For Marcus Caelius
Pro M. Caelio
Headnote
Cicero for M. Caelius Rufus, delivered at Rome on 4 April 56 BC — the second day of the Megalensian games, on which the courts were ordinarily not in session. The prosecution had nevertheless got the trial set for the festival, on the law on vis (the Plautian law on public violence), so that Caelius’s youthful brilliance, his recent prosecution of L. Bestia (twice, the second time after acquittal), and the inflated catalogue of charges around the Egyptian commission of Ptolemy Auletes might be heard before a half-empty court. The defence team was Caelius himself (speaking for himself, on the second day), then M. Crassus, then Cicero closing. The prosecutors were L. Sempronius Atratinus (son of L. Calpurnius Bestia, whom Caelius was prosecuting), L. Herennius Balbus, and P. Clodius (the son of Appius Claudius Pulcher, not the famous tribune — a young man).
The actual charges, as Cicero shapes them, are five counts of vis: §23 the Neapolitan seditions, the assault on the Alexandrian envoys at Puteoli, the business of Palla’s property, the death of Dio of Alexandria; §30 the gold from Clodia, and the poison alleged to have been prepared for Clodia herself. The first three Cicero turns over to Crassus’s portion of the speech and refers to as already disposed of. The Dio charge collapses on the acquittal of P. Asicius (whom Cicero himself defended), the confession of Ptolemy, and the testimony Cicero summons from the Coponii brothers, Dio’s hosts. The case as Cicero handles it reduces to two charges — gold and poison — both of which “one and the same person is involved” (§30): Clodia.
The speech is the most virtuosic forensic rhetoric Cicero ever wrote. The ground is shifted from criminal trial to social comedy: Clodia, the elder sister of P. Clodius Pulcher and widow of Q. Metellus Celer (consul of 60 BC, dead in late 59 BC), is the prosecution’s witness and source of the charges, and Cicero turns her into the case. The interlocking prosopopoeiae of §§33–38 are the centerpiece: Appius Claudius Caecus the censor, Clodia’s blind ancestor, summoned from the underworld in Republican gravitas to scold her (§§33–34), with the closing catalogue of his works (the broken peace with Pyrrhus, the Aqua Appia, the Via Appia) turned bitter — “did I lay down a road that you should throng it with strangers’ husbands?”; her “littlest brother” (Clodius) in urbane mode advising her on courtesan economy (§36); the Caecilian comic “hard father” and the merciful father, in succession (§§37–38). Around them are the great set pieces: the Luperci joke (§26 “a wild brotherhood of the German Luperci, quite of the shepherds and the country, their woodland coming-together instituted before humanity and the laws”); the Crassus-Medea allusion in the speech on the Palatine apartment (§18 “utinam ne in nemore Pelio Medea sick at heart, by savage love wounded”); Baiae crying out at §47; the long conditional on the courtesan-and-lover at §§48–49; and the Senian-baths poison-trap unwound as a mime in §§61–65 — “the end then is of a mime, not a play, in which when no clausula is found somebody slips out of the hands, then the clappers crash, the curtain rises.”
The Metellus death-bed digression at §§59–60 (Cicero’s voice “weakened with weeping and the mind hindered with grief” at remembering it) plants the unspoken charge: that Clodia poisoned her own husband. The structure of innuendo is exact: from this house the speaker about poison’s swiftness has come forth, will she not fear the conscious walls and the funereal night? The §§75 admission of Caelius’s “turning” of his age, paused at the goal-posts in the new-acquaintance with Clodia and the unhappy neighbourhood, is the speech’s single concession — and immediately framed as the broken-off moment from which Caelius emerged with the prosecution of Bestia.
The peroration (§§77–80) is the classic two-prosecutions hostage formula — a man who has prosecuted a consular for violation of the commonwealth cannot himself be a turbulent citizen, a man who twice prosecutes for canvassing cannot himself be a briber — and the close on Caelius’s old father, leaning on this only son: the senex of Roman comedy turned to peroration, with the sharp closing aside on the recent acquittal of Sex. Clodius (“a man without property, without faith, without hope, without seat, without fortunes, polluted in face, tongue, hand, and his whole life”) as the warning that, in the same court, with the same woman, the foulest brigand should not be acquitted by a woman’s favour while the most honourable young man is delivered up to a woman’s lust.
Caelius was acquitted. The speech secured for him the opening of a brilliant if turbulent career: tribune of the plebs in 52, praetor in 48 (a Caesarian who broke with Caesar over debt-cancellation, killed in southern Italy in early 48 BC). Clodia is not certainly heard from again in the historical record. The speech survives as the great example of Roman forensic rhetoric in the urbane register — the trial-defence turned into social comedy by sustained prosopopoeia — and as one of the chief documents for the social world of the late Republic at its dazzling and corroded surface. The identification of Clodia with the “Lesbia” of Catullus’s poems is widely held but not unanimous (the metric pseudonym suggests it; Apuleius asserts it; the chronology — Catullus’s death conventionally placed ca. 54 BC — is consistent).
If anyone, members of the jury, were now perchance present, ignorant of our laws, our courts, our custom, he would surely wonder what so great atrocity there is in this case, that on festive days and during the public games, with every other forensic business broken off, this one trial alone is being held — and he would not doubt that the defendant is charged with so great a crime that, if it were neglected, the state could not stand. The same man, when he heard that there is a law which orders daily inquiry into seditious and ruined citizens who in arms have besieged the senate, have brought violence on magistrates, have made war on the commonwealth, would not condemn the law, but would ask what crime was being moved in the trial. When he heard that no crime, no audacity, no violence is being called to trial, but that a young man of brilliant talent, industry, and popularity is being prosecuted by the son of a man whom he himself is bringing, and has brought, into court, while the resources of a courtesan are being used to assault him — he would not censure the dutifulness of Atratinus himself, would judge that a woman’s lust must be checked, and would think you, gentlemen, hard-driven, since not even in the common leisure of the city are you allowed to be at leisure.
si quis, iudices, forte nunc adsit ignarus legum iudiciorum consuetudinisque nostrae, miretur profecto quae sit tanta atrocitas huiusce causae, quod diebus festis ludisque publicis, omnibus forensibus negotiis intermissis, unum hoc iudicium exerceatur, nec dubitet quin tanti facinoris reus arguatur ut eo neglecto civitas stare non possit. idem cum audiat esse legem quae de seditiosis consceleratisque civibus qui armati senatum obsederint, magistratibus vim attulerint, rem publicam oppugnarint cotidie quaeri iubeat: legem non improbet, crimen quod versetur in iudicio requirat; cum audiat nullum facinus, nullam audaciam, nullam vim in iudicium vocari, sed adulescentem inlustri ingenio, industria, gratia accusari ab eius filio quem ipse in iudicium et vocet et vocarit, oppugnari autem opibus meretriciis: Atratini ipsius pietatem non reprehendat, libidinem muliebrem comprimendam putet, vos laboriosos existimet quibus otiosis ne in communi quidem otio liceat esse.
For if you are willing to attend carefully and to judge truly of this entire case, you will conclude, members of the jury, that no one would have come down to this prosecution to whom it had been left to choose, nor, when he had come down, would have had any hope, unless he were leaning on someone’s intolerable lust and excessively bitter hatred. But Atratinus, a most cultured and excellent young man, my close connection, I forgive, since he has the excuse either of dutifulness, or of necessity, or of his age. If he wished to prosecute, I attribute it to dutifulness; if he was ordered, to necessity; if he hoped for something, to youth. To the rest, not only is nothing to be forgiven, but they are to be sharply resisted.
etenim si attendere diligenter atque existimare vere de omni hac causa volueritis, sic constituetis, iudices, nec descensurum quemquam ad hanc accusationem fuisse cui utrum vellet liceret nec, cum descendisset, quicquam habiturum spei fuisse, nisi alicuius intolerabili libidine et nimis acerbo odio niteretur. sed ego Atratino, humanissimo atque optimo adulescenti, meo necessario, ignosco, qui habet excusationem vel pietatis vel necessitatis vel aetatis. si voluit accusare, pietati tribuo, si iussus est, necessitati, si speravit aliquid, pueritiae. ceteris non modo nihil ignoscendum sed etiam acriter est resistendum.
And to me, members of the jury, this seems the entrance most suited to the defence of the youth of M. Caelius: that I should first reply to the things that the prosecutors said for the disfiguring of this case and the dragging down and stripping of his standing. His father has been thrown at him in various ways — said either to be too little distinguished himself, or to have been treated too little dutifully by his son. As to standing: M. Caelius’s father easily and silently answers for himself, even without my speech, before those who know him and his elders. To those, however, who, on account of his age (since he has now for some time spent less time in the Forum and with us), have not got an equal acquaintance with him, let them hold this: that whatever standing there can be in a Roman knight — and that can certainly be the very greatest — has always been held the highest in M. Caelius, and is held so today, not only by his own circle but by everyone to whom for any cause he could be known.
ac mihi quidem videtur, iudices, hic introitus defensionis adulescentiae M. M arci Caeli maxime convenire, ut ad ea quae accusatores deformandi huius causa et detrahendae spoliandaeque dignitatis gratia dixerunt primum respondeam. obiectus est pater varie, quod aut parum splendidus ipse aut parum pie tractatus a filio diceretur. de dignitate M. M arcus Caelius notis ac maioribus natu etiam sine mea oratione tacitus facile ipse respondet; quibus autem propter senectutem, quod iam diu minus in foro nobiscumque versatur, non aeque est cognitus, hi sic habeant, quaecumque in equite Romano dignitas esse possit, quae certe potest esse maxima, eam semper in M. M arco Caelio habitam esse summam hodieque haberi non solum a suis sed etiam ab omnibus quibus potuerit aliqua de causa esse notus.
Moreover, that being the son of a Roman knight should be set down as a charge by prosecutors — this neither these men ought to have allowed in their pleading, nor we in our defence. As to what you said about his dutifulness, this estimate is indeed ours, but the judgement is certainly the parent’s. What we hold, you will hear from those under oath; what the parents feel, the tears of his mother and her unbelievable grief, the squalor of his father, and this present sorrow that you see, and his mourning, declare.
equitis autem Romani esse filium criminis loco poni ab accusatoribus neque his iudicantibus oportuit neque defendentibus nobis. nam quod de pietate dixistis, est ista quidem nostra existimatio sed iudicium certe parentis. quid nos opinemur audietis ex iuratis; quid parentes sentiant lacrimae matris incredibilisque maeror, squalor patris et haec praesens maestitia quam cernitis luctusque declarat.
As to the charge that the young man is not approved by his fellow townsmen — the people of \ have never given greater honours to anyone present, members of the jury, than to M. Caelius in his absence: him in his absence they co-opted into the most ample order, and they conferred on him, when he was not even seeking them, things which they had refused to many seekers. The same men have now sent the most select men of our order and Roman knights with a delegation to this trial and with the most weighty and ornate testimonial. I seem to myself to have laid the foundations of my defence, the firmest of all if they rest on the judgement of his own people. Nor indeed could his youth be sufficiently commended to you if it were displeasing not only to a parent of such quality, but also to a township so distinguished and so weighty. As for myself,
nam quod est obiectum municipibus esse adulescentem non probatum suis, nemini umquam praesenti †Praestutiani† maiores honores habuerunt, iudices, quam absenti M. M arco Caelio; quem et absentem in amplissimum ordinem cooptarunt et ea non petenti detulerunt quae multis petentibus denegarunt. idemque nunc lectissimos viros et nostri ordinis et equites Romanos cum legatione ad hoc iudicium et cum gravissima atque ornatissima laudatione miserunt. videor mihi iecisse fundamenta defensionis meae, quae firmissima sunt si nituntur iudicio suorum. neque enim vobis satis commendata huius aetas esse posset, si non modo parenti, tali viro, verum etiam municipio tam inlustri ac tam gravi displiceret. equidem,
to come back to me, it is from these same fountains that I have flowed forth into the public reputation of men, and this work of mine in the Forum and the order of my life has spread out into men’s estimation a little more widely on the strength of the commendation and judgement of my own. As to what was thrown at him on the score of his chastity, and what was kept up by all his prosecutors not by way of charges but of voices and abuses — this M. Caelius will never take so bitterly as to repent of not having been born ill-favoured. For these are the abuses widespread against all whose youth had a free-born form and look. But it is one thing to abuse, another to prosecute. Prosecution requires a charge that it may define the matter, mark out the person, prove by argument, confirm by witness; abuse has no aim except contumely, which, if it is thrown more saucily, is called railing, if more wittily, urbanity.
ut ad me revertar, ab his fontibus profluxi ad hominum famam, et meus hic forensis labor vitaeque ratio demanavit ad existimationem hominum paulo latius commendatione ac iudicio meorum. nam quod obiectum est de pudicitia quodque omnium accusatorum non criminibus sed vocibus maledictisque celebratum est, id numquam tam acerbe feret M. M arcus Caelius ut eum paeniteat non deformem esse natum. sunt enim ista maledicta pervolgata in omnis quorum in adulescentia forma et species fuit liberalis. sed aliud est male dicere, aliud accusare. accusatio crimen desiderat, rem ut definiat, hominem notet, argumento probet, teste confirmet; maledictio autem nihil habet propositi praeter contumeliam; quae si petulantius iactatur, convicium, si facetius, urbanitas nominatur.
Which part of the prosecution I was indeed astonished at, and took it ill, that it had been chiefly entrusted to Atratinus. For neither was it fitting, nor did his age call for it, nor (as you could see) did the modesty of an excellent young man permit him to engage in such a speech. I could have wished some of you sturdier men had taken on this office of abuse: somewhat more freely and more strongly and more after our manner we should refute that licence of slander. With you, Atratinus, I shall deal more gently, both because your modesty restrains my speech, and because I owe it to my service to you and to your father to protect him. There is, however, this I want you to be admonished of:
quam quidem partem accusationis admiratus sum et moleste tuli potissimum esse Atratino datam. neque enim decebat neque aetas illa postulabat neque, id quod animum advertere poteratis, pudor patiebatur optimi adulescentis in tali illum oratione versari. vellem aliquis ex vobis robustioribus hunc male dicendi locum suscepisset; aliquanto liberius et fortius et magis more nostro refutaremus istam male dicendi licentiam. tecum, Atratine, agam lenius, quod et pudor tuus moderatur orationi meae et meum erga te parentemque tuum beneficium tueri debeo. illud tamen te esse admonitum volo,
first, that what you are, all may judge you to be — that as far as you stand off from foulness in your conduct, so far you separate yourself from licence in your words; next, that you do not say of another things at which, if they were falsely returned upon you, you would blush. For who is there to whom that road does not lie open? who is there who could not, as petulantly as he wished, abuse this age and this standing — even if without the least suspicion, yet not without an argument? But the fault of those parts of the case is on the men who wished you to plead them; the praise of your own modesty is that we saw you saying these things unwillingly, of your talent, that you said them ornately and elegantly.
primum ut qualis es talem te omnes esse existiment, ut quantum a rerum turpitudine abes tantum te a verborum libertate seiungas; deinde ut ea in alterum ne dicas quae, cum tibi falso responsa sint, erubescas. quis est enim cui via ista non pateat, quis est qui huic aetati atque isti dignitati non possit quam velit petulanter, etiam si sine ulla suspicione, at non sine argumento male dicere? sed istarum partium culpa est eorum qui te agere voluerunt; laus pudoris tui, quod ea te invitum dicere videbamus, ingeni, quod ornate politeque dixisti.
