For Lucius Flaccus
Pro L. Flacco
Headnote
Cicero’s defence of Lucius Valerius Flaccus, late governor of Asia (62 BC), prosecuted in mid-59 BC for repetundae (provincial extortion). Flaccus was a man to whom Cicero owed a particular debt: as urban praetor of 63 BC he had intercepted the Allobrogian envoys at the Mulvian Bridge and brought back to the consul the sealed letters that exposed the conspiracy — the documentary proof on which the senatorial debate of 5 December and the executions of that night turned. The prosecutor was Decimus Laelius, son of a Pompeian friend, with subscribers of his own; and the common talk in Asia, which Cicero will not deny but cannot quite refute, was that Pompey himself had set Laelius on. The defence was divided: Quintus Hortensius spoke first and took the Mithridatic charge that turns on the witness Mithridates of Pergamum, while Cicero took everything else — the critique of Greek and Asian witnesses as a class, the city-by-city analysis (Acmonia, Dorylaeum, Temnus, Tralles, Pergamum, Apollonis), the complaint about the Jewish temple-gold which Flaccus had embargoed at Pompey’s precedent, the four Roman accusers (Decianus, Andro Sextilius, Lucceius, Falcidius), and the closing.
The speech survives partly through medieval manuscripts (§1–5 and 6–106 with two closing fragments) and partly through palimpsest readings of a Bobbio codex (the Bobiensian fragments frBob1–12 and the longer frMed), which fill the lacuna between §5 and §6 and preserve the opening of the narratio on Flaccus’s career: military tribune under P. Servilius in Cilicia, quaestor under M. Piso in Spain, legate in the Cretan war under Metellus, urban praetor in 63, governor of Asia in 62. The body of the speech then unfolds at length: §9–26 the indictment of the whole class of Greek witnesses (the proverb da mihi testimonium mutuum, the contrast of Roman religio with Greek contio-shouting); §27–66 the city-by-city refutation, with the ethnographic set piece on the three Greek races against the four nations of Asia (“a Phrygian is generally bettered by being beaten,” the Lydian slave of comedy); §66–69 the famous defence of Flaccus’s gold-export ban, with its single sentence on Jewish religion and the Roman state that has echoed into modern reading lists; §70–85 the Roman complainants, with the Decianus–Apollonis story of the abducted wife and battered father; §86–93 Lurco, Sextilius, Falcidius, and the absent witness whose mother and sister produce his letters; and the great peroration (§94–106) which is the political heart of the speech.
The peroration is the reason for our reading. The trial of 59 BC, four and a half years after the executions in the Tullianum, is for Cicero a stalking-horse trial of the Catilinarian executors: the prosecution of C. Antonius earlier in the year had decked Catiline’s tomb with flowers, and to convict Flaccus would be (Cicero says) a victim offered to the manes of Lentulus. §102, “O night, that almost brought eternal darkness upon this city O those Nones of December which fell in my consulship!” is the consular’s full-throated last self-celebration before exile; §103, “If anything graver shall happen — I, I say, Flaccus, shall have betrayed you,” is the consular’s first acknowledgment, in the surviving corpus, that the political weather has turned and that the men who saved the state are now the hunted. Caesar is consul, the triumvirate is in its first high summer, P. Clodius has been transferred to the plebs in March under Caesar’s auspices and stands for the tribunate of 58. Flaccus was acquitted (Att. 2.25 reports the dignity preserved); within twelve months Cicero himself was in exile.
When in the greatest dangers of this city and empire, in the gravest and bitterest disaster of the commonwealth, with Lucius Flaccus as the partner and helper of my counsels and my dangers, I was driving slaughter from you, your wives, your children, devastation from the temples, the shrines, the city, Italy, I hoped, judges, that I should rather be a helper of Lucius Flaccus to honour than a beseecher against his miseries. For what reward of dignity could the Roman people refuse to him, since to his ancestors it had always paid such rewards, when Lucius Flaccus, after almost five hundred years of the commonwealth, had recovered the old praise of the Valerian house in liberating the country?
Cum in maximis periculis huius urbis atque imperi, gravissimo atque acerbissimo rei publicae casu, socio atque adiutore consiliorum periculorumque meorum L. Flacco, caedem a vobis, coniugibus, liberis vestris, vastitatem a templis, delubris, urbe, Italia depellebam, sperabam, iudices, honoris potius L. Flacci me adiutorem futurum quam miseriarum deprecatorem. quod enim esset praemium dignitatis quod populus Romanus, cum huius maioribus semper detulisset, huic denegaret, cum L. Flaccus veterem Valeriae gentis in liberanda patria laudem prope quingentesimo anno rei publicae rettulisset?
But if perchance there should at some time arise a detractor of this kindness, or an enemy of his virtue, or one envious of his praise, I supposed that Lucius Flaccus would have to undergo the judgment rather of an unskilled multitude — and that with no danger — than of the wisest and most chosen men. For where the safety, then, not of citizens alone but of nations had been by the same authority and defence held and saved, I never thought that anyone, by their hands, would create danger for this man’s fortunes and plots against him. And if it should at some time come to pass that someone should think of Lucius Flaccus’s destruction, yet I never supposed, judges, that Decimus Laelius, the son of an excellent man, himself endowed with the best hope of the highest dignity, would take up an accusation that suited the hatred and madness of wicked citizens rather than his own virtue and the youth he had set himself. For when I had seen the most distinguished men often laying down most just enmities with citizens of good service, I did not suppose that any friend of the commonwealth, when Lucius Flaccus’s love for his country had been seen, would proclaim a new enmity against him with no injury received.
sed si forte aliquando aut benefici huius obtrectator aut virtutis hostis aut laudis invidus exstitisset, existimabam L. Flacco multitudinis potius imperitae, nullo tamen cum periculo, quam sapientissimorum et lectissimorum virorum iudicium esse subeundum. etenim quibus auctoribus et defensoribus omnium tum salus esset non civium solum verum etiam gentium defensa ac retenta, neminem umquam putavi per eos ipsos periculum huius fortunis atque insidias creaturum. quod si esset aliquando futurum ut aliquis de L. Flacci pernicie cogitaret, numquam tamen existimavi, iudices, D. Laelium, optimi viri filium, optima ipsum spe praeditum summae dignitatis, eam suscepturum accusationem quae sceleratorum civium potius odio et furori quam ipsius virtuti atque institutae adulescentiae conveniret. etenim cum a clarissimis viris iustissimas inimicitias saepe cum bene meritis civibus depositas esse vidissem, non sum arbitratus quemquam amicum rei publicae, postea quam L. Flacci amor in patriam perspectus esset, novas huic inimicitias nulla accepta iniuria denuntiaturum.
But since, judges, many things have deceived us both in our private affairs and in the commonwealth, we bear what is to be borne. This much we ask of you: that you reckon all the resources of the commonwealth, the whole standing of the state, all the memory of times past, the safety of the present, the hope of what is to come, to be set down and fixed in your power, in your votes, in this one trial. If ever the commonwealth has implored the counsel, the gravity, the wisdom, the foresight of judges, at this time, this time I say, it implores them. You are not to give judgment about Lydians or Mysians or Phrygians, who have come driven and stirred up to this place, but about your own commonwealth, about the standing of the state, about the common safety, about the hope of all good men — if any such hope still remains to support the minds and thoughts of brave citizens. All the other refuges of good men, defences of the innocent, supports of the commonwealth, counsels, aids, rights have fallen.
sed quoniam, iudices, multa nos et in nostris rebus et in re publica fefellerunt, ferimus ea quae sunt ferenda; tantum a vobis petimus ut omnia rei publicae subsidia, totum statum civitatis, omnem memoriam temporum praeteritorum, salutem praesentium, spem reliquorum in vestra potestate, in vestris sententiis, in hoc uno iudicio positam esse et defixam putetis. si umquam res publica consilium, gravitatem, sapientiam, providentiam iudicum imploravit, hoc, hoc inquam, tempore implorat. non estis de Lydorum aut Mysorum aut Phrygum, qui huc compulsi concitatique venerunt, sed de vestra re publica iudicaturi, de civitatis statu, de communi salute, de spe bonorum omnium, si qua reliqua est etiam nunc quae fortium civium mentis cogitationesque sustentet; omnia alia perfugia bonorum, praesidia innocentium, subsidia rei publicae, consilia, auxilia, iura ceciderunt.
For whom shall I call upon, whom shall I beseech, whom shall I implore? The senate? But that very body itself seeks help from you, and feels that the confirmation of its authority has been entrusted to your power. The Roman knights? You will declare to fifty leading men of that order what your decision concerning all is. The Roman people? But it has handed over to you all its power over us. So that, unless in this place, unless before you, unless through you, judges, we hold not our authority — which is lost — but our safety, which hangs by a slender and last hope, there is nothing else to which we can flee. Unless, perhaps, you do not see what is being attempted in this trial, what is being done, the foundations of what cause are being laid down, judges.
quem enim appellem, quem obtester, quem implorem? senatumne? at is ipse auxilium petit a vobis et confirmationem auctoritatis suae vestrae potestati permissam esse sentit. an equites Romanos? indicabitis principes eius ordinis quinquaginta quid cum omnibus senseritis. an populum Romanum? at is quidem omnem suam de nobis potestatem tradidit vobis. quam ob rem nisi hoc loco, nisi apud vos, nisi per vos, iudices, non auctoritatem, quae amissa est, sed salutem nostram, quae spe exigua extremaque pendet, tenuerimus, nihil est praeterea quo confugere possimus; nisi forte quae res hoc iudicio temptetur, quid agatur, cui causae fundamenta iaciantur, iudices, non videtis.
Condemned has been the man who killed Catiline as he was bringing his standards against the country: what is there to keep the man who drove Catiline out of the city from being afraid? He is hurried to punishment who took down the proofs of the common ruin: why should the man feel safe who took care that they should be brought forward and exposed? The partners of his counsels, the agents and companions, are harassed: what should the authors, the leaders, the chiefs expect for themselves? And would that our enemies, and the enemies of all good men, would weigh together with me whether at that time all good men were our leaders or our companions in the saving of the common safety!
condemnatus est is qui Catilinam signa patriae inferentem interemit; quid est causae cur non is qui Catilinam ex urbe expulit pertimescat? rapitur ad poenam qui indicia communis exiti cepit; cur sibi confidat is qui ea proferenda et patefacienda curavit? socii consiliorum, ministri comitesque vexantur; quid auctores, quid duces, quid principes sibi exspectent? atque utinam inimici nostri ac bonorum omnium mecum potius aestiment, utrum tum omnes boni duces nostri an comites fuerint ad communem conservandam salutem
[He preferred to say strangled.]
strangulatos maluit dicere.
[What did this connection of mine intend by the small shield?]
quid sibi meus necessarius caetra voluit?
[And what indeed of Decianus?]
quid vero Decianus?
[Would that it were properly mine! The senate then for the most part …]
Vtinam esset proprie mea! senatus igitur magna ex parte
[The immortal gods, I say, [drove] Lentulus …]
di, inquam, immortales Lentulum
[… since this foreign matter agreed with his domestic life and nature. So I shall not allow you, Decimus Laelius, to take this on yourself, and to lay this down as a law and condition for the rest in time to come, for us in the present time: that, when you have marked his youth, when you have spattered the rest of his life with stains of disgrace, when you have brought forward the ruins of his private affairs, the blots in his household, the ill-fame at Rome, the vices and infamies of his time in Spain, Gaul, Cilicia, Crete — provinces where he was conspicuously employed — only then shall we hear what the men of Tmolus and the Doryleans think of Lucius Flaccus. The man whom so many and so weighty provinces wish safe, whom very many citizens from all Italy, bound to him by old ties of duty, defend, whom this country common to us all holds embraced for the recent memory of the highest service — if even all Asia were demanding him for punishment, I should defend, I should resist. What if neither all of it nor the best part of it nor the uncorrupted nor of its own free will, neither rightly nor by custom nor truly nor scrupulously nor uprightly, but if driven, if solicited, if stirred up, if compelled, if impiously, if rashly, if greedily, if inconsistently it has sent its name into this trial through the most needy of witnesses, while it can truly complain of no injuries of its own — shall, even so, judges, these things heard for a moment take away credit from things known long ago? I shall keep, then, this order as defender which the prosecutor has fled, and shall press the prosecutor and pursue him, and demand the charge unprompted from my opponent. What is it, Laelius? … Did you mean anything by saying … a man who has not lived in the shade, nor in the discipline and arts of that age? For as a boy he set out to the war when his father was consul. And by this very name, no doubt, something …]
externum cum domestica vita naturaque constaret. itaque non patiar, D. Laeli, te tibi hoc sumere atque hanc ceteris in posterum, nobis in praesens tempus legem condicionemque Cum adulescentiam notaris, cum reliquum tempus aetatis turpitudinis maculis consperseris, cum privatarum rerum ruinas, cum domesticas labes, cum urbanam infamiam, cum Hispaniae, Galliae, Ciliciae, Cretae, quibus in provinciis non obscure versatus est, vitia et flagitia protuleris, tum denique quid Tmolitae et Dorylenses de L. Flacco existiment audiemus. quem vero tot tam gravesque provinciae salvum esse cupiant, quem plurimi cives tota ex Italia devincti necessitudine ac vetustate defendant, quem haec communis nostrum omnium patria propter recentem summi benefici memoriam complexa teneat, hunc etiam si tota Asia deposcit ad supplicium, defendam, resistam. quid? si neque tota neque optima neque incorrupta neque sua sponte nec iure nec more nec vere nec religiose nec integre, si impulsa, si sollicitata, si concitata, si coacta, si impie, si temere, si cupide, si inconstanter nomen suum misit in hoc iudicium per egentissimos testis, ipsa autem nihil queri vere de iniuriis potest, tamenne, iudices, haec ad breve tempus audita longinqui temporis cognitarum rerum fidem derogabunt? tenebo igitur hunc ordinem defensor quem fugit inimicus, et accusatorem urgebo atque insequar et ultro crimen ab adversario flagitabo. quid est, Laeli? num quid ea d.. d.. ea.. f no qui quidem non in umbra neque in illius aetatis disciplinis artibusque versatus est? etenim puer cum patre consule ad bellum est profectus. nimirum etiam hoc ipso nomine aliquid.. ia sus
[But if neither the luxury of Asia, [overcame] the most weak time of his age …]
sed si neque Asiae luxuries infirmissimum tempus aetatis
[From this stage of his age he betook himself to the army of his uncle Gaius Flaccus.]
ex hoc aetatis gradu se ad exercitum C. Flacci patrui contulit.
[Set out as military tribune with Publius Servilius, that gravest and most scrupulous of citizens.]
tribunus militaris cum P. Servilio, gravissimo et sanctissimo cive, profectus.
[Adorned by their fullest commendations, he was made quaestor.]
quorum amplissimis iudiciis ornatus quaestor factus est.
[… Marcus Piso, who, if he had not received the cognomen of frugality, would himself have made one.]
M. Pisone, qui cognomen frugalitatis, nisi accepisset, ipse peperisset.
[The same man undertook a new war and finished it.]
idem novum bellum suscepit atque confecit.
[Handed over not to the witnesses of Asia, but to its prosecutors as messmates.]
non Asiae testibus, sed accusatoribus contubernalibus traditus.
This man, then, Laelius — with what charges do you finally assault him? He was military tribune in Cilicia under the imperator Publius Servilius: that is passed over in silence. He was quaestor to Marcus Piso in Spain: no word about the quaestorship is let fall. He carried on the Cretan war for a great part of it, and bore it up alongside the supreme commander: on this period the prosecution is mute. The praetorian jurisdiction, a varied and many-sided business, open to suspicions and bad blood, is not touched. But in the gravest and most dangerous moment of the commonwealth’s life, even by his enemies that very praetorship is praised. “But he is hurt by the witnesses.” Before I say by whom, by what hope, by what force, by what means stirred up, with what fickleness, what destitution, what perfidy, what audacity furnished, I shall speak of the whole class and of the condition of us all. By the immortal gods, judges! how the man who a year before had administered law at Rome was administering law in Asia a year later — will you inquire from witnesses you do not know, and decide nothing yourselves by conjecture? When in so varied a jurisdiction, with so many decrees passed and the wills of so many influential men crossed, what voice was ever launched — not of suspicion, which generally is false, but of anger or grief?
hunc igitur virum, Laeli, quibus tandem rebus oppugnas? fuit P. Servilio imperatore in Cilicia tribunus militum; ea res siletur. fuit M. Pisoni quaestor in Hispania; vox de quaestura missa nulla est. bellum Cretense ex magna parte gessit atque una cum summo imperatore sustinuit; muta est huius temporis accusatio. praeturae iuris dictio, res varia et multiplex ad suspiciones et simultates, non attingitur. at vero in summo et periculosissimo rei publicae tempore etiam ab inimicis eadem praetura laudatur. at a testibus laeditur. ante quam dico a quibus, qua spe, qua vi, qua re concitatis, qua levitate, qua egestate, qua perfidia, qua audacia praeditis, dicam de genere universo et de condicione omnium nostrum. per deos immortalis! iudices, vos, quo modo is qui anno ante Romae ius dixerat anno post in Asia ius dixerit, a testibus quaeretis ignotis, ipsi coniectura nihil iudicabitis? Cum in tam varia iuris dictione tam multa decreta, tot hominum gratiosorum laesae sint voluntates, quae est umquam iacta non suspicio— quae tamen solet esse falsa—sed iracundiae vox aut doloris?
And is this the man on trial for avarice, who in the richest opportunity has escaped any base gain, and in a most slanderous community, in business most exposed to suspicion, has escaped every reproach, not only the formal charge? I pass over what must not be passed over: that no avaricious act of his in private affairs, no contention about money, no sordid spot in his household, can be brought forward. By what witnesses, then, can I refute these men if not by you?
et is est reus avaritiae qui in uberrima re turpe compendium, in maledicentissima civitate, in suspiciosissimo negotio maledictum omne, non modo crimen effugit? praetereo illa quae praetereunda non sunt, nullum huius in privatis rebus factum avarum, nullam in re pecuniaria contentionem, nullam in re familiari sordem posse proferri. quibus igitur testibus ego hosce possum refutare nisi vobis?
Will that village fellow from Tmolus, a man known not only not to us but not even among his own people, teach you what sort of man Lucius Flaccus is? — the man whom you knew as a most modest youth, as the most upright of men in the greatest of provinces, as the bravest soldier of your army, the most diligent commander, the most temperate legate and quaestor; the man whom you yourselves, in his presence, judged to be the most steadfast of senators, the most just of praetors, and a citizen most devoted to the commonwealth.
Tmolites ille vicanus, homo non modo nobis sed ne inter suos quidem notus, vos docebit qualis sit L. Flaccus? quem vos modestissimum adulescentem, provinciae maximae sanctissimum virum, vestri exercitus fortissimum militem, diligentissimum ducem, temperatissimum legatum quaestoremque cognoverunt, quem vos praesentes constantissimum senatorem, iustissimum praetorem atque amantissimum rei publicae civem iudicastis.
