibus tempestatibus non cessi sed bis unum me pro omnium salute obtuli. discessu tum meo omnes illi nefarii gladii de manibus crudelissimis exciderunt, cum quidem tu, o vaecors et amens! cum omnes boni abditi inclusique maererent, templa gemerent, tecta ipsa urbis lugerent, complexus es funestum illud animal ex nefariis stupris, ex civili cruore, ex omni scelerum importunitate conceptum atque eodem in templo, eodem loci vestigio et temporis arbitria non mei solum sed patriae funeris abstulisti.

[¶24] 22. Why need I speak of the banquets of those days, why of your joy and self-congratulation, why of your most intemperate drinking-bouts with your crew of infamous companions? Who in those days ever saw you sober, who ever saw you doing any thing which was worthy of a freeman; who, in short, ever saw you in public at all? while the house of your colleague was resounding with song and cymbals, and while he himself was dancing naked at banquets; in which even then, when he was going round in the circle of the dance, he seemed to have no fear of any revolution of fortune. But this man, who is not quite so refined in gluttony nor so musical, lay stupefied amid the reeking orgies of his Greek crew. The banquets celebrated by that fellow at the time of all this misery of the republic, resembled what is reported of the feast of the Centaurs and Lapithae; and it is quite impossible to tell in what sort of debauchery he indulged to the most disgraceful excess. Will you dare to make mention of your consulship? will you dare to say that you ever were consul at Rome?

> Latin: 22. ego illorum dierum epulas, quid laetitiam et gratulationem tuam, quid cum tuis sordidissimis gregibus intemperantissimas perpotationes praedicem? te illis diebus sobrium, quis agentem aliquid quod esset libero dignum, quis denique in publico vidit? cum conlegae tui domus cantu et cymbalis personaret, cumque ipse nudus in convivio saltaret; in quo cum illum saltatorium versaret orbem, ne tum quidem fortunae rotam pertimescebat. autem non tam concinnus helluo nec tam musicus iacebat in suorum Graecorum foetore et caeno; quod quidem istius in illis rei publicae luctibus quasi aliquod Lapitharum aut Centaurorum convivium ferebatur; in quo nemo potest dicere utrum iste plus biberit an vomuerit an effuderit.

[¶25] 23. What? do you think that the consulship consists in being attended by lictors and in wearing the toga praetexta? ornaments which, while you were consul you wished to belong also to Sextus Clodius. And do you, O you dog of Clodius's, think that the consulship consists wholly in the possession of these insignia? A consul ought to be a consul in courage, in wisdom, in good faith, in dignity, in vigilance, in prudence, in performing all the labours and duties of the consulship, and above all things—as, indeed, the name of the magistracy itself points out—in consulting the interests of the republic. Am I to think that man a consul who thought that the senate had no existence in the republic? and am I to account him a consul, who takes no heed of that great council without which, even in the time of the kingly power, the kings could not have any existence at Rome? But I pass over all those points. When a levy of slaves was being held in the forum; when arms were in open daylight being carried to the temple of Castor; and when that temple, having its doors thrown down and its steps torn up, was occupied by the remnant of the conspirators, and by the man who had once been a pretended accuser of Catiline, but who now was seeking to be his avenger; when Roman knights were being banished; when virtuous men were being driven with stones out of the forum; when the senate were prevented not only from assisting the republic, but even from mourning over it; when that citizen, whom this venerable body, with the assent of Italy and all the nations of the earth, had styled the saviour of his country, was being driven away without a trial, in a manner contrary to all law, contrary to all precedent, by slaves and an armed mob;—I will not say, with your assistance (though I might say that with truth), but certainly without your lifting up your voice against it;—will any one believe that there were any consuls at all at to me at that time?

> Latin: 23. etiam mentionem facies consulatus aut te fuisse Romae consulem dicere audebis?? tu in lictoribus et in toga praetexta esse consulatum putas? quae ornamenta etiam in Sex. Clodio te consule esse voluisti, his tu, Clodiane canis, insignibus consulatum declarari putas? consulem esse oportet, consilio, fide, gravitate, vigilantia, cura, toto denique munere consulatus omni officio tuendo, maximeque, id quod vis nominis ipsa praescribit, rei publicae consulendo. ego consulem esse putem qui senatum esse in re publica non putavit, et sine eo consilio consulem numerem, sine quo Romae ne reges quidem esse potuerunt? illa iam omitto. Cum servorum dilectus haberetur in foro, arma in templum Castoris luce et palam comportarentur, id autem templum sublato aditu revolsis gradibus a coniuratorum reliquiis atque a Catilinae praevaricatore quondam, tum ultore, armis teneretur, cum equites Romani relegarentur, viri boni lapidibus e foro pellerentur, senatui non solum iuvare rem publicam sed ne lugere quidem liceret, cum civis is quem hic ordo adsentiente Italia cunctisque gentibus conservatorem patriae iudicarat nullo iudicio, nulla lege, nullo more servitio atque armis pelleretur, non dicam auxilio vestro, quod vere licet dicere, sed certe silentio: tum Romae fuisse consules quisquam existimabit?

## 2. Sections 24–49

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/cicero-in-pisonem/2/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/cicero-in-pisonem/2/#p-N

[¶0] 24. Who, then, are robbers, if you were consuls? Who can be called pirates, or enemies, or traitors, or tyrants? Great, O senators, is the name, great is the honour, great is the dignity, great is the majesty of a consul. Your narrow mind, O Piso, your paltry soul, your spiritless heart, is unable to comprehend that greatness. The weakness of your intellect cannot grasp it; your inexperience of prosperity cannot support so dignified, so solemn a character. Seplasia, in truth, as I heard said, the moment that it beheld you, refused to acknowledge you as the consul of Campania. It had heard of the Decii, of the Magii, it knew something also about Jubellius Taurea; and if those men did not display all the moderation which is usually found in our consuls, at all events there was a pomp about them, there was a magnificence, there was a gait and behaviour worthy of Seplasia and of Capua.

> Latin: 24. latrones igitur, si quidem vos consules, qui praedones, qui hostes, qui proditores, qui tyranni nominabuntur? Magnum nomen est, magna species, magna dignitas, magna maiestas consulis; non capiunt angustiae pectoris tui, non recipit levitas ista, non egestas animi; non infirmitas ingeni sustinet, non insolentia rerum secundarum tantam personam, tam gravem, tam severam. Seplasia me hercule, ut dici audiebam, te ut primum aspexit, Campanum consulem repudiavit. Decios Magios et de illo Vibellio aliquid acceperat; in quibus si moderatio illa quae in nostris solet esse consulibus non fuit, at fuit pompa, fuit species, fuit incessus saltem Seplasia dignus et Capua.

[¶1] 25. Indeed, if those perfumers had beheld your colleague Gabinius as their duumviri; they would sooner have acknowledged him. He at least had carefully-dressed hair, and perfumed fringes of curls, and anointed and carefully-rouged cheeks, worthy of Capua,—of Capua, I mean, such as it used to be. For the Capua that now is is full of most excellent characters, of most gallant men, of most virtuous citizens, and of men most friendly and devoted to me; not one of whom ever saw you at Capua clad in your praetexta without groaning out of regret for me, by whose counsels they recollected that the whole republic and that city in particular had been preserved. They had paid me the honour of a gilded statue; they had adopted me as their especial patron; they considered that it was owing to me that they were still enjoying their lives, their fortunes, and their children; they had defended me when I was present against your piratical attacks, by their decrees, and by their deputations; and when I was absent they recalled me, when that great man Cnaeus Pompeius submitted the motion to them, and tore the weapons of your wickedness out of the body or the republic.

> Latin: 25. Gabinium denique si vidissent duumvirum vestri illi unguentarii, citius agnovissent. illi compti capilli et madentes cincinnorum fimbriae et fluentes purpurissataeque buccae, dignae Capua, sed illa vetere; nam haec quidem quae nunc est splendidissimorum hominum, fortissimorum virorum, optimorum civium mihique amicissimorum multitudine redundat. Capuae te praetextatum nemo aspexit qui non gemeret desiderio mei, cuius consilio cum universam rem publicam, tum illam ipsam urbem meminerant esse servatam. inaurata statua donarant, me patronum unum asciverant, a me se habere vitam, fortunas, liberos arbitrabantur, me et praesentem contra latrocinium tuum suis decretis legatisque defenderant et absentem principe Cn. Pompeio referente et de corpore rei publicae tuorum scelerum tela revellente revocarant.

[¶2] 26. Were you consul when my house on the Palatine Hill was set on fire, not by any accident but by men applying fire brands to it at your inspiration? Was there ever before any conflagration of any great extent or importance in the city without the consul coming to bring assistance? But you at that very time were sitting in the house of your mother in law, close to my house; you had opened her house to receive the plunder of mine; you were sitting there not for the purpose of extinguishing, but as the originator of the fire and you—I may almost say—were yourself as consul supplying burning firebrands to the Furies of Clodius's party. And all the rest of the year did any one consider you as consul? Did any one obey you? Did any one ever rise up to show respect to you when you came into the senate house? Did any one ever think it worth his while to answer you when you asked his opinion? In short, is that year at all to be counted in the republic when the senate was mute, the courts of justice silent,—when all good men were mourning, when the violence of your troops of banditti was raging over the whole city, and when not one citizen only had departed from the city, but when the city itself had yielded to the wickedness and frenzy of you and Gabinius?

> Latin: 26. tum eras consul cum in Palatio mea domus ardebat non casu aliquo sed ignibus iniectis instigante te? in hac urbe maius umquam incendium fuit cui non consul subvenerit? tu illo ipso tempore apud socrum tuam prope a meis aedibus, cuius domum ad meam domum exhauriendam patefeceras, sedebas non exstinctor sed auctor incendi et ardentis faces furiis Clodianis paene ipse consul ministrabas. vero reliquo tempore consulem te quisquam duxit, quisquam tibi paruit, quisquam in curiam venienti adsurrexit, quisquam consulenti respondendum putavit? est ille annus denique in re publica, cum obmutuisset senatus, iudicia conticuissent, maererent boni, vis latrocini vestri tota urbe volitaret neque civis unus ex civitate sed ipsa civitas tuo et Gabini sceleri furorique cessisset?

[¶3] 27. But even then, O you impious Caesoninus, you did not emerge from the miserable vileness of your nature, when after a time the reawakened virtue of a most illustrious man quickly demanded the restoration of one who was his own true friend, and a citizen who had deserved well of the state, and of the ancient customs and principles of the republic. Nor would that great man permit the pestilence of your wickedness to remain any longer in that republic, which he himself had embellished and whose power he had extended. But when that Gabinius, such as he is, a man who is surpassed in infamy by you alone, recollected himself,—with difficulty, indeed, but still he did recollect himself,—he contended against his dear friend Clodius, at first only feignedly, then very unwillingly, but at last with genuine ardour and vehemence, in support of Cnaeus Pompeius. And in that spectacle the impartiality of the Roman people was very admirable. It looked on like a master of gladiators, and whichever of them perished, it thought would he an equal advantage to itself; but if both fell, that indeed would be a most heavenly blessing.

> Latin: 27. ne tum quidem emersisti, lutulente Caesonine, ex miserrimis naturae tuae sordibus, cum experrecta tandem virtus clarissimi viri celeriter et verum amicum et optime meritum civem et suum pristinum morem requisivit; neque est ille vir passus in ea re publica quam ipse decorarat atque auxerat diutius vestrorum scelerum pestem morari, cum tamen ille, qualiscumque est, qui est ab uno te improbitate victus, Gabinius, conlegit ipse se vix, sed conlegit tamen, et contra suum Clodium primum simulate, deinde non libenter, ad extremum tamen pro Cn. Pompeio vere vehementerque pugnavit. quidem in spectaculo mira populi Romani aequitas erat. Vter eorum perisset, tamquam lanista in eius modi pari lucrum fieri putabat, immortalem vero quaestum, si uterque cecidisset.

[¶4] 28. But still your colleague did do something. He upheld the austerity of a most admirable man. He was himself a wicked man; he was a mere ruffian and gladiator himself; but still he was fighting against one who was as wicked and as much a gladiator and ruffian as himself. You, forsooth, religious and conscientious man that you were, were reluctant to violate the treaty which you had ratified in my blood concerning the bargain made about the provinces. For that fellow, the adulterer with his own sister, had made this bargain for himself, that if he gave you a province, if he gave you an army, if he gave you money torn from the very life-blood of the republic, you were to give yourself up to him as his partner and assistant in all his crimes. Therefore, in that tumult the fasces were broken; you yourself were wounded; every day there were weapons, stonings, and banishments. At last a man was arrested close to the senate, armed with a sword, who it was notorious had been placed there for the purpose of assassinating Pompeius.

> Latin: 28. ille tamen agebat aliquid; tuebatur auctoritatem summi viri. ipse sceleratus, erat gladiator, cum scelerato tamen et cum pari gladiatore pugnabat. scilicet homo religiosus et sanctus foedus quod meo sanguine in pactione provinciarum iceras frangere noluisti. enim sibi ille sororius adulter ut, si tibi provinciam, si exercitum, si pecuniam ereptam ex rei publicae visceribus dedisset, omnium suorum scelerum socium te adiutoremque praeberes. in illo tumultu fracti fasces, ictus ipse, cotidie tela, lapides, fugae, deprehensus denique cum ferro ad senatum is quem ad Cn. Pompeium interimendum conlocatum fuisse constabat.

[¶5] 29. Did any one all that time hear, not only of any act of yours, or of any report of yours to the senate of all these transactions, but of even any word at all uttered by you on the subject or of any complaint of yours? Do you think that you were consul at that time, you, during whose period of authority the man who, by means of the authority of the senate, had saved the republic, and who in Italy had united all parties of all nations by the celebration of three triumphs, made up his mind that he could not appear in public with safety? Were you and your colleague consuls at that time when, if you ever ventured to say one word on any subject or to submit any motion whatever to the senate, the whole body raised an outcry against you, and declared that you should do nothing whatever till you had first made a motion concerning me and my affairs? and when you both, though in fact you were fettered by your treaty with that man, still said that you were anxious to do so, but that were hindered by the law?

> Latin: 29. audivit non modo actionem aliquam aut relationem sed vocem omnino aut querelam tuam? tu te fuisse putas, cuius in imperio, qui rem publicam senatus auctoritate servarat, qui omnis omnium gentium partis tribus triumphis devinxerat, is se in publico, is denique in Italia tuto statuit esse non posse? tum eratis consules cum, quacumque de re verbum facere coeperatis aut referre ad senatum, cunctus ordo reclamabat ostendebatque nihil esse vos acturos, nisi prius de me rettulissetis? cum vos, quamquam foedere obstricti tenebamini, tamen cupere vos diceretis, sed lege impediri.

[¶6] 30. A law which even to private individuals seemed to be no law at all, having been framed by slaves, posted up by violence, carried by piratical fury when the senate was driven away when all virtuous men had been frightened from the forum when the republic had been taken by storm in violation of all laws whatever, and which was drawn up in violation of every precedent; were men who said that they were afraid of that law, consuls? could, I will not say the minds of men, but could any records or annals even style them such? For even if you did not consider that a law, which was contrary to all law, being the proscription by the mere power of a tribune of a citizen who had never been condemned, and the deprivation of his rights and the confiscation of his property, but nevertheless were held fast by the agreement which you had made; who would consider you to have been then, not only consuls, but even free men at all, when your minds were hampered by a bribe, your tongues padlocked by wages? But if, on the other hand, you, being the only people in the state who did so, did consider that a law; can any one think that you were consuls then, or that you are men of consular rank now, you who are ignorant of the laws, and principles, and usages, and rights of that state in which you wish to be accounted some of the chief citizens?

> Latin: 30. lex privatis hominibus esse lex non videbatur, inusta per servos, incisa per vim, imposita per latrocinium, sublato senatu, pulsis e foro bonis omnibus, capta re publica, contra omnis leges nullo scripta more, hanc qui se metuere dicerent, consules non dicam animi hominum, sed fasti ulli ferre possunt? si illam legem non putabatis, quae erat contra omnis leges indemnati civis atque integri capitis bonorumque tribunicia proscriptio, ac tamen obstricti pactione tenebamini, quis vos non modo consules sed liberos fuisse putet, quorum mens fuerit oppressa praemio, lingua astricta mercede? illam vos soli legem putabatis, quisquam vos consules tunc fuisse aut nunc esse consularis putet, qui eius civitatis in qua in principum numero voltis esse non leges, non instituta, non mores, non iura noritis?