But to that whole speech the defence is brief. For so far as the age of M. Caelius could give a foothold to that suspicion, it was first defended by his own modesty, and then also by his father’s care and discipline. From the time the father gave him the toga of manhood — I shall say nothing here of myself; let it be only as much as you yourselves estimate; this I shall say, that he was led from his father straight to me — no one ever saw this M. Caelius in that bloom of his age except either with his father or with me, or being trained in the most chaste house of M. Crassus in the most honourable arts.
verum ad istam omnem orationem brevis est defensio. nam quoad aetas M. M arci Caeli dare potuit isti suspicioni locum, fuit primum ipsius pudore, deinde etiam patris diligentia disciplinaque munita. qui ut huic togam virilem dedit — nihil dicam hoc loco de me; tantum sit quantum vos existimatis; hoc dicam, hunc a patre continuo ad me esse deductum — nemo hunc M. M arcum Caelium in illo aetatis flore vidit nisi aut cum patre aut mecum aut in M. M arci Crassi castissima domo cum artibus honestissimis erudiretur.
As to the familiarity with Catiline that has been thrown at Caelius, that ought to be far removed from such a suspicion. For you know that, when Caelius was already a young man, Catiline stood for the consulship with me. If he ever went over to him, or ever fell off from me — although many fine young men were attached to that worthless and wicked man — then let Caelius be reckoned to have been too closely Catiline’s familiar. “But afterwards we know and we saw that this man was even among that man’s friends.” Who denies it? But this period of life, which itself is by its own nature weak, and harassed besides by the lust of others, this it is that I am here defending. He was constantly with me when I was praetor; he did not know Catiline. Africa Catiline was at that time holding as praetor. Then followed the year in which Catiline pleaded his case on the charge of extortion. Caelius was with me; to that man he never came even as a supporter. Then came the year in which I stood for the consulship; Catiline was standing with me. Caelius never went near him; from me he never withdrew.
nam quod Catilinae familiaritas obiecta Caelio est, longe ab ista suspicione abhorrere debet. hoc enim adulescente scitis consulatum mecum petisse Catilinam. ad quem si accessit aut si a me discessit umquam — quamquam multi boni adulescentes illi homini nequam atque improbo studuerunt — tum existimetur Caelius Catilinae nimium familiaris fuisse. at enim postea scimus et vidimus esse hunc in illius etiam amicis. quis negat? sed ego illud tempus aetatis quod ipsum sua sponte infirmum, aliorum autem libidine infestum est, id hoc loco defendo. fuit adsiduus mecum praetore me; non noverat Catilinam; Africam tum praetor ille obtinebat. secutus est tum annus, causam de pecuniis repetundis Catilina dixit. mecum erat hic; illi ne advocatus quidem venit umquam. deinceps fuit annus quo ego consulatum petivi; petebat Catilina mecum. numquam ad illum accessit, a me numquam recessit.
For so many years, then, he had passed his life in the Forum without suspicion, without ill repute, when he attached himself to Catiline standing a second time. To what limit, then, do you suppose his youth ought to have been kept under guard? In our time at least one year used to be set down for keeping the arm under the toga; for using exercise and the games of the Campus we were in the tunic; and the same was the rule of the camp and of the soldier’s life, if we had at once begun to serve. At that age, unless a man defended himself by his own gravity, his chastity, both his domestic discipline and a certain natural goodness besides, however he had been kept watch over by his own people, he could not still escape genuine ill repute. But of him who had kept those first beginnings of his age sound and untouched, of his fame and his chastity, when now he had braced himself and was a man among men, no one spoke.
tot igitur annos versatus in foro sine suspicione, sine infamia, studuit Catilinae iterum petenti. quem ergo ad finem putas custodiendam illam aetatem fuisse? nobis quidem olim annus erat unus ad cohibendum bracchium toga constitutus, et ut exercitatione ludoque campestri tunicati uteremur, eademque erat, si statim merere stipendia coeperamus, castrensis ratio ac militaris. qua in aetate nisi qui se ipse sua gravitate et castimonia et cum disciplina domestica tum etiam naturali quodam bono defenderet, quoquo modo a suis custoditus esset, tamen infamiam veram effugere non poterat. sed qui prima illa initia aetatis integra atque inviolata praestitisset, de eius fama ac pudicitia, cum iam sese conroboravisset ac vir inter viros esset, nemo loquebatur.
“But Caelius attached himself to Catiline, when he had already been some years in the Forum.” And many of every order and every age did the same. For Catiline, as I think you remember, possessed — not painted out, but lightly sketched in — very many likenesses of the greatest virtues. He used many wicked men, and yet he pretended to be devoted to the best of men. There were in him many enticements to lust; there were also certain spurs to industry and labour. The vices of lust were blazing in him; there flourished too the studies of war. Nor do I think there ever was such a monster on earth, blended together as he was out of contrary and various and warring natural pursuits and desires.
at studuit Catilinae, cum iam aliquot annos esset in foro, Caelius. et multi hoc idem ex omni ordine atque ex omni aetate fecerunt. habuit enim ille, sicuti meminisse vos arbitror, permulta maximarum non expressa signa sed adumbrata virtutum. Vtebatur hominibus improbis multis; et quidem optimis se viris deditum esse simulabat. erant apud illum inlecebrae libidinum multae; erant etiam industriae quidam stimuli ac laboris. flagrabant vitia libidinis apud illum; vigebant etiam studia rei militaris. neque ego umquam fuisse tale monstrum in terris ullum puto, tam ex contrariis diversisque atque inter se pugnantibus naturae studiis cupiditatibusque conflatum.
Who, at one time, was more agreeable to the more distinguished men, who more closely tied to the more disgraceful? who was sometimes a citizen of the better party, who a more dreadful enemy to this state? who in pleasures more polluted, who in labours more enduring? who in rapacity more grasping, who in lavishness more pouring out? Those qualities indeed, gentlemen, in that man were astonishing: to embrace many men in friendship, to retain them by attentiveness, to share with all what he had, to serve every man’s needs with his money, his influence, his bodily labour, even with crime, if it were needed, and audacity; to turn his nature and govern it according to occasion, to twist and bend it this way and that — with the strict to live strictly, with the relaxed pleasantly, with the elderly seriously, with the youthful affably, with criminals audaciously, with the libertines in luxury.
quis clarioribus viris quodam tempore iucundior, quis turpioribus coniunctior? quis civis meliorum partium aliquando, quis taetrior hostis huic civitati? quis in voluptatibus inquinatior, quis in laboribus patientior? quis in rapacitate avarior, quis in largitione effusior? illa vero, iudices, in illo homine admirabilia fuerunt, comprehendere multos amicitia, tueri obsequio, cum omnibus communicare quod habebat, servire temporibus suorum omnium pecunia, gratia, labore corporis, scelere etiam, si opus esset, et audacia, versare suam naturam et regere ad tempus atque huc et illuc torquere ac flectere, cum tristibus severe, cum remissis iucunde, cum senibus graviter, cum iuventute comiter, cum facinerosis audaciter, cum libidinosis luxuriose vivere.
With this so varied and manifold a nature, when he had gathered every wicked and audacious man out of every land, so too he held many brave and good men by a certain semblance of a counterfeit virtue. Nor would that abandoned onset of destroying this empire ever have come from him, if so vast a savagery of so many vices had not rested on certain roots of complaisance and forbearance. Therefore let this charge, members of the jury, be spat out, and let no charge of familiarity with Catiline cling. For it is shared with many, even with some good men. He almost deceived even me — me, I say — when he seemed to me both a good citizen and eager for every best man and a steadfast and faithful friend; and his deeds I caught with my eyes before my opinion, with my hands before my suspicion. Whose great packs of friends, if Caelius too was among them, it is rather for him to be sorry to have made a mistake, just as I sometimes regret my own mistake about that same man, than for him to fear the charge of that friendship.
hac ille tam varia multiplicique natura cum omnis omnibus ex terris homines improbos audacisque conlegerat, tum etiam multos fortis viros et bonos specie quadam virtutis adsimulatae tenebat. neque umquam ex illo delendi huius imperi tam consceleratus impetus exstitisset, nisi tot vitiorum tanta immanitas quibusdam facilitatis et patientiae radicibus niteretur. qua re ista condicio, iudices, respuatur, nec Catilinae familiaritatis crimen haereat. est enim commune cum multis et cum quibusdam bonis. me ipsum, me, inquam, quondam paene ille decepit, cum et civis mihi bonus et optimi cuiusque cupidus et firmus amicus ac fidelis videretur; cuius ego facinora oculis prius quam opinione, manibus ante quam suspicione deprendi. cuius in magnis catervis amicorum si fuit etiam Caelius, magis est ut ipse moleste ferat errasse se, sicuti non numquam in eodem homine me quoque erroris mei paenitet, quam ut istius amicitiae crimen reformidet.
And so your speech has slid down from the abuses of unchastity to the odium of the conspiracy. For you laid down — yet that hesitantly and curtly — that this man was a partner of the conspiracy on account of his familiarity with Catiline; in which not only the charge would not stick, but the speech of an eloquent young man scarcely held together. For what so great madness was there in Caelius, what so great a wound either in his character and nature, or in his property and fortune? Where, indeed, was Caelius’s name ever heard in that suspicion? I am speaking too much about a matter not in the least doubtful; this, however, I do say. Not only if he had been a partner in the conspiracy, but unless he had been a most bitter enemy of that crime, he would never have wished, by an accusation of conspiracy, to commend his own youth in particular.
itaque a maledictis impudicitiae ad coniurationis invidiam oratio est vestra delapsa. posuistis enim, atque id tamen titubanter et strictim, coniurationis hunc propter amicitiam Catilinae participem fuisse; in quo non modo crimen non haerebat sed vix diserti adulescentis cohaerebat oratio. qui enim tantus furor in Caelio, quod tantum aut in moribus naturaque volnus aut in re atque fortuna? ubi denique est in ista suspicione Caeli nomen auditum? nimium multa de re minime dubia loquor; hoc tamen dico. non modo si socius coniurationis, sed nisi inimicissimus istius sceleris fuisset, numquam coniurationis accusatione adulescentiam suam potissimum commendare voluisset.
Whence I rather think that, on the score of canvassing and these charges of clubs and bribery-agents, since I have fallen on the matter, I should answer in like fashion. For Caelius would never have been so out of his mind that, if he had stained himself with that boundless canvassing, he would have prosecuted another for canvassing; nor would he have looked for suspicion of a deed in another, of which he was wishing perpetual licence for himself; nor, if he thought he had once to undergo the peril of a canvassing prosecution, would he himself have brought another a second time on a charge of canvassing. Which, although he is doing it neither wisely and against my will, yet has the kind of eagerness that he seems rather to be hounding another’s innocence than fearfully thinking about his own.
quod haud scio an de ambitu et de criminibus istis sodalium ac sequestrium, quoniam huc incidi, similiter respondendum putem. numquam enim tam Caelius amens fuisset ut, si sese isto infinito ambitu commaculasset, ambitus alterum accusaret, neque eius facti in altero suspicionem quaereret cuius ipse sibi perpetuam licentiam optaret, nec, si sibi semel periculum ambitus subeundum putaret, ipse alterum iterum ambitus crimine arcesseret. quod quamquam nec sapienter et me invito facit, tamen est eius modi cupiditas ut magis insectari alterius innocentiam quam de se timide cogitare videatur.
As to the debt that has been thrown at him, the criticised expenses, the demanded account-books — see how few words I shall use in answer. Account-books a man who is in his father’s power keeps none. He has never once contracted any new loan against the old. The expense of one kind has been thrown at him, of his housing: you said he lives at thirty thousand. Now at last I understand: P. Clodius’s apartment block is for sale; this man lives in some little rooms there at, I think, ten thousand. You, while you wished to please him, accommodated your lie to his moment.
nam quod aes alienum obiectum est, sumptus reprehensi, tabulae flagitatae, videte quam pauca respondeam. tabulas qui in patris potestate est nullas conficit. versuram numquam omnino fecit ullam. sumptus unius generis obiectus est, habitationis; triginta milibus dixistis habitare. nunc demum intellego P. P ublii Clodi insulam esse venalem, cuius hic in aediculis habitat decem, ut opinor, milibus. vos autem dum illi placere voltis, ad tempus eius mendacium vestrum accommodavistis.
You blamed him for moving out of his father’s house. That, at his age, is the very last thing to be blamed. For when, both from a public case, he had achieved a victory irksome to me indeed, but glorious to himself — and on account of his age was now able to seek office — he moved out from the father not only with the father’s leave but with his urging; and, since the father’s house was far from the Forum, that he might more easily go his rounds of our houses and himself be courted by his own circle, he rented a house on the Palatine, and not at a great rent. At which point I can say what M. Crassus, that most distinguished man, said a little while ago when he was complaining about the coming of king Ptolemy: “Would that not in the Pelian grove” — and I might be allowed to weave on this song further: for never would the wandering mistress have given us this trouble, “Medea sick at heart, by savage love wounded.” For thus you will discover, gentlemen, what (when I have come to that place) I shall show: that this Palatine Medea and this moving were the cause to the young man either of all his ills or rather of all this talk.
reprehendistis a patre quod semigrarit. quod quidem in hac aetate minime reprendendum est. qui cum et ex publica causa iam esset mihi quidem molestam, sibi tamen gloriosam victoriam consecutus et per aetatem magistratus petere posset, non modo permittente patre sed etiam suadente ab eo semigravit et, cum domus patris a foro longe abesset, quo facilius et nostras domus obire et ipse a suis coli posset, conduxit in Palatio non magno domum. quo loco possum dicere id quod vir clarissimus, M. M arcus Crassus, cum de adventu regis Ptolemaei quereretur, paulo ante dixit: Vtinam ne in nemore Pelio — ac longius mihi quidem contexere hoc carmen liceret: nam numquam era errans hanc molestiam nobis exhiberet Medea animo aegro, amore saevo saucia. sic enim, iudices, reperietis quod, cum ad id loci venero, ostendam, hanc Palatinam Medeam migrationemque hanc adulescenti causam sive malorum omnium sive potius sermonum fuisse.
