For Publius Sestius
Pro P. Sestio
Headnote
Cicero for P. Sestius, delivered at Rome in March 56 BC. Sestius — the tribune of the plebs of 57 BC, the “actor and defender of my cause” as Cicero calls him here (§75) — had been indicted under the lex Plautia de vi for the political violence of his year. The actual violence had been directed at him: in the first half of 57 BC, while pushing the bill for Cicero’s recall, he was attacked by Clodius’s gangs in the temple of Castor and left for dead, with more than twenty wounds. The prosecution, mounted by Clodius’s circle (with the new aedile, P. Albinovanus, as accuser, and the witness Vatinius taken on by Cicero in cross-examination as the surviving In Vatinium), was less an attack on Sestius than the second half of the campaign that had failed against Cicero. The defence team was the optimate front — Hortensius opening (§3, 14), Crassus, M. Licinius Calvus also speaking; Cicero closing. The acquittal was unanimous on the fifth day before the Ides of March (11 March), as Q.fr. 2.4 reports.
The speech sets the case in the form of a great narratio of the year of exile (§15–71). The first set-piece is the joint portrait of the two consuls of 58 BC, Gabinius and Piso, “two whirlwinds of the commonwealth” (§15–35) — the perfumed Gabinius of the Puteal moneylenders’ arcade and the curled hair, the shaggy Piso of the schooled brow, sold the provinces in advance for letting Clodius’s bill against Cicero pass. §36–52 is the apology for not fighting: Cicero’s account, set against Marius’s exile and Metellus Numidicus’s, of why a private armed defence would have brought slaughter and not preservation. §53–63 returns to the year, with the publication of the Cyprian king (Ptolemy of Cyprus’s auctioned kingdom; the Cyprian commission that fell on Cato as the most-conspicuous moderator of the year that needed moderating); §64–71 the recall campaign, Pompey’s late stirring, the Sestius journey to Caesar (§71). §72–85 is the narrative of Sestius’s tribunate proper, with the violence on 8 K. Feb. and the near-death in the temple of Castor, the famous narrow escape of the Clodian hireling Numerius who was almost killed for the unfortunate near-coincidence of name with Q. Numerius Rufus (Gracchus). §86–95: the parallel with Milo, who is here the great companion figure — Cicero’s defence of guarding-by-private-force is explicitly grounded in Milo’s precedent.
The peroration, §96–143, is the great political digression of Cicero’s whole career: the famous analysis of the optimates as not a party but a disposition — “all are optimates who are neither guilty, nor wicked by nature, nor furious, nor hindered by domestic evils” (§97), the “cum dignitate otium” formula at §98 (peace with standing as the goal of statecraft), and the catalogue of the foundations of that peace: religion, the auspices, the powers of the magistracies, the authority of the Senate, the laws, the custom of the ancestors, the courts, jurisdiction, good faith, the provinces, the allies, the praise of empire, military affairs, the treasury (§98). The optimate digression then catalogues the proofs that the true Roman people — the populus as opposed to the contio packed with hired claqueurs — has been plainly with Cicero: the consular contio under Lentulus (§107), the centuriate-assembly recall vote (§109), the games at the Apollonian ludi where Aesopus the actor pleaded Cicero’s case from the lines of Accius’s Eurysaces and Brutus (§120–123), the gladiatorial show of Scipio Nasica where Sestius’s appearance from the column of Maenius brought roars of approval “from the railings of the Forum” (§124). §132–135 is the answer to the prosecutor’s gibe about “the nation of the optimates” and the close-in of C. Cato, the gladiator-flouter and friend of the act-of-Caesar-rescinders. §136–143 closes on the seven-times praise of the optimas vita for the young men of Rome — the example of Themistocles, Aristides, Miltiades, Hannibal cast out by their own cities and yet immortal in the memory of their adversaries — and the final list of the Roman forefathers (Bruti, Camilli, Ahalae, Decii, Curii, Fabricii, Maximi, Scipiones, Lentuli, Aemilii) whose place in the coetus deorum immortalium the speech sets as the goal. The sight-stopping close (§144–147) returns to the persons present in the court — Sestius, Milo, the boy in the praetexta, the young P. Lentulus pleading for his father — and the imploration of the jury that, having wanted Cicero safe, they preserve those through whom he was recovered.
The speech was the political founding-document of the post-exile Cicero. It is also the speech in which the optimate consensus of late 57 BC at last finds its theory: the formula cum dignitate otium would be quoted back at Cicero by his successors and by his prosecutors for the rest of his life. The unanimous acquittal of 11 March (Q.fr. 2.4 §1) was the high-water mark of the optimate-Pompeian-Sestian front — which would break apart within five weeks at the conference of Luca, when Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus reset the terms.
If anyone before this, members of the jury, was wondering what the cause might be that, given the great resources of the commonwealth and the great standing of our empire, by no means enough citizens of brave and great spirit could be found who would dare to put themselves and their own preservation in jeopardy for the standing of the city and for the common liberty, from this time forward let him rather wonder if he sees any good and brave citizen, than if he sees one timid or one taking thought for himself rather than for the commonwealth. For, leaving aside thinking back on the case of any single one, you can see at a single glance these men: those who, with the Senate and with all good men, raised up the afflicted commonwealth and freed it from domestic banditry — now sad, in mourning dress, on trial for life, for reputation, for citizenship, for fortunes, for their children; while those who have violated, harassed, thrown into confusion, and overturned everything divine and human are not only flitting about in eager joy, but are even contriving danger for the bravest and best citizens, fearing nothing themselves.
si quis antea, iudices, mirabatur quid esset quod, pro tantis opibus rei publicae tantaque dignitate imperi, nequaquam satis multi cives forti et magno animo invenirentur qui auderent se et salutem suam in discrimen offerre pro statu civitatis et pro communi libertate, ex hoc tempore miretur potius si quem bonum et fortem civem viderit, quam si quem aut timidum aut sibi potius quam rei publicae consulentem. nam ut omittatis de unius cuiusque casu cogitando recordari, uno aspectu intueri potestis eos qui cum senatu, cum bonis omnibus, rem publicam adflictam excitarint et latrocinio domestico liberarint, maestos sordidatos reos, de capite, de fama, de civitate, de fortunis, de liberis dimicantis; eos autem qui omnia divina et humana violarint vexarint perturbarint everterint, non solum alacris laetosque volitare, sed etiam fortissimis atque optimis civibus periculum moliri, de se nihil timere.
In which, while there are many things unworthy, nothing is less to be borne than this: that they now attempt to bring danger upon us, no longer through their own bandits, no longer through men ruined by want and crime, but through you — through the best men against the best citizens; and those whom they could not destroy with stones, with iron, with torches, with violence, with hands and forces, these they now think to crush by your authority, your scruple, your verdicts. I, members of the jury — the voice which I had thought I should be using to give thanks and to commemorate the kindness of those who have deserved the best of me — am now compelled to use to ward off their dangers; that this voice may serve, above all, those by whose effort it has been restored both to me and to you and to the Roman people.
in quo cum multa sunt indigna, tum nihil minus est ferendum quam quod iam non per latrones suos, non per homines egestate et scelere perditos, sed per vos nobis, per optimos viros optimis civibus periculum inferre conantur, et quos lapidibus, quos ferro, quos facibus, quos vi manu copiis delere non potuerunt, hos vestra auctoritate, vestra religione, vestris sententiis se oppressuros arbitrantur. ego autem, iudices, qua voce mihi in agendis gratiis commemorandoque eorum qui de me optime meriti sunt beneficio esse utendum putabam, ea nunc uti cogor in eorum periculis depellendis, ut iis potissimum vox haec serviat quorum opera et mihi et vobis et populo Romano restituta est.
And although the case of P. Sestius has been pleaded out by Q. Hortensius, the most distinguished man and most eloquent, and nothing has been left undone by him that needed to be lamented for the commonwealth or argued for the defendant, still I shall set about speaking, lest my championing seem to have failed, of all men, the very man through whom it has been brought to pass that I have not failed the rest of the citizens. And I am of this mind, members of the jury: that in this case, and in this final place of speaking, the part assumed by me is rather of devotion than of defence, of complaint than of eloquence, of grief than of talent.
et quamquam a Q. Hortensio, clarissimo viro atque eloquentissimo, causa est P. Sesti perorata, nihilque ab eo praetermissum est quod aut pro re publica conquerendum fuit aut pro reo disputandum, tamen adgrediar ad dicendum, ne mea propugnatio ei potissimum defuisse videatur per quem est perfectum ne ceteris civibus deesset. atque ego sic statuo, iudices, a me in hac causa atque hoc extremo dicendi loco pietatis potius quam defensionis, querelae quam eloquentiae, doloris quam ingeni partis esse susceptas.
And so, if I act either more sharply or more freely than those who spoke before me, I beg of you that you grant my speech as much as you think should be granted both to a devoted grief and to a just anger. For neither can grief in any be more bound to duty than this grief of mine, taken up at the danger of a man who has deserved the best of me; nor is any anger more to be praised than that which kindles me at the wickedness of those who have judged that they should wage war against all the defenders of my preservation.
itaque si aut acrius egero aut liberius quam qui ante me dixerunt, peto a vobis ut tantum orationi meae concedatis quantum et pio dolori et iustae iracundiae concedendum putetis; nam neque officio coniunctior dolor ullius esse potest quam hic meus susceptus ex hominis de me optime meriti periculo, neque iracundia magis ulla laudanda est quam ea quae me inflammat eorum scelere qui cum omnibus meae salutis defensoribus bellum esse sibi gerendum iudicaverunt.
But since the rest have answered the individual charges one by one, I shall speak about the whole standing of P. Sestius — about the kind of his life, about his nature, his character, his incredible love for the good men, his zeal for preserving the common safety and quiet — and I shall try, if only I can attain it, that in this confused and comprehensive defence nothing should seem to have been omitted by me which pertains either to your inquiry, or to the defendant, or to the commonwealth. And since the tribunate of P. Sestius was placed by Fortune herself in the gravest times of the city, and amid the ruins of an overturned and afflicted commonwealth, I shall not approach those greatest and amplest matters before I have shown by what beginnings and foundations these so great praises in the highest things were raised up.
sed quoniam singulis criminibus ceteri responderunt, dicam ego de omni statu P. Sesti, de genere vitae, de natura, de moribus, de incredibili amore in bonos, de studio conservandae salutis communis atque oti; contendamque, si modo id consequi potero, ut in hac confusa atque universa defensione nihil ab me quod ad vestram quaestionem, nihil quod ad reum, nihil quod ad rem publicam pertineat praetermissum esse videatur. et quoniam in gravissimis temporibus civitatis atque in ruinis eversae atque adflictae rei publicae P. Sesti tribunatus est a Fortuna ipsa conlocatus, non adgrediar ad illa maxima atque amplissima prius quam docuero quibus initiis ac fundamentis haec tantae summis in rebus laudes excitatae sint.
P. Sestius was born, members of the jury, of a father whom most of you remember — a wise, holy, and severe man; who, when he had been made tribune of the plebs, the first among the noblest men, in the best times, did not so much wish to use the rest of the offices as to seem worthy of them. By his urging Sestius married the daughter of a most honourable and most distinguished man, C. Albinus, by whom he has this boy and his daughter, already given in marriage. By two men of the deepest weight and full of antiquity he was so approved that to each of them he was both especially dear and pleasing. The death of his daughter took from Albinus the name of father-in-law, but did not take away the affection or good will of that connection: today he loves Sestius so that you can most easily judge from this man’s constancy at his side, or from his anxiety and trouble.
parente P. Sestius natus est, iudices, homine, ut plerique meministis, et sapiente et sancto et severo; qui cum tribunus plebis primus inter homines nobilissimos temporibus optimis factus esset, reliquis honoribus non tam uti voluit quam dignus videri. eo auctore duxit honestissimi et spectatissimi viri, C. Albini, filiam, ex qua hic est puer et nupta iam filia. duobus gravissimis ac plenissimis antiquitatis viris sic probatus fuit ut utrique eorum et carus maxime et iucundus esset. ademit Albino soceri nomen mors filiae, sed caritatem illius necessitudinis et benivolentiam non ademit: hodie sic hunc diligit ut vos facillime potestis ex hac vel adsiduitate eius vel sollicitudine et molestia iudicare.
While his father still lived he married the daughter of a most excellent and most stricken man, L. Scipio. The famous devotion of P. Sestius shone clearly in this and was welcome to all: he set out at once for Massilia, that he might see and console his father-in-law, driven out by the surges of the commonwealth, lying in foreign lands — a man who ought to have stood in the footsteps of his ancestors — and brought his daughter to him, that the man might, by the unhoped-for sight and embrace, lay aside if not all then some part of his sorrow; and with the greatest zeal and offices, in keeping with that connection, he supported both that man’s hardship as long as he lived and his daughter’s loneliness. I could say much about his liberality, his domestic offices, his military tribunate, his abstinence in the provincial magistracy he held; but the standing of the commonwealth flits before my eyes and snatches me to itself, and urges me to leave these lesser matters.
duxit uxorem patre vivo optimi et calamitosissimi viri filiam, L. Scipionis. clara in hoc P. Sesti pietas exstitit et omnibus grata, quod et Massiliam statim profectus est, ut socerum videre consolarique posset fluctibus rei publicae expulsum, in alienis terris iacentem, quem in maiorum suorum vestigiis stare oportebat, et ad eum filiam eius adduxit, ut ille insperato aspectu complexuque si non omnem at aliquam partem maeroris sui deponeret, et maximis pro illa necessitudine studiis et officiis et illius aerumnam, quoad vixit, et filiae solitudinem sustentavit. possum multa dicere de liberalitate, de domesticis officiis, de tribunatu militari, de provinciali in eo magistratu abstinentia; sed mihi ante oculos obversatur rei publicae dignitas, quae me ad sese rapit, haec minora relinquere hortatur.
He was quaestor to my colleague C. Antonius, members of the jury, by lot, but mine by partnership of counsels. I am hindered, by what I take to be a bond of duty, from setting forth how many things P. Sestius, when he was with my colleague, perceived, reported to me, foresaw long beforehand. About Antonius I say nothing except this one thing: that, in that highest fear and danger of the city, he never wished either, by denial, to remove the common dread of all, or, by dissembling, to settle the particular suspicion of certain men against himself. In holding up and steadying that colleague, if you used truthfully to praise my forbearance towards him conjoined with the highest care for the commonwealth, near-equal praise must be P. Sestius’s, who so attended on his consul that he seemed to that man a good quaestor and to all of us the best citizen.
quaestor hic C. Antoni, conlegae mei, iudices, fuit sorte, sed societate consiliorum meus. impedior non nullius offici, ut ego interpretor, religione quo minus exponam quam multa P. Sestius, cum esset cum conlega meo, senserit, ad me detulerit, quanto ante providerit. atque ego de Antonio nihil dico praeter unum: numquam illum illo summo timore ac periculo civitatis neque communem metum omnium nec propriam non nullorum de ipso suspicionem aut infitiando tollere aut dissimulando sedare voluisse. in quo conlega sustinendo atque moderando si meam in illum indulgentiam coniunctam cum summa custodia rei publicae laudare vere solebatis, par prope laus P. Sesti esse debet, qui ita suum consulem observavit ut et illi quaestor bonus et nobis omnibus optimus civis videretur.
The same man, when that conspiracy had burst out from its hiding-places and shadows and was flitting openly in arms, came with an army to Capua, a city which we suspected was being tried, on account of its many advantages for war, by that impious and criminal band. C. Mevulanus, military tribune of Antonius, he flung headlong out of Capua — a ruined man, and not obscurely engaged at Pisaurum and in other parts of Gallic territory in that conspiracy; and the same Sestius saw to it that C. Marcellus, when he had come not only to Capua but had even thrust himself, as if from zeal for arms, into a most numerous household, was driven out from that city. For this reason both that gathering at Capua — which on account of the safety of that city preserved by my consulship adopted me alone as patron — gave at my hands the greatest thanks to this P. Sestius, and at this present time the same men, the name changed, the colonists and the decurions, bravest and best men, by their testimony declare the kindness of P. Sestius, by their decree avert his danger.
idem, cum illa coniuratio ex latebris atque ex tenebris erupisset palamque armata volitaret, venit cum exercitu Capuam, quam urbem propter plurimas belli opportunitates ab illa impia et scelerata manu temptari suspicabamur; C. Mevulanum, tribunum militum Antoni, Capua praecipitem eiecit, hominem perditum et non obscure Pisauri et in aliis agri Gallici partibus in illa coniuratione versatum; idemque C. Marcellum, cum is non Capuam solum venisset, verum etiam se quasi armorum studio in maximam familiam coniecisset, exterminandum ex illa urbe curavit. qua de causa et tum conventus ille Capuae, qui propter salutem illius urbis consulatu conservatam meo me unum patronum adoptavit, huic apud me P. Sestio maximas gratias egit, et hoc tempore eidem homines nomine commutato coloni decurionesque, fortissimi atque optimi viri, beneficium P. Sesti testimonio declarant, periculum decreto suo deprecantur.
Recite, please, L. Sestius, what the decurions of Capua have decreed, that now your boy’s voice may signify something to your enemies — what, when it has gathered strength, it may seem about to bring about. Decree of the Decurions. I do not recite a decree wrung out by some duty of neighbourhood, or clientage, or public hospitality, or canvassing, or recommendation: I recite the memory of a danger lived through, the heralding of the fullest kindness, the voice of a duty present, the testimony of past time.
recita, quaeso, L. Sesti, quid decrerint Capuae decuriones, ut iam puerilis tua vox possit aliquid significare inimicis vestris, quidnam, cum se conroborarit, effectura esse videatur. Decvrionvm decreta. non recito decretum officio aliquo expressum vicinitatis aut clientelae aut hospiti publici aut ambitionis aut commendationis gratia, sed recito memoriam perfuncti periculi, praedicationem amplissimi benefici, vocem offici praesentis, testimonium praeteriti temporis.
And in those same times, when Sestius had already freed Capua from fear, and when the Senate and all the good men, the domestic enemies seized and put down with me as leader, had drawn the city out from the greatest dangers, I summoned P. Sestius from Capua by letter together with that army he had with him at the time. Reading these letters, he flew at once to the city with incredible swiftness. And that you may recall the dreadfulness of that time, hear the letter, and stir up your memory to the thought of the past fear. Letter of Cicero, consul. By this arrival of P. Sestius the assaults and attempts of the new tribunes of the plebs, who in the last days of my consulship were eager to harass the things I had done, and the rest of the conspiracy, were retarded.
atque illis temporibus eisdem, cum iam Capuam metu Sestius liberasset, urbem senatus atque omnes boni deprehensis atque oppressis domesticis hostibus me duce ex periculis maximis extraxissent, ego litteris P. Sestium Capua arcessivi cum illo exercitu quem tum secum habebat; quibus hic litteris lectis ad urbem confestim incredibili celeritate advolavit. atque ut illius temporis atrocitatem recordari possitis, audite litteras et vestram memoriam ad timoris praeteriti cogitationem excitate. Litterae Ciceronis consvlis. hoc adventu P. Sesti tribunorum plebis novorum, qui tum extremis diebus consulatus mei res eas quas gesseram vexare cupiebant, reliquaeque coniurationis impetus et conatus sunt retardati.
And after it was understood that, with M. Cato as tribune of the plebs — bravest and best citizen — defending the commonwealth, the Senate and the Roman people could easily, by their own majesty, without an armed garrison, protect the standing of those who had defended the common safety at their own peril, Sestius with that army, with the highest swiftness, overtook Antonius. Here what should I parade — by what means he urged the consul to action, what spurs he applied to a man perhaps eager for victory but yet too much in dread of the common Mars and chance of war? It is long to say those things, but this short word I shall say: if M. Petreius’s outstanding spirit and love for the commonwealth, his standing virtue in the commonwealth, his highest authority among the soldiers, his wonderful experience in military matters had not been there, and if P. Sestius had not been a helper to him in stirring up Antonius, urging him on, accusing him, driving him — a place would have been given in that war to winter; and never would Catiline, when he had emerged from the Apennine frost and those snows and, finding a whole summer free, had begun to seize beforehand the cattle-paths of Italy and the stables of the shepherds, have fallen in his most miserable doom without much blood and without the laying waste of all Italy.
ac postea quam est intellectum, M. Catone tribuno plebis, fortissimo atque optimo cive, rem publicam defendente, per se ipsum senatum populumque Romanum sine militum praesidio tueri facile maiestate sua dignitatem eorum qui salutem communem periculo suo defendissent, Sestius cum illo exercitu summa celeritate est Antonium consecutus. hic ego quid praedicem quibus hic rebus consulem ad rem gerendam excitarit, quos stimulos admoverit homini studioso fortasse victoriae, sed tamen nimium communem Martem belli casumque metuenti? longum est ea dicere, sed hoc breve dicam: si M. Petrei non excellens animus et amor rei publicae, non praestans in re publica virtus, non summa auctoritas apud milites, non mirificus usus in re militari exstitisset, neque adiutor ei P. Sestius ad excitandum Antonium, cohortandum, accusandum, impellendum fuisset, datus illo in bello esset hiemi locus, neque umquam Catilina, cum e pruina Appennini atque e nivibus illis emersisset atque aestatem integram nanctus Italiae callis et pastorum stabula praeoccupare coepisset, sine multo sanguine ac sine totius Italiae vastitate miserrima concidisset.
This was the spirit, then, that P. Sestius brought to his tribunate — to leave aside his quaestorship in Macedonia and come at last to these closer matters; although that singular provincial integrity is not to be passed over — whose traces I lately saw in Macedonia not pressed lightly to the heralding of a brief time, but fixed for the everlasting memory of that province. But let us so pass these things by that, looking on them and looking back, we leave them: let us come to the tribunate, which by now itself calls to itself and in a way swallows up my speech, with strained zeal and at speed.
hunc igitur animum attulit ad tribunatum P. Sestius, ut quaesturam Macedoniae relinquam et aliquando ad haec propiora veniam; quamquam non est omittenda singularis illa integritas provincialis, cuius ego nuper in Macedonia vidi vestigia non pressa leviter ad exigui praedicationem temporis, sed fixa ad memoriam illius provinciae sempiternam. verum haec ita praetereamus ut tamen intuentes et respectantes relinquamus: ad tribunatum, qui ipse ad sese iam dudum vocat et quodam modo absorbet orationem meam, contento studio cursuque veniamus.
About which tribunate, indeed, it was so spoken of by Q. Hortensius that his speech seemed to contain not only the defence of the charges, but also to set forth, worthy of memory, an authority and discipline for the youth in the taking up of public affairs. But still, since the whole tribunate of P. Sestius sustained nothing other than my name and my cause, I think I must necessarily say of the same matters, if not more subtly, then certainly more grievously, lamented. In which speech if I wished to inveigh more sharply against certain men, who would not allow that I might brand with the freedom of my voice those by the rage of whose wickedness I have been violated? But I shall act with measure, and I shall serve this man’s circumstances rather than my own grief: if any privately disagree with our preservation, let them lie hidden; if any did something at some time and the same now keep silent and quiet, let us also have forgotten; if any thrust themselves forward, harass us, we shall bear it as long as it can be borne; nor will my speech offend anyone except him who has so thrust himself forward that we may seem not to have charged at him but to have run into him.
de quo quidem tribunatu ita dictum est a Q. Hortensio ut eius oratio non defensionem modo videretur criminum continere, sed etiam memoria dignam iuventuti rei publicae capessendae auctoritatem disciplinamque praescribere. sed tamen, quoniam tribunatus totus P. Sesti nihil aliud nisi meum nomen causamque sustinuit, necessario mihi de isdem rebus esse arbitror si non subtilius disputandum, at certe dolentius deplorandum. qua in oratione si asperius in quosdam homines invehi vellem, quis non concederet ut eos, quorum sceleris furore violatus essem, vocis libertate perstringerem? sed agam moderate et huius potius tempori serviam quam dolori meo: si qui occulte a salute nostra dissentiunt, lateant; si qui fecerunt aliquid aliquando atque eidem nunc tacent et quiescunt, nos quoque simus obliti; si qui se offerunt, insectantur, quoad ferri poterunt, perferemus, neque quemquam offendet oratio mea nisi qui se ita obtulerit ut in eum non invasisse sed incucurrisse videamur.
But it is necessary, before I begin to speak about the tribunate of P. Sestius, that I set forth the whole shipwreck of last year’s commonwealth, in which gathering of wreckage and refitting of the common safety all the deeds, words, and counsels of P. Sestius were turned. That had been a year, members of the jury, when, amid great commotion and the fear of many, the bow was bent against me alone — as the ignorant of affairs commonly used to say — but in real fact against the whole commonwealth, by the transfer to the plebs of a furious and ruined man, angry at me but far more sharply hostile to peace and the common safety. This man — a most distinguished man and most friendly to me, with many opposing me, Cn. Pompeius — had bound by every precaution, pact, and oath to do nothing in his tribunate against me; that wicked man, born from the cesspool of every crime, judged that he would too little break his pact, unless he had terrified, by his own peculiar dangers, that very person who had stood surety for another’s danger.
sed necesse est, ante quam de tribunatu P. Sesti dicere incipiam, me totum superioris anni rei publicae naufragium exponere, in quo conligendo ac reficienda salute communi omnia reperientur P. Sesti facta, dicta, consilia versata. fuerat ille annus tam in re publica, iudices,† cum in magno motu et multorum timore intentus est arcus in me unum, sicut vulgo ignari rerum loquebantur, re quidem vera in universam rem publicam, traductione ad plebem furibundi hominis ac perditi, mihi irati, sed multo acrius oti et communis salutis inimici. hunc vir clarissimus mihique multis repugnantibus amicissimus, Cn. Pompeius, omni cautione, foedere, exsecratione devinxerat nihil in tribunatu contra me esse facturum: quod ille nefarius ex omnium scelerum conluvione natus parum se foedus violaturum arbitratus est, nisi ipsum cautorem alieni periculi suis propriis periculis terruisset.
This loathsome and monstrous beast, bound by the auspices, fettered by ancestral custom, constrained by the chains of the sacred laws, the consul suddenly let loose by a curiate law — whether, as I judge, prevailed upon, or, as some thought, angry with me, but certainly ignorant and unforeseeing of the so great wickednesses and evils impending. He as tribune of the plebs was lucky in overturning the commonwealth by no sinews of his own — for what sinews could there be in a life of that kind, the man drained by his brother’s outrages, his sisters’ debaucheries, every unheard-of lust?
hanc taetram immanemque beluam, vinctam auspiciis, adligatam more maiorum, constrictam legum sacratarum catenis, solvit subito lege curiata consul, vel, ut ego arbitror, exoratus vel, ut non nemo putabat, mihi iratus, ignarus quidem certe et imprudens impendentium tantorum scelerum et malorum. qui tribunus plebis felix in evertenda re publica fuit nullis suis nervis—qui enim in eius modi vita nervi esse potuerunt hominis fraternis flagitiis, sororiis stupris, omni inaudita libidine exsanguis?—
But there was indeed surely a kind of fated fortune of the commonwealth, that that blind and witless tribune of the plebs got — what shall I say? — consuls? That I should call by this name the overturners of this empire, the betrayers of your standing, the enemies of all good men, who thought themselves adorned by those fasces and other insignia of the highest office and command for the destroying of the Senate, the afflicting of the equestrian order, the extinguishing of all rights and institutions of our ancestors? Of which, by the immortal gods, if you do not yet wish to recall the wickednesses and brands burnt into the commonwealth, look at their faces and their gait in your minds: their deeds will more easily occur to your minds, if you set their very faces before your eyes.
sed fuit profecto quaedam illa rei publicae fortuna fatalis, ut ille caecus atque amens tribunus plebis nancisceretur—quid dicam? consules? hocine ut ego nomine appellem eversores huius imperi, proditores vestrae dignitatis, hostis bonorum omnium, qui ad delendum senatum, adfligendum equestrem ordinem, exstinguenda omnia iura atque instituta maiorum se illis fascibus ceterisque insignibus summi honoris atque imperi ornatos esse arbitrabantur? quorum, per deos immortalis, si nondum scelera vulneraque inusta rei publicae vultis recordari, vultum atque incessum animis intuemini: facilius eorum facta occurrent mentibus vestris, si ora ipsa oculis proposueritis.