[¶7] 31. When you were going in your robes as generals into those—provinces which you had (shall I say bought or stolen?) did any one consider you consuls? Therefore, I imagine, even if men did abstain from escorting you on your departure from the city with a numerous attendance to pay you a compliment and do honour to you, at all events they followed you with their good wishes as consuls, but with curses as enemies or traitors. Did you, O you most horrible and foul monster! dare also to speak of that departure of mine,—that evidence or your wickedness and cruelty,—as if it were a subject for your abuse and insult? And when you did so, then, O conscript fathers, I received an immortal reward of your attachment to, and favourable opinion of me,—when you crushed the frenzy and insolence of that abject and frightened man, not only with a murmur, but with a loud and indignant outcry.

> Latin: 31. , cum proficiscebamini paludati in provincias vel emptas vel ereptas, consules vos quisquam putavit?, credo, si minus frequentia sua vestrum egressum ornando atque celebrando, at ominibus saltem bonis ut consules, non tristissimis ut hostes aut proditores prosequebantur. etiam, immanissimum ac foedissimum monstrum, ausus es meum discessum illum testem sceleris et crudelitatis tuae ⟨in⟩ maledicti et contumeliae loco ponere? quidem tempore cepi, patres conscripti, fructum immortalem vestri in me et amoris et iudici; qui non admurmuratione sed voce et clamore abiecti hominis ac semivivi furorem petulantiamque fregistis.

[¶8] 32. Will you speak of the mourning of the senate,—the regret of the equestrian order,—the universal sadness of Italy,—the silence of the senate-house, which lasted the whole year,—the uninterrupted vacation of the courts of justice and the forum,—and all the other circumstances of that time, as grounds for abuse of me? They were the wounds which my departure inflicted on the republic. And if my departure had been ever so full of calamity, still it would have been deserving of pity rather than of insult; and it would have been considered as connected with my glory rather than with any reproach; and it would have been accounted my misfortune only, but your crime and wickedness. But when,—(perhaps this thing which I am about to say may appear a strange thing to you to hear, but still I will certainly say what I feel to be true,)—when I, O conscript fathers, have had such kindnesses and such honours conferred on me by you, I not only do not consider that a calamity, but, if I could have any feeling whatever unconnected with the interests of the republic, (which is hardly possible,) I should consider it, as far as my private interests were concerned, a fortune greatly to be wished for and desired by me.

> Latin: 32. luctum senatus, tu desiderium equestris ordinis, tu squalorem Italiae, tu curiae taciturnitatem annuam, tu silentium perpetuum iudiciorum ac fori, tu cetera illa in maledicti loco pones quae meus discessus rei publicae volnera inflixit? si calamitosissimus fuisset, tamen misericordia dignior quam contumelia et cum gloria potius esse coniunctus quam cum probro putaretur, atque ille dolor meus dumtaxat, vestrum quidem scelus ac dedecus haberetur. Cum vero—forsitan hoc quod dicturus sum mirabile auditu esse videatur, sed certe id dicam quod sentio—cum tantis a vobis, patres conscripti, beneficiis adfectus sim tantisque honoribus, non modo illam calamitatem esse non duco sed, si quid mihi potest a re publica esse seiunctum, quod vix potest, privatim ad meum nomen augendum, optandam duco mihi fuisse illam expetendamque fortunam.

[¶9] 33. And, if I may compare that day which was most joyful to you with that one which was most sorrowful to me, which do you think most desirable to a virtuous and wise man,—to depart from his country in such a manner that all his fellow-citizens pray for his safety, for his preservation, and for his return, which happened to me; or, (which happened to you when you left the city,) to depart in such a way that every one should curse him, should pray for harm to him, and should wish that that road might be his only one? I call the gods to witness, that if I were so hated by all mortals,—especially if I were so justly and deservedly hated,—I should think any banishment whatever preferable to any province that could be given to me. But to proceed. If that most disturbed period, when I was forced to depart from the city, is superior to the time of your greatest triumph, why need I compare our other circumstances, which in your case were all full of disgrace, and in mine of dignity?

> Latin: 33. ut tuum laetissimum diem cum tristissimo meo conferam, utrum tandem bono viro et sapienti optabilius putas sic exire e patria ut omnes sui cives salutem, incolumitatem, reditum precentur, quod mihi accidit, an, quod tibi proficiscenti evenit, ut omnes exsecrarentur, male precarentur, unam tibi illam viam et perpetuam esse vellent? me dius fidius in tanto omnium mortalium odio, iusto praesertim et debito, quaevis fuga quam ulla provincia esset optatior. perge porro. si illud meum turbulentissimum tempus tuo tranquillissimo praestat, quid conferam reliqua quae in te dedecoris plena fuerunt, in me dignitatis?

[¶10] 34. On the first day of January,—that first day of hope which dawned on the republic after my setting and eclipse,—the senate, in a very full house, amid a crowd gathered together from all Italy, on the motion of a most illustrious man, Publius Lentulus, with one voice and one consent pronounced my recall. The same senate recommended me to all foreign nations, and to all our own magistrates and lieutenants, by its authority and by letters under the hand of the consuls, not (as you, you Insubrian, have dared to say) an exile from my country, but (as the senate itself styled me at the very time) a citizen who had been the saviour of the republic. The senate thought it right to implore, by the voice and letters of the consul, the assistance of all the citizens in all Italy, who were desirous of securing the safety of the republic to assist also in promoting the safety of me, a single individual. For the sake of the preservation of my life and rights, the whole of Italy assembled at Rome at one time, as if in obedience to a signal which had been given.

> Latin: 34. Kalendis Ianuariis, qui dies post obitum occasumque nostrum rei publicae primus inluxit, frequentissimus senatus, concursu Italiae, referente clarissimo ac fortissimo viro, P. Lentulo, consentiente atque una voce revocavit. idem senatus exteris nationibus, me legatis magistratibusque nostris auctoritate sua consularibusque litteris non, ut tu Insuber dicere ausus es, orbatum patria sed, ut senatus illo ipso tempore appellavit, civem servatoremque rei publicae commendavit. meam unius hominis salutem senatus auxilium omnium civium cuncta ex Italia qui rem publicam salvam esse vellent consulis voce et litteris implorandum putavit. capitis conservandi causa Romam uno tempore quasi signo dato Italia tota convenit. mea salute P. Lentuli, praestantissimi viri atque optimi consulis, Cn. Pompei, clarissimi atque invictissimi civis, ceterorumque principum civitatis celeberrimae et gratissimae contiones fuerunt.

[¶11] 35. Concerning my safety most magnificent and admirable speeches were made by Publius Lentulus a most excellent man and a most admirable consul by Cnaeus Pompeius, that most illustrious and invincible citizen, and by the other leading men of the city, and concerning me the senate passed a resolution, at the instigation and on the especial motion of Cnaeus Pompeius, that if any one hindered my return in any manner, he should be considered as an enemy of the state, and the authoritative opinion of the senate concerning me was declared in such language that no triumph was ever decreed to any one in a more complimentary or more honourable manner than that in which my safety and restoration to my country was provided for. When all the magistrates had concurred in the law respecting me, with the exception of one praetor from whom it was not reasonable to ask it as he was the brother of my great enemy, and with the exception also of two tribunes of the people, who had been bought like slaves, then Publius Lentulus the consul passed a law concerning me in the comitia centuriata, acting with the consent of his colleague, Quintus Metellus, whom the same republic, which had alienated us from one another in his tribuneship, reconciled to me again in his consulship, in consequence of the virtue of one most excellent and most sensible man.

> Latin: 35. me senatus ita decrevit Cn. Pompeio auctore et eius sententiae principe ut, si quis impedisset reditum meum, in hostium numero putaretur, eisque verbis ea de me senatus auctoritas declarata est ut nemini sit triumphus honorificentius quam mihi salus restitutioque perscripta. me cum omnes magistratus promulgassent praeter unum praetorem, a quo non fuit postulandum, fratrem inimici mei, praeterque duos de lapide emptos tribunos, legem comitiis centuriatis tulit P. Lentulus consul de conlegae Q. Metelli sententia, quem mecum eadem res publica quae in tribunatu eius diiunxerat in consulatu virtute optimi ac iustissimi viri sapientiaque coniunxit.

[¶12] 36. And why need I tell you how that law was received? I hear from you yourselves that no pretext was admitted in the case of any one whatever as sufficiently reasonable to excuse him from being present; that at no comitia that ever were held was there either a more numerous or a more respectable number of men assembled; and this I can certainly see for myself,—what the public records prove,—that you were the movers of the vote, that you were the distributors and keepers of the voting tablets,—and that you did of your own accord for the sake of ensuring my safety, though no one requested you to do so, what, when the honours of your own relations are at stake, you avoid doing under the plea either of your age, or of your rank.

> Latin: 36. lex quem ad modum accepta sit quid me attinet dicere? vobis audio nemini civi ullam quo minus adesset satis iustam excusationem esse visam; nullis comitiis umquam neque multitudinem hominum tantam neque splendidiorem fuisse; hoc certe video, quod indicant tabulae publicae, vos rogatores, vos diribitores, vos custodes fuisse tabellarum, et, quod in honoribus vestrorum propinquorum non facitis vel aetatis excusatione vel honoris, id in salute mea nullo rogante vos vestra sponte fecistis.

[¶13] 37. Compare, now, my fine Epicurus, brought forward out of his sty, not out of his school,—compare, if you dare, your absence with mine. You obtained a consular province with no other limitations than those which the law of your covetousness, not the law of your son-in-law, had agreed upon. For by that most just and admirable law of Caesar free nations were really and truly free; but by that law which no one except you and your colleague considered a law at all, all Achaia, and Thessaly, and Athens,—in short the whole of Greece, was made over to you. You had an army, not of that strength which the senate or people of Rome had assigned to you, but such as your own lust had prompted you to enlist. You had entirely drained the treasury.

> Latin: 37. nunc, Epicure noster ex hara producte non ex schola, confer, si audes, absentiam tuam cum mea. provinciam consularem finibus eis quos lex cupiditatis tuae, non quos lex generi tui pepigerat. lege Caesaris iustissima atque optima populi liberi plane et vere erant liberi, lege autem ea quam nemo legem praeter te et conlegam tuum putavit omnis erat tibi Achaia, Thessalia, Athenae, cuncta Graecia addicta; habebas exercitum tantum quantum tibi non senatus aut populus Romanus dederat, sed quantum tua libido conscripserat; aerarium exhauseras.

[¶14] 38. Well, what exploits did you perform in this command, with this army, and in this consular province? I ask, O conscript fathers, what exploits he performed. A man who, the moment he arrived—(I am not yet speaking of his acts of rapine, I am not yet speaking of the sums of money which he extorted, or seized, or levied, nor of his slaughter of our allies, nor of his murders of his own friends, nor of his perfidy, nor of his inhumanity, nor of his wicked actions: presently, if you choose to hear me, I will argue with him as with a thief, as with a robber of temples, as with an assassin; but for the present I am only going to compare my own fortune when stripped of everything, with that of that great commander when at the height of prosperity.) Who ever had any province with a fine army without sending some letters recounting his achievements, to the senate? But who ever had so important a province as that, with so splendid an army? who ever had Macedonia of all provinces—a land which has on its borders so many tribes of barbarians that the commanders in Macedonia have always had only just those boundaries of their province which were also the boundaries of their swords and javelins,—without sending such letters? Letters! why, not only several men who have had only praetorian authority have triumphed, but there is not one single instance of any man who had exercised consular authority in that province returning in health and vigour, without celebrating a triumph for his achievements performed in that command. It is quite a new thing; this which I am going to mention is newer still. This vulture of that province—(hear it, O ye gods) has been styled Imperator!

> Latin: 38. res gessisti imperio, exercitu, provincia consulari? res gesserit, quaero! ut venit, statim—nondum commemoro rapinas, non exactas pecunias, non captas, non imperatas, non neces sociorum, non caedis hospitum, non perfidiam, non immanitatem, non scelera praedico; mox, si videbitur, ut cum fure, ut cum sacrilego, ut cum sicario disputabo; nunc meam spoliatam fortunam conferam cum florente fortuna imperatoris. umquam provinciam cum exercitu obtinuit qui nullas ad senatum litteras miserit? tantam vero provinciam cum tanto exercitu, Macedoniam praesertim, quam tantae barbarorum gentes attingunt ut semper Macedonicis imperatoribus idem fines provinciae fuerint qui gladiorum atque pilorum; ex qua aliquot praetorio imperio, consulari quidem nemo rediit, qui incolumis fuerit, quin triumpharit! hoc novum; multo illud magis. est hic volturius illius provinciae, si dis placet, imperator.

[¶15] 39. And did you not even then, my great Paullus, dare to send expresses to Rome crowned with laurel? Yes, says he, I sent them. Did you? Who ever read them? who ever demanded to have them read? For it makes no difference, as far as my argument is concerned, whether you, being overwhelmed by the consciousness of your wicked actions, never dared to write any letters to that body which you had treated with contempt, which you had ill-treated, which you had sought to destroy, or whether your friends concealed your letters, and by their silence expressed their condemnation of your rashness and audacity. And I do not know whether I should not prefer that you should appear so utterly destitute of all shame as to have sent the letters, and that your friends should appear to have had more modesty and more sense than yourself, rather than that you should seem to have had some little modesty, and that your conduct should not have been condemned by the judgment of your friends.

> Latin: 39. tum quidem, Paule noster, tabellas Romam cum laurea mittere audebas? “,” inquit. umquam recitavit, quis ut recitarentur postulavit? enim mea iam refert, utrum tu conscientia oppressus scelerum tuorum nihil umquam ausus sis scribere ad eum ordinem quem despexeras, quem adflixeras, quem deleveras, an amici tui tabellas abdiderint idemque silentio suo temeritatem atque audaciam tuam condemnarint; atque haud scio an malim te videri nullo pudore fuisse in litteris mittendis, at amicos tuos plus habuisse et pudoris et consili, quam aut te videri pudentiorem fuisse quam soles, aut tuum factum non esse condemnatum iudicio amicorum.

[¶16] 40. But even if you had not shut the senate-house against yourself for ever by your nefarious insults to this order, still, what exploit was ever performed or achieved by you in that province, concerning which it would have been becoming for you to have written to the senate in the war of congratulation? Was it the way in which Macedonia was harassed? or the shameful loss of the towns? or the manner in which the allies were plundered? or the devastation of the lands? or the fortifying of Thessalonica? or the occupation of our military road? or the destruction of our army by sword and famine, and cold and pestilence? But you who did not write any account of anything to the senate, as in the city you were discovered to be more worthless than Gabinius, so in your province you turned out somewhat more inactive than even he.

> Latin: 40. si non tuis nefariis in hunc ordinem contumeliis in perpetuum tibi curiam praeclusisses, quid tandem erat actum aut gestum in tua provincia de quo ad senatum cum gratulatione aliqua scribi abs te oporteret? vexatio Macedoniae, an oppidorum turpis amissio, an sociorum direptio, an agrorum depopulatio, an munitio Thessalonicae, an obsessio militaris viae, an exercitus nostri interitus ferro, fame, frigore, pestilentia? vero qui ad senatum nihil scripseris, ut in urbe nequior inventus es quam Gabinius, sic in provincia paulo tamen quam ille demissior.

[¶17] 41. For that gulf of all things—that glutton, born for his own belly, not for glory or renown,—when he had deprived the Roman knights in his province; when be had deprived the farmers of the revenue, men united to us by mutual goodwill and in dignity;—when he had deprived, I say, all of them of their fortunes, many of them of their franchises and of their lives; when with that mighty army he had done nothing except plunder the cities, lay waste the lands, and drain the private houses of his province, dared (for what will he not dare?) to send letters at last to the senate to demand a supplication! O ye immortal gods! Do you, do you,—you two whirlpools and rocks which endanger the republic—do you seek to disparage my fortune? to extol your own? when concerning me in my absence such resolutions of the senate were passed, such speeches were delivered, such agitation pervaded all the municipal towns and colonies, such votes were passed by all the farmers of the revenue, by all the different guilds, by all ranks and classes of the citizens, as I should not only never have dared to hope for, but as I could not possibly hare dreamt of; and while you, on the other hand, have met with the everlasting brand of the deepest infamy.