Wherefore those things which I had perceived were already being prepared and patched up out of the prosecutors’ speech, I do not greatly fear, members of the jury, relying on your prudence. For they were saying that there would be a witness, a senator, who would say he had been struck by Caelius at the pontifical elections. Of him I shall ask, if he comes forward, first why he did nothing immediately; next, if he preferred to complain rather than to act, why brought forward by you rather than of his own accord; and why so long after, rather than at once. If he replies sharply and acutely to these things, then at last I shall ask from what spring this senator flows. For if of himself he rises and is born, perhaps, as I do, I shall be moved; but if he is a little stream summoned and led from the very source of your accusation, I shall rejoice that, when your accusation rests on so great influence and so great resources, only one senator has been found who would care to oblige you. As to the witness Fufius.
quam ob rem illa quae ex accusatorum oratione praemuniri iam et fingi intellegebam, fretus vestra prudentia, iudices, non pertimesco. aiebant enim fore testem senatorem qui se pontificiis comitiis pulsatum a Caelio diceret. A quo quaeram, si prodierit, primum cur statim nihil egerit, deinde, si id queri quam agere maluerit, cur productus a vobis potius quam ipse per se, cur tanto post potius quam continuo queri maluerit. si mihi ad haec acute arguteque responderit, tum quaeram denique ex quo iste fonte senator emanet. nam si ipse orietur et nascetur ex sese, fortasse, ut soleo, commovebor; sin autem est rivolus arcessitus et ductus ab ipso capite accusationis vestrae, laetabor, cum tanta gratia tantisque opibus accusatio vestra nitatur, unum senatorem esse solum qui vobis gratificari vellet inventum. de teste Fufio.
Nor, however, do I dread that other class of nocturnal witnesses. For it has been said by them that there will be men who will say that their wives, returning from dinner, were assaulted by Caelius. Weighty men they will be, who will dare to say this on oath, when they must confess that they have never even tried, by meeting and arrangement, to seek redress for so great an injury. But the whole kind of this assault, members of the jury, you both look forward to in mind, and, when it shall be brought, you will have to repulse. For M. Caelius is not being prosecuted by the same men by whom he is being assaulted. Openly are weapons hurled at him; secretly they are passed up.
nec tamen illud genus alterum nocturnorum testium perhorresco. est enim dictum ab illis fore qui dicerent uxores suas a cena redeuntis attrectatas esse a Caelio. graves erunt homines qui hoc iurati dicere audebunt, cum sit eis confitendum numquam se ne congressu quidem et constituto coepisse de tantis iniuriis experiri. sed totum genus oppugnationis huius, iudices, et iam prospicitis animis et, cum inferetur, propulsare debebitis. non enim ab isdem accusatur M. M arcus Caelius a quibus oppugnatur; palam in eum tela iaciuntur, clam subministrantur.
Nor do I say this so as to make it odious for those for whom it ought even to be glorious. They are doing their duty, defending their own, doing what the bravest men are wont to do; injured, they grieve; angered, they are carried away; provoked, they fight. But it is, members of the jury, for your wisdom to consider that, even if there is just cause for brave men to assault M. Caelius, it is not therefore a just cause for you to think rather of another’s pain than of your own faith. You see, indeed, what a multitude is in the Forum, what kinds, what pursuits, what variety of men. Out of all this number, how many do you think there are who, when they think powerful, popular, eloquent men want something, are accustomed to offer themselves unbidden, to busy themselves, to promise testimony?
neque ego id dico ut invidiosum sit in eos quibus gloriosum etiam hoc esse debet. funguntur officio, defendunt suos, faciunt quod viri fortissimi solent; laesi dolent, irati efferuntur, pugnant lacessiti. sed vestrae sapientiae tamen est, iudices, non, si causa iusta est viris fortibus oppugnandi M. M arcum Caelium, ideo vobis quoque causam putare esse iustam alieno dolori potius quam vestrae fidei consulendi. iam quae sit multitudo in foro, quae genera, quae studia, quae varietas hominum videtis. ex hac copia quam multos esse arbitramini qui hominibus potentibus, gratiosis, disertis, cum aliquid eos velle arbitrentur, ultro se offerre soleant, operam navare, testimonium polliceri?
If any of this kind have perchance thrust themselves into this trial, shut out their lust, members of the jury, by your wisdom, that you may be seen at the same time to have looked out both for this man’s safety and for your own scruple, and against perilous influences of men, for the condition of all citizens. I shall lead you away from witnesses, and shall not allow the truth of this trial, which can in no way be altered, to be lodged in the will of witnesses, which can most easily be feigned, and bent and twisted with no trouble. We shall act by arguments, we shall refute the charges by signs clearer than any daylight; thing will fight thing, case case, reason reason.
hoc ex genere si qui se in hoc iudicium forte proiecerint, excluditote eorum cupiditatem, iudices, sapientia vestra, ut eodem tempore et huius saluti et religioni vestrae et contra periculosas hominum potentias condicioni omnium civium providisse videamini. equidem vos abducam a testibus neque huius iudici veritatem quae mutari nullo modo potest in voluntate testium conlocari sinam quae facillime fingi, nullo negotio flecti ac detorqueri potest. argumentis agemus, signis luce omni clarioribus crimina refellemus; res cum re, causa cum causa, ratio cum ratione pugnabit.
And so I am content that that part of the case has been weightily and elegantly pleaded out by M. Crassus — about the Neapolitan seditions, about the assault on the Alexandrians at Puteoli, about Palla’s property. I could have wished it had been said by the same man also about Dio. Yet about that very matter, what is there for you to wait for? The man who did it either does not fear, or even confesses; for he is a king. The man, however, who is said to have been his helper and accomplice, P. Asicius, has been freed by trial. What sort of charge, then, is it that he who committed it does not deny, that he who denied it has been acquitted, but at which this man should be afraid, who has been free not only from doing the deed but even from the suspicion of complicity? And if Asicius was helped more by his case than he was hurt by ill-will, will it injure this man, who has been spattered not only with no suspicion of that deed, but not even with any ill repute?
itaque illam partem causae facile patior graviter et ornate a M. M arco Crasso peroratam de seditionibus Neapolitanis, de Alexandrinorum pulsatione Puteolana, de bonis pallae. vellem dictum esset ab eodem etiam de Dione. de quo ipso tamen quid est quod exspectetis? quod is qui fecit aut non timet aut etiam fatetur; est enim rex; qui autem dictus est adiutor fuisse et conscius, P. P ublius Asicius, iudicio est liberatus. quod igitur est eius modi crimen ut qui commisit non neget, qui negavit absolutus sit, id hic pertimescat qui non modo a facti verum etiam a conscientiae suspicione afuit? et, si Asicio causa plus profuit quam nocuit invidia, huic oberit maledictum tuum qui istius facti non modo suspicione sed ne infamia quidem est aspersus?
“But Asicius was acquitted by collusion.” It is most easy to answer that point, especially for me by whom that case was defended. But Caelius judges Asicius’s case to be the best one; whatever sort it may be, he thinks it separate from his own. And not only Caelius, but also the most cultivated and learned young men, men with the rightest pursuits and the best arts, T. and C. Coponius, who, of all men, most grieved at the death of Dio, both for the love of learning and humanity, and also because they were bound to him by the bond of hospitality. Dio was staying with Titus, as you have heard; he had been known to Titus at Alexandria. What he or his most splendid brother think about M. Caelius you will hear, if they are produced, from the men themselves.
at praevaricatione est Asicius liberatus. perfacile est isti loco respondere, mihi praesertim a quo illa causa defensa est. sed Caelius optimam causam Asici esse arbitratur; cuicuimodi autem sit, a sua putat esse seiunctam. neque solum Caelius sed etiam adulescentes humanissimi et doctissimi, rectissimis studiis atque optimis artibus praediti, Titus Gaiusque Coponii qui ex omnibus maxime Dionis mortem doluerunt, qui cum doctrinae studio atque humanitatis tum etiam hospitio Dionis tenebantur. habitabat apud Titum, ut audistis, Dio, erat ei cognitus Alexandriae. quid aut hic aut summo splendore praeditus frater eius de M. M arco Caelio existimet ex ipsis, si producti erunt, audietis.
Therefore let these things be put aside, that we may at last come to those things on which the case rests. For I noticed, members of the jury, that you listened most attentively to my friend L. Herennius. In whose speech, although you were largely held by his talent and a certain genus of speaking, yet I sometimes feared that that subtly-built up speech to incriminate would creep little by little and softly into your minds. For he said much about luxury, much about lust, much about the vices of youth, much about morals; and he, who in his other life was mild and was wont to range most pleasantly in that kind of urbanity in which now almost everybody takes pleasure, was in this case some grim sort of paternal uncle, censor, schoolmaster: he scolded M. Caelius as no parent ever scolded; he discoursed at length on incontinence and intemperance. What more, members of the jury? I forgave you for listening attentively, because I myself shrank from that sad, that harsh kind of speech.
ergo haec removeantur, ut aliquando, in quibus causa nititur, ad ea veniamus. animadverti enim, iudices, audiri a vobis meum familiarem, L. L ucium Herennium, perattente. in quo etsi magna ex parte ingenio eius et dicendi genere quodam tenebamini, tamen non numquam verebar ne illa subtiliter ad criminandum inducta oratio ad animos vestros sensim ac leniter accederet. dixit enim multa de luxurie, multa de libidine, multa de vitiis iuventutis, multa de moribus et, qui in reliqua vita mitis esset et in hac suavitate humanitatis qua prope iam delectantur omnes versari periucunde soleret, fuit in hac causa pertristis quidam patruus, censor, magister; obiurgavit M. M arcum Caelium, sicut neminem umquam parens; multa de incontinentia intemperantiaque disseruit. quid quaeritis, iudices? ignoscebam vobis attente audientibus, propterea quod egomet tam triste illud, tam asperum genus orationis horrebam.
The first part of his speech moved me less: that Caelius had been a familiar of my friend Bestia, had dined at his house, had often gone to his house, had supported him for the praetorship. These things, which are plainly false, do not move me; for he said that men were dining together who are either away or who are obliged to say the same thing. Nor again does it move me that he said Caelius was a fellow-member with him among the Luperci. A wild brotherhood it is, indeed, of the German Luperci, and quite of the shepherds and the country: their woodland coming-together was instituted before humanity and the laws — if indeed the brotherhood-fellows not only lay each other’s names in court but even draw attention to the brotherhood when they are accusing, lest, perchance, anyone should not know it, they seem to fear!
ac prima pars fuit illa quae me minus movebat, fuisse meo necessario Bestiae Caelium familiarem, cenasse apud eum, ventitasse domum, studuisse praeturae. non me haec movent quae perspicue falsa sunt; etenim eos una cenasse dixit qui aut absunt aut quibus necesse est idem dicere. neque vero illud me commovet quod sibi in Lupercis sodalem esse Caelium dixit. fera quaedam sodalitas et plane pastoricia atque agrestis germanorum Lupercorum, quorum coitio illa silvestris ante est instituta quam humanitas atque leges, si quidem non modo nomina deferunt inter se sodales sed etiam commemorant sodalitatem in accusando, ut ne quis id forte nesciat timere videantur!
But these things I leave; I answer those things which moved me more. The reproof of his pleasures was long, and even gentler, and had more disputation than savagery, on which account it was listened to the more attentively. For when P. Clodius, my friend, in his most weighty and vehement self-presentation, on fire, was driving everything along with the saddest words and the loudest voice, although I approved his eloquence, I was nevertheless not afraid; for I had seen him in not a few cases litigating in vain. To you, however, Balbus, I reply first by petition: if it is permissible, if it is right, that I defend a man who has refused no banquet, who has been in the gardens, who has put on perfumes, who has seen Baiae.
sed haec omitto; ad illa quae me magis moverunt respondeo. deliciarum obiurgatio fuit longa, etiam lenior, plusque disputationis habuit quam atrocitatis, quo etiam audita est attentius. nam P. P ublius Clodius, amicus meus, cum se gravissime vehementissimeque iactaret et omnia inflammatus ageret tristissimis verbis, voce maxima, tametsi probabam eius eloquentiam, tamen non pertimescebam; aliquot enim in causis eum videram frustra litigantem. tibi autem, Balbe, respondeo primum precario, si licet, si fas est defendi a me eum qui nullum convivium renuerit, qui in hortis fuerit, qui unguenta sumpserit, qui Baias viderit.
I myself have seen and heard of many in this state, not only those who had merely tasted with the tip of the lip this kind of life, and touched it (as it is said) with the very tip of their fingers, but those who had given the whole of their youth over to pleasures, who at some time emerged and (as is said) recovered themselves to the good fruit, and have been weighty and famous men. For there is granted, by the consent of all, some play to this age, and nature herself pours out the desires of youth. If they break out in such a way as to shake no one’s life, to overthrow no one’s house, they are wont to be held easy and bearable.
equidem multos et vidi in hac civitate et audivi, non modo qui primoribus labris gustassent genus hoc vitae et extremis, ut dicitur, digitis attigissent sed qui totam adulescentiam voluptatibus dedidissent, emersisse aliquando et se ad frugem bonam, ut dicitur, recepisse gravisque homines atque inlustris fuisse. datur enim concessu omnium huic aliqui ludus aetati, et ipsa natura profundit adulescentiae cupiditates. quae si ita erumpunt ut nullius vitam labefactent, nullius domum evertant, faciles et tolerabiles haberi solent.
But you seemed to me to wish to gather up some odium against Caelius from the common ill-fame of youth. And so all that silence which was given to your speech was for this reason: because, with one defendant set forth, we were thinking of the vices of many. It is easy to denounce luxury. The day would now fail me, if I should try to bring out what can be said in that direction; on seducings, on adulteries, on impudence, on extravagances the speech is endless. Even if you set forth no defendant but those vices, still the matter itself can be denounced both copiously and weightily. But it is for your wisdom, members of the jury, not to be drawn off from the defendant, nor, when the prosecutor has set up the stings of your severity and weight in a thing, in vices, in habits, in times, to let them out upon the man, upon the defendant — when he has been called into a kind of unjust hatred not on his own charge but on the vice of many.
sed tu mihi videbare ex communi infamia iuventutis aliquam invidiam Caelio velle conflare. itaque omne illud silentium quod est orationi tributum tuae fuit ob eam causam quod uno reo proposito de multorum vitiis cogitabamus. facile est accusare luxuriem. dies iam me deficiat, si quae dici in eam sententiam possunt coner expromere; de corruptelis, de adulteriis, de protervitate, de sumptibus immensa oratio est. Vt tibi reum neminem sed vitia ista proponas, res tamen ipsa et copiose et graviter accusari potest. sed vestrae sapientiae, iudices, est non abduci ab reo nec, quos aculeos habeat severitas gravitasque vestra, cum eos accusator erexerit in rem, in vitia, in mores, in tempora, emittere in hominem et in reum, cum is non suo crimine sed multorum vitio sit in quoddam odium iniustum vocatus.