Of those for whom you ought to be witnesses to others, will you yourselves listen to other men as witnesses against them? And what witnesses? First, what is the common ground: Greeks. Not that I above all single men would withdraw faith from this nation; for if any of our people was ever not averse to that race in interest and goodwill, I think I am one, and was more so when there was more leisure. But in that number there are many good men, learned, modest, who have not been led to this trial; many shameless, unlettered, fickle, whom I see stirred up for various reasons. Yet this I say of the whole class of Greeks: I grant them letters, I allow the discipline of many arts, I do not deny them charm of speech, keenness of intellect, abundance of expression — and finally, if they claim anything else for themselves, I do not contend. But the scruple and good faith of testimony that nation has never cultivated, and they do not know what the force, what the authority, what the weight of this whole matter may be.
de quibus vos aliis testes esse debetis, de eis ipsi alios testis audietis? at quos testis? primum dicam, id quod est commune, Graecos; non quo nationi huic ego unus maxime fidem derogem. nam si quis umquam de nostris hominibus a genere isto studio ac voluntate non abhorrens fuit, me et esse arbitror et magis etiam tum cum plus erat oti fuisse. sed sunt in illo numero multi boni, docti, pudentes, qui ad hoc iudicium deducti non sunt, multi impudentes, inliterati, leves, quos variis de causis video concitatos. verum tamen hoc dico de toto genere Graecorum: tribuo illis litteras, do multarum artium disciplinam, non adimo sermonis leporem, ingeniorum acumen, dicendi copiam, denique etiam, si qua sibi alia sumunt, non repugno; testimoniorum religionem et fidem numquam ista natio coluit, totiusque huiusce rei quae sit vis, quae auctoritas, quod pondus, ignorant.
Whence comes the saying “lend me your testimony in return”? Is it thought to be the Gauls’, or the Spaniards’? It is the Greeks’ altogether — so much so that even men who do not know Greek know in what words this is usually said by Greeks. Watch, then, with what face, with what assurance they speak; then you will understand with what scruple. They never answer us to the question, always more than is asked to the accuser; they never trouble how to prove what they say, only how to extricate themselves in saying it. Marcus Lurco gave evidence angry with Flaccus, because, as he himself said, his freedman had been condemned in a shameful trial. He said nothing that would wound him, though he wished to; for scruple stood in the way: yet what he did say — with what shame, with what trembling, with what pallor he said it!
Vnde illud est: ’da mihi testimonium mutuum’? num Gallorum, num Hispanorum putatur? totum istud Graecorum est, ut etiam qui Graece nesciunt hoc quibus verbis a Graecis dici soleat sciant. itaque videte quo voltu, qua confidentia dicant; tum intellegetis qua religione dicant. numquam nobis ad rogatum respondent, semper accusatori plus quam ad rogatum, numquam laborant quem ad modum probent quod dicunt, sed quem ad modum se explicent dicendo. iratus Flacco dixit M. Lurco quod, ut ipse aiebat, libertus erat eius turpi iudicio condemnatus. nihil dixit quod laederet eum, cum cuperet; impediebat enim religio; tamen id quod dixit quanto cum pudore, quo tremore et pallore dixit!
How ready a man was Publius Septimius, how angry about the trial and about the bailiff! Yet he hesitated; yet now and then scruple fought against his anger. Marcus Caelius was hostile because, when in a plain matter he had thought it sacrilege for a tax-farmer to judge against a tax-farmer, he had been struck off the panel of recuperatores; yet he held himself back and brought nothing into court to wound except his disposition. Had these men been Greeks, and had not our customs and discipline weighed more than pain and feud, every one of them would have said he was despoiled, harassed, ruined in fortune. A Greek witness has come forward with the will to wound; he rehearses not the words of his oath but the words of his injury; to be beaten, refuted, convicted he reckons the most disgraceful thing; to that he prepares himself, he cares for nothing else. And so the man chosen is not the best or the gravest, but the most shameless and the most talkative.
quam promptus homo P. Septimius, quam iratus de iudicio et de vilico! tamen haesitabat, tamen eius iracundiae religio non numquam repugnabat. inimicus M. Caelius quod, cum in re manifesta putasset nefas esse publicanum iudicare contra publicanum, sublatus erat e numero recuperatorum, tamen tenuit se neque attulit in iudicium quicquam ad laedendum nisi voluntatem. hi si Graeci fuissent, ac nisi nostri mores ac disciplina plus valeret quam dolor ac simultas, omnes se spoliatos, vexatos, fortunis eversos esse dixissent. Graecus testis cum ea voluntate processit ut laedat, non iuris iurandi, sed laedendi verba meditatur; vinci, refelli, coargui putat esse turpissimum; ad id se parat, nihil curat aliud. itaque non optimus quisque nec gravissimus, sed impudentissimus loquacissimusque deligitur.
You, on the other hand, in private trials over the smallest matters, weigh a witness with care; even when you know the man’s looks, his name, his tribe, you still think his character must be examined. But the man who gives evidence from among our people — how he holds himself in, how he moderates every word, how he fears to say anything from greed, anything from anger, anything more or less than is necessary! Do you suppose them likewise — men to whom an oath is a joke, testimony a game, your good opinion mere darkness, men to whom praise, payment, favour, congratulation lie all set out in shameless lying? But I shall not stretch my speech out: it could indeed be infinite, if I cared to unfold the levity of the whole race in giving testimony. I shall draw closer: I shall speak of these witnesses of yours.
vos autem in privatis minimarum rerum iudiciis testem diligenter expenditis; etiam si formam hominis, si nomen, si tribum nostis, mores tamen exquirendos putatis. qui autem dicit testimonium ex nostris hominibus, ut se ipse sustentat, ut omnia verba moderatur, ut timet ne quid cupide, ne quid iracunde, ne quid plus minusve quam sit necesse dicat! num illos item putatis, quibus ius iurandum iocus est, testimonium ludus, existimatio vestra tenebrae, laus, merces, gratia, gratulatio proposita est omnis in impudenti mendacio? sed non dilatabo orationem meam; etenim potest esse infinita, si mihi libeat totius gentis in testimoniis dicendis explicare levitatem. sed propius accedam; de his vestris testibus dicam.
We have run up against a vehement prosecutor, judges, and an enemy hateful and troublesome in every kind — whom I hope, with these sinews of his, will be of great use both to his friends and to the commonwealth. But certainly he has taken up this case and accusation inflamed by an incredible eagerness. What an entourage he had in his investigation! Entourage, do I say? — rather, what an army! What outlay, what expense, what largesse! Yet, however useful these things are to my case, I speak of them with hesitation, because I fear that Laelius may think that something of personal slight or invidious feeling has been sought against him in my speech, in matters which he undertook for his own glory’s sake. I shall therefore leave this whole part alone; only this I shall ask of you, judges — that, if you have heard anything yourselves by common report and conversation, of force, of armed bands, of arms, of troops, you remember it. It is for fear of the resentment these things stir up that, under this new and recent law, a fixed number of assistants in the investigation has been laid down.
vehementem accusatorem nacti sumus, iudices, et inimicum in omni genere odiosum ac molestum; quem spero his nervis fore magno usui et amicis et rei publicae; sed certe inflammatus incredibili cupiditate hanc causam accusationemque suscepit. qui comitatus in inquirendo! comitatum dico; immo vero quantus exercitus! quae iactura, qui sumptus, quanta largitio! quae quamquam utilia sunt causae, timide tamen dico, quod vereor ne Laelius ex his rebus quas sibi suscepit gloriae causa putet aliquid oratione mea sermonis in sese aut invidiae esse quaesitum. itaque hanc partem totam relinquam; tantum a vobis petam, iudices, ut, si quid ipsi audistis communi fama atque sermone de vi, de manu, de armis, de copiis, memineritis; quarum rerum invidia lege hac recenti ac nova certus est inquisitioni comitum numerus constitutus.
But, to set aside this force — how great are the things which, because they have been done under accusatorial right and custom, we cannot rebuke, but are forced to lament! First, that talk has been scattered all over Asia that Gnaeus Pompeius, because he was bitterly hostile to Lucius Flaccus, pressed Laelius — his paternal friend, his close connection — to bring this man to trial, and conferred on him his whole authority, favour, resources, and means for accomplishing this business. This seemed all the more probable to Greek minds because a little before they had seen Laelius on intimate terms with Flaccus in the same province. And Pompeius’s authority, great as it is everywhere among all men as it ought to be, stands out in that province in particular, which he recently freed from the war both of pirates and of kings. He added this further: that he terrified those unwilling to leave home with a summons to give evidence, and stirred those who could not stand still at home with a generous and liberal travel-allowance.
sed ut hanc vim omittam, quanta illa sunt quae, quoniam accusatorio iure et more sunt facta, reprehendere non possumus, queri tamen cogimur! primum quod sermo est tota Asia dissipatus Cn. Pompeium, quod L. Flacco esset vehementer inimicus, contendisse a Laelio, paterno amico ac pernecessario, ut hunc hoc iudicio arcesseret, omnemque ei suam auctoritatem, gratiam, copias, opes ad hoc negotium conficiendum detulisse. id hoc veri similius Graecis hominibus videbatur quod paulo ante in eadem provincia familiarem Laelium Flacco viderant. Pompei autem auctoritas cum apud omnis tanta est quanta esse debet, tum excellit in ista provincia quam nuper et praedonum et regum bello liberavit. adiunxit illa ut eos qui domo exire nolebant testimoni denuntiatione terreret, qui domi stare non poterant, largo et liberali viatico commoveret.
So this young man, full of talent, moved the wealthy by fear, the poor by reward, the foolish by error; so were extorted those celebrated decrees that are read out — declared by no votes nor by any authoritative bodies, bound by no oath, but by hand stretched out and the shout of a stirred-up crowd. O what a fine custom and discipline we have received from our ancestors, if only we kept hold of it! But somehow now it slips out of our hands. For none of our wisest and most scrupulous men wanted any force to belong to a public meeting; what the plebs decreed or what the people commanded, they wanted done with the public meeting dismissed, the parts distributed, the orders set out tribe by tribe, century by century, by classes, by ages, with the proposers heard, and the measure promulgated and known for many days.
sic adulescens ingeni plenus locupletis metu, tenuis praemio, stultos errore permovit; sic sunt expressa ista praeclara quae recitantur psephismata non sententiis neque auctoritatibus declarata, non iure iurando constricta, sed porrigenda manu profundendoque clamore multitudinis concitatae. O morem praeclarum disciplinamque quam a maioribus accepimus, si quidem teneremus! sed nescio quo pacto iam de manibus elabitur. nullam enim illi nostri sapientissimi et sanctissimi viri vim contionis esse voluerunt; quae scisceret plebes aut quae populus iuberet, submota contione, distributis partibus, tributim et centuriatim discriptis ordinibus, classibus, aetatibus, auditis auctoribus, re multos dies promulgata et cognita iuberi vetarique voluerunt.
But the entire commonwealths of the Greeks are governed by the recklessness of a seated assembly. And so, to leave aside this present-day Greece, which has long ago been struck and dashed by its own counsels, that ancient Greece which once flourished in resources, in empire, and in glory fell by this single evil — the immoderate freedom and licence of public meetings. When the unskilled men, raw and ignorant of all things, sat down in the theatre, then they undertook useless wars, then they set seditious men over the commonwealth, then they cast out of the city the citizens who deserved best of her.
Graecorum autem totae res publicae sedentis contionis temeritate administrantur. itaque ut hanc Graeciam quae iam diu suis consiliis perculsa et adflicta est omittam, illa vetus quae quondam opibus, imperio, gloria floruit hoc uno malo concidit, libertate immoderata ac licentia contionum. Cum in theatro imperiti homines rerum omnium rudes ignarique consederant, tum bella inutilia suscipiebant, tum seditiosos homines rei publicae praeficiebant, tum optime meritos civis e civitate eiciebant.
If these things were apt to happen at Athens, when she shone not only in Greece but among almost all nations, what moderation do you suppose there was in the assemblies of Phrygia and Mysia? Men of those nations more often than not throw our own assemblies into uproar; what do you finally suppose happens when they are by themselves? That Athenagoras of Cyme was beaten with rods, who had dared to export grain in a famine. An assembly was given to Laelius. He came forward; and he, a Greek among Greeks, did not speak of his own fault but complained of his punishment. They held out their hands; the decree was born. Is *this* testimony? The men of Pergamum, lately feasted, a little before sated with every largesse, since Mithridates, who held that crowd not by his own authority but by stuffing them with food, said he wished it, the cobblers and belt-makers shouted out for it. Is this the testimony of a community? I myself brought witnesses publicly out of Sicily; but those were the testimonies, not of an assembly stirred up, but of a sworn senate.
quod si haec Athenis tum cum illae non solum in Graecia sed prope cunctis gentibus enitebant accidere sunt solita, quam moderationem putatis in Phrygia aut in Mysia contionum fuisse? nostras contiones illarum nationum homines plerumque perturbant; quid, cum soli sint ipsi, tandem fieri putatis? caesus est virgis Cymaeus ille Athenagoras qui in fame frumentum exportare erat ausus. data Laelio contio est. processit ille et Graecus apud Graecos non de culpa sua dixit, sed de poena questus est. porrexerunt manus; psephisma natum est. hoc testimonium est? nuper epulati, paulo ante omni largitione saturati Pergameni, quod Mithridates qui multitudinem illam non auctoritate sua, sed sagina tenebat se velle dixit, id sutores et zonarii conclamarunt. hoc testimonium est civitatis? ego testis a Sicilia publice deduxi; verum erant ea testimonia non concitatae contionis, sed iurati senatus.
And so I have no contest now with the witness; it is for you, judges, to see whether these things are to be reckoned testimonies. A young man of good birth, of decent family, eloquent, comes into a Greek town with the largest and most splendid retinue, calls for an assembly, terrifies the wealthy and weighty men with the threat of a summons to give evidence so that they may not stand against him, and entices the poor and fickle with the hope of largesse, with public travel-money, with private favour as well. To stir up the artisans and shopkeepers and all that dregs of the cities — what trouble is that, particularly against a man who recently held a power of the highest, but who, on the very name of that power, could not be the object of the highest love?
qua re iam non est mihi contentio cum teste, vobis, iudices, videndum est, sintne haec testimonia putanda. adulescens bonus, honesto loco natus, disertus cum maximo ornatissimoque comitatu venit in oppidum Graecorum, postulat contionem, locupletis homines et gravis ne sibi adversentur testimoni denuntiatione deterret, egentis et levis spe largitionis et viatico publico, privata etiam benignitate prolectat. opifices et tabernarios atque illam omnem faecem civitatum quid est negoti concitare, in eum praesertim qui nuper summo cum imperio fuerit, summo autem in amore esse propter ipsum imperi nomen non potuerit?
It is no wonder, surely, that men to whom our axes are an object of hatred, our magistrate’s name a thing of bitterness, our pasture-tax, our tithes, our customs-dues a thing of death, lay greedy hands on whatever facility for hurting is held out to them! Remember, then, when you hear these decrees, that you are not hearing testimonies, you are hearing the recklessness of the mob, you are hearing the voice of every fickle man, you are hearing the noise of the unskilled, you are hearing a stirred-up assembly of the most fickle of nations. And so probe to the bottom the nature and reason of these charges; you will find now nothing but hope, nothing but terror and threats.
mirandum vero est homines eos quibus odio sunt nostrae secures, nomen acerbitati, scriptura, decumae, portorium morti, libenter adripere facultatem laedendi quaecumque detur! Mementote igitur, cum audietis psephismata, non audire vos testimonia, audire temeritatem volgi, audire vocem levissimi cuiusque, audire strepitum imperitorum, audire contionem concitatam levissimae nationis. itaque perscrutamini penitus naturam rationemque criminum; iam nihil praeter spem, nihil praeter terrorem ac minas reperietis.
The cities have nothing in their treasury, nothing in their revenues. There are two ways of raising money: either a loan or a levy; yet no creditor’s account-book is brought forward, nor is any record of a levy read out. How easy it is for them to enter false accounts and to record in the books whatever is convenient, learn, please, from a letter of Gnaeus Pompeius to Hypsaeus and from one of Hypsaeus to Pompeius. [Letters of Pompey and Hypsaeus.] Do we seem to you, with these authorities, to have shown sufficiently the dissolute habits of the Greeks and their shameless licence? Unless, perhaps, we are to think that men who deceived Gnaeus Pompeius — and that with him on the spot, with no one driving them to it — were either timid or scrupulous when Laelius was pressing them, against an absent man and against Lucius Flaccus.
in aerario nihil habent civitates, nihil in vectigalibus. duae rationes conficiendae pecuniae, aut versura aut tributo; nec tabulae creditoris proferuntur nec tributi confectio ulla recitatur. quam vero facile falsas rationes inferre et in tabulas quodcumque commodum est referre soleant, ex Cn. Pompei litteris ad Hypsaeum et Hypsaei ad Pompeium missis, quaeso, cognoscite. Litterae Pompei et Hypsaei. satisne vobis coarguere his auctoribus dissolutam Graecorum consuetudinem licentiamque impudentem videmur? Nisi forte qui Cn. Pompeium, qui praesentem, qui nullo impellente fallebant, eos urgente Laelio in absentem et in L. Flaccum aut timidos fuisse aut religiosos putamus.
But suppose the books were uncorrupted at home; what authority or what credit can they have now? The law orders them to be brought to the praetor within three days, sealed with the judges’ seals; on the thirtieth day they are scarcely brought. So that the books may not easily be tampered with, the law required them to be deposited under seal in a public place; but they are sealed already tampered with. What does it matter, then, whether they are brought before the judges so long after, or not brought at all? And what if the witnesses’ enthusiasm is yoked with the prosecutor’s — shall they still be reckoned witnesses? Where, then, is that expectation that is wont to attend trials? For in the past, when the prosecutor had spoken sharply and vehemently, and the defender had answered humbly and submissively, the third place looked for was that of the witnesses, who spoke either without any partisanship at all, or with at least some dissimulation of their eagerness. But now what is this?
sed fuerint incorruptae litterae domi; nunc vero quam habere auctoritatem aut quam fidem possunt? triduo lex ad praetorem deferri, iudicum signis obsignari iubet; tricesimo die vix deferuntur. ne corrumpi tabulae facile possint, idcirco lex obsignatas in publico poni voluit; at obsignantur corruptae. quid refert igitur tanto post ad iudices deferantur, an omnino non deferantur? quid? si testium studium cum accusatore sociatum est, tamenne isti testes habebuntur? Vbi est igitur illa exspectatio quae versari in iudiciis solet? nam antea, cum dixerat accusator acriter et vehementer, cumque defensor suppliciter demisseque responderat, tertius ille erat exspectatus locus testium, qui aut sine ullo studio dicebant aut cum dissimulatione aliqua cupiditatis. hoc vero quid est?
They sit together; they rise from the prosecutors’ benches; they do not dissemble, they do not blush. Do I complain of the benches? Out of one house they come forward together; if they trip in a word, they will have nowhere to go back to. Can a man be a witness, then, whom the prosecutor questions without anxiety, and does not fear that he may answer something the prosecutor himself does not wish? Where, then, is that praise of the orator that used to be looked for either in the prosecutor or in the defender: “He has questioned the witness well; he has approached him cleverly, taken him up; brought him where he wished; convicted him and reduced him to silence”?
Vna sedent, ex accusatorum subselliis surgunt, non dissimulant, non verentur. de subselliis queror? una ex domo prodeunt; si verbo titubaverint, quo revertantur non habebunt. an quisquam esse testis potest quem accusator sine cura interroget nec metuat ne sibi aliquid quod ipse nolit respondeat? Vbi est igitur illa laus oratoris quae vel in accusatore antea vel in patrono spectari solebat: ’bene testem interrogavit; callide accessit, reprehendit; quo voluit adduxit; convicit et elinguem reddidit?’