The one, drenched in unguents, with curled hair, looking down on the witnesses of his debaucheries and the old harassers of his early youth, puffed up by the gangs of the Puteal and the moneylenders — by whom long ago, driven, lest in that Scyllaean strait of his debt as in a current he should cling to a column, he had taken refuge in the harbour of the tribunate — despised the Roman knights, threatened the Senate, sold himself to the gangs and used to declare himself snatched away by them so that he should not have to plead in court on the charge of canvassing, and from the same men also said that, even with the Senate against him, he hoped for a province; and unless he obtained it, he judged that he would in no way be safe.
alter unguentis adfluens, calamistrata coma, despiciens conscios stuprorum ac veteres vexatores aetatulae suae, puteali et faeneratorum gregibus inflatus, a quibus compulsus olim, ne in Scyllaeo illo aeris alieni tamquam in fretu ad columnam adhaeresceret, in tribunatus portum perfugerat, contemnebat equites Romanos, minitabatur senatui, venditabat se operis atque ab iis se ereptum ne de ambitu causam diceret praedicabat, ab isdemque se etiam invito senatu provinciam sperare dicebat; eamque nisi adeptus esset, se incolumem nullo modo fore arbitrabatur.
The other, good gods, how grimly he stalked, how truculent, how terrible to look upon! You would say you were looking upon some one of those bearded men, an example of ancient command, an image of antiquity, a column of the commonwealth. Dressed roughly in this plebeian and almost dingy purple of ours, his hair so unkempt that he seemed about to lift up the Seplasia — that perfumers’ street of the very Capua in which, for the sake of decking out his image, he was then holding the duumvirate. For what shall I say of his eyebrow? — which then to men seemed not an eyebrow but a pledge for the commonwealth. So great was the gravity in his eye, so great the contraction of his brow, that the year seemed to lean on that eyebrow as on a surety.
alter, o di boni, quam taeter incedebat, quam truculentus, quam terribilis aspectu! unum aliquem te ex barbatis illis, exemplum imperi veteris, imaginem antiquitatis, columen rei publicae diceres intueri. vestitus aspere nostra hac purpura plebeia ac paene fusca, capillo ita horrido ut Capua, in qua ipsa tum imaginis ornandae causa duumviratum gerebat, Seplasiam sublaturus videretur. nam quid ego de supercilio dicam, quod tum hominibus non supercilium, sed pignus rei publicae videbatur? tanta erat gravitas in oculo, tanta contractio frontis, ut illo supercilio annus ille niti tamquam vade videretur.
This was the talk of all: “Yet there is a great and firm support of the commonwealth; I have one whom I may set against that filth and mire; by his face, by Hercules, he will break his colleague’s lust and lightness; the Senate will have for this year someone whom it can follow; an authority and leader for the good will not be wanting.” To me, especially, men used to give thanks, that I was going to have, against a furious and reckless tribune, a consul both friend and connection, and at the same time brave and weighty. And of these two the one deceived no one. For who could have judged that a man could hold the helm of so great an empire and handle the rudders of the commonwealth in its greatest course and waves — a man emerged suddenly out of the long shadows of brothels and debaucheries, finished off by wine, taverns, brothel-keepers, and adulteries? When this man, beyond hope, was placed in the highest position by another’s resources — one who, drunk, could not look on the impending storm, nor even bear to look at the unfamiliar daylight.
erat hic omnium sermo: est tamen rei publicae magnum firmumque subsidium; habeo quem opponam labi illi atque caeno; vultu me dius fidius conlegae sui libidinem levitatemque franget; habebit senatus in hunc annum quem sequatur; non deerit auctor et dux bonis. mihi denique homines praecipue gratulabantur, quod habiturus essem contra tribunum plebis furiosum et audacem cum amicum et adfinem tum etiam fortem et gravem consulem. atque eorum alter fefellit neminem. quis enim clavum tanti imperi tenere et gubernacula rei publicae tractare in maximo cursu ac fluctibus posse arbitraretur hominem emersum subito ex diuturnis tenebris lustrorum ac stuprorum, vino, ganeis, lenociniis adulteriisque confectum? cum is praeter spem in altissimo gradu alienis opibus positus esset, qui non modo tempestatem impendentem intueri temulentus, sed ne lucem quidem insolitam aspicere posset.
The other plainly deceived many on every side; for he was, by men’s opinion, recommended by his very nobility, that flattering little go-between. We good men always favour nobility, both because it is useful to the commonwealth that nobles should be worthy of their ancestors, and because the memory of distinguished men, even of those who have deserved well of the commonwealth, has weight with us, even when they are dead. Because they saw him always sad, always silent, somewhat grim and uncultivated, and because he was of that name, so that frugality seemed engrafted in the family, they favoured him, rejoiced, and called the man, in their hope, to the integrity of his ancestors — forgetful of his mother’s family.
alter multos plane in omnis partis fefellit; erat enim hominum opinioni nobilitate ipsa, blanda conciliatricula, commendatus. omnes boni semper nobilitati favemus, et quia utile est rei publicae nobilis homines esse dignos maioribus suis, et quia valet apud nos clarorum hominum et bene de re publica meritorum memoria, etiam mortuorum. quia tristem semper, quia taciturnum, quia subhorridum atque incultum videbant, et quod erat eo nomine ut ingenerata familiae frugalitas videretur, favebant, gaudebant, et ad integritatem maiorum spe sua hominem vocabant materni generis obliti.
I, however — to speak truly, members of the jury — never thought that there was as much wickedness, recklessness, cruelty in the man as I myself, with the commonwealth, have felt. I knew the man was worthless and light, and from his youth, by men’s mistake of false opinion, recommended; for his mind was hidden by his face, his outrages by his walls. But this barrier is neither lasting, nor drawn over so that it cannot be seen through by curious eyes. We saw the kind of life, the laziness, the inertia; those who had come a little closer looked into his shut-in lusts; finally, even speech gave us handles by which we could grasp his hidden feelings.
ego autem,—vere dicam, iudices,— tantum esse in homine sceleris, audaciae, crudelitatis, quantum ipse cum re publica sensi, numquam putavi. nequam esse hominem et levem et falsa opinione errore hominum ab adulescentia commendatum sciebam; etenim animus eius vultu, flagitia parietibus tegebantur. sed haec obstructio nec diuturna est neque obducta ita ut curiosis oculis perspici non possit. videbamus genus vitae, desidiam, inertiam; inclusas eius libidines qui paulo propius accesserant intuebantur; denique etiam sermo nobis ansas dabat quibus reconditos eius sensus tenere possemus.
The learned man would praise certain philosophers, but he could not give their names; yet he praised most those who, beyond the rest, are said to be authors and praisers of pleasure — of what kind, and at what time, and in what way, he did not ask: he had swallowed the very word with all the powers of mind and body. And he used to say that the same men taught splendidly that the wise do everything for their own sake, that to take up public affairs is not for the well-balanced, that nothing is more excellent than a leisured life full and packed with pleasures; while those who said that one must serve standing, take thought for the commonwealth, hold the account of duty rather than of advantage in all life, undergo dangers for the fatherland, take wounds, meet death — those, he said, were prophesying and going mad.
laudabat homo doctus philosophos nescio quos, neque eorum tamen nomina poterat dicere, sed tamen eos laudabat maxime qui dicuntur praeter ceteros esse auctores et laudatores voluptatis; cuius et quo tempore et quo modo non quaerebat, verbum ipsum omnibus viribus animi et corporis devorarat; eosdemque praeclare dicere aiebat sapientis omnia sua causa facere, rem publicam capessere hominem bene sanum non oportere, nihil esse praestabilius otiosa vita, plena et conferta voluptatibus; eos autem qui dicerent dignitati esse serviendum, rei publicae consulendum, offici rationem in omni vita, non commodi esse ducendam, adeunda pro patria pericula, vulnera excipienda, mortem oppetendam, vaticinari atque insanire dicebat.
From these constant and daily talks of his, and from the men with whom I saw him living in the inner part of his house, and from the very fact that the house gave off such a smoke that many tokens of his fellowship reeked, I judged thus: that nothing good was to be expected from those trifles, but, certainly, nothing bad to be feared. But it is so, members of the jury, that, if you should give a sword to a small boy or to a feeble old man or to a weak person, by his own assault he will hurt no one; but if it is brought near the unprotected body even of the bravest man, by its very edge and the strength of the iron it can wound: when to nerveless and bloodless men a consulship was given as a sword, men who could of themselves never strike anyone, they, armed in the name of the highest command, slaughtered the commonwealth. They made a pact openly with a tribune of the plebs, that they should receive from him the provinces they themselves wanted, an army and money to whatever extent they wanted, on this condition — if they themselves should first hand over to the tribune of the plebs the commonwealth afflicted and bound. And that pact, they said, could be sealed and sanctified by my blood.
ex his adsiduis eius cotidianisque sermonibus, et quod videbam quibuscum hominibus in interiore parte aedium viveret, et quod ita domus ipsa fumabat ut multa eius consorti onis indicia redolerent, statuebam sic, boni nihil ab illis nugis exspectandum, mali quidem certe nihil pertimescendum. sed ita est, iudices, ut, si gladium parvo puero aut si imbecillo seni aut debili dederis, ipse impetu suo nemini noceat, sin ad nudum vel fortissimi viri corpus accesserit, possit acie ipsa et ferri viribus vulnerare: cum hominibus enervatis atque exsanguibus consulatus tamquam gladius esset datus, qui per se pungere neminem umquam potuissent, ii summi imperi nomine armati rem publicam contrucidarunt. foedus fecerunt cum tribuno plebis palam, ut ab eo provincias acciperent quas ipsi vellent, exercitum et pecuniam quantam vellent, ea lege, si ipsi prius tribuno plebis adflictam et constrictam rem publicam tradidissent: id autem foedus meo sanguine ictum sanciri posse dicebant.
The thing being made known — for so great a wickedness could neither be dissembled nor lie hidden — bills are promulgated at one and the same time by the same tribune: about my destruction and about the consuls’ provinces by name. Here at that point the Senate anxious, you, Roman knights, stirred up, all Italy moved, all citizens, finally, of every class and order judged that help for the supreme commonwealth was to be sought from the consuls and from the supreme command. But those alone, beside that furious tribune, were two whirlwinds of the commonwealth, who not only did not aid their headlong fatherland, but grieved that it was falling too slowly. They were called on by these men daily with the complaints of all good men and even with the prayers of the Senate to take up my cause, to do something, finally, to refer to the Senate. They harassed the most eminent of that order not only by refusing, but even by mocking.
qua re patefacta—neque enim dissimulari tantum scelus poterat nec latere—promulgantur uno eodemque tempore rogationes ab eodem tribuno de mea pernicie et de provinciis consulum nominatim. hic tum senatus sollicitus, vos, equites Romani, excitati, Italia cuncta permota, omnes denique omnium generum atque ordinum cives summae rei publicae a consulibus atque a summo imperio petendum esse auxilium arbitrabantur, cum illi soli essent praeter furiosum illum tribunum duo rei publicae turbines, qui non modo praecipitanti patriae non subvenirent, sed eam nimium tarde concidere maererent. flagitabatur ab his cotidie cum querelis bonorum omnium tum etiam precibus senatus, ut meam causam susciperent, agerent aliquid, denique ad senatum referrent: non modo negando, sed etiam inridendo amplissimum quemque illius ordinis insequebantur.
Here suddenly, when an incredible multitude had gathered onto the Capitol from the whole city and from all Italy, all thought that they should change their dress, and that I should now be defended by every kind of private counsel — since the commonwealth was bereft of public leaders. At the same time the Senate was in the temple of Concord, the very temple that brought back the memory of my consulship, when the whole order, weeping, begged the curled consul; for that other rough and severe consul shut himself up at home on purpose. With what arrogance then did that filth and stain reject the prayers of the most eminent order and the tears of the most distinguished citizens! How that glutton of his fatherland despised me myself! For why should I speak of his patrimony, which he lost at the time when he was making his profit? You came to the Senate, you, I say, Roman knights and all good men, in changed dress, and threw yourselves for my head at the feet of the most foul brothel-keeper; and when your prayers had been rejected by that bandit, a man of incredible loyalty, greatness of soul, and steadiness, L. Ninnius, referred to the Senate about the commonwealth, and the Senate in full session voted that they should change their dress for my preservation.
hic subito cum incredibilis in Capitolium multitudo ex tota urbe cunctaque Italia convenisset, vestem mutandam omnes meque iam omni ratione, privato consilio, quoniam publicis ducibus res publica careret, defendendum putarunt. erat eodem tempore senatus in aede Concordiae, quod ipsum templum repraesentabat memoriam consulatus mei, cum flens universus ordo cincinnatum consulem orabat; nam alter ille horridus et severus consulto se domi continebat. qua tum superbia caenum illud ac labes amplissimi ordinis preces et clarissimorum civium lacrimas repudiavit! me ipsum ut contempsit helluo patriae! nam quid ego patrimoni dicam, quod ille tum cum quaestum faceret amisit? venistis ad senatum, vos, inquam, equites Romani et omnes boni veste mutata, vosque pro meo capite ad pedes lenonis impurissimi proiecistis, cum, vestris precibus ab latrone illo repudiatis, vir incredibili fide, magnitudine animi, constantia, L. Ninnius, ad senatum de re publica rettulit, senatusque frequens vestem pro mea salute mutandam censuit.
O that day, members of the jury — mournful for the Senate and all good men, sorrowful for the commonwealth, for me grievous as private grief, glorious for the memory of posterity! For what could anyone take from all memory more illustrious than that, for one citizen, all the good privately of one mind and the whole Senate by public counsel had changed their dress? Which change indeed was not made then for the sake of pleading, but of mourning. For whom would you have entreated, when all were in mourning dress, and when this was sign enough that he was a wicked man who had not changed his dress? When this change of dress had been made amid such great grief in the city, I leave aside what that tribune — pirate of all things divine and human — did, who, when the noblest young men, the most honourable Roman knights, had attended as suppliants for my preservation, threw them before the swords and stones of his gangs. Of the consuls I speak, on whose loyalty the commonwealth ought to have leaned.
O diem illum, iudices, funestum senatui bonisque omnibus, rei publicae luctuosum, mihi ad domesticum maerorem gravem, ad posteritatis memoriam gloriosum! quid enim quisquam potest ex omni memoria sumere inlustrius quam pro uno civi et bonos omnis privato consensu et universum senatum publico consilio mutasse vestem? quae quidem tum mutatio non deprecationis est causa facta, sed luctus: quem enim deprecarere, cum omnes essent sordidati, cumque hoc satis esset signi esse improbum, qui mutata veste non esset? hac mutatione vestis facta tanto in luctu civitatis, omitto quid ille tribunus omnium rerum divinarum humanarumque praedo fecerit, qui adesse nobilissimos adulescentis, honestissimos equites Romanos, deprecatores salutis meae iusserit, eosque operarum suarum gladiis et lapidibus obiecerit: de consulibus loquor, quorum fide res publica niti debuit.
Half-dead he flies out from the Senate, with mind and face no less troubled than if a few years before he had fallen into a meeting of his creditors. He summons a contio; the consul makes such a speech as Catiline, victorious, would never have made: that men were mistaken if they still thought that the Senate could do anything in the commonwealth; that the Roman knights would pay the penalty for that day on which, when I was consul, they had been with swords on the slope of the Capitol; that the time had come for those who had been in fear — he meant the conspirators, of course — to take vengeance. If he had said only this, he would have been worthy of every punishment; for the speech of a consul, by itself, can shake a commonwealth. Now see what he did.
exanimatus evolat ex senatu, non minus perturbato animo atque vultu quam si annis ante paucis in creditorum conventum incidisset; advocat contionem, habet orationem talem consul qualem numquam Catilina victor habuisset: errare homines si etiam tum senatum aliquid in re publica posse arbitrarentur; equites vero Romanos daturos illius diei poenas quo me consule cum gladiis in clivo Capitolino fuissent; venisse tempus iis qui in timore fuissent—coniuratos videlicet dicebat—ulciscendi se. si dixisset haec solum, omni supplicio esset dignus; nam oratio ipsa consulis perniciosa potest rem publicam labefactare; quid fecerit videte.
L. Lamia, who, both because of the great intimacy I had with his father, was uniquely fond of me, and on behalf of the commonwealth was even eager to meet death, he banished in a contio, and proclaimed by edict that he should be two hundred miles from the city, because he had dared to plead for a citizen, for a citizen of good service, for a friend, for the commonwealth. What is one to do with this man, or for what is one rather to keep so criminal an enemy? Who — to leave aside the rest of the things he holds joined and shared with his monstrous and impure colleague — has this one thing peculiarly his: that he drove out from the city, banished — I do not say a Roman knight, not a most adorned and excellent man, not a most loyal citizen of the commonwealth, not a man at that very time mourning, with the Senate and all good men, the misfortune of his friend and of the commonwealth, but cast a Roman citizen out of his fatherland, by edict, without any trial.
L. Lamiam, qui cum me ipsum pro summa familiaritate quae mihi cum patre eius erat unice diligebat, tum pro re publica vel mortem oppetere cupiebat, in contione relegavit, edixitque ut ab urbe abesset milia passuum ducenta, quod esset ausus pro civi, pro bene merito civi, pro amico, pro re publica deprecari. quid hoc homine facias, aut quo civem importunum aut quo potius hostem tam sceleratum reserves? qui, ut omittam cetera quae sunt ei cum conlega immani impuroque coniuncta atque communia, hoc unum habet proprium, ut ex urbe expulerit, relegarit non dico equitem Romanum, non ornatissimum atque optimum virum, non amicissimum rei publicae civem, non illo ipso tempore una cum senatu et cum bonis omnibus casum amici reique publicae lugentem, sed civem Romanum sine ullo iudicio ut edicto ex patria consul eiecerit.
Nothing have allies and Latins been used to bear more bitterly than this — which very rarely happens — to be ordered out of the city by the consuls; and yet for those there was a return to their own communities, to their own household Lares; and in that common discomfort no peculiar disgrace fell on anyone by name. But what is this? Will the consul, by edict, drive Roman citizens from their household gods? Will he expel them from the fatherland? Will he choose whom he wills, and condemn and cast out by name? If he had ever thought that you who now are would be in the commonwealth, if finally he had believed that any image or shadow of trials would be left in the city, would he ever have dared to remove the Senate from the commonwealth, to scorn the prayers of the Roman knights, to overturn, finally, the right and liberty of all citizens by new and unheard-of edicts?
nihil acerbius socii et Latini ferre soliti sunt quam se, id quod perraro accidit, ex urbe exire a consulibus iuberi: atque illis erat tum reditus in suas civitates, ad suos Lares familiaris, et in illo communi incommodo nulla in quemquam propria ignominia nominatim cadebat. hoc vero quid est? exterminabit civis Romanos edicto consul a suis dis penatibus? expellet ex patria? deliget quem volet, damnabit atque eiciet nominatim? hic si umquam vos eos qui nunc estis in re publica fore putasset, si denique imaginem iudiciorum aut simulacrum aliquod futurum in civitate reliquum credidisset, umquam ausus esset senatum de re publica tollere, equitum Romanorum preces aspernari, civium denique omnium novis et inauditis edictis ius libertatemque pervertere?
Although you listen to me, members of the jury, with the most attentive minds and with the highest kindness, I yet fear that some of you may perhaps wonder why this speech of mine wishes to be so long or so far back-reaching, or what the offences of those who harassed the commonwealth before this man’s tribunate have to do with the case of P. Sestius. But I have set myself this task: to show that all the counsels of P. Sestius and the mind of his whole tribunate were this — that he should so far as possible heal the afflicted and ruined commonwealth. And if, in setting forth those wounds, I shall seem to say more about myself, forgive me; for both that ruin of mine you and all good men have judged to be the greatest wound of the commonwealth, and P. Sestius is on trial not in his own name but in mine: who, since he spent the whole power of his tribunate on my preservation, must necessarily have my cause of past time joined with the present defence of his.
etsi me attentissimis animis summa cum benignitate auditis, iudices, tamen vereor ne quis forte vestrum miretur quid haec mea oratio tam longa aut tam alte repetita velit, aut quid ad P. Sesti causam eorum qui ante huius tribunatum rem publicam vexarunt delicta pertineant. mihi autem hoc propositum est ostendere, omnia consilia P. Sesti mentemque totius tribunatus hanc fuisse, ut adflictae et perditae rei publicae quantum posset mederetur. ac si in exponendis vulneribus illis de me ipso plura dicere videbor, ignoscitote; nam et illam meam cladem vos et omnes boni maximum esse rei publicae vulnus iudicastis, et P. Sestius est reus non suo, sed meo nomine: qui cum omnem vim sui tribunatus in mea salute consumpserit, necesse est meam causam praeteriti temporis cum huius praesenti defensione esse coniunctam.
The Senate, then, was in mourning; the city, by public counsel, was in dingy garb; there was no Italian municipium, no colony, no prefecture, no company at Rome of the tax-farmers, no college or council or any common assembly that had not then most honourably decreed concerning my preservation. When suddenly the two consuls publish an edict that the senators should return to their own dress. What consul ever forbade the Senate to obey its own decrees? What tyrant forbade the wretched to mourn? Is it too little, Piso — to leave aside Gabinius — that you so far deceived men that you neglected the authority of the Senate, despised the counsels of every best citizen, betrayed the commonwealth, brought down the consular name? Did you even dare to publish an edict that men should not mourn my, their own, the commonwealth’s calamity, that they should not signify their grief by their dress? Whether that change of dress was for their own mourning or for the sake of pleading, who was ever so cruel as to forbid anyone to grieve for himself or to entreat for others?
erat igitur in luctu senatus, squalebat civitas publico consilio veste mutata, nullum erat Italiae municipium, nulla colonia, nulla praefectura, nulla Romae societas vectigalium, nullum conlegium aut concilium aut omnino aliquod commune consilium quod tum non honorificentissime de mea salute decrevisset: cum subito edicunt duo consules ut ad suum vestitum senatores redirent. quis umquam consul senatum ipsius decretis parere prohibuit? quis tyrannus miseros lugere vetuit? Parumne est, Piso, ut omittam Gabinium, quod tantum homines fefellisti ut neglegeres auctoritatem senatus, optimi cuiusque consilia contemneres, rem publicam proderes, consulare nomen adfligeres? etiamne edicere audebas ne maererent homines meam, suam, rei publicae calamitatem, ne hunc suum dolorem veste significarent? Sive illa vestis mutatio ad luctum ipsorum sive ad deprecandum valebat, quis umquam tam crudelis fuit qui prohiberet quemquam aut sibi maerere aut ceteris supplicare?
What? Are men not used, of their own accord, to change their dress in the dangers of friends? On your own behalf, Piso, will no one change? Not even those whom, with no senatus consultum, indeed against the resisting Senate, you yourself appointed legates? Therefore the misfortune of a desperate man and a betrayer of the commonwealth those will perhaps mourn who wish: but the danger of a most flourishing citizen, joined to the danger of the city, by the good will of all the good and a man who has deserved best of the safety of the fatherland — this the Senate may not mourn? And those same consuls, if they are to be called consuls, whom there is no one who does not think should be torn out not only from memory but from the calendar — the pact of provinces already struck, brought forward into a contio in the Circus Flaminius by that fury and pestilence of the fatherland — to your great groan — with their voice and opinion approved everything that was then being done against me and against the commonwealth. With those same consuls sitting and looking on, a law was passed that the auspices should not be valid, that no one should announce against, that no one should interpose against the law, that on every comitial day a law should be allowed to be carried, that the Aelian and Fufian laws should not be valid: by which one bill alone who is there who does not understand that the whole commonwealth has been wiped out?
quid? sua sponte homines in amicorum periculis vestitum mutare non solent? pro te ipso, Piso, nemone mutabit? ne isti quidem quos legatos non modo nullo senatus consulto, sed etiam repugnante senatu tibi tute legasti? ergo hominis desperati et proditoris rei publicae casum lugebunt fortasse qui volent: civis florentissimi benivolentia bonorum et optime de salute patriae meriti periculum, coniunctum cum periculo civitatis, lugere senatui non licebit? idemque consules, si appellandi sunt consules quos nemo est quin non modo ex memoria sed etiam ex fastis evellendos putet, pacto iam foedere provinciarum, producti in circo Flaminio in contionem ab illa furia ac peste patriae, maximo cum gemitu vestro, illa omnia quae tum contra me contraque rem publicam agebantur voce ac sententia sua comprobaverunt. isdemque consulibus sedentibus atque inspectantibus lata lex est, ne avspicia valerent, ne qvis obnvntiaret, ne qvis legi intercederet, vt omnibvs fastis diebvs legem ferri liceret, vt lex Aelia, lex Fvfia ne valeret: qua una rogatione quis est qui non intellegat universam rem publicam esse deletam?
And with those same consuls looking on, an enrolment of slaves was being held before the Aurelian tribunal in the name of the political clubs (collegia); when men were being recruited street by street, formed into ten-man squads, urged on to violence, to fighting, to slaughter, to plunder. With those same consuls arms were being openly carried into the temple of Castor; the steps of that same temple were being torn away; armed men held the Forum and the contiones; killings and stonings were taking place; there was no Senate, nothing left of magistracy: one man held all the power of all by arms and banditry — not by any strength of his own, but, when he had drawn off the two consuls from the commonwealth by the pact of provinces, he ran wild, he lorded it, he made promises to others, by terror and fear he held many, by hope and promises even more.
isdemque consulibus inspectantibus servorum dilectus habebatur pro tribunali Aurelio nomine conlegiorum, cum vicatim homines conscriberentur, decuriarentur, ad vim, ad manus, ad caedem, ad direptionem incitarentur. isdemque consulibus arma in templum Castoris palam comportabantur, gradus eiusdem templi tollebantur, armati homines forum et contiones tenebant, caedes lapidationesque fiebant; nullus erat senatus, nihil reliqui magistratus: unus omnem omnium potestatem armis et latrociniis possidebat, non aliqua vi sua, sed, cum duo consules a re publica provinciarum foedere retraxisset, insultabat, dominabatur, aliis pollicebatur, terrore ac metu multos, pluris etiam spe et promissis tenebat.
When these things were of this kind, members of the jury — when the Senate had no leaders, and instead of leaders had betrayers or rather open enemies; when the equestrian order was being summoned by the consuls as defendant; when the authority of all Italy was being repudiated; when some were being banished by name, others terrified by fear and danger; when there were arms in the temples, armed men in the Forum; when these things were not dissembled by the silence of the consuls but were approved by their voice and opinion; when we all saw the city not yet razed and overturned but already taken and overpowered — still, members of the jury, by the so great zeal of the good, we should have resisted these so great evils, but other fears, other concerns and suspicions moved me.
quae cum essent eius modi, iudices, cum senatus duces nullos ac pro ducibus proditores aut potius apertos hostis haberet, equester ordo reus a consulibus citaretur, Italiae totius auctoritas repudiaretur, alii nominatim relegarentur, alii metu et periculo terrerentur, arma essent in templis, armati in foro, eaque non silentio consulum dissimularentur sed et voce et sententia comprobarentur, cum omnes urbem nondum excisam et eversam sed iam captam atque oppressam videremus: tamen his tantis malis tanto bonorum studio, iudices, restitissemus, sed me alii metus atque aliae curae suspicionesque moverunt.
For I shall set forth on this very day, members of the jury, the whole reason of my act and counsel, and I shall fail neither this so great zeal of yours in listening, nor indeed this so great multitude — the like of which, in my memory, has never been at any trial. For if I, in so good a cause, with so great zeal of the Senate, with so incredible a consensus of all the good, with the people so prepared, all Italy, finally, equipped for every contention, gave way before the rage of a tribune of the plebs, that most despicable of men, and was alarmed at the lightness and recklessness of the most contemptible consuls, I confess that I was too timid, of no spirit, of no counsel.
exponam enim hodierno die, iudices, omnem rationem facti et consili mei, neque huic vestro tanto studio audiendi nec vero huic tantae multitudini, quanta mea memoria numquam ullo in iudicio fuit, deero. nam si ego in causa tam bona, tanto studio senatus, consensu tam incredibili bonorum omnium, tam parato populo, tota denique Italia ad omnem contentionem expedita, cessi tribuni plebis, despicatissimi hominis, furori, contemptissimorum consulum levitatem audaciamque pertimui, nimium me timidum, nullius animi, nullius consili fuisse confiteor.