And so I do not dare to answer your severity as is fitting. For it would have been mine to beg off the dispensations of youth and ask leave. I do not dare, I say; I use no refuges of age, I let go the rights granted to all. I ask only this: that, if there is any common ill-fame at this time of the debt, the petulance, the lusts of youth (which I see is great), let not another’s misdeeds, the vices of an age and a time, harm this man. And I, who ask these things, do not refuse to answer most diligently the charges which are brought against him in particular. There are then two charges, of gold and of poison; in which one and the same person is involved. The gold was taken from Clodia; the poison was sought to be given to Clodia, as is said. All the rest are not charges but abuses, of a sauciness of railing rather than of public inquiry. “Adulterer, debauchee, broker” — this is railing, not accusation. For there is no foundation, no seat to these charges; they are contumelious voices rashly let out by an angry prosecutor with no author. Of these two charges I see the source.
itaque ego severitati tuae ita ut oportet respondere non audeo. erat enim meum deprecari vacationem adulescentiae veniamque petere. non, inquam, audeo; perfugiis nihil utor aetatis, concessa omnibus iura dimitto; tantum peto ut, si qua est invidia communis hoc tempore aeris alieni, petulantiae, libidinum iuventutis, quam video esse magnam, tamen ne huic aliena peccata, ne aetatis ac temporum vitia noceant. atque ego idem qui haec postulo quin criminibus quae in hunc proprie conferuntur diligentissime respondeam non recuso. sunt autem duo crimina, auri et veneni; in quibus una atque eadem persona versatur. aurum sumptum a Clodia, venenum quaesitum quod Clodiae daretur, ut dicitur. omnia sunt alia non crimina sed maledicta, iurgi petulantis magis quam publicae quaestionis. ’ adulter, impudicus, sequester’ convicium est, non accusatio. nullum est enim fundamentum horum criminum, nullae sedes; voces sunt contumeliosae temere ab irato accusatore nullo auctore emissae. Horum duorum criminum video auctorem,
I see the spring, I see the certain name and head. Gold was needed; he took it from Clodia, took it without a witness, kept it as long as he wished. I see the greatest sign of some out-of-the-way familiarity. He wanted to kill the same woman; he sought poison, suborned slaves, prepared the draught, fixed the place, brought it secretly. Again, I see a great hatred to have arisen from a most cruel breach. The whole business in this case for us, members of the jury, is with Clodia, a woman not only noble but notorious; about whom I shall say nothing except for the sake of warding off a charge.
video fontem, video certum nomen et caput. auro opus fuit; sumpsit a Clodia, sumpsit sine teste, habuit quamdiu voluit. maximum video signum cuiusdam egregiae familiaritatis. necare eandem voluit; quaesivit venenum, sollicitavit servos, potionem paravit, locum constituit, clam attulit. Magnum rursus odium video cum crudelissimo discidio exstitisse. res est omnis in hac causa nobis, iudices, cum Clodia, muliere non solum nobili verum etiam nota; de qua ego nihil dicam nisi depellendi criminis causa.
But you understand, in your eminent prudence, Cn. Domitius, that we have to do with this woman alone. If she does not say that she lent gold to Caelius, if she does not allege that poison was prepared for her by him, we are acting petulantly, if we name a matron otherwise than the sanctity of matrons demands. But if, with that woman set aside, no charge or resources are left them to assault M. Caelius, what else is there for us as advocates to do, but repulse those who hound him? Which I should do the more vehemently, were it not that enmities stand in my way with this woman’s husband — I meant to say her brother; I always make this slip. Now I shall act with restraint, and shall not go further than my faith and the case itself shall force me to: for I have never thought I had to wage women’s enmities, especially with a woman whom all have always reckoned rather everyone’s friend than anyone’s enemy.
sed intellegis pro tua praestanti prudentia, Cn. G naei Domiti, cum hac sola rem esse nobis. quae si se aurum Caelio commodasse non dicit, si venenum ab hoc sibi paratum esse non arguit, petulanter facimus, si matrem familias secus quam matronarum sanctitas postulat nominamus. sin ista muliere remota nec crimen ullum nec opes ad oppugnandum M. Caelium illis relinquuntur, quid est aliud quod nos patroni facere debeamus, nisi ut eos qui insectantur repellamus? quod quidem facerem vehementius, nisi intercederent mihi inimicitiae cum istius mulieris viro — fratrem volui dicere; semper hic erro. nunc agam modice nec longius progrediar quam me mea fides et causa ipsa coget: nec enim muliebris umquam inimicitias mihi gerendas putavi, praesertim cum ea quam omnes semper amicam omnium potius quam cuiusquam inimicam putaverunt.
But still I shall ask of her first whether she would prefer that I deal with her severely and gravely and in the old style, or relaxedly and gently and politely. If in that austere manner and mode, I must call up some bearded one of those old men from the underworld — not with the little beard which she takes pleasure in, but with that shaggy one we see in the antique statues and busts — to scold the woman and speak for me, lest she perchance be angry with me. Let one, then, of this very family come up, and best of all the Blind one; for he will feel the least pain, who will not see her. He, surely, if he comes forth, will deal with her and speak as follows: “Woman, what have you to do with Caelius, what with a young man, what with a stranger? Why have you been either so familiar as to lend gold, or so hostile as to fear poison? Have you not seen your father, have you not heard that your father’s brother, your grandfather, your great-grandfather, your great-great-grandfather, your forefather of the fifth degree, were consuls?
sed tamen ex ipsa quaeram prius utrum me secum severe et graviter et prisce agere malit, an remisse et leniter et urbane. si illo austero more ac modo, aliquis mihi ab inferis excitandus est ex barbatis illis, non hac barbula qua ista delectatur sed illa horrida quam in statuis antiquis atque imaginibus videmus, qui obiurget mulierem et qui pro me loquatur ne mihi ista forte suscenseat. exsistat igitur ex hac ipsa familia aliquis ac potissimum Caecus ille; minimum enim dolorem capiet qui istam non videbit. qui profecto, si exstiterit, sic aget ac sic loquetur: ’ mulier, quid tibi cum Caelio, quid cum homine adulescentulo, quid cum alieno? cur aut tam familiaris fuisti ut aurum commodares, aut tam inimica ut venenum timeres? non patrem tuum videras, non patruum, non avum, non proavum, non abavum, non atavum audieras consules fuisse;
did you not, finally, just now know yourself to have held the marriage of Q. Metellus, a most distinguished and bravest man, most loving of his country, who, the moment he had set his foot over the threshold, surpassed nearly every citizen in virtue, glory, and standing? When you had married out of a most ample family into a most distinguished house, why was Caelius so closely joined to you? Was he kinsman, connection, your husband’s familiar? Nothing of the sort. What then was it, if not a kind of recklessness and lust? If our manly likenesses did not move you, did not even my own descendant, that Q. Claudia, urge you to be a rival of domestic praise in the glory of women — not that virgin Vestal Claudia, who, embracing her father in his triumph, did not allow him to be dragged from the chariot by an enemy tribune of the plebs? Why have your brother’s vices moved you rather than your father’s good qualities, and your grandfather’s, and those traced down through us in men and even in women? For this did I sunder the peace of Pyrrhus, that you should daily strike compacts of most foul loves; for this did I bring water in, that you should use it incestuously; for this did I lay down a road, that you should throng it in the company of strangers’ husbands?”
non denique modo te Q. Q uinti Metelli matrimonium tenuisse sciebas, clarissimi ac fortissimi viri patriaeque amantissimi, qui simul ac pedem limine extulerat, omnis prope civis virtute, gloria, dignitate superabat? cum ex amplissimo genere in familiam clarissimam nupsisses, cur tibi Caelius tam coniunctus fuit? cognatus, adfinis, viri tui familiaris? nihil eorum. quid igitur fuit nisi quaedam temeritas ac libido? nonne te, si nostrae imagines viriles non commovebant, ne progenies quidem mea, Q. illa Claudia, aemulam domesticae laudis in gloria muliebri esse admonebat, non virgo illa Vestalis Claudia quae patrem complexa triumphantem ab inimico tribuno plebei de curru detrahi passa non est? cur te fraterna vitia potius quam bona paterna et avita et usque a nobis cum in viris tum etiam in feminis repetita moverunt? ideone ego pacem Pyrrhi diremi ut tu amorum turpissimorum cotidie foedera ferires, ideo aquam adduxi ut ea tu inceste uterere, ideo viam munivi ut eam tu alienis viris comitata celebrares?’
But why, members of the jury, have I brought in so weighty a person, that I fear lest the same Appius should suddenly turn round and begin to prosecute Caelius with that censorial gravity of his? But I shall see to that later, and in such a way, members of the jury, that I trust I shall prove M. Caelius’s life even before the most severe disputants. You, however, woman — for now I speak with you in person, with no character introduced — if you propose to make good what you do, what you say, what you charge, what you contrive, what you allege, you must give and set forth the reason of so great a familiarity, of so great a closeness, of so great a conjunction. The prosecutors, indeed, fling about lusts, loves, adulteries, Baiae, beaches, banquets, drinking-parties, songs, music, sailings, and they declare that they say nothing without your agreement. Which things, since you, by some unbridled and headlong mind, have wanted to be brought into the Forum and into court, you must either dissolve them and prove them false, or confess that we ought to give credence neither to your charge nor to your testimony.
sed quid ego, iudices, ita gravem personam induxi ut verear ne se idem Appius repente convertat et Caelium incipiat accusare illa sua gravitate censoria? sed videro hoc posterius atque ita, iudices, ut vel severissimis disceptatoribus M. M arci Caeli vitam me probaturum esse confidam. tu vero, mulier — iam enim ipse tecum nulla persona introducta loquor — si ea quae facis, quae dicis, quae insimulas, quae moliris, quae arguis, probare cogitas, rationem tantae familiaritatis, tantae consuetudinis, tantae coniunctionis reddas atque exponas necesse est. accusatores quidem libidines, amores, adulteria, Baias, actas, convivia, comissationes, cantus, symphonias, navigia iactant, idemque significant nihil se te invita dicere. quae tu quoniam mente nescio qua effrenata atque praecipiti in forum deferri iudiciumque voluisti, aut diluas oportet ac falsa esse doceas aut nihil neque crimini tuo neque testimonio credendum esse fateare.
But if you would rather have me act in a more polite fashion, this is how I shall deal with you. I shall remove that hard old man, almost a peasant; I shall therefore take one of these, and best of all your littlest brother, who is in this kind of thing the most polished — who loves you most, who, on account of some I-suppose-timidity and certain idle nocturnal terrors, used always when a little boy to sleep with you his elder sister. Imagine him saying to you: “Why are you in an uproar, sister? Why are you out of your senses? Why, having let your shouting begin, do you make a small thing great by your words? You have caught sight of the young man next door; his fairness, his height, his face and eyes have struck you; you wished to see him oftener; you have sometimes been in the same gardens; you, a noble lady, want to bind that young man, son of a thrifty and tight-fisted father, to you with your resources. You cannot; he kicks, spits out, repels, judges your gifts not worth that much. Take yourself elsewhere. You have gardens beside the Tiber, carefully laid out at the very place to which all the youth comes for swimming; from this place you can pick your bargains daily; why are you a nuisance to this man who scorns you?””
sin autem urbanius me agere mavis, sic agam tecum. removebo illum senem durum ac paene agrestem; ex his igitur sumam aliquem ac potissimum minimum fratrem qui est in isto genere urbanissimus; qui te amat plurimum, qui propter nescio quam, credo, timiditatem et nocturnos quosdam inanis metus tecum semper pusio cum maiore sorore cubitabat. Eum putato tecum loqui: ’ quid tumultuaris, soror? quid insanis? quid clamorem exorsa verbis parvam rem magnam facis? vicinum adulescentulum aspexisti; candor huius te et proceritas voltus oculique pepulerunt; saepius videre voluisti; fuisti non numquam in isdem hortis; vis nobilis mulier illum filium familias patre parco ac tenaci habere tuis copiis devinctum. non potes; calcitrat, respuit, repellit, non putat tua dona esse tanti. confer te alio. habes hortos ad Tiberim ac diligenter eo loco paratos quo omnis iuventus natandi causa venit; hinc licet condiciones cotidie legas; cur huic qui te spernit molesta es?’
I now turn back to you in turn, Caelius, and take upon myself paternal authority and severity. But I am at a loss which father best to take — some Caecilian, vehement and hard: “Now at last my soul burns up, now my heart is heaped up with anger” — or that one: “O wretched, O criminal!” Iron these fathers are: “Am I to say what I would like, what I would have? — which you so by your foul deeds make sure that I want in vain” — such fathers are scarcely to be borne. Such a father would say: “Why have you taken yourself into that courtesan’s neighbourhood? Why, when you knew the snares, did you not flee? Why have you known any other man’s woman? Squander it, scatter it; with my leave you may. If you come into want, you will hurt; not I. I have enough to enjoy what is left of my life.”
redeo nunc ad te, Caeli, vicissim ac mihi auctoritatem patriam severitatemque suscipio. sed dubito quem patrem potissimum sumam, Caecilianumne aliquem vehementem atque durum: nunc enim demum mi animus ardet, nunc meum cor cumulatur ira aut illum: O infelix, o sceleste! ferrei sunt isti patres: egone quid dicam, quid velim? quae tu omnia tuis foedis factis facis ut nequiquam velim, vix ferendi. diceret talis pater: ’ cur te in istam vicinitatem meretriciam contulisti? cur inlecebris cognitis non refugisti?’ cur alienam ullam mulierem nosti? Dide ac dissice; per me tibi licet. si egebis, tibi dolebit, non mihi. mihi sat est qui aetatis quod relicuom est oblectem meae.
To this hard, blunt old man Caelius would answer that he had been led aside from the road by no lust. The proof? — no expenses, no wastings, no new loans against old. “But there was a rumour.” How few can escape that, especially in so foul-mouthed a state? Do you wonder that the neighbour of that woman has been ill spoken of, when her own brother could not escape the talk of the unfair? But to a mild and merciful father, of the kind who is here — “He has broken in the doors; they will be put back. He has torn the dress; it will be patched up” — Caelius’s case is most easily disposed of. For what could there be in which he could not easily defend himself? I say nothing now against that woman; but if there were anyone unlike her, who set herself before all comers, who plainly always had a paramour openly named, into whose gardens, house, and Baiae the lusts of all men had a public-right of way, who even fed young men and supported the thrift of fathers with her expenses; if as a widow she lived freely, as a saucy one petulantly, as a rich one lavishly, as a lustful one in the courtesan’s manner — should I think a man an adulterer, if any greeted her a little less guardedly?
huic tristi ac derecto seni responderet Caelius se nulla cupiditate inductum de via decessisse. quid signi? nulli sumptus, nulla iactura, nulla versura. at fuit fama. quotus quisque istam effugere potest, praesertim in tam maledica civitate? vicinum eius mulieris miraris male audisse cuius frater germanus sermones iniquorum effugere non potuit? leni vero et clementi patre cuius modi ille est: fores ecfregit, restituentur; discidit vestem, resarcietur, Caeli causa est expeditissima. quid enim esset in quo se non facile defenderet? nihil iam in istam mulierem dico; sed, si esset aliqua dissimilis istius quae se omnibus pervolgaret, quae haberet palam decretum semper aliquem, cuius in hortos, domum, Baias iure suo libidines omnium commearent, quae etiam aleret adulescentis et parsimoniam patrum suis sumptibus sustineret; si vidua libere, proterva petulanter, dives effuse, libidinosa meretricio more viveret, adulterum ego putarem si quis hanc paulo liberius salutasset?