What can you ask, Laelius, of a man who, before you have said “I ask you,” will pour out more than you yourself prescribed for him beforehand at home? But what can I, the defender, ask? for either the witness’s speech is usually refuted, or his life touched. By what argument shall I refute the speech of one who says “We gave,” nothing more? One must speak against the man, then, when his speech offers no ground for argument. What shall I say against an unknown? It must be lamented, then, and bewailed, as I have long been doing, the whole inequity of this prosecution: first the common class of the witnesses, since the nation speaks that is the least scrupulous in the giving of testimony. I draw closer: I deny that those things are testimonies which you call decrees, and say they are the murmur of the destitute and a kind of reckless commotion of a Greek assembly. I shall enter further still. The man who handled the affair is not present; the man who is said to have counted out the money has not been brought; no private letters are produced; the public ones have been kept back in the prosecutors’ power; the chief weight is in the witnesses; these men live with the enemies, sit with the adversaries, lodge with the prosecutors.
quid tu istum roges, Laeli, qui, prius quam hoc ’ te rogo ’ dixeris, plura etiam effundet quam tu ei domi ante praescripseris? quid ego autem defensor rogem? nam aut oratio testium refelli solet aut vita laedi. qua disputatione orationem refellam eius qui dicit: ’dedimus,’ nihil amplius? in hominem dicendum est igitur, cum oratio argumentationem non habet. quid dicam in ignotum? querendum est ergo et deplorandum, id quod iam dudum facio, de omni accusationis iniquitate, primum de communi genere testium; dicit enim natio minime in testimoniis dicendis religiosa. propius accedo; nego esse ista testimonia quae tu psephismata appellas, sed fremitum egentium et motum quendam temerarium Graeculae contionis. intrabo etiam magis. qui gessit non adest, qui numerasse dicitur non est deductus; privatae litterae nullae proferuntur, publicae retentae sunt in accusatorum potestate; summa est in testibus; hi vivunt cum inimicis, adsunt cum adversariis, habitant cum accusatoribus.
Do you suppose this will produce a real examination and uncovering of the truth, or some stain upon innocence and ruin of it? For there are many things of this kind, judges, that even if they may be neglected in the man whose case is at issue, must yet be feared in the precedent and the example they set. If I were defending some man born in the lowest place, of no splendour of life, with no commendation of fame, I should still beg of his fellow-citizens, by the common right of humanity and by mercy, that they not deliver one citizen to other citizens by witnesses unknown, witnesses stirred up, witnesses who are the prosecutor’s bench-mates, dinner-companions, tent-mates — to men Greek in fickleness and barbarian in cruelty — nor hand on a dangerous imitation of the precedent to the rest hereafter.
Vtrum hic tandem disceptationem et cognitionem veritatis, an innocentiae labem aliquam aut ruinam fore putatis? multa enim sunt eius modi, iudices, ut, etiam si in homine ipso de quo agitur neglegenda sint, tamen in condicione atque in exemplo pertimescenda videantur. si quem infimo loco natum, nullo splendore vitae, nulla commendatione famae defenderem, tamen civem a civibus communis humanitatis iure ac misericordia deprecarer, ne ignotis testibus, ne incitatis, ne accusatoris consessoribus, convivis, contubernalibus, ne hominibus levitate Graecis, crudelitate barbaris civem ac supplicem vestrum dederetis, ne periculosam imitationem exempli reliquis in posterum proderetis.
But when it is the case of Lucius Flaccus that is being tried, of that house from which the man who was made first consul was the first consul in this state; by whose virtue, with the kings driven out, liberty was established in the commonwealth; which has lasted to this very day in an unbroken line of offices, commands, and the glory of deeds done; and when Lucius Flaccus, far from degenerating from this perennial and well-witnessed virtue of his ancestors, has, just as he saw his family’s glory most flourishing, fallen in love with the praise of his country in setting his country’s freedom free as praetor — shall I in this defendant fear that some pernicious precedent will be handed on, when, even if he had erred in something, all good men would think that they ought to wink at it?
sed cum L. Flacci res agatur, qua ex familia qui primus consul factus est primus in hac civitate consul fuit, cuius virtute regibus exterminatis libertas in re publica constituta est, quae usque ad hoc tempus honoribus, imperiis, rerum gestarum gloria continuata permansit, cumque ab hac perenni contestataque virtute maiorum non modo non degeneraverit L. Flaccus sed, quam maxime florere in generis sui gloria viderat, laudem patriae in libertatem vindicandae praetor adamarit, in hoc ego reo ne quod perniciosum exemplum prodatur pertimescam, in quo, etiam si quid errasset, omnes boni conivendum esse arbitrarentur?
Yet for my part I do not even ask this; on the contrary, judges, I beg and beseech you that you contemplate the whole case as keenly as you can, with eyes most intent (as the saying is). Nothing will be found vouched for by scruple, nothing grounded on truth, nothing wrung out by pain; on the contrary, all will be found corrupted by lust, by anger, by partisanship, by money, by perjury.
quod quidem ego non modo non postulo, sed contra, iudices, vos oro et obtestor ut totam causam quam maxime intentis oculis, ut aiunt, acerrime contemplemini. nihil religione testatum, nihil veritate fundatum, nihil dolore expressum, contraque omnia corrupta libidine, iracundia, studio, pretio, periurio reperientur.
Indeed, since now the universal eagerness of these men has been recognized, I shall come to the particular complaints and accusations of the Greeks. They complain that money was levied on the cities under the name of a fleet. We confess, judges, that this was done. But if this is a charge, it lies either in his not being permitted to make the levy, or in there being no need of ships, or in no fleet’s having sailed under this praetor. That it was permitted, that you may understand, hear what the Senate decreed in my consulship — when in fact it departed in nothing from the decrees of the continuous earlier years. [Decree of the Senate.] It is next, then, for us to inquire whether or not there was need of a fleet. Shall, then, the Greeks decide this, or any foreign nations, or our praetors, our generals, our imperatores? For my own part I think that, in such a region and province as that, girt by sea, broken into harbours, encircled by islands, there had to be sailing not only for safety’s sake but for the adornment of empire as well.
etenim iam universa istorum cognita cupiditate accedam ad singulas querelas criminationesque Graecorum. classis nomine pecuniam civitatibus imperatam queruntur. quod nos factum, iudices, confitemur. sed si hoc crimen est, aut in eo est quod non licuerit imperare, aut in eo quod non opus fuerit navibus, aut in eo quod nulla hoc praetore classis navigarit. licuisse ut intellegas, cognosce quid me consule senatus decreverit, cum quidem nihil a superioribus continuorum annorum decretis discesserit. Senatvs consvltvm. proximum est ergo ut opus fuerit classe necne quaeramus. Vtrum igitur hoc Graeci statuent aut ullae exterae nationes, an nostri praetores, nostri duces, nostri imperatores? equidem existimo in eius modi regione atque provincia quae mari cincta, portibus distincta, insulis circumdata esset, non solum praesidi sed etiam ornandi imperi causa navigandum fuisse.
For this was the way and the greatness of mind in our ancestors — that, while in private affairs and on their own outlay they lived content with the smallest, in the slenderest mode of life, in command and public dignity they referred everything to glory and splendour. For in domestic affairs the praise sought is for restraint, in public affairs for dignity. And if he had a fleet for safety’s sake too, who will be so unfair as to find fault? “There were no pirates.” What of it? Could anyone guarantee there would be none? “You are diminishing,” he says, “the glory of Pompeius.” Nay rather, you are increasing the trouble.
haec enim ratio ac magnitudo animorum in maioribus nostris fuit ut, cum in privatis rebus suisque sumptibus minimo contenti tenuissimo cultu viverent, in imperio atque in publica dignitate omnia ad gloriam splendoremque revocarent. quaeritur enim in re domestica continentiae laus, in publica dignitatis. quod si etiam praesidi causa classem habuit, quis erit tam iniquus qui reprehendat? ’ nulli erant praedones.’ quid? nullos fore quis praestare poterat? ’ minuis,’ inquit, ’gloriam Pompei.’ immo tu auges molestiam.
For Pompeius cleared away the fleets of the pirates, their cities, their harbours, their hideouts; he completed the peace of the seas with the highest virtue and incredible speed. But that other thing he did not undertake, nor ought he to have undertaken — that, if a small pirate-boat had appeared anywhere, he should be thought blameworthy. And so he himself in Asia, when he had completed every war by land and sea, still levied a fleet from these very same cities. And if at that time he judged a fleet necessary — when by his presence and his name alone all could be safe and at peace — what do you think had to be decided and done by Flaccus, when Pompeius had departed?
ille enim classis praedonum, urbis, portus, receptacula sustulit, pacem maritimam summa virtute atque incredibili celeritate confecit; illud vero neque suscepit neque suscipere debuit ut, si qua uspiam navicula praedonum apparuisset, accusandus videretur. itaque ipse in Asia, cum omnia iam bella terra marique confecisset, classem tamen isdem istis civitatibus imperavit. quod si tum statuit opus esse cum ipsius praesentis nomine tuta omnia et pacata esse poterant, quid, cum ille decessisset, Flacco existimatis statuendum et faciendum fuisse?
What? Did we not, on Pompeius’s own motion, in the consulship of Silanus and Murena, decree that a fleet should sail in Italy? Did we not at that very time, when Lucius Flaccus was levying rowers in Asia, here pay out four million three hundred thousand sesterces for the upper and the lower seas? What? In the next year, was not money paid out to Marcus Curtius and Publius Sextilius the quaestors for a fleet? What? Were there not horsemen on the maritime coast all this time? For this is the divine glory of Pompeius: first, that those pirates who at the time when the maritime command was given him were straggling scattered over the whole sea, were all reduced into the power of the Roman people; then, that Syria is ours, that Cilicia is held, that Cyprus through king Ptolemy ventures nothing; and besides this, that Crete is ours by Metellus’s virtue, that there is nowhere they may set out from, nowhere they may return to, that all the bays, headlands, shores, islands, and seaboard cities are kept under the bars of our empire.
quid? nos hic nonne ipso Pompeio auctore Silano et Murena consulibus decrevimus ut classis in Italia navigaret? nonne eo ipso tempore cum L. Flaccus in Asia remiges imperabat, nos hic in mare superum et inferum sestertium ter et quadragiens erogabamus? quid? postero anno nonne M. Curtio et P. Sextilio quaestoribus pecunia in classem est erogata? quid? hoc omni tempore equites in ora maritima non fuerunt? illa enim est gloria divina Pompei, primum praedones eos qui tum cum illi bellum maritimum gerendum datum est toto mari dispersi vagabantur redactos esse omnis in populi Romani potestatem, deinde Syriam esse nostram, Ciliciam teneri, Cyprum per Ptolomaeum regem nihil audere, praeterea Cretam Metelli virtute esse nostram, nihil esse unde proficiscantur, nihil quo revertantur, omnis sinus, promunturia, litora, insulas, urbis maritimas claustris imperi nostri contineri.
If under the praetor Flaccus there had been no pirate at sea, his diligence would still not have to be blamed. For I should not consider that there was none for the reason that this man kept a fleet. What, then, if I prove by the testimony of Lucius Eppius, Lucius Agrius, Gaius Cestius, Roman knights, and of this most illustrious man Gnaeus Domitius, who was at that time legate in Asia, that at the very time when you say a fleet ought not to have been kept, several persons were captured by pirates — shall Flaccus’s plan in levying rowers still be censured? What if a noble Adramyttene, whose name is known to almost all of us, Atyanas the boxer, an Olympic victor, was even killed by the pirates? This is, among the Greeks — since we are speaking of their seriousness — almost greater and more glorious than to have triumphed at Rome. “But you took no one.” How many famous men have presided over the maritime coast, who, though they took no pirate, yet kept the sea safe! For there is chance in the taking — place, wind, opportunity; the precaution of defence is easy, not only by the lurking-places of hidden spots but by the moderation and turning of the weather.
quod si Flacco praetore nemo in mari praedo fuisset, tamen huius diligentia reprehendenda non esset. idcirco enim quod hic classem habuisset, existimarem non fuisse. quid? si L. Eppi, L. Agri, C. Cesti, equitum Romanorum, huius etiam clarissimi viri, Cn. Domiti, qui in Asia tum legatus fuit, testimonio doceo eo ipso tempore quo tu negas classem habendam fuisse, compluris a praedonibus esse captos, tamen Flacci consilium in remigibus imperandis reprehendetur? quid si etiam occisus est a piratis Adramytenus homo nobilis, cuius est fere nobis omnibus nomen auditum, Atyanas pugil Olympionices? hoc est apud Graecos, quoniam de eorum gravitate dicimus, prope maius et gloriosius quam Romae triumphasse. ’ at neminem cepisti.’ quam multi orae maritimae clarissimi viri praefuerunt qui, cum praedonem nullum cepissent, mare tamen tutum praestiterunt! Casus est enim in capiendo, locus, ventus, occasio; defendendi facilis est cautio, non solum latibulis occultorum locorum sed etiam tempestatum moderatione et conversione.
It remains to ask whether that fleet of yours sailed by oar and course, or only on paper and at expense. Can it be denied — when all Asia is witness to it — that the fleet was divided in two parts, one of which sailed above Ephesus, the other below? On this fleet that great man Marcus Crassus sailed from Aenus to Asia, on these ships Flaccus sailed from Asia to Macedonia. Where, then, is the diligence of the praetor to be looked for? In the number of the ships and in the equitable distribution of expense? Half of what Pompeius had levied he levied; could he have done it more sparingly? And he distributed the money on Pompeius’s own scheme, which was itself patterned on Lucius Sulla’s scheme. When Sulla had distributed the money on a proportionate scale through all the cities of Asia, both Pompeius and Flaccus followed that scheme in levying the expense. Nor is even that sum yet completed.
reliquum est ut quaeratur utrum ista classis cursu et remis, an sumptu tantum et litteris navigarit. num id igitur negari potest, cuius rei cuncta testis est Asia, bipertito classem distributam fuisse, ut una pars supra Ephesum, altera infra Ephesum navigaret? hac classe M. Crassus, vir amplissimus, ab Aeno in Asiam, his navibus Flaccus ex Asia in Macedoniam navigavit. in quo igitur praetoris est diligentia requirenda? in numero navium et in discriptione aequabili sumptus? dimidium eius quo Pompeius erat usus imperavit; num potuit parcius? discripsit autem pecuniam ad Pompei rationem, quae fuit accommodata L. Sullae discriptioni. qui cum in omnis Asiae civitates pro portione pecuniam discripsisset, illam rationem in imperando sumptu et Pompeius et Flaccus secutus est. neque est adhuc tamen ea summa completa.
“He does not enter it.” True; what does he gain by it? For when he undertakes the burden of the levy, he is confessing the very thing you wish to be a charge. How, then, can it be shown that, by not entering this money in the books, he was making a charge for himself in a matter where there would have been no charge if he had entered it? But you say that my brother, who succeeded Lucius Flaccus, levied no money for rowers. I delight in every praise of my brother — but in others heavier and greater. He decided one thing; he saw something else: he thought that whenever any rumour of pirates was heard, he could put a fleet together as quickly as he wished. In short, my brother first did this in Asia — to relieve the cities of this expense for rowers; but a charge usually appears when someone establishes outlays which were not established before, not when a successor changes something in his predecessors’ arrangements. Flaccus could not know what others would do afterwards; he saw what they had done.
’ non refert.’ vero; quid lucretur? Cum enim onus imperatae pecuniae suscipit, id quod tu crimen esse vis confitetur. qui igitur probari potest in ea pecunia non referenda crimen sibi ipsum facere in qua crimen esset nullum, si referret? at enim negas fratrem meum, qui L. Flacco successerit, pecuniam ullam in remiges imperasse. equidem omni fratris mei laude delector, sed aliis magis gravioribus atque maioribus. aliud quiddam statuit, aliud vidit; existimavit, quocumque tempore auditum quid esset de praedonibus, quam vellet subito classem se comparaturum. denique hoc primus frater meus in Asia fecit ut hoc sumptu remigum civitates levaret; crimen autem tum videri solet cum aliquis sumptus instituit eos qui antea non erant instituti, non cum successor aliquid immutat de institutis priorum. Flaccus quid alii postea facturi essent scire non poterat, quid fecissent videbat.
But, since I have spoken of the common charge of all Asia, I shall come now to the individual cities; and let the first of them for us be the city of the Acmonenses. The crier calls in his loudest voice the legates of the Acmonenses; one Asclepiades comes forward. “Let the rest come.” Have you compelled the very crier to lie? For this man, I suppose, is so weighty as to sustain the name of his city by his own authority — a man condemned at home in the most disgraceful trials, branded by the public records, the records of whose disgraces, adulteries, and debaucheries from the Acmonenses are still in existence; which I think must be passed over not only for their length but for the most disgraceful obscenity of their language. He says that 206,000 drachmae were given publicly. He has merely said it, shown nothing, brought forth nothing; but he added what, since it was a domestic matter, he certainly ought to have proved — that he himself privately gave 206,000 drachmae. The shameless wretch never even dared to wish he had as much as he says was taken from him.
sed, quoniam de communi totius Asiae crimine est dictum, adgrediar iam ad singulas civitates; ex quibus sit sane nobis prima civitas Acmonensis. citat praeco voce maxima legatos Acmonensis. procedit unus Asclepiades. Prodeant ceteri. etiamne praeconem mentiri coegisti? est enim, credo, is vir iste ut civitatis nomen sua auctoritate sustineat, damnatus turpissimis iudiciis domi, notatus litteris publicis; cuius de probris, adulteriis ac stupris exstant Acmonensium litterae, quas ego non solum propter longitudinem sed etiam propter turpissimam obscenitatem verborum praetereundas puto. dixit publice data drachmarum ccvi. dixit tantum, nihil ostendit, nihil protulit; sed adiunxit, id quod certe, quoniam erat domesticum, docere debuit, se privatim drachmarum ccvi dedisse. quantum sibi ablatum homo impudentissimus dicit, tantum numquam est ausus ut haberet optare.
He says he gave it through Aulus Sextilius and through his own brothers. Sextilius could give; for the brothers, indeed, are partners in beggary. Let us hear Sextilius, then; let the brothers themselves come forward; let them lie as shamelessly as they will, and say that they gave what they never had; perhaps, brought up in person, they will say something in which they may be caught out. “I have not brought Sextilius,” he says. Hand over the books. “I have not brought them.” At least produce the brothers. “I did not summon them.” Are we, then, to fear as a charge or a piece of testimony what one Asclepiades — needy in fortune, foul in life, condemned in repute — has thrown out, relying on shamelessness and audacity, with no books and no authority?
ab A. Sextilio dicit se dedisse et a suis fratribus. potuit dare Sextilius; nam fratres quidem consortes sunt mendicitatis. audiamus igitur Sextilium; fratres denique ipsi prodeant; quam volent impudenter mentiantur et, quod numquam habuerint, dedisse se dicant; tamen aliquid fortasse coram producti dicent in quo reprehendantur. ’ non deduxi,’ inquit, ’Sextilium.’ cedo tabulas. ’ non deportavi.’ fratres saltem exhibe. ’ non denuntiavi.’ quod ergo unus Asclepiades fortuna egens, vita turpis, existimatione damnatus impudentia atque audacia fretus sine tabulis, sine auctore iecerit, id nos quasi crimen aut testimonium pertimescamus?