For what was there like in the case of Q. Metellus? Whose cause, although all good men approved, yet neither the Senate publicly nor any single order distinctly nor by their decrees all Italy had taken up. He had acted with regard to a kind of his own glory rather than the manifest preservation of the commonwealth, when he alone had refused to swear to a law passed by violence: in the end he seemed to have been so brave on this condition, that he was exchanging the love of his fatherland for the glory of constancy. He had to do with the unconquered army of C. Marius; he had as enemy C. Marius, the preserver of his fatherland, then in his sixth consulship; he had to do with L. Saturninus, twice tribune of the plebs, a wakeful man, and one who, in his popular cause, had behaved if not with measure then certainly in a popular and abstinent way. He yielded, lest, defeated by brave men, he should fall with disgrace, or, victorious, deprive the commonwealth of many brave citizens.
quid enim simile fuit in Q. Metello? cuius causam etsi omnes boni probabant, tamen neque senatus publice neque ullus ordo proprie neque suis decretis Italia cuncta susceperat. ad suam enim quandam magis ille gloriam quam ad perspicuam salutem rei publicae respiciens rem gesserat, cum unus in legem per vim latam iurare noluerat: denique videbatur ea condicione tam fortis fuisse ut cum patriae caritate constantiae gloriam commutaret. erat autem res ei cum exercitu C. Mari invicto, habebat inimicum C. Marium, conservatorem patriae, sextum iam illum consulatum gerentem; res erat cum L. Saturnino, iterum tribuno plebis, vigilante homine, et in causa populari si non moderate at certe populariter abstinenterque versato. cessit, ne aut victus a fortibus viris cum dedecore caderet, aut victor multis et fortibus civibus rem publicam orbaret.
My cause the Senate openly, the equestrian order most sharply, all Italy publicly, all the good men distinctly and zealously had taken up. I had done deeds of which I had been not the sole author but the leader of the wishes of all, and which pertained not only to my singular glory but to the common safety of all citizens and almost of nations; I had done them on this condition, that everyone should always stand for and protect my act. The contention I had was not with a victorious army, but with hired gangs stirred up to plunder the city; I had as enemy not C. Marius, the terror of enemies, the hope and bulwark of the fatherland, but two unwelcome prodigies, whom poverty, whom the magnitude of debt, whom lightness, whom wickedness had bound and made over to a tribune of the plebs.
meam causam senatus palam, equester ordo acerrime, cuncta Italia publice, omnes boni proprie enixeque susceperant. eas res gesseram quarum non unus auctor sed dux omnium voluntatis fuissem, quaeque non modo ad singularem meam gloriam sed ad communem salutem omnium civium et prope gentium pertinerent; ea condicione gesseram ut meum factum semper omnes praestare tuerique deberent. erat autem mihi contentio non cum victore exercitu, sed cum operis conductis et ad diripiendam urbem concitatis; habebam inimicum non C. Marium, terrorem hostium, spem subsidiumque patriae, sed duo importuna prodigia, quos egestas, quos aeris alieni magnitudo, quos levitas, quos improbitas tribuno plebis constrictos addixerat;
Nor had I to do with Saturninus, who, because he knew that the corn-supply administration had been transferred from himself, the quaestor at Ostia, by way of disgrace, to the chief man both of the Senate and of the city, M. Scaurus, was pursuing his grief with great straining of mind — but with the kept boy of wealthy buffoons, with the adulterer of his sister, with the priest of debaucheries, with a poisoner, with a forger of wills, with an assassin, with a brigand. Whom, if — a thing easy to do and that ought to have been done, and which the best and bravest citizens demanded of me — I had overpowered with violence and arms, I should not have feared lest anyone reprove violence repelled by violence, or mourn the death of ruined citizens, or rather of domestic enemies. But these things moved me: in every contio that fury was crying that the things he was doing against my preservation he was doing on the authority of Cn. Pompeius, a most distinguished man and most friendly to me both now and as long as it was permitted; M. Crassus, with whom I had every tie of friendship, a most brave man, was being declared by the same pestilence to be most hostile to my fortunes; C. Caesar, who, by no merit of mine, ought not to have been alienated from me, was being said by the same man, in daily contiones, to be most hostile to my preservation.
nec mihi erat res cum Saturnino, qui quod a se quaestore Ostiensi per ignominiam ad principem et senatus et civitatis, M. Scaurum, rem frumentariam tralatam sciebat, dolorem suum magna contentione animi persequebatur, sed cum scurrarum locupletium scorto, cum sororis adultero, cum stuprorum sacerdote, cum venefico, cum testamentario, cum sicario, cum latrone; quos homines si, id quod facile factu fuit et quod fieri debuit quodque a me optimi et fortissimi cives flagitabant, vi armisque superassem, non verebar ne quis aut vim vi depulsam reprehenderet aut perditorum civium vel potius domesticorum hostium mortem maereret. sed me illa moverunt: omnibus in contionibus illa furia clamabat se quae faceret contra salutem meam facere auctore Cn. Pompeio, clarissimo viro mihique et nunc et quoad licuit amicissimo; M. Crassus, quocum mihi omnes erant amicitiae necessitudines, vir fortissimus, ab eadem illa peste infestissimus esse meis fortunis praedicabatur; C. Caesar, qui a me nullo meo merito alienus esse debebat, inimicissimus esse meae saluti ab eodem cotidianis contionibus dicebatur.
He was saying that, in the taking of his counsels, he would use these three as authors, as helpers in the doing of the thing; of whom, one had the largest army in Italy, two who were then private citizens could both lead the Roman people and prepare an army, if they wished, and that they would do so. And he was announcing to me not the people’s verdict, nor any lawful contention, nor a hearing or pleading of the case, but violence, arms, armies, generals, camps. What then? Did the speech of an enemy — empty especially — so wickedly thrown against most distinguished men, move me? Yes, indeed; not his speech, but the silence of those against whom that so wicked a speech was being thrown. Who at the time, although for other reasons they kept silent, yet to men who feared everything, by keeping silent seemed to speak, by not denying seemed to confess. They, then, terrified at that time by some fear — because they thought that those acts and the whole business of the previous year were being shaken by the praetors, weakened by the Senate and by the chief men of the city — did not wish to alienate from themselves a popular tribune, and were saying that their own dangers were closer to them than mine.
his se tribus auctoribus in consiliis capiendis, adiutoribus in re gerenda esse usurum dicebat; ex quibus unum habere exercitum in Italia maximum, duo, qui privati tum essent, et populo Romano praeesse et parare, si vellent, exercitum posse, idque facturos esse dicebat. nec mihi ille iudicium populi nec legitimam aliquam contentionem nec disceptationem aut causae dictionem, sed vim, arma, exercitus, imperatores, castra denuntiabat. quid ergo? inimici oratio, vana praesertim, tam improbe in clarissimos viros coniecta me movit? me vero non illius oratio, sed eorum taciturnitas in quos illa oratio tam improba conferebatur; qui tum, quamquam ob alias causas tacebant, tamen hominibus omnia timentibus tacendo loqui, non infitiando confiteri videbantur. illi autem aliquo tum timore perterriti, quod acta illa atque omnis res anni superioris labefactari a praetoribus, infirmari a senatu atque a principibus civitatis putabant, tribunum popularem a se alienare nolebant, suaque sibi propiora esse pericula quam mea loquebantur.
But still, both Crassus said that my cause must be taken up by the consuls, and Pompey kept entreating their good faith and said that he, a private citizen, would not fail a publicly undertaken cause. That man, zealous for me, most eager to preserve the commonwealth — certain men placed for that very business at my house warned him to be more cautious, and said that ambushes against his life had been laid by me at my own house; and they stirred up his suspicion, some by sending letters, others by messengers, others in person, so that the man — though he certainly feared nothing from me — thought that he must take care, lest those certain men should contrive anything in my name. Caesar himself, whom men ignorant of the truth especially thought angry with me, was at the gates, was holding command; his army was in Italy, and in that army the very tribune of the plebs, my enemy, had set his brother as commander.
sed tamen et Crassus a consulibus meam causam suscipiendam esse dicebat, et eorum fidem Pompeius implorabat neque se privatum publice susceptae causae defuturum esse dicebat; quem virum studiosum mei, cupidissimum rei publicae conservandae, domi meae certi homines ad eam rem positi monuerunt ut esset cautior, eiusque vitae a me insidias apud me domi positas esse dixerunt; atque hanc eius suspicionem alii litteris mittendis, alii nuntiis, alii coram ipsi excitaverunt, ut ille, cum a me certe nihil timeret, ab illis, ne quid meo nomine molirentur, sibi cavendum putaret. ipse autem Caesar, quem maxime homines ignari veritatis mihi esse iratum putabant, erat ad portas, erat cum imperio; erat in Italia eius exercitus, inque eo exercitu ipsius tribuni plebis, inimici mei, fratrem praefecerat.
When I saw these things, then — for they were not hidden — that the Senate, without which the city cannot stand, had been wholly removed from the city; that the consuls, who ought to have been the leaders of public counsel, had brought it about that, through them, public counsel itself was wholly being destroyed; that those who had most power were being set up in all contiones — falsely, but still alarmingly — as authors of my destruction; that contiones were being held against me daily; that no one was uttering a voice for me or for the commonwealth; that the standards of the legions were thought to be aimed at your throats and goods — falsely, but yet so thought; that the old forces of the conspirators and that scattered, overpowered, unwelcome band of Catiline had been renewed by a new leader and an unhoped-for change of things: when I saw these things, what was I to do, members of the jury?
haec ergo cum viderem,—neque enim erant occulta,—senatum, sine quo civitas stare non posset, omnino de civitate esse sublatum; consules, qui duces publici consili esse deberent, perfecisse ut per ipsos publicum consilium funditus tolleretur; eos qui plurimum possent opponi omnibus contionibus falso, sed formidolose tamen, auctores ad perniciem meam; contiones haberi cotidie contra me; vocem pro me ac pro re publica neminem mittere; intenta signa legionum existimari cervicibus ac bonis vestris falso, sed putari tamen; coniuratorum copias veteres et effusam illam ac superatam Catilinae importunam manum novo duce et insperata commutatione rerum esse renovatam:—haec cum viderem, quid agerem, iudices?
I know that then your zeal was not failing me, but my zeal was nearly failing yours. Should I, a private citizen, contend in arms against a tribune of the plebs? The good would have conquered the wicked, the brave the lazy; he would have been killed, the man who could only by this one medicine be driven off from the pestilence of the commonwealth. What then? Who would have stood for the rest? To whom, finally, was it doubtful that that tribunician blood, especially poured out by no public counsel, would have had the consuls as avengers and defenders? When a certain man had said in a contio that I must either perish once or conquer twice. What was it “to conquer twice”? This indeed: that, if I had fought it out with a most witless tribune of the plebs, I should have to fight with the consuls and the rest of his avengers.
scio enim tum non mihi vestrum studium, sed meum prope vestro defuisse. contenderem contra tribunum plebis privatus armis? vicissent improbos boni, fortes inertis; interfectus esset is qui hac una medicina sola potuit a rei publicae peste depelli. quid deinde? quis reliqua praestaret? cui denique erat dubium quin ille sanguis tribunicius, nullo praesertim publico consilio profusus, consules ultores et defensores esset habiturus? cum quidam in contione dixisset aut mihi semel pereundum aut bis esse vincendum. quid erat bis vincere? id profecto, ut, si cum amentissimo tribuno plebis decertassem, cum consulibus ceterisque eius ultoribus dimicarem.
I, indeed — even if I had to perish, and not to receive a stroke for me curable but for him who had inflicted it deadly — still, members of the jury, I would have preferred to perish once than to conquer twice; for that other contention was of such a kind that neither defeated nor victorious could we have held the commonwealth. What if, in the first contention, defeated by tribunician violence, I had fallen in the Forum with many good men? The consuls, I suppose, would have called the Senate, which they had wholly destroyed from the city; would have called to arms men who had not allowed the commonwealth to be defended even by dress. After his death they would have parted from the tribune of the plebs — they who had wished one and the same hour to be of my destruction and of their own rewards.
ego vero, vel si pereundum fuisset ac non accipienda plaga mihi sanabilis, illi mortifera qui imposuisset, semel perire tamen, iudices, maluissem quam bis vincere; erat enim illa altera eius modi contentio ut neque victi neque victores rem publicam tenere possemus. quid, si in prima contentione vi tribunicia victus in foro cum multis bonis viris concidissem? senatum consules, credo, vocassent, quem totum de civitate delerant; ad arma vocassent, qui ne vestitu quidem defendi rem publicam sissent; a tribuno plebis post interitum dissedissent, qui eandem horam meae pestis et suorum praemiorum esse voluissent.
But one course remained to me, which perhaps some brave and sharp and great-souled man would say: “You should have resisted, fought back, met death fighting.” On which point I call you, you, fatherland, to witness, and you, household and ancestral gods — that for the sake of your seats and temples, for the sake of the safety of my fellow-citizens (which has always been dearer to me than my own life) I have fled from a fight and slaughter. For if it had befallen me, sailing in some ship with my friends, members of the jury, that many pirates from many places threatened with their fleets to overpower that ship unless they had handed me over alone to them, and the passengers refused, and chose to perish with me rather than hand me over to enemies, I should rather have flung myself into the deep, that I might preserve the rest, than have led those so eager for me not only to certain death, but into the great risk of life.
unum autem mihi restabat illud quod forsitan non nemo vir fortis et acris animi magnique dixerit: restitisses, repugnasses, mortem pugnans oppetisses. de quo te, te, inquam, patria, testor et vos, penates patriique dei, me vestrarum sedum templorumque causa, me propter salutem meorum civium, quae mihi semper fuit mea carior vita, dimicationem caedemque fugisse. etenim si mihi in aliqua nave cum meis amicis naviganti hoc, iudices, accidisset, ut multi ex multis locis praedones classibus eam navem se oppressuros minitarentur nisi me unum sibi dedidissent, si id vectores negarent ac mecum simul interire quam me tradere hostibus mallent, iecissem ipse me potius in profundum, ut ceteros conservarem, quam illos mei tam cupidos non modo ad certam mortem, sed in magnum vitae discrimen adducerem.
But when, against this ship of state — the helm torn from the Senate, drifting in the deep among the storms of seditions and discords — so many armed fleets seemed about to charge unless I alone were given up; when proscription, slaughter, plunder were being announced; when some did not defend me from suspicion of their own danger, others were stirred up by old hatred of the good, others were envious, others judged me to stand in their way, others wished to avenge some grief of theirs, others hated the very commonwealth and this state of the good and our peace, and on all these so various counts demanded me alone — should I rather have fought it out, with the highest — I will not say destruction, but certainly peril of you and of your children, than that, what was hanging over all, I, one for all, should take upon myself and undergo?
cum vero in hanc rei publicae navem, ereptis senatui gubernaculis fluitantem in alto tempestatibus seditionum ac discordiarum, armatae tot classes, nisi ego essem unus deditus, incursurae viderentur, cum proscriptio, caedes, direptio denuntiaretur, cum alii me suspicione periculi sui non defenderent, alii vetere odio bonorum incitarentur, alii inviderent, alii obstare sibi me arbitrarentur, alii ulcisci dolorem aliquem suum vellent, alii rem ipsam publicam atque hunc bonorum statum otiumque odissent et ob hasce causas tot tamque varias me unum deposcerent, depugnarem potius cum summo non dicam exitio, sed periculo certe vestro liberorumque vestrorum, quam id quod omnibus impendebat unus pro omnibus susciperem ac subirem?
The wicked would have been beaten. “But they were citizens; and beaten by him, a private citizen, who without arms even, as consul, had preserved the commonwealth.” But if the good men had been beaten, who would have been left? Do you not see that the matter would have come down to slaves? Or was death, as some think, to be met by me with even mind? What? Was I then fleeing death? Was there any thing I could think more to be desired? When I was carrying through those so great matters in so great a multitude of the wicked, did not death, did not exile flit before my eyes? Were not these things, in the very doing of the deed, sung by me as fates? Was it for me, in so great a grief of my dear ones, in so great a separation, in so great a bitterness, in so great a stripping of all the things which either nature or fortune had given me, to keep my life? Was I so untaught, so ignorant of things, so devoid of counsel or talent? Had I heard nothing, seen nothing, learned nothing in my own reading and inquiry? Did I not know that the course of life is short, of glory eternal? That, since death has been set as the limit for all, it is to be wished that the life owed to necessity should rather seem to be given to the fatherland than reserved to nature? Did I not know that among the wisest men this had been a contention — some saying that the souls and feelings of men were extinguished at death; others, that the minds of wise and brave men were most awake and active when they had departed from the body; that of the two, the one was not to be fled (to lack feeling); the other even to be wished for (to feel a better feeling)?
victi essent improbi. at cives, at ab eo privato qui sine armis etiam consul rem publicam conservarat. sin victi essent boni, qui superessent? nonne ad servos videtis rem venturam fuisse? an mihi ipsi, ut quidam putant, fuit mors aequo animo oppetenda? quid? tum mortemne fugiebam? an erat res ulla quam mihi magis optandam putarem? aut ego illas res tantas in tanta improborum multitudine cum gerebam, non mihi mors, non exsilium ob oculos versabatur? non haec denique a me tum tamquam fata in ipsa re gerenda canebantur? an erat mihi in tanto luctu meorum, tanta diiunctione, tanta acerbitate, tanta spoliatione omnium rerum quas mihi aut natura aut fortuna dederat, vita retinenda? tam eram rudis, tam ignarus rerum, tam expers consili aut ingeni? nihil audieram, nihil videram, nihil ipse legendo quaerendoque cognoveram? nesciebam vitae brevem esse cursum, gloriae sempiternum? cum esset omnibus definita mors, optandum esse ut vita, quae necessitati deberetur, patriae potius donata quam reservata naturae videretur? nesciebam inter sapientissimos homines hanc contentionem fuisse, ut alii dicerent animos hominum sensusque morte restingui, alii autem tum maxime mentis sapientium ac fortium virorum, cum e corpore excessissent, sentire ac vigere? quorum alterum fugiendum non esse, carere sensu, alterum etiam optandum, meliore esse sensu.
Finally, since I had always referred everything to standing, and judged that without standing nothing in life was to be sought by a man, should I, a man of consular rank, after such great deeds done, fear death — which even maidens at Athens, the daughters, I take it, of king Erechtheus, are said to have despised for the fatherland? Especially since I was of that city from which C. Mucius alone came into the camp of Porsenna and tried to kill him with death set before him; from which P. Decius, first the father, after a few years the son endowed with his father’s virtue, devoted himself and his life, in the line of battle drawn up, for the safety and victory of the Roman people; from which countless others, partly for the gaining of praise, partly for the avoiding of disgrace, met death in various wars with the most even minds; in which city I myself remembered that the father of this M. Crassus, a most brave man, lest he should see his enemy victorious while he himself yet lived, drew off his own life with the same hand by which he had often offered death to enemies.
denique, cum omnia semper ad dignitatem rettulissem nec sine ea quicquam expetendum esse homini in vita putassem, mortem, quam etiam virgines Athenis, regis, opinor, Erechthei filiae, pro patria contempsisse dicuntur, ego vir consularis tantis rebus gestis timerem? praesertim cum eius essem civitatis ex qua C. Mucius solus in castra Porsennae venisset eumque interficere proposita sibi morte conatus esset; ex qua P. Decius primum pater, post aliquot annos patria virtute praeditus filius se ac vitam suam instructa acie pro salute populi Romani victoriaque devovisset; ex qua innumerabiles alii partim adipiscendae laudis, partim vitandae turpitudinis causa mortem in variis bellis aequissimis animis oppetissent; in qua civitate ipse meminissem patrem huius M. Crassi, fortissimum virum, ne videret victorem vivus inimicum, eadem sibi manu vitam exhausisse qua mortem saepe hostibus obtulisset.
I, thinking these and many other things, saw this: that if my death had taken away the public cause, there would never be anyone who would dare to take up against ruined citizens the safety of the commonwealth; and so, not only if I had perished by violence, but even if I had been put out by sickness, I judged that the example of preserving the commonwealth would perish with me. For who would ever, if I had not been recalled by the Senate and the Roman people with the so great zeal of all the good — which certainly, if I had been killed, could not have happened — dare to lay hand on any part of the commonwealth, with the least odium to himself? I have therefore preserved the commonwealth by my withdrawal, members of the jury: I have driven slaughter from you and your children, devastation, fires, plunderings, by my own grief and mourning; and I alone have preserved the commonwealth twice — once by glory, again by my hardship. And in this I shall never deny that I am a man, so that I might glory that I, without grief, have done without my best brother, my dearest children, my most loyal wife, your sight, my fatherland, this rank of office. Had I done this, what kindness would you have from me, when I had left for you those things which to me were of no value? This, in my own mind at least, ought to be the surest sign of my highest love for the fatherland — that, although I could not be away from it without the highest grief, I preferred to bear this myself than that it should be shaken by the wicked.
haec ego et multa alia cogitans hoc videbam, si causam publicam mea mors peremisset, neminem umquam fore qui auderet suscipere contra improbos civis salutem rei publicae; itaque non solum si vi interissem, sed etiam si morbo exstinctus essem, fore putabam ut exemplum rei publicae conservandae mecum simul interiret. quis enim umquam me a senatu populoque Romano tanto omnium bonorum studio non restituto,—quod certe, si essem interfectus, accidere non potuisset,—ullam rei publicae partem cum sua minima invidia auderet attingere? servavi igitur rem publicam discessu meo, iudices: caedem a vobis liberisque vestris, vastitatem, incendia, rapinas meo dolore luctuque depuli, et unus rem publicam bis servavi, semel gloria, iterum aerumna mea. neque enim in hoc me hominem esse infitiabor umquam, ut me optimo fratre, carissimis liberis, fidissima coniuge, vestro conspectu, patria, hoc honoris gradu sine dolore caruisse glorier; quod si fecissem, quod a me beneficium haberetis, cum pro vobis ea quae mihi essent vilia reliquissem? hoc meo quidem animo summi in patriam amoris mei signum esse debet certissimum, quod, cum abesse ab ea sine summo dolore non possem, hunc me perpeti quam illam labefactari ab improbis malui.
I remembered, members of the jury, that divine man, born from the same roots as we for the safety of this empire, C. Marius, who, in his highest age, when he had fled from the violence of nearly lawful arms, first hid his old man’s body in the marshes by sinking it down, then took refuge in the pity of the lowest and slenderest men of Minturnae, then in a very small boat, fleeing all ports and lands, came to the most deserted shores of Africa. And he kept his life, that he might not be unavenged, for the most uncertain hope and for the destruction of the commonwealth. I, who — as many in the Senate said in my absence — was living at the peril of the commonwealth, who for that reason was being commended to foreign nations by consular letters from the opinion of the Senate — if I had abandoned my life, should I not have betrayed the commonwealth? In which now, when I am restored, the example of public good faith lives with me. And if it is kept immortal, who does not understand that this city will be immortal?
memineram, iudices, divinum illum virum atque ex isdem quibus nos radicibus natum ad salutem huius imperi, C. Marium, summa senectute, cum vim prope iustorum armorum profugisset, primo senile corpus paludibus occultasse demersum, deinde ad infimorum ac tenuissimorum hominum Minturnensium misericordiam confugisse, inde navigio perparvo, cum omnis portus terrasque fugeret, in oras Africae desertissimas pervenisse. atque ille vitam suam, ne inultus esset, ad incertissimam spem et ad rei publicae interitum reservavit: ego qui, quem ad modum multi in senatu me absente dixerunt, periculo rei publicae vivebam, quique ob eam causam consularibus litteris de senatus sententia exteris nationibus commendabar, nonne, si meam vitam deseruissem, rem publicam prodidissem? in qua quidem nunc me restituto vivit mecum simul exemplum fidei publicae; quod si immortale retinetur, quis non intellegit immortalem hanc civitatem futuram?
For the foreign wars of kings, of peoples, of nations have long since been so extinguished that we deal splendidly with those whom we suffer to be at peace; finally, from a war’s victory hardly anyone has fallen into the envy of his fellow-citizens. Against domestic evils and the counsels of reckless citizens we must often resist; and the medicine of these dangers is in the keeping of the commonwealth — which medicine, members of the jury, you would all have lost, if by my destruction the power had been wrenched from the Senate and the Roman people of declaring their grief about me. Wherefore I warn you, young men, and I lay it down as a precept by my own right — you who look to standing, to the commonwealth, to glory: that, if some necessity at any time call you to defend the commonwealth against wicked citizens, you not be slacker, and shrink from brave counsels at the recollection of my misfortune.
nam externa bella regum, gentium, nationum iam pridem ita exstincta sunt ut praeclare cum iis agamus quos pacatos esse patiamur; denique ex bellica victoria non fere quemquam est invidia civium consecuta. domesticis malis et audacium civium consiliis saepe est resistendum, eorumque periculorum est in re publica retinenda medicina; quam omnem, iudices, perdidissetis, si meo interitu senatui populoque Romano doloris sui de me declarandi potestas esset erepta. qua re moneo vos, adulescentes, atque hoc meo iure praecipio, qui dignitatem, qui rem publicam, qui gloriam spectatis, ne, si quae vos aliquando necessitas ad rem publicam contra improbos civis defendendam vocabit, segniores sitis et recordatione mei casus a consiliis fortibus refugiatis.
First, there is no danger that anyone shall ever fall in with such consuls, especially if to those that has been paid in full what is owed them. Then, never now, as I hope, will any wicked man say that he is being attacked, with the counsel and aid of the good, in the commonwealth, while they are silent; nor will he set the terror of an armed army against the togaed; nor will there be just cause for a general sitting at the gates to allow his terror to be falsely paraded and set against. Nor, again, will the Senate ever be so oppressed that it has not even the power of supplication and mourning, nor the equestrian order so captive that Roman knights are banished by a consul. Although these things, and even many far greater that I deliberately pass by, befell, you see me, nevertheless, recalled to my pristine standing in a short time, with a moment of grief interposed, by the voice of the commonwealth.
primum non est periculum ne quis umquam incidat in eius modi consules, praesertim si erit iis id quod debetur persolutum. deinde numquam iam, ut spero, quisquam improbus consilio et auxilio bonorum se oppugnare rem publicam dicet illis tacentibus, nec armati exercitus terrorem opponet togatis; neque erit iusta causa ad portas sedenti imperatori qua re suum terrorem falso iactari opponique patiatur. numquam autem erit tam oppressus senatus ut ei ne supplicandi quidem ac lugendi sit potestas, tam captus equester ordo ut equites Romani a consule relegentur. quae cum omnia atque etiam multo alia maiora, quae consulto praetereo, accidissent, videtis me tamen in meam pristinam dignitatem brevi tempore doloris interiecto rei publicae voce esse revocatum.
But to return to that which throughout this whole speech I have set out for myself — that the commonwealth was that year, by the wickedness of the consuls, brought low by every evil — on that very day, mournful for me, sorrowful for all good men, when I had torn myself from the embrace of the fatherland and from your sight, and had yielded, from fear of your danger, not my own, to the rage, the wickedness, the perfidy, the weapons and threats of a man, and had left the fatherland — which to me was dearest — for the love of that very fatherland; when not only men, but the roofs of the city and the temples mourned my so horrible, so grave, so sudden misfortune; when none of you wished to look on the Forum, none on the Curia, none on the daylight: on that very day, I say — “day,” did I say? rather, in the very same hour and at the same point of time as my and the commonwealth’s destruction — the province was put up to vote for Gabinius and Piso. By the immortal gods, guardians and preservers of this city and empire, what monstrosities, what wickednesses you saw in the commonwealth! A citizen had been driven out who had defended the commonwealth from the authority of the Senate with all the good men, and driven out for no other charge than that very one; he had been driven out without trial, by violence, with stones, with iron, finally with slaves stirred up; the law had been carried with the Forum laid waste and abandoned and given over to assassins and slaves — and that the law that, that it should not be carried, the Senate had been in changed dress.
sed ut revertar ad illud quod mihi in hac omni est oratione propositum, omnibus malis illo anno scelere consulum rem publicam esse confectam, primum illo ipso die, qui mihi funestus fuit, omnibus bonis luctuosus, cum ego me e complexu patriae conspectuque vestro eripuissem, et metu vestri periculi, non mei, furori hominis, sceleri, perfidiae, telis minisque cessissem, patriamque, quae mihi erat carissima, propter ipsius patriae caritatem reliquissem, cum meum illum casum tam horribilem, tam gravem, tam repentinum non solum homines sed tecta urbis ac templa lugerent, nemo vestrum forum, nemo curiam, nemo lucem aspicere vellet: illo, inquam, ipso die—die dico? immo hora atque etiam puncto temporis eodem mihi reique publicae pernicies, Gabinio et Pisoni provincia rogata est. pro di immortales, custodes et conservatores huius urbis atque imperi, quaenam illa in re publica monstra, quae scelera vidistis! civis erat expulsus is qui rem publicam ex senatus auctoritate cum omnibus bonis defenderat, et expulsus non alio aliquo, sed eo ipso crimine; erat autem expulsus sine iudicio, vi, lapidibus, ferro, servitio denique concitato; lex erat lata vastato ac relicto foro et sicariis servisque tradito, et ea lex quae ut ne ferretur senatus fuerat veste mutata.