> Latin: 41. ille gurges atque helluo natus abdomini suo non laudi et gloriae, cum equites Romanos in provincia, cum publicanos nobiscum et voluntate et dignitate coniunctos omnis fortunis, multos fama vitaque privasset, cum egisset aliud nihil illo exercitu nisi ut urbis depopularetur, agros vastaret, exhauriret domos, ausus est—quid enim ille non audeat?—a senatu supplicationem per litteras postulare. O di immortales! tune etiam atque adeo vos, geminae voragines scopulique rei publicae, vos meam fortunam deprimitis, vestram extollitis, cum de me ea senatus consulta absente facta sint, eae contiones habitae, is motus fuerit municipiorum et coloniarum omnium, ea decreta publicanorum, ea conlegiorum, ea denique generum ordinumque omnium quae non modo ego optare numquam auderem sed cogitare non possem, vos autem sempiternas foedissimae turpitudinis notas subieritis?

[¶18] 42. Should I, if I were to see you and Gabinius both nailed to a cross, feel greater rejoicing at the laceration of your bodies, than I do at the tearing to pieces of your reputations? Surely not: for there is no punishment imaginable, which, owing to some accident or other, even virtuous and brave men may not have inflicted on them. And this is what even your Greek followers of pleasure say; men whom I wish you would listen to in the spirit in which they deserve to be listened to; you would never have immersed yourself in such a vortex of wickedness. But you listen to them in brothels, in scenes of adultery, in reveling and drunkenness. But they themselves those very men who define evil by pain, and good by pleasure say that the wise man even if he were shut up in Phalaris's bull and roasted by fire being placed under him would still say that it was pleasant and would not allow himself to be moved the least from his assertion. They insist upon it that the power of virtue is so great that it is absolutely impossible for a virtuous man ever to be otherwise than happy.

> Latin: 42. ego, si te et Gabinium cruci suffixos viderem, maiore adficerer laetitia ex corporis vestri laceratione quam adficior ex famae? est supplicium putandum quo adfici casu aliquo etiam boni viri fortesque possunt. hoc quidem etiam isti tui dicunt voluptarii Graeci: quos utinam ita audires ut erant audiendi; numquam te in tot flagitia ingurgitasses. audis in praesepibus, audis in stupris, audis in cibo et vino. dicunt isti ipsi qui mala dolore, bona voluptate definiunt, sapientem, etiam si in Phalaridis tauro inclusus succensis ignibus torreatur, dicturum tamen suave illud esse seque ne tantulum quidem commoveri. virtutis vim esse voluerunt ut non posset esse umquam vir bonus non beatus.

[¶19] 43. What then is punishment? what is chastisement? A thing which in my opinion, can happen to no one unless he is guilty; it is dishonesty undertaken; it is a mind hampered and overwhelmed by conscience; it is the hatred of all virtuous men; it is the deserved brand of the senate; it is the loss of dignity. Nor does that illustrious man Marcus Regulus whom the Carthaginians, having cut off his eyelids and bound him in a machine, killed by keeping him awake, appear to have had punishment inflicted on him. Nor does Caius Marius whom Italy, which he had saved, saw sunk in the marshes of Minturnae, and whom Africa, which he had subdued, beheld banished and shipwrecked. For those were the wounds of fortune, not of guilt, but punishment is the penalty of crime. Nor should I, if I were now to pray for evils to fall upon you as I often have done (and indeed the immortal gods have heard those prayers of mine,) pray for disease, or death, or tortures to befall you. That is an execution worthy of Thyestes, the work of a poet who wishes to affect the minds of the common people, not of philosophers, that you,
Wrecked on some vast inhospitable shore
Clinging to rugged rocks, with bleeding limbs
Might trembling hang, and all the rocks defile
With gore and black pollution.

> Latin: 43. est igitur poena, quod supplicium? mea sententia quod accidere nemini potest nisi nocenti, suscepta fraus, impedita et oppressa mens, bonorum odium, nota inusta senatus, amissio dignitatis. mihi ille M. Regulus quem Carthaginienses resectis palpebris inligatum in machina vigilando necaverunt supplicio videtur adfectus, nec C. Marius quem Italia servata ab illo demersum in Minturnensium paludibus, Africa devicta ab eodem expulsum et naufragum vidit. Fortunae enim ista tela sunt non culpae; supplicium autem est poena peccati. vero ego, si umquam vobis mala precarer, quod saepe feci, in quo di immortales meas preces audiverunt, morbum aut mortem aut cruciatum precarer. Thyestea est ista exsecratio poetae volgi animos non sapientium moventis, ut tu “naufragio expulsus uspiam
saxis fixus asperis, evisceratus
latere penderes,” ut ait ille, saxa spargens tabo, sanie et sanguine atro.

[¶20] 44. I do not mean to say that I should be much vexed if such a thing were to happen but still it would be an accident such as all men are liable to. Marcus Marcellus, who was three times consul, a man of the most excessive virtue and piety and military glory was lost at sea; through his virtue he still lives in glory and renown. A death such as that is to be attributed to fortune, not to be considered a punishment. What then is punishment? What is chastisement? What is stoning? What is the cross? It is punishment that there should be two generals in the provinces of the Roman people, that they should have armies, that they should be styled “Imperator,” that one of them should be so completely cowed by the consciousness of his crimes and of his atrocities, as not to dare to send any letter of any sort to the senate from that province which was of all others the richest in triumphs. From that province that man, so distinguished for every sort of worth and dignity, Lucius Torquatus, was returning, when on account of his mighty deeds he was, on my motion, styled “Imperator” by the senate. In that province it was that those well-deserved triumphs of Cnaeus Dolabella, and Caius Curio, and Marcus Lucullus were earned within the last few years; and from that while you were the commander, no messenger whatever was ever sent to the senate. From the other consul certainly letters have been brought and read, and motions respecting him have been submitted to the senate.

> Latin: 44. ferrem omnino moleste, si ita accidisset; sed id tamen esset humanum. M. Marcellus, qui ter consul fuit, summa virtute, pietate, gloria militari, periit in mari; qui tamen ob virtutem in gloria et laude vivit. fortuna quadam est illa mors non in poena putanda. est igitur poena, quod supplicium, quae saxa, quae cruces? duos duces in provinciis populi Romani, habere exercitus, appellari imperatores; horum alterum sic fuisse infrenatum conscientia scelerum et fraudum suarum ut ex ea provincia quae fuerit ex omnibus una maxime triumphalis nullam sit ad senatum litteram mittere ausus. qua provincia modo vir omni dignitate ornatissimus, L. Torquatus, magnis rebus gestis me referente ab senatu imperator est appellatus, unde his paucis annis Cn. Dolabellae, C. Curionis, M. Luculli iustissimos triumphos vidimus, ex ea te imperatore nuntius ad senatum adlatus est nullus; ab altero adlatae litterae, recitatae, relatum ad senatum.

[¶21] 45. O ye immortal gods, could I have desired that my chief enemy should be branded with such ignominy as no one ever was before? that that senate, which has now got into such a regular habit and practice of kindness as to confer on those who have managed the affairs of the republic successfully, honours hitherto unexampled, both in the number of days which they last and in the language in which they are decreed, should refuse belief to the letters of this man alone, when reporting his success, and should refuse him what he demanded in them? I feed on these facts, I am delighted, I am in ecstasies at them. I am delighted that this order thinks of you both as it does of its bitterest enemies; that the Roman knights, the other orders and the whole state detests you both; that there is no good man, no, and no citizen who remembers that he is a citizen, who does not shun you both with his eyes, reject you with his ears, scorn you in his mind, and shudder at the bare recollection of your consulship.

> Latin: 45. immortales! idne ego optarem ut inimicus meus ea qua nemo umquam ignominia notaretur, ut senatus is qui in eam iam benignitatis consuetudinem venit ut eos qui bene rem publicam gesserint novis honoribus adficiat et numero dierum et genere verborum, huius unius litteris nuntiantibus non crederet, postulantibus denegaret? ego rebus pascor, his delector, his perfruor, quod de vobis hic ordo opinatur non secus ac de acerrimis hostibus, quod vos equites Romani, quod ceteri ordines, quod cuncta civitas odit, quod nemo bonus, nemo denique civis est, qui modo se civem esse meminerit, qui vos non oculis fugiat, auribus respuat, animo aspernetur, recordatione denique ipsa consulatus vestri perhorrescat.

[¶22] 46. This is what I have always wished respecting you, this is what I have desired, this is what I have prayed for. Even more has happened than I could have desired. For, in truth, I never formed a wish that you should lose your armies. That has happened quite beyond my wish, though I cannot say that it has grieved me; but it never could have occurred to me to wish you the insanity and frenzy into which you have both fallen. Still it might well have been wished. But I had forgotten that that was the most invariable of all the punishments which were appointed by the immortal gods for wicked and impious men. For think not, O conscript fathers, that, as you see on the stage, wicked men are, by the instigation of the gods, terrified by the blazing torches of the Furies. It is his own dishonesty, his own crime, his own wickedness, his own audacity that deprives each individual of sense and discernment. These are the Furies, these the flames, these the firebrands which distress the impious.

> Latin: 46. ego semper de vobis expetivi, haec optavi, haec precatus sum; plura etiam acciderunt quam vellem; nam ut amitteretis exercitum, numquam me hercule optavi. etiam accidit praeter optatum meum, sed valde ex voluntate. enim numquam venerat in mentem furorem et insaniam optare vobis in quam incidistis. fuit optandum. tamen fugerat deorum immortalium has esse in impios et consceleratos poenas certissimas. enim ita putare, patres conscripti, ut in scaena videtis, homines consceleratos impulsu deorum terreri furialibus taedis ardentibus; sua quemque fraus, suum facinus, suum scelus, sua audacia de sanitate ac mente deturbat; hae sunt impiorum furiae, hae flammae, hae faces.

[¶23] 47. Must I not think you senseless and frantic, and out of your mind,—must I not think you madder than that Orestes in the tragedy, or than Athamas, when you dared first of all to act so, (for this is the head and front of your offending,) and again, a short time afterwards, when Torquatus, a most influential and conscientious man, pressed you openly to confess that you left Macedonia, that province into which you had carried so vast an army, without one single soldier? I say nothing of your having lost the greater part of your army; that might be owing to your ill fortune. But what reason can you allege for having disbanded any part of your army? What power had you to do so? What law, what resolution of the senate authorized such a step? Where was your right to do so? What precedent was there for it? What is this but madness, but ignorance of men, ignorance of the laws, and of the senate, and of the constitution? To wound one's body is a trifle; to wound one's life, one's character, one's safety, like this, is a more serious business.

> Latin: 47. te non vaecordem, non furiosum, non mente captum, non tragico illo aut Athamante dementiorem putem, qui sis ausus primum facere—nam id est caput—deinde paulo ante Torquato, sanctissimo et gravissimo viro, premente confiteri te provinciam Macedoniam, in quam tantum exercitum transportasses, sine ullo milite reliquisse? Mitto de amissa maxima parte exercitus; sit hoc infelicitatis tuae; dimittendi vero exercitus quam potes adferre causam? quam potestatem habuisti, quam legem, quod senatus consultum, quod ius, quod exemplum? est aliud furere? non cognoscere homines, non cognoscere leges, non senatum, non civitatem? corpus suum leve est; maior haec est vitae, famae, salutis suae volneratio.

[¶24] 48. If you had discharged your household, a matter which would have concerned no one but yourself, your friends would have thought that you required to be put under restraint; could you have disbanded the protection of the republic, the garrison of the province, without the orders of the Roman senate or people, if you had been in your sound senses? Now for your colleague; he, having dissipated an enormous booty which he had acquired by draining the fortunes of the farmers of the revenue, and the lands and cities of the allies, after his insatiable lusts had swallowed some portion of that booty, his new and unexampled luxury had devoured part, when part had gone in purchases in those districts where he plundered everything, and part had been spent in effecting exchanges of property for the purpose of heaping hill upon hill in this Tusculan estate of his; after he had become needy, and after that intolerable mass that he was heaping up had been interrupted and had come to a standstill,—be, I say, then sold himself, and his fasces, and the army of the Roman people, and the oracular consent and prohibition of the immortal gods, and the answer of the priests, and the authority of the senate, and the commands of the people, and the name and dignity of the Roman empire, to the king of Egypt.

> Latin: 48. familiam tuam dimisisses, quod ad neminem nisi ad ipsum te pertineret, amici te constringendum putarent; praesidium tu rei publicae, custodiam provinciae iniussu populi Romani senatusque dimisisses, si tuae mentis compos fuisses? tibi alter effusa iam maxima praeda quam ex fortunis publicanorum, quam ex agris urbibusque sociorum exhauserat, cum partim eius praedae profundae libidines devorassent, partim nova quaedam et inaudita luxuries, partim etiam in illis locis ubi omnia diripuit emptiones ad hunc Tusculani montem exstruendum; cum iam egeret, cum illa eius intermissa intolerabilis aedificatio constitisset, se ipsum, fascis suos, exercitum populi Romani, numen interdictumque deorum immortalium, responsa sacerdotum, auctoritatem senatus, iussa populi Romani, nomen ac dignitatem imperi regi Aegyptio vendidit.

[¶25] 49. Though he had the boundaries of his province as extensive as he had desired, as he had wished, as he had procured them to be, by purchasing them at the price of my existence as a citizen, still he could not contain himself within them; he led his army out of Syria. How could he lead it out of his province? He let himself out as a hired comrade to the king of Alexandria. What can be more shameful than this? He came into Egypt. He engaged the men of Alexandria in battle. When was it that either this senatorial body or the Roman people undertook this war? He took Alexandria. What else are we to expect from his frenzy, but that he should send letters to the senate concerning such mighty exploits?

> Latin: 49. Cum finis provinciae tantos haberet quantos voluerat, quantos optarat, quantos pretio mei capitis periculoque emerat, eis se tenere non potuit; exercitum eduxit ex Syria. licuit extra provinciam? se mercennarium comitem regi Alexandrino. hoc turpius? Aegyptum venit, signa contulit cum Alexandrinis. hoc bellum aut hic ordo aut populus susceperat? Alexandream. aliud exspectamus a furore eius nisi ut ad senatum tantis de rebus gestis litteras mittat?

## 3. Sections 50–75

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/cicero-in-pisonem/3/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/cicero-in-pisonem/3/#p-N

[¶0] 50. If he had been in his senses, if he had not been already paying to his country and to the immortal gods that penalty which is the most terrible of all, by his frenzy and insanity, would he have cared, (I say nothing of his leaving his province, of his taking his army out of it, of his declaring and carrying on war of his own accord, of his entering a foreign kingdom without any command from the people or from the senate to do so; conduct which many of the ancient laws, and especially the Cornelian law concerning treason, and the Julian law concerning extortion, forbid in the plainest manner; but I say nothing of all this,)—would he, I say, if he had not been most outrageously mad, have dared to take to himself the province which Publius Lentulus, a man most sincerely attached to this order, had abdicated from scruples of religion, though he had obtained it both by the authority of the senate and by lot when even if there were no religious obstacles in his case, still the usage of our ancestors, and all precedents, and the severest penalties of the laws forbade it?

> Latin: 50. si mentis esset suae, nisi poenas patriae disque immortalibus eas quae gravissimae sunt furore atque insania penderet, ausus esset—mitto exire de provincia, educere exercitum, bellum sua sponte gerere, in regnum iniussu populi Romani aut senatus accedere, quae cum plurimae leges veteres, tum lex Cornelia maiestatis, Iulia de pecuniis repetundis planissime vetat? haec omitto; ille si non acerrime fureret, auderet, quam provinciam P. Lentulus, amicissimus huic ordini, cum et auctoritate senatus et sorte haberet, interposita religione sine ulla dubitatione deposuisset, eam sibi adsciscere, cum, etiam si religio non impediret, mos maiorum tamen et exempla et gravissimae legum poenae vetarent?