The same man said that the testimonial which we were producing as given by the Acmonenses to Flaccus was false. The loss of that testimonial we should have prayed for. For when this distinguished representative of his own city had inspected the public seal, he said that his fellow-citizens and the rest of the Greeks were in the habit of sealing on the spur of the moment whatever was needed. Keep the testimonial then for yourself; for Flaccus’s life and dignity does not lean on the testimony of the Acmonenses. You give me the very thing this case demands most: that there is no weight, no consistency, no firm judgment in Greek men, and finally no good faith in their testimony. Unless, indeed, your formula of testimony and speech can be drawn and distinguished as follows: that the cities are said to have granted Flaccus, in his absence, something; while when Laelius was present, in person pressing the case under the force of the law, by the right of accusation, terrifying and threatening with his own resources besides — they wrote and sealed nothing for the moment.
idem laudationem quam nos ab Acmonensibus Flacco datam proferebamus falsam esse dicebat. cuius quidem laudationis iactura exoptanda nobis fuit. nam ut signum publicum inspexit praeclarus iste auctor suae civitatis, solere suos civis ceterosque Graecos ex tempore quod opus sit obsignare dixit. tu vero tibi habeto istam laudationem; nec enim Acmonensium testimonio Flacci vita et dignitas nititur. das enim mihi quod haec causa maxime postulat, nullam gravitatem, nullam constantiam, nullum firmum in Graecis hominibus consilium, nullam denique esse testimoni fidem. Nisi vero hactenus ista formula testimoni atque orationis tuae describi ac distingui potest ut Flacco absenti aliquid civitates tribuisse dicantur, Laelio praesenti per se agenti vi legis, iure accusationis, opibus praeterea suis terrenti ac minanti nihil temporis causa scripsisse aut obsignasse videantur.
For my part, judges, I have often seen great matters caught and held in the smallest things — as in this Asclepiades. The testimonial we have produced was sealed with that Asiatic clay which is generally familiar to all of us, which all use not only in public letters but in private ones too which we daily see being sent by the tax-farmers and often to each one of us. Nor did the witness himself, after inspecting the seal, say we had produced a forgery; he simply put forward the levity of all Asia, on which we both freely and easily concede. Our testimonial, then, which he says was given to us for the moment, but which he confesses was given, is sealed with clay; in that other testimony said to have been given to the prosecutor we have seen wax.
equidem in minimis rebus saepe res magnas vidi, iudices, deprehendi ac teneri, ut in hoc Asclepiade. haec quae est a nobis prolata laudatio obsignata erat creta illa Asiatica quae fere est omnibus nota nobis, qua utuntur omnes non modo in publicis sed etiam in privatis litteris quas cotidie videmus mitti a publicanis, saepe uni cuique nostrum. neque enim testis ipse signo inspecto falsum nos proferre dixit, sed levitatem totius Asiae protulit, de qua nos et libenter et facile concedimus. nostra igitur laudatio, quam ille temporis causa nobis datam dicit, datam quidem confitetur, consignata creta est; in illo autem testimonio quod accusatori dicitur datum ceram esse vidimus.
Here, judges, if I thought you were to be moved by the decrees of the Acmonenses or by the documents of the rest of the Phrygians, I would shout out and contend with all my might, I would call the tax-farmers to witness, I would arouse the men of business, I would even implore your own knowledge; with the wax detected, I should be confident that the made-up audacity of the whole testimony had been openly seized and overthrown. As it is, I shall not press in any harder, nor flit about in this matter the more insolently, nor inveigh against this trifler as if he were some real witness, nor shall I dwell on the whole testimony of the Acmonenses, whether it was forged here, as it appears, or sent from home, as is said. For if I am content to remit the testimonial to men whom Asclepiades calls fickle, I shall not fear their testimony.
hic ego, iudices, si vos Acmonensium decretis, si ceterorum Phrygum litteris permoveri putarem, vociferarer et quam maxime possem contenderem, testarer publicanos, excitarem negotiatores, vestram etiam scientiam implorarem; cera deprehensa confiderem totius testimoni fictam audaciam manifesto comprehensam atque oppressam teneri. nunc vero non insultabo vehementius nec volitabo in hoc insolentius neque in istum nugatorem tamquam in aliquem testem invehar neque in toto Acmonensium testimonio, sive hic confictum est, ut apparet, sive missum domo est, ut dicitur, commorabor. etenim quibus ego laudationem istam remittam, quoniam sunt, ut Asclepiades dicit, leves, horum testimonium non pertimescam.
I come now to the testimony of the Doryleans; who, when produced, said they had lost their public records at some caves. O what shepherds these must be, and how greedy of writings, if it is true that they took nothing from these men but writings! But we suspect there is another reason: namely, that these men should not appear too unsubtle. The penalty, I think, at Dorylaeum is heavier than elsewhere for false and corrupted records. If they had brought forward genuine ones, there was no charge; if forged ones, there was a penalty. They thought it best to say they were lost.
venio nunc ad Dorylensium testimonium; qui producti tabulas se publicas ad speluncas perdidisse dixerunt. O pastores nescio quos cupidos litterarum, si quidem nihil istis praeter litteras abstulerunt! sed aliud esse causae suspicamur, ne forte isti parum versuti esse videantur. Poena est, ut opinor, Dorylai gravior quam apud alios falsarum et corruptarum litterarum. si veras protulissent, criminis nihil erat, si falsas, erat poena. bellissimum putarunt dicere amissas.
Let them keep quiet, then, and let me put this in my profit-account and turn to other things. They will not. For some fellow comes in to fill the place and says he gave money privately. This now can in no way be borne. The man who reads from public records that have been in the prosecutor’s power ought not to have authority; yet in some sort there seems to be a trial when those very records, of whatever kind, are produced. But when the man whom none of you have ever seen, whom no mortal has heard of, says only “I gave,” will you hesitate, judges, to vindicate a most noble citizen against this most obscure Phrygian? And the same man, lately, when in a suit about freedom three honourable and weighty Roman knights tried him — he saying that the man whose freedom was being claimed was his kinsman — they did not believe him. How does it come about that he who was no creditable witness for the pain and the blood of his own household is yet a weighty authority for a public injury?
quiescant igitur et me hoc in lucro ponere atque aliud agere patiantur. non sinunt. supplet enim iste nescio qui et privatim dicit se dedisse. hoc vero ferri nullo modo potest. qui de tabulis publicis recitat eis quae in accusatoris potestate fuerunt non debet habere auctoritatem; sed tamen iudicium fieri videtur, cum tabulae illae ipsae, cuicuimodi sunt, proferuntur. Cum vero is quem nemo vestrum vidit umquam, nemo qui mortalis esset audivit, tantum dicit: ’dedi,’ dubitabitis, iudices, quin ab hoc ignotissimo Phryge nobilissimum civem vindicetis? atque huic eidem nuper tres equites Romani honesti et graves, cum in causa liberali eum qui adserebatur cognatum suum esse diceret, non crediderunt. qui hoc evenit ut, qui locuples testis doloris et sanguinis sui non fuerit, idem sit gravis auctor iniuriae publicae?
And when this Dorylean was lately being carried out in great press and concourse of you all, Laelius was loading the odium of his death onto Lucius Flaccus. You do unjustly, Laelius, if you think your own bench-mates live at our peril; especially since we suppose it was through your own carelessness it happened. For you set out a basket of figs before a Phrygian who had never seen a tree. His death has lightened you of something — you have lost a gluttonous guest; but how has it benefited Flaccus? The man who was strong enough to come this far, died after the sting was discharged and the testimony delivered. But that very pillar of your prosecution, Mithridates, when he had been kept by us as a witness for two days and had poured out everything he wanted, retired thwarted, refuted, and broken; he goes about with a corselet on. Our learned and wise gentleman fears that Lucius Flaccus may now bind himself in crime, when already he cannot escape that witness; and that the man who held himself in before delivering his testimony — when he might still gain something by it — now sets about adjoining a real charge of misdoing to a false charge of avarice. But since Quintus Hortensius has dealt subtly and at length with this witness and the whole Mithridatic charge, let us, as we set out, go on to the rest.
atque hic Dorylensis nuper cum efferretur magna frequentia conventuque vestro, mortis illius invidiam in L. Flaccum Laelius conferebat. facis iniuste, Laeli, si putas nostro periculo vivere tuos contubernalis, praesertim cum tua neglegentia factum arbitremur. homini enim Phrygi qui arborem numquam vidisset fiscinam ficorum obiecisti. cuius mors te aliqua re levavit; edacem enim hospitem amisisti; Flacco vero quid profuit? qui valuit tam diu dum huc prodiret, mortuus est aculeo iam emisso ac dicto testimonio. at istud columen accusationis tuae, Mithridates, postea quam biduum retentus testis a nobis effudit quae voluit omnia, reprensus, convictus fractusque discessit; ambulat cum lorica; metuit homo doctus et sapiens, ne L. Flaccus nunc se scelere adliget, cum iam testem illum effugere non possit, et, qui ante dictum testimonium sibi temperarit, cum tamen aliquid adsequi posset, is nunc id agat ut ad falsum avaritiae testimonium verum malefici crimen adiungat. sed quoniam de hoc teste totoque Mithridatico crimine disseruit subtiliter et copiose Q. Hortensius, nos, ut instituimus, ad reliqua pergamus.
The chief of all the Greek-stirrers, who sits with the prosecutors, is that Heraclides of Temnus — a foolish and talkative man, but, as he himself thinks, so learned that he calls himself the master even of the others. But this man, ambitious enough to greet you all and us daily, until that age of his could not get into the senate at Temnus, and he who professes to hand on the art of speaking even to the rest has himself been beaten in all the most disgraceful trials.
caput est omnium Graecorum concitandorum, qui cum accusatoribus sedet, Heraclides ille Temnites, homo ineptus et loquax, sed, ut sibi videtur, ita doctus ut etiam magistrum illorum se esse dicat. at, qui ita sit ambitiosus ut omnis vos nosque cotidie persalutet, Temni usque ad illam aetatem in senatum venire non potuit et, qui se artem dicendi traditurum etiam ceteris profiteatur, ipse omnibus turpissimis iudiciis victus est.
Of equal good fortune, the legate Nicomedes came along with him, who could on no terms come into the senate, and who was condemned for theft and for misconduct as partner. The leader of the legation, Lysanias, did indeed reach the senatorial order, but, when he embraced too much of public business, was condemned for embezzlement and lost both his property and his senatorial title. These three even wished to falsify the records of our treasury; for they professed they had nine slaves, when they had come without any companion at all. In the first place I see that Lysanias was present at the writing of the decree; whose brother’s property, because he was not paying the people, was sold publicly under the praetor Flaccus. Besides there is Philippus, son-in-law of Lysanias, and Hermobius, whose brother Pollis was likewise condemned for public money. They say that they gave to Flaccus and those with him 2,200,000 drachmae.
Pari felicitate legatus una venit Nicomedes, qui nec in senatum ulla condicione pervenire potuit et furti et pro socio damnatus est. nam princeps legationis, Lysania, adeptus est ordinem senatorium, sed cum rem publicam nimium amplecteretur, peculatus damnatus et bona et senatorium nomen amisit. hi tres etiam aerari nostri tabulas falsas esse voluerunt; nam servos novem se professi sunt habere, cum omnino sine comite venissent. decreto scribendo primum video adfuisse Lysaniam, cuius fratris bona, quod populo non solvebat, praetore Flacco publice venierunt. praeterea Philippus est, Lysaniae gener, et Hermobius, cuius frater Pollis item pecuniae publicae est condemnatus. dicunt se Flacco et eis qui simul essent drachmarum cciↄↄ iↄↄ dedisse.
I have to do here with a city most exact and most thorough in its accounts, in which not a single coin can be moved without five praetors, three quaestors, and four bankers, who are elected from the people among them. Out of this whole great number not a single one has been brought. They make out, indeed, that this money was given to Flaccus by name; while another and larger sum, when they were giving it to this same man, they say they entered as for the rebuilding of a sacred temple; which is most inconsistent. For either everything had to be entered in secret, or everything in the open. When they enter it openly to Flaccus, they fear nothing, they are afraid of nothing; when they enter it under a public work, the same men suddenly fear the same man whom they had despised. If the praetor gave it, as it is written, he paid through the quaestor; the quaestor through the public bank; the bank either out of revenue or out of a levy. There will never be anything resembling a charge in this, unless you unfold for me this whole account, with both the kinds of persons and of records.
Cum civitate mihi res est acerrima et conficientissima litterarum, in qua nummus commoveri nullus potest sine quinque praetoribus, tribus quaestoribus, quattuor mensariis, qui apud illos a populo creantur. ex hoc tanto numero deductus est nemo. at cum illam pecuniam nominatim Flacco datam referant, maiorem aliam cum huic eidem darent in aedem sacram reficiendam se perscripsisse dicunt, quod minime convenit. nam aut omnia occulte referenda fuerunt, aut aperte omnia. Cum perscribunt Flacco nominatim, nihil timent, nihil verentur; cum operi publico referunt, idem homines subito eundem quem contempserant pertimescunt. si praetor dedit, ut est scriptum, a quaestore numeravit, quaestor a mensa publica, mensa aut ex vectigali aut ex tributo. numquam erit istuc simile criminis, nisi hanc mihi totam rationem omni et personarum genere et litterarum explicaris.
Or take what is written in the same decree — that the most distinguished men of the city, who had held the highest offices, were defrauded under this praetor. Why are they not present in court, why not named in the decree? For I do not believe that he who lifts himself up, Heraclides, is meant in that passage. For is *he* among the most distinguished citizens, the man whom Hermippus here led off as condemned, who did not receive even this present legation from his fellow-citizens but went seeking it as far as Tmolus, who has had no honour in his city ever, and on whom the matter usually entrusted to the most slender persons was once in his life uniquely entrusted? Under the praetor Titus Aufidius he was set over public grain. When he had taken money for it from the praetor Publius Varinius, he hid it from his fellow-citizens and laid the cost on them besides. After this had become known and exposed at Temnus by the letter of Publius Varinius, and after Gnaeus Lentulus, the former censor, the patron of the Temnitans, had written letters on the same matter — no one ever saw Heraclides at Temnus afterwards.
vel quod est in eodem decreto scriptum, homines clarissimos civitatis amplissimis usos honoribus hoc praetore circumventos, cur hi neque in iudicio adsunt neque in decreto nominantur? non enim credo significari isto loco illum qui se erigit Heraclidam. Vtrum enim est in clarissimis civibus is quem iudicatum hic duxit Hermippus, qui hanc ipsam legationem quam habet non accepit a suis civibus, sed usque Tmolo petivit, cui nullus honos in sua civitate habitus est umquam, res autem ea quae tenuissimis committebatur huic una in vita commissa sola est? custos T. Aufidio praetore in frumento publico est positus; pro quo cum a P. Varinio praetore pecuniam accepisset, celavit suos civis ultroque eis sumptum intulit. quod postea quam Temni litteris a P. Varinio missis cognitum atque patefactum est, cumque eadem de re Cn. Lentulus, qui censor fuit, Temnitarum patronus, litteras misisset, Heraclidam istum Temni postea nemo vidit.
And so that you may grasp his shamelessness, learn now, please, the very ground of grievance which set this most fickle man against Flaccus. He bought a Cymaean estate at Rome from the ward Meculonius. When he was making himself rich in words, while he had nothing but that very shamelessness which you see, he took money on loan from Sextus Stloga, this judge of ours, a man of the first rank, who recognizes the matter and does not fail to know the man; who nevertheless lent on the credit of the most select Publius Fulvius Neratus. When he was paying Stloga, he took money from Gaius and Marcus Fufius, Roman knights of the first rank. Here, by Hercules, he “put out the crow’s eye,” as the saying goes. For he struck this Hermippus, an educated man, his fellow-citizen, to whom he ought to have been very well known. For on his credit he took money from the Fufii. Untroubled, Hermippus sets out for Temnus, while this fellow says he will pay the money he has taken on Hermippus’s surety from the Fufii, out of his own students.
atque ut eius impudentiam perspicere possitis, causam ipsam quae levissimi hominis animum in Flaccum incitavit, quaeso, cognoscite. fundum Cymaeum Romae mercatus est de pupillo Meculonio. Cum verbis se locupletem faceret, haberet nihil praeter illam impudentiam quam videtis, pecuniam sumpsit mutuam a Sex. Stloga, iudice hoc nostro, primario viro, qui et rem agnoscit neque hominem ignorat; qui tamen credidit P. Fulvi Nerati, lectissimi hominis, fide. ei cum solveret, sumpsit a C. M. Fufiis, equitibus Romanis, primariis viris. hic hercule ’cornici oculum,’ ut dicitur. nam hunc Hermippum, hominem eruditum, civem suum, cui debebat esse notissimus, percussit. eius enim fide sumpsit a Fufiis. securus Hermippus Temnum proficiscitur, cum iste se pecuniam quam huius fide sumpserat a discipulis suis diceret Fufiis persoluturum.
For our rhetorician here had certain wealthy pupils, whom he made by half more foolish than he had received them; yet none did he so far befool as to lend him a penny. And so when he had quietly slipped out of Rome and defrauded many men by petty borrowings, he came to Asia, and to Hermippus’s question about the Fufian debt answered that he had paid all the money to the Fufii. Meanwhile, after no long interval, a freedman of the Fufii arrived with a letter for Hermippus; the money is demanded of Hermippus. Hermippus demands it of Heraclides; he himself, however, satisfies the absent Fufii and discharges his own credit; this man, hot and prevaricating, he pursues at law. The case is heard by recuperatores.
habebat enim rhetor iste discipulos quosdam locupletis,quos dimidio redderet stultiores quam acceperat; neminem tamen adeo infatuare potuit ut ei nummum ullum crederet. itaque cum Roma clam esset profectus multosque minutis mutuationibus fraudavisset, in Asiam venit Hermippoque percontanti de nomine Fufiano respondit se omnem pecuniam Fufiis persolvisse. interim, neque ita longo intervallo, libertus a Fufiis cum litteris ad Hermippum venit; pecunia petitur ab Hermippo. Hermippus ab Heraclida petit; ipse tamen Fufiis satis facit absentibus et fidem suam liberat; hunc aestuantem et tergiversantem iudicio ille persequitur. A recuperatoribus causa cognoscitur.
Do not suppose, judges, that the shamelessness of cheats and welshers is not one and the same in every place. He did all the same things our debtors are wont to do; he denied that he had ever taken any loan at all at Rome; he affirmed that he had never even heard the Fufii’s name; while he tore Hermippus himself, that most modest and most excellent man, my old friend and host, the most splendid and adorned of his city, with every reproach and abuse. But while the man, voluble in a kind of headlong speed of speaking, was tossing himself about in that speech of his, suddenly — as the Fufii’s depositions and the names were read out — he, the most audacious of men, took fright; the most loquacious fell silent. And so the recuperatores, in this matter least of all in doubt, gave judgment against him at the very first hearing. When he was not satisfying the judgment, he was assigned to Hermippus and led off by him.
nolite existimare, iudices, non unam et eandem omnibus in locis esse fraudatorum et infitiatorum impudentiam. fecit eadem omnia quae nostri debitores solent; negavit sese omnino versuram ullam fecisse Romae; Fufiorum se adfirmavit numquam omnino nomen audisse; Hermippum vero ipsum, pudentissimum atque optimum virum, veterem amicum atque hospitem meum, splendidissimum atque ornatissimum civitatis suae, probris omnibus maledictisque vexat. sed cum se homo volubilis quadam praecipiti celeritate dicendi in illa oratione iactaret, repente testimoniis Fufiorum nominibusque recitatis homo audacissimus pertimuit, loquacissimus obmutuit. itaque recuperatores contra istum rem minime dubiam prima actione iudicaverunt. Cum iudicatum non faceret, addictus Hermippo et ab hoc ductus est.