Someone will say: “Is this then your discipline? Is it thus that you train young men? Is this why the parent commended this boy to you and put him in your keeping — that he should set his youth in love and pleasures, and that you should defend this life and these pursuits?” I, members of the jury, if there has been any of this hardness of soul and this temper of virtue and continence, that he should spit out every pleasure and finish the whole course of his life in the labour of his body and the strain of his mind — whom no rest, no relaxation, no pursuits of his peers, no games, no banquet would delight, who should think nothing in life worth seeking except what is joined with praise and dignity — this man, in my opinion, I think gifted and adorned with certain divine goods. From this kind of man I think were those Camilli, Fabricii, Curii, and all those who out of the smallest things made these so great.
dicet aliquis: ’ haec igitur est tua disciplina? sic tu instituis adulescentis? ob hanc causam tibi hunc puerum parens commendavit et tradidit, ut in amore atque in voluptatibus adulescentiam suam conlocaret, et ut hanc tu vitam atque haec studia defenderes?’ ego, si quis, iudices, hoc robore animi atque hac indole virtutis ac continentiae fuit ut respueret omnis voluptates omnemque vitae suae cursum in labore corporis atque in animi contentione conficeret, quem non quies, non remissio, non aequalium studia, non ludi, non convivium delectaret, nihil in vita expetendum putaret nisi quod esset cum laude et cum dignitate coniunctum, hunc mea sententia divinis quibusdam bonis instructum atque ornatum puto. ex hoc genere illos fuisse arbitror Camillos, Fabricios, Curios, omnisque eos qui haec ex minimis tanta fecerunt.
But these kinds of virtues are now scarcely to be found, not only in our manners, but even in books. Even the leaves which contained that ancient severity have grown obsolete; nor only with us, who have followed this profession and reasoning of life in act rather than in words, but even with the Greeks, the most learned of men, to whom, when they could not act, it was nevertheless permitted to speak and write honourably and grandly: in the changed times of Greece, certain other precepts have arisen.
verum haec genera virtutum non solum in moribus nostris sed vix iam in libris reperiuntur. chartae quoque quae illam pristinam severitatem continebant obsoleverunt; neque solum apud nos qui hanc sectam rationemque vitae re magis quam verbis secuti sumus sed etiam apud Graecos, doctissimos homines, quibus, cum facere non possent, loqui tamen et scribere honeste et magnifice licebat, alia quaedam mutatis Graeciae temporibus praecepta exstiterunt.
And so some have said that wise men do all things for the sake of pleasure, nor have learned men shrunk from this foulness of speech; others have thought pleasure must be joined with dignity, so that they might join, by their facility of speaking, things that most repugn each other; that one straight road to praise by labour — those who have approved it are now nearly alone left in the schools. For nature herself has begotten in us many enticements by which a slumbering virtue might at times wink; she has shown to youth many slippery roads, on which it could scarcely set foot or step without some fall and slipping; she has given a variety of most pleasant things, by which not only this age but even maturity already strengthened might be caught.
itaque alii voluptatis causa omnia sapientes facere dixerunt, neque ab hac orationis turpitudine eruditi homines refugerunt; alii cum voluptate dignitatem coniungendam putaverunt, ut res maxime inter se repugnantis dicendi facultate coniungerent; illud unum derectum iter ad laudem cum labore qui probaverunt, prope soli iam in scholis sunt relicti. multa enim nobis blandimenta natura ipsa genuit quibus sopita virtus coniveret interdum; multas vias adulescentiae lubricas ostendit quibus illa insistere aut ingredi sine casu aliquo ac prolapsione vix posset; multarum rerum iucundissimarum varietatem dedit qua non modo haec aetas sed etiam iam conroborata caperetur.
Wherefore if you find anyone who casts away with his eyes the fairness of things, who is taken by no smell, no touch, no taste, who shuts out from his ears every sweetness, this man perhaps I, and a few, will think the gods are with; but most will think them angry. Therefore let this deserted and untrodden way, now blocked with leaves and boughs, be left aside. Let some play be granted to youth; let young manhood be a little freer; let not all things be denied to pleasures; let not always that true and straight reason prevail; let desire and pleasure sometimes win against reason, provided that in this kind there be kept that prescription and moderation. Let youth spare its own chastity, not despoil another’s, not pour out its inheritance, not be slaughtered by usury, not break into another’s house and family, not bring shame on the chaste, a stain on the upright, ill-fame on the good, not terrify any with violence, not be present at ambushes, keep clear of crime. At last, when it has obeyed pleasures, has given some time to the play of the age and to these idle desires of youth, let it call itself back at some point to the care of the household, of the Forum, and of the commonwealth, that it may seem to have cast away by satiety and to have despised by experience those things which earlier it had not seen by reason.
quam ob rem si quem forte inveneritis qui aspernetur oculis pulchritudinem rerum, non odore ullo, non tactu, non sapore capiatur, excludat auribus omnem suavitatem, huic homini ego fortasse et pauci deos propitios, plerique autem iratos putabunt. ergo haec deserta via et inculta atque interclusa iam frondibus et virgultis relinquatur. detur aliqui ludus aetati; sit adulescentia liberior; non omnia voluptatibus denegentur; non semper superet vera illa et derecta ratio; vincat aliquando cupiditas voluptasque rationem, dum modo illa in hoc genere praescriptio moderatioque teneatur. parcat iuventus pudicitiae suae, ne spoliet alienam, ne effundat patrimonium, ne faenore trucidetur, ne incurrat in alterius domum atque familiam, ne probrum castis, labem integris, infamiam bonis inferat, ne quem vi terreat, ne intersit insidiis, scelere careat. postremo cum paruerit voluptatibus, dederit aliquid temporis ad ludum aetatis atque ad inanis hasce adulescentiae cupiditates, revocet se aliquando ad curam rei domesticae, rei forensis reique publicae, ut ea quae ratione antea non perspexerat satietate abiecisse et experiendo contempsisse videatur.
And many indeed within our memory and that of our fathers and forefathers, members of the jury, have been the highest of men and most distinguished citizens, in whom, when the lusts of youth had cooled, eminent virtues, with their age now firmed, came forth. Of whom I do not wish to name any one; you yourselves recall them with yourselves. For I do not wish to join even the smallest error of any brave and famous man with his greatest praise. If I were willing to do this, many of the highest and most ornamented men would be cited by me, of whom would be named on the one side too much licence in their youth, on the other lavish luxury, vast debt, expenses, lusts — which afterwards, covered over by many virtues, anyone who wished could defend by the excuse of youth.
ac multi quidem et nostra et patrum maiorumque memoria, iudices, summi homines et clarissimi cives fuerunt quorum, cum adulescentiae cupiditates defervissent, eximiae virtutes firmata iam aetate exstiterunt. ex quibus neminem mihi libet nominare; vosmet vobiscum recordamini. nolo enim cuiusquam fortis atque inlustris viri ne minimum quidem erratum cum maxima laude coniungere. quod si facere vellem, multi a me summi atque ornatissimi viri praedicarentur quorum partim nimia libertas in adulescentia, partim profusa luxuries, magnitudo aeris alieni, sumptus, libidines nominarentur, quae multis postea virtutibus obtecta adulescentiae qui vellet excusatione defenderet.
But indeed in M. Caelius — for now I will speak the more confidently of his honourable pursuits, since I dare, relying on your wisdom, to confess certain things freely — no luxury will be found, no expenses, no debt, no lust of banquets and brothels. That vice indeed of the belly and the gullet not only does not lessen with age in men but even increases. As for love-affairs and “charms” so called, which are not wont to be lasting troubles to those endowed with a firmer mind — for they pass through their bloom early and quickly — they have never held this man taken or hindered.
at vero in M. M arco Caelio — dicam enim iam confidentius de studiis eius honestis, quoniam audeo quaedam fretus vestra sapientia libere confiteri — nulla luxuries reperietur, nulli sumptus, nullum aes alienum, nulla conviviorum ac lustrorum libido. quod quidem vitium ventris et gurgitis non modo non minuit aetas hominibus sed etiam auget. amores autem et deliciae quae vocantur, quae firmiore animo praeditis diutius molestae non solent esse — mature enim et celeriter deflorescunt — numquam hunc occupatum impeditumve tenuerunt.
You have heard him when he was speaking on his own behalf, you heard him before when he was prosecuting — I say this for the cause of defending, not of boasting — and the kind of his eloquence, his fluency, the abundance of his thoughts and his words, you have, with your prudence, perceived. And in him you saw not only his talent shine forth (which often, even if it is not nourished by industry, yet has its own strength), but in him there was, unless my goodwill perchance deceived me, a method both built up by good arts and elaborated by care and watchings. And know, gentlemen, that those desires which are flung at Caelius and these pursuits of which I speak cannot easily be in the same man. For it cannot be that a mind given over to lust, hindered by love, longing, desire, often by too great abundance and even sometimes by want, should be able to bear up, not only in pleading but even in thinking, this whatever-it-is which we do in speaking, however we do it.
Audistis cum pro se diceret, audistis antea cum accusaret — defendendi haec causa, non gloriandi loquor — genus orationis, facultatem, copiam sententiarum atque verborum, quae vestra prudentia est, perspexistis. atque in eo non solum ingenium elucere eius videbatis, quod saepe, etiam si industria non alitur, valet tamen ipsum suis viribus, sed inerat, nisi me propter benivolentiam forte fallebat, ratio et bonis artibus instituta et cura et vigiliis elaborata. atqui scitote, iudices, eas cupiditates quae obiciuntur Caelio atque haec studia de quibus disputo non facile in eodem homine esse posse. fieri enim non potest ut animus libidini deditus, amore, desiderio, cupiditate, saepe nimia copia, inopia etiam non numquam impeditus hoc quicquid est quod nos facimus in dicendo, quoquo modo facimus, non modo agendo verum etiam cogitando possit sustinere.
Or do you think there is any other reason why, with such great rewards of eloquence, with such great pleasure in speaking, such great praise, such great influence, such great honour, so few there are, and always have been, who toil at this labour? All pleasures must be trodden down, the pursuits of delight must be left aside, the play, the joke, the banquet, the conversation almost of intimates must be deserted. For this reason in this kind labour offends men and frightens them off the pursuit, not because either talent fails or boyhood’s training.
an vos aliam causam esse ullam putatis cur in tantis praemiis eloquentiae, tanta voluptate dicendi, tanta laude, tanta gratia, tanto honore, tam sint pauci semperque fuerint qui in hoc labore versentur? obterendae sunt omnes voluptates, relinquenda studia delectationis, ludus, iocus, convivium, sermo paene est familiarium deserendus. qua re in hoc genere labor offendit homines a studioque deterret, non quo aut ingenia deficiant aut doctrina puerilis.
Or would this man, if he had given himself up to that life, while still very young have called a consular man into court? Would this man, if he were fleeing labour, if he were held bound by pleasures, daily go his rounds in this battle-line, seek enmities, call into court, undergo capital peril, and, with the Roman people watching, fight now for so many months either for safety or for glory? Does that nearby neighbourhood smell of nothing, do men’s reports declare nothing, does Baiae itself even speak nothing? Indeed Baiae does not only speak, but it cries out — that the lust of one woman has slid down to such a point that she does not seek solitude and darkness and these coverings of disgraces, but in the foulest things rejoices in the most thronged frequency and the most brilliant daylight.
an hic, si sese isti vitae dedidisset, consularem hominem admodum adulescens in iudicium vocavisset? hic, si laborem fugeret, si obstrictus voluptatibus teneretur, hac in acie cotidie versaretur, appeteret inimicitias, in iudicium vocaret, subiret periculum capitis, ipse inspectante populo Romano tot iam mensis aut de salute aut de gloria dimicaret? nihilne igitur illa vicinitas redolet, nihilne hominum fama, nihil Baiae denique ipsae loquuntur? illae vero non loquuntur solum verum etiam personant, huc unius mulieris libidinem esse prolapsam ut ea non modo solitudinem ac tenebras atque haec flagitiorum integumenta non quaerat sed in turpissimis rebus frequentissima celebritate et clarissima luce laetetur.
But if there be anyone who thinks that even courtesan loves are forbidden to youth, he is indeed very severe — I cannot deny it — but he stands far off not only from the licence of this age but also from the custom and the leave of the ancestors. For when has this not been done, when has it been censured, when has it not been allowed, when, lastly, has it been so that what was lawful was not lawful? Here I will define the very thing; I will name no woman; only so much I shall leave in the middle.
verum si quis est qui etiam meretriciis amoribus interdictum iuventuti putet, est ille quidem valde severus — negare non possum — sed abhorret non modo ab huius saeculi licentia verum etiam a maiorum consuetudine atque concessis. quando enim hoc non factitatum est, quando reprehensum, quando non permissum, quando denique fuit ut quod licet non liceret? hic ego ipsam rem definiam, mulierem nullam nominabo; tantum in medio relinquam.
If any unmarried woman opens her house to all men’s lust, and openly sets herself up in courtesan’s life, has gotten the habit of the dinner-parties of the most foreign men — if she does this in the city, if in her gardens, if in that frequented Baiae, if, lastly, she so bears herself, not only in her gait but in her dress and retinue, not only in the blaze of her eyes, the freedom of her speech, but even in her embracing, kissing, beach-going, sailings, banquets, that she seems not only a courtesan but even a forward and saucy courtesan — if some young man chances to have been with this woman, does he, L. Herennius, seem to you an adulterer, or a lover; to have wished to storm her chastity, or to fill his lust?
si quae non nupta mulier domum suam patefecerit omnium cupiditati palamque sese in meretricia vita conlocarit, virorum alienissimorum conviviis uti instituerit, si hoc in urbe, si in hortis, si in Baiarum illa celebritate faciat, si denique ita sese gerat non incessu solum sed ornatu atque comitatu, non flagrantia oculorum, non libertate sermonum, sed etiam complexu, osculatione, actis, navigatione, conviviis, ut non solum meretrix sed etiam proterva meretrix procaxque videatur: cum hac si qui adulescens forte fuerit, utrum hic tibi, L. L uci Herenni, adulter an amator, expugnare pudicitiam an explere libidinem voluisse videatur?