[¶1] 51. But since we have begun to institute a comparison between our fortunes we will say no more of the return of Gabinius, whom, though he has cut the ground from under his own feet, I still wish to see to admire the impudence of the man. Let us, if you please, compare your return with mine. Mine was such that the whole way from Brundusium to Rome I was beholding one unbroken line of the inhabitants of all Italy. For there was no district nor municipal town, nor prefecture, nor colony, from which a deputation was not sent by the public authority to congratulate me. Why should I speak of my arrival in the different towns? why of the crowds of men who thronged out to meet me? why of the way in which the fathers of families with their wives and children gathered together to greet me? why of those days which were celebrated by every one on my arrival and return, as if they had been solemn festival days of the immortal gods?

> Latin: 51. quoniam fortunarum contentionem facere coepimus, de reditu Gabini omittamus, quem, etsi sibi ipse praecidit, ego tamen os ut videam hominis exspecto; tuum, si placet, reditum cum meo conferamus. meus quidem is fuit ut a Brundisio usque Romam agmen perpetuum totius Italiae viderit. enim regio ulla fuit nec municipium neque praefectura aut colonia ex qua non ad me publice venerint gratulatum. dicam adventus meos, quid effusiones hominum ex oppidis, quid concursus ex agris patrum familias cum coniugibus ac liberis, quid eos dies qui quasi deorum immortalium festi atque sollemnes apud omnis sunt adventu meo redituque celebrati?

[¶2] 52. That one day was to me like an immortality, on which I returned to my country, and saw the senate which had come forth to meet me, and the whole Roman people; while Rome itself, torn, if I may so say, from its foundations, seemed to come forward to embrace her saviour. Rome, which received me in such a manner that not only all men and all women of all classes, and ages, and orders of society, of every fortune and every rank, but that even the walls and houses of the city and temples appeared to be exulting. And on the succeeding days, the pontiffs, the consuls, the conscript fathers, placed me in that very house from which you had driven me, which you had pillaged, and which you had burnt and voted that my house was to be built up for me again at the public expense, an honour which they had never paid to any one before.

> Latin: 52. ille dies mihi quidem immortalitatis instar fuit quo in patriam redii, cum senatum egressum vidi populumque Romanum universum, cum mihi ipsa Roma prope convolsa sedibus suis ad complectendum conservatorem suum progredi visa est. me ita accepit ut non modo omnium generum, aetatum, ordinum omnes viri ac mulieres omnis fortunae ac loci, sed etiam moenia ipsa viderentur et tecta urbis ac templa laetari. consequentibus diebus in ea ipsa domo qua tu me expuleras, quam expilaras, quam incenderas, pontifices, consules, patres conscripti conlocaverunt mihique, quod ante me nemini, pecunia publica aedificandam domum censuerunt.

[¶3] 53. Now you know the circumstances of my return. Now compare yours with it, since, having lost your army, you have brought nothing safe back with you except that pristine countenance and impudence of yours. And who is there who knows where you first came to with those laurelled lictors of yours? What meanders, what turnings and windings did you thread, while seeking for the most solitary possible places? What municipal town saw you? What friend invited you? What entertainer beheld you? Did you not make night take the place of day? solitude of society? a cookshop of the town? so that you did not appear to be returning from Macedonia as a noble commander, but to be being brought back as a disgraced corpse? and even Rome itself was polluted by your arrival. Alas for the disgrace of the family, I will not say the Calpurnian family, but the Calventian; nor will I say the disgrace of this city, but of the municipality of Placentia; nor of your father's family, but of your breeches-wearing kinsmen. How, I say, did you come? Who, I will not say of these men, or of the rest of the citizens, but who, even of your own lieutenants, came to meet you?

> Latin: 53. reditum meum. nunc vicissim tuum, quando quidem amisso exercitu nihil incolume domum praeter os illud tuum pristinum rettulisti. primum qua veneris cum laureatis tuis lictoribus quis scit? tu Maeandros, dum omnis solitudines persequeris, quae deverticula flexionesque quaesisti? quod te municipium vidit, quis amicus invitavit, quis hospes aspexit? tibi nox erat pro die, solitudo pro frequentia, caupona pro oppido, non ut redire ex Macedonia nobilis imperator sed ut mortuus infamis referri videretur? Romam vero ipsam, o familiae non dicam Calpurniae sed Calventiae, neque huius urbis sed Placentini municipi, neque paterni generis sed bracatae cognationis dedecus! quem ad modum ingressus es? quis tibi non dicam horum aut civium ceterorum sed tuorum legatorum obviam venit?

[¶4] 54. For Lucius Flaccus, a man most undeserving of the disgrace of being your lieutenant, and more worthy of those counsels by which he was united with me in my consulship for the salvation of the republic, was with me when some one came and said that you had been seen wandering not far from the gate with your house. I know, too, that one of the very bravest of men, a man skillful both in war and in civil business, an intimate friend of mine, Quintus Marcius, one of those lieutenants whose “Imperator” you had been called in battle, when you were in reality a long way off, was at the time of your arrival sitting quietly in his own house.

> Latin: 54. enim L. Flaccus, vir tua legatione indignissimus atque eis consiliis quibus mecum in consulatu meo coniunctus fuit ad conservandam rem publicam dignior, mecum fuit tum cum te quidam non longe a porta cum lictoribus errantem visum esse narraret; scio item virum fortem in primis, belli ac rei militaris peritum, familiarem meum, Q. Marcium, quorum tu legatorum opera in proelio imperator appellatus eras cum longe afuisses, adventu isto tuo domi fuisse otiosum.

[¶5] 55. But why do I count up all the people who did not go forth to meet you? when I say that scarcely any one did, not even of that most officious body of candidates for office, though they had been repeatedly warned and requested to do so, both on that very day, and many days before. Short gowns were ready for the lictors at the gate, which they took, and laid aside their military cloaks, and so formed a new crowd to escort their chief. And in this manner he, the Macedonian “Imperator,” returning home from his mighty and from his important province, after three years government, entered the city in such a guise that no obscure peddler ever returned home in a more solitary condition. And yet this is the very point on which (so ready is he to defend himself) he finds fault with me. When I said that he had entered the city by the Caelimontane gate, that ever ready man wanted to lay me a wager that he had entered by the Esquiline gate; as if I was bound to know, or as if any one of you had heard, or as if it had anything on earth to do with the matter, by what gate you had entered, as long as it was not by the triumphal one; for that is the gate which had previously always been open for the Macedonian proconsuls. You are the first person ever discovered who, having been invested with consular authority there, did not triumph on your return from Macedonia.

> Latin: 55. quid ego enumero qui tibi obviam non venerint? quin dico venisse paene neminem ne de officiosissima quidem natione candidatorum, cum volgo essent et illo ipso et multis ante diebus admoniti et rogati? lictoribus ad portam praesto fuerunt; quibus illi acceptis sagula reiecerunt, catervam imperatori suo novam praebuerunt. iste a tanto exercitu tantae provinciae triennio post Macedonicus imperator in urbem se intulit ut nullius negotiatoris obscurissimi reditus umquam fuerit desertior. quo me tamen, qui esset paratus ad se defendendum, reprehendit. Cum ego eum Caelimontana introisse dixissem, sponsione me ni Esquilina introisset homo promptus lacessivit; quasi vero id aut ego scire debuerim aut vestrum quisquam audierit aut ad rem pertineat qua tu porta introieris, modo ne triumphali, quae porta Macedonicis semper ⟨pro⟩ consulibus ante te patuit; tu inventus es qui consulari imperio praeditus ex Macedonia non triumphares.

[¶6] 56. But you have heard, O conscript fathers, the voice of the philosopher. He has said that he never had any desire for a triumph. O you wickedness! you pest! you disgrace! when you were extinguishing the senate, and putting up for sale the authority of this order—when you were knocking down your own consulship to a tribune of the people, and overturning the republic, and betraying my privileges as a citizen, and my safety, for the mere bribe of a province,—if you then had no desire for a triumph, what is it that you will allege in your defence that you did desire so ardently? For I have often seen men, who appeared to me and to others to be over desirous of a province, veil and excuse their desire under the pretence of eagerness for a triumph. This is what Decimus Silanus the consul lately said before this order,—this is what my colleague, too, stated. Nor is it possible for any one to desire an army, and openly to demand one, without putting forward as his pretext for such a demand his desire of a triumph.

> Latin: 56. audistis, patres conscripti, philosophi vocem. se triumphi cupidum umquam fuisse. O scelus, o pestis, o labes! Cum exstinguebas senatum, vendebas auctoritatem huius ordinis, addicebas tribuno pl. consulatum tuum, rem publicam evertebas, prodebas caput et salutem meam una mercede provinciae, si triumphum non cupiebas, cuius tandem te rei cupiditate arsisse defendes? enim vidi qui et mihi et ceteris cupidiores provinciae viderentur triumphi nomine tegere atque celare cupiditatem suam. D. Silanus consul in hoc ordine, hoc meus etiam conlega dicebat. enim quisquam potest exercitum cupere aperteque petere, ut non praetexat cupiditatem triumphi.

[¶7] 57. But if the senate and people of Rome had compelled you (when you did not desire it, or though you even endeavoured to avoid it) to undertake a war and to command an army still it would have been the act of a narrow and mean spirit to despise the honour and dignity of a well earned triumph. For as it is a proof of a trifling character to catch at such praise as is derived from empty reports, and to hunt after all the shadows of even false glory; so it is surely a sign of a very worthless disposition, of one that hates all light and all respectability, to reject true glory, which is the most honourable reward of genuine virtue. But when the senate was so far from requesting and compelling you to take this charge upon you, that it was only unwillingly and under compulsion that it allowed you to do so; when, not only did the Roman people betray no eagerness that you should do so, but not one single freeman voted for it; when that province was your wages for having, I will not say overturned, but utterly destroyed the constitution, and when this covenant ran through all your wicked actions, that if you handed over the whole republic to nefarious robbers, as a reward for that conduct Macedonia should be handed over to you with whatever boundaries you chose; when you were draining the treasury, when you were depriving Italy of all its youth, when you were passing over the vast sea in the winter season,—if you did at that time despise a triumph, what was it, O you most insane of pirates, that urged you on, unless it was some blind desire for booty and rapine?

> Latin: 57. si te senatus populusque Romanus aut non appetentem aut etiam recusantem bellum suscipere, exercitum ducere coegisset, tamen erat angusti animi atque demissi iusti triumphi honorem dignitatemque contemnere. ut levitatis est inanem aucupari rumorem et omnis umbras etiam falsae gloriae consectari, sic est animi lucem splendoremque fugientis iustam gloriam, qui est fructus verae virtutis honestissimus, repudiare. Cum vero non modo non postulante atque cogente sed invito atque oppresso senatu, non modo nullo populi Romani studio sed nullo ferente suffragium libero, provincia tibi ista manupretium fuerit eversae per te et perditae civitatis, cumque omnium tuorum scelerum haec pactio exstiterit ut, si tu totam rem publicam nefariis latronibus tradidisses, Macedonia tibi ob eam rem quibus tu velles finibus traderetur: cum exhauriebas aerarium, cum orbabas Italiam iuventute, cum mare vastissimum hieme transibas, si triumphum contemnebas, quae te, praedo amentissime, nisi praedae ac rapinarum cupiditas tam caeca rapiebat?

[¶8] 58. It is now in the power of Cnaeus Pompeius to act on your plan. For he has made a mistake. He had never had a taste for that philosophy of yours. The foolish man has already triumphed three times. Crassus, I am ashamed of you. What was the reason that, after a most formidable war had been brought to a termination by you, you showed such eagerness to get that laurel crown decreed to you by the senate? Publius Servilius, Quintus Metellus, Caius Curio, Lucius Africanus, why did not you all become pupils of this learned, of this most wise man, before falling into such blunders as you did? Even my friend Caius Pomptinus has it not now in his power to retrace his steps, for he is prevented by the religious ceremonies which have been begun. O you foolish Camilli, and Curii, and Fabricii, and Calatini, and Scipios, and Marcelli, and Maximi! O you insane Paullus, you blockhead Marius! Oh how stupid, too, were the fathers of both these consuls; for they, too, celebrated triumphs.

> Latin: 58. est integrum Cn. Pompeio consilio iam uti tuo; erravit enim; non gustarat istam tuam philosophiam; ter iam homo stultus triumphavit. Crasse, pudet me tui. est quod confecto per te formidolosissimo bello coronam illam lauream tibi tanto opere decerni volueris a senatu? P. Servili, Q. Metelle, C. Curio, L. Afrani, cur hunc non audistis tam doctum hominem, tam eruditum, prius quam in istum errorem induceremini? C. ipsi Pomptino, necessario meo, iam non est integrum; religionibus enim susceptis impeditur. O stultos Camillos, Curios, Fabricios, Calatinos, Scipiones, Marcellos,! o amentem Paulum, rusticum Marium, nullius consili patres horum amborum consulum, qui triumpharint!

[¶9] 59. But since we cannot change what is already past, why does this mannikin, this Epicurus of mud and clay, delay to instill these admirable precepts of wisdom into that most illustrious and consummate general, his son-in-law? That man, believe me, is influenced by glory. He burns, he is on fire with the desire of a well-deserved and great triumph. He has not learnt the same lessons that you have. Send him a book. Or rather, at once, if you yourself can contrive to meet him in person, think over what language you can find to check and extinguish that violent passion of his, and as a man of moderation and consistency you will have great influence over one who is quite giddy with his desire for glory; as a learned man, you will easily convince an ignorant man like him, as his father-in-law no doubt you will prevail with your son-in-law. For you will say to him like a man formed to persuade as you are neat, accomplished, a polished specimen of the schools. “How is it possible, O Caesar, for these supplications, which have now been decreed so often and for so many days, to delight you so excessively? Men are greatly mistaken about these things,—things which the gods disregard as that godlike Epicurus of ours has said, nor are they in the habit of being propitious to, or angry with, any one on account of such trifles.” I am afraid you will hardly get him to agree with you when you argue in this manner. For he will see that they both are, and have been, angry with you.

> Latin: 59. quoniam praeterita mutare non possumus, quid cessat hic homullus, ex argilla et luto fictus Epicurus, dare haec praeclara praecepta sapientiae clarissimo et summo imperatori genero suo? ille vir, mihi crede, gloria; flagrat, ardet cupiditate iusti et magni triumphi. didicit eadem ista quae tu. Mitte ad eum libellum et, si iam ipse coram congredi poteris, meditare quibus verbis incensam illius cupiditatem comprimas atque restinguas. apud hominem volitantem gloriae cupiditate vir moderatus et constans, apud indoctum eruditus, apud generum socer. enim, ut es homo factus ad persuadendum, concinnus, perfectus, politus ex schola: “quid est, Caesar, quod te supplicationes totiens iam decretae tot dierum tanto opere delectent? in quibus homines errore ducuntur, quas di neglegunt; qui, ut noster divinus ille dixit Epicurus, neque propitii cuiquam esse solent neque irati.” facies fidem scilicet, cum haec disputabis; tibi enim et esse et fuisse videbit iratos.

[¶10] 60. Turn to another school, and then speak thus of a triumph: “What is the meaning of that chariot? What is the use of those generals bound in front of the chariot? and of the images of towns? and of the gold? and of the silver? and of the lieutenants on horseback? and of the tribunes? What avail all the shouts of the soldiery? and all that procession? To hunt for applause, to be carried through the city, to wish to he gazed upon, are all mere trifles, believe me, things to please children. There is nothing in all those things which you can grasp as solid, nothing which you can refer to as causing pleasure to the body.

> Latin: 60. te ad alteram scholam; disseres de triumpho: “quid tandem habet iste currus, quid vincti ante currum duces, quid simulacra oppidorum, quid aurum, quid argentum, quid legati in equis et tribuni, quid clamor militum, quid tota illa pompa? sunt ista, mihi crede, delectamenta paene puerorum, captare plausus, vehi per urbem, conspici velle. ex rebus nihil est quod solidum tenere, nihil quod referre ad voluptatem corporis possis.”