You have here both the man’s honour and the authority of his testimony, and the whole cause of the feud. He, dismissed by Hermippus when he had sold him a few slaves, betook himself to Rome, then returned to Asia, when my brother had now succeeded Flaccus. He went to him and laid out the case: that the recuperatores, forced by Flaccus’s violence and fear, had given a false judgment against their will. My brother, with his usual fairness and prudence, decreed that, if he denied the judgment, he should go for the double; if he said they had been forced by fear, he should keep the same recuperatores. He refused; and as if nothing had been done, no judgment given, he began to demand from Hermippus on the spot the very slaves which he himself had sold him. The legate Marcus Gratidius, to whom appeal was made, refused to grant an action; he showed it was his ruling that what had been adjudicated should stand.
habetis et honestatem hominis et auctoritatem testimoni et causam omnem simultatis. atque is ab Hermippo missus, cum ei pauca mancipia vendidisset, Romam se contulit, deinde in Asiam rediit, cum iam frater meus Flacco successisset. ad quem adiit causamque ita detulit, recuperatores vi Flacci coactos et metu falsum invitos iudicavisse. frater meus pro sua aequitate prudentiaque decrevit ut, si iudicatum negaret, in duplum iret; si metu coactos diceret, haberet eosdem recuperatores. recusavit et, quasi nihil esset actum, nihil iudicatum, ab Hermippo ibidem mancipia quae ipse ei vendiderat petere coepit. M. Gratidius legatus, ad quem est aditum, actionem se daturum negavit; re iudicata stari ostendit placere.
Once more this fellow, who had nowhere any place to take a stand, betook himself to Rome; Hermippus follows — the man who never gave way to that shamelessness. Heraclides claims from Gaius Plotius, a senator and a man of the first rank who had been legate in Asia, certain slaves which he says were sold by force, after he had been adjudicated. Quintus Naso, that most distinguished man, who had been praetor, is taken as judge. When he showed that he was about to give sentence for Plotius, he abandoned that judge, and, since the matter could not legally come into court, he gave the whole case up. Do I seem to you, judges, sufficiently to be approaching the witnesses one by one, instead of, as I had at first proposed, only contending with the whole class?
iterum iste, cui nullus esset usquam consistendi locus, Romam se rettulit; persequitur Hermippus, qui numquam istius impudentiae cessit. petit Heraclides a C. Plotio senatore, viro primario, qui legatus in Asia fuerat, mancipia quaedam quae se, cum iudicatus esset, per vim vendidisse dicebat. Q. Naso, vir ornatissimus, qui praetor fuerat, iudex sumitur. qui cum sententiam secundum Plotium se dicturum ostenderet, ab eo iudice abiit et, quod iudicium lege non erat, causam totam reliquit. satisne vobis, iudices, videor ad singulos testis accedere neque, ut primo constitueram, tantum modo cum universo genere confligere?
I come to Lysanias of the same city, your private witness, Decianus; whom you, when you had known him as an ephebe at Temnus, because, naked, he had then delighted you, you have always wanted to keep naked. You took Apollonides off from Temnus; you laid out money to the very young man at heavy interest, with a pledge taken nonetheless. This pledge you say has been forfeited to you; today you hold and possess it. This man you have compelled to come and bear witness on the hope of recovering his paternal estate. Since he has not yet given his testimony, I wait to see what he is going to say. I know the kind of person, I know the habit, I know the lust. So, although I am sure of what he is ready to say, I shall yet argue nothing against him before he has spoken. For he will turn the whole thing about and invent something else. So let him keep what he has prepared, and I shall keep myself entire for what he brings forward.
venio ad Lysaniam eiusdem civitatis, peculiarem tuum, Deciane, testem; quem tu cum ephebum Temni cognosses, quia tum te nudus delectarat, semper nudum esse voluisti. abduxisti Temno Apollonidem; pecuniam adulescentulo grandi faenore, fiducia tamen accepta, occupavisti. hanc fiduciam commissam tibi dicis; tenes hodie ac possides. Eum tu testem spe recuperandi fundi paterni venire ad testimonium dicendum coegisti; qui quoniam testimonium nondum dixit, quidnam sit dicturus exspecto. Novi genus hominum, novi consuetudinem, novi libidinem. itaque, etsi teneo quid sit dicere paratus, nihil tamen contra disputabo prius quam dixerit. totum enim convertet atque alia finget. quam ob rem et ille servet quod paravit, et ego me ad id quod adtulerit integrum conservabo.
I come now to that city on which I have bestowed many and great pains and offices, and which my brother before all others cherishes and loves. If this city, through good men and weighty men, had laid its complaints before you, I should be a little more moved. But now what am I to think? — that the Trallians have committed their public case to Maeandrius, a needy, sordid man, without honour, without reputation, without property? Where were those Pythodori, Aetidemi, Lepisones, and the rest of the men known among us, noble among their own? Where was that magnificent and glorying ostentation of the city? Would they not have been ashamed, had they been pursuing this case in earnest, that not merely the legate, but any Trallian at all, should be called Maeandrius? To this legate, this public witness, would they have handed over Lucius Flaccus, the patron whose family from his father and his ancestors they had already inherited, to be sacrificed by the testimony of the city? It is not so, judges; surely it is not so.
venio nunc ad eam civitatem in quam ego multa et magna studia et officia contuli, et quam meus frater in primis colit atque diligit. quae si civitas per viros bonos gravisque homines querelas ad vos detulisset, paulo commoverer magis. nunc vero quid putem? Trallianos Maeandrio causam publicam commisisse, homini egenti, sordido, sine honore, sine existumatione, sine censu? Vbi erant illi Pythodori, Aetidemi, Lepisones, ceteri homines apud nos noti, inter suos nobiles, ubi illa magnifica et gloriosa ostentatio civitatis? nonne esset puditum, si hanc causam agerent severe, non modo legatum sed Trallianum omnino dici Maeandrium? huic illi legato, huic publico testi patronum suum iam inde a patre atque maioribus, L. Flaccum, mactandum civitatis testimonio tradidissent? non est ita, iudices, non est profecto.
I myself saw lately in a certain trial Philodorus the Trallian giving testimony, I saw Parrhasius, I saw Archidemus — when this same Maeandrius was beside me as a kind of attendant, supplying me with what to say against his fellow-citizens and his city if I wished. For there is nothing more fickle than that man, nothing more needy, nothing more polluted. Therefore, if the Trallians make this man the spokesman of their complaints, the keeper of their records, the witness of their wrong, the agent of their grievances, let them put down their high spirits, repress their souls, set aside their arrogance, and confess that the image of their city has been expressed in the person of Maeandrius. But if those very men have always thought he should be trampled and trodden under foot at home, let them stop thinking there is any authority in a testimony for which no authority can be found. But I shall set out the matter as it stands, that you may know why this city has neither attacked Flaccus rigorously nor defended him generously.
vidi ego in quodam iudicio nuper Philodorum testem Trallianum, vidi Parrhasium, vidi Archidemum, cum quidem idem hic mihi Maeandrius quasi ministrator aderat subiciens quid in suos civis civitatemque, si vellem, dicerem. nihil enim illo homine levius, nihil egentius, nihil inquinatius. qua re, si hunc habent auctorem Tralliani doloris sui, si hunc custodem litterarum, si hunc testem iniuriae, si hunc actorem querelarum, remittant spiritus, comprimant animos suos, sedent adrogantiam, fateantur in Maeandri persona esse expressam speciem civitatis. sin istum semper illi ipsi domi proterendum et conculcandum putaverunt, desinant putare auctoritatem esse in eo testimonio cuius auctor inventus est nemo. sed exponam quid in re sit ut quam ob rem ista civitas neque severe Flaccum oppugnarit neque benigne defenderit scire possitis.
It was angry with him over the Castricius case, on which Hortensius answered fully; against its will it had paid Castricius money long owed. From this came all the hatred, from this every offence. When Laelius came to angry men and rubbed open the Castricius wound by his speech, the leading men were silent, were not present at that meeting, were not willing to be authors of that decree or that testimony. So bare of the optimates was that meeting that the chief among chiefs was Maeandrius, by whose tongue, as by a fan of sedition, that meeting of beggars was at that time fanned about.
erat ei Castriciano nomine irata, de quo toto respondit Hortensius; invita solverat Castricio pecuniam iam diu debitam. hinc totum odium, hinc omnis offensio. quo cum venisset Laelius ad iratos et illud Castricianum volnus dicendo refricuisset, siluerunt principes neque in illa contione adfuerunt neque istius decreti ac testimoni auctores esse voluerunt. Vsque adeo orba fuit ab optimatibus illa contio ut princeps principum esset Maeandrius; cuius lingua quasi flabello seditionis illa tum est egentium contio ventilata.
Hear, then, the just complaint and grievance of a city which is modest — as I have always thought it — and weighty, as they wish to be thought. Money which had been with them in the name of Flaccus’s father from the cities, this they complain has been taken from them. In another place I shall ask what was permitted to Flaccus; for now I only ask of the Trallians: this money which they complain was taken from them — do they say it is theirs, conferred upon them by the cities for their own use? I am eager to hear. “We do not say so,” he says. What then? “Brought to us, entrusted to us in the name of Lucius Flaccus the father, for his festival days and his games.” What then?
itaque civitatis pudentis, ut ego semper existimavi, et gravis, ut ipsi existimari volunt, iustum dolorem querelasque cognoscite. quae pecunia fuerit apud se Flacci patris nomine a civitatibus, hanc a se esse ablatam queruntur. Alio loco quaeram quid licuerit Flacco; nunc tantum a Trallianis requiro, quam pecuniam ab se ablatam querantur, suamne dicant, sibi a civitatibus conlatam in usum suum. cupio audire. ’ non,’ inquit, ’dicimus.’ quid igitur? ’ delatam ad nos, creditam nobis L. Flacci patris nomine ad eius dies festos atque ludos.’ quid tum?
“You,” he says, “were not allowed to take it.” I shall see to that presently; but first I shall hold to this. A weighty, wealthy, and adorned city complains because it is not keeping what is another’s; it says it has been despoiled, because it does not have what was not its own. Can anything more shameless be said or invented? A town was chosen, in which the whole sum of money from all Asia was to be set down for Lucius Flaccus’s honours. This whole sum was diverted from his honours into traffic and usury; and it was recovered many years afterwards.
’ hanc te,’ inquit, ’capere non licuit.’ iam id videro, sed primum illud tenebo. queritur gravis, locuples, ornata civitas, quod non retinet alienum; spoliatam se dicit, quod id non habet quod eius non fuit. quid hoc impudentius dici aut fingi potest? delectum est oppidum, quo in oppido universa pecunia a tota Asia ad honores L. Flacci poneretur. haec pecunia tota ab honoribus translata est in quaestum et faenerationem; recuperata est multis post annis.
What injury was done to the city? “But the city is grieved.” I believe it: that profit which was already devoured by hope was torn out beyond hope. “But it complains.” It does so shamelessly: for we cannot rightly complain of every grief we feel. “But it accuses with the gravest words.” Not the city, but unskilled men stirred up by Maeandrius. And here time and again make sure you remember what the recklessness of the multitude is, what the levity proper to Greeks, what force a speech has in a seditious meeting. Here, in this gravest and most temperate community, when the Forum is full of trials, full of magistrates, full of the best men and citizens, when the Senate-house, the avenger of recklessness and moderator of duty, watches and besets the Rostra — yet what waves you see stirred up in our public meetings! What do you think happens at Tralles? Or what was done at Pergamum? Unless, perhaps, these cities want it to be thought that they could be more easily moved and driven by a single letter of Mithridates to violate the friendship of the Roman people, their own loyalty, all the rights of duty and humanity, than to wound by their testimony the son of a man whose father, in arms, they had decreed should be driven from their walls.
quae civitati facta est iniuria? at moleste fert civitas. credo; avolsum est enim praeter spem quod erat spe devoratum lucrum. at queritur. impudenter facit; non enim omnia quae dolemus, eadem queri iure possumus. at accusat verbis gravissimis. non civitas, sed imperiti homines a Maeandrio concitati. quo loco etiam atque etiam facite ut recordemini quae sit temeritas multitudinis, quae levitas propria Graecorum, quid in contione seditiosa valeat oratio. hic, in hac gravissima et moderatissima civitate, cum est forum plenum iudiciorum, plenum magistratuum, plenum optimorum virorum et civium, cum speculatur atque obsidet rostra vindex temeritatis et moderatrix offici curia, tamen quantos fluctus excitari contionum videtis! quid vos fieri censetis Trallibus? an id quod Pergami? Nisi forte hae civitates existimari volunt facilius una se epistula Mithridatis moveri impellique potuisse ut amicitiam populi Romani, fidem suam, iura omnia offici humanitatisque violarent, quam ut filium testimonio laederent cuius patrem armis pellendum a suis moenibus censuissent.
Therefore, do not throw at me these names of noble cities; for those whom this family despised as enemies, the same it will never fear as witnesses. But you must confess: if your cities are governed by the counsel of their leaders, then this war was undertaken by these cities against the Roman people not by the recklessness of the multitude but by the policy of the optimates. But if that movement was stirred up by the recklessness of the unskilled, suffer me, then, to separate the offences of the mob from the public cause.
qua re nolite mihi ista nomina civitatum nobilium opponere; quos enim hostis haec familia contempsit, numquam eosdem testis pertimescet. vobis autem est confitendum, si consiliis principum vestrae civitates reguntur, non multitudinis temeritate, sed optimatium consilio bellum ab istis civitatibus cum populo Romano esse susceptum; sin ille tum motus est temeritate imperitorum excitatus, patimini me delicta volgi a publica causa separare.
“But it was not allowed to him,” it is said, “to take that money.” Do you wish that it should have been allowed to Flaccus the father, or not? If it was allowed — as certainly it was allowed — to use money brought together for his honours, of which he himself was taking nothing, the son rightly took the father’s money. If it was not allowed, yet on his death not the son alone but any heir whatsoever could most rightly have taken it. And in fact at the time, when the Trallians themselves had at heavy interest had this money in their hands for many years, they yet got from Flaccus everything they wanted; nor were they so shameless as to dare what Laelius said — that Mithridates had carried this money off from them. For who was there who did not know that Mithridates was more zealous in adorning than in despoiling the Trallians?
at enim istam pecuniam huic capere non licuit. Vtrum voltis patri Flacco licuisse necne? si licuit uti, sicuti certe licuit, ad eius honores conlata, ex quibus nihil ipse capiebat, patris pecuniam recte abstulit filius; si non licuit, tamen illo mortuo non modo filius sed quivis heres rectissime potuit auferre. ac tum quidem Tralliani cum ipsi gravi faenore istam pecuniam multos annos occupavissent, a Flacco tamen omnia quae voluerunt impetraverunt, neque tam fuerunt impudentes ut id quod Laelius dixit dicere auderent, hanc ab se pecuniam abstulisse Mithridatem. quis enim erat qui non sciret in ornandis studiosiorem Mithridatem quam in spoliandis Trallianis fuisse?
If these things were said by me as they ought to be said, I should be acting more weightily, judges, than I have so far acted, on how much faith you ought to give to Asiatic witnesses; I should call your minds back to the memory of the Mithridatic war, to that wretched and cruel slaughter of all Roman citizens through so many cities at one moment of time, to our praetors handed over, our legates thrown into chains, the very memory of the Roman name with every footprint of empire wiped not only out of the Greeks’ dwellings but even out of their writings. Mithridates they called master, him father, him saviour of Asia, him Euhius, Nysius, Bacchus, Liber.
quae quidem a me si, ut dicenda sunt, dicerentur, gravius agerem, iudices, quam adhuc egi, quantam Asiaticis testibus fidem habere vos conveniret; revocarem animos vestros ad Mithridatici belli memoriam, ad illam universorum civium Romanorum per tot urbis uno puncto temporis miseram crudelemque caedem, praetores nostros deditos, legatos in vincla coniectos, nominis prope Romani memoriam cum vestigio omni imperi non modo ex sedibus Graecorum verum etiam ex litteris esse deletam. Mithridatem dominum, illum patrem, illum conservatorem Asiae, illum Euhium, Nysium, Bacchum, liberum nominabant.
It was one and the same time when all Asia was closing its gates to Lucius Flaccus the consul, and was not only receiving but inviting that Cappadocian into its cities. Suffer this: if we cannot forget, let us at least be silent. Let me complain rather of the levity of the Greeks than of their cruelty. Are these to have authority among us, with whom they would not have us be at all? For all they could, they slew our togaed citizens; they wiped out, so far as in them lay, the name of Roman citizens. In this city then they parade themselves which they hate, before those they look on unwillingly, in that commonwealth for whose overthrow not the will but the strength was lacking to them. Let them look upon this flower of legates and praisers of Flaccus from real and unspoiled Greece; then let them weigh themselves, then compare themselves with these, then, if they dare, prefer their own dignity to theirs.
Vnum atque idem erat tempus cum L. Flacco consuli portas tota Asia claudebat, Cappadocem autem illum non modo recipiebat suis urbibus verum etiam ultro vocabat. liceat haec nobis, si oblivisci non possumus, at tacere, liceat mihi potius de levitate Graecorum queri quam de crudelitate; auctoritatem isti habeant apud eos quos esse omnino noluerunt? nam, quoscumque potuerunt, togatos interemerunt, nomen civium Romanorum quantum in ipsis fuit sustulerunt. in hac igitur urbe se iactant quam oderunt, apud eos quos inviti vident, in ea re publica ad quam opprimendam non animus eis, sed vires defuerunt? aspiciant hunc florem legatorum laudatorumque Flacci ex vera atque integra Graecia; tum se ipsi expendant, tum cum his comparent, tum, si audebunt, dignitati horum anteponant suam.
The Athenians are present, from whom humanity, learning, religion, fruits of the earth, rights, laws are believed to have sprung up and to have been distributed into all lands; over the possession of whose city, on account of its beauty, even among the gods, tradition records, there was a contest; whose age is such that she is held to have given birth out of herself to her own citizens, and the very same earth is called their parent, their nurse, their fatherland; and whose authority is so great that the now broken and almost shattered name of Greece is held up by the praise of this single city.
adsunt Athenienses, unde humanitas, doctrina, religio, fruges, iura, leges ortae atque in omnis terras distributae putantur; de quorum urbis possessione propter pulchritudinem etiam inter deos certamen fuisse proditum est; quae vetustate ea est ut ipsa ex sese suos civis genuisse ducatur, et eorum eadem terra parens, altrix, patria dicatur, auctoritate autem tanta est ut iam fractum prope ac debilitatum Graeciae nomen huius urbis laude nitatur.
The Lacedaemonians are present, the proven and renowned virtue of whose city is reckoned strengthened not only by nature but by discipline; who alone in the whole world for more than seven hundred years now have lived under one and the same way of life, with their laws never altered. Many legates from all Achaia are present, from Boeotia, from Thessalia, where Flaccus, lately, was set in command as legate to the imperator Metellus. Nor do I pass you over, Massilia, who knew Lucius Flaccus as a military tribune and quaestor: a city whose discipline and weight I shall rightly say is to be set above not only Greece but, I almost think, all nations; which, though removed so far from all the regions, the disciplines, and the language of the Greeks, though girt round at the ends of the earth by Gallic peoples and washed by the waves of barbarism, is so governed by the policy of the optimates that all men can more easily praise its institutions than rival them.
adsunt Lacedaemonii, cuius civitatis spectata ac nobilitata virtus non solum natura corroborata verum etiam disciplina putatur; qui soli toto orbe terrarum septingentos iam annos amplius unis moribus et numquam mutatis legibus vivunt. adsunt ex Achaia cuncta multi legati, Boeotia, Thessalia, quibus locis nuper legatus Flaccus imperatore Metello praefuit. neque vero te, Massilia, praetereo quae L. Flaccum tribunum militum quaestoremque cognosti; cuius ego civitatis disciplinam atque gravitatem non solum Graeciae, sed haud scio an cunctis gentibus anteponendam iure dicam; quae tam procul a Graecorum omnium regionibus, disciplinis linguaque divisa cum in ultimis terris cincta Gallorum gentibus barbariae fluctibus adluatur, sic optimatium consilio gubernatur ut omnes eius instituta laudare facilius possint quam aemulari.