In so great a confusion of the city, the consuls did not allow even night to come between my destruction and their own booty: at once, with me struck down, to drink my blood and, with the commonwealth still breathing, to strip its spoils, they flew. I leave aside the congratulations, the feasts, the dividing-up of the treasury, the kindnesses, the hope, the promises, the booty, the joy of the few in the mourning of all. My wife was harassed; my children were sought for slaughter; my son-in-law — and Piso my son-in-law — was thrust away as suppliant from the feet of the consul Piso; my goods were plundered and were brought to the consuls; my house was burning on the Palatine: the consuls were feasting. And if they rejoiced at my discomfort, still they should have been moved by the danger of the city.
hac tanta perturbatione civitatis ne noctem quidem consules inter meum interitum et suam praedam interesse passi sunt: statim me perculso ad meum sanguinem hauriendum, et spirante etiam re publica ad eius spolia detrahenda advolaverunt. omitto gratulationes, epulas, partitionem aerari, beneficia, spem, promissa, praedam, laetitiam paucorum in luctu omnium. vexabatur uxor mea, liberi ad necem quaerebantur, gener, et Piso gener, a Pisonis consulis pedibus supplex reiciebatur, bona diripiebantur eaque ad consules deferebantur, domus ardebat in Palatio: consules epulabantur. quod si meis incommodis laetabantur, urbis tamen periculo commoverentur.
But, that I may now withdraw from my own case, recall the rest of the pestilences of that year — so will you most easily perceive what great force of all remedies the commonwealth missed from its closest magistrates — the multitude of laws, both of those carried and indeed of those that were promulgated. For they were carried by those consuls — shall I say, while they were silent? rather, even with them approving — so that the censorial power of marking and the gravest verdict of that most sacred magistracy on the commonwealth was abolished; so that the political clubs (collegia) not only were those old ones restored against the senatus consultum, but innumerable others, new ones, were enrolled by one gladiator; so that, by the remission of the five-twelfths, almost a fifth part of the revenues was abolished; so that to Gabinius, in place of his Cilicia (which he had bargained for himself, if he should betray the commonwealth) Syria was given; and to that one glutton, by a new law, the power of deliberating twice on the same matter and of changing his province after the law was carried was given.
sed ut a mea causa iam recedam, reliquas illius anni pestis recordamini—sic enim facillime perspicietis quantam vim omnium remediorum a magistratibus proximis res publica desiderarit—legum multitudinem, cum earum quae latae sunt, tum vero quae promulgatae fuerunt. nam latae quidem sunt consulibus illis—tacentibus dicam? immo vero etiam adprobantibus; ut censoria notio et gravissimum iudicium sanctissimi magistratus de re publica tolleretur, ut conlegia non modo illa vetera contra senatus consultum restituerentur, sed ab uno gladiatore innumerabilia alia nova conscriberentur, ut remissis senis et trientibus quinta prope pars vectigalium tolleretur, ut Gabinio pro illa sua Cilicia, quam sibi, si rem publicam prodidisset, pactus erat, Syria daretur, et uni helluoni bis de eadem re deliberandi et rogata lege potestas per nov am legem fieret provinciae commutandae.
I leave aside that law which by one bill wiped out all the rights of religion, of the auspices, of the magistracies, all the laws which are about the right and the time of carrying laws; I leave aside every domestic stain. We were seeing even foreign nations shaken by the fury of that year. By a tribunician law that famous Pessinuntine priest of the Mother Goddess was driven out and stripped of his priesthood, and a shrine of the most sacred and most ancient religion was sold for great money to Brogitarus, an impure man and unworthy of that religion, especially since he had sought it not for the sake of worshipping it but of violating it. Men were named kings by the people who had never sought that even from the Senate. Exiles were brought back to Byzantium who had been condemned, at the very time when uncondemned citizens were being thrust out from their city.
mitto eam legem quae omnia iura religionum, auspiciorum, potestatum, omnis leges quae sunt de iure et de tempore legum rogandarum, una rogatione delevit; mitto omnem domesticam labem: etiam exteras nationes illius anni furore conquassatas videbamus. lege tribunicia Matris magnae Pessinuntius ille sacerdos expulsus et spoliatus sacerdotio est, fanumque sanctissimarum atque antiquissimarum religionum venditum pecunia grandi Brogitaro, impuro homini atque indigno illa religione, praesertim cum eam sibi ille non colendi, sed violandi causa adpetisset; appellati reges a populo qui id numquam ne a senatu quidem postulassent; reducti exsules Byzantium condemnati tum cum indemnati cives e civitate eiciebantur.
King Ptolemy, who, although he had not yet himself been called an ally by the Senate, was yet the brother of that other king who, though in the same case, had already obtained that honour from the Senate; he was of the same line and same ancestors, of the same antiquity of alliance; finally, he was a king, if not yet an ally, at least not an enemy: at peace, quiet, relying on the empire of the Roman people, was enjoying his ancestral kingdom and royal leisure: about him, who was thinking nothing, suspecting nothing, with the same gangs casting the votes, a bill was passed that, sitting with his purple and sceptre and those royal insignia, he should be exposed to the public crier; and, with the Roman people commanding (which has been used to give back kingdoms even to kings conquered in war), a friendly king, with no injury recalled, with no things demanded back, was made public property along with all his goods.
rex Ptolomaeus, qui, si nondum erat ipse a senatu socius appellatus, erat tamen frater eius regis qui, cum esset in eadem causa, iam erat a senatu honorem istum consecutus, erat eodem genere eisdemque maioribus, eadem vetustate societatis, denique erat rex, si nondum socius, at non hostis; pacatus, quietus, fretus imperio populi Romani regno paterno atque avito regali otio perfruebatur—: de hoc nihil cogitante, nihil suspicante, eisdem operis suffragium ferentibus, est rogatum ut sedens cum purpura et sceptro et illis insignibus regiis praeconi publico subiceretur, et imperante populo Romano, qui etiam bello victis regibus regna reddere consuevit, rex amicus nulla iniuria commemorata, nullis rebus repetitis, cum bonis omnibus publicaretur.
Many bitter, many shameful, many turbulent things that year had; yet to that wickedness which their monstrous nature put forth against me, I do not know whether we may rightly say this is next. Antiochus the Great — our ancestors, when he had been overcome by a great straining of war by land and sea, ordered to reign within Mount Taurus; Asia, with which they had punished him, they made over to Attalus, that he should reign in it. With Tigranes, king of the Armenians, we ourselves lately waged a serious and long war, when he, by inflicting injuries on our allies, had nearly provoked us to war. He was both himself, of his own, a vehement man, and he defended Mithridates, the sharpest enemy of this empire, driven from Pontus, with his own resources and kingdom; and when he was driven out by L. Lucullus, that highest man and general, he yet remained, with hostile mind, in his pristine intent with his remaining forces. This man Cn. Pompeius, when he had seen him cast down as suppliant in his own camp, raised up; and the royal insignia, which he had thrown off from his head, restored, and, with certain things commanded, ordered him to reign; and he thought a king set up by him no less glorious to himself and to this empire than he would seem if bound.
multa acerba, multa turpia, multa turbulenta habuit ille annus; tamen illi sceleri quod in me illorum immanitas edidit haud scio an recte hoc proximum esse dicamus. Antiochum Magnum illum maiores nostri magna belli contentione terra marique superatum intra montem Taurum regnare iusserunt: Asiam, qua illum multarunt, Attalo, ut is regnaret in ea, condonaverunt. Cum Armeniorum rege Tigrane grave bellum nuper ipsi diuturnumque gessimus, cum ille iniuriis in socios nostros inferendis bello prope nos lacessisset. hic et ipse per se vehemens fuit et acerrimum hostem huius imperi Mithridatem pulsum Ponto opibus suis regnoque defendit, et a L. Lucullo, summo viro atque imperatore, pulsus animo tamen hostili cum reliquis suis copiis in pristina mente mansit. hunc Cn. Pompeius cum in suis castris supplicem abiectum vidisset erexit, atque insigne regium, quod ille de suo capite abiecerat, reposuit et certis rebus imperatis regnare iussit, nec minus et sibi et huic imperio gloriosum putavit constitutum a se regem quam constrictum videri.
The man who was himself an enemy of the Roman people, and received the sharpest enemy into his kingdom, who fought, who joined standards, who almost contended for empire — reigns today, and the name of friendship and alliance, which he had violated by arms, this he has obtained by prayers; that wretched Cyprian, who was always a friend, always an ally, about whom no harsher suspicion was ever brought to the Senate or to our generals — alive, as they say, and seeing, with his food and clothing, was made public property. There you see why other kings should think their fortune stable, when by the example handed down from that mournful year they see that, through some tribune and six hundred gangs, they can be stripped of their fortunes and stripped of their whole kingdom.
qui et ipse hostis fuit populi Romani et acerrimum hostem in regnum recepit, qui conflixit, qui signa contulit, qui de imperio paene certavit, regnat hodie et amicitiae nomen ac societatis, quod armis violarat, id precibus est consecutus: ille Cyprius miser, qui semper amicus, semper socius fuit, de quo nulla umquam suspicio durior aut ad senatum aut ad imperatores adlata nostros est, vivus, ut aiunt, est et videns cum victu ac vestitu suo publicatus. em cur ceteri reges stabilem esse suam fortunam arbitrentur, cum hoc illius funesti anni prodito exemplo videant per tribunum aliquem et sescentas operas se fortunis spoliari et regno omni posse nudari!
But they wished even by that business to stain the splendour of M. Cato — ignorant of what gravity, what integrity, what greatness of soul, what, finally, virtue is worth, which in a savage tempest is calm and shines in the shadows and, driven from its place, yet stays and clings in its fatherland and shines through itself always, nor is ever dimmed by another’s filth. They thought that M. Cato was not to be honoured but banished, nor that the business should be entrusted to him but laid upon him — they who in a contio openly said that they had torn out M. Cato’s tongue, which had always been free against extraordinary powers. They will perceive, as I hope, in a short time, that that liberty remains, and that, if it can be, it is even greater because, with those consuls, M. Cato, even when he had despaired that anything could be accomplished by his authority, yet fought with his very voice and grief; and after my departure he so harassed Piso with weeping words — weeping for my and the commonwealth’s misfortune — that that most ruined and shameless man came near already to repenting of his province.
at etiam eo negotio M. Catonis splendorem maculare voluerunt ignari quid gravitas, quid integritas, quid magnitudo animi, quid denique virtus valeret, quae in tempestate saeva quieta est et lucet in tenebris et pulsa loco manet tamen atque haeret in patria splendetque per sese semper neque alienis umquam sordibus obsolescit. non illi ornandum M. Catonem sed relegandum, nec illi committendum illud negotium sed imponendum putaverunt, qui in contione palam dixerint linguam se evellisse M. Catoni, quae semper contra extraordinarias potestates libera fuisset. sentient, ut spero, brevi tempore manere libertatem illam, atque hoc etiam, si fieri potuerit, esse maiorem, quod cum consulibus illis M. Cato, etiam cum iam desperasset aliquid auctoritate sua profici posse, tamen voce ipsa ac dolore pugnavit, et post meum discessum iis Pisonem verbis flens meum et rei publicae casum vexavit ut illum hominem perditissimum atque impudentissimum paene iam provinciae paeniteret.
Why, then, did he obey the bill? As if indeed he had not, before this, sworn to other laws also which he had thought unjustly carried! He does not offer himself to those rashnesses, that, when it is of no service to the commonwealth, he should deprive the commonwealth of himself the citizen. When I was consul, when he was tribune-elect, he offered his life into the risk; he gave that opinion whose unpopularity he saw must be made good with peril of his head; he spoke vehemently, he acted sharply; what he felt he carried before him; he was leader, author, doer of those things, not because he did not see his own danger, but in so great a tempest of the commonwealth he thought that he should think of nothing except the dangers of the fatherland.
cur igitur rogationi paruit? quasi vero ille non in alias quoque leges, quas iniuste rogatas putaret, iam ante iurarit! non offert se ille istis temeritatibus, ut, cum rei publicae nihil prosit, se civi rem publicam privet. consule me cum esset designatus tribunus plebis, obtulit in discrimen vitam suam; dixit eam sententiam cuius invidiam capitis periculo sibi praestandam videbat; dixit vehementer, egit acriter; ea quae sensit prae se tulit; dux, auctor, actor rerum illarum fuit, non quo periculum suum non videret, sed in tanta rei publicae tempestate nihil sibi nisi de patriae periculis cogitandum putabat.
His own tribunate followed. What shall I say of the singular greatness of his soul and his incredible virtue? You remember that day when, the temple seized by his colleague, with all of us fearing for the life of that man and citizen, he himself with the firmest spirit came into the temple, and by his authority calmed the shouting of men, by his virtue the rush of the wicked. He went into danger then, but he went into it for that cause whose magnitude it is now no longer needful for me to speak of. But if he had not obeyed that most criminal Cyprian bill, that disgrace would still cling to the commonwealth no less; for, the kingdom now being publicly auctioned, the proposal had been made about Cato himself by name; and if he had refused, do you doubt that violence would have been used against him, when all the acts of that year seemed to be shaken through that one man?
consecutus est ipsius tribunatus. quid ego de singulari magnitudine animi eius ac de incredibili virtute dicam? meministis illum diem cum, templo a conlega occupato, nobis omnibus de vita eius viri et civis timentibus, ipse animo firmissimo venit in templum, et clamorem hominum auctoritate impetum improborum virtute sedavit. adiit tum periculum, sed adiit ob eam causam quae quanta fuerit iam mihi dicere non est necesse. at si isti Cypriae rogationi sceleratissimae non paruisset, haereret illa nihilo minus rei publicae turpitudo; regno enim iam publicato de ipso Catone erat nominatim rogatum; quod ille si repudiasset, dubitatis quin ei vis esset adlata, cum omnia acta illius anni per unum illum labefactari viderentur?
And he saw also this: that, since that stain of the publicly-auctioned kingdom remained on the commonwealth, which now no one could wash away, what good might come to the commonwealth out of evils, this would be more useful to be preserved by him than to be scattered by others. And he, even if by some other violence he were driven out from this city in those times, would have borne it easily. For he who had been without the Senate the previous year — in which, if he had then come, he could yet have seen me as a partner in his commonwealth’s counsels — could he with even mind have been in this city when I was driven out, and in my name both the whole Senate had been condemned and his own opinion? He yielded to the same time as we, the same fury, the same consuls, the same threats, snares, dangers. We drew up a greater grief; he, no less grief of mind.
atque etiam hoc videbat, quoniam illa in re publica macula regni publicati maneret, quam nemo iam posset eluere, quod ex malis boni posset in rem publicam pervenire, id utilius esse per se conservari quam per alios dissipari. atque ille etiam si alia quapiam vi expelleretur illis temporibus ex hac urbe, facile pateretur. etenim qui superiore anno senatu caruisset, quo si tum veniret me tamen socium suorum in re publica consiliorum videre posset, is aequo animo tum, me expulso et meo nomine cum universo senatu tum sententia sua condemnata, in hac urbe esse posset? ille vero eidem tempori cui nos, eiusdem furori, eisdem consulibus, eisdem minis insidiis periculis cessit. luctum nos hausimus maiorem, dolorem ille animi non minorem.
On these so many and so great injuries against allies, against kings, against free communities there ought to have been a complaint of the consuls: in the keeping of that magistracy kings and foreign nations have always been. Was any voice ever heard of those consuls? Although who would listen, if they wished most to complain? Should they complain about the Cyprian king, when they — a citizen of mine, by no charge of mine, struggling under the name of his fatherland — not only did not defend me standing but did not even cover me when I was lying down? I had yielded — if you wish (which it was not) the plebs to have been alienated from me — to unpopularity; if everything seemed to be moved, to the time; if violence was beneath, to arms; if the partnership of the magistrates, to a pact; if the danger of citizens, to the commonwealth.
his de tot tantisque iniuriis in socios, in reges, in civitates liberas consulum querela esse debuit: in eius magistratus tutela reges atque exterae nationes semper fuerunt. ecquae vox umquam est audita consulum? quamquam quis audiret, si maxime queri vellent? de Cyprio rege quererentur qui me civem, nullo meo crimine, patriae nomine laborantem, non modo stantem non defenderunt sed ne iacentem quidem protexerunt? cesseram, si alienam a me plebem fuisse vultis, quae non fuit, invidiae; si commoveri omnia videbantur, tempori; si vis suberat, armis; si societas magistratuum, pactioni; si periculum civium, rei publicae.
Why, when about a citizen’s life — I do not argue what kind of citizen — and goods a proscription was being carried, when both by the sacred laws and by the Twelve Tables it was sanctioned that no privilege might be enacted against anyone, and that nothing about a citizen’s life might be put to a vote except in the centuriate assembly — was no voice heard from the consuls, and was it laid down in that year, so far as it lay in those two pestilences of this empire, that, by right, by stirred-up gangs, any citizen at all might be cast out by name from the city by the assembly of a tribune of the plebs?
cur, cum de capite civis—non disputo cuius modi civis—et de bonis proscriptio ferretur, cum et sacratis legibus et duodecim tabulis sanctum esset ut ne cui privilegium inrogari liceret neve de capite nisi comitiis centuriatis rogari, nulla vox est audita consulum, constitutumque est illo anno, quantum in illis duabus huius imperi pestibus fuit, iure posse per operas concitatas quemvis civem nominatim tribuni plebis concilio ex civitate exturbari?
What of the things that were promulgated in that year, what promised to many, what drawn up, what hoped for, what plotted — what shall I say? What place in the world was not by now destined for someone? What care of any public business could be thought of, wished for, fashioned, that had not been allotted and parcelled out? What kind of command, or what province, what plan either of casting or of melting down money was not being found? What region or coast of the lands was wider in which some kingdom was not being set up? Who was a king who, in that year, did not think he must either buy what he did not have, or buy back what he had? Who was seeking from the Senate a province, who money, who an embassy? For men condemned of violence, restitution; the canvassing for the consulship was being prepared for that very popular priest. These things the good men groaned at, the wicked hoped for; the tribune of the plebs was acting; the consuls were helping.
quae vero promulgata illo anno fuerint, quae promissa multis, quae conscripta, quae sperata, quae cogitata, quid dicam? qui locus orbi terrae iam non erat alicui destinatus? cuius negoti publici cogitari, optari, fingi curatio potuit quae non esset attributa atque discripta? quod genus imperi aut quae provincia, quae ratio aut flandae aut conflandae pecuniae non reperiebatur? quae regio orave terrarum erat latior in qua non regnum aliquod statueretur? quis autem rex erat qui illo anno non aut emendum sibi quod non habebat, aut redimendum quod habebat arbitraretur? quis provinciam, quis pecuniam, quis legationem a senatu petebat? damnatis de vi restitutio, consulatus petitio ipsi illi populari sacerdoti comparabatur. haec gemebant boni, sperabant improbi, agebat tribunus plebis, consules adiuvabant.
Here at last, later than he himself wished, Cn. Pompeius — with the most unwilling of those who, by their own counsels and feigned terrors, had turned away the mind of that best and bravest man from the defence of my preservation — stirred up that his own habit of conducting the commonwealth well, not put to sleep but retarded by some suspicion. He did not bear it, that man who had subdued the most criminal citizens, the sharpest enemies, the greatest nations, kings, wild and unheard-of races, an infinite band of pirates, even slaves, by virtue and by victory; who, with all wars by land and sea pressed down, had set the empire of the Roman people within the bounds of the world — he did not bear that the commonwealth should be overturned by the wickedness of a few, which he himself had often saved not only by counsels but even by his blood. He came forward to the public cause, by his authority resisted the rest, complained about the past.
hic aliquando, serius quam ipse vellet, Cn. Pompeius invitissimis iis qui mentem optimi ac fortissimi viri suis consiliis fictisque terroribus a defensione meae salutis averterant, excitavit illam suam non sopitam, sed suspicione aliqua retardatam consuetudinem rei publicae bene gerendae. non est passus ille vir, qui sceleratissimos civis, qui acerrimos hostis, qui maximas nationes, qui reges, qui gentis feras atque inauditas, qui praedonum infinitam manum, qui etiam servitia virtute victoriaque domuisset, qui omnibus bellis terra marique compressis imperium populi Romani orbis terrarum terminis definisset, rem publicam everti scelere paucorum, quam ipse non solum consiliis sed etiam sanguine suo saepe servasset: accessit ad causam publicam, restitit auctoritate sua reliquis rebus, questus est de praeteritis.
A certain inclination toward better hope seemed to come about. The Senate in full session decreed concerning my return on the Kalends of June, no one dissenting, on the motion of L. Ninnius, whose loyalty and virtue in my cause never trembled. That Ligus, whoever he was, an addition to my enemies, interposed. The matter, and our cause, was already in such a place that it seemed to lift its eyes and live. Whoever there was who had touched any part of the Clodian wickedness in my mourning, wherever he had come, whatever trial he had undergone, was being condemned: no one was found who would confess that he had cast a vote concerning me. My brother had departed from Asia in great sorrow, but in still much greater grief. To him, coming to the city, the whole community had come out with tears and groaning. The Senate spoke more freely; the Roman knights ran together. That Piso, my son-in-law, to whom it was not allowed to bear the fruit of his devotion either from me or from the Roman people, was demanding from his kinsman his father-in-law; the Senate was rejecting everything unless the consuls had first put the question about me.
fieri quaedam ad meliorem spem inclinatio visa est. decrevit senatus frequens de meo reditu Kalendis Iuniis, dissentiente nullo, referente L. Ninnio, cuius in mea causa numquam fides virtusque contremuit. intercessit Ligus iste nescio qui, additamentum inimicorum meorum. res erat et causa nostra eo iam loci ut erigere oculos et vivere videretur. quisquis erat qui aliquam partem in meo luctu sceleris Clodiani attigisset, quocumque venerat, quod iudicium cumque subierat, damnabatur: inveniebatur nemo qui se suffragium de me tulisse confiteretur. decesserat ex Asia frater meus magno squalore, sed multo etiam maiore maerore. huic ad urbem venienti tota obviam civitas cum lacrimis gemituque processerat. loquebatur liberius senatus; concurrebant equites Romani; Piso ille, gener meus, cui fructum pietatis suae neque ex me neque a populo Romano ferre licuit, a propinquo suo socerum suum flagitabat; omnia senatus reiciebat, nisi de me primum consules rettulissent.
When the matter was now being held in our hands, and when the consuls, by the pact of the provinces, had lost all freedom — who, when private men in the Senate were demanding that they put the question on opinions about me, said that they feared the Clodian law: when they could no longer sustain this, a plot is entered into about the destruction of Cn. Pompeius. With which laid bare and the steel discovered, that man was shut up at home as long as my enemy was in his tribunate. About my return eight tribunes promulgated bills; from which it was understood that, in my absence, friends had not increased to me — especially in that fortune in which there were not, even, some whom I had thought to be friends — but that they had had always the same wish, not always the same liberty; for of the nine tribunes I had then had, one defected in my absence, who took for himself a surname from the masks of the Aelii, that he might seem to be more of that nation than of that race.
quae cum res iam manibus teneretur, et cum consules provinciarum pactione libertatem omnem perdidissent,—qui, cum in senatu privati ut de me sententias dicerent flagitabant, legem illi se Clodiam timere dicebant: cum hoc non possent iam diutius sustinere, initur consilium de interitu Cn. Pompei. quo patefacto ferroque deprenso, ille inclusus domi tam diu fuit quam diu inimicus meus in tribunatu. de meo reditu octo tribuni promulgaverunt; ex quo intellectum est non mihi absenti crevisse amicos, in ea praesertim fortuna in qua non nulli etiam quos esse putaveram non erant, sed eos voluntatem semper eandem, libertatem non eandem semper habuisse; nam ex novem tribunis quos tunc habueram unus me absente defluxit, qui cognomen sibi ex Aeliorum imaginibus arripuit, quo magis nationis eius esse quam generis videretur.
In this year, then — the new magistrates being designated — when all good men had turned every hope of a better state upon their loyalty, P. Lentulus, the chief, by his authority and his opinion, with Piso and Gabinius opposing, took up the cause; and on the proposition of eight tribunes of the plebs spoke the most outstanding opinion concerning me. He, when he saw it would pertain more to his own glory and to the favour of so great a kindness for that cause to be reserved whole for his consulship, yet preferred such a thing to be brought about more swiftly through others than more slowly through him.
hoc igitur anno magistratibus novis designatis, cum omnes boni omnem spem melioris status in eorum fidem convertissent, princeps P. Lentulus auctoritate ac sententia sua, Pisone et Gabinio repugnantibus, causam suscepit, tribunisque plebis octo referentibus praestantissimam de me sententiam dixit. qui cum ad gloriam suam atque ad amplissimi benefici gratiam magis pertinere videret causam illam integram ad suum consulatum reservari, tamen rem talem per alios citius quam per se tardius confici malebat.
At this same time, members of the jury, P. Sestius, while tribune-elect, undertook a journey to C. Caesar for my preservation. He thought it pertained both to the concord of the citizens and to the facility of carrying it through that Caesar’s mind should not shrink from the cause. What he did, how much he made progress, has nothing to do with the case. For my part I judge that, if he were equal to us, as I think, nothing came forward from this man’s effort; but if he were rather angry, not much. Yet you see the man’s earnestness and integrity. I now enter on Sestius’s tribunate, for this first journey, while tribune-elect, he undertook for the sake of the commonwealth. That year went out; men seemed to have drawn breath, not yet in fact, but in hope of the commonwealth’s recovery. Two vultures in their general’s cloaks went out with evil omens and curses. Would that those things which men then prayed for had befallen the men themselves! We should not have lost the province of Macedonia with its army, nor the cavalry in Syria and the best cohorts.
hoc interim tempore P. Sestius, iudices, designatus iter ad C. Caesarem pro mea salute suscepit; pertinere et ad concordiam civium putavit et ad perficiundi facultatem animum Caesaris a causa non abhorrere. quid egerit, quantum profecerit, nihil ad causam. equidem existimo, si ille, ut arbitror, aequus nobis fuerit, nihil ab hoc profectum, sin iratior, non multum; sed tamen sedulitatem atque integritatem hominis videtis. ingredior iam in Sesti tribunatum, nam hoc primum iter designatus rei publicae causa suscepit; abiit ille annus; respirasse homines videbantur nondum re, sed spe rei publicae reciperandae. exierunt malis ominibus atque exsecrationibus duo vulturii paludati. quibus utinam ipsis evenissent ea quae tum homines precabantur! neque nos provinciam Macedoniam cum exercitu neque equitatum in Syria et cohortis optimas perdidissemus.
The tribunes of the plebs enter on their magistracy, all of whom had affirmed that they would promulgate concerning me. Of these the chief was bought up by my enemies — the man whom men in mourning, in derision, used to call Gracchus, since this was also the fate of the city, that little dormouse drawn out from the briar-patches should try to gnaw the commonwealth. The other — not that Serranus from the plough, but a man grafted from the deserted threshing-floor of Gavius Olelus, after the Gavii had been called out, into the Calatine Atilii — suddenly, his name being entered into the records, took his name off the record. The Kalends of January come. You can know these things better; for my part, I say what I have heard. What was the crowding of the Senate; what the expectation of the people; what the gathering of envoys from all Italy; what the virtue, action, gravity of the consul P. Lentulus; what the moderation also of his colleague concerning me. Who, when he had said that enmities had been undertaken by him with me from a difference about the commonwealth, said he would commit them to the senators and to the times of the commonwealth.
ineunt magistratum tribuni plebis, qui omnes se de me promulgaturos confirmarant. ex iis princeps emitur ab inimicis meis is quem homines in luctu inridentes Gracchum vocabant, quoniam id etiam fatum civitatis fuit ut illa ex vepreculis extracta nitedula rem publicam conaretur adrodere. alter vero, non ille Serranus ab aratro, sed ex deserta Gavi Oleli area calatis Gaviis in Calatinos Atilios insitus, subito, nominibus in tabulas relatis, nomen suum de tabula sustulit. veniunt Kalendae Ianuariae. vos haec melius scire potestis, equidem audita dico: quae tum frequentia senatus, quae exspectatio populi, qui concursus legatorum ex Italia cuncta, quae virtus, actio, gravitas P. Lentuli consulis fuerit, quae etiam conlegae eius moderatio de me. qui cum inimicitias sibi mecum ex rei publicae dissensione susceptas esse dixisset, eas se patribus conscriptis dixit et temporibus rei publicae permissurum.