I now forget your injuries, Clodia, I lay aside the memory of my pain; what was cruelly done by you against my own people in my absence, I overlook; let what I have said not be said against you. But of you yourself I ask, since the prosecutors say they have a charge from you and a witness for that charge, you yourself. If there be such a woman as I have described a moment ago, unlike you, of a courtesan’s life and habits — to have had with her any account, can it seem to you most foul or most disgraceful? If you are not such, as I prefer, what is it that they throw at Caelius? But if they wish you to be such, what reason is there that we should fear this charge, if you make light of it? Therefore give us a way and a method of defence. For either your modesty will defend us by saying that nothing has been done by M. Caelius too forwardly, or your shamelessness will give to him and to the rest a great means of defending themselves.
obliviscor iam iniurias tuas, Clodia, depono memoriam doloris mei; quae abs te crudeliter in meos me absente facta sunt neglego; ne sint haec in te dicta quae dixi. sed ex te ipsa requiro, quoniam et crimen accusatores abs te et testem eius criminis te ipsam dicunt se habere. si quae mulier sit eius modi qualem ego paulo ante descripsi, tui dissimilis, vita institutoque meretricio, cum hac aliquid adulescentem hominem habuisse rationis num tibi perturpe aut perflagitiosum esse videatur? ea si tu non es, sicut ego malo, quid est quod obiciant Caelio? sin eam te volunt esse, quid est cur nos crimen hoc, si tu contemnis, pertimescamus? qua re nobis da viam rationemque defensionis. aut enim pudor tuus defendet nihil a M. M arco Caelio petulantius esse factum, aut impudentia et huic et ceteris magnam ad se defendendum facultatem dabit.
But since my speech now seems to have got out of the shoals and to have run past the rocks, what remains of the course shows itself most easy to me. There are, in one woman, two charges of the highest crimes: of the gold which is said to have been taken from Clodia, and of the poison which they accuse Caelius of having prepared for the killing of the same Clodia. The gold, you say, he took to give to L. Lucceius’s slaves, by whom Dio of Alexandria, who was at that time staying with Lucceius, was to be killed. A great charge, whether of laying snares for a legate, or of soliciting slaves for the killing of their master’s guest — a counsel full of wickedness, full of audacity!
sed quoniam emersisse iam e vadis et scopulos praetervecta videtur esse oratio mea, perfacilis mihi reliquus cursus ostenditur. duo sunt enim crimina una in muliere summorum facinorum, auri quod sumptum a Clodia dicitur, et veneni quod eiusdem Clodiae necandae causa parasse Caelium criminantur. aurum sumpsit, ut dicitis, quod L. Luccei servis daret, per quos Alexandrinus Dio qui tum apud Lucceium habitabat necaretur. Magnum crimen vel in legatis insidiandis vel in servis ad hospitem domini necandum sollicitandis, plenum sceleris consilium, plenum audaciae!
In which charge first I demand: did he say to Clodia why he took the gold, or did he not say? If he did not say, why did she give it? If he did say, she has bound herself by the same crime of complicity. Did you dare bring out the gold from your cabinet, did you dare strip your Venus of her ornaments — you, the spoiler of the rest of them — when you knew for what so great a crime this gold was being sought, for the killing of a legate, for the everlasting stain of crime upon L. Lucceius, a most holy and most upright man? Your generous mind ought not to have been an accomplice of so great a crime, your popular house its minister, that hospitable Venus of yours, finally, its helper.
quo quidem in crimine primum illud requiro, dixeritne Clodiae quam ob rem aurum sumeret, an non dixerit. si non dixit, cur dedit? si dixit, eodem se conscientiae scelere devinxit. tune aurum ex armario tuo promere ausa es, tune venerem illam tuam spoliare ornamentis, spoliatricem ceterorum, cum scires quantum ad facinus aurum hoc quaereretur, ad necem legati, ad L. L ucii Luccei, sanctissimi hominis atque integerrimi, labem sceleris sempiternam? huic facinori tanto tua mens liberalis conscia, tua domus popularis ministra, tua denique hospitalis illa Venus adiutrix esse non debuit.
Balbus saw this; he said Clodia was kept in the dark, and that Caelius had brought to her the story that he was looking for gold for the trimming of games. If he was as familiar with Clodia as you wish him to be, since you say so much about her lust, he certainly told her where he wanted the gold; if he was not so familiar, she did not give it. Thus, if Caelius told you the truth — O immoderate woman — you, knowing, gave gold for crime; if he did not dare to tell, you did not give it. Why should I now, with arguments which are countless, resist this charge? I can say that the morals of M. Caelius are most far from the atrocity of so great a crime; that least of all is it to be believed that to a man so talented and so prudent it should not have come into mind that a deed of such crime ought not to be entrusted to unknown and another’s slaves. I can also, by the custom of the rest of the patrons and my own, ask the prosecutor where Caelius came together with Lucceius’s slaves, what approach there was for him; if of his own accord, with what recklessness! if through another, through whom? I can travel through every lurking-place of suspicion in speaking; no cause, no place, no opportunity, no accomplice, no hope of carrying out or hiding the deed, no method, no trace of the great crime, will be found.
vidit hoc Balbus; celatam esse Clodiam dixit, atque ita Caelium ad illam attulisse, se ad ornatum ludorum aurum quaerere. si tam familiaris erat Clodiae quam tu esse vis cum de libidine eius tam multa dicis, dixit profecto quo vellet aurum; si tam familiaris non erat, non dedit. ita si verum tibi Caelius dixit, o immoderata mulier, sciens tu aurum ad facinus dedisti; si non est ausus dicere, non dedisti. quid ego nunc argumentis huic crimini, quae sunt innumerabilia, resistam? possum dicere mores M. M arci Caeli longissime a tanti sceleris atrocitate esse disiunctos; minime esse credendum homini tam ingenioso tamque prudenti non venisse in mentem rem tanti sceleris ignotis alienisque servis non esse credendam. possum etiam alia et ceterorum patronorum et mea consuetudine ab accusatore perquirere, ubi sit congressus cum servis Luccei Caelius, qui ei fuerit aditus; si per se, qua temeritate! si per alium, per quem? possum omnis latebras suspicionum peragrare dicendo; non causa, non locus, non facultas, non conscius, non perficiendi, non occultandi malefici spes, non ratio ulla, non vestigium maximi facinoris reperietur.
But these things, which are an orator’s province, which to me, not on account of my talent but on account of this practice and use of speaking, could have brought some fruit, when seen to be put forward by my own elaboration, for brevity’s sake I leave aside altogether. For I have, members of the jury, a man whom you can easily allow to be a partner of your scrupulousness and your oath: L. Lucceius, a most holy man and a most weighty witness, who would neither have not heard that so great a crime against his fame and his fortunes had been borne in by M. Caelius, nor have neglected it, nor have borne it. Or could that man, endowed with that humanity, those pursuits, those arts, that learning, have neglected the peril of the very man whom he loved on account of these very pursuits, and have omitted to take care, in his guest’s case, of what he would severely receive if it were aimed at a stranger? What he would have grieved at if he had found out that it had been done through unknown hands, would he have neglected when attempted by his own slaves? What he would blame in fields and public places, would he lightly have borne if it were begun in the city and at his own house? What in the peril of some country man he would not have passed over, would he, an educated man, have thought ought to be dissembled in the snares of a most learned man?
sed haec quae sunt oratoris propria, quae mihi non propter ingenium meum sed propter hanc exercitationem usumque dicendi fructum aliquem ferre potuissent, cum a me ipso elaborata proferri viderentur, brevitatis causa relinquo omnia. habeo enim, iudices, quem vos socium vestrae religionis iurisque iurandi facile esse patiamini, L. L ucium Lucceium, sanctissimum hominem et gravissimum testem, qui tantum facinus in famam atque in fortunas suas neque non audisset inlatum a M. M arco Caelio neque neglexisset neque tulisset. an ille vir illa humanitate praeditus, illis studiis, illis artibus atque doctrina illius ipsius periculum quem propter haec ipsa studia diligebat, neglegere potuisset et, quod facinus in alienum hominem intentum severe acciperet, id omisisset curare in hospitem? quod per ignotos actum si comperisset doleret, id a suis servis temptatum esse neglegeret? quod in agris locisve publicis factum reprehenderet, id in urbe ac domi suae coeptum esse leniter ferret? quod in alicuius agrestis periculo non praetermitteret, id homo eruditus in insidiis doctissimi hominis dissimulandum putaret?
But why should I keep you longer, gentlemen? Receive his sworn-conscience and authority, and learn diligently every word of his testimony. Read. Testimony of L. Lucceius. What more do you wait for? Or do you think the case itself and truth can send out any voice on their own behalf? This is innocence’s defence, this is the case’s own speech, this is the one voice of truth. In the charge itself there is no suspicion, in the matter no argument, in the business which is said to have happened no trace of the speech, of the place, of the time; no witness, no accomplice is named; the whole charge is brought out from a hostile, ill-famed, cruel, criminal, and lustful house. But that house which is said to have been attempted by this nefarious crime is full of integrity, dignity, duty, religion; from which house there is read out to you authority bound by oath — so that there be put in contention a thing not at all to be doubted: whether a rash, saucy, angry woman is judged to have made up the charge, or a weighty, wise, moderate man to have given testimony scrupulously.
sed cur diutius vos, iudices, teneo? ipsius iurati religionem auctoritatemque percipite atque omnia diligenter testimoni verba cognoscite. recita. L. L ucii Luccei testimonium. quid exspectatis amplius? an aliquam vocem putatis ipsam pro se causam et veritatem posse mittere? haec est innocentiae defensio, haec ipsius causae oratio, haec una vox veritatis. in crimine ipso nulla suspicio est, in re nihil est argumenti, in negotio quod actum esse dicitur nullum vestigium sermonis, loci, temporis; nemo testis, nemo conscius nominatur, totum crimen profertur ex inimica, ex infami, ex crudeli, ex facinerosa, ex libidinosa domo. domus autem illa quae temptata esse scelere isto nefario dicitur plena est integritatis, dignitatis, offici, religionis; ex qua domo recitatur vobis iure iurando devincta auctoritas, ut res minime dubitanda in contentione ponatur, utrum temeraria, procax, irata mulier finxisse crimen, an gravis sapiens moderatusque vir religiose testimonium dixisse videatur.
The remaining charge, then, is of the poison; whose beginning I cannot find, nor unfold its end. For what cause was there for which Caelius should wish to give that woman poison? That he might not return the gold? She did not ask for it. That a charge might not stick? Did anyone bring one? Did anyone, finally, have made mention, if he had laid no name against any? Indeed you have heard L. Herennius say that he would not have been a trouble to Caelius even by a word, if for the second time he had not laid the name of Bestia (his connection) on the same charge after the first man had been acquitted. Is it credible, then, that so great a crime was committed without any cause? And do you not see that a charge of greatest crime is being feigned, in order that there may seem to have been a cause for the undertaking of another crime?
reliquum est igitur crimen de veneno; cuius ego nec principium invenire neque evolvere exitum possum. quae fuit enim causa quam ob rem isti mulieri venenum dare vellet Caelius? ne aurum redderet? num petivit? ne crimen haereret? num quis obiecit? num quis denique fecisset mentionem, si hic nullius nomen detulisset? quin etiam L. L ucium Herennium dicere audistis verbo se molestum non futurum fuisse Caelio, nisi iterum eadem de re suo familiari absoluto nomen hic detulisset. credibile est igitur tantum facinus nullam ob causam esse commissum? et vos non videtis fingi sceleris maximi crimen ut alterius sceleris suscipiendi fuisse causa videatur?
To whom, finally, did he entrust it, what helper did he use, what partner, what confidant, to whom did he commit so great a deed, to whom himself, to whom his own safety? To the woman’s slaves? For so it has been objected. And was he so out of his senses — he, to whom you certainly grant talent, even if you take other things away by your hostile speech — as to entrust all his fortunes to another’s slaves? But to what slaves? — for this very point matters very greatly — the very ones whom he understood not to use the common condition of slavery, but to live with their mistress more freely, more loosely, more familiarly? For who does not see, gentlemen — or who is unaware — that in such a household, in which the matron of the family lives in a courtesan’s manner, in which nothing is done that ought to be brought outside, in which strange lusts, luxury, and finally all unheard-of vices and disgraces go round, that here the slaves are not slaves, with whom everything is shared, by whom things are done, who themselves take part in the same pleasures, to whom secrets are entrusted, on whom even some of the daily expense and luxury overflows? Was Caelius then not seeing this?
cui denique commisit, quo adiutore usus est, quo socio, quo conscio, cui tantum facinus, cui se, cui salutem suam credidit? servisne mulieris? sic enim est obiectum. et erat tam demens is cui vos ingenium certe tribuitis, etiam si cetera inimica oratione detrahitis, ut omnis suas fortunas alienis servis committeret? at quibus servis? — refert enim magno opere id ipsum — eisne quos intellegebat non communi condicione servitutis uti sed licentius liberius familiariusque cum domina vivere? quis enim hoc non videt, iudices, aut quis ignorat, in eius modi domo in qua mater familias meretricio more vivat, in qua nihil geratur quod foras proferendum sit, in qua inusitatae libidines, luxuries, omnia denique inaudita vitia ac flagitia versentur, hic servos non esse servos, quibus omnia committantur, per quos gerantur, qui versentur isdem in voluptatibus, quibus occulta credantur, ad quos aliquantum etiam ex cotidianis sumptibus ac luxurie redundet? id igitur Caelius non videbat?
For if he was as familiar with the woman as you wish, he knew that those slaves too were familiars of their mistress. But if he had not so great an intimacy as is brought in by you, what so great familiarity could there be with her slaves? But of the poison itself, what reason is feigned? Where was it sought, in what way was it prepared, by what arrangement, to whom, in what place was it handed over? They say he had it at home, and tried its strength on a certain slave prepared for that very purpose, by whose very swift death the poison was, by him, approved.
si enim tam familiaris erat mulieris quam vos voltis, istos quoque servos familiaris dominae esse sciebat. sin ei tanta consuetudo quanta a vobis inducitur non erat, quae cum servis eius potuit familiaritas esse tanta? ipsius autem veneni quae ratio fingitur? ubi quaesitum est, quem ad modum paratum, quo pacto, cui, quo in loco traditum? habuisse aiunt domi vimque eius esse expertum in servo quodam ad eam rem ipsam parato; cuius perceleri interitu esse ab hoc comprobatum venenum.