It is these whom Flaccus uses as praisers, these as witnesses to his innocence, that we may resist the desires of the Greeks by the help of Greeks. And yet who that has ever cared to know these things even moderately is ignorant that there are truly three races of Greeks? Of which one is the Athenians, that nation which was held to be of the Ionians; the second was called Aeolian; the third Dorian. And all this Greece, which has flourished in renown, in glory, in learning, in many arts, in empire and the fame of war, has held, as you know, and always held, a certain small space of Europe; the maritime coast of Asia she encircled with cities after she had won it by war — not to bind it down with colonies as a thing conquered, but to hold it as a beleaguered place.
hisce utitur laudatoribus Flaccus,his innocentiae testibus, ut Graecorum cupiditati Graecorum auxilio resistamus. quamquam quis ignorat, qui modo umquam mediocriter res istas scire curavit, quin tria Graecorum genera sint vere? quorum uni sunt Athenienses, quae gens Ionum habebatur, Aeolis alteri, Doris tertii nominabantur. atque haec cuncta Graecia, quae fama, quae gloria, quae doctrina, quae plurimis artibus, quae etiam imperio et bellica laude floruit, parvum quendam locum, ut scitis, Europae tenet semperque tenuit, Asiae maritimam oram bello superatam cinxit urbibus, non ut victam coloniis illam constringeret, sed ut obsessam teneret.
Therefore I ask of you, witnesses from Asia, that, when you wish truly to recall how much authority you bring into a trial, you describe Asia for yourselves, and remember not what foreigners are wont to say of you, but what you yourselves judge of your own race. For your Asia, as I think, is made up of Phrygia, Mysia, Caria, Lydia. Is this proverb ours, then, or yours, that “a Phrygian is generally bettered by being beaten”? What? Has not this been put about by your own voice in all Caria: “If you wish to try anything dangerous, it is best done in a Carian”? What again is more often used and celebrated in Greek conversation than, when a man is held in contempt, that he is called “the lowest of the Mysians”? For what shall I say of Lydia? What Greek ever wrote a comedy in which the slave of the leading parts was not a Lydian? What injury, then, is done to you, if we determine that we shall stand on your own judgment about you?
quam ob rem quaeso a vobis, Asiatici testes, ut, cum vere recordari voletis quantum auctoritatis in iudicium adferatis, vosmet ipsi describatis Asiam nec quid alienigenae de vobis loqui soleant, sed quid vosmet ipsi de genere vestro statuatis, memineritis. namque, ut opinor, Asia vestra constat ex Phrygia, Mysia, Caria, Lydia. Vtrum igitur nostrum est an vestrum hoc proverbium, ’Phrygem plagis fieri solere meliorem’? quid? de tota Caria nonne hoc vestra voce volgatum est, ’si quid cum periculo experiri velis, in care id potissimum esse faciendum’? quid porro in Graeco sermone tam tritum atque celebratum est quam, si quis despicatui ducitur, ut ’Mysorum ultimus’ esse dicatur? nam quid ego dicam de Lydia? quis umquam Graecus comoediam scripsit in qua servus primarum partium non Lydus esset? quam ob rem quae vobis fit iniuria, si statuimus vestro nobis iudicio standum esse de vobis?
For my own part it seems to me I have now said enough and more than enough about the Asian class of witnesses; yet it is for you, judges, to take in by your minds and reflection all the things which can be said of the levity, inconstancy, and greed of these men, even if I say less of them. There follows the matter of that Jewish gold. This, no doubt, is the reason this case is being heard not far from the Aurelian steps. For this charge has this place been sought, Laelius, by you and that crowd; you know how great a band it is, what concord, what weight in public meetings. So I shall speak in a low voice only that the judges may hear; for there are not lacking men to incite these against me and against every best citizen. I shall not help them to do it the more easily.
equidem mihi iam satis superque dixisse videor de Asiatico genere testium; sed tamen vestrum est, iudices, omnia quae dici possunt in hominum levitatem, inconstantiam, cupiditatem, etiam si a me minus dicuntur, vestris animis et cogitatione comprendere. sequitur auri illa invidia Iudaici. hoc nimirum est illud quod non longe a gradibus Aureliis haec causa dicitur. ob hoc crimen hic locus abs te, Laeli, atque illa turba quaesita est; scis quanta sit manus, quanta concordia, quantum valeat in contionibus. sic submissa voce agam tantum ut iudices audiant; neque enim desunt qui istos in me atque in optimum quemque incitent; quos ego, quo id facilius faciant, non adiuvabo.
When gold under the name of the Jews was customarily exported every year out of Italy and out of all our provinces to Jerusalem, Flaccus by edict forbade its being exported from Asia. Who is there, judges, who could not truly praise this? That gold ought not to be exported, both often before and most weightily in my consulship the Senate decided. To resist this barbarian superstition was a mark of strictness; to despise the multitude of Jews when sometimes blazing in our public meetings, for the sake of the commonwealth, was a mark of the highest gravity. “But when Gnaeus Pompeius captured Jerusalem in his victory, he touched nothing in that temple.”
Cum aurum Iudaeorum nomine quotannis ex Italia et ex omnibus nostris provinciis Hierosolymam exportari soleret, Flaccus sanxit edicto ne ex Asia exportari liceret. quis est, iudices, qui hoc non vere laudare possit? exportari aurum non oportere cum saepe antea senatus tum me consule gravissime iudicavit. huic autem barbarae superstitioni resistere severitatis, multitudinem Iudaeorum flagrantem non numquam in contionibus pro re publica contemnere gravitatis summae fuit. at Cn. Pompeius captis Hierosolymis victor ex illo fano nihil attigit.
In this, before all things, as in much else, he was wise: in so suspicious and slanderous a community he left no room for the talk of detractors. For I do not believe it was the religion of the Jews and of enemies that hindered that most outstanding general, but a sense of decency. Where, then, is the charge, since you nowhere reproach a theft, you approve the edict, you confess the judgment, you do not deny that it was sought and produced openly, that the affair was carried through by the first men of the state, the very thing declares? At Apamea openly, before the praetor’s feet in the forum, a hundred pounds of gold a little less was weighed by Sextus Caesius, a Roman knight, a most chaste and most upright man; at Laodicea twenty pounds a little more by Lucius Peducaeus here, our judge; at Adramyttium a hundred by the legate Gnaeus Domitius; at Pergamum no great amount.
in primis hoc, ut multa alia, sapienter; in tam suspiciosa ac maledica civitate locum sermoni obtrectatorum non reliquit. non enim credo religionem et Iudaeorum et hostium impedimento praestantissimo imperatori, sed pudorem fuisse. Vbi igitur crimen est, quoniam quidem furtum nusquam reprehendis, edictum probas, iudicatum fateris, quaesitum et prolatum palam non negas, actum esse per viros primarios res ipsa declarat? Apameae manifesto comprehensum ante pedes praetoris in foro expensum est auri pondo c paulo minus per Sex. Caesium, equitem Romanum, castissimum hominem atque integerrimum, Laodiceae xx pondo paulo amplius per hunc L. Peducaeum, iudicem nostrum, Adramytii c per Cn. Domitium legatum, Pergami non multum.
The reckoning of the gold balances; the gold is in the treasury. Theft is not charged; envy is sought; the speech is turned away from the judges, the voice is poured out upon the ring of bystanders and the crowd. Each city, Laelius, has its own religion; we have ours. While Jerusalem stood and the Jews were at peace, even so the religion of these sacred rites was repugnant to the splendour of this empire, the gravity of our name, the institutions of our ancestors; but more so now, since that nation has shown by arms what it thought of our empire, has shown by being defeated, by being farmed out, by being made a slave-people, how dear it was to the immortal gods.
Auri ratio constat, aurum in aerario est; furtum non reprehenditur, invidia quaeritur; a iudicibus oratio avertitur, vox in coronam turbamque effunditur. Sua cuique civitati religio, Laeli, est, nostra nobis. stantibus Hierosolymis pacatisque Iudaeis tamen istorum religio sacrorum a splendore huius imperi, gravitate nominis nostri, maiorum institutis abhorrebat; nunc vero hoc magis, quod illa gens quid de nostro imperio sentiret ostendit armis; quam cara dis immortalibus esset docuit, quod est victa, quod elocata, quod serva facta.
And so, since you see what you wished to be a charge has wholly been turned to praise, let us come at last to the complaints of Roman citizens; among which let Decianus’s be first. What injury, then, was done to you, Decianus? You do business in a free city. First let me be inquisitive. How long are you to do business, especially since you were born in such a place? You have spent thirty years now in the forum, but in that of Pergamum. After a long interval, when it pleases you to travel, you come to Rome, bringing a new face, an old name, Tyrian purple — in which I envy you, that you have been so long elegant in a single suit of clothes.
quam ob rem quoniam, quod crimen esse voluisti, id totum vides in laudem esse conversum, veniamus iam ad civium Romanorum querelas; ex quibus sit sane prima Deciani. quid tibi tandem, Deciane, iniuriae factum est? negotiaris in libera civitate. primum patere me esse curiosum. quo usque negotiabere, cum praesertim sis isto loco natus? annos iam xxx in foro versaris, sed tamen in Pergameno. longo intervallo, si quando tibi peregrinari commodum est, Romam venis, adfers faciem novam, nomen vetus, purpuram Tyriam, in qua tibi invideo, quod unis vestimentis tam diu lautus es.
But suppose you wish to do business; why not at Pergamum, Smyrna, Tralles, where there are many Roman citizens and the law is administered by our magistrate? Quiet pleases you, lawsuits, throngs, a praetor are hateful, you delight in the freedom of the Greeks. Why is it that you alone, then, have the men of Apollonis, the most loving of the Roman people, the most faithful of allies, in a worse case than ever Mithridates or even your own father had them? Why is it that they are not allowed to enjoy their freedom through you, why finally not allowed to be free? They are men out of all Asia the most frugal, most upright, most removed from the Greek luxury and levity, fathers of households content with their own, ploughmen, country folk; they have lands by nature very good and made better by diligence and cultivation. In these lands you wished to have estates. I should have preferred altogether, and it would have suited you better, if at length thick lands delighted you, that you had bought them somewhere here in Crustumerium or in Capena.
verum esto, negotiari libet; cur non Pergami, Smyrnae, Trallibus, ubi et multi cives Romani sunt et ius a nostro magistratu dicitur? otium te delectat, lites, turbae, praetor odio est, Graecorum libertate gaudes. cur ergo unus tu Apollonidensis amantissimos populi Romani, fidelissimos socios, miseriores habes quam aut Mithridates aut etiam pater tuus habuit umquam? cur his per te frui libertate sua, cur denique esse liberos non licet? homines sunt tota ex Asia frugalissimi, sanctissimi, a Graecorum luxuria et levitate remotissimi, patres familias suo contenti, aratores, rusticani; agros habent et natura perbonos et diligentia culturaque meliores. in hisce agris tu praedia habere voluisti. omnino mallem, et magis erat tuum, si iam te crassi agri delectabant, hic alicubi in Crustumino aut in Capenati paravisses.
But, very well; it is Cato’s saying that “money is balanced by your feet.” From the Tiber to the Caicus is a long way altogether — in which place even Agamemnon would have wandered with his army, had he not found Telephus as a guide. But I concede that too: the town pleased him, the region delighted. You should have bought. Amyntas is in birth, in honour, in repute, in fortune the leading man of that city. His mother-in-law, a woman of weak counsel and rich enough, Decianus enticed to himself; and, while she did not know what was being done, set his household in possession of her estates; and the wife of Amyntas, then pregnant, he carried off from him; she bore a daughter at Decianus’s house, and to this day at Decianus’s house there are both Amyntas’s wife and daughter.
verum esto; Catonis est dictum ’pedibus compensari pecuniam.’ longe omnino a Tiberi ad Caicum, quo in loco etiam Agamemnon cum exercitu errasset, nisi ducem Telephum invenisset. sed concedo id quoque; placuit oppidum, regio delectavit. emisses. Amyntas est genere, honore, existimatione, pecunia princeps illius civitatis. huius socrum, mulierem imbecilli consili, satis locupletem, pellexit Decianus ad sese et, cum illa quid ageretur nesciret, in possessione praediorum eius familiam suam conlocavit; uxorem abduxit ab Amynta praegnantem, quae peperit apud Decianum filiam, hodieque apud Decianum est et uxor Amyntae et filia.
Am I making any of this up, Decianus? All the gentlemen know it, the good men know it, in short the men of any acquaintance know it, the merchants of even the middle sort know it. Stand up, Amyntas, and demand back from Decianus — not money, not estates, let him keep his mother-in-law to himself; let him restore your wife, give back to a wretched father his daughter. The limbs which he crippled with stones, with cudgels, with iron, the hands he bruised, the fingers he broke, the sinews he cut, he cannot restore; but the daughter, the daughter, I say, give back, Decianus, to her wretched father.
num quid harum rerum a me fingitur, Deciane? sciunt haec omnes nobiles, sciunt boni viri, sciunt denique noti homines, sciunt mediocres negotiatores. exsurge, Amynta, repete a Deciano non pecuniam, non praedia, socrum denique sibi habeat; restituat uxorem, reddat misero patri filiam. membra quidem, quae debilitavit lapidibus, fustibus, ferro, manus quas contudit, digitos quos confregit, nervos quos concidit, restituere non potest; filiam, filiam inquam, aerumnoso patri, Deciane, redde.
You wonder that these things did not satisfy Flaccus? Whom, pray, did you ever satisfy? You made false purchases, advertisements of estates with manifest fraud. By Greek laws a guardian had to be assigned for these women; you wrote down Polemocrates, your hireling and minister of your designs. Polemocrates was brought into court for fraud and trickery by Dion in the very name of this guardianship. What a flocking from the neighbouring towns from every side, what passion of mind, what complaint! Polemocrates was condemned by every vote; the sales were void, the advertisements were void. Do you make restitution? You go to the Pergamenes that they may take into their public records your splendid advertisements and purchases. They reject, they refuse them. And what men are these? The Pergamenes, your praisers. For so it seemed to me that you boasted of the Pergamenes’ praise, as if you had attained the honour of your ancestors; and you thought yourself superior to Laelius in this — that the city of Pergamum praised you. Is the city of Pergamum more honourable, then, than that of Smyrna?
haec Flacco non probasse te miraris? cui, quaeso, tandem probasti? emptiones falsas, praediorum proscriptiones cum aperta circumscriptione fecisti. tutor his mulieribus Graecorum legibus ascribendus fuit; Polemocratem scripsisti, mercennarium et administrum consiliorum tuorum. adductus est in iudicium Polemocrates de dolo malo et de fraude a Dione huius ipsius tutelae nomine. qui concursus ex oppidis finitimis undique, qui dolor animorum, quae querela! condemnatus est Polemocrates sententiis omnibus; inritae venditiones, inritae proscriptiones. num restituis? defers ad Pergamenos ut illi reciperent in suas litteras publicas praeclaras proscriptiones et emptiones tuas. repudiant, reiciunt. at qui homines? Pergameni, laudatores tui. ita enim mihi gloriari visus es laudatione Pergamenorum quasi honorem maiorum tuorum consecutus esses, et hoc te superiorem esse putabas quam Laelium, quod te civitas Pergamena laudaret. num honestior est civitas Pergamena quam Smyrnaea?
They themselves do not even say so. I should wish I had so much leisure that I could read out the decree which the men of Smyrna passed about the dead Castricius: first, that he be carried into the town, which is not granted to others; next, that the ephebes carry him; finally, that a golden crown be set upon him in death. These things were not done for Publius Scipio, that most distinguished man, when he died at Pergamum. But Castricius — with what words, immortal gods! “the glory of the country, the ornament of the Roman people, the flower of youth” they call him. So, Decianus, if you are eager for glory, I advise you to seek other ornaments; the Pergamenes have laughed at you.
at ne ipsi quidem dicunt. vellem tantum habere me oti, ut possem recitare psephisma Smyrnaeorum quod fecerunt in Castricium mortuum, primum ut in oppidum introferretur, quod aliis non conceditur, deinde ut ferrent ephebi, postremo ut imponeretur aurea corona mortuo. haec P. Scipioni, clarissimo viro, cum esset Pergami mortuus, facta non sunt. at Castricium quibus verbis, di immortales! ’decus patriae, ornamentum populi Romani, florem iuventutis’ appellant. qua re, Deciane, si cupidus es gloriae, alia ornamenta censeo quaeras; Pergameni te deriserunt.
What? Did you not understand that you were being made fun of, when they read out these words to you: “most illustrious man, of outstanding wisdom, of singular genius”? Believe me, they were playing. When indeed they were placing a golden crown upon you in their letters, they were entrusting no more gold to you in fact than they would have to a jackdaw; even then could you not see through the men’s wit and humour? Those very Pergamenes therefore rejected the advertisements which you brought. Publius Orbius, a wise and innocent man, decreed everything against you. With Publius Globulus, my close friend, you were more in favour. I wish that neither he nor I were sorry for it!
quid? tu ludi te non intellegebas, cum tibi haec verba recitabant: ’clarissimum virum, praestantissima sapientia, singulari ingenio’? mihi crede, ludebant. Cum vero coronam auream litteris imponebant, re vera non plus aurum tibi quam monedulae committebant, ne tum quidem hominum venustatem et facetias perspicere potuisti? ipsi igitur illi Pergameni proscriptiones quas tu adferebas repudiaverunt. P. Orbius, homo et prudens et innocens, contra te omnia decrevit. apud P. Globulum, meum necessarium, fuisti gratiosior. Vtinam neque ipsum neque me paeniteret!
You say that Flaccus decreed unjustly in your case; you add as causes of your enmity, that your father, as tribune of the plebs, served notice on Lucius Flaccus the father, when he was curule aedile. But this should not have been very offensive even to Flaccus the father himself, especially since the man on whom notice was served was afterwards made praetor and consul, while the man who served the notice could not stand his ground in the city as a private man. But if you thought your enmity just, why, when Flaccus was a military tribune, were you a soldier in his legion, when by the laws of military service you might have escaped a tribune’s unfairness? Why, again, did the praetor call you, his father’s enemy, into his council? — and how scrupulously such things are usually observed you all know.
Flaccum iniuria decrevisse in tua re dicis; adiungis causas inimicitiarum, quod patri L. Flacco aedili curuli pater tuus tribunus plebis diem dixerit. at istud ne ipsi quidem patri Flacco valde molestum esse debuit, praesertim cum ille cui dies dicta est praetor postea factus sit et consul, ille qui diem dixit non potuerit privatus in civitate consistere. sed si iustas inimicitias putabas, cur, cum tribunus militum Flaccus esset, in illius legione miles fuisti, cum per leges militaris effugere liceret iniquitatem tribuni? cur autem praetor te, inimicum paternum, in consilium vocavit? quae quidem quam sancte solita sint observari scitis omnes.