Then the chief, being asked his opinion, L. Cotta said that which was most worthy of the commonwealth: that nothing had been done about me with right, nothing in the manner of our ancestors, nothing in the laws; that no one could be removed from the city without trial; that about a citizen’s life nothing could not only be carried but not even decided except in the centuriate assembly; that that had been violence, the flame of a shaken commonwealth and of disturbed times; that, with the right and the courts removed, with a great revolution impending, I had bent aside a little and, in hope of the remaining tranquillity, had fled the present waves and tempest; therefore, since I in my absence had no less freed the commonwealth from great dangers than at one time present, that not only should I be restored but even adorned by the Senate. He argued also many things prudently, that the most senseless and most ruined enemy of decency and modesty had so written about me what he had written, with such words, things, opinions, that, even if it had been carried by right, still it could not have force; therefore that I, who was absent under no law, should not be restored by a law, but called back by the Senate’s authority.
tum princeps rogatus sententiam L. Cotta dixit id quod dignissimum re publica fuit, nihil de me actum esse iure, nihil more maiorum, nihil legibus; non posse quemquam de civitate tolli sine iudicio; de capite non modo ferri, sed ne iudicari quidem posse nisi comitiis centuriatis; vim fuisse illam, flammam quassatae rei publicae perturbatorumque temporum; iure iudiciisque sublatis, magna rerum permutatione impendente, declinasse me paulum et spe reliquae tranquillitatis praesentis fluctus tempestatemque fugisse; qua re, cum absens rem publicam non minus magnis periculis quam quodam tempore praesens liberassem, non restitui me solum sed etiam ornari a senatu decere. disputavit etiam multa prudenter, ita de me illum amentissimum et profligatissimum hostem pudoris et pudicitiae scripsisse quae scripsisset, iis verbis rebus sententiis ut, etiam si iure esset rogatum, tamen vim habere non posset; qua re me, qui nulla lege abessem, non restitui lege, sed revocari senatus auctoritate oportere.
Of this man there was no one who would not say that he held the truest opinion. But after him Cn. Pompeius, being asked, having approved and praised Cotta’s opinion, said that he, for the sake of my peace, that I might be free from every popular stirring, was of opinion that to the authority of the Senate the kindness also of the Roman people should be added towards me. When all in rivalry, one and another, more weightily and more honourably, had spoken concerning my preservation, and the division was being made without any variation, he stood up, as you know, this Atilius Gavianus; and although he had been bought, he did not dare to interpose; he asked for the night for deliberation. The Senate’s outcry, complaints, prayers, my father-in-law cast at his feet. He affirmed that on the next day he would make no delay. He was believed; the meeting broke up. To that deliberator, meanwhile, with the long night interposed, the price was doubled. The days followed — few altogether in the month of January — in which it was lawful for the Senate to be held; but yet nothing was done except about me.
hunc nemo erat quin verissime sentire diceret. sed post eum rogatus Cn. Pompeius, adprobata laudataque Cottae sententia, dixit sese oti mei causa, ut omni populari concitatione defungerer, censere ut ad senatus auctoritatem populi quoque Romani beneficium erga me adiungeretur. Cum omnes certatim aliusque alio gravius atque ornatius de mea salute dixisset fieretque sine ulla varietate discessio, surrexit, ut scitis, Atilius hic Gavianus; nec ausus est, cum esset emptus, intercedere; noctem sibi ad deliberandum postulavit. clamor senatus, querelae, preces, socer ad pedes abiectus. ille se adfirmare postero die moram nullam esse facturum. creditum est; discessum est. illi interea deliberatori merces longa interposita nocte duplicata est. consecuti dies pauci omnino Ianuario mense per quos senatum haberi liceret; sed tamen actum nihil nisi de me.
When by every delay, mockery, calumny the Senate’s authority was being impeded, there came at last the day for an assembly to be held about me, the eighth before the Kalends of February. The author of the bill, a man most friendly to me, Q. Fabricius, occupied the temple a good while before dawn. Sestius was quiet that day — this man who is the defendant on a charge of violence; this actor and defender of my cause goes nowhere forward, awaits the counsels of my enemies. What? Those by whose counsel P. Sestius is called into court — in what manner do they bear themselves? When they had occupied the Forum, the Comitium, the Curia long before night with armed men and slaves for the most part, they make an attack on Fabricius, lay hands on him, kill some, wound many.
cum omni mora, ludificatione, calumnia senatus auctoritas impediretur, venit tandem concilio de me agendi dies, viii Kal. Febr. princeps rogationis, vir mihi amicissimus, Q. Fabricius, templum aliquanto ante lucem occupavit. quietus eo die Sestius, is qui est de vi reus; actor hic defensorque causae meae nihil progreditur, consilia exspectat inimicorum meorum. quid? illi quorum consilio P. Sestius in iudicium vocatur, quo se pacto gerunt? Cum forum, comitium, curiam multa de nocte armatis hominibus ac servis plerisque occupavissent, impetum faciunt in Fabricium, manus adferunt, occidunt non nullos, vulnerant multos.
Coming into the Forum the best and most steady man, M. Cispius, tribune of the plebs, they drove out by violence; they made the greatest slaughter in the Forum; and all of them, with drawn and bloody swords in every part of the Forum, with their eyes sought my brother, the best man, the bravest, and most loving of me, with their voice demanded him. To whose weapons that man would gladly, in such grief and longing for me, have offered his own body, not for the sake of fighting back but of dying, had he not kept his life for the hope of my return. Yet he underwent that wicked violence of those criminal bandits; and, when he had come to entreat my preservation from the Roman people, driven from the Rostra he lay in the Comitium, and covered himself with the bodies of slaves and freedmen, and at that time defended his life with the protection of night and flight, not of right and of the courts.
venientem in forum virum optimum et constantissimum, M. Cispium, tribunum plebis, vi depellunt, caedem in foro maximam faciunt, universique destrictis gladiis et cruentis in omnibus fori partibus fratrem meum, virum optimum, fortissimum meique amantissimum, oculis quaerebant, voce poscebant. quorum ille telis libenter in tanto luctu ac desiderio mei non repugnandi, sed moriendi causa corpus obtulisset suum, nisi suam vitam ad spem mei reditus reservasset. subiit tamen vim illam nefariam consceleratorum latronum et, cum ad fratris salutem a populo Romano deprecandam venisset, pulsus e rostris in comitio iacuit, seque servorum et libertorum corporibus obtexit, vitamque tum suam noctis et fugae praesidio non iuris iudiciorumque defendit.
You remember then, members of the jury, the Tiber filled with citizens’ bodies, the sewers stuffed, the blood wiped up from the Forum with sponges, so that all judged so great a force and so magnificent a furnishing to be no private or plebeian but patrician and praetorian thing. You bring no charge against Sestius either before this time or on this very most turbulent day. Yet violence was busy in the Forum. Certainly: for when greater? Stonings we have very often seen, not so often, but yet too often, swords; but slaughter so great, so great heaps of bodies piled up — except perhaps on that Cinnan and Octavian day — who ever saw in the Forum? From what stirring of minds? For from the obstinacy or steadiness of an interceder there often arises sedition, from the fault and wickedness of a proposer with some advantage offered to the inexperienced or with bribery, from the wrangling of magistrates; it arises gradually first from shouting, then from some breaking-up of the contio, scarcely late and rarely it comes to blows. But who has heard of a sedition stirred up at night, with no word said, no contio summoned, no law carried?
meministis tum, iudices, corporibus civium Tiberim compleri, cloacas refarciri, e foro spongiis effingi sanguinem, ut omnes tantam illam copiam et tam magnificum apparatum non privatum aut plebeium, sed patricium et praetorium esse arbitrarentur. nihil neque ante hoc tempus neque hoc ipso turbulentissimo die criminamini Sestium. atqui vis in foro versata est. certe; quando enim maior? lapidationes persaepe vidimus, non ita saepe, sed nimium tamen saepe gladios: caedem vero tantam, tantos acervos corporum exstructos, nisi forte illo Cinnano atque Octaviano die, quis umquam in foro vidit? qua ex concitatione animorum? nam ex pertinacia aut constantia intercessoris oritur saepe seditio, culpa atque improbitate latoris commodo aliquo proposito imperitis aut largitione, oritur ex concertatione magistratuum, oritur sensim ex clamore primum, deinde aliqua discessione contionis, vix sero et raro ad manus pervenitur: nullo vero verbo facto, nulla contione advocata, nulla lata lege concitatam nocturnam seditionem quis audivit?
Or is it likely that any Roman citizen or any free man came down into the Forum with a sword before daylight to keep the bill about me from being carried, except those who long since have been fattened on the blood of the commonwealth by that pestilential and ruined citizen? Here now I ask the very accuser, who complains that P. Sestius was in his tribunate with a multitude and with a great guard, whether he was there on that day. Certainly he was not. The cause of the commonwealth, then, was beaten, and beaten not by auspices, not by intercession, not by votes, but by violence, by the hand, by the sword. For if that praetor had announced against Fabricius who had said he had observed the heaven, the commonwealth would have taken a blow, but one which it could lament after taking; if his colleague had interposed against Fabricius, he would have hurt the commonwealth, but he would have hurt it by tribunician right. Will you let loose new-bought gladiators, foisted in for an expected aedileship, with assassins released from prison, before daylight? Will you cast down a magistrate from the temple, do the greatest slaughter, sweep the Forum? And, when you have done everything by violence and by arms, will you accuse him who has fortified himself by a guard, not to attack you, but to be able to defend his own life?
an veri simile est ut civis Romanus aut homo liber quisquam cum gladio in forum descenderit ante lucem, ne de me ferri pateretur, praeter eos qui ab illo pestifero ac perdito civi iam pridem rei publicae sanguine saginantur? hic iam de ipso accusatore quaero, qui P. Sestium queritur cum multitudine in tribunatu et cum praesidio magno fuisse, num illo die fuerit? certe non fuit. Victa igitur est causa rei publicae, et victa non auspiciis, non intercessione, non suffragiis, sed vi, manu, ferro. nam si obnuntiasset Fabricio is praetor qui se servasse de caelo dixerat, accepisset res publica plagam, sed eam quam acceptam gemere posset; si intercessisset conlega Fabricio, laesisset rem publicam, sed tribunicio iure laesisset. gladiatores tu novicios, pro exspectata aedilitate suppositos, cum sicariis e carcere emissis ante lucem inmittas? magistratus templo deicias, caedem maximam facias, forum purges? et cum omnia vi et armis egeris, accuses eum qui se praesidio munierit, non ut te oppugnaret, sed ut vitam suam posset defendere?
Yet from that very time Sestius did not aim at this — that, fenced in by his own men, he should safely hold his magistracy in the Forum, govern the commonwealth. So, trusting in the sanctity of the tribunate, when he thought himself armed by the sacred laws not only against violence and the sword but even against words and interruption, he came into the temple of Castor, and announced against the consul. When suddenly that Clodian band, often by now victorious in the slaughter of citizens, shouts, is set on, attacks; some assail with swords the unarmed and unprepared tribune, others with broken pieces of the railings and clubs; from whom this man, having received many wounds, his body weakened and torn to pieces, threw himself down half-dead, and by no other means did he ward off death from himself except by the appearance of death. When they saw him lying on the ground and slashed with very many wounds, with the last breath, bloodless and finished, more from weariness and mistake than from pity or moderation they at last left off cutting at him.
atqui ne ex eo quidem tempore id egit Sestius ut a suis munitus tuto in foro magistratum gereret, rem publicam administraret. itaque fretus sanctitate tribunatus, cum se non modo contra vim et ferrum sed etiam contra verba atque interfationem legibus sacratis esse armatum putaret, venit in templum Castoris, obnuntiavit consuli: cum subito manus illa Clodiana, in caede civium saepe iam victrix, exclamat, incitatur, invadit; inermem atque imparatum tribunum alii gladiis adoriuntur, alii fragmentis saeptorum et fustibus; a quibus hic multis vulneribus acceptis ac debilitato corpore et contrucidato se abiecit exanimatus, neque ulla alia re ab se mortem nisi opinione mortis depulit. quem cum iacentem et concisum plurimis vulneribus extremo spiritu exsanguem et confectum viderent, defetigatione magis et errore quam misericordia et modo aliquando caedere destiterunt.
And does Sestius plead his case on a charge of violence? Why so? Because he is alive. But that is no fault of his. The one final blow was wanting, which, had it been added, would have drawn out the remaining breath. Accuse Lentidius: he did not strike the place. Curse Titius, that Sabine from Reate, why he so rashly cried out that the man was killed. As for Sestius himself, what do you accuse? Did he fail the swords? Did he fight back? Did he, as gladiators are commonly bidden, refuse the iron? Or is this very thing the violence — not to be able to die? Or is it that, as tribune of the plebs, he stained the temple with blood? Or that, when he had been carried away and first come to himself, he did not order himself to be carried back? Where is the charge? What do you reprove?
et causam dicit Sestius de vi? quid ita? quia vivit. at id non sua culpa: plaga una illa extrema defuit, quae si accessisset reliquum spiritum exhausisset. accusa Lentidium; non percussit locum; male dic Titio, Sabino homini Reatino, cur tam temere exclamarit occisum. ipsum vero quid accusas? num defuit gladiis? num repugnavit? num, ut gladiatoribus imperari solet, ferrum non recepit? an haec ipsa vis est, non posse emori? an illa, quod tribunus plebis templum cruentavit? an quod, cum esset ablatus primumque resipisset, non se referri iussit? ubi est crimen? quid reprehenditis?
Here I ask, members of the jury: if on that day that Clodian people had brought about what they wished, if P. Sestius, who has been left for dead, had been killed — would you have gone to arms? Would you have stirred your minds to that ancestral spirit and the virtue of your forefathers? Would you have, at last, demanded back the commonwealth from a deadly bandit? Or would you even then be quiet, hesitate, fear, when you saw the commonwealth crushed and trampled on by the most criminal assassins and by slaves? Of him whose death you would avenge, then, if indeed you were thinking of being free and of having a commonwealth — about the virtue of him alive, what you ought to say, what to feel, what to think, what to judge — do you think it should be doubted?
hic quaero, iudices: si illo die gens ista Clodia quod facere voluit effecisset, si P. Sestius, qui pro occiso relictus est, occisus esset, fuistisne ad arma ituri? fuistisne vos ad patrium illum animum maiorumque virtutem excitaturi? fuistisne aliquando rem publicam a funesto latrone repetituri? an etiam tum quiesceretis, cunctaremini, timeretis, cum rem publicam a facinerosissimis sicariis et a servis esse oppressam atque conculcatam videretis? cuius igitur mortem ulcisceremini, si quidem liberi esse et habere rem publicam cogitaretis, de eius virtute vivi quid vos loqui, quid sentire, quid cogitare, quid iudicare oporteat, dubitandum putatis?
But indeed those very murderers, whose unbridled rage is fed by long impunity, so shuddered at the violence of their deed that, if the report of Sestius’s death had been a little longer, they had thought of killing that Gracchus of theirs in order to transfer the charge upon us. The little countryman — not careless — perceived (for the worthless men could not keep silent) that his own blood was being sought to extinguish the unpopularity of the Clodian deed; he snatched up a muleteer’s cloak with which he had first come to Rome for the elections, and covered himself with a reaper’s basket. When some sought “Numerius,” others “Quintius,” he was saved by the mistake of the twin name. And you all know how far the man was in danger till it became known that Sestius was alive; which, had it not been disclosed a little sooner than I should have wished, they would not have been able by the death of their hireling to transfer the unpopularity to those whom they thought, but they would have lessened the infamy of a most bitter wickedness by a kind of welcome wickedness.
at vero ipsi illi parricidae, quorum ecfrenatus furor alitur impunitate diuturna, adeo vim facinoris sui perhorruerant ut, si paulo longior opinio mortis Sesti fuisset, Gracchum illum suum transferendi in nos criminis causa occidere cogitarint. sensit rusticulus non incautus—neque enim homines nequam tacere potuerunt—suum sanguinem quaeri ad restinguendam invidiam facinoris Clodiani; mulioniam paenulam arripuit, cum qua primum Romam ad comitia venerat; messoria se corbe contexit. Cum quaererent alii Numerium, alii Quintium, gemini nominis errore servatus est. atque hoc scitis omnes, usque adeo hominem in periculo fuisse quoad scitum est Sestium vivere; quod ni esset patefactum paulo citius quam vellem, non illi quidem morte mercennarii sui transferre potuissent invidiam in quos putabant, sed acerbissimi sceleris infamiam grato quodam scelere minuissent.
And if then P. Sestius, members of the jury, in the temple of Castor had given up that life which he scarcely retained, I do not doubt that, if only there were a Senate in the commonwealth, if the majesty of the Roman people had revived, at last a statue would have been set up in the Forum to him, killed for the commonwealth’s sake. Nor indeed any of those whom you see, set in that place and on the Rostra by our ancestors after their death, ought to be preferred to P. Sestius either in bitterness of death or in spirit towards the commonwealth: who, when he had taken up the cause of an afflicted citizen, the cause of a friend, the cause of a man well-deserving of the commonwealth, the cause of the Senate, the cause of Italy, the cause of the commonwealth, and when, obeying the auspices and religion, he was announcing against what he had perceived, in broad daylight by criminal pestilences, in sight of gods and men, was killed in the most sacred temple, in the most sacred cause, in the most sacred magistracy. Will anyone, then, say his life should be stripped of its honours, whose death you would think should be honoured by an everlasting monument?
ac si tum P. Sestius, iudices, in templo Castoris animam quam vix retinuit edidisset, non dubito quin, si modo esset in re publica senatus, si maiestas populi Romani revixisset, aliquando statua huic ob rem publicam interfecto in foro statueretur. nec vero illorum quisquam quos a maioribus nostris morte obita positos in illo loco atque in rostris conlocatos videtis esset P. Sestio aut acerbitate mortis aut animo in rem publicam praeponendus; qui cum causam civis calamitosi, causam amici, causam bene de re publica meriti, causam senatus, causam Italiae, causam rei publicae suscepisset, cumque auspiciis religionique parens obnuntiaret quod senserat, luce palam a nefariis pestibus in deorum hominumque conspectu esset occisus sanctissimo in templo, sanctissima in causa, sanctissimo in magistratu. eius igitur vitam quisquam spoliandam ornamentis esse dicet, cuius mortem ornandam monumento sempiterno putaretis?
“You bought, gathered, made ready men,” he says. To do what? To besiege the Senate? To drive out uncondemned citizens? To plunder goods? To set fire to houses? To pull down roofs? To kindle the temples of the immortal gods? To drive out the tribunes of the plebs from the Rostra by the sword? To sell whatever provinces he wished to whomever he wished? To name kings? To bring back, through our envoys, into free communities men condemned of capital matters? To hold the chief man of the city beset by the sword? That he might be able to bring about these things, which could in no way come about except with the commonwealth crushed by arms — for that purpose, I take it, P. Sestius prepared a band and forces. But it was not yet ripe; the matter itself did not yet drive good men to such guards. We were defeated, not at all by that band alone, but yet not without that: you mourned in silence.
homines, inquit, emisti, coegisti, parasti. quid uti faceret? senatum obsideret? civis indemnatos expelleret? bona diriperet? aedis incenderet? tecta disturbaret? templa deorum immortalium inflammaret? tribunos plebis ferro e rostris expelleret? provincias quas vellet quibus vellet venderet? reges appellaret? rerum capitalium condemnatos in liberas civitates per legatos nostros reduceret? principem civitatis ferro obsessum teneret? haec ut efficere posset, quae fieri nisi armis oppressa re publica nullo modo poterant, idcirco, credo, manum sibi P. Sestius et copias comparavit. at nondum erat maturum; nondum res ipsa ad eius modi praesidia viros bonos compellebat. pulsi nos eramus, non omnino ista manu sola, sed tamen non sine ista: vos taciti maerebatis.
The Forum had been seized the previous year, the temple of Castor as some citadel occupied by fugitives: there was silence. Everything was being done by the shouting, running together, violence, and force of men ruined by both want and recklessness: you bore it. Magistrates were being driven from the temples; others were altogether kept from approach and from the Forum: no one resisted. Gladiators from the praetor’s escort, seized, brought into the Senate, confessing, thrown into chains by Milo, released by Serranus: no mention. The Forum strewn with the bodies of Roman citizens by night-slaughter: not only no new inquiry, but even the old courts were abolished. You saw a tribune of the plebs, having received more than twenty wounds, lying and dying. Of the other tribune of the plebs — a divine man (for I shall say what I feel, and what all feel with me): a divine man, endowed with a singular, unheard-of, new greatness of soul, gravity, faith — the house was attacked by sword, by torches, by the Clodian army.
captum erat forum anno superiore, aede Castoris tamquam arce aliqua a fugitivis occupata: silebatur. omnia hominum cum egestate tum audacia perditorum clamore, concursu, vi, manu gerebantur: perferebatis. magistratus templis pellebantur, alii omnino aditu ac foro prohibebantur: nemo resistebat. gladiatores ex praetoris comitatu comprensi, in senatum introducti, confessi, in vincla coniecti a Milone, emissi a Serrano: mentio nulla. forum corporibus civium Romanorum constratum caede nocturna: non modo nulla nova quaestio, sed etiam vetera iudicia sublata. tribunum plebis plus viginti vulneribus acceptis iacentem moribundumque vidistis: alterius tribuni plebis divini hominis—dicam enim quod sentio et quod mecum sentiunt omnes—divini, insigni quadam, inaudita, nova magnitudine animi, gravitate, fide praediti, domus est oppugnata ferro, facibus, exercitu Clodiano.
And you in this place praise Milo, and you praise him rightly. For when did we ever see a man of such immortal virtue? Who, with no reward set before him except this — which now is thought worn out and despised — the verdict of the good, took up all dangers, the highest labours, the gravest contentions and enmities; who alone of all citizens, it seems to me, taught by deed, not by words, both what ought to be done by outstanding men in the commonwealth, and what is necessary — that the wickedness of reckless men, overturners of the commonwealth, must be resisted by laws and by courts; if the laws should not have force, the courts not exist, if the commonwealth should be held down by violence and the consensus of reckless men with arms, that life and liberty must be defended with guard and forces. To feel this is of prudence; to do it, of bravery; both to feel and to do is of perfect and heaped-up virtue.
et tu hoc loco laudas Milonem et iure laudas. quem enim umquam virum tam immortali virtute vidimus? qui nullo praemio proposito praeter hoc, quod iam contritum et contemptum putatur, iudicium bonorum, omnia pericula, summos labores, gravissimas contentiones inimicitiasque suscepit, qui mihi unus ex omnibus civibus videtur re docuisse, non verbis, et quid oporteret a praestantibus viris in re publica fieri et quid necesse esset: oportere hominum audacium, eversorum rei publicae, sceleri legibus et iudiciis resistere; si leges non valerent, iudicia non essent, si res publica vi consensuque audacium armis oppressa teneretur, praesidio et copiis defendi vitam et libertatem necesse esse. hoc sentire prudentiae est, facere fortitudinis; et sentire vero et facere perfectae cumulataeque virtutis.
T. Annius Milo went forward to the commonwealth as tribune of the plebs — about whose praise I shall speak more, not because he himself rather wishes these things to be said than thought, or I gladly bestow on him present the fruit of praise, especially since I cannot in words attain it, but because I judge that, if I have proved Milo’s cause praised by the very voice of the prosecutor, you will judge Sestius’s case in this charge equal: T. Annius, then, came to the cause of the commonwealth in such a way that he wished to recover the citizen torn away from his fatherland. The case simple, the plan steady, full of consensus of all, full of concord. He had his colleagues as helpers; the highest zeal of one consul, the spirit of the other almost reconciled; of the praetors one alien, the incredible wish of the Senate, the spirits of the Roman knights stirred to the cause, Italy upright. Two alone had been bought to obstruct; if those despised and contemptible men had not been able to sustain so great a thing, he saw he would carry through with no labour the cause he had taken up. He acted by authority, he acted by counsel, he acted through the highest order, he acted by the example of good and brave citizens: what was worthy of the commonwealth, what worthy of himself, who he himself was, what he should hope, what render to his ancestors, he most diligently considered.
adiit ad rem publicam tribunus plebis Milo—de cuius laude plura dicam, non quo aut ipse haec dici quam existimari malit aut ego hunc laudis fructum praesenti libenter impertiam, praesertim cum verbis consequi non possim, sed quod existimo, si Milonis causam accusatoris voce conlaudatam probaro, vos in hoc crimine parem Sesti causam existimaturos: adiit igitur T. Annius ad causam rei publicae sic ut civem patriae reciperare vellet ereptum. simplex causa, constans ratio, plena consensionis omnium, plena concordiae. conlegas adiutores habebat; consulis alterius summum studium, alterius animus paene placatus, de praetoribus unus alienus, senatus incredibilis voluntas, equitum Romanorum animi ad causam excitati, erecta Italia. duo soli erant empti ad impediendum; qui si homines despecti et contempti tantam rem sustinere non potuissent, se causam quam susceperat nullo labore peracturum videbat. agebat auctoritate, agebat consilio, agebat per summum ordinem, agebat exemplo bonorum ac fortium civium: quid re publica, quid se dignum esset, quis ipse esset, quid sperare, quid maioribus suis reddere deberet, diligentissime cogitabat.
To this gravity of the man that gladiator saw himself, if he should act by character, unable to be equal; he turned to the sword, the torches, daily slaughter, fires, plunderings with his army; he began to attack his house, to meet him on his ways, to provoke and terrify by violence. He did not move the man of the highest gravity and the highest steadiness; but although grief of mind, innate liberty, prompt and outstanding virtue urged the bravest man that he should break and beat back violence by violence, especially when it was so often offered, so great was the man’s moderation, so great his counsel, that he kept down his grief and did not avenge himself by the same thing by which he had been provoked, but to bind that man, by the snares of the laws, if he could — that man already exulting and dancing on so many funerals of the commonwealth.
huic gravitati hominis videbat ille gladiator se, si moribus ageret, parem esse non posse; ad ferrum, faces, ad cotidianam caedem, incendia, rapinas se cum exercitu suo contulit; domum oppugnare, itineribus occurrere, vi lacessere et terrere coepit. non movit hominem summa gravitate summaque constantia; sed quamquam dolor animi, innata libertas, prompta excellensque virtus fortissimum virum hortabatur vi vim, oblatam praesertim saepius, ut frangeret et refutaret, tanta moderatio fuit hominis, tantum consilium, ut contineret dolorem neque eadem se re ulcisceretur qua esset lacessitus, sed illum tot iam in funeribus rei publicae exsultantem ac tripudiantem legum, si posset, laqueis constringeret.
He came down to accuse. Who ever did so, on so peculiar a public ground, with no enmities, no rewards, no demand of men or even opinion that he would ever do it? The man’s spirits were broken; for, with this man as accuser, he was despairing of the disgrace of that pristine court of his. But behold, a consul, a praetor, a tribune of the plebs put forth new edicts of a new kind: that the defendant should not be present, should not be summoned, should not be inquired about, that no one should be allowed at all to make mention before the jurymen or of the courts! What was a man, born for virtue, standing, glory, to do, with the violence of criminal men strengthened, with laws and courts abolished? Should the tribune of the plebs, the most outstanding man, give his neck to a private man, the most ruined? Or should he afflict the cause he had taken up? Or should he stay at home? Both to be conquered he thought disgraceful, and to be deterred, and to be secretly snatched away. He aimed at this — that, since he could not use the laws against him, he should not fear that man’s violence either in his own peril or in the commonwealth’s.
descendit ad accusandum. quis umquam tam proprie rei publicae causa, nullis inimicitiis, nullis praemiis, nulla hominum postulatione aut etiam opinione id eum umquam esse facturum? fracti erant animi hominis; hoc enim accusante pristini illius sui iudici turpitudinem desperabat. ecce tibi consul, praetor, tribunus plebis nova novi generis edicta proponunt; ne reus adsit, ne citetur, ne quaeratur, ne mentionem omnino cuiquam iudicum aut iudiciorum facere liceat! quid ageret vir ad virtutem, dignitatem, gloriam natus vi sceleratorum hominum conroborata, legibus iudiciisque sublatis? cervices tribunus plebis privato, praestantissimus vir profligatissimo homini daret? an causam susceptam adfligeret? an se domi contineret? et vinci turpe putavit et deterreri et clam eripi: id egit ut, quoniam sibi in illum legibus uti non liceret, illius vim neque in suo neque in rei publicae periculo pertimesceret.
How then, in this kind of guard prepared, do you accuse Sestius, when you praise Milo? Or does he who defends his own roof, who from his hearth and altars wards off sword and flame, who wishes that he might be allowed to be safe in the Forum, in the temple, in the Curia — does he by right prepare a guard? While he who, by the wounds which he sees daily on his whole body, is warned to protect his head and his neck and his throat and his sides by some guard — this man do you think should be accused of violence?
quo modo igitur hoc in genere praesidi comparati accusas Sestium, cum idem laudes Milonem? an qui sua tecta defendit, qui ab aris focis ferrum flammamque depellit, qui sibi licere vult tuto esse in foro, in templo, in curia, iure praesidium comparat: qui vulneribus, quae cernit cotidie toto corpore, monetur ut aliquo praesidio caput et cervices et iugulum ac latera tutetur, hunc de vi accusandum putas?