Immortal gods! Why do you sometimes wink at the great crimes of men, or reserve the punishments of the present cheat for another day? For I saw, I saw and drank in that bitterest grief in life, when Q. Metellus was dragged from the bosom and embrace of his country, and when that man, who thought himself born for this empire, on the third day after he had flourished in the senate-house, on the rostra, in the commonwealth, in the most untouched age, in the best constitution, with the greatest strength, was, most unworthily, snatched from all good men and the whole state. At which time, dying, when his mind was now overwhelmed in the rest of its parts, he reserved his last sense for the memory of the commonwealth: looking at me as I wept, he signified with broken and dying voice how great a tempest hung over me, how great a storm over the state, and, often striking the wall which had been common to him and Q. Catulus, kept naming Catulus, often me, oftenest the commonwealth, that he grieved not so much that he was dying as that the country and I too were being despoiled of his protection.
pro di immortales! cur interdum in hominum sceleribus maximis aut conivetis aut praesentis fraudis poenas in diem reservatis? vidi enim, vidi et illum hausi dolorem vel acerbissimum in vita, cum Q. Q uintus Metellus abstraheretur e sinu gremioque patriae, cumque ille vir qui se natum huic imperio putavit tertio die post quam in curia, quam in rostris, quam in re publica floruisset, integerrima aetate, optimo habitu, maximis viribus eriperetur indignissime bonis omnibus atque universae civitati. quo quidem tempore ille moriens, cum iam ceteris ex partibus oppressa mens esset, extremum sensum ad memoriam rei publicae reservabat, cum me intuens flentem significabat interruptis ac morientibus vocibus quanta inpenderet procella mihi, quanta tempestas civitati et cum parietem saepe feriens eum qui cum Q. Q uinto Catulo fuerat ei communis crebro Catulum, saepe me, saepissime rem publicam nominabat, ut non tam se mori quam spoliari suo praesidio cum patriam tum etiam me doleret.
If no force of sudden crime had taken him off, that man, how, as a consular, would he have stood up to his furious brother — he, who as consul, when his brother was beginning to rage and thunder, said in the senate’s hearing that he would kill him with his own hand! From this house, then, has that woman come forth and dared to speak about the swiftness of poison? Will she not herself fear the very house, that it may not utter some voice; will she not shudder at the conscious walls, at that funereal and mournful night? But I return to the charge; for the mention of that most distinguished and bravest man has both weakened my voice with weeping and hindered my mind with grief.
quem quidem virum si nulla vis repentini sceleris sustulisset, quonam modo ille furenti fratri suo consularis restitisset qui consul incipientem furere atque tonantem sua se manu interfecturum audiente senatu dixerit? ex hac igitur domo progressa ista mulier de veneni celeritate dicere audebit? nonne ipsam domum metuet ne quam vocem eiciat, non parietes conscios, non noctem illam funestam ac luctuosam perhorrescet? sed revertor ad crimen; etenim haec facta illius clarissimi ac fortissimi viri mentio et vocem meam fletu debilitavit et mentem dolore impedivit.
But still where the poison came from, in what way it was prepared, is not said. They say it was given to this P. Licinius, a modest and good young man, Caelius’s familiar; that an arrangement was made with the slaves that they should come to the Senian baths; that Licinius would come to the same place and would deliver to them the box of poison. Here first I ask: what was the use of having it brought to that arranged place; why did those slaves not come to Caelius’s home? If that great habit of Caelius, that great familiarity with Clodia, was still going on, what would there be of suspicion if a slave of the woman were seen at Caelius’s? But if there now lay underneath a falling-out, if the habit was put out, if there had been a breach — “hence those tears,” surely, and this is the cause of all these crimes and charges.
sed tamen venenum unde fuerit, quem ad modum paratum sit non dicitur. datum esse aiunt huic P. P ublio Licinio, pudenti adulescenti et bono, Caeli familiari; constitutum esse cum servis ut venirent ad balneas Senias; eodem Licinium esse venturum atque eis veneni pyxidem traditurum. hic primum illud requiro, quid attinuerit ferri in eum locum constitutum, cur illi servi non ad Caelium domum venerint. si manebat tanta illa consuetudo Caeli, tanta familiaritas cum Clodia, quid suspicionis esset si apud Caelium mulieris servus visus esset? sin autem iam suberat simultas, exstincta erat consuetudo, discidium exstiterat, hinc illae lacrimae nimirum et haec causa est omnium horum scelerum atque criminum.
“On the contrary,” he says, “when the slaves had brought the whole thing and Caelius’s evil-doing to their mistress, the ingenious woman gave them instructions to promise everything to Caelius; but, that the poison, when it was being delivered by Licinius, might be openly seized, she ordered the place to be appointed at the Senian baths, that she might send friends thither who should hide; then suddenly, when Licinius had come and was delivering the poison, that they should leap out and seize the man.” All which things, members of the jury, have a most easy way of being refuted. For why had she fixed on the public baths in particular? in which I do not find what hiding-place there could be for men in the toga. For if they were to be in the entrance of the baths, they would not be hidden; but if they wanted to throw themselves into the deepest part, they could not, in shoes and clothes, do so very conveniently, and perhaps they would not have been received — unless perchance the powerful woman, by that quadrans-bargain of hers, had become familiar with the bath-keeper.
’ immo ’ inquit ’cum servi ad dominam rem totam et maleficium Caeli detulissent, mulier ingeniosa praecepit his ut omnia Caelio pollicerentur; sed ut venenum, cum a Licinio traderetur, manifesto comprehendi posset, constitui locum iussit balneas Senias, ut eo mitteret amicos qui delitiscerent, deinde repente, cum venisset Licinius venenumque traderet, prosilirent hominemque comprenderent.’ quae quidem omnia, iudices, perfacilem rationem habent reprendendi. cur enim potissimum balneas publicas constituerat? in quibus non invenio quae latebra togatis hominibus esse posset. nam si essent in vestibulo balnearum, non laterent; sin se in intimum conicere vellent, nec satis commode calceati et vestiti id facere possent et fortasse non reciperentur, nisi forte mulier potens quadrantaria illa permutatione familiaris facta erat balneatori.
And indeed I was vehemently expecting to hear who those good and worthy witnesses of this poison openly seized would be said to be; for none have so far been named. But I do not doubt that they are most weighty men, who, first, are familiars of such a woman, and next have undertaken this commission, that they should be crammed into the baths — a thing she would never have got from any but most honourable men, full of dignity, however powerful she may be. But why am I speaking of the dignity of those witnesses? Learn their virtue and diligence. “They lay in wait in the baths.” Distinguished witnesses! “Then they leapt out at random.” Restrained men! For so you fashion the story: when Licinius had come, was holding the box in his hand, was trying to deliver it, had not yet delivered it, then suddenly out flew those splendid witnesses without a name; and Licinius, when he had now stretched out his hand to deliver the box, drew it back, and from that sudden onset of the men cast himself into flight. O great force of truth, which against men’s talents, cunning, cleverness, against the feigned snares of all, easily defends itself by itself!
atque equidem vehementer exspectabam quinam isti viri boni testes huius manifesto deprehensi veneni dicerentur; nulli enim sunt adhuc nominati. sed non dubito quin sint pergraves, qui primum sint talis feminae familiares, deinde eam provinciam susceperint ut in balneas contruderentur, quod illa nisi a viris honestissimis ac plenissimis dignitatis, quam velit sit potens, numquam impetravisset. sed quid ego de dignitate istorum testium loquor? virtutem eorum diligentiamque cognoscite. ’ in balneis delituerunt.’ Testis egregios! ’ dein temere prosiluerunt.’ homines temperantis! sic enim fingitis, cum Licinius venisset, pyxidem teneret in manu, conaretur tradere, nondum tradidisset, tum repente evolasse istos praeclaros testis sine nomine; Licinium autem, cum iam manum ad tradendam pyxidem porrexisset, retraxisse atque ex illo repentino hominum impetu se in fugam coniecisse. O magnam vim veritatis, quae contra hominum ingenia, calliditatem, sollertiam contraque fictas omnium insidias facile se per se ipsa defendat!
As, for instance, this whole little fable of an old female poet of very many fables — how it lacks plot, how it can find no end! For why? — those many men (for there must have been not a few, that Licinius might both easily be seized and the matter be witnessed by many eyes) — why did they let Licinius slip out of their hands? Why was Licinius any the less easy to seize when he had drawn back, lest he should hand over the box, than if he had handed it over? For they had been posted there to seize Licinius, that Licinius might be openly caught either when he was holding the poison or when he had handed it over. This was the woman’s whole plan, this was the commission of these who had been asked: I cannot find why you should say they leapt out at random and before the time. They had been asked for this purpose, they had been placed for this purpose: that the poison, the snares, finally the very crime, might be openly seized.
velut haec tota fabella veteris et plurimarum fabularum poetriae quam est sine argumento, quam nullum invenire exitum potest! quid enim? isti tot viri — nam necesse est fuisse non paucos ut et comprehendi Licinius facile posset et res multorum oculis esset testatior — cur Licinium de manibus amiserunt? qui minus enim Licinius comprehendi potuit cum se retraxit ne pyxidem traderet, quam si tradidisset? erant enim illi positi ut comprehenderent Licinium, ut manifesto Licinius teneretur aut cum retineret venenum aut cum tradidisset. hoc fuit totum consilium mulieris, haec istorum provincia qui rogati sunt; quos quidem tu quam ob rem temere prosiluisse dicas atque ante tempus non reperio. fuerant ad hoc rogati, fuerant ad hanc rem conlocati, ut venenum, ut insidiae, facinus denique ipsum ut manifesto comprenderetur.
Could they have leapt out at a more fitting time than when Licinius had come, when he was holding the box of poison in his hand? Which, when it had now been delivered to the slaves, if the woman’s friends had suddenly come out of the baths and seized Licinius, he would have implored men’s good faith and would have stoutly denied that the box had been delivered by him. How would they confute him? Would they say they had seen it? First they would call upon themselves the charge of the greatest crime; next they would say they saw what they could not have seen from the place where they were stationed. Therefore at the very time they showed themselves, when Licinius had come, was getting out the box, was stretching out his hand, was delivering the poison. The end then is of a mime, not a play; in which, when no clausula is found, somebody slips out of the hands, then the clappers crash, the curtain rises.
potueruntne magis tempore prosilire quam cum Licinius venisset, cum in manu teneret veneni pyxidem? quae cum iam erat tradita servis, si evasissent subito ex balneis mulieris amici Liciniumque comprehendissent, imploraret hominum fidem atque a se illam pyxidem traditam pernegaret. quem quo modo illi reprehenderent? vidisse se dicerent? primum ad se vocarent maximi facinoris crimen; deinde id se vidisse dicerent quod quo loco conlocati fuerant non potuissent videre. tempore igitur ipso se ostenderunt, cum Licinius venisset, pyxidem expediret, manum porrigeret, venenum traderet. mimi ergo iam exitus, non fabulae; in quo cum clausula non invenitur, fugit aliquis e manibus, dein scabilla concrepant, aulaeum tollitur.
For I ask why that woman’s-pack of yours let go from its hands Licinius staggering, hesitating, giving way, trying to flee — why they did not seize him, why they did not, by his own confession, by many eyes, finally by the voice of the deed itself, wring out the charge of so great a crime. Were they afraid that, being so many to one, the strong against the weak, the keen against the terrified, they could not get the better? No argument will be found in the matter, no suspicion in the case, no end of the charge. Therefore this case, from arguments, from conjecture, from those signs by which truth is wont to be brought to light, has been transferred entirely to witnesses. Whom indeed I, members of the jury, await not only without any fear, but even with some hope of pleasure.
quaero enim cur Licinium titubantem, haesitantem, cedentem, fugere conantem mulieraria manus ista de manibus emiserit, cur non comprenderint, cur non ipsius confessione, multorum oculis, facinoris denique voce tanti sceleris crimen expresserint. an timebant ne tot unum, valentes imbecillum, alacres perterritum superare non possent? nullum argumentum in re, nulla suspicio in causa, nullus exitus criminis reperietur. itaque haec causa ab argumentis, a coniectura, ab eis signis quibus veritas inlustrari solet ad testis tota traducta est. quos quidem ego, iudices, testis non modo sine ullo timore sed etiam cum aliqua spe delectationis exspecto.
My mind already greatly longs to see, first, the gaily-dressed young men, the familiars of a wealthy and noble woman; then the brave men set in ambush by their commandress and as a guard of the baths. Of whom I shall ask in what manner they were hidden, or where; whether it was the bath-tank or some Trojan horse that bore and covered so many invincible men waging a woman’s war. Indeed I shall force them to answer this: why so many and such men did not seize this one and so weak a man whom you see, either standing or following him as he fled — they who, never indeed, if they come up to that place, will get themselves out of it. As witty, as ready of tongue at banquets, as sometimes eloquent in their cups as they may be, the strength of the Forum is one thing, of the dining-room another; the rule of the bench is one thing, of the couch another; the public look of jurors and of revellers is not the same; the daylight, finally, of the sun is far one thing, of the lamps another. We shall therefore shake out all the dainty-things of these men, all their inanities, if they come forward. But let them hear me, let them work at some other office, take up some other favour, show themselves off in other matters; let them flourish in their charm with that woman, lord it in expense, cling to her, lie at her feet, serve her; but let them spare the head and fortunes of an innocent man.
praegestit animus iam videre, primum lautos iuvenes mulieris beatae ac nobilis familiaris, deinde fortis viros ab imperatrice in insidiis atque in praesidio balnearum conlocatos. ex quibus requiram quem ad modum latuerint aut ubi, alveusne ille an equus Troianus fuerit qui tot invictos viros muliebre bellum gerentis tulerit ac texerit. illud vero respondere cogam, cur tot viri ac tales hunc et unum et tam imbecillum quem videtis non aut stantem comprehenderint aut fugientem consecuti sint; qui se numquam profecto, si in istum locum processerint, explicabunt. quam volent in conviviis faceti, dicaces, non numquam etiam ad vinum diserti sint, alia fori vis est, alia triclini, alia subselliorum ratio, alia lectorum; non idem iudicum comissatorumque conspectus; lux denique longe alia est solis, alia lychnorum. quam ob rem excutiemus omnis istorum delicias, omnis ineptias, si prodierint. sed me audiant, navent aliam operam, aliam ineant gratiam, in aliis se rebus ostentent, vigeant apud istam mulierem venustate, dominentur sumptibus, haereant, iaceant, deserviant; capiti vero innocentis fortunisque parcant.
“But those slaves were freed by the judgement of her relations, the noblest and most distinguished of men.” At last we have found something which that woman is said to have done by the judgement and authority of her own kinsmen, the bravest of men. But I am eager to know what argument that manumission has; in which either a charge against Caelius was sought, or an inquiry was prevented, or a reward was paid with cause to slaves privy to many things. “But it pleased her relations.” Why should it not have pleased them, when you said that you yourself had brought to them, not from another, but discovered by yourself, the matter?
at sunt servi illi de cognatorum sententia, nobilissimorum et clarissimorum hominum, manu missi. tandem aliquid invenimus quod ista mulier de suorum propinquorum, fortissimorum virorum, sententia atque auctoritate fecisse dicatur. sed scire cupio quid habeat argumenti ista manumissio; in qua aut crimen est Caelio quaesitum aut quaestio sublata aut multarum rerum consciis servis cum causa praemium persolutum. ’ at propinquis’ inquit ’placuit.’ cur non placeret, cum rem tute ad eos non ab aliis tibi adlatam sed a te ipsa compertam deferre diceres?