We are now accused by men who were on our council. “Flaccus made a decree.” What other than he ought? “Against your children.” Did the Senate not vote the same? “Against you in your absence.” He decreed it, when you were on the spot, when you would not come forward; this is not a decree against an absent defendant, but against a hidden one. [Decree of the Senate and ruling of Flaccus.] What if he had not made a decree but had given an edict — who could truly find fault? Are you about to find fault even with my brother’s letter, full of humanity and fairness, which on the matter of that woman he sent to me, when he himself … required.
nunc accusamur ab eis qui in consilio nobis fuerunt. ’ decrevit Flaccus.’ num aliud atque oportuit? ’ in liberos.’ num aliter censuit senatus? ’ in absentem.’ decrevit, cum ibidem esses, cum prodire nolles; non est hoc in absentem, sed in latentem reum. Senatvs consvltvm et decretvm Flacci. quid? si non decrevisset, sed edixisset, quis posset vere reprehendere? num etiam fratris mei litteras plenissimas humanitatis et aequitatis reprehensurus es? quas ea de muliere ad me datas apud... requisivit.
Read it. [Letter of Quintus Cicero.] What? Did the people of Apollonis seize the chance and not refer this to Flaccus, was nothing done before Orbius, was nothing referred to Globulus? Did not legates of the Apollonidans, in my consulship, lay before our Senate every petition about the wrongs of one Decianus alone? But you have entered these estates in the census. I pass over that they are another’s, I pass over that they are held by force, I pass over that they have been condemned by the Apollonidans, I pass over that they have been rejected by the Pergamenes, I pass over even that they have been restored to their integrity by our magistrates, I pass over that you have on them no right either by fact or by possession;
recita. Litterae Q. Ciceronis. quid? haec Apollonidenses occasionem nacti ad Flaccum non detulerunt, apud orbium acta non sunt, ad globulum delata non sunt? ad senatum nostrum me consule nonne legati Apollonidenses omnia postulata de iniuriis unius Deciani detulerunt? at haec praedia in censum dedicavisti. Mitto quod aliena, mitto quod possessa per vim, mitto quod convicta ab Apollonidensibus, mitto quod a Pergamenis repudiata, mitto etiam quod a nostris magistratibus in integrum restituta, mitto quod nullo iure neque re neque possessione tua;
I ask only this — whether those estates can be entered in the census, whether they have civil right, whether they are or are not mancipi, whether they can be pledged at the treasury or before the censor. In what tribe, finally, did you enter those estates? You have committed yourself — if some heavier moment had come — so that out of the same estates a tribute would have been levied both at Apollonis and at Rome. But, very well; you were boastful, you wished to have a great quantity of land entered, even land that cannot be divided among the Roman plebs. You were also entered for 130,000 sesterces in cash. This, I think, was not paid out by you. But I let this pass. You entered as yours the slaves of Amyntas, and you did him no injury in this. For Amyntas possesses those slaves. And at first he was indeed afraid, when he had heard that his own slaves had been entered as yours; he referred the matter to the lawyers. The opinion of all was, that if Decianus, by entering another’s property in the census, could make it his own, he would be on the way to being the greatest man …
illud quaero sintne ista praedia censui censendo, habeant ius civile, sint necne sint mancipi, subsignari apud aerarium aut apud censorem possint. in qua tribu denique ista praedia censuisti? commisisti, si tempus aliquod gravius accidisset, ut ex isdem praediis et Apollonide et Romae imperatum esset tributum. verum esto, gloriosus fuisti, voluisti magnum agri modum censeri, et eius agri qui dividi plebi Romanae non potest. census es praeterea numeratae pecuniae cxxx. eam opinor tibi numeratam non esse abs te. sed haec omitto. census es mancipia Amyntae neque huic ullam in eo fecisti iniuriam. possidet enim ea mancipia Amyntas. ac primo quidem pertimuit, cum te audisset servos suos esse censum; rettulit ad iuris consultos. constabat inter omnis, si aliena censendo Decianus sua facere posset, eum maxima habiturum esse....
You have here the cause of the enmity, in the heat of which Decianus brought this rich prosecution to Laelius. For thus Laelius complained, when he spoke of Decianus’s perfidy: “He who was my prompter, who brought the case to me, whom I followed — he has been corrupted by Flaccus, he has deserted and betrayed me.” Have you, then, called this most modest man, born of the most noble family, deserving best of the commonwealth, into the peril of all his fortunes — a man for whom you yourself were prompter, on whose council you sat, with whom you maintained every step of your dignity? If it is permitted, I will defend Decianus, who comes under your suspicion through no fault of his own.
habetis causam inimicitiarum, qua causa inflammatus Decianus ad Laelium detulerit hanc opimam accusationem. nam ita questus est Laelius, cum de perfidia Deciani diceret: ’qui mihi auctor fuit, qui causam ad me detulit, quem ego sum secutus, is a Flacco corruptus est, is me deseruit ac prodidit.’ sicine tu auctor tandem eum cui tu in consilio fuisses, apud quem omnis gradus dignitatis tuae retinuisses, pudentissimum hominem, nobilissima familia natum, optime de re publica meritum in discrimen omnium fortunarum vocavisti? si licet, defendam Decianum, qui tibi in suspicionem nullo suo delicto venit.
He is not corrupted, believe me. For what was there to be bought from him? That he should drag out the trial? When the law gave six hours in all, how much could he have taken from these hours, if he had been willing to humour you? It is, no doubt, what he himself suspects: you envied your subscriber’s talent; because he readily set off any topic he had taken up, and questioned witnesses keenly, or perhaps could have brought it about that you should fall out of the people’s talk, you therefore stuck Decianus away into the rear ranks. But, however unlikely it is that Decianus has been corrupted by Flaccus,
non est, mihi crede, corruptus. quid enim fuit quod ab eo redimeretur? ut duceret iudicium? cui sex horas omnino lex dedit, quantum tandem ex his horis detraheret, si tibi morem gerere voluisset? nimirum illud est quod ipse suspicatur. invidisti ingenio subscriptoris tui; quod ornabat facile locum quem prehenderat, et acute testis interrogabat aut fortasse fecisset ut tu ex populi sermone excideres, idcirco Decianum usque ad coronam applicavisti. sed, ut hoc haud veri simile est Decianum a Flacco esse corruptum,
just so know it is in other matters: as in what Lucceius says, that Lucius Flaccus wished to give him two million sesterces to lead him from his loyalty. And do you accuse a man of avarice whom you say wished to throw away two million sesterces? For what was he buying when he was buying you? That you should come over to him? What part of the case were we to give you? Or that you should report Laelius’s plans? — what witnesses were going to come forward from him? What? Did we not see them? See them living together? Who does not know it? See that the records were in Laelius’s power? Can it be doubted? Or was it that you should not be vehement, not copious, in prosecution? Now you do raise suspicion; for you so spoke that something seems to have been obtained from you.
ita scitote esse cetera, velut quod ait Lucceius, L. Flaccum sibi dare cupisse, ut a fide se abduceret, sestertium viciens. et eum tu accusas avaritiae quem dicis sestertium viciens voluisse perdere? nam quid emebat, cum te emebat? ut ad se transires? quam partem causae tibi daremus? an ut enuntiares consilia Laeli? qui testes ab eo prodirent? quid? nos non videbamus? habitare una? quis hoc nescit? tabulas in Laeli potestate fuisse? num dubium est? an ne vehementer, ne copiose accusares? nunc facis suspicionem; ita enim dixisti ut nescio quid a te impetratum esse videatur.
“But on Andro Sextilius a heavy and unbearable injury was done, in that, when his wife Valeria had died intestate, Flaccus dealt with the case as if the inheritance pertained to himself.” In this what is to be reproved I am eager to know. That he laid claim to a falsehood? How do you make this out? “She was free-born,” he says. O learned in the law! What? Do not inheritances by the law come from free-born women? “She had passed,” he says, “into manus.” Now I hear; but I ask, by usus or by coemptio? By usus she could not; for from a legitimate guardianship nothing can be alienated except by the authority of all the guardians. By coemptio, then? By all the authorities, of whom you certainly will not say Flaccus was one.
at enim androni Sextilio gravis iniuria facta est et non ferenda, quod, cum esset eius uxor Valeria intestato mortua, sic egit eam rem Flaccus quasi ad ipsum hereditas pertineret. in quo quid reprehendas scire cupio. quod falsum intenderit? qui doces? ’ ingenua,’ inquit, ’fuit.’ O peritum iuris hominem! quid? ab ingenuis mulieribus hereditates lege non veniunt? ’ in manum,’ inquit, ’convenerat.’ nunc audio; sed quaero, usu an coemptione? Vsu non potuit; nihil enim potest de tutela legitima nisi omnium tutorum auctoritate deminui. coemptione? omnibus ergo auctoribus; in quibus certe Flaccum fuisse non dices.
It remains what he never ceased to shout: that, while he was praetor, he ought not to have transacted his own business or made mention of an inheritance. The greatest inheritances, I hear, have come to you, Lucius Lucullus, who are about to give your verdict on Lucius Flaccus, by your remarkable generosity and the greatest benefits to your people, when you held the province of Asia with consular imperium. Had any man said they were his own, would you have given them up? You, Titus Vettius, if any inheritance came to you in Africa, would you lose it by usus, or would you keep what was yours, with no greed and your dignity safe? But of that inheritance, even when Globulus was praetor, possession had been claimed in the name of Flaccus. It was not, then, oppression, not violence, not occasion, not season, not command, not the axes that drove Flaccus’s mind to do an injury.
relinquitur illud quod vociferari non destitit, non debuisse, cum praetor esset, suum negotium agere aut mentionem facere hereditatis. maximas audio tibi, L. Luculle, qui de L. Flacco sententiam laturus es, pro tua eximia liberalitate maximisque beneficiis in tuos venisse hereditates, cum Asiam provinciam consulari imperio obtineres. si quis eas suas esse dixisset, concessisses? tu, T. Vetti, si quae tibi in Africa venerit hereditas, usu amittes, an tuum nulla avaritia salva dignitate retinebis? at istius hereditatis iam globulo praetore Flacci nomine petita possessio est. non igitur impressio, non vis, non occasio, non tempus, non imperium, non secures ad iniuriam faciendam Flacci animum impulerunt.
And there too Marcus Lurco, an excellent man, my close friend, turned the sting of his testimony; he said it was not right for a praetor to demand money from a private man in his province. Why, pray, Marcus Lurco, is it not right? To extort, to receive against the laws is not right; that to demand it is not right you will never show, unless you prove it is not allowed. Or, to take a free legation for the purpose of collecting a debt — as you yourself lately and many good men have often done, which I do not censure but see that the allies complain of — is right; and yet, if a praetor has not left his inheritance behind in his province, you think he should not only be censured but condemned? “But,” he says, “Valeria had assigned the whole of her property as dowry.” None of these matters can be made out, unless you show that she was not under Flaccus’s guardianship. If she was, whatever dowry was assigned without his authority is null.
atque eodem etiam M. Lurco, vir optimus, meus familiaris, convertit aculeum testimoni sui; negavit a privato pecuniam in provincia praetorem petere oportere. cur tandem, M. Lurco, non oportet? extorquere, accipere contra leges non oportet, petere non oportere numquam ostendes, nisi docueris non licere. an legationes sumere liberas exigendi causa, sicut et tu ipse nuper et multi viri boni saepe fecerunt, rectum est, quod ego non reprehendo, socios video queri; praetorem, si hereditatem in provincia non reliquerit, non solum reprehendendum verum etiam condemnandum putas? ’ doti,’ inquit, ’Valeria pecuniam omnem suam dixerat.’ nihil istorum explicari potest, nisi ostenderis illam in tutela Flacci non fuisse. si fuit, quaecumque sine hoc auctore est dicta dos, nulla est.
But, although Lurco bore himself in giving testimony with moderation up to his dignity, you saw that he was nevertheless angry with Flaccus. Nor did he hide the cause of his anger or think it should be passed over in silence; he complained that his freedman had been condemned under Flaccus as praetor. O wretched conditions of administering provinces, where diligence is full of feuds, neglect of vituperation; where strictness is dangerous, generosity ungrateful, conversation treacherous, flattery deadly, where the brow of all is friendly but the mind of many angry, where the angers are hidden and the flatteries open, where the people wait for praetors as they come, are subservient to them as they are present, desert them as they leave! But let me leave off complaining, lest I seem to praise our own decision in passing over provinces.
sed tamen Lurconem, quamquam pro sua dignitate moderatus est in testimonio dicendo orationi suae, tamen iratum Flacco esse vidistis. neque enim occultavit causam iracundiae suae neque reticendam putavit; questus est libertum suum Flacco praetore esse damnatum. O condiciones miseras administrandarum provinciarum, in quibus diligentia plena simultatum est, neglegentia vituperationum, ubi severitas periculosa est, liberalitas ingrata, sermo insidiosus, adsentatio perniciosa, frons omnium familiaris, multorum animus iratus, iracundiae occultae, blanditiae apertae, venientis praetores exspectant, praesentibus inserviunt, abeuntis deserunt! sed omittamus querelas, ne nostrum consilium in praetermittendis provinciis laudare videamur.
He sent letters about the bailiff of Publius Septimius, an honourable man, a bailiff who had committed murder; you could see Septimius blazing with anger. He gave a verdict by edict against the freedman of Lurco; Lurco is an enemy. What then? Was Asia to be handed over to the freedmen of well-favoured and splendid men? Or does Flaccus carry on some quarrel or other with your freedmen? Or, in the affairs of yourselves and your own, is strictness hateful to you, while you praise the same when you are sitting in judgment about us? But that Andro of yours, despoiled of his goods, as you say, has not come to give testimony. What if he should come?
Litteras misit de vilico P. Septimi, hominis ornati, qui vilicus caedem fecerat; Septimium ardentem iracundia videre potuistis. in Lurconis libertum iudicium ex edicto dedit; hostis est Lurco. quid igitur? hominum gratiosorum splendidorumque libertis fuit Asia tradenda? an simultates nescio quas cum libertis vestris Flaccus exercet? an vobis in vestris vestrorumque causis severitas odio est, eandem laudatis, cum de nobis iudicatis? at iste Andro spoliatus bonis, ut dicitis, ad dicendum testimonium non venit. quid si veniat?
The arbiter of the settlement was Gaius Caecilius — what a splendid man, what a man of good faith, what a man of scruple! The witness to the seal was Gaius Sextilius, son of Lurco’s sister, a man both modest and steadfast and weighty. If there was force, if fraud, if fear, if circumvention — who forced the agreement to be made, who forced these men to be present? What? If the whole of that money was repaid to this young Lucius Flaccus — if it was demanded, if it was got in by this Antiochus, the freedman of this young man’s father, most approved by the elder Flaccus — do we seem not only to escape the charge of avarice but to attain singular praise of generosity? For the inheritance which had come equally to both by law, he conceded to his young kinsman; he himself touched nothing of Valeria’s goods. What he had decided to do, drawn on by the young man’s modesty and not by an overlarge family fortune, that he not only did but did liberally and abundantly. From which it must be understood that he has not taken money against the laws, who has been so liberal in conceding an inheritance.
decisionis arbiter C. Caecilius fuit, quo splendore vir, qua fide, qua religione! obsignator C. Sextilius, Lurconis sororis filius, homo et pudens et constans et gravis. si vis erat, si fraus, si metus, si circumscriptio, quis pactionem fieri, quis adesse istos coegit? quid? si ista omnis pecunia huic adulescentulo L. Flacco reddita est, si petita, si redacta per hunc Antiochum, paternum huius adulescentis libertum seni illi Flacco probatissimum, videmurne non solum avaritiae crimen effugere sed etiam liberalitatis laudem adsequi singularem? communem enim hereditatem, quae aequaliter ad utrumque lege venisset, concessit adulescenti propinquo suo, nihil ipse attigit de Valerianis bonis. quod statuerat facere adductus huius pudore et non amplissimis patrimoni copiis, id non solum fecit sed etiam prolixe cumulateque fecit. ex quo intellegi debet eum contra leges pecunias non cepisse qui tam fuerit in hereditate concedenda liberalis.
“But the Falcidian charge is huge: he says he gave Flaccus fifty talents.” Let us hear the man. He is not present. How then does he speak? His mother brings forward one letter, and his sister another; they say it is written to them by him that this great sum of money was given to Flaccus. So a man whom no one would believe were he holding the altar and swearing, will prove what he wishes through a letter, unsworn? And what a man! How disloyal to his own fellow-citizens! He who could have run through a tolerably elegant patrimony here with us preferred to scatter it on Greek dinner-parties.
at Falcidianum crimen est ingens; talenta quinquaginta se Flacco dicit dedisse. audiamus hominem. non adest. quo modo igitur dicit? epistulam mater eius profert et alteram soror; scriptum ad se dicunt esse ab illo tantam pecuniam Flacco datam. ergo is cui, si aram tenens iuraret, crederet nemo, per epistulam quod volet iniuratus probabit? at qui vir! quam non amicus suis civibus! qui patrimonium satis lautum, quod hic nobiscum conficere potuit, Graecorum conviviis maluit dissipare.
What was the use of leaving this city, of foregoing such splendid liberty, of running the danger of a sea-voyage — as if it were not allowed to eat one’s goods at Rome? Now at last the playful son to a doting little mother, to an old woman least suspicious by nature, clears himself by letter, that he may seem not to have spent on the voyage out the money he had taken with him, but to have given it to Flaccus. But those Trallian rents had been sold under the praetor Globulus; Falcidius had bought them for nine hundred thousand sesterces. If he gives this great sum to Flaccus, he gives it of course that the purchase may stand. Then he is buying something certainly worth much more; he gives out of his profit, he takes nothing off the principal.
quid attinuit relinquere hanc urbem, libertate tam praeclara carere, adire periculum navigandi? quasi bona comesse Romae non liceret. nunc denique materculae suae festivus filius, aniculae minime suspiciosae, purgat se per epistulam, ut eam pecuniam quacum traiecerat non consumpsisse, sed Flacco dedisse videatur. at fructus isti Trallianorum globulo praetore venierant; Falcidius emerat HS nongentis milibus. si dat tantam pecuniam Flacco, nempe idcirco dat ut rata sit emptio. emit igitur aliquid quod certe multo pluris esset; dat de lucro, nihil detrahit de vivo.
Why does he order Albanus to come, why does he flatter his mother besides, why does he go fishing through letters in the weakness of his sister and his mother — in short, why do we not hear the man himself? He is detained, no doubt, in his province. The mother says he is not. “He would have come,” she says, “had he been summoned.” You certainly would have compelled him, had you placed any reliance on that witness; but you did not wish to draw him from his business. A great contest had been laid out for him, a great struggle with the Greeks — who, however, lie defeated, as I think. For this single man has surpassed all Asia in the size of his cups and in drinking. But who, Laelius, told you about those letters? The women say they do not know who he is. He himself, then, has told you that he wrote to his mother and his sister?
cur Albanum venire iubet,cur matri praeterea blanditur, cur epistulis et sororis et matris imbecillitatem aucupatur, postremo cur non audimus ipsum? retinetur, credo, in provincia. mater negat. ’ venisset,’ inquit, ’si esset denuntiatum.’ tu certe coegisses, si ullum firmamentum in illo teste posuisses; sed hominem a negotio abducere noluisti. Magnum erat ei certamen propositum, magna cum Graecis contentio; qui tamen, ut opinor, iacent victi. nam iste unus totam Asiam magnitudine poculorum bibendoque superavit. sed tamen quis tibi, Laeli, de epistulis istis indicavit? mulieres negant se scire qui sit. ipse igitur ille tibi se ad matrem et sororem scripsisse narravit?