For who of us, members of the jury, is ignorant that the nature of things has so brought it about that, at a certain time, men — with neither natural nor civil right yet set down — were spread out through the fields and dispersed and wandering, and had only so much as they had been able by hand and force, through slaughter and wounds, either to snatch away or to keep? Those, then, who first stood out as outstanding in virtue and counsel, having seen through the kind of human teachableness and talent, gathered the scattered into one place, and led them across from that wildness to justice and to gentleness. Then they fenced about with walls those things for the common usefulness which we call public, then the meeting-places of men, which afterwards were called communities, then the joined dwellings, which we call cities, and they invented both divine and human right.
quis enim nostrum, iudices, ignorat ita naturam rerum tulisse ut quodam tempore homines nondum neque naturali neque civili iure descripto fusi per agros ac dispersi vagarentur, tantumque haberent quantum manu ac viribus per caedem ac vulnera aut eripere aut retinere potuissent? qui igitur primi virtute et consilio praestanti exstiterunt, ii perspecto genere humanae docilitatis atque ingeni dissupatos unum in locum congregarunt eosque ex feritate illa ad iustitiam atque ad mansuetudinem transduxerunt. tum res ad communem utilitatem, quas publicas appellamus, tum conventicula hominum, quae postea civitates nominatae sunt, tum domicilia coniuncta, quas urbis dicimus, invento et divino iure et humano moenibus saepserunt.
And between this life polished by humanity and that monstrous one nothing differs so much as right and violence. Of these, whichever we are unwilling to use, we must use the other. We wish violence to be extinguished; right must necessarily prevail — that is, the courts, in which all right is contained. The courts displease, or there are none; violence must necessarily lord it. All see this. Milo both saw it and acted, that he should try right, drive off violence. He wished to use the one, that virtue might overcome recklessness; he used the other necessarily, that virtue might not be overcome by recklessness. The same reckoning was Sestius’s — if not in accusing, for it was not necessary that the same be done by all, then certainly in the necessity of defending his own preservation, and of preparing a guard against violence and the hand.
atque inter hanc vitam perpolitam humanitate et illam immanem nihil tam interest quam ius atque vis. Horum utro uti nolumus, altero est utendum. vim volumus exstingui, ius valeat necesse est, id est iudicia, quibus omne ius continetur; iudicia displicent aut nulla sunt, vis dominetur necesse est. hoc vident omnes: Milo et vidit et fecit, ut ius experiretur, vim depelleret. altero uti voluit, ut virtus audaciam vinceret; altero usus necessario est, ne virtus ab audacia vinceretur. eademque ratio fuit Sesti, si minus in accusando—neque enim per omnis fuit idem fieri necesse—at certe in necessitate defendendae salutis suae praesidioque contra vim et manum comparando.
O immortal gods! What outcome do you show us? What hope do you give the commonwealth? How rare a man will be found of such virtue that he should embrace each best cause of the commonwealth, devote himself to the good men, seek solid and true praise — when he knows that those two near-fates of the commonwealth, Gabinius and Piso, the one daily draws an unreckonable weight of gold from the most peaceful and most opulent treasures of Syria, brings war on the quiet, that he may pour out their old and untouched riches into the deepest gulf of his own lusts, builds a villa in the sight of all so great that now that hovel seems to be a villa which the very tribune of the plebs once unfolded painted in contiones — by which a chaste and not greedy man called the bravest and supreme citizen into unpopularity;
O di immortales! quemnam ostenditis exitum nobis? quam spem rei publicae datis? quotus quisque invenietur tanta virtute vir qui optimam quamque causam rei publicae amplectatur, qui bonis viris deserviat, qui solidam laudem veramque quaerat? cum sciat duo illa rei publicae paene fata, Gabinium et Pisonem, alterum haurire cotidie ex pacatissimis atque opulentissimis Syriae gazis innumerabile pondus auri, bellum inferre quiescentibus, ut eorum veteres inlibatasque divitias in profundissimum libidinum suarum gurgitem profundat, villam aedificare in oculis omnium tantam tugurium ut iam videatur esse illa villa quam ipse tribunus plebis pictam olim in contionibus explicabat, quo fortissimum ac summum civem in invidiam homo castus ac non cupidus vocaret;
the other first sold peace to the Thracians and Dardanians at the highest price, then, that they might be able to make up the money, handed over Macedonia to be harassed and stripped by them, and that same man divided the goods of creditors, of Roman citizens, with their Greek debtors, exacts the largest sums from the people of Dyrrhachium, plunders the Thessalians, has imposed a fixed sum yearly on the Achaeans, and yet has left in no public or sacred place a statue or picture or ornament; and they so make sport, on whom every punishment and every penalty is owed by the best right, while the defendants are these two whom you see. I leave aside now Numerius, Serranus, Aelius — the sweepings of the Clodian sedition; but yet these too even now flit about, as you see; nor, while you fear something for yourselves, will they ever fear for themselves.
alterum Thracibus ac Dardanis primum pacem maxima pecunia vendidisse, deinde, ut illi pecuniam conficere possent, vexandam iis Macedoniam et spoliandam tradidisse, eundemque bona creditorum, civium Romanorum, cum debitoribus Graecis divisisse, cogere pecunias maximas a Dyrrachinis, spoliare Thessalos, certam Achaeis in annos singulos pecuniam imperavisse neque tamen ullo in publico aut religioso loco signum aut tabulam aut ornamentum reliquisse; illos sic inludere quibus omne supplicium atque omnis iure optimo poena debetur, reos esse hos duos quos videtis. omitto iam Numerium, Serranum, Aelium, quisquilias seditionis Clodianae; sed tamen hi quoque etiam nunc volitant, ut videtis, nec, dum vos de vobis aliquid timebitis, illi umquam de se pertimescent.
For what shall I say of the aedile himself, who has even named a day and accused Milo on a charge of violence? Yet this man will never by any injury be brought to repent of having been of such virtue and so great firmness of mind in the commonwealth. But what young men who see these things — where shall they bend their minds? He who attacked, broke down, set on fire the public monuments, the sacred buildings, the houses of his enemies; who was always packed with assassins, fenced with armed men, fortified with informers, with whom today there is overflowing abundance; who both stirred up a foreign band of malefactors and bought slaves fit for slaughter and in his tribunate poured out the whole prison into the Forum — flits about as aedile, accuses one who in some part repressed his exulting fury. This man, who guarded himself in such a way that, in private things, he should defend his household gods, in public things, the rights and auspices of the tribunate, was not allowed by the Senate’s authority to accuse with measure the man by whom he himself is wickedly accused.
nam quid ego de aedili ipso loquar, qui etiam diem dixit et accusavit de vi Milonem? neque hic tamen ulla umquam iniuria adducetur ut eum tali virtute tantaque firmitate animi se in rem publicam fuisse paeniteat; sed qui haec vident adulescentes quonam suas mentis conferent? ille qui monumenta publica, qui aedis sacras, qui domos inimicorum suorum oppugnavit excidit incendit, qui stipatus semper sicariis, saeptus armatis, munitus indicibus fuit, quorum hodie copia redundat, qui et peregrinam manum facinerosorum concitavit et servos ad caedem idoneos emit et in tribunatu carcerem totum in forum effudit, volitat aedilis, accusat eum qui aliqua ex parte eius furorem exsultantem repressit: hic qui se est tutatus sic ut in privata re deos penatis suos, in re publica iura tribunatus atque auspicia defenderet, accusare eum moderate a quo ipse nefarie accusatur per senatus auctoritatem non est situs.
No doubt this is what you specifically asked about me in your prosecution: what is our nation of optimates — so you put it. You ask a noble subject for the young to learn, and not a difficult one for me to teach through; about which I shall say a few things, members of the jury, and, as I judge, my speech will not be far from the usefulness of the hearers, nor from your duty, nor from the very case of P. Sestius. There have always been, in this city, two kinds of those who have been eager to bear themselves in public affairs and to bear themselves in them with distinction; of which kinds the one have wished both to be held and to be populares, the others optimates. Those who wished what they were doing and saying to be pleasing to the multitude were thought populares; but those who so bore themselves that their counsels were approved by every best citizen were thought optimates.
nimirum hoc illud est quod de me potissimum tu in accusatione quaesisti, quae esset nostra natio optimatium; sic enim dixisti. rem quaeris praeclaram iuventuti ad discendum nec mihi difficilem ad perdocendum; de qua pauca, iudices, dicam, et, ut arbitror, nec ab utilitate eorum qui audient, nec ab officio vestro, nec ab ipsa causa P. Sesti abhorrebit oratio mea. duo genera semper in hac civitate fuerunt eorum qui versari in re publica atque in ea se excellentius gerere studuerunt; quibus ex generibus alteri se popularis, alteri optimates et haberi et esse voluerunt. qui ea quae faciebant quaeque dicebant multitudini iucunda volebant esse, populares, qui autem ita se gerebant ut sua consilia optimo cuique probarent, optimates habebantur.
Who, then, is this best citizen? In number, if you ask, they are countless; for otherwise we could not stand. There are the leaders of public counsel; there are those who follow their school; there are men of the highest orders, to whom the Curia is open; there are the citizens of the towns, the country folk, the men of business; there are even freedmen optimates. The number, as I have said, of this kind is widely and variously diffused. But the whole class, that the mistake may be removed, can be briefly circumscribed and defined. All are optimates who are neither guilty, nor wicked by nature, nor furious, nor hindered by domestic evils. So be it, then: those whom you called a nation are those who are both upright and sound and well placed in their domestic affairs. Of these, those who in steering the commonwealth serve the wishes, advantages, and opinions of these are reckoned defenders of the optimates, and themselves optimates of the gravest and most distinguished citizens, and chief men of the city.
quis ergo iste optimus quisque? numero, si quaeris, innumerabiles, neque enim aliter stare possemus; sunt principes consili publici, sunt qui eorum sectam sequuntur, sunt maximorum ordinum homines, quibus patet curia, sunt municipales rusticique Romani, sunt negoti gerentes, sunt etiam libertini optimates. numerus, ut dixi, huius generis late et varie diffusus est; sed genus universum, ut tollatur error, brevi circumscribi et definiri potest. omnes optimates sunt qui neque nocentes sunt nec natura improbi nec furiosi nec malis domesticis impediti. esto igitur ut ii sint, quam tu nationem appellasti, qui et integri sunt et sani et bene de rebus domesticis constituti. Horum qui voluntati, commodis, opinionibus in gubernanda re publica serviunt, defensores optimatium ipsique optimates gravissimi et clarissimi cives numerantur et principes civitatis.
What, then, is set before these helmsmen of the commonwealth, on which they ought to look and to which they ought to direct their course? That which is most outstanding and most to be wished by all sound and good and blessed men — cum dignitate otium, peace with standing. Those who wish this, all are optimates; those who bring it about are thought the highest men and the preservers of the city. For neither does it suit men to be so carried away by the standing of action that they should not look out for peace, nor to embrace any peace which shrinks from standing. And of this peace-with-standing these are the foundations, these the limbs, which must be guarded by the chief men and defended even at the peril of their head: religions, the auspices, the powers of magistrates, the authority of the Senate, the laws, the custom of our ancestors, the courts, the administration of justice, good faith, the provinces, the allies, the praise of empire, military affairs, the treasury.
quid est igitur propositum his rei publicae gubernatoribus quod intueri et quo cursum suum derigere debeant? id quod est praestantissimum maximeque optabile omnibus sanis et bonis et beatis, cum dignitate otium. hoc qui volunt, omnes optimates, qui efficiunt, summi viri et conservatores civitatis putantur; neque enim rerum gerendarum dignitate homines ecferri ita convenit ut otio non prospiciant, neque ullum amplexari otium quod abhorreat a dignitate. huius autem otiosae dignitatis haec fundamenta sunt, haec membra, quae tuenda principibus et vel capitis periculo defendenda sunt: religiones, auspicia, potestates magistratuum, senatus auctoritas, leges, mos maiorum, iudicia, iuris dictio, fides, provinciae, socii, imperi laus, res militaris, aerarium.
To be the defender and patron of these so many and so great things is the part of a great spirit, of great talent and great steadiness. For in so great a number of citizens there is a great multitude of those who, either for fear of penalty, conscious of their own faults, seek new movements and reversals of the commonwealth, or who, on account of an inbred madness of mind, are nourished by the discords of citizens and by sedition, or who, on account of the entanglement of their estate, prefer to burn down in a common fire than in their own. Who, when they have got tutors and leaders for their zeals and vices, waves are stirred up in the commonwealth; so that they who have demanded for themselves the rudders of the fatherland must be wakeful, and must strain with all knowledge and diligence that, those things being preserved which I a little while ago said were the foundations and the limbs, they may keep the course and reach that harbour of peace and standing.
harum rerum tot atque tantarum esse defensorem et patronum magni animi est, magni ingeni magnaeque constantiae. etenim in tanto civium numero magna multitudo est eorum qui aut propter metum poenae, peccatorum suorum conscii, novos motus conversionesque rei publicae quaerant, aut qui propter insitum quendam animi furorem discordiis civium ac seditione pascantur, aut qui propter implicationem rei familiaris communi incendio malint quam suo deflagrare. qui cum tutores sunt et duces suorum studiorum vitiorumque nacti, in re publica fluctus excitantur, ut vigilandum sit iis qui sibi gubernacula patriae depoposcerunt, enitendumque omni scientia ac diligentia ut, conservatis iis quae ego paulo ante fundamenta ac membra esse dixi, tenere cursum possint et capere oti illum portum et dignitatis.
If I were to deny, members of the jury, that this way is rough and steep, or full of dangers and of snares, I should lie — especially since I have not only always understood it, but felt it beyond others. With greater guards and resources the commonwealth is attacked than it is defended, because reckless and ruined men are urged on at a nod, and even of their own accord are stirred up against the commonwealth, while the good are somehow slower, and, with the beginnings of things neglected, are at last roused only by necessity itself; so that sometimes by hesitation and slowness, while they wish to keep peace even without standing, they themselves lose both.
hanc ego viam, iudices, si aut asperam atque arduam aut plenam esse periculorum aut insidiarum negem, mentiar, praesertim cum id non modo intellexerim semper, sed etiam praeter ceteros senserim. maioribus praesidiis et copiis oppugnatur res publica quam defenditur, propterea quod audaces homines et perditi nutu impelluntur et ipsi etiam sponte sua contra rem publicam incitantur, boni nescio quo modo tardiores sunt et principiis rerum neglectis ad extremum ipsa denique necessitate excitantur, ita ut non numquam cunctatione ac tarditate, dum otium volunt etiam sine dignitate retinere, ipsi utrumque amittant.
But of those who wished to be defenders of the commonwealth, if they are too light, they fall away; if too timid, they fail. They alone remain and bear all things for the commonwealth’s sake who are such as your father, M. Scaurus, was, who from C. Gracchus all the way to Q. Varius resisted all the seditious, whom no violence ever, no threats, no unpopularity shook; or such as Q. Metellus, your mother’s uncle, who, when he had as censor marked a flourishing man in the popular kind, L. Saturninus, and had kept the imposter Gracchus from the census against the violence of the stirred-up multitude, and when, alone, he had refused to swear to that law which he had judged was not lawfully carried, preferred to be removed from the city than from his opinion; or — to leave the old examples, of which there is a store worthy of the glory of this empire, and not to name any of those who live — such as lately Q. Catulus was, whom neither the storm of danger nor the breeze of office could ever move from his course either by hope or by fear.
propugnatores autem rei publicae qui esse voluerunt, si leviores sunt, desciscunt, si timidiores, desunt: permanent illi soli atque omnia rei publicae causa perferunt qui sunt tales qualis pater tuus, M. Scaure, fuit, qui a C. Graccho usque ad Q. Varium seditiosis omnibus restitit, quem numquam ulla vis, ullae minae, ulla invidia labefecit; aut qualis Q. Metellus, patruus matris tuae, qui cum florentem hominem in populari ratione, L. Saturninum, censor notasset, cumque insitivum Gracchum contra vim multitudinis incitatae censu prohibuisset, cumque in eam legem quam non iure rogatam iudicarat iurare unus noluisset, de civitate maluit quam de sententia demoveri; aut, ut vetera exempla, quorum est copia digna huius imperi gloria, relinquam, neve eorum aliquem qui vivunt nominem, qualis nuper Q. Catulus fuit, quem neque periculi tempestas neque honoris aura potuit umquam de suo cursu aut spe aut metu demovere.
These men imitate, by the immortal gods, you who seek standing, who seek praise, who seek glory! These things are ample, these divine, these immortal; these are celebrated by report, committed to the monuments of the annals, propagated to posterity. There is labour, I do not deny; great dangers, I confess; “many snares for the good men” has been most truly said; “but,” he says, “it is folly to demand that which many envy and many seek, unless you bring it to pass with the highest care and labour.” I should have wished that he had not in another place said what wicked citizens may pick up: “Let them hate, provided they fear”; for he had given outstanding precepts to the youth.
haec imitamini, per deos immortalis, qui dignitatem, qui laudem, qui gloriam quaeritis! haec ampla sunt, haec divina, haec immortalia; haec fama celebrantur, monumentis annalium mandantur, posteritati propagantur. est labor, non nego; pericula magna, fateor; múltae insidiae súnt bonis verissime dictum est; sed te íd quod multi invídeant multique éxpetant inscítiast, inquit, póstulare, nísi laborem súmma cum cura écferas. nollem idem alio loco dixisset, quod exciperent improbi cives, óderint, dum métuant; praeclara enim illa praecepta dederat iuventuti.
But yet this way and method of taking up the commonwealth was once more to be feared, when in many things the zeal of the multitude or the people’s advantage disagreed with the usefulness of the commonwealth. The ballot-law was being carried by L. Cassius: the people thought their own liberty was the matter; the chief men disagreed, and in the safety of the optimates feared the rashness of the multitude and the licence of the ballot. Ti. Gracchus was carrying his agrarian law: it was welcome to the people; the fortunes of the slenderer seemed to be set up; the optimates strove against, both because they saw discord stirred up, and because, when the wealthy were being moved from their long possessions, they thought the commonwealth was being stripped of its defenders. The corn-law C. Gracchus was carrying: a thing pleasant to the plebs, for sustenance was supplied generously without labour; the good men resisted, because they thought the plebs were being called away from industry to laziness, and saw the treasury being drained.
sed tamen haec via ac ratio rei publicae capessendae olim erat magis pertimescenda, cum multis in rebus multitudinis studium aut populi commodum ab utilitate rei publicae discrepabat. tabellaria lex ab L. Cassio ferebatur: populus libertatem agi putabat suam; dissentiebant principes et in salute optimatium temeritatem multitudinis et tabellae licentiam pertimescebant. agrariam Ti. Gracchus legem ferebat: grata erat populo; fortunae constitui tenuiorum videbantur; nitebantur contra optimates, quod et discordiam excitari videbant et, cum locupletes possessionibus diuturnis moverentur, spoliari rem publicam propugnatoribus arbitrabantur. frumentariam legem C. Gracchus ferebat: iucunda res plebei, victus enim suppeditabatur large sine labore; repugnabant boni, quod et ab industria plebem ad desidiam avocari putabant et aerarium exhauriri videbant.
Many things even within our memory, which I deliberately pass by, were in this contention — popular desire dissenting from the counsel of the chief men. Now there is nothing in which the people dissents from the chosen and the chief men: it neither demands anything, nor is desirous of new things, and is delighted with its own peace and the standing of every best man and the glory of the whole commonwealth. So seditious and turbulent men, because by no bribery now can they stir up the Roman people, since the plebs, having lived through the gravest seditions and discords, embraces peace, hold hired contiones, and do not aim that they should say or carry what those wish to hear who are at the contio, but by price and wages they bring it about that, whatever they say, those should seem to wish to hear it.
multa etiam nostra memoria, quae consulto praetereo, fuerunt in ea contentione ut popularis cupiditas a consilio principum dissideret. nunc iam nihil est quod populus a delectis principibusque dissentiat: nec flagitat rem ullam neque novarum rerum est cupidus et otio suo et dignitate optimi cuiusque et universae rei publicae gloria delectatur. itaque homines seditiosi ac turbulenti, quia nulla iam largitione populum Romanum concitare possunt, quod plebes perfuncta gravissimis seditionibus ac discordiis otium amplexatur, conductas habent contiones, neque id agunt ut ea dicant aut ferant quae illi velint audire qui in contione sunt, sed pretio ac mercede perficiunt ut, quicquid dicant, id illi velle audire videantur.
Do you think that the Gracchi or Saturninus or any of those old men who were held populares ever had a hired man in a contio? No one had; for the bribery itself and the hope of the advantage set before them stirred the multitude without any wages. So in those times those who were populares did indeed give offence among grave and honourable men, but in the people’s verdicts and every sign of approval flourished. They were applauded in the theatre; they obtained by votes what they had striven for; men loved their name, their speech, their face, their gait. But those who opposed that kind were thought grave and great men; they had much weight in the Senate, the most among good men, but they were not pleasing to the multitude; their wish was often offended in the votes; and indeed if any one of them ever received applause, he feared lest he had committed some fault. And yet, if any greater matter was at stake, that same people was most moved by these men’s authority.
num vos existimatis Gracchos aut Saturninum aut quemquam illorum veterum qui populares habebantur ullum umquam in contione habuisse conductum? nemo habuit; ipsa enim largitio et spes commodi propositi sine mercede ulla multitudinem concitabat. itaque temporibus illis, qui populares erant, offendebant illi quidem apud gravis et honestos homines, sed populi iudiciis atque omni significatione florebant. his in theatro plaudebatur, hi suffragiis quod contenderant consequebantur, horum homines nomen, orationem, vultum, incessum amabant. qui autem adversabantur ei generi, graves et magni homines habebantur; sed valebant in senatu multum, apud bonos viros plurimum, multitudini iucundi non erant; suffragiis offendebatur saepe eorum voluntas; plausum vero etiam si quis eorum aliquando acceperat, ne quid peccasset pertimescebat. ac tamen, si quae res erat maior, idem ille populus horum auctoritate maxime commovebatur.
Now, unless I am mistaken, the city is in such a state that, if you remove the bands of hired men, all will seem to feel the same about the commonwealth. For in three places especially can the judgement and the will of the Roman people about the commonwealth be signified — in a contio, in the elections, in the seating at games and at gladiatorial shows. What contio has there been in these years — one not hired but a true one — in which the consensus of the Roman people could not be perceived? Many were held about me by that most criminal gladiator, to which no one came uncorrupted, no one upright; no good man could look on that foul face, no good man could hear that fury-driven voice. Those contiones of ruined men were necessarily turbulent.
nunc, nisi me fallit, in eo statu civitas est ut, si operas conductorum removeris, omnes idem de re publica sensuri esse videantur. etenim tribus locis significari maxime de re publica populi Romani iudicium ac voluntas potest, contione, comitiis, ludorum gladiatorumque consessu. quae contio fuit per hos annos, quae quidem esset non conducta sed vera, in qua populi Romani consensus non perspici posset? habitae sunt multae de me a gladiatore sceleratissimo, ad quas nemo adibat incorruptus, nemo integer; nemo illum foedum vultum aspicere, nemo furialem vocem bonus audire poterat. erant illae contiones perditorum hominum necessario turbulentae.
About me the consul P. Lentulus held a contio: a gathering of the Roman people came together; all orders, all Italy stood in that contio. He pleaded the case with the highest gravity and abundance of speaking, with such silence, with such approval of all, that nothing ever seemed to have come to the ears of the Roman people so popular. There was brought forward by him Cn. Pompeius, who showed himself to the Roman people not only the author of my preservation but even the suppliant. As his speech in contiones was always grave and welcome, so I contend that never was either the weight of his opinion or the pleasantness of his eloquence greater.
habuit de eodem me P. Lentulus consul contionem: concursus est populi Romani factus; omnes ordines, tota in illa contione Italia constitit. egit causam summa cum gravitate copiaque dicendi tanto silentio, tanta adprobatione omnium, nihil ut umquam videretur tam populare ad populi Romani auris accidisse. productus est ab eo Cn. Pompeius, qui se non solum auctorem meae salutis, sed etiam supplicem populo Romano praebuit. huius oratio ut semper gravis et grata in contionibus fuit, sic contendo numquam neque sententiam eius auctoritate neque eloquentiam iucunditate fuisse maiore.
With what silence the rest of the chief men of the city were heard about me! Whom for that reason I do not name in this place, lest my speech, if I have said too little of any, seem ungrateful, if enough of all, endless. Now then, set against this the contio of that same enemy of mine about that same me, before the true people on the Campus Martius! Who was there who not only did not approve, but did not think it the most unworthy crime that the man not, I shall say, spoke, but lived and breathed? Who was there who did not judge the commonwealth stained by his voice, and himself, if he heard him, bound with crime?
quo silentio sunt auditi de me ceteri principes civitatis! quos idcirco non appello hoc loco ne mea oratio, si minus de aliquo dixero, ingrata, si satis de omnibus, infinita esse videatur. cedo nunc eiusdem illius inimici mei de me eodem ad verum populum in campo Martio contionem! quis non modo adprobavit, sed non indignissimum facinus putavit illum non dicam loqui, sed vivere ac spirare? quis fuit qui non eius voce maculari rem publicam, seque si eum audiret scelere adstringi arbitraretur?
I come to the elections — whether you please of magistrates or of laws. We see laws often carried, many of them. I leave aside those that are carried in such a way that scarcely five, and those from another tribe, are found to cast a vote. About me, whom that ruin of the commonwealth said was a tyrant and snatcher of liberty, he says he carried a law. Who is there who confesses that he, when the bill was being carried against me, gave a vote? But when about that same me, by senatus consultum, the matter was being carried in the centuriate assembly, who is there who does not declare that he was present and gave a vote concerning my preservation? Which cause, then, ought to seem popular: that in which all the honours of the city, all ages, all orders consent as one, or that into which roused furies fly together as if to the funeral of the commonwealth?
venio ad comitia, sive magistratuum placet sive legum. leges videmus saepe ferri multas. omitto eas quae feruntur ita vix ut quini, et ii ex aliena tribu, qui suffragium ferant reperiantur. de me, quem tyrannum atque ereptorem libertatis esse dicebat illa ruina rei publicae, dicit se legem tulisse. quis est qui se, cum contra me ferebatur, inisse suffragium confiteatur? Cum autem de me eodem ex senatus consulto comitiis centuriatis ferebatur, quis est qui non profiteatur se adfuisse et suffragium de salute mea tulisse? Vtra igitur causa popularis debet videri: in qua omnes honestates civitatis, omnes aetates, omnes ordines una consentiunt, an in qua furiae concitatae tamquam ad funus rei publicae convolant?
Or if Gellius is anywhere there — a man unworthy both of his brother, that most distinguished man and excellent consul, and of the equestrian order, whose name he keeps although he has done away with its ornaments — will that be popular? For this man is given over to the Roman people. I have seen nothing more so. Who, when his youth, by reason of the highest offices of his stepfather L. Philippus, that highest man, could have flourished, was so far from popularis that he ate up his goods alone; then, from an impure and impudent young man, after he had drawn down his father’s estate from the riches of common men to the trifle of the philosophers, he wished to be thought a Greekling and idle, and suddenly gave himself to the study of letters. The Attic readers helped him not at all; his books were even often pawned for wine; the insatiable belly remained, the supplies failed. So he was always involved in the hope of new things; in the peace and tranquillity of the commonwealth he grew old. What sedition was there ever in which he was not the leader? What seditious man was there to whom he was not intimate? What turbulent contio whose stirrer-up he was not? To whom did he ever speak well as a good man? Speak well? Nay, what brave and good citizen did he not most impudently harass? Who, as I think, not for the sake of his lust, but to seem a friend of the people, married a freedwoman as wife.
an sicubi aderit Gellius, homo et fratre indignus, viro clarissimo atque optimo consule, et ordine equestri, cuius ille ordinis nomen retinet, ornamenta confecit, id erit populare? est enim homo iste populo Romano deditus. nihil vidi magis; qui, cum eius adulescentia in amplissimis honoribus summi viri, L. Philippi vitrici, florere potuisset, usque eo non fuit popularis ut bona solus comesset; deinde ex impuro adulescente et petulante, postea quam rem paternam ab idiotarum divitiis ad philosophorum reculam perduxit, Graeculum se atque otiosum putari voluit, studio litterarum se subito dedidit. nihil sane Actaei iuvabant anagnostae, libelli pro vino etiam saepe oppignerabantur; manebat insaturabile abdomen, copiae deficiebant. itaque semper versabatur in spe rerum novarum, otio et tranquillitate rei publicae consenescebat. ecquae seditio umquam fuit in qua non ille princeps? ecqui seditiosus cui ille non familiaris? ecquae turbulenta contio cuius ille non concitator? cui bene dixit umquam bono? bene dixit? immo quem fortem et bonum civem non petulantissime est insectatus? qui, ut credo, non libidinis causa, sed ut plebicola videretur, libertinam duxit uxorem.