[¶11] 61. You see me who have returned from the same province on returning from which Titus Flamininus, and Lucius Paullus, and Quintus Metellus, and Titus Didius, and multitudes of others, inflamed with empty desires, have celebrated triumphs; you see me, I say, returning in such a spirit, that I trampled my Macedonian laurels under foot at the Esquiline gate,—that I arrived with fifteen ill-dressed men thirsting at the Coelimontane gate, where my freedman had a couple of days before hired me a house suited to so great a general; and if that house had not been to be let, I should have pitched myself a tent in the Campus Martius. Meanwhile, O Caesar, in consequence of my neglect of all that triumphal pomp, my money remains safe at home, and will remain there. Immediately on my return, I gave in my accounts to the treasury, as your law required; but in no other particular have I complied with your law. And if you examine those accounts, you will see that no one has ever gained greater advantage from his learning than I have. For they are drawn up so learnedly and so cleverly, that the clerk who made the return to the treasury, when he had written them all out, scratching his head with his left hand, murmured out, ‘Indeed, the accounts are wonderfully clear, the money oi)/xetai.’” If you make him this speech, I have no doubt that you will be able to recall him to his senses even when actually stepping into his chariot.

> Latin: 61. “tu me vides qui, ex qua provincia T. Flamininus, L. Paulus, Q. Metellus, T. Didius, innumerabiles alii levitate et cupiditate commoti triumpharunt, ex ea sic redii ut ad portam Esquilinam Macedonicam lauream conculcarim, ipse cum hominibus quindecim male vestitis ad portam Caelimontanam sitiens pervenerim; quo in loco mihi libertus praeclaro imperatori domum ex hac die biduo ante conduxerat; quae vacua si non fuisset, in campo Martio mihi tabernaculum conlocassem. interea mihi, Caesar, neglectis ferculis triumphalibus domi manet et manebit. ad aerarium continuo, sicut tua lex iubebat, detuli, neque alia ulla in re legi tuae parui. rationes si cognoris, intelleges nemini plus quam mihi litteras profuisse. enim sunt perscriptae scite et litterate ut scriba ad aerarium qui eas rettulit perscriptis rationibus secum ipse caput sinistra manu perfricans commurmuratus sit: ratio quidem hercle apparet, argentum οἴχεται.” tu oratione non dubito quin illum iam escendentem in currum revocare possis.

[¶12] 62. O thou darkness, thou filth, thou disgrace! O thou forgetful of your father's family, scarcely mindful of your mother's,—there is actually something so broken-down, so mean, so base, so sordid, even too low to be considered worthy of the Milanese crier, your grandfather. Lucius Crassus, the wisest man of our state, searched almost the whole Alps with javelins to find out some pretext for a triumph where there was no enemy. A man of the highest genius, Caius Cotta, burnt with the same desire, though he could find no regular enemy. Neither of them had a triumph, because his colleague deprived one of that honour, and death prevented the other from enjoying it. A little while ago, you derided Marcus Piso's desire for a triumph, from which you said that you yourself were far removed; for he, even if it was not a very important war which he had conducted, as you say that it was not, still did not think that an honour to be slighted. But you are more learned than Piso, more wise than Cotta. Richer in prudence, and genius, and wisdom than Crassus, you despise those things which those idiots, as you term them, have considered glorious:

> Latin: 62. tenebrae, o lutum, o sordes, o paterni generis oblite, materni vix memor! ita nescio quid istuc fractum, humile, demissum, sordidum, inferius etiam est quam ut Mediolanensi praecone, avo tuo, dignum esse videatur. L. Crassus, homo sapientissimus nostrae civitatis, specillis prope scrutatus est Alpis ut, ubi hostis non erat, ibi triumphi causam aliquam quaereret; eadem cupiditate vir summo ingenio praeditus, C. Cotta, nullo certo hoste flagravit. Eorum neuter triumphavit, quod alteri illum honorem conlega, alteri mors peremit. est abs te paulo ante M. Pisonis cupiditas triumphandi, a qua te longe dixisti abhorrere. etiam si minus magnum bellum gesserat, ut abs te dictum est, tamen istum honorem contemnendum non putavit. eruditior quam Piso, prudentior quam Cotta, abundantior consilio, ingenio, sapientia quam Crassus, ea contemnis quae illi “idiotae,” ut tu appellas, praeclara duxerunt.

[¶13] 63. and if you blame them for having been covetous of glory, though they had conducted wars which were insignificant, or no wars at all; surely, you who have subdued such mighty nations, and performed such great achievements, were not bound to despise the fruit of your labours, the reward of your dangers, the tokens of your valour. And the truth is that you did not despise them, even though you may be wiser than Themista; but you shrank from exposing even your iron countenance to be chastised by the reproaches of the senate. You see now, since I have been so much an enemy to myself as to compare myself to you, that my departure, and my absence, and my return, were all so far superior to yours, that all these circumstances have shed immortal glory on me, and have inflicted everlasting infamy on you.

> Latin: 63. si reprehendis quod cupidi coronae laureae fuerint, cum bella aut parva aut nulla gessissent, tu tantis nationibus subactis, tantis rebus gestis minime fructum laborum tuorum, praemia periculorum, virtutis insignia contemnere debuisti. vero contempsisti, sis licet Themista sapientior, sed os tuum ferreum senatus convicio verberari noluisti. vides—quoniam quidem ita mihimet fui inimicus ut me tecum compararem—et digressum meum et absentiam et reditum ita longe tuo praestitisse ut mihi illa omnia immortalem gloriam dederint, tibi sempiternam turpitudinem inflixerint.

[¶14] 64. To come even to our present daily regular manner of life in this city will you venture to prefer your respectability, your influence, your reputation at home, your energy in the forum, your counsel, your assistance your authority and your opinion as a senator, to that which belongs to us or I would rather say to even the lowest and most desperate of men? Come, the senate hates you, which, indeed, you admit that it does deservedly since you have been the oppressor and destroyer, not only of its dignity and authority but altogether of its existence and its name. The Roman knights cannot bear the sight of you, since one of their order a most excellent and accomplished man Lucius Aelius was banished by you when consul. The Roman people wishes your destruction, to whom, for the purpose of bringing infamy upon them you have attributed those things which you did concerning me by the instrumentality of your band of robbers and slaves. All Italy execrates you whose resolutions and entreaties you have scorned in the most arrogant and haughty manner.

> Latin: 64. etiam in hac cotidiana adsidua urbanaque vita splendorem tuum, gratiam, celebritatem domesticam, operam forensem, consilium, auxilium, auctoritatem, sententiam senatoriam nobis aut, ut verius dicam, cuiquam es infimo ac despicatissimo antelaturus?, senatus odit te—quod eum tu facere iure concedis—adflictorem ac perditorem non modo dignitatis et auctoritatis sed omnino ordinis ac nominis sui; videre equites Romani non possunt, quo ex ordine vir praestantissimus et ornatissimus, L. Aelius, est te consule relegatus; plebs Romana perditum cupit, in cuius tu infamiam ea quae per latrones et per servos de me egeras contulisti; Italia cuncta exsecratur, cuius idem tu superbissime decreta et preces repudiasti.

[¶15] 65. Make experiment of this excessive and universal hatred if you dare. The most carefully prepared and magnificent games within the memory of man are just at hand, games such as not only never have been exhibited, but such that we cannot form a conception how it will he possible for any like them ever to be exhibited for the future. Trust yourself to the people, venture on attending these games. Are you afraid of hisses? Where are all the precepts of your schools? Are you afraid that there will be no acclamations raised in your honour? Surely it does not become a philosopher to regard even such a thing as that. You are afraid that violent hands may be laid on you. For pain is an evil, as you assert. The opinion which men entertain of you, disgrace, infamy, baseness,—these are all empty words, mere trifles. But about this I have no question. He will never dare to come near the games. He will attend the public banquet not out of regard for his dignity, (unless, perchance, for the purpose of supping with the conscript fathers, that is to say, with those men who love him,) but merely for the sake of gratifying his appetite.

> Latin: 65. huius odi tanti ac tam universi periculum, si audes. post hominum memoriam apparatissimi magnificentissimique ludi, quales non modo numquam fuerunt, sed ne quo modo fieri quidem posthac possint possum ullo pacto suspicari. te populo, committe ludis. metuis? Vbi sunt vestrae scholae? acclametur times? id quidem est curare philosophi. tibi ne adferantur? enim est malum, ut tu disputas; existimatio, dedecus, infamia, turpitudo verba atque ineptiae. de hoc non dubito; non audebit accedere ad ludos. publicum non dignitatis causa inibit, nisi forte ut cum P. Clodio, hoc est cum amoribus suis, cenet, sed plane animi sui causa; ludos nobis “idiotis” relinquet.

[¶16] 66. The games he will leave to us idiots, as he calls us. For he is in the habit, in all his arguments, of preferring the pleasures of his stomach to all delight of his eyes and ears. For though you have perhaps considered him previously only dishonest, cruel, and a bit of a thief, and though he now appears to you also voracious, and sordid, and obstinate, and haughty, and deceitful, and perfidious, and imprudent, and audacious, know, too, that there is also nothing which is more licentious, nothing more lustful, nothing more base, nothing more wicked than this man. But do not think that it is mere luxury to which he is devoted.

> Latin: 66. enim in disputationibus suis oculorum et aurium delectationi abdominis voluptates anteferre. quod vobis iste tantum modo improbus, crudelis, olim furunculus, nunc vero etiam rapax, quod sordidus, quod contumax, quod superbus, quod fallax, quod perfidiosus, quod impudens, quod audax esse videatur, nihil scitote esse luxuriosius, nihil libidinosius, nihil protervius, nihil nequius. autem nolite in isto hanc cogitare.

[¶17] 67. For there is a species of luxury, though it is all vicious and unbecoming, which is still not wholly unworthy of a well-born and a free man. But in this man there is nothing refined, nothing elegant nothing exquisite; I will do justice even to an enemy,—there is nothing which is even very extravagant, except his lusts. There is no expense for works of carving. There are immense goblets, and those (in order that he may not appear to despise his countrymen) made at Placentia. His table is piled up, not with shell-fish and other fish, but with heaps of half-spoilt meat. He is waited on by a lot of dirty slaves, many of them old men. His cook is the same; his butler and porter the same. He has no baker at home, no cellar. His bread and his wine came from some huckster and some low wine-vault. His attendants are Greeks, five on a couch, often more. He is used to sit by himself, and to drink as long as there was anything in the cask. When he hears the cock crow, then, thinking that his grandfather has come to life again, he orders the table to be cleared.

> Latin: 67. enim quaedam quae, quamquam omnis est vitiosa atque turpis, ⟨est⟩ tamen ingenuo ac libero dignior. apud hunc lautum, nihil elegans, nihil exquisitum—laudabo inimicum—quin ne magno opere quidem quicquam praeter libidines sumptuosum. nullum, maximi calices, et ei, ne contemnere suos videatur, Placentini; exstructa mensa non conchyliis aut piscibus, sed multa carne subrancida. Servi sordidati ministrant, non nulli etiam senes; idem coquus, idem atriensis; pistor domi nullus, nulla cella; panis et vinum a propola atque de cupa; Graeci stipati quini in lectis, saepe plures; ipse solus; bibitur usque eo dum de dolio ministretur. Vbi galli cantum audivit, avum suum revixisse putat; mensam tolli iubet.

[¶18] 68. Some one will say, “How did you find out all this?” I will not indeed, describe any one in such a manner as to insult him, especially if he be an ingenious and learned man, a class with whom I could not be angry, even if I wished it. There is a certain Greek who lives with him, a man, to tell the truth, (I speak as I have found him,) of good manners, at least as long as he is in other company than Piso's, or while he is by himself. He, when he had met that man, as a young man, though even then he had an expression of countenance as if he were angry with the gods, did not disdain his friendship, as the other sought for it with great eagerness; he gave himself up to intimacy with him, so as indeed to live wholly with him, and I may almost say, never to depart from him. I am speaking not before illiterate men, but, as I imagine, in a company of the most learned and highly accomplished men possible. You have no doubt heard it said, that the Epicurean philosophers measure everything which a man ought to desire by pleasure;—whether that is truly said or not is nothing to us, or if it be anything to us, it certainly has no bearing on the present subject; but still it is a tempting sort of argument for a young man, and one always dangerous to a person of no great intelligence.

> Latin: 68. aliquis: “unde haec tibi nota sunt?” me hercules contumeliae causa describam quemquam, praesertim ingeniosum hominem atque eruditum, cui generi esse ego iratus ne si cupiam quidem possum. quidam Graecus qui cum isto vivit, homo, vere ut dicam—sic enim cognovi—humanus, sed tam diu quam diu aut cum aliis est aut ipse secum. cum istum adulescentem iam tum hac dis irata fronte vidisset, non fastidivit eius amicitiam, cum esset praesertim appetitus; dedit se in consuetudinem sic ut prorsus una viveret nec fere umquam ab eo discederet. apud indoctos sed, ut ego arbitror, in hominum eruditissimorum et humanissimorum coetu loquor. Audistis profecto dici philosophos Epicureos omnis res quae sint homini expetendae voluptate metiri; rectene an secus, nihil ad nos aut, si ad nos, nihil ad hoc tempus; sed tamen lubricum genus orationis adulescenti non acriter intellegenti et saepe praeceps.

[¶19] 69. Therefore, that profligate fellow, the moment that he heard that pleasure was so exceedingly praised by a philosopher, inquired nothing further; he so excited all his own senses which could be affected by pleasure, he neighed so on hearing this statement, that it was plain he thought that he had discovered not a teacher of virtue, but a pander to his lust. The Greek first began to distinguish between those precepts, and to separate them from one another, and to show in what sense they are uttered; but that cripple held the ball, as they say; he was determined to retain what he had got; he would have witnesses, and would have all the papers sealed up; he said, that Epicurus was an eloquent man. And so he is; he says, as I conceive, that he cannot understand the existence of any good when all the pleasures of the body are taken away. Why need I say much on such a topic?

> Latin: 69. admissarius iste, simul atque audivit voluptatem a philosopho tanto opere laudari, nihil expiscatus est, sic suos sensus voluptarios omnis incitavit, sic ad illius hanc orationem adhinnivit, ut non magistrum virtutis sed auctorem libidinis a se illum inventum arbitraretur. Graecus primo distinguere et dividere illa quem ad modum dicerentur; iste “claudus,” quem ad modum aiunt, “pilam”; retinere quod acceperat, testificari, tabellas obsignare velle, Epicurum diserte dicere existimare. autem, opinor, se nullum bonum intellegere posse demptis corporis voluptatibus.

[¶20] 70. The Greek is an easy man, and very complaisant; he had no idea of being too contradictory to an “Imperator” of the Roman people. But the man of whom I am speaking is excessively accomplished, not in philosophy alone, but also in general literature, which they say that the rest of the Epicureans commonly neglect. He composes a poem, so witty, so neat, so elegant, that nothing can be cleverer. In respect of which any one may find fault with him who pleases, provided he does so good-humouredly, treating him not as a profligate, or a rascal, or a desperado, but merely as a Greekling, as a flatterer, as a poet. He comes to, or rather, I should say, he falls in with him, deceived by the same rigid brow of his (being, too, a Greek and a stranger) as this wise and great city was beguiled by. He could not withdraw when he had once become entangled in his intimacy, and he was afraid also of getting the character of being fickle. Being entreated, and invited, and compelled, he wrote so many things which he addressed to him, so many things too about him, that he has described in the most delicate poetry possible all the lusts of the man, all his debaucheries, all his different suppers and revels, and even all his adulteries.

