Dio's Rome, Volume 3. Cassius Dio Cocceianus

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СКАЧАТЬ which they may attain without caring to secure them righteously, as for those who fear such results to appear to endure the former's conduct willingly. These persons in authority have no regard for their own consciousness of guilt, but if they think they have been detected, they are ashamed and afraid: thereafter they usually take what is said to them as flattery and believe the opposite, and any action which may result from the words as a plot, being suspicious in the midst of their shame. Antony knew this thoroughly, and first of all he selected the Lupercalia and that procession in order that Caesar in the relaxation of his spirit and the fun of the affair might be rebuked with immunity, and next he selected the Forum and the rostra that his patron might be shamed by the very places. And he fabricated the commands from the populace, in order that hearing them Caesar might reflect not on what Antony was saying at the time, but on what the Roman people would order a man to say. How could he have believed that this injunction had really been laid upon any one, when he knew that the people had not voted anything of the kind and did not hear them shouting out. But it was right for him to hear this in the Roman Forum, where we had often joined in many deliberations for freedom, and beside the rostra from which we had sent forth thousands and thousands of measures in behalf of the democracy, and at the festival of the Lupercalia, in order that he should remember Romulus, and from the mouth of the consul that he might call to mind the deeds of the early consuls, and in the name of the people, that he might ponder the fact that he was undertaking to be tyrant not over Africans or Gauls or Egyptians, but over very Romans. These words made him turn about; they humiliated him. And whereas if any one else had offered him the diadem, he might have taken it, he was then stopped short by that speech and felt a shudder of alarm.

      "These, then are the deeds of Antony: he did not uselessly break a leg, in order himself to escape, nor burn off a hand, in order to frighten Porsenna, but by his cleverness and consummate skill he put an end to the tyranny of Caesar better than any spear of Decius and better than the sword of Brutus. [-20-] But you, Cicero, what did you effect in your consulship, not to mention wise and good things, that was not deserving of the greatest punishment? Did you not throw our city into uproar and party strife when it was quiet and harmonious, and fill the Forum and Capitol with slaves, among others, that you had called to your aid? Did you not ruin miserably Catiline, who was overanxious for office, but otherwise guilty of no violence? Did you not pitiably destroy Lentulus and his followers, who were not guilty, not tried, and not convicted, in spite of the fact that you are always and everywhere prating interminably about the laws and about the courts? If any one should take these phrases from your speeches, there is nothing left. You censured Pompey because he conducted the trial of Milo contrary to legalized precedent: yet you afforded Lentulus no privilege great or small that is enjoined in these cases, but without a speech or trial you cast him into prison, a man respectable, aged, whose ancestors had given many great pledges that he would be friendly to his country, and who by reason of his age and his character had no power to do anything revolutionary. What trouble did he have that would have been cured by the change of condition? What blessing did he possess that would not certainly be jeopardized by rebellion? What arms had he collected, what allies had he equipped, that a man who had been consul and was praetor should be so pitilessly and impiously cast into a cell without being allowed to say a word of defence or hear a single charge, and die there like the basest criminals? For this is what this excellent Tullius most of all desired,—that in [the Tullianum,] the place that bears his name, he might put to death the grandson of that Lentulus once became the head of the senate. [-21-] What would he have done if he had obtained authority to bear arms, seeing that he accomplished so many things of such a nature by his words alone? These are your brilliant achievements, these are your great exhibitions of generalship; and not only were you condemned for them by the rest, but you were so ready to vote against your own self in the matter that you fled before your trial came on. Yet what greater demonstration of your bloodguiltiness could there be than that you came in danger of perishing at the hands of those very persons in whose behalf you pretended you had done this, that you were afraid of the very ones whom you said you had benefited by these acts, and that you did not wait to hear from them or say a word to them, you clever, you extraordinary man, you aider of other people, but secured your safety by flight as if from a battle? And you are so shameless that you have undertaken to write a history of these events that I have related, whereas you ought to have prayed that no other man even should give an account of any of them: then you might at least derive this advantage, that your doings should die with you and no memory of them be transmitted to posterity. Now, gentlemen, if you want to laugh, listen to his clever device. He set himself the task of writing a history of the entire existence of the city (for he pretends to be a sophist and poet and philosopher and orator and historian), and he began not from the founding of it, like the rest are similarly busied, but from his own consulship, so that he might proceed backwards, making that the beginning of his account, and the kingdom of Romulus the end.

      [-22-] "Tell me now, you who write such things and do such things, what the excellent man ought to say in popular address and do in action: for you are better at advising others about any matter whatsoever than at doing your own duty, and better at rebuking others than at reforming yourself. Yet how much better it were for you instead of reproaching Antony with cowardice to lay aside yourself that effeminacy both of spirit and of body, instead of bringing a charge of disloyalty against him to cease yourself from doing anything disloyal or playing the deserter, instead of accusing him of ingratitude to cease yourself from wronging your benefactors! For this, I must tell you, is one of his inherent defects, that he hates above all those who have done him any favor, and is always fawning upon somebody else but plotting against these persons. To leave aside other instances, he was pitied and preserved by Caesar and enrolled among the patricians, after which he killed him,—no, not with his own hand (he is too cowardly and womanish), but by persuading and making ready others who should do it. The men themselves showed that I speak the truth in this. When they ran out into the Forum with their naked blades, they invoked him by name, saying 'Cicero!' repeatedly, as you all heard. His benefactor, Caesar, then, he slew, and as for Antony from whom he obtained personally safety and a priesthood when he was in danger of perishing at the hands of the soldiers in Brundusium, he repays him with this sort of thanks, by accusing him for deeds with which neither he himself nor any one else ever found any fault and attacking him for conduct which he praises in others. Yet he sees this Caesar, who has not attained the age yet to hold office or have any part in politics and has not been chosen by you, sees him equipped with power and standing as the author of a war without our vote or orders, and not only has no blame to bestow, but pronounces laudations. So you perceive that he investigates neither what is just with reference to the laws nor what is useful with reference to the public weal, but simply manages everything to suit his own will, censuring in some what he extols in others, spreads false reports against you, and calumniates you gratuitously.[-23-] For you will find that all of Antony's acts after Caesar's demise were ordered by you. To speak about the disposition of the funds and the examination of the letters I deem to be superfluous. Why so? Because first it would be the business of the one who inherited his property to look into the matter, and second, if there was any truth in the charge of malfeasance, it ought to have been stopped then on the moment. For none of the transactions was carried on underhandedly, Cicero, but they were all recorded on tablets, as you yourself affirm. If Antony committed his many wrongs so openly and shamelessly as you say, and plundered the whole of Crete on the pretext that in accord with Caesar's letters it had been left free after the governorship of Brutus, though the latter was later given charge of it by us, how could you