He cast a vote about me, he was present, he took part in the feasts and congratulations of the parricides; in which, however, he avenged me, when with that mouth he kissed my enemies. Who, as if by my fault he had lost his goods, is, for that very cause, my enemy because he has nothing. Did I, Gellius, take away your patrimony, or did you eat it up? What? Did you, that gulf and abyss of a patrimony, glut yourself at my peril, so that, if I as consul had defended the commonwealth against you and your fellows, you would not wish me to be in the city? None of yours wishes to look at you; all flee your approach, your speech, your meeting; you your sister’s son Postumius, a grave young man with senile judgement, marked, when in a great number he did not appoint you tutor for his children. But, carried away by hatred both of mine and of the commonwealth’s name — of which two he is more hostile to which I do not know — I have said more than ought to have been said against the most furious and most needy carouser.
is de me suffragium tulit, is adfuit, is interfuit epulis et gratulationibus parricidarum; in quo tamen est me ultus, cum illo ore inimicos est meos saviatus. qui quasi mea culpa bona perdiderit, ita ob eam ipsam causam est mihi inimicus, quia nihil habet. Vtrum ego tibi patrimonium eripui, Gelli, an tu comedisti? quid? tu meo periculo, gurges ac vorago patrimoni, helluabare, ut, si ego consul rem publicam contra te et gregalis tuos defendissem, in civitate esse me nolles? te nemo tuorum videre vult, omnes aditum, sermonem, congressum tuum fugiunt: te sororis filius Postumius, adulescens gravis, senili iudicio, notavit, cum in magno numero tutorem liberis non instituit. sed elatus odio et meo et rei publicae nomine, quorum ille utri sit inimicior nescio, plura dixi quam dicendum fuit in furiosissimum atque egentissimum ganeonem.
I return to that point: that, when business was being done against me, with the city taken and overpowered, Gellius, Firmidius, Titius, and furies of the same kind were leaders and authors of those hired bands, while the proposer himself shrank in nothing from the foulness, recklessness, filthiness of these. But when about my standing the matter was being carried, no one thought either the excuse of his health or of his old age sufficiently just; there was no one who did not judge that he was recalling the commonwealth into its seat together with me.
illuc revertor: contra me cum sit actum, capta urbe atque oppressa, Gellium, Firmidium, Titium, eiusdem modi furias illis mercennariis gregibus duces et auctores fuisse, cum ipse lator nihil ab horum turpitudine, audacia, sordibus abhorreret. at cum de dignitate mea ferebatur, nemo sibi nec valetudinis excusationem nec senectutis satis iustam putavit; nemo fuit qui se non rem publicam mecum simul revocare in suas sedis arbitraretur.
Let us see now the elections of magistrates. There was lately a college of tribunes, in which three were thought least, two vehemently, populares. Of those who were not held populares, to whom in that kind of hired contiones there was no power of standing up, I see two were made praetors by the Roman people; and so far as I could understand from the talk of the multitude and the votes, the Roman people openly bore — in itself — the steady and outstanding spirit of Cn. Domitius in his tribunate, and the loyalty and bravery of Q. Ancharius, that even if they could have done nothing, yet by the very wish itself they were welcome. Now what the estimation of C. Fannius is, we see; what the verdict of the Roman people in his honours will be, no one ought to doubt.
videamus nunc comitia magistratuum. fuit conlegium nuper tribunicium, in quo tres minime, vehementer duo populares existimabantur. ex iis qui populares non habebantur, quibus in illo genere conductarum contionum consistendi potestas non erat, duo a populo Romano praetores video esse factos; et, quantum sermonibus vulgi et suffragiis intellegere potui, prae se populus Romanus ferebat sibi illum in tribunatu Cn. Domiti animum constantem et egregium et Q. Anchari fidem ac fortitudinem, etiam si nihil agere potuissent, tamen voluntate ipsa gratum fuisse. iam de C. Fannio quae sit existimatio videmus: quod iudicium populi Romani in honoribus eius futurum sit, nemini dubium esse debet.
What of those two populares? What did they do? The one, who yet had restrained himself, had carried nothing, had only felt about the commonwealth otherwise than men were expecting — a man both good and harmless and always approved by good men — because he understood too little, in his tribunate, what was approved by the true people, and because he thought that to be the Roman people which was at the contio, did not keep that place into which, if he had not wished to be popularis, he would most easily have come. The other, who had so flung himself in popular reckoning that he held the auspices, the Aelian law, the Senate’s authority, the consul, his colleagues, the verdict of the good men as nothing, sought the aedileship with good men and men of the first rank, but not with the most outstanding resources and influence: he did not carry his own tribe; the Palatine, finally, through which all those pestilences were said to harass the commonwealth, he lost; nor did he carry from those elections anything that good men wished except a defeat. You see, then, that the people itself, so to speak, is now no longer popular, who so vehemently rejects those who are held populares, and judges those who are opposed to that kind most worthy of office.
quid? populares illi duo quid egerunt? alter, qui tamen se continuerat, tulerat nihil, senserat tantum de re publica aliud atque homines exspectabant, vir et bonus et innocens et bonis viris semper probatus, quod parum videlicet intellexit in tribunatu quid vero populo probaretur, et quod illum esse populum Romanum qui in contione erat arbitrabatur, non tenuit eum locum in quem, nisi popularis esse voluisset, facillime pervenisset. alter, qui ita se in populari ratione iactarat ut auspicia, legem Aeliam, senatus auctoritatem, consulem, conlegas, bonorum iudicium nihili putaret, aedilitatem petivit cum bonis viris et hominibus primis sed non praestantissimis opibus et gratia: tribum suam non tulit, Palatinam denique, per quam omnes illae pestes vexare rem publicam dicebantur, perdidit, nec quicquam illis comitiis quod boni viri vellent nisi repulsam tulit. videtis igitur populum ipsum, ut ita dicam, iam non esse popularem, qui ita vehementer eos qui populares habentur respuat, eos autem qui ei generi adversantur honore dignissimos iudicet.
Let us come to the games; for that aim of your minds and eyes upon me, members of the jury, makes me think that I may now use a more relaxed kind of speaking. The signs of the elections and contiones are sometimes true, sometimes corrupted and spoiled. The seatings of theatres and gladiators are altogether said to be wont, by the lightness of certain men, to raise thin and rare bought applause; and yet it is easy, when this is done, to see in what manner and by whom it is done, and what the unspoiled multitude does. What shall I say now of which men or to what kind of citizen the loudest applause is given? It is not lost on any of you. Granted this is light — which it is not, since it is bestowed on every best man — but if it is light, it is light to a grave man; to one indeed who hangs on the lightest things, who is held and led by the rumour and, as they themselves call it, the favour of the people, applause must seem immortality, the hiss death.
veniamus ad ludos; facit enim, iudices, vester iste in me animorum oculorumque coniectus ut mihi iam licere putem remissiore uti genere dicendi. comitiorum et contionum significationes sunt interdum verae, sunt non numquam vitiatae atque corruptae; theatrales gladiatoriique consessus dicuntur omnino solere levitate non nullorum emptos plausus exilis et raros excitare; ac tamen facile est, cum id fit, quem ad modum et a quibus fiat, et quid integra multitudo faciat videre. quid ego nunc dicam quibus viris aut cui generi civium maxime plaudatur? neminem vestrum fallit. sit hoc sane leve, quod non ita est, quoniam optimo cuique impertitur; sed, si est leve, homini gravi leve est, ei vero qui pendet rebus levissimis, qui rumore et, ut ipsi loquuntur, favore populi tenetur et ducitur, plausum immortalitatem, sibilum mortem videri necesse est.
From you, then, Scaurus, especially I ask — you who put on the most prepared and most magnificent games — did any of those populares look upon your games? Did any commit himself to the theatre and the Roman people? That very greatest player, not only spectator but actor and accompanist, who knows all his sister’s interludes, who is brought into a gathering of women in place of a girl-musician, neither looked on your games in that burning tribunate of his, nor any others except those from which he scarcely escaped alive. Once, I say, in all that man committed himself to games — when in the temple of Virtue honour was being given to virtue, and the monument of C. Marius, preserver of this empire, had supplied a seat of safety to the citizen of his town and the defender of the commonwealth.
ex te igitur, Scaure, potissimum quaero, qui ludos apparatissimos magnificentissimosque fecisti, ecquis istorum popularium tuos ludos aspexerit, ecquis se theatro populoque Romano commiserit. ipse ille maxime ludius, non solum spectator sed actor et acroama, qui omnia sororis embolia novit, qui in coetum mulierum pro psaltria adducitur, nec tuos ludos aspexit in illo ardenti tribunatu suo nec ullos alios nisi eos a quibus vix vivus effugit. semel, inquam, se ludis homo popularis commisit omnino, cum in templo virtutis honos habitus esset virtuti, Gaique Mari, conservatoris huius imperi, monumentum municipi eius et rei publicae defensori sedem ad salutem praebuisset.
At which time what the Roman people would show that it felt was declared in both kinds: first, when, on hearing the senatus consultum, applause was given by all to the matter itself and to the absent Senate; then to the senators one by one as they returned from the Senate to look on. But when the consul who himself was giving the games sat down, standing with hands stretched out, giving thanks and weeping with joy, they declared their good will and pity for me. But when that frantic man came in with his crazed mind set on, the Roman people scarcely contained itself; men scarcely held back their hatred from his impure and unspeakable body. Voices indeed and stretched-out palms and the shout of curses all poured forth.
quo quidem tempore quid populus Romanus sentire se ostenderet utroque in genere declaratum est: primum cum audito senatus consulto rei ipsi atque absenti senatui plausus est ab universis datus, deinde cum senatoribus singulis spectatum e senatu redeuntibus: cum vero ipse qui ludos faciebat consul adsedit, stantes ei manibus passis gratias agentes et lacrimantes gaudio suam erga me benivolentiam ac misericordiam declararunt. at cum ille furibundus incitata illa sua vaecordi mente venisset, vix se populus Romanus tenuit, vix homines odium suum a corpore eius impuro atque infando represserunt; voces quidem et palmarum intentus et maledictorum clamorem omnes profuderunt.
But why do I speak of the spirit and virtue of the Roman people, descrying liberty out of long servitude — in that man whom even the players, sitting in his presence as he was then canvassing for the aedileship, did not spare? For when the Comedy in the Toga Simulans was being acted, as I think, the whole troupe in the most distinct chorus, looking the impure man in the face, declaimed: “This, Titus, is the sequel after the beginnings and the end of your vicious life —!” He sat half-dead; and he who used to fill his contiones with the railing of singers was being thrust out by the very voices of the singers. And since the games have been mentioned, I shall not pass over even this: that in great variety of opinions there was never any place where anything said by the poet seemed to fall to our time, that either escaped the whole people, or which the actor himself did not press out.
sed quid ego populi Romani animum virtutemque commemoro, libertatem iam ex diuturna servitute dispicientis, in eo homine cui tum petenti iam aedilitatem ne histriones quidem coram sedenti pepercerunt? nam cum ageretur togata Simulans, ut opinor, caterva tota clarissima concentione in ore impuri hominis imminens contionata est: huic, Tite, tua póst principia atque éxitus vitiósae vitae —! sedebat exanimatus, et is qui antea cantorum convicio contiones celebrare suas solebat cantorum ipsorum vocibus eiciebatur. et quoniam facta mentio est ludorum, ne illud quidem praetermittam, in magna varietate sententiarum numquam ullum fuisse locum, in quo aliquid a poeta dictum cadere in tempus nostrum videretur, quod aut populum universum fugeret aut non exprimeret ipse actor.
And, please, in this place, members of the jury, do not think me drawn by some lightness into an unaccustomed kind of speaking, if I speak in the court of poets, of actors, of games. I am not so ignorant, members of the jury, of cases, not so unaccustomed in speaking, as to chase after speech of every kind and to pluck and taste every little flower from every side. I know what your gravity, this attendance, that gathering, the standing of P. Sestius, the magnitude of the danger, my age, my office demand. But I have taken upon myself in this place a certain teaching to the youth: who they are who are optimates. In the unfolding of which it must be shown that not all are populares who are thought so. This I shall most easily attain, if I have brought out the true and uncorrupted judgement of the whole people, and the inmost feelings of the city.
et quaeso hoc loco, iudices, ne qua levitate me ductum ad insolitum genus dicendi labi putetis, si de poetis, de histrionibus, de ludis in iudicio loquar. non sum tam ignarus, iudices, causarum, non tam insolens in dicendo, ut omni ex genere orationem aucuper et omnis undique flosculos carpam atque delibem. scio quid gravitas vestra, quid haec advocatio, quid ille conventus, quid dignitas P. Sesti, quid periculi magnitudo, quid aetas, quid honos meus postulet. sed mihi sumpsi hoc loco doctrinam quandam iuventuti, qui essent optimates. in ea explicanda demonstrandum est non esse popularis omnis eos qui putentur. id facillime consequar, si universi populi iudicium verum et incorruptum et si intimos sensus civitatis expressero.
What was that, when the recent news of that senatus consultum which was passed in the temple of Virtue was carried to the games and the stage, before the largest gathering, the highest artist — and, by Hercules, always of the best parties in the commonwealth as on the stage — weeping with new joy and with grief and longing for me mingled, pleaded my cause before the Roman people in much weightier words than I myself could have pleaded for me? For he was pressing out the talent of the highest poet not only by his art, but also by his grief. With what force — “He who has aided the commonwealth with steadfast spirit, has stood, has stood with the Achivi” — “With you,” he was saying, “has he stood,” he was pointing to your ranks! He was called back by all — “In the doubtful matter has not doubted to offer his life nor spared his head.”
quid fuit illud quod, recenti nuntio de illo senatus consulto quod factum est in templo virtutis ad ludos scaenamque perlato, consessu maximo summus artifex et me hercule semper partium in re publica tam quam in scaena optimarum, flens et recenti laetitia et mixto dolore ac desiderio mei, egit apud populum Romanum multo gravioribus verbis meam causam quam egomet de me agere potuissem? summi enim poetae ingenium non solum arte sua, sed etiam dolore exprimebat. qua enim vi: quí rem publicám certo animo adiúverit, státuerit, steterít cum Achivis— vobiscum me stetisse dicebat, vestros ordines demonstrabat! revocabatur ab universis— ré dubia haút dubitarit vítam offerre néc capiti pepércerit.
These things with what great shouts were spoken by him! When now, the gesture set aside, applause was being given to the words of the poet and the zeal of the actor and to our hopefulness: “the highest friend in the highest war” — for the actor himself added that with friendly mind, and perhaps men out of some longing approved — “endowed with the highest talent.” Now those things, with how great a groan of the Roman people, by the same man a little later in the same play, were acted! “O father —” he thought that I, absent, was to be lamented as a father — I, whom Q. Catulus, whom many others often in the Senate had named the father of the fatherland. With how great weeping over those fires and ruins of ours, when he was bewailing his father driven out, his fatherland afflicted, his house burned and overturned, he so acted that, having shown the former fortune, when he had turned himself, “I have seen all these things on fire,” stirred weeping even in enemies and the envious!
haec quantis ab illo clamoribus agebantur! cum iam omisso gestu verbis poetae et studio actoris et exspectationi nostrae plauderetur: súmmum amicum súmmo in bello— nam illud ipse actor adiungebat amico animo et fortasse homines propter aliquod desiderium adprobabant: súmmo ingenio praéditum. iam illa quanto cum gemitu populi Romani ab eodem paulo post in eadem fabula sunt acta! O páter— me, me ille absentem ut patrem deplorandum putabat, quem Q. Catulus, quem multi alii saepe in senatu patrem patriae nominarant. quanto cum fletu de illis nostris incendiis ac ruinis, cum patrem pulsum, patriam adflictam deploraret, domum incensam eversamque, sic egit ut, demonstrata pristina fortuna, cum se convertisset, haec ómnia vidi inflámmari fletum etiam inimicis atque invidis excitaret!
By the immortal gods! What? That same one — in what manner he said that! These things to me indeed seem so to have been acted and written that they would have seemed splendid to be said, even by Q. Catulus, if he had come back to life; for he used freely to reprove and accuse the rashness sometimes of the people, the error sometimes of the Senate: “O ungrateful Argives, thankless Greeks, mindless of kindness!” That indeed was not true; for they were not ungrateful, but wretched, since to give back safety to him from whom they had received it was not allowed; nor was anyone ever more grateful to anyone alone, than were they all together to me. But still, that the most eloquent poet wrote on my behalf, the bravest actor performed — not only the best, about me, when he was pointing to all orders, accusing the Senate, the Roman knights, the whole Roman people: “You allow him to be in exile, you allow him to be driven out, having been driven out you bear it!” What a sign there then was of all, what a declaration of will from the whole Roman people in the cause of a man not popularis, I for my part used to hear: those who were present can more easily judge.
pro di immortales! quid? illa quem ad modum dixit idem! quae mihi quidem ita et acta et scripta videntur esse ut vel a Q. Catulo, si revixisset, praeclare posse dici viderentur; is enim libere reprehendere et accusare populi non numquam temeritatem solebat aut errorem senatus: O íngratifici Argívi, immunes Gráii, immemores bénefici! non erat illud quidem verum; non enim ingrati, sed miseri, quibus reddere salutem a quo acceperant non liceret, nec unus in quemquam umquam gratior quam in me universi; sed tamen illud scripsit disertissimus poeta pro me, egit fortissimus actor, non solum optimus, de me, cum omnis ordines demonstraret, senatum, equites Romanos, universum populum Romanum accusaret: éxsulare sínitis, sistis pélli, pulsum pátimini! quae tum significatio fuerit omnium, quae declaratio voluntatis ab universo populo Romano in causa hominis non popularis, equidem audiebam: existimare facilius possunt qui adfuerunt.
And since my speech has carried me to this point, the actor wept over my misfortune so often when he so grievously was acting my cause that that splendid voice of his was hindered by tears; nor did the poets, whose talents I have always loved, fail my time; and the Roman people approved these things not only by their applause but even by their groan. Was it then proper for Aesopus rather, on my behalf, or Accius, to say these things, if the Roman people were free, or the chief men of the city? I was named in the Brutus: “Tullius, who had set fast liberty for the citizens.” It was called back a thousand times. Did the Roman people seem to judge too little that it was set up by me and by the Senate that which the ruined citizens charged had been overturned through us?
et quoniam huc me provexit oratio, histrio casum meum totiens conlacrimavit, cum ita dolenter ageret causam meam ut vox eius illa praeclara lacrimis impediretur; neque poetae, quorum ego semper ingenia dilexi, tempori meo defuerunt; eaque populus Romanus non solum plausu sed etiam gemitu suo comprobavit. Vtrum igitur haec Aesopum potius pro me aut Accium dicere oportuit, si populus Romanus liber esset, an principes civitatis? nominatim sum appellatus in Bruto: Túllius, qui líbertatem cívibus stabilíverat. miliens revocatum est. Parumne videbatur populus Romanus iudicare id a me et a senatu esse constitutum quod perditi cives sublatum per nos criminabantur?
But the greatest verdict of the Roman people was declared in the seating of all at the gladiatorial show; for it was the show of Scipio, worthy both of him and of that Metellus to whom it was being given. And that was a kind of spectacle which is celebrated by every kind of crowd and every kind of men, in which the multitude is most delighted. Into this seating P. Sestius, tribune of the plebs, since he was doing nothing else in that magistracy except my cause, came and gave himself to the people — not from desire of applause, but that our very enemies might see the wish of the whole people. He came, as you know, from the Maenian column: such applause was raised from all the spectacles all the way from the Capitoline, such from the railings of the Forum, that no greater consensus or more open expression of the whole Roman people was ever said to have been in any cause.
maximum vero populi Romani iudicium universi consessu gladiatorio declaratum est; erat enim munus Scipionis, dignum et eo ipso et illo Metello cui dabatur. id autem spectaculi genus erat quod omni frequentia atque omni genere hominum celebratur, quo multitudo maxime delectatur. in hunc consessum P. Sestius tribunus plebis, cum ageret nihil aliud in eo magistratu nisi meam causam, venit et se populo dedit non plausus cupiditate, sed ut ipsi inimici nostri voluntatem universi populi viderent: venit, ut scitis, a columna Maenia: tantus est ex omnibus spectaculis usque a Capitolio, tantus ex fori cancellis plausus excitatus, ut numquam maior consensio aut apertior populi Romani universi fuisse ulla in causa diceretur.
Where then were those moderators of contiones, masters of laws, drivers-out of citizens? Or is there some peculiar people belonging to the wicked citizens, to whom we shall have been offensive and hateful? For my part I judge there is no time of more crowded people than that of gladiators, neither of any contio nor of any elections. This countless multitude of men, this so great signification of the Roman people without any variation of all together, when in those very days the matter about me was thought going to be acted on — what did it declare except that the safety and standing of the best citizens was dear to the whole Roman people?
ubi erant tum illi contionum moderatores, legum domini, civium expulsores? Aliusne est aliquis improbis civibus peculiaris populus, cui nos offensi invisique fuerimus? equidem existimo nullum tempus esse frequentioris populi quam illud gladiatorium, neque contionis ullius neque vero ullorum comitiorum. haec igitur innumerabilis hominum multitudo, haec populi Romani tanta significatio sine ulla varietate universi, cum illis ipsis diebus de me actum iri putaretur, quid declaravit nisi optimorum civium salutem et dignitatem populo Romano caram esse universo?
But indeed that praetor, who used to question a contio about me not by the institution of his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, finally of all his ancestors, but of the Greeklings, whether I should return, and, when there had been a counter-cry from the half-dead voices of his hirelings, used to say that the Roman people refused, he, although he watched gladiators daily, was never seen as he came in. He used to come up suddenly, when he had crept in under the boards, so that he seemed about to say “Mother, I call upon thee.” Therefore that more lurking road by which he used to come to the show was now called the Appian; who, however, on whatever occasion he was seen, not only the gladiators but the very horses of the gladiators took fright at the sudden hisses.
at vero ille praetor, qui de me non patris, avi, proavi, maiorum denique suorum omnium, sed Graeculorum instituto contionem interrogare solebat, velletne me redire, et, cum erat reclamatum semivivis mercennariorum vocibus, populum Romanum negare dicebat, is, cum cotidie gladiatores spectaret, numquam est conspectus cum veniret. emergebat subito, cum sub tabulas subrepserat, ut matér, te appello dicturus videretur; itaque illa via latebrosior, qua spectatum ille veniebat, Appia iam vocabatur; qui tamen quoquo tempore conspectus erat, non modo gladiatores sed equi ipsi gladiatorum repentinis sibilis extimescebant.
Do you see, then, how great is the difference between the Roman people and a contio? That the masters of contiones are marked by every hatred of the people, while those who are not allowed to stand up in the contiones of hired men are honoured with every signification of the Roman people? Do you even, then, recall to me M. Atilius Regulus, who chose to return himself to Carthage by his own will to torture, rather than stay at Rome without those captives in whose stead he had been sent to the Senate, and you deny to me that a return ought to have been wished for through bands collected and armed men? Of course I longed for violence, I who, while violence was in being, did nothing, and whom, if there had not been violence, no thing could have shaken.
videtisne igitur quantum intersit inter populum Romanum et contionem? dominos contionum omni odio populi notari, quibus autem consistere in operarum contionibus non liceat, eos omni populi Romani significatione decorari? tu mihi etiam M. Atilium Regulum commemoras, qui redire ipse Carthaginem sua voluntate ad supplicium quam sine iis captivis a quibus ad senatum missus erat Romae manere maluerit, et mihi negas optandum reditum fuisse per familias comparatas et homines armatos? vim scilicet ego desideravi, qui, dum vis fuit, nihil egi, et quem, si vis non fuisset, nulla res labefactare potuisset.
Should I have refused this return, which was so flourishing that I fear lest someone might think that for the sake of the zeal of glory I went out for this purpose — so to return? Whom did the Senate ever commend to foreign nations, if not me? For whose preservation did the Senate ever publicly give thanks to the allies of the Roman people, if not for mine? About me alone the senators decreed that those who held provinces with command, that quaestors and legates, should guard my safety and life. In my one cause, since the founding of Rome, it has come about that, by consular letters from a senatus consultum, all from all Italy who wished the commonwealth safe were called together. What the Senate has never decreed in the danger of the whole commonwealth, that it thought should be decreed in the preservation of one man — mine. Whom did the Curia more miss, whom did the Forum mourn? Whom did the very tribunals desire equally? All things at my withdrawal were deserted, dishevelled, mute, full of grief and mourning. What place is there in Italy in which the zeal for my preservation, the testimony of my standing, is not fixed in public monuments?
hunc ego reditum repudiarem, qui ita florens fuit ut verear ne quis me studio gloriae putet idcirco exisse ut ita redirem? quem enim umquam senatus civem nisi me nationibus exteris commendavit? cuius umquam propter salutem nisi meam senatus publice sociis populi Romani gratias egit? de me uno patres conscripti decreverunt ut, qui provincias cum imperio obtinerent, qui quaestores legatique essent, salutem et vitam custodirent: in una mea causa post Romam conditam factum est ut litteris consularibus ex senatus consulto cuncta ex Italia omnes qui rem publicam salvam vellent convocarentur. quod numquam senatus in universae rei publicae periculo decrevit, id in unius mea salute conservanda decernendum putavit. quem curia magis requisivit, quem forum luxit? quem aeque ipsa tribunalia desideraverunt? omnia discessu meo deserta, horrida, muta, plena luctus et maeroris fuerunt. quis est Italiae locus in quo non fixum sit in publicis monumentis studium salutis meae, testimonium dignitatis?
For why should I recall those divine senatus consulta about me? Either that which was made in the temple of Jupiter Best and Greatest, when that man who marked the threefold shores and regions of the world, joined to this empire by three triumphs, having spoken his opinion from a written text, gave to me alone the testimony of having preserved the fatherland — whose opinion the most crowded Senate so followed that one alone dissented, the enemy, and that very thing was committed to public records for the everlasting memory of later time; or that which was decreed on the next day in the Curia, on the warning of the Roman people itself and of those who had come together from the towns: that no one should observe the heavens, no one bring any delay; if anyone did otherwise, he should plainly be the overturner of the commonwealth and the Senate would take it most gravely, and that immediately about his act report should be made. With which gravity of his when the crowded Senate had restrained the wickedness and recklessness of certain men, yet it added this: that, if within five days in which the matter could be acted on about me it should not have been acted on, I should return to my fatherland with all standing recovered. The Senate decreed at the same time that thanks should be given to those who had come together from all Italy for the sake of my preservation, and that the same should be asked to come on the return of the matters.
nam quid ego illa de me divina senatus consulta commemorem? vel quod in templo Iovis optimi maximi factum est, cum vir is qui tripertitas orbis terrarum oras atque regiones tribus triumphis adiunctas huic imperio notavit, de scripto sententia dicta, mihi uni testimonium patriae conservatae dedit; cuius sententiam ita frequentissimus senatus secutus est ut unus dissentiret hostis, idque ipsum tabulis publicis mandaretur ad memoriam posteri temporis sempiternam: vel quod est postridie decretum in curia populi ipsius Romani, et eorum qui ex municipiis convenerant admonitu, ne quis de caelo servaret, ne quis moram ullam adferret; si quis aliter fecisset, eum plane eversorem rei publicae fore idque senatum gravissime laturum, et ut statim de eius facto referretur. qua gravitate sua cum frequens senatus non nullorum scelus audaciamque tardasset, tamen illud addidit, ut, si diebus quinque quibus agi de me potuisset non esset actum, redirem in patriam dignitate omni reciperata. decrevit eodem tempore senatus ut iis qui ex tota Italia salutis meae causa convenerant agerentur gratiae, atque ut idem ad res redeuntes ut venirent rogarentur.