Or did he even write at your asking? But you put no question to that most steadfast and most modest of men, Marcus Aebutius, the kinsman of Falcidius, you put no question to his son-in-law, of equal good faith, Gaius Manilius? — who certainly could not have heard nothing of so great a sum of money, had it been given. Did you, Decianus, suppose that with these letters read out, with these little women produced, with that absent author praised, you would prove so great a charge — especially since you yourself, by not bringing forward Falcidius, have made a judgment that a forged letter would have more weight than his own forged voice and feigned grief, were he present?
an etiam scripsit oratu tuo? at vero M. Aebutium, constantissimum et pudentissimum hominem, Falcidi adfinem, nihil interrogas, nihil eius generum pari fide praeditum, C. Manilium? qui profecto de tanta pecunia, si esset data, nihil audisse non possent. his tu igitur epistulis, Deciane, recitatis, his mulierculis productis, illo absente auctore laudato tantum te crimen probaturum putasti, praesertim cum ipse non deducendo Falcidium iudicium feceris plus falsam epistulam habituram ponderis quam ipsius praesentis fictam vocem et simulatum dolorem?
But why do I argue so long about Falcidius’s letters, or about Andro Sextilius, or about Decianus’s census, while I am silent about the safety of us all, about the fortunes of the state, about the highest concern of the commonwealth? You are sustaining the whole of it on your shoulders, judges — yours, I say — in this trial. You see in what shaking of the times, in what overturning and confusion of affairs we are placed. Among many other things, certain men are engaged above all in this — that your minds, your judgments, your votes shall be found most hostile and unfriendly to every best citizen. You have given many heavy verdicts for the dignity of the commonwealth on the crime of the conspirators. They do not think the commonwealth sufficiently overturned, unless they have thrust down into the same punishment as the impious, the citizens who have deserved best of her.
sed quid ego de epistulis Falcidi aut de Androne Sextilio aut de Deciani censu tam diu disputo, de salute omnium nostrum, de fortunis civitatis, de summa re publica taceo? quam vos universam in hoc iudicio vestris, vestris inquam, umeris, iudices, sustinetis. videtis quo in motu temporum, quanta in conversione rerum ac perturbatione versemur. Cum alia multa certi homines, tum hoc vel maxime moliuntur ut vestrae quoque mentes, vestra iudicia, vestrae sententiae optimo cuique infestissimae atque inimicissimae reperiantur. gravia iudicia pro rei publicae dignitate multa de coniuratorum scelere fecistis. non putant satis conversam rem publicam, nisi in eandem impiorum poenam optime meritos civis detruserint.
Gaius Antonius has been brought down. So be it: he had a kind of infamy of his own; and yet, if I say what is mine to say, even he himself would not have been condemned with you for judges — the man at whose condemnation Lucius Catiline’s tomb was decked with flowers, and celebrated by the assembling and feasting of the most audacious of men, our own household enemies. Funeral rites have been performed for Catiline; now from Flaccus the penalties of Lentulus are demanded through you. To Publius Lentulus, who tried to bury you, slaughtered in the embrace of your children and wives, in the burning of your fatherland — what victim more pleasing can you slaughter than if you have glutted with the blood of Lucius Flaccus that man’s hatred, abominable against you all?
oppressus est C. Antonius. esto; habuit quandam ille infamiam suam; neque tamen ille ipse, pro meo iure dico, vobis iudicibus damnatus esset, cuius damnatione sepulcrum L. Catilinae floribus ornatum hominum audacissimorum ac domesticorum hostium conventu epulisque celebratum est. iusta Catilinae facta sunt; nunc a Flacco Lentuli poenae per vos expetuntur. quam potestis P. Lentulo, qui vos in complexu liberorum coniugumque vestrarum trucidatos incendio patriae sepelire conatus est, mactare victimam gratiorem quam si L. Flacci sanguine illius nefarium in vos omnis odium saturaveritis?
Let us, then, sacrifice to Lentulus, let us make offerings to Cethegus, let us call back the banished; let us in turn, if it so pleases, suffer the penalties of an excessive piety and a supreme love for our country. We are now denounced by informers, charges are forged against us, dangers are prepared. If they brought these things through others, if finally they had stirred up under the people’s name a multitude of unskilled citizens, we could bear it with a calmer mind; but this cannot be borne — that they think it possible, through senators and Roman knights who carried out all these things for the safety of all by common counsel, with one mind and one valour, that the very authors, leaders, chiefs of these matters should be despoiled of all their fortunes and driven from the state. Indeed, they perceive that the Roman people has the same mind and the same will; in every way it can, the Roman people signifies what it feels; there is no variety of opinion among men, no variety of will, no variety of speech.
litemus igitur Lentulo,parentemus Cethego, revocemus eiectos; nimiae pietatis et summi amoris in patriam vicissim nos poenas, si ita placet, sufferamus. nos iam ab indicibus nominamur, in nos crimina finguntur, nobis pericula comparantur. quae si per alios agerent, si denique per populi nomen civium imperitorum multitudinem concitassent, aequiore animo ferre possemus; illud vero ferri non potest, quod per senatores et per equites Romanos, qui haec omnia pro salute omnium communi consilio, una mente atque virtute gesserunt, harum rerum auctores, duces, principes spoliari omnibus fortunis atque civitate expelli posse arbitrantur. etenim populi Romani perspiciunt eandem mentem et voluntatem; omnibus rebus quibus potest populus Romanus significat quid sentiat; nulla varietas est inter homines opinionis, nulla voluntatis, nulla sermonis.
Therefore, if anyone calls me thither, I come; the Roman people as judge I not only do not refuse but demand. Let force be absent, let iron and stones be removed, let hired gangs withdraw, let slaves be silent; there will be no one so unjust who has heard me, provided he be free and a citizen, who will not think rather of rewards for me than of penalty. O immortal gods! What is more wretched than this? We who wrenched the iron and the flame from Publius Lentulus’s hands have confidence in the judgment of the unskilled multitude, and yet we fear the verdicts of the most select and most distinguished citizens!
qua re, si quis illuc me vocat, venio;populum Romanum disceptatorem non modo non recuso sed etiam deposco. vis absit, ferrum ac lapides removeantur, operae facessant, servitia sileant; nemo erit tam iniustus qui me audierit, sit modo liber et civis, quin potius de praemiis meis quam de poena cogitandum putet. O di immortales! quid hoc miserius? nos qui P. Lentulo ferrum et flammam de manibus extorsimus, imperitae multitudinis iudicio confidimus, lectissimorum civium et amplissimorum sententias pertimescimus!
Manius Aquilius, convicted by our fathers of many charges of avarice and of weighty testimonies, because he had bravely waged war with the runaway slaves, was acquitted by their verdict. I myself as consul lately defended Gaius Piso; who, because he had been a brave and steadfast consul, was preserved unharmed for the commonwealth. As consul I likewise defended Lucius Murena, the consul-elect. None of those judges, when most distinguished men were prosecuting, thought it right to listen to charges of bribery, since with Catiline now waging war they all knew, on my advising, that there had to be two consuls on the Kalends of January. An innocent man, a good man, adorned in every way, has been twice acquitted in this year with me defending him: Aulus Thermus. How great a joy of the Roman people followed for the sake of the commonwealth, how great a thanksgiving! Always grave and wise judges have considered, in deciding cases, what the utility of the state, what the common safety, what the times of the commonwealth required.
M’. Aquilium patres nostri multis avaritiae criminibus testimoniisque convictum, quia cum fugitivis fortiter bellum gesserat, iudicio liberaverunt. consul ego nuper defendi C. Pisonem; qui, quia consul fortis constansque fuerat, incolumis est rei publicae conservatus. defendi item consul L. Murenam, consulem designatum. nemo illorum iudicum clarissimis viris accusantibus audiendum sibi de ambitu putavit, cum bellum iam gerente Catilina omnes me auctore duos consules Kalendis Ianuariis scirent esse oportere. innocens et bonus vir et omnibus rebus ornatus bis hoc anno me defendente absolutus est, A. Thermus. quanta rei publicae causa laetitia populi Romani, quanta gratulatio consecuta est! semper graves et sapientes iudices in rebus iudicandis quid utilitas civitatis, quid communis salus, quid rei publicae tempora poscerent, cogitaverunt.
When the tablet shall be given to you, judges, it will be given not on Flaccus alone, it will be given on the leaders and authors of preserving the city, it will be given on all good citizens, it will be given on yourselves, on your children, on your life, on your country, on the common safety. You are not judging in this case about foreign nations, not about allies; you are judging about yourselves and about your own commonwealth.
Cum tabella vobis dabitur, iudices, non de Flacco dabitur solum, dabitur de ducibus auctoribusque conservandae civitatis, dabitur de omnibus bonis civibus, dabitur de vobismet ipsis, dabitur de liberis vestris, de vita, de patria, de salute communi. non iudicatis in hac causa de exteris nationibus, non de sociis; de vobis atque de vestra re publica iudicatis.
If, however, the consideration of provinces moves you more than your own, I do not refuse, indeed; rather I demand that you be moved by the authority of the provinces. For we shall set against the province of Asia, first, a great part of the same province, which has sent legates and praisers for this man’s perils; next the province of Gaul, the province of Cilicia, the province of Spain, the province of Crete; against the Greek Lydians, Phrygians, and Mysians shall stand the men of Marseilles, of Rhodes, the Lacedaemonians, the Athenians, all Achaia, Thessaly, Boeotia; against the witnesses Septimius and Caelius, Publius Servilius and Quintus Metellus, witnesses to this man’s modesty and integrity, will fight back; the city’s jurisdiction will answer the Asian jurisdiction; against the imputation of a single year, all Lucius Flaccus’s age and his whole life will defend him.
quod si provinciarum vos ratio magis movet quam vestra, ego vero non modo non recuso sed etiam postulo ut provinciarum auctoritate moveamini. etenim opponemus Asiae provinciae primum magnam partem eiusdem provinciae quae pro huius periculis legatos laudatoresque misit, deinde provinciam Galliam, provinciam Ciliciam, provinciam Hispaniam, provinciam Cretam; Graecis autem Lydis et Phrygibus et Mysis obsistent Massilienses, Rhodii, Lacedaemonii, Athenienses, cuncta Achaia, Thessalia, Boeotia; Septimio et Caelio testibus P. Servilius et Q. Metellus huius pudoris integritatisque testes repugnabunt; Asiaticae iuris dictioni urbana iuris dictio respondebit; annui temporis criminationem omnis aetas L. Flacci et perpetua vita defendet.
And if it ought to profit Lucius Flaccus, judges, that he has shown himself, as military tribune, as quaestor, as legate, worthy of his ancestors with the most distinguished imperatores, the most splendid armies, the most weighty provinces, let it profit him that under your eyes, in the common dangers of all of us, he joined his own perils to mine; let the praisers from the most honourable municipia and colonies profit him; let even the splendid and true praise of the Senate and the Roman people profit him.
et, si prodesse L. Flacco, iudices, debet, quod se tribunum militum, quod quaestorem, quod legatum imperatoribus clarissimis, exercitibus ornatissimis, provinciis gravissimis dignum suis maioribus praestitit, prosit quod hic vobis videntibus in periculis communibus omnium nostrum sua pericula cum meis coniunxit, prosint honestissimorum municipiorum coloniarumque laudationes, prosit etiam senatus populique Romani praeclara et vera laudatio.
O night, that almost brought eternal darkness upon this city, when the Gauls were being summoned to war, Catiline to the city, the conspirators to iron and to fire, when I, Flaccus, calling on heaven and the night to witness, weeping I besought you weeping, when to your most outstanding and most tested loyalty I commended the safety of the city and of the citizens! Then, Flaccus, you, the praetor, took the messengers of the common ruin, you caught the pestilence of the commonwealth shut up in letters, you brought the proofs of the perils, the helps of safety, to me and to the Senate. What thanks were given you then by me, what by the Senate, what by all good men! Who would have thought that to you, that to that bravest of men Gaius Pomptinus, any good man would ever deny not safety only but any honour? O those Nones of December which fell in my consulship! What day I can truly call the birthday of this city, or at least its day of saving!
O nox illa quae paene aeternas huic urbi tenebras attulisti, cum Galli ad bellum, Catilina ad urbem, coniurati ad ferrum et flammam vocabantur, cum ego te, Flacce, caelum noctemque contestans flens flentem obtestabar, cum tuae fidei optimae et spectatissimae salutem urbis et civium commendabam! tu tum, Flacce, praetor communis exiti nuntios cepisti, tu inclusam in litteris rei publicae pestem deprehendisti, tu periculorum indicia, tu salutis auxilia ad me et ad senatum attulisti. quae tibi tum gratiae sunt a me actae, quae ab senatu, quae a bonis omnibus! quis tibi, quis C. Pomptino, fortissimo viro, quemquam bonum putaret umquam non salutem verum honorem ullum denegaturum? O Nonae illae Decembres quae me consule fuistis! quem ego diem vere natalem huius urbis aut certe salutarem appellare possum.
O night that this day followed, fortunate for this city — wretched I, I fear funereal for us! What was Lucius Flaccus’s spirit then — I shall say nothing of mine — what love of country, what valour, what gravity stood out! But why do I recall things which then, when they were being done, were exalted to heaven by the unanimous consent of all, the single voice of the Roman people, the single testimony of the whole world, but which now I fear may not only not profit but even do some harm? For I see that the memory of bad men is sometimes much sharper than that of good ones. I, if anything graver shall happen — I, I say, Flaccus, shall have betrayed you. O that right hand of mine, my pledge, my promises, when I was promising you that, if we preserved the commonwealth, you would, all your life as long as you lived, be not only fortified but adorned by the protection of all good men. I thought, I hoped, that even if our honour were of less worth to you, our safety at least would be dear.
O nox illa quam iste est dies consecutus, fausta huic urbi, miserum me, metuo ne funesta nobis! qui tum animus L. Flacci—nihil dicam enim de me—qui amor in patriam, quae virtus, quae gravitas exstitit! sed quid ea commemoro quae tum cum agebantur uno consensu omnium, una voce populi Romani, uno orbis terrae testimonio in caelum laudibus efferebantur, nunc vereor ne non modo non prosint verum etiam aliquid obsint? etenim multo acriorem improborum interdum memoriam esse sentio quam bonorum. ego te, si quid gravius acciderit, ego te, inquam, Flacce, prodidero. O mea dextera illa, mea fides, mea promissa, cum te, si rem publicam conservaremus, omnium bonorum praesidio quoad viveres non modo munitum sed etiam ornatum fore pollicebar. putavi, speravi, etiam si honos noster vobis vilior fuisset, salutem certe caram futuram.
As for Lucius Flaccus, judges, if — which omen may the immortal gods avert — a heavy injury crush him, yet he will never repent that he looked out for your safety, took counsel for you, your children, your wives, your fortunes; he will always feel that he owed such a spirit to the dignity of his lineage, to his own piety, and to his country. As for you, do not repent that you did not spare such a citizen — by the immortal gods, judges, take care! For how many are there who follow this party in the commonwealth, who wish to please you and the like of you, who hold the authority of every best and most distinguished man and order to be a great matter, when they see that other path easier to honours and to all that they have desired? But let the rest be theirs; let them have to themselves the power, the honours, the highest stores of every other advantage; let it be permitted to those who wished these things to be safe themselves to be safe.
ac L. Flaccum quidem, iudices, si, quod di immortales omen avertant, gravis iniuria adflixerit, numquam tamen prospexisse vestrae saluti, consuluisse vobis, liberis, coniugibus, fortunis vestris paenitebit; semper ita sentiet, talem se animum et generis dignitati et pietati suae et patriae debuisse; vos ne paeniteat tali civi non pepercisse, per deos immortalis, iudices, providete. quotus enim quisque est qui hanc in re publica sectam sequatur, qui vobis, qui vestri similibus placere cupiat, qui optimi atque amplissimi cuiusque hominis atque ordinis auctoritatem magni putet, cum illam viam sibi videant expeditiorem ad honores et ad omnia quae concupiverunt? sed cetera sint eorum; sibi habeant potentiam, sibi honores, sibi ceterorum commodorum summas facultates; liceat eis qui haec salva esse voluerunt ipsis esse salvis.
Do not think, judges, that those whose case is whole, who have not yet come to honours, are not waiting on the outcome of this trial. If for Lucius Flaccus so great a love towards every good man, so great a zeal for the commonwealth, has been a calamity, who hereafter, do you think, will be so out of his mind as not to think that the way of life he had reckoned headlong and slippery is to be preferred to this level and steady one? But if you, judges, are weary of such citizens, declare it; they will change their minds who can; they will determine what to do whose case is whole; we who are already gone forward shall bear this ending of our temerity. But if you wish as many as possible to be of this mind, you will declare in this trial what you feel.
nolite, iudices, existimare eos quibus integrum est, qui nondum ad honores accesserunt, non exspectare huius exitum iudici. si L. Flacco tantus amor in bonos omnis, tantum in rem publicam studium calamitati fuerit, quem posthac tam amentem fore putatis qui non illam viam vitae quam ante praecipitem et lubricam esse ducebat huic planae et stabili praeponendam esse arbitretur? quod si talium civium vos, iudices, taedet, ostendite; mutabunt sententiam qui potuerint; constituent quid agant quibus integrum est; nos qui iam progressi sumus hunc exitum nostrae temeritatis feremus. sin hoc animo quam plurimos esse voltis, declarabitis hoc iudicio quid sentiatis.
To this — to this poor boy of yours and your children’s suppliant, judges, you will give in this trial the precepts for living. If you preserve his father, you will prescribe what kind of citizen he himself ought to be; if you take him away, you will show that no fruit is held out by you for sound, steady, and grave reasoning. He, who — since he is of an age to perceive feeling already from his father’s grief, but cannot yet bear his father help — begs you not to swell his own grief with a father’s tears, his father’s sorrow with his weeping; who looks even at me, calls me with his face, weeping in a manner implores my pledge and asks back that dignity which I once promised his father for his country’s saving. Have pity on the family, judges, have pity on the bravest of fathers, have pity on the son; preserve a name most distinguished and bravest, for the sake of the lineage, or of antiquity, or of the man, to the commonwealth.
huic, huic misero puero vestro ac liberorum vestrorum supplici, iudices, hoc iudicio vivendi praecepta dabitis. cui si patrem conservatis, qualis ipse debeat esse civis praescribetis; si eripitis, ostendetis bonae rationi et constanti et gravi nullum a vobis fructum esse propositum. qui vos, quoniam est id aetatis ut sensum iam percipere possit ex maerore patrio, auxilium nondum patri ferre possit, orat ne suum luctum patris lacrimis, patris maerorem suo fletu augeatis; qui etiam me intuetur, me voltu appellat, meam quodam modo flens fidem implorat ac repetit eam quam ego patri suo quondam pro salute patriae spoponderim dignitatem. miseremini familiae, iudices, miseremini fortissimi patris, miseremini fili; nomen clarissimum et fortissimum vel generis vel vetustatis vel hominis causa rei publicae reservate.
How well-disposed do you think this man to the Roman people, how loyal?
quam benivolum hunc populo Romano, quam fidelem putatis?
Inborn levity, and learned vanity.
ingenita levitas et erudita vanitas.