Do we wonder, here too, if a most obscene tale has followed up that fictitious box? Nothing is which does not seem to fall in upon such a woman. The matter has been heard and made loud in talk. You perceive, gentlemen, in your minds long since what I want, or rather what I do not want to say. Which thing, even if it has happened, certainly was not done by Caelius — for what would it have been to him? — but was done perhaps by some young man not so much dull as forward. But if it is feigned, it is not indeed a modest, but yet not an inelegant lie; which assuredly the talk and opinion of men would never have approved, unless everything that was said with any foulness seemed neatly to fit upon her.
hic etiam miramur, si illam commenticiam pyxidem obscenissima sit fabula consecuta? nihil est quod in eius modi mulierem non cadere videatur. audita et percelebrata sermonibus res est. percipitis animis, iudices, iam dudum quid velim vel potius quid nolim dicere. quod etiam si est factum, certe a Caelio quidem non est factum — quid enim attinebat? — est enim ab aliquo adulescente fortasse non tam insulso quam inverecundo. sin autem est fictum, non illud quidem modestum sed tamen est non infacetum mendacium; quod profecto numquam hominum sermo atque opinio comprobasset, nisi omnia quae cum turpitudine aliqua dicerentur in istam quadrare apte viderentur.
The case has been pleaded and pleaded out by me, members of the jury. You now understand how great a judgement you are upholding, how great a matter has been entrusted to you. You inquire concerning violence. The law that pertains to the empire, to the majesty, to the standing of the country, to the safety of all — the law which Q. Catulus brought in armed dissension of citizens in nearly the last times of the commonwealth, and which, when the flame of my consulship had been quieted, extinguished the smouldering remains of the conspiracy — by this law now Caelius’s youth is sought, not for the punishments of the commonwealth, but for the lusts and dainties of a woman.
Dicta est a me causa, iudices, et perorata. iam intellegitis quantum iudicium sustineatis, quanta res sit commissa vobis. de vi quaeritis. quae lex ad imperium, ad maiestatem, ad statum patriae, ad salutem omnium pertinet, quam legem Q. Q uintus Catulus armata dissensione civium rei publicae paene extremis temporibus tulit, quaeque lex sedata illa flamma consulatus mei fumantis reliquias coniurationis exstinxit, hac nunc lege Caeli adulescentia non ad rei publicae poenas sed ad mulieris libidines et delicias deposcitur.
And in this connection too the condemnation of M. Camurtius and C. Caesernius is preached at us. O folly! Is it folly I should call it, or singular shamelessness? Do you dare, when you come from that woman, to make mention of those men? Do you dare to stir up the memory of so great a disgrace — not extinguished indeed, but suppressed by time? On what charge and what fault did those men perish? On the charge that they followed up that same woman’s grief and injury by the wicked debauchery of Vettius. Therefore, that the name of Vettius might be heard in the case, that that old penny-tale might be brought up again, was it for that that the case of Camurtius and Caesernius was renewed? Who, although they were not certainly held by the law on violence, were yet so caught up in that crime, that they did not seem fit to be loosed from the snares of any law.
atque hoc etiam loco M. M arci Camurti et C. Caeserni damnatio praedicatur. O stultitiam! stultitiamne dicam an impudentiam singularem? audetisne, cum ab ea muliere veniatis, facere istorum hominum mentionem? audetis excitare tanti flagiti memoriam, non exstinctam illam quidem sed repressam vetustate? quo enim illi crimine peccatoque perierunt? nempe quod eiusdem mulieris dolorem et iniuriam Vettiano nefario sunt stupro persecuti. ergo ut audiretur Vetti nomen in causa, ut illa vetus aeraria fabula referretur, idcirco Camurti et Caeserni est causa renovata? qui quamquam lege de vi certe non tenebantur, eo maleficio tamen erant implicati ut ex nullius legis laqueis eximendi viderentur.
But why is M. Caelius being called into this trial? On him no charge proper to this inquisition is brought, nor anything indeed of such a sort that, severed from the law, it is yet joined to your severity. His earliest age was given over to instruction and to those arts by which we are equipped for this forensic use, for taking part in the commonwealth, for office, glory, standing. Of his elders he had such friendships as he most wished to imitate for industry and self-control; and such pursuits among his peers that he seemed to be seeking the same course of praise that the best and noblest sought.
M. vero Caelius cur in hoc iudicium vocatur? cui neque proprium quaestionis crimen obicitur nec vero aliquod eius modi quod sit a lege seiunctum, cum vestra severitate coniunctum. cuius prima aetas disciplinae dedita fuit eisque artibus quibus instruimur ad hunc usum forensem, ad capessendam rem publicam, ad honorem, gloriam, dignitatem. Eis autem fuit amicitiis maiorum natu quorum imitari industriam continentiamque maxime vellet, eis studiis aequalium ut eundem quem optimi ac nobilissimi petere cursum laudis videretur.
When then a little strength had been added to his age, he set out for Africa as a tent-mate of Q. Pompeius the proconsul, a most chaste man and most diligent in every duty; in which province there were both his father’s affairs and possessions, and also a certain provincial experience not without good cause assigned by our forefathers to that age. He left thence most highly approved by Pompeius’s judgement, as you will learn from the man’s own testimony. He wished, by ancient custom and by the example of those young men who afterwards stood out in the state as great men and most distinguished citizens, that his industry should be known to the Roman people from some illustrious accusation.
cum autem paulum iam roboris accessisset aetati, in Africam profectus est Q. Q uinto Pompeio pro consule contubernalis, castissimo homini atque omnis offici diligentissimo; in qua provincia cum res erant et possessiones paternae, tum etiam usus quidam provincialis non sine causa a maioribus huic aetati tributus. decessit illinc Pompei iudicio probatissimus, ut ipsius testimonio cognoscetis. voluit vetere instituto et eorum adulescentium exemplo qui post in civitate summi viri et clarissimi cives exstiterunt industriam suam a populo Romano ex aliqua inlustri accusatione cognosci.
I could wish his desire of glory had carried him elsewhere; but the time for this complaint has passed. He prosecuted C. Antonius, my colleague, to whom, poor man, the memory of his glorious benefit to the commonwealth was no help, while the opinion of an evil deed planned hurt him. Afterwards he never granted to any of his peers more share than to himself in the Forum, more in business and in his friends’ cases, more weight among his own. All these things which only watchful, only sober, only industrious men can attain, he attained by labour and by diligence.
vellem alio potius eum cupiditas gloriae detulisset; sed abiit huius tempus querelae. accusavit C. G aium Antonium, conlegam meum, cui misero praeclari in rem publicam benefici memoria nihil profuit, nocuit opinio malefici cogitati. postea nemini umquam concessit aequalium plus ut in foro, plus ut in negotiis versaretur causisque amicorum, plus ut valeret inter suos gratia. quae nisi vigilantes homines, nisi sobrii, nisi industrii consequi non possunt, omnia labore et diligentia est consecutus.
In this turning, so to speak, of his age — for I shall hide nothing, relying on your humanity and wisdom — the young man’s reputation paused a moment at the goal-posts on account of his new acquaintance with that woman, and his unhappy neighbourhood, and the unaccustomedness of pleasures which, when they have been shut up too long and pressed and bound in the first age, suddenly sometimes pour out and erupt all together. Out of this life or rather out of this talk — for it was by no means as great as men were saying — but out of it, whatever there was, he has emerged, and has thrown himself out and lifted himself out of it; and so far is he from the ill-fame of that familiarity, that now he has even to ward off her enmity and hatred against him.
in hoc flexu quasi aetatis — nihil enim occultabo fretus humanitate ac sapientia vestra — fama adulescentis paululum haesit ad metas notitia nova eius mulieris et infelici vicinitate et insolentia voluptatum, quae, cum inclusae diutius et prima aetate compressae et constrictae fuerunt, subito se non numquam profundunt atque eiciunt universae. qua ex vita vel dicam quo ex sermone — nequaquam enim tantum erat quantum homines loquebantur — verum ex eo quicquid erat emersit totumque se eiecit atque extulit, tantumque abest ab illius familiaritatis infamia ut eiusdem nunc ab sese inimicitias odiumque propulset.
And that the gossip of pleasures and idleness which had got in might die, he laid the charge of canvassing against my friend — though against my will and with much resistance from me, by Hercules, but he did it. The man being acquitted he is following up, calls him back; he heeds none of us; he is more violent than I should wish. But I am not speaking of wisdom, which does not fall to this age; I speak of the impulse of the soul, of the desire for victory, of the ardour of mind for glory — pursuits which at our age now must be drawn in, but in youth, as in green herbs, signify what maturity of virtue and what fruits of industry are to come. Indeed young men of great talent must always rather be reined in from glory than spurred on; more must be cut away from that age, if it flowers in the praises of talent, than grafted on.
atque ut iste interpositus sermo deliciarum desidiaeque moreretur — fecit me invito me hercule et multum repugnante me, sed tamen fecit — nomen amici mei de ambitu detulit; quem absolutum insequitur, revocat; nemini nostrum obtemperat, est violentior quam vellem. sed ego non loquor de sapientia, quae non cadit in hanc aetatem; de impetu animi loquor, de cupiditate vincendi, de ardore mentis ad gloriam; quae studia in his iam aetatibus nostris contractiora esse debent, in adulescentia vero tamquam in herbis significant quae virtutis maturitas et quantae fruges industriae sint futurae. etenim semper magno ingenio adulescentes refrenandi potius a gloria quam incitandi fuerunt; amputanda plura sunt illi aetati, si quidem efflorescit ingeni laudibus, quam inserenda.
Therefore if to anyone the force, the ferocity, the obstinacy of this man, in undertaking or in prosecuting his enmities, seems to have boiled too hot; if any of the smallest things offends one — the kind of his purple, the troops of his friends, his splendour, his polish — now those things will have boiled down, now age will have softened all things, now business, now time. So preserve, gentlemen, for the commonwealth a citizen of good arts, of good party, of good men. I promise this to you, and I pledge it to the commonwealth: if only we ourselves have satisfied the commonwealth, this man will never be cut off from our reckoning. Which, when I promise relying on our familiarity, I promise it also because he himself has now bound himself by the harshest laws.
qua re, si cui nimium effervisse videtur huius vel in suscipiendis vel in gerendis inimicitiis vis, ferocitas, pertinacia, si quem etiam minimorum horum aliquid offendit, si purpurae genus, si amicorum catervae, si splendor, si nitor, iam ista deferverint, iam aetas omnia, iam res, iam dies mitigarit. conservate igitur rei publicae, iudices, civem bonarum artium, bonarum partium, bonorum virorum. promitto hoc vobis et rei publicae spondeo, si modo nos ipsi rei publicae satis fecimus, numquam hunc a nostris rationibus seiunctum fore. quod cum fretus nostra familiaritate promitto, tum quod durissimis se ipse legibus iam obligavit.
For he cannot, who has called a consular man to trial when he said the commonwealth had been violated by him, himself be a turbulent citizen in the commonwealth; he cannot, who does not allow even an acquitted man to be acquitted on the charge of canvassing, ever himself be a briber with impunity. The commonwealth has, members of the jury, two prosecutions from M. Caelius, either as hostages of his peril or as pledges of his goodwill. And so I beg and beseech you, members of the jury, in a state in which a few days ago Sex. Clodius was acquitted — a man whom for two years you saw either as a minister or a leader of sedition, a man without property, without faith, without hope, without seat, without fortunes, polluted in face, tongue, hand, and his whole life, who burned the sacred temples, who burned with his own hands the census of the Roman people and the public memory, who broke down the monument of Catulus, who tore down my house, who burned my brother’s, who on the Palatine and in the very eyes of the city stirred up slaves to slaughter and to inflame the city: in this state do not allow that man to have been acquitted by a woman’s favour, M. Caelius to have been delivered up to a woman’s lust, lest the same woman with her husband-and-brother seem both to have rescued a most foul brigand and to have crushed a most honourable young man.
non enim potest qui hominem consularem, cum ab eo rem publicam violatam esse diceret, in iudicium vocarit ipse esse in re publica civis turbulentus; non potest qui ambitu ne absolutum quidem patiatur esse absolutum ipse impune umquam esse largitor. habet a M. M arco Caelio res publica, iudices, duas accusationes vel obsides periculi vel pignora voluntatis. qua re oro obtestorque vos, iudices, ut qua in civitate paucis his diebus Sex. Clodius absolutus est, quem vos per biennium aut ministrum seditionis aut ducem vidistis, hominem sine re, sine fide, sine spe, sine sede, sine fortunis, ore, lingua, manu, vita omni inquinatum, qui aedis sacras, qui censum populi Romani, qui memoriam publicam suis manibus incendit, qui Catuli monumentum adflixit, meam domum diruit, mei fratris incendit, qui in Palatio atque in urbis oculis servitia ad caedem et ad inflammandam urbem incitavit: in ea civitate ne patiamini illum absolutum muliebri gratia, M. M arcum Caelium libidini muliebri condonatum, ne eadem mulier cum suo coniuge et fratre et turpissimum latronem eripuisse et honestissimum adulescentem oppressisse videatur.
And when you have set before yourselves this man’s youth, set before your eyes also the old age of this wretched man, who leans on this only son, rests in the hope of him, dreads the misfortune of him alone; whom, suppliant of your mercy, slave of your power, cast down not so much at your feet as at your morals and senses, sustain by the recollection of your own parents or the dearness of your own children, that in another’s grief you may serve either your own dutifulness or your own indulgence. Do not, members of the jury, either wish this man, now setting by nature herself, to be put out the sooner by your wound than by his own fate, nor wish to overthrow this man, now first flowering, his stock of virtue now firm, as if by some whirlwind or sudden tempest.
quod cum huius vobis adulescentiam proposueritis, constituitote ante oculos etiam huius miseri senectutem qui hoc unico filio nititur, in huius spe requiescit, huius unius casum pertimescit; quem vos supplicem vestrae misericordiae, servum potestatis, abiectum non tam ad pedes quam ad mores sensusque vestros, vel recordatione parentum vestrorum vel liberorum iucunditate sustentate, ut in alterius dolore vel pietati vel indulgentiae vestrae serviatis. nolite, iudices, aut hunc iam natura ipsa occidentem velle maturius exstingui volnere vestro quam suo fato, aut hunc nunc primum florescentem firmata iam stirpe virtutis tamquam turbine aliquo aut subita tempestate pervertere.
Preserve to the parent his son, to the son the parent, lest you seem either to have despised an old age now near despair, or, in the case of a young manhood full of the highest hope, not only not to have nourished it but even to have struck and laid it low. Whom, if you preserve to us, to his own, to the commonwealth, you will have given over, dedicated, bound to you and to your children, and of all this man’s strength and labours, members of the jury, you in particular will reap rich and lasting fruits.
conservate parenti filium, parentem filio, ne aut senectutem iam prope desperatam contempsisse aut adulescentiam plenam spei maximae non modo non aluisse vos verum etiam perculisse atque adflixisse videamini. quem si nobis, si suis, si rei publicae conservatis, addictum, deditum, obstrictum vobis ac liberis vestris habebitis omniumque huius nervorum ac laborum vos potissimum, iudices, fructus uberes diuturnosque capietis.