> Latin: 70. multa? Graecus facilis et valde venustus nimis pugnax contra imperatorem populi Romani esse noluit. autem hic de quo loquor non philosophia solum sed etiam ceteris studiis quae fere Epicureos neglegere dicunt perpolitus; poema porro facit ita festivum, ita concinnum, ita elegans, ut nihil fieri possit argutius. quo reprehendat eum licet, si qui volet, modo leviter, non ut improbum, non ut audacem, non ut impurum, sed ut Graeculum, ut adsentatorem, ut poetam. autem seu potius incidit in istum eodem deceptus supercilio Graecus atque advena quo tot sapientes et tanta civitas. se non poterat familiaritate implicatus et simul inconstantiae famam verebatur., invitatus, coactus ita multa ad istum de ipso quoque scripsit ut omnis libidines, omnia stupra, omnia cenarum conviviorumque genera, adulteria denique eius delicatissimis versibus expresserit, in quibus, si qui velit, possit istius tamquam in speculo vitam intueri;

[¶21] 71. And, in that poetry, any one who pleases can see that fellow's way of life reflected as in a mirror. And I would recite you much of it, which many men have read or heard, if I were not afraid that even the kind of speech which I am indulging in at this moment is at variance with the general usages of this place; and at the same time, I do not wish to do any injury to the character of the man who wrote it. For if he had had better fortune in getting a pupil, perhaps he might have turned out a more strict and dignified man himself; but chance has led him into a habit of writing in this manner, very unworthy of a philosopher; if at least philosophy does, as is reported, comprehend the whole system of virtue, and duty, and living properly; and a man who professes it appears to me to have taken on himself a very serious and difficult character.

> Latin: 71. ex quibus multa a multis et lecta et audita recitarem, ni vererer ne hoc ipsum genus orationis quo nunc utor ab huius loci more abhorreret; et simul de ipso qui scripsit detrahi nihil volo. si fuisset in discipulo comparando meliore fortuna, fortasse austerior et gravior esse potuisset; sed eum casus in hanc consuetudinem scribendi induxit philosopho valde indignam, si quidem philosophia, ut fertur, virtutis continet et offici et bene vivendi disciplinam; quam qui profitetur gravissimam sustinere mihi personam videtur.

[¶22] 72. But the same chance has polluted the man, who was quite ignorant of what he was professing when he called himself a philosopher, with the mud and filth of that fellow's most obscene and intemperate flock. And when he had praised the achievements of my consulship, (and I feel that the panegyric of that basest of men was almost a discredit to me myself,) “it was not,” says he, “any odium that you incurred by your conduct then, which injured you, but your verses.” It was too great a punishment that was established, I trust, by you when you were consul, for a poet, whether he were a bad one, or too free an one. For you wrote—
Arms to the gown must yield.
What then?—“This was what excited all that storm against you.” But I imagine that never was written in that panegyric, which, while you were consul was engraved on the sepulchre of the republic—“May it please you, that because Marcus Cicero has written a verse,...” but because he punished the guilty.

> Latin: 72. idem casus illum ignarum quid profiteretur, cum se philosophum esse diceret, istius impurissimae atque intemperantissimae pecudis caeno et sordibus inquinavit. modo cum res gestas consulatus mei conlaudasset, quae quidem conlaudatio hominis turpissimi mihi ipsi erat paene turpis, “non illa tibi,” inquit, “invidia nocuit sed versus tui.” magna poena te consule constituta est sive malo poetae sive libero. “enim: ‘cedant arma togae.’” tum? “res tibi fluctus illos excitavit.” hoc nusquam opinor scriptum fuisse in illo elogio quod te consule in sepulcro rei publicae incisum est: ivbeatis vt, qvod M. Cicero versvm fecerit, sed qvod vindicarit. tamen, quoniam te non Aristarchum, sed Phalarin grammaticum habemus, qui non notam apponas ad malum versum, sed poetam armis persequare, scire cupio quid tandem in isto versu reprehendas: “arma togae.”

[¶23] 73. But since we are to consider you not as Aristarchus, but as a sort of grammatical Phalaris, a man who does not put a mark to a bad verse but who pursues the poet with arms, I wish to know what fault you find with this verse “Arms to the gown must yield.” “You say,” says he “that the greatest generals must yield to the gown.”Why now, you ass, am I to teach you letters? I do not want words for such a purpose but a stick. I did not say this gown, in which I am clothed, nor, when I said “arms,” did I mean the sword and shield of any one particular general. But as the gown is the emblem of peace and tranquillity, and arms on the contrary are a token of disturbance and war, speaking after the manner of poets, I wished this to be understood that war and tumult were to yield to peace and tranquillity.

> Latin: 73. “dicis,” inquit, “togae summum imperatorem esse cessurum.” nunc te, asine, litteras doceam? opus est verbis sed fustibus. dixi hanc togam qua sum amictus, nec arma scutum aut gladium unius imperatoris, sed, quia pacis est insigne et oti toga, contra autem arma tumultus atque belli, poetarum more tum locutus hoc intellegi volui, bellum ac tumultum paci atque otio concessurum.

[¶24] 74. Ask your own intimate friend, that Greek poet; he will recognise and approve of such a figure of speech, and he will not wonder that you have no taste. “But” says he, “I cannot digest that other sentence either:
The soldier's bays shall yield to true renown.” Indeed, I am much obliged to you; for I, too, should stick at that, if you had not released me. For when you, frightened and trembling, threw down at the Esquiline gate the bays which with your own most thievish hands you had stripped off from your blood-stained fasces, you showed that those bays were granted not only to the highest but even to the very paltriest degree of glory. And yet, by this argument you try, O you wretch, to make out that Pompeius was made an enemy to me by that verse; so that, if my verse has injured me, the injury may appear to have been sought for me by that man whom that verse offended.

> Latin: 74. ex familiari tuo Graeco illo poeta; probabit genus ipsum et agnoscet neque te nihil sapere mirabitur. “in altero illo,” inquit, “haeres: ‘concedat laurea laudi.’” me hercule habeo tibi gratiam; haererem enim nisi tu me expedisses., cum tu timidus ac tremens tuis ipse furacissimis manibus detractam e cruentis fascibus lauream ad portam Esquilinam abiecisti, iudicasti non modo amplissimae sed etiam minimae laudi lauream concessisse. ista oratione hoc tamen intellegi, scelerate, vis, Pompeium inimicum mihi isto versu esse factum, ut, si versus mihi nocuerit, ab eo quem is versus offenderit videatur mihi pernicies esse quaesita.

[¶25] 75. I say nothing of the fact, that that verse had no reference to him that it was not at all my object to insult with one single verse the man whom I had repeatedly extolled in many speeches and writings. But grant that he was offended. In the first place, will he not put in the scale against this one verse, the many volumes full of his praises which have proceeded from me? And if he has been moved by such a consideration, could he have countenanced so cruel an injury (I will not say to his own dearest friend, to one who did not deserve such treatment at his hands by the anxiety which he has shown for his glory, nor at the hands of the republic; to a man of consular rank, to a senator, to a citizen, or to a freeman, but) to any human being, on account of a verse? Are you aware what you are saying, to whom and of whom you are saying it? You are implicating most honourable men in your and Gabinius's wickedness, and that without any disguise. For a little while before you say that I was contending against men whom I despised; but that I was leaving those men alone who had more influence, though they were the men with whom I ought to be angry. But as for those men, (for who is there who is not aware whom you mean?) although the case of them all is not the same, still I have no cause of complaint against any of them.

> Latin: 75. nihil istum versum pertinuisse ad illum; non fuisse meum, quem quantum potuissem multis saepe orationibus scriptisque decorassem, hunc uno violare versu. sit offensus primo; nonne compensavit cum uno versiculo tot mea volumina laudum suarum? si esset commotus, ad perniciemne non dicam amicissimi, non ita de sua laude meriti, non ita de re publica, non consularis, non senatoris, non civis, non liberi, in hominis caput ille tam crudelis propter versum fuisset? quid, tu apud quos, tu de quo dicas, intellegis? vis amplissimos viros ad tuum et Gabini scelus, neque id occulte; nam paulo ante dixisti me cum eis confligere quos despicerem, non attingere eos qui plus possent, quibus iratus esse deberem. quidem— quis enim non intellegit quos dicas?—quamquam non est causa una omnium, tamen est omnium mihi probata.

## 4. Sections 76–99

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/cicero-in-pisonem/4/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/cicero-in-pisonem/4/#p-N

[¶0] 76. Cnaeus Pompeius, though many men have fried to oppose his zeal for and attachment to my interests, has always had a regard for me; has always considered me entirely worthy of his intimacy; has always wished me to be not merely safe, but loaded with as much honour and distinction as possible. It is the dishonesty of you and your friends—it is your wickedness, your accusations against me, as if I were cherishing treacherous designs and he were in danger,—accusations most wickedly invented, and at the same time the accusations of those men who, abusing the liberty which their friendship with him gave them, contrived a home for their most infamous statements in his ears, at your instigation, and it is your desires of provinces which caused me to be excluded from his house, and all the men who were anxious for the preservation of his glory, and of the republic, to be cut off from all conversation with and all access to him.

> Latin: 76. Cn. Pompeius multis obsistentibus eius erga me studio atque amori semper dilexit, semper sua coniunctione dignissimum iudicavit, semper non modo incolumem sed etiam amplissimum atque ornatissimum voluit esse. fraudes, vestrum scelus, vestrae criminationes insidiarum mearum, illius periculorum nefarie fictae, simul eorum qui familiaritatis licentia suorum improbissimorum sermonum domicilium in auribus eius impulsu vestro conlocarant, vestrae cupiditates provinciarum effecerunt ut ego excluderer omnesque qui me, qui illius gloriam, qui rem publicam salvam esse cupiebant, sermone atque aditu prohiberentur;

[¶1] 77. And by all these measures it was brought about that he was prevented from abiding by what was notoriously his own opinion, while certain men had (I will not say wholly alienated his affections from me, but had) checked his eagerness to be of assistance to me. Did not Lucius Lentulus, who was at that time praetor, did not Quintus Sanga, did not Lucius Torquatus the father, did not Marcus Lucullus come to you? All of whom, and many others, had come to him, at his house on the Alban Hill, to pray and entreat him not to desert my fortune, which was bound up with the safety of the republic. And he sent those men to you and to your colleague, that you might espouse the public cause, and submit a motion to the senate. He said, that he was unwilling to enter into a contest with a tribune of the people in arms, unless he had a public resolution on his side; but that if the consuls were defending the republic in obedience to a resolution of the senate, then he would take up arms.

> Latin: 77. quibus rebus est perfectum ut illi plane suo stare iudicio non liceret, cum certi homines non studium eius a me alienassent, sed auxilium retardassent. ad te L. Lentulus, qui tum erat praetor, non Q. Sanga, non L. Torquatus pater, non M. Lucullus venit? qui omnes ad eum multique mortales oratum in Albanum obsecratumque venerant ut ne meas fortunas desereret cum rei publicae salute coniunctas. ille ad te et ad tuum conlegam remisit, ut causam publicam susciperetis, ut ad senatum referretis; se contra armatum tribunum pl. sine publico consilio decertare nolle; consulibus ex senatus consulto rem publicam defendentibus se arma sumpturum., infelix, recordaris quid responderis?

[¶2] 78. Do you at all recollect you wretch, what answer you gave? an answer at which all those men, but especially Torquatus above all, were in a fury at the insolence of your reply, when you said that you were not as brave as Torquatus had been in his consulship, or as I had been; that there was no need of arms, nor of a contest; that it was in my power a second time to save the republic by yielding to the storm; that there would be endless bloodshed if I resisted; and at the last he said, that neither he nor his son-in-law nor his colleague would desert the tribune of the people. And now, you enemy and traitor, do you say that I ought to be a more determined enemy to any one else than to you?

> Latin: 78. in quo illi omnes quidem, sed Torquatus praeter ceteros furebat contumacia responsi tui: te non esse tam fortem quam ipse Torquatus in consulatu fuisset aut ego; nihil opus esse armis, nihil contentione; me posse rem publicam iterum servare, si cessissem; infinitam caedem fore, si restitissem. ad extremum neque se neque generum neque conlegam suum tribuno pl. defuturum. tu hostis ac proditor aliis me inimiciorem quam tibi debere esse dicis? C.

[¶3] 79. I know well that Caius Caesar has not always had the same opinion about the republic that I have; but nevertheless, as I have often said of him before, in the hearing of these men, he communicated to me all his intentions during the whole of his consulship, and he wished me to be his partner in all the honours which he shared with his nearest friends; he offered them to me, he invited, he entreated me to accept them. I was not brought over to his party, perhaps out of too great a regard for my character for consistency; I did not wish to be exceedingly beloved by him to whose kindnesses I would never have given up my own opinion. While you were consul, the matter was supposed to be disputed and to have come to a close contest, whether the acts which he had carried the previous year should continue in force, or be rescinded. Why need I say more on this subject? If he thought that there was so much virtue, and vigour, and influence in me, that all the acts which he had performed would be undone if I opposed them, why should I not excuse him if he preferred his own safety to mine?

> Latin: 79. Caesarem non eadem de re publica sensisse quae me scio; sed tamen, quod iam de eo his audientibus saepe dixi, me ille sui totius consulatus eorumque honorum quos cum proximis communicavit socium esse voluit, detulit, invitavit, rogavit. sum propter nimiam fortasse constantiae cupiditatem adductus ad causam; non postulabam ut ei carissimus essem cuius ego ne beneficiis quidem sententiam meam tradidissem. res in certamen te consule putabatur, utrum quae superiore anno ille gessisset manerent, an rescinderentur. loquar plura? tantum ille in me esse uno roboris et virtutis putavit ut quae ipse gesserat conciderent, si ego restitissem, cur ego non ignoscam, si anteposuit suam salutem meae?

[¶4] 80. But I will say nothing of what is past. When Cnaeus Pompeius embraced my cause with all his energies, using all his exertions, and encountering even danger to his life for my sake; when he was going round to the municipal towns to plead my cause, and was imploring the good faith of all Italy; when he was continually sitting by Publius Lentulus, the consul, the author of my safety; when he was always delivering his opinion to the senate, and when in all his harangues he was not only professing himself the defender of my safety, but was descending even to supplications in my behalf; he then took to himself as a companion of and an assistant in his zeal for me, Caius Caesar, whom he knew to have the very greatest influence, and to be no enemy of mine. You see now that I am not an antagonist of yours, not an enemy to you; and that, as for those men whom you hint at, I am bound not only not to be offended with them, but to be a friend to them. One of them, and I will take care always to remember it, has been as great a friend to me as to himself; the other, what I will forget some day or other, certainly was more of a friend to himself than to me.

> Latin: 80. praeterita mitto. ut Cn. Pompeius omnibus studiis suis, laboribus, vitae periculis complexus est, cum municipia pro me adiret, Italiae fidem imploraret, P. Lentulo consuli, auctori salutis meae, frequens adsideret, senatus sententiam praestaret, in contionibus non modo se defensorem salutis meae sed etiam supplicem pro me profiteretur, huius voluntatis eum quem multum posse intellegebat, mihi non inimicum esse cognorat, socium sibi et adiutorem, C. Caesarem, adiunxit. vides me tibi non inimicum sed hostem, illis quos describis non modo non iratum sed etiam amicum esse debere; quorum alter, id quod meminero, semper aeque mihi amicus fuit ac sibi, alter, id quod obliviscar, sibi aliquando amicior quam mihi.

[¶5] 81. But this is a common state of things, that brave men, even after they have fought together in close combat sword in hand, still lay aside the hostility engendered by the contest at the same time that they cease from the battle itself, and lay down their arms. Nor, indeed, was he ever able to hate me, not even when we were most at variance. Virtue, which you do not even know by sight, has this quality, that its appearance and beauty delight brave men even when existing in an enemy. In truth, I will say sincerely, O conscript fathers, what I feel, and what I have often said before in your hearing. If Caius Caesar had never been friendly towards me; if he had always been hostile to me; if he had despised my friendship, and had always shown himself implacable and irreconcilable towards me; still I could not feel otherwise than friendly towards a man who had performed and was daily performing such mighty actions. Now that he is in command, I no longer oppose and array the rampart of the Alps against the ascent and crossing of the Gauls, nor the channel of the Rhine, foaming with its vast whirlpools, to those most savage nations of the Germans.