Such was the contention of zeal in my preservation, that those who were being asked by the Senate about me supplicated that same Senate on my behalf. And so in these matters one alone was found who openly dissented from this so eager wish of the good men — so that even Q. Metellus the consul, who would have been most of all hostile to me from the great contentions of the commonwealth, referred about my preservation: who, roused both by the highest authority of P. Servilius and by a kind of incredible gravity of his speaking, when that man had called up almost all the Metelli from below, and to the standing of his line — which he had in common with him — had bent the mind of his kinsman from the Clodian banditries, and when he had turned him to the memory of his domestic example and to the case of that Metellus Numidicus — glorious or grievous — this outstanding man and truly a Metellus wept, and gave himself wholly to P. Servilius even as he was speaking; nor could the man of the same blood any longer hold up to that divine gravity full of antiquity, and was reconciled with me in my absence by his own kindness.
haec erat studiorum in mea salute contentio ut ii qui a senatu de me rogabantur eidem senatui pro me supplicarent. atque ita in his rebus unus est solus inventus qui ab hac tam impensa voluntate bonorum palam dissideret, ut etiam Q. Metellus consul, qui mihi vel maxime ex magnis contentionibus rei publicae fuisset inimicus, de mea salute rettulerit: qui excitatus cum summa auctoritate P. Servili tum incredibili quadam gravitate dicendi, cum ille omnis prope ab inferis evocasset Metellos et ad illius generis, quod sibi cum eo commune esset, dignitatem propinqui sui mentem a Clodianis latrociniis reflexisset, cumque eum ad domestici exempli memoriam et ad Numidici illius Metelli casum vel gloriosum vel gravem convertisset, conlacrimavit vir egregius ac vere Metellus totumque se P. Servilio dicenti etiam tum tradidit, nec illam divinam gravitatem plenam antiquitatis diutius homo eiusdem sanguinis potuit sustinere et mecum absens beneficio suo rediit in gratiam.
Which certainly — if there is any feeling in death of the most distinguished men — both to all the Metelli and indeed especially to one most brave and most outstanding citizen, his brother, the partner of my labours, dangers, counsels, was most welcome. As for what my return was, who is ignorant of it? In what manner the people of Brundisium, as I came, stretched out to me the right hand as it were of all Italy and of the fatherland itself, when on the very Nones of August was both the day of my arrival and of my return-birthday, the same day of my dearest daughter — whom I then first looked on after the gravest longing and grief — the same day even of the colony of Brundisium itself, the same day of its safety; and when the same house of the best and most learned men, M. Laenius Flaccus and his father and brother, received me most joyfully, the same which the previous year had received me mourning and had defended me by their own protection at their own peril. All the cities of Italy on the whole journey seemed to keep festival days of my arrival; the roads were filled by the multitude of envoys sent from everywhere; the approach to the city flourished with an incredible multitude of men and congratulation; the journey from the gate, the ascent into the Capitol, the return home was such that in the highest joy I grieved that the city had been so grateful, so wretched, and oppressed.
quod certe, si est aliqui sensus in morte praeclarorum virorum, cum omnibus Metellis tum vero uni viro fortissimo et praestantissimo civi gratissimum, fratri suo, fecit, socio laborum, periculorum, consiliorum meorum. reditus vero meus qui fuerit quis ignorat? quem ad modum mihi advenienti tamquam totius Italiae atque ipsius patriae dextram porrexerint Brundisini, cum ipsis Nonis Sextilibus idem dies adventus mei fuisset reditusque natalis, idem carissimae filiae, quam ex gravissimo tum primum desiderio luctuque conspexi, idem etiam ipsius coloniae Brundisinae, idem salutis, cumque me domus eadem optimorum et doctissimorum virorum, M. Laeni Flacci et patris et fratris eius, laetissima accepisset, quae proximo anno maerens receperat et suo praesidio periculoque defenderat. cunctae itinere toto urbes Italiae festos dies agere adventus mei videbantur, viae multitudine legatorum undique missorum celebrabantur, ad urbem accessus incredibili hominum multitudine et gratulatione florebat, iter a porta, in Capitolium adscensus, domum reditus erat eius modi ut summa in laetitia illud dolerem, civitatem tam gratam tam miseram atque oppressam fuisse.
You have, then, what you asked from me: who are the optimates. They are not a nation, as you said — which word I recognized; for it is from him by whom alone P. Sestius sees himself most attacked, that man who wished this nation to be wiped out and cut down, who often reproached, often accused C. Caesar, a mild man and shrinking from slaughter, when he affirmed that, while this nation lived, that man would never be without anxiety. He has accomplished nothing as to all of them: from acting against me he has not desisted. He attacked me, first through the informer Vettius, whom he questioned in a contio about me and the most distinguished men — in whom, however, he joined those citizens with me in the same peril and the same charge, so that he won my favour by gathering me with the most ample and bravest men.
habes igitur quod ex me quaesisti, qui essent optimates. non est natio, ut dixisti; quod ego verbum agnovi; est enim illius a quo uno maxime P. Sestius se oppugnari videt, hominis eius qui hanc nationem deleri et concidi cupivit, qui C. Caesarem, mitem hominem et a caede abhorrentem, saepe increpuit, saepe accusavit, cum adfirmaret illum numquam, dum haec natio viveret, sine cura futurum. nihil profecit de universis: de me agere non destitit; me oppugnavit, primum per indicem Vettium, quem in contione de me et de clarissimis viris interrogavit,—in quo tamen eos civis coniunxit eodem periculo et crimine, ut a me inierit gratiam quod me cum amplissimis et fortissimis viris congregavit.
But afterwards, by no fault of mine except that I wished to please good men, he most criminally contrived all snares against me. He brought daily to those by whom he was being heard something invented about me; he warned that man most friendly to me, Cn. Pompeius, that he should fear my house and beware of me myself; he had so coupled himself with my enemy that Sex. Clodius — a man most worthy of those with whom he lives — said that that man was the tablet of my proscription, which he was supporting, and that he himself was the writer; he alone of our order at my withdrawal, in your mourning, openly exulted. Of whom I, although he daily fell, said no word, members of the jury; nor did I think, when I was attacked by every engine and torture, by violence, by an army, by forces, that it suited me to complain of one bowman. He says that my acts displease him. Who does not know? — he who despises my law, which clearly forbids gladiators in the two-year period in which anyone has sought or shall seek office.
sed postea mihi nullo meo merito, nisi quod bonis placere cupiebam, omnis est insidias sceleratissime machinatus. ille ad eos a quibus audiebatur cotidie aliquid de me ficti adferebat; ille hominem mihi amicissimum, Cn. Pompeium, monebat ut meam domum metueret atque a me ipso caveret; ille se sic cum inimico meo copularat ut illum meae proscriptionis, quam adiuvabat, Sex. Clodius, homo iis dignissimus quibuscum vivit, tabulam esse, se scriptorem esse diceret; ille unus ordinis nostri discessu meo, luctu vestro palam exsultavit. de quo ego, cum cotidie rueret, verbum feci, iudices, numquam; neque putavi, cum omnibus machinis ac tormentis, vi, exercitu, copiis oppugnarer, de uno sagittario me queri convenire. Acta mea sibi ait displicere. quis nescit? qui legem meam contemnat, quae dilucide vetat gladiatores biennio quo quis petierit aut petiturus sit dare.
In which his rashness, members of the jury, I cannot enough wonder at. He acts most openly against the law; he acts who can neither slip out of court by his pleasantness nor be sent off by influence, nor break through laws and courts by resources and power. What thing impels the man that he is so unrestrained from too great a desire for glory? He has, I take it, got hold of a gladiatorial company beautiful, noble, glorious; he knew the people’s enthusiasms; he saw that there would be shouts and runnings together. Carried away by this expectation, the man burning with desire for glory could not hold himself back from bringing on those gladiators of whom he himself was the most beautiful. If he were sinning for that cause, lifted up by popular zeal because of the recent kindness of the Roman people towards him, still no one would forgive him; but when he has not even chosen men from those for sale, but bought from the slave-pens, adorned them with gladiatorial names, and by lot has made some Samnites, others provocatores, does he not fear what end so great a licence, so great a contempt of the laws, will have?
in quo eius temeritatem satis mirari, iudices, non queo. facit apertissime contra legem; facit is qui neque elabi ex iudicio iucunditate sua neque emitti gratia potest, neque opibus et potentia leges ac iudicia perfringere. quae res hominem impellit ut sit tam intemperans iste nimia gloriae cupiditate? familiam gladiatoriam, credo, nactus est speciosam, nobilem, gloriosam; norat studia populi, videbat clamores et concursus futuros. hac exspectatione elatus homo flagrans cupiditate gloriae tenere se non potuit quin eos gladiatores induceret, quorum esset ipse pulcherrimus. si ob eam causam peccaret, pro recenti populi Romani in se beneficio populari studio elatus, tamen ignosceret nemo: cum vero ne de venalibus quidem homines electos, sed ex ergastulis emptos nominibus gladiatoriis ornarit, et sortito alios Samnitis alios provocatores fecerit, tanta licentia, tanta legum contemptio nonne quem habitura sit exitum pertimescit?
But he has two defences: first, “I give,” he says, “beast-fighters; the law is written about gladiators.” Witty! Take something even sharper. He will say that he is giving not gladiators, but one gladiator, and that he has transferred the whole aedileship into this show. Splendid aedileship! One lion, two hundred beast-fighters. But let him use this defence: I wish him to trust to his own case; for he is wont to call upon the tribunes of the plebs and to disturb the trial by violence when he distrusts. Whom I do not so much wonder at, that he despises my law, of an enemy, as that he so judges that he holds no consular law at all to be a law. The Caecilian-Didian, the Licinian-Junian he has despised. Even of him whom he is wont to glory was adorned, fortified, armed by his own law and his own kindness, of C. Caesar, does he not think the law on extortion to be a law? And they say there are others who rescind the acts of Caesar, when this best law both by that father-in-law of his and by this hanger-on is neglected! And the accuser dared in this case to exhort you, members of the jury, that you should at last be severe, that at last you should apply medicine to the commonwealth. That is not medicine, when to a sound part of the body the scalpel is applied, and to a whole part: that is butchery and cruelty. They heal the commonwealth who cut out some pestilence as a swelling of the city.
sed habet defensiones duas: primum do, inquit, bestiarios: lex scripta de gladiatoribus. festive! accipite aliquid etiam acutius. dicet se non gladiatores, sed unum gladiatorem dare et totam aedilitatem in munus hoc transtulisse. praeclara aedilitas! unus leo, ducenti bestiarii. verum utatur hac defensione: cupio eum suae causae confidere; solet enim tribunos plebis appellare et vi iudicium disturbare, cum diffidit. quem non tam admiror, quod meam legem contemnit hominis inimici, quam quod sic statuit, omnino consularem legem nullam putare. Caeciliam Didiam, Liciniam Iuniam contempsit. etiamne eius quem sua lege et suo beneficio ornatum, munitum, armatum solet gloriari, C. Caesaris, legem de pecuniis repetundis non putat esse legem? et aiunt alios esse qui acta Caesaris rescindant, cum haec optima lex et ab illo socero eius et ab hoc adsecula neglegatur! et cohortari ausus est accusator in hac causa vos, iudices, ut aliquando essetis severi, aliquando medicinam adhiberetis rei publicae. non ea est medicina, cum sanae parti corporis scalpellum adhibetur atque integrae, carnificina est ista et crudelitas: ei medentur rei publicae qui exsecant pestem aliquam tamquam strumam civitatis.
But that my speech may have some end, and that I may make a finish of speaking before you of so attentively listening, I will conclude this about the optimates and their chief men and the defenders of the commonwealth, and I shall stir you, young men, both you who are noble, to the imitation of your ancestors, and you who can attain nobility by talent and virtue, I shall exhort to that reckoning in which many new men have flourished both in office and in glory.
sed ut extremum habeat aliquid oratio mea, et ut ego ante dicendi finem faciam quam vos me tam attente audiendi, concludam illud de optimatibus eorumque principibus ac rei publicae defensoribus, vosque, adulescentes, et qui nobiles estis, ad maiorum vestrorum imitationem excitabo, et qui ingenio ac virtute nobilitatem potestis consequi, ad eam rationem in qua multi homines novi et honore et gloria floruerunt cohortabor.
This is the one way, believe me, both of praise and of standing and of office: to be praised and loved by good and wise men and well by nature constituted; to know the description of the city most wisely set up by our ancestors. Who, when they had not borne the power of kings, so created annual magistracies that they set the everlasting council of the Senate over the commonwealth, but those should be chosen into that council by the whole people, and the approach into that highest order should lie open to the industry and virtue of all the citizens. The Senate they placed as the guardian of the commonwealth, the president, the defender; that the magistrates should use this order’s authority and be, as it were, the ministers of the gravest council; and that the Senate itself should confirm the splendour of the nearest orders, should guard and increase the liberty and advantages of the plebs.
haec est una via, mihi credite, et laudis et dignitatis et honoris, a bonis viris sapientibus et bene natura constitutis laudari et diligi; nosse discriptionem civitatis a maioribus nostris sapientissime constitutam; qui cum regum potestatem non tulissent, ita magistratus annuos creaverunt ut consilium senatus rei publicae praeponerent sempiternum, deligerentur autem in id consilium ab universo populo aditusque in illum summum ordinem omnium civium industriae ac virtuti pateret. senatum rei publicae custodem, praesidem, propugnatorem conlocaverunt; huius ordinis auctoritate uti magistratus et quasi ministros gravissimi consili esse voluerunt; senatum autem ipsum proximorum ordinum splendorem confirmare, plebis libertatem et commoda tueri atque augere voluerunt.
Those who defend these things in their man’s part are optimates, of whatever order they are; but those who especially with their own necks sustain such great burdens and the commonwealth, these have always been held the chief of the optimates, the authors and preservers of the city. To this kind of men, I confess, as I said before, there are many adversaries, enemies, enviers; many dangers are set forth, many injuries inflicted, great labours to be undergone and gone through. But all my speech is with virtue, not with laziness, with standing, not with pleasure, with those who think themselves born for the fatherland, for their fellow-citizens, for praise, for glory, not for sleep and feasts and delight. For if any are led by pleasures and have given themselves over to the enticements of vices and the panderings of desires, let them give up offices, let them not touch the commonwealth, let them suffer themselves to enjoy their own peace by the labour of brave men.
haec qui pro virili parte defendunt optimates sunt, cuiuscumque sunt ordinis; qui autem praecipue suis cervicibus tanta munia atque rem publicam sustinent, hi semper habiti sunt optimatium principes, auctores et conservatores civitatis. huic hominum generi fateor, ut ante dixi, multos adversarios, inimicos, invidos esse, multa proponi pericula, multas inferri iniurias, magnos esse experiundos et subeundos labores; sed mihi omnis oratio est cum virtute non cum desidia, cum dignitate non cum voluptate, cum iis qui se patriae, qui suis civibus, qui laudi, qui gloriae, non qui somno et conviviis et delectationi natos arbitrantur. nam si qui voluptatibus ducuntur et se vitiorum inlecebris et cupiditatium lenociniis dediderunt, missos faciant honores, ne attingant rem publicam, patiantur virorum fortium labore se otio suo perfrui.
But those who seek the good fame of the good — which alone can truly be named glory — ought to seek peace and pleasures for others, not for themselves. They must sweat for the common advantages, undergo enmities, often for the commonwealth go through tempests; with many bold men, wicked men, sometimes also powerful, they must fight. These things we have heard from the counsels and deeds of the most distinguished men; these we have received, these we have read. Nor do we see those set in praise who at some time stirred the spirits of the people to sedition, or who blinded the minds of the inexperienced by bribery, or who called brave and distinguished men, well-deserving of the commonwealth, into some unpopularity. These our forefathers have always thought light men and reckless and bad and pernicious citizens. But those who repressed the rushes and attempts of these, who by authority, by good faith, by steadiness, by greatness of soul resisted the counsels of the bold — these grave men, these chief men, these leaders, these authors of this standing and empire have always been held.
qui autem bonam famam bonorum, quae sola vere gloria nominari potest, expetunt, aliis otium quaerere debent et voluptates, non sibi. sudandum est iis pro communibus commodis, adeundae inimicitiae, subeundae saepe pro re publica tempestates: cum multis audacibus, improbis, non numquam etiam potentibus dimicandum. haec audivimus de clarissimorum virorum consiliis et factis, haec accepimus, haec legimus. neque eos in laude positos videmus qui incitarunt aliquando populi animos ad seditionem, aut qui largitione caecarunt mentis imperitorum, aut qui fortis et claros viros et bene de re publica meritos in invidiam aliquam vocaverunt. levis hos semper nostri homines et audacis et malos et perniciosos civis putaverunt. at vero qui horum impetus et conatus represserunt, qui auctoritate, qui fide, qui constantia, qui magnitudine animi consiliis audacium restiterunt, hi graves, hi principes, hi duces, hi auctores huius dignitatis atque imperi semper habiti sunt.
And lest anyone, from our case or from that of any others besides, fear this way of life — one in this city, whom indeed I can name, an outstandingly well-deserving man of the commonwealth, L. Opimius, fell most unworthily; whose monument is most thronged in the Forum, his tomb most deserted, has been left on the Dyrrachian shore. And yet this man, burning with unpopularity on account of the death of C. Gracchus, the Roman people itself always freed from danger; some other storm of an unfair court overturned that outstanding citizen. The rest, however, either, struck down by sudden violence and a popular tempest, were yet recreated and called back through the people itself, or lived altogether unwounded and unviolated. But indeed those who have neglected the Senate’s counsel, the authority of good men, the institutions of our ancestors, and have wished to be pleasant to an inexperienced or stirred-up multitude, almost all paid the penalty to the commonwealth either by present death or by base exile.
ac ne quis ex nostro aut aliquorum praeterea casu hanc vitae viam pertimescat, unus in hac civitate, quem quidem ego possum dicere, praeclare vir de re publica meritus, L. Opimius, indignissime concidit; cuius monumentum celeberrimum in foro, sepulcrum desertissimum in litore Dyrrachino relictum est. atque hunc tamen flagrantem invidia propter interitum C. Gracchi semper ipse populus Romanus periculo liberavit: alia quaedam civem egregium iniqui iudici procella pervertit. ceteri vero aut, repentina vi perculsi ac tempestate populari, per populum tamen ipsum recreati sunt atque revocati, aut omnino invulnerati inviolatique vixerunt. at vero ii qui senatus consilium, qui auctoritatem bonorum, qui instituta maiorum neglexerunt et imperitae aut concitatae multitudini iucundi esse voluerunt, omnes fere rei publicae poenas aut praesenti morte aut turpi exsilio dependerunt.
But if among the Athenians — Greek men, far removed from the gravity of our men — there were not lacking those who would defend the commonwealth against the people’s rashness, when all who had so done were thrust out from the city; if Themistocles — that famous preserver of his fatherland — the calamity of Miltiades did not deter from defending the commonwealth (Miltiades who had a little before saved that city), nor the flight of Aristides, who is handed down to have been the most just of all alone; if afterwards the highest men of the same city, whom there is no need to name by name, with so many examples of the people’s anger and lightness set forth, still defended that commonwealth of theirs — what at last ought we to do, born first in that city from which the gravity and greatness of soul, as it seems to me, has arisen, then standing on so great a glory that all human things ought to seem lighter, then having set ourselves to guard that commonwealth which is of such great standing that to fall defending it is more to be wished than, attacking it, to seize hold of things?
quod si apud Atheniensis, homines Graecos, longe a nostrorum hominum gravitate diiunctos, non deerant qui rem publicam contra populi temeritatem defenderent, cum omnes qui ita fecerant e civitate eicerentur; si Themistoclem illum, conservatorem patriae, non deterruit a re publica defendenda nec Miltiadi calamitas, qui illam civitatem paulo ante servarat, nec Aristidi fuga, qui unus omnium iustissimus fuisse traditur; si postea summi eiusdem civitatis viri, quos nominatim appellari non est necesse, propositis tot exemplis iracundiae levitatisque popularis tamen suam rem publicam illam defenderunt,—quid nos tandem facere debemus, primum in ea civitate nati unde orta mihi gravitas et magnitudo animi videtur, tum in tanta gloria insistentes ut omnia humana leviora videri debeant, deinde ad eam rem publicam tuendam adgressi quae tanta dignitate est ut eam defendentem occidere optatius sit quam oppugnantem rerum potiri?
The Greek men whom I named before, unjustly condemned and driven out by their own citizens, yet, because they have deserved well of their own cities, are today of such great glory not in Greece only but also among us and in other lands, that no one names those by whom they were oppressed; the calamity of these all set above the lordship of those. Who of the Carthaginians was of more weight than Hannibal in counsel, virtue, deeds done — who alone with so many of our generals through so many years contended for empire and for glory? Him his own citizens cast out from the city; we, even though an enemy, see celebrated in our writings and memory.
homines Graeci quos antea nominavi, inique a suis civibus damnati atque expulsi, tamen, quia bene sunt de suis civitatibus meriti, tanta hodie gloria sunt non in Graecia solum sed etiam apud nos atque in ceteris terris, ut eos a quibus illi oppressi sint nemo nominet, horum calamitatem dominationi illorum omnes anteponant. quis Carthaginiensium pluris fuit Hannibale consilio, virtute, rebus gestis, qui unus cum tot imperatoribus nostris per tot annos de imperio et de gloria decertavit? hunc sui cives e civitate eiecerunt: nos etiam hostem litteris nostris et memoria videmus esse celebratum.
Wherefore let us imitate our Bruti, Camilli, Ahalae, Decii, Curii, Fabricii, Maximi, Scipiones, Lentuli, Aemilii, countless others who set fast this commonwealth; whom I, for my part, place in the gathering and number of the immortal gods. Let us love our fatherland, obey the Senate, take counsel for good men; let us neglect present fruits, serve the glory of posterity; let us think that best which shall be most right; let us hope what we wish, but bear what shall happen; let us think, finally, that the body of brave men, of great men, is mortal, but the motions of the soul and the glory of virtue everlasting; nor, if we see this opinion in that most holy Hercules consecrated — whose body burnt up, immortality is said to have received his life and virtue — should we judge less that those who, by their counsels or labours, have either increased or defended or saved this so great a commonwealth have attained immortal glory.
qua re imitemur nostros Brutos, Camillos, Ahalas, Decios, Curios, Fabricios, maximos, Scipiones, Lentulos, Aemilios, innumerabilis alios qui hanc rem publicam stabiliverunt; quos equidem in deorum immortalium coetu ac numero repono. amemus patriam, pareamus senatui, consulamus bonis; praesentis fructus neglegamus, posteritatis gloriae serviamus; id esse optimum putemus quod erit rectissimum; speremus quae volumus, sed quod acciderit feramus; cogitemus denique corpus virorum fortium magnorum hominum esse mortale, animi vero motus et virtutis gloriam sempiternam; neque hanc opinionem si in illo sanctissimo hercule consecratam videmus, cuius corpore ambusto vitam eius et virtutem immortalitas excepisse dicatur, minus existimemus eos qui hanc tantam rem publicam suis consiliis aut laboribus aut auxerint aut defenderint aut servarint esse immortalem gloriam consecutos.
But me suddenly, members of the jury, while speaking of the standing and glory of the bravest and most distinguished citizens, and preparing to speak still more, the sight of these men, in the very course of my speech, has restrained. I see P. Sestius, defender, champion, doer of my safety, of your authority, of the public cause, on trial; I see this his son in the boys’ toga gazing at me with weeping eyes; I see Milo, vindicator of your liberty, guard of my safety, support of the afflicted commonwealth, extinguisher of domestic banditry, repressor of daily slaughter, defender of the temples and roofs, protection of the Curia, in mourning dress and on trial; I see P. Lentulus, whose father I set up as the god and parent of my fortune and name, of my brother and our children, in this wretched dishevelment and mourning; he to whom the previous year had given both the manly toga of his father and the praetexta by the people’s verdict, this year in this toga deprecating the sudden bitterness of a most unjust bill on behalf of his father, the bravest and most distinguished citizen.
sed me repente, iudices, de fortissimorum et clarissimorum civium dignitate et gloria dicentem et plura etiam dicere parantem horum aspectus in ipso cursu orationis repressit. video P. Sestium, meae salutis, vestrae auctoritatis, publicae causae defensorem, propugnatorem, actorem, reum; video hunc praetextatum eius filium oculis lacrimantibus me intuentem; video Milonem, vindicem vestrae libertatis, custodem salutis meae, subsidium adflictae rei publicae, exstinctorem domestici latrocini, repressorem caedis cotidianae, defensorem templorum atque tectorum, praesidium curiae, sordidatum et reum; video P. Lentulum, cuius ego patrem deum ac parentem statuo fortunae ac nominis mei, fratris liberorumque nostrorum, in hoc misero squalore et sordibus; cui superior annus idem et virilem patris et praetextam populi iudicio togam dederit, hunc hoc anno in hac toga rogationis iniustissimae subitam acerbitatem pro patre fortissimo et clarissimo civi deprecantem.
And this dishevelment of so many and such citizens, this mourning, these mourning robes have been undertaken on account of one man, me; because they defended me, because they grieved over my misfortune and mourning, because they gave me back to my mourning fatherland, to the demanding Senate, to the demanding Italy, to all of you praying. What so great wickedness is in me? What did I so greatly fail in on that day when I brought the disclosures, the letters, the confessions of common destruction to you, when I obeyed you? And if it is criminal to love the fatherland, I have borne enough of penalties: my house is overturned, my fortunes harassed, my children scattered, my wife dragged about, my best brother of incredible piety and unheard-of love rolled in the greatest dishevelment at the feet of my bitterest enemies; I, driven from altars, hearths, household gods, torn from my own, was without my fatherland, which — to speak most lightly — I had certainly protected; I have borne the cruelty of my enemies, the wickedness of the unfaithful, the deceit of the envious.
atque hic tot et talium civium squalor, hic luctus, hae sordes susceptae sunt propter unum me, quia me defenderunt, quia meum casum luctumque doluerunt, quia me lugenti patriae, flagitanti senatui, poscenti Italiae, vobis omnibus orantibus reddiderunt. quod tantum est in me scelus? quid tanto opere deliqui illo die cum ad vos indicia, litteras, confessiones communis exiti detuli, cum parui vobis? ac si scelestum est amare patriam, pertuli poenarum satis: eversa domus est, fortunae vexatae, dissipati liberi, raptata coniunx, frater optimus, incredibili pietate, amore inaudito, maximo in squalore volutatus est ad pedes inimicissimorum; ego pulsus aris focis deis penatibus, distractus a meis, carui patria, quam, ut levissime dicam, certe protexeram; pertuli crudelitatem inimicorum, scelus infidelium, fraudem invidorum.
If this is not enough, that all these things seem wiped out by my return, far more, far more, members of the jury, would it be better for me to fall back into that same fortune, than to bring so great a calamity upon my defenders and preservers. Or could I be in this city, with these driven out who made me a partaker of this city? I shall not be, I shall not be able to be, members of the jury; nor shall this boy, who declares by these tears with what devotion he is endowed, ever, with his father lost on my account, see me myself unharmed; nor, as often as he sees me, will he not groan and say that he sees his pestilence and his father’s. But indeed I shall embrace these in every fortune, whatever shall be offered, nor shall any fortune ever tear me from those whom you see in mourning dress in my name; nor shall those nations to whom the Senate commended me, to whom it gave thanks for me, see this man in exile on my account, without me.
si hoc non est satis, quod haec omnia deleta videntur reditu meo, multo mihi, multo, inquam, iudices, praestat in eandem illam recidere fortunam quam tantam importare meis defensoribus et conservatoribus calamitatem. an ego in hac urbe esse possim, his pulsis qui me huius urbis compotem fecerunt? non ero, non potero esse, iudices; neque hic umquam puer, qui his lacrimis qua sit pietate declarat, amisso patre suo propter me, me ipsum incolumem videbit, nec, quotienscumque me viderit, ingemescet ac pestem suam ac patris sui se dicet videre. ego vero hos in omni fortuna, quaecumque erit oblata, complectar, nec me ab iis quos meo nomine sordidatos videtis umquam ulla fortuna divellet; neque eae nationes quibus me senatus commendavit, quibus de me gratias egit, hunc exsulem propter me sine me videbunt.
But these things the immortal gods — who received me coming to their temples, surrounded by these men and by the consul P. Lentulus — and the commonwealth itself, than which nothing is more sacred, have committed to your power, members of the jury. You by this verdict can confirm the minds of all good men, repress those of the wicked; you can use these as the best citizens, you can refit me, and renew the commonwealth. Wherefore I implore and beseech you that, if you wished me to be safe, you preserve those through whom you have recovered me.
sed haec di immortales, qui me suis templis advenientem receperunt stipatum ab his viris et P. Lentulo consule, atque ipsa res publica, qua nihil est sanctius, vestrae potestati, iudices, commiserunt. vos hoc iudicio omnium bonorum mentis confirmare, improborum reprimere potestis, vos his civibus uti optimis, vos me reficere et renovare rem publicam. qua re vos obtestor atque obsecro ut, si me salvum esse voluistis, eos conservetis per quos me reciperavistis.