> Latin: 81. hoc ita fit ut viri fortes, etiam si ferro inter se comminus decertarint, tamen illud contentionis odium simul cum ipsa pugna armisque deponant. me ille odisse potuit umquam, ne tum quidem cum dissidebamus. hoc virtus, quam tu ne de facie quidem nosti, ut viros fortis species eius et pulchritudo etiam in hoste posita delectet. dicam ex animo, patres conscripti, quod sentio, et quod vobis audientibus saepe iam dixi. mihi numquam amicus C. Caesar fuisset, si semper iratus, si semper aspernaretur amicitiam meam seque mihi implacabilem inexpiabilemque praeberet, tamen ei, cum tantas res gessisset gereretque cotidie, non amicus esse non possem; cuius ego imperium, non Alpium vallum contra ascensum transgressionemque Gallorum, non Rheni fossam gurgitibus illis redundantem Germanorum immanissimis gentibus obicio et oppono;

[¶6] 82. Caesar has brought things to such a pass, that even if the mountains were to sink down, and the rivers to be dried up, we should still have Italy fortified, not indeed, by the bulwarks of nature, but by his victory and great exploits. But as he courts me, and loves me, and thinks me worthy of every sort of praise, will you call me off from my enmity against you to a quarrel with him? Will you thus reopen the past wounds of the republic by your enormities? Which, indeed, you, who were well acquainted with the union subsisting between Caesar and me, sought to elude, when you asked me,—with trembling lips, indeed, but still you did ask me,—why I did not proceed against you? Although, as far as I am concerned—
Never shall you from care or pain be freed
By my denial,—
still I must consider how much anxiety and how great a burden I, being exceedingly friendly to him, am imposing on him, while embarrassed with such important affairs of the republic, and with so formidable a war. Nor do I despair, though the youth of the city is indolent, and does not concern itself with the desire of praise and glory as it should, that there will be some men who will not be unwilling to stop this prostrate carcass of its consular spoils, especially in the case of so contemptible, and powerless, and helpless a criminal in the case of you who have behaved in such a manner that you have been afraid of appearing utterly unworthy of kindness, unless you showed yourself, in all respects, like the man by whom you were despatched into that province.

> Latin: 82. perfecit ille ut, si montes resedissent, amnes exaruissent, non naturae praesidio sed victoria sua rebusque gestis Italiam munitam haberemus. cum me expetat, diligat, omni laude dignum putet, tu me a tuis inimicitiis ad simultatem veterem vocabis, sic tuis sceleribus rei publicae praeterita fata refricabis? quidem tu, qui bene nosses coniunctionem meam et Caesaris, eludebas, cum a me trementibus omnino labris, sed tamen cur tibi nomen non deferrem requirebas., quod ad me attinet, numquam istam imminuam curam infitiando tibi, tamen est mihi considerandum quantum illi tantis rei publicae negotiis tantoque bello impedito ego homo amicissimus sollicitudinis atque oneris imponam. despero tamen, quamquam languet iuventus nec perinde atque debebat in laudis et gloriae cupiditate versatur, futuros aliquos qui abiectum hoc cadaver consularibus spoliis nudare non nolint, praesertim tam adflicto, tam inopi, tam infirmo, tam enervato reo, qui te ita gesseris ut timeres ne indignus beneficio videreris, nisi eius a quo missus eras simillimus exstitisses.

[¶7] 83. Do you imagine that we have inquired in only a cursory manner into the disgraces incurred during your command, and into the losses suffered by the province? We have investigated them, not tracking your footsteps merely by scent but marking every wriggle of your body, and every seat where you have left your print. Everything has been noted by us, both the very first crimes which you committed on your arrival, when, having received money from the people of Dyrrachium for the murder of Plato; who was connected with you by ties of hospitality, you destroyed the house of the man to whose murder you had sold yourself: when, after you had accepted from him some musical slave and other presents, he was still alarmed and hesitated a good deal, you assured him with promises, and desired him to come to Thessalonica on the security of your good faith.

> Latin: 83. vero tu parum putas investigatas esse a nobis labis imperi tui stragisque provinciae? quas quidem nos non vestigiis odorantes ingressus tuos sed totis volutationibus corporis et cubilibus persecuti sumus. a nobis sunt et prima illa scelera in adventu cum, accepta pecunia a Dyrrachinis ob necem hospitis tui Platoris, eius ipsius domum devertisti cuius sanguinem addixeras, eumque servis symphoniacis et aliis muneribus acceptis timentem multumque dubitantem confirmasti et Thessalonicam fide tua venire iussisti. ne maiorum quidem more supplicio adfecisti, cum miser ille securibus hospitis sui cervices subicere gestiret, sed ei medico quem tecum tu eduxeras imperasti ut venas hominis incideret;

[¶8] 84. And at last you did not even put him to death according to the custom of our ancestors, when that miserable man was willing to place his neck beneath the axe of his hereditary friend, but you ordered the physician whom you had brought with you to open his veins. After that, you added to the murder of Plator, that of Pleuratus, his companion, whom you put to death by scourging, being a man of extreme old age. After that, you are put to death by the hand of the executioner, Rabocentus, a prince of the Bessic tribe, having sold yourself to do this to king Cottus, for three hundred talents. And you did not murder him alone, but all the other ambassadors also who had come with him, all whose lives you sold to king Cottus. You waged a wicked and cruel war against the Denseletae, a nation which has at all times been obedient to this empire, and which even at the time of that general defection of all the barbarians, preserved Macedonia for us, when Caius Sentius was praetor. And though you might have had that people for your most faithful allies, you preferred to treat them as our most bitter enemies. Thereby you made those who might have been the perpetual defenders of Macedonia, desirous to harass and destroy it. They have thrown our revenues into confusion, they have taken our cities, laid waste our lands, led away cur allies into slavery, carried off whole families, driven off our cattle, and compelled the people of Thessalonica, as they despaired of saving their town, to fortify their citadel.

> Latin: 84. cum quidem tibi etiam accessio fuit ad necem Platoris Pleuratus eius comes, quem necasti verberibus summa senectute confectum. tu Rabocentum, Bessicae gentis principem, cum te trecentis talentis regi Cotyi vendidisses, securi percussisti, cum ille ad te legatus in castra venisset et tibi magna praesidia et auxilia a Bessis peditum equitumque polliceretur, neque eum solum sed etiam ceteros legatos qui simul venerant; quorum omnium capita regi Cotyi vendidisti. Denseletis, quae natio semper oboediens huic imperio etiam in illa omnium barbarorum defectione Macedoniam C. Sentio praetore tutata est, nefarium bellum et crudele intulisti, eisque cum fidelissimis sociis uti posses, hostibus uti acerrimis maluisti. perpetuos defensores Macedoniae vexatores ac praedatores effecisti; vectigalia nostra perturbarunt, urbes ceperunt, vastarunt agros, socios nostros in servitutem abduxerunt, familias abripuerunt, pecus abegerunt, Thessalonicensis, cum ⟨de⟩ oppido desperassent, munire arcem coegerunt.

[¶9] 85. It was by you that the temple of Jupiter Urius, the most ancient and the most venerated of all the temples of the barbarians, was plundered. They are your crimes which the immortal gods have been avenging on our soldiers; for when they were all attacked by one kind of disease, and when no one who had once fallen sick was found to recover, no one had any doubt that it must have been the insults offered to men connected with us by ties of hospitality, and the murder of ambassadors, and the attacking of peaceful and allied tribes with wanton and wicked war, and the plundering of temples, which were the causes of this great destruction. You can recognise in such brief particulars as these the universal nature of your wickedness and cruelty.

> Latin: 85. A te Iovis fanum antiquissimum barbarorum sanctissimumque direptum est. scelera di immortales in nostros milites expiaverunt; qui cum novo genere morbi adfligerentur neque se recreare quisquam posset, qui semel incidisset, dubitabat nemo quin violati hospites, legati necati, pacati atque socii nefario bello lacessiti, fana vexata hanc tantam efficerent vastitatem. ex particula parva scelerum et crudelitatis tuae genus universum.

[¶10] 86. Why need I now detail the whole course of your avarice which is connected with innumerable crimes? I will just mention a few which are most notorious in a lump. Did you not after they had been paid to you from the treasury leave behind you at Rome, to be put out to usury the eighteen millions of sesterces which you had obtained under pretence of its being money for your fit out as governor of a province, but which was in reality the price for which you had sold my life? Did you not when the people of Apollonia had given you two hundred talents at Rome, in order, by your means, to avoid payment of their just debts,—did you not, I say, actually give up Fufidius, a Roman knight, a most accomplished man, to his debtors? Did you not when you had given up your winter quarters to your lieutenant and prefect, utterly destroy those miserable cities? which were not only drained of all their wealth, but were compelled to undergo all the unholy cruelties and excesses of your lusts. What was your method of valuing corn? or the compliment which you claimed? if, indeed, that which is extorted by violence and by fear can be called a compliment. And this conduct of yours was felt nearly equally by all, but most bitterly by the Boeotians, and Byzantines, and by the people of the Chersonesus and Thessalonica. You were the only master, you were the only valuer, you were the only seller of all the corn in the whole province for the space of three years.

> Latin: 86. avaritiae, quae criminibus infinitis implicata est, summam nunc explicem? ea quae maxime nota sunt dicam. sestertium centiens et octogiens, quod quasi vasari nomine in venditione mei capitis ascripseras, ex aerario tibi attributum Romae in quaestu reliquisti?, cum cc talenta tibi Apolloniatae Romae dedissent ne pecunias creditas solverent, ultro Fufidium, equitem Romanum, hominem ornatissimum, creditorem debitoribus suis addixisti?, hiberna cum legato praefectoque tuo tradidisses, evertisti miseras funditus civitates, quae non solum bonis sunt exhaustae sed etiam nefarias libidinum contumelias turpitudinesque subierunt? modus tibi fuit frumenti aestimandi, qui honorarii? si quidem potest vi et metu extortum honorarium nominari. cum peraeque omnes, tum acerbissime Bottiaei, Byzantii, Cherronensus, Thessalonica sensit. Vnus tu dominus, unus aestimator, unus venditor tota in provincia per triennium frumenti omnis fuisti.

[¶11] 87. Why need I bring forward your investigations into capital charges, your agreements with criminals, your most iniquitous condemnation of some, your most profligate acquittal of others? You know well that every circumstance concerning these matters is known to me, and I will leave you to recollect how many crimes of that class and of what great enormity they were. What? have you any recollection of that workshop of arms where, having collected together all the cattle of the whole province, under some pretext connect with the hides, you repeated the whole of the profits which had been made by your family, and by your own father? For you, when you were a pretty big boy, at the time of the Italian war, had seen your house crammed full of the gains made when your father superintended the manufactory of arms. What? do you not recollect that the province was made a source of revenue to your slaves to whom you farm it, by putting a fixed import duty on every single thing which was sold? What? do you forget that centurionships were sold openly?

> Latin: 87. ego rerum capitalium quaestiones, reorum pactiones, redemptiones, acerbissimas damnationes, libidinosissimas liberationes proferam? locum aliquem cum mihi notum esse senseris, tecum ipse licebit quot in eo genere et quanta sint crimina recordere.? illam armorum officinam ecquid recordaris, cum omni totius provinciae pecore compulso pellium nomine omnem quaestum illum domesticum paternumque renovasti? enim grandis iam puer bello Italico repleri quaestu vestram domum, cum pater armis faciendis tuus praefuisset.? vectigalem ⟨populi Romani⟩ provinciam, singulis rebus quaecumque venirent certo portorio imposito, servam tuis publicanis a te factam esse meministi??

[¶12] 88. What? do you deny that rank was dispensed by your slaves? What? do you deny that during all the years pay was furnished to your troops by the cities of the province, the months for which each city was to find the money being openly settled? What? have you forgotten that journey of yours into Pontus and your attempts there? have you forgotten your prostration and abjectness of mind when news was brought to you that Macedonia was made praetorian province, and when you fell down fainting a half dead, not only because your successor was appointed, but also that Gabinius's was not? … Did you not send away a quaestor of aedilitian rank? Was not every one of the most virtuous of your lieutenants insulted by you? Did you not refuse to receive the military tribunes? Was not Marcus Baebius, a brave man, murdered by your commands?

> Latin: 88. centuriatus palam venditos, quid? per tuum servolum ordines adsignatos, quid? stipendium militibus per omnis annos a civitatibus mensis palam propositis esse numeratum? quid? illa in Pontum profectio et conatus tuus, quid? debilitatio atque abiectio animi tui Macedonia praetoria nuntiata, cum tu non solum quod tibi succederetur sed quod Gabinio non succederetur exsanguis et mortuus concidisti, quid? quaestor aediliciis reiectis praepositus, legatorum tuorum optimus abs te quisque violatus, tribuni militares non recepti, M. Baebius, vir fortis, interfectus iussu tuo?

[¶13] 89. Why need I tell how often you, distrusting and despairing of your fortunes, lay down in mourning, and lamentation, and misery? Why need I tell how you sent to that priest, so beloved the people, six hundred men of the friends, or allies, or tributaries of the Roman people, to be exposed to wild beasts? Need I relate how, when you were scarcely able to supply your disappointment and grief at your departure from the province, you first of all went to Samothrace, after that Thasos with your train of young dancing boys, and with Autobulus, and Athamas, and Timocles, those beautiful brothers?—that when you departed thence you lay for many days weeping in the villa of Euchadia, who was the wife Execestus? and from thence, disguised in shabby garments you came to Thessalonica by night, without any one knowing it?—that then, when you could not bear the crowds of in who came about you bewailing the state to which you had reduced them, nor the torrent of their complaints, you fled away to Beroea, a town out of your road? Need I relate how, when a rumour that Quintus Ancharius was not going to be appointed your successor had elated your mind with false hopes, while you were in that town, you again, O wretched man, gave the rein to all your former intemperance?

> Latin: 89. quod tu totiens diffidens ac desperans rebus tuis in sordibus, lamentis luctuque iacuisti, quod populari illi sacerdoti sescentos ad bestias amicos sociosque misisti, quod, cum sustentare vix posses maerorem tuum doloremque decessionis, Samothraciam te primum, post inde Thasum cum tuis teneris saltatoribus et cum Autobulo, Athamante, Timocle, formosis fratribus, contulisti, quod inde te recipiens in villa Euchadiae, quae fuit uxor Execesti, iacuisti maerens aliquot dies atque inde obsoletus Thessalonicam omnibus inscientibus noctuque venisti, quod, cum concursum plorantium ac tempestatem querelarum ferre non posses, in oppidum devium Beroeam profugisti? quo in oppido cum tibi spe falsa, quod Q. Ancharium non esse successurum putares, animos rumor inflasset, quo te modo ad tuam intemperantiam, scelerate, renovasti!

[¶14] 90. I say nothing of the gold for a crown, which tormented you a long time, while at one time you were inclined towards it and at another time unwilling to take it. For the law of your son-in-law forbade it to be decreed or to be accepted, unless a triumph was also decreed. But nevertheless you, in respect of that gold, could not find in your heart to disgorge the money which you had received and devoured, as in the case of the hundred talents of the Achaeans; you only changed the names and descriptions of the pretexts under which you extracted the money. I say nothing of the commissions which you scattered at random over the provinces; I say nothing of the number of vessels, or of the sum total of the plunder you acquired; I say nothing of the system under which you levied and extorted all the corn; I say nothing of your having stripped both nations and individuals of their liberties, even though they had had those liberties given them by name as rewards, not one of all which things is not carefully provided against and expressly forbidden to be done by the Sullan law.

> Latin: 90. Mitto aurum coronarium quod te diutissime torsit, cum modo velles, modo nolles. enim generi tui et decerni et te accipere vetabat nisi decreto triumpho. quo tu acceptam iam et devoratam pecuniam, ut in Achaeorum centum talentis, evomere non poteras, vocabula tantum pecuniarum et genera mutabas. Mitto diplomata tota in provincia passim data, mitto numerum navium summamque praedae, mitto rationem exacti imperatique frumenti, mitto ereptam libertatem populis ac singulis qui erant adfecti praemiis nominatim, quorum nihil est quod non sit lege Iulia ne fieri liceat sanctum diligenter.

[¶15] 91. You, on your departure (O you punishment, O you Fury of the allies) destroyed the unhappy Aetolia, which being separated by a great distance from the barbarian nations, is placed in the lap of peace and is in almost the centre of Greece. You confess as indeed you mentioned yourself only just now that Arsinoë and Stratus and Naupactus noble and wealthy cities were taken by the enemy. And by what enemies? Why, by those whom you, while encamped at Ambracia, on your first arrival, compelled to depart from the towns of the Agrinae and of the Dolopes, and to leave their altars and their homes. But now, on this departure of yours, O you illustrious “Imperator” though the sudden destruction of Aetolia was no trifling addition to your previous disasters,—you disbanded your army; nor was there any punishment which could be considered due to such guilt as yours which you were not willing to undergo, rather than allow any one to become acquainted with the existing numbers of the relics of your army.

> Latin: 91. Aetoliam, quae procul a barbaris disiuncta gentibus, in sinu pacis posita, medio fere Graeciae gremio continetur, o Poena et Furia sociorum! decedens miseram perdidisti. Arsinoen, Stratum, Naupactum, ut modo tute indicasti, nobilis urbis atque plenas, fateris ab hostibus esse captas. autem hostibus? eis quos tu Ambraciae sedens primo tuo adventu ex oppidis Agrianum atque Dolopum demigrare et aras et focos relinquere coegisti. tu in exitu, praeclare imperator, cum tibi ad pristinas cladis accessio fuisset Aetoliae repentinus interitus, exercitum dimisisti, neque ullam poenam quae tanto facinori deberetur non maluisti subire quam ⟨quemquam⟩ numerum tuorum militum reliquiasque cognoscere.

[¶16] 92. And, that you, O conscript fathers, may see how great is the resemblance between the two Epicurean generals in their military exploits and management of their command; Albucius, after he had triumphed in Sardinia, was condemned at Rome. And as this man expected a similar end to his campaigns, he laid aside his trophies in Macedonia; and those things which all nations have agreed in considering the insignia and monuments of military glory and victory, this extraordinary “Imperator” of ours made the fatal evidences of towns which had been lost of legions which had been cut to pieces, of a province stripped of its garrison and of all the rest of its troops, to the everlasting disgrace of his family and name; and then, in order that there should to something which might be recorded and engraved on the pedestal of his trophies, when, on his departure from his province, he arrived at Dyrrachium, he was besieged by those very soldiers whom he told Torquatus just now, in answer to his questions, had been disbanded by him out of kindness. And when he had assured them with an oath that he would pay them the next day all that was due to them, he hid himself at home; and then on a very stormy night, in slippers and in the garb of a slave, he embarked on board a ship, and avoided Brundusium, and sailed towards the furthest part of the coast of the Adriatic Sea;

> Latin: 92. ut duorum Epicureorum similitudinem in re militari imperioque videatis, Albucius, cum in Sardinia triumphasset, Romae damnatus est; hic cum similem exitum exspectaret, in Macedonia tropaea posuit; eaque ⟨quae⟩ bellicae laudis victoriaeque omnes gentes insignia et monumenta esse voluerunt noster hic praeposterus imperator amissorum oppidorum, caesarum legionum, provinciae praesidio et reliquis militibus orbatae ad sempiternum dedecus sui generis et nominis funesta indicia constituit; idemque, ut esset quod in basi tropaeorum inscribi incidique posset, Dyrrachium ut venit decedens, obsessus est ab eis ipsis militibus quos paulo ante Torquato respondit benefici causa a se esse dimissos. cum iuratus adfirmasset se quae deberentur postero die persoluturum, domum se abdidit; inde nocte intempesta crepidatus veste servili navem conscendit Brundisiumque vitavit et ultimas Hadriani maris oras petivit, cum interim Dyrrachii milites domum in qua istum esse arbitrabantur obsidere coeperunt et, cum latere hominem putarent, ignis circumdederunt.

[¶17] 93. while, in the meantime, the soldiers at Dyrrachium began to besiege the house in which they thought that he was, and as they thought that he was hiding himself there, they began to set fire to it. And the people of Dyrrachium, being alarmed at that proceeding, told them that their “Imperator” had fled away by night in his slippers. Then the troops displace, and throw down, and deface, and destroy a statue of his, an excellent likeness of him, which he had caused to be erected in the most frequented place, that the recollection of so delightful a man might not perish; and in this way they expended on his likeness and on his effigy the hatred which they had hoped to wreak on himself.

> Latin: 93. metu commoti Dyrrachini profugisse noctu crepidatum imperatorem indicaverunt. autem statuam istius persimilem, quam stare celeberrimo in loco voluerat ne suavissimi hominis memoria moreretur, deturbant, adfligunt, comminuunt, dissipant. odium quod in ipsum attulerant, id in eius imaginem ac simulacrum profuderunt.

[¶18] 94. And as all this is the truth, (for I have no doubt that, when you see that I am acquainted with these which are the more prominent facts of your career, you will suppose that the more ordinary cases, that the main body of your crimes, has not been entirely unheard of by me,) you have no occasion to tempt me either by exhortation or by invitation. It is quite enough for me to be reminded. And no one and nothing will remind me except the critical occasions of the republic which appear to me indeed to be more immediately pressing than you have ever thought. Do you not in the least see or perceive what sort of judges we are going to have for the future when the law regulating the courts of justice is passed? Then it will not be the case that every one who likes will be appointed and that every one who has any objection will be excused. No men will be thrust into the order of judges no one will be irregularly removed from it. Ambition will not be allowed to work its way to popularity, nor wickedness to gratify its enmity, by that means. Those will be the judges whom the law itself, not those whom the depraved caprices of men appoint. And as this is the case believe me you will not have need to demand a prosecutor against your will. The case itself, or the necessities of the republic will either call forth me myself—which I should be sorry for—or some one else, or will repress us.

> Latin: 94. cum ita sint—non enim dubito quin, cum haec quae excellunt me nosse videas, non existimes mediam illam partem et turbam flagitiorum tuorum mihi esse inauditam— nihil est quod me hortere, nihil est quod invites; admoneri me satis est. autem nemo alius nisi rei publicae tempus, quod mihi quidem magis videtur quam tu umquam arbitratus es appropinquare. vides, ecquid sentis, lege iudiciaria lata, quos posthac iudices simus habituri? legetur quisquis voluerit, nec quisquis noluerit non legetur; nulli conicientur in illum ordinem, nulli eximentur; non ambitio ad gratiam, non iniquitas ad aemulationem conitetur; iudices iudicabunt ei quos lex ipsa, non quos hominum libido delegerit. cum ita sit, mihi crede, neminem invitum invitabis; res ipsa et rei publicae tempus aut me ipsum, quod nolim, aut alium quempiam aut invitabit aut dehortabitur.

[¶19] 95. In truth, as I said a little time ago, I do not think that the same things are punishments to men which most people consider such, namely condemnation, banishment, or death. Lastly, it seems to me that that which may happen to an innocent, or to a brave or to a wise or to a virtuous man and citizen, cannot be a punishment in the proper sense of the word. That condemnation which is now demanded to be inflicted on you, befell Publius Rutilius, a man whom this city accounted a pattern of innocence. Lucius Opimius was driven from his country—he who, as praetor and consul, had delivered the republic from the greatest dangers. The punishment of guilt and of the consciousness of it, did not belong to the man to whom the injury was done, but to those who did it. But on the other hand, Catiline was twice acquitted; even that man who was the cause of your obtaining your province was acquitted after he had profaned the sacred rites of the Good Goddess. But who was there in all this city who thought that he was released from the guilt of impiety, and not that those who acquitted him were, by their sentence, made accomplices in his wickedness?

> Latin: 95. , ut paulo ante dixi, non eadem supplicia esse in hominibus existimo quae fortasse plerique, damnationes, expulsiones, neces; denique nullam mihi poenam videtur habere id quod accidere innocenti, quod forti, quod sapienti, quod bono viro et civi potest. ista quae in te flagitatur obtigit P. Rutilio, quod specimen habuit haec civitas innocentiae. mihi iudicum et rei publicae poena illa visa est quam Rutili. L. Opimius eiectus est e patria, is qui praetor et consul maximis rem publicam periculis liberarat. in eo cui facta est iniuria sed in eis qui fecerunt sceleris et conscientiae poena permansit. contra bis Catilina absolutus ⟨est⟩, emissus etiam ille auctor tuus provinciae, cum stuprum deae pulvinaribus intulisset. fuit in tanta civitate qui illum incesto liberatum, non eos qui ita iudicarant pari scelere obstrictos arbitraretur?

[¶20] 96. Am I to wait while seventy-five voting tablets are distributed in your case; when all men of all classes and ages and ranks of society have long since formed their opinions concerning you? For who is there who thinks you deserving of a visit; or of any compliment or even of an ordinary salutation? All men wish to efface all recollection of your consulship, to extirpate your conduct, your habits, your very appearance and name from the republic. The lieutenants who were with you are alienated from you, the military tribunes are hostile to you; the centurions and any other soldiers who may be left out of that once numerous army, and who were not disbanded by you but scattered abroad, hate you, wish for calamities to befall you, execrate you. Achaia which has been drained by you, Thessaly which has been harassed by you, Athens which has been plundered by you, Dyrrachium and Apollonia which have been completely emptied by you, Ambracia which has been pillaged by you, the Parthinians and Bulliensians who have been mocked by you, Epirus which has been laid waste by you, the Locrians, the Phocians, the Boeotians whom you have ravaged with fire and sword, Acarnania, Amphilochia, Perrhaebia, and the nation of the Athamanes who have been sold by you, Macedonia which has been sacrificed by you to the barbarians, Aetolia which has been lost, the Dolopians and the neighbouring mountaineers who have been driven from their towns and from their lands, the Roman citizens who have dealings as merchants in those countries,—all feel that you came among them as their chief despoiler, and harasser, and robber, and enemy.

> Latin: 96. ego exspectem dum de te v et lxx tabellae diribeantur, de quo iam pridem omnes mortales omnium generum, aetatum, ordinum iudicaverunt? enim te aditu, quis ullo honore, quis denique communi salutatione dignum putat? memoriam consulatus tui, facta, mores, faciem denique ac nomen a re publica detestantur. qui una fuerunt alienati, tribuni militum inimici, centuriones, et si qui ex tanto exercitu reliqui milites exstant non dimissi abs te sed dissipati, te oderunt, tibi pestem exoptant, te exsecrantur. Achaia exhausta, Thessalia vexata, laceratae Athenae, Dyrrachium et Apollonia exinanita, Ambracia direpta, Parthini et Bulidenses inlusi, Epirus excisa, Locri, Phocii, Boeotii exusti, Acarnania, Amphilochia, Perraebia, Athamanumque gens vendita, Macedonia condonata barbaris, Aetolia amissa, Dolopes finitimique montani oppidis atque agris exterminati; cives Romani qui in eis locis negotiantur te unum suum sociorumque depeculatorem, vexatorem, praedonem, hostem venisse senserunt.

[¶21] 97. To all these numerous and weighty opinions formed respecting you in this manner, there has been added the private sentence of condemnation which you have passed upon yourself. Your secret arrival, your stealthy journey through Italy, your entry into the city deserted by your friends;—the fact of your sending no letters to the senate, of your addressing no congratulation to them on successes achieved by you during the whole of three summer campaigns, of your making no mention of any triumph;—you do not only omit to say what you did, but you do not even dare to say where you were. When you had brought back the dry withered leaves of your laurels from that fountain and seed-ground of triumphs, when you threw them down and left them at the gate, then you yourself gave your verdict against yourself, and pronounced yourself “guilty.” And if you had done nothing deserving of honour, what had become of your army? where was the need for all that expense? what did you want with a military command? why did you seek for that province so fruitful in supplications and triumphs? But if you had ventured to cherish hopes of anything,—if you had nourished the thoughts which the name of “Imperator,” the fasces bound with laurel, and those trophies so full of disgrace and ridicule to you, show that you had entertained,—who can be more miserable, who more thoroughly condemned than you, who neither when absent ventured to write to the senate that the affairs of the republic had been prosperously conducted by you, nor dare to say as much when you are present?

> Latin: 97. horum omnium iudicia tot atque tanta domesticum iudicium accessit sententiae damnationis tuae, occultus adventus, furtivum iter per Italiam, introitus in urbem desertus ab amicis, nullae ad senatum e provincia litterae, nulla ex trinis aestivis gratulatio, nulla triumphi mentio; non modo quid gesseris sed ne quibus in locis quidem fueris dicere audes. illo fonte et seminario triumphorum cum arida folia laureae rettulisses, cum ea abiecta ad portam reliquisti, tum tu ipse de te fecisse videri pronuntiavisti. si nihil gesseras dignum honore, ubi exercitus, ubi sumptus, ubi imperium, ubi illa uberrima supplicationibus triumphisque provincia? autem aliquid sperare potueras, ⟨si⟩ cogitaras id quod imperatoris nomen, quod laureati fasces, quod illa tropaea plena dedecoris et risus te commentatum esse declarant, quis te miserior, quis te damnatior, qui neque scribere ad senatum a te bene rem publicam esse gestam neque praesens dicere ausus es?

[¶22] 98. Do you think that you can possibly appear to be anything but a condemned man to me, who have always been of opinion that a man's fortune was to be estimated by his actions themselves, and not by their results, and that our character and our fortunes depended not on the voting tablets of a few judges, but on the opinions and judgments of all the citizens? when I see that the allies, and the people of the federate states, and all free nations, and all the tributary peoples, and the merchants, and the farmers of the public revenue, and the whole population of the city, and the lieutenants, and the military tribunes, and all the soldiers who are left of your army—as many as have escaped the sword, and famine, and disease, think you worthy of every extremity of punishment? when no excuse can be possibly alleged either before the senate, or before any order of men whatever, or before the Roman knights, or in the city, or in any part of Italy, sufficient to induce any one to pardon your enormous crimes? when I see that even you yourself hate yourself, and are afraid of everybody, and can find no one to whom you can venture to entrust your cause, and by your own verdict condemn yourself?

> Latin: 98. tu mihi cui semper ita persuasum fuerit non eventis sed factis cuiusque fortunam ponderari, neque in tabellis paucorum iudicum sed in sententiis omnium civium famam nostram fortunamque pendere, te indemnatum videri putas, quem socii, quem foederati, quem liberi populi, quem stipendiarii, quem negotiatores, quem publicani, quem universa civitas, quem legati, quem tribuni militares, quem reliqui milites qui ferrum, qui famem, qui morbum effugerunt, omni cruciatu dignissimum putent, cui non apud senatum, non apud equites Romanos, non apud ullum ordinem, non in urbe, non in Italia maximorum scelerum venia ulla ad ignoscendum dari possit, qui se ipse oderit, qui metuat omnis, qui suam causam nemini committere audeat, qui se ipse condemnet?

[¶23] 99. I have never thirsted for your blood; I have never sought in your case for that extreme severity of the law and of judgment which at times may fall alike on the virtuous and on the guilty. But I have wished to see you abject, despised, scorned by all the rest of the citizens; looking with despair on your prospects, and abandoned even by yourself; looking timidly around at every noise which sounded near you; trembling at everything; distrusting the continuance of even your present safety, such as it is; not daring to utter a word; deprived of all liberty, destitute of all authority, stripped of all the dignity of a consul and of a man of consular rank; shivering, trembling, and fawning on all men. And I have seen you. Wherefore, if that future befalls you which you are in hourly apprehension of, I shall be in no respect concerned at it; if it is even a long while coming, still I shall enjoy the indignities to which you are exposed; and I shall be quite as well pleased to see you in daily fear of a prosecution as actually before the court; nor shall I rejoice less at seeing you in constant and unceasing distress, than I should if I saw you for a short time in the mourning robe of a criminal on his trial.

> Latin: 99. ego sanguinem expetivi tuum, numquam illud extremum quod posset esse improbis et probis commune supplicium legis ac iudici, sed abiectum, contemptum, despectum a ceteris, a te ipso desperatum et relictum, circumspectantem omnia, quicquid increpuisset pertimescentem, diffidentem tuis rebus, sine voce, sine libertate, sine auctoritate, sine ulla specie consulari, horrentem, trementem, adulantem omnis videre te volui; vidi. re si tibi evenerit quod metuis ne accidat, equidem non moleste feram; sin id tardius forte fiet, fruar tamen tua et indignitate et timiditate, nec te minus libenter metuentem videbo ne reus fias quam reum, nec minus laetabor cum te semper sordidum, quam si paulisper sordidatum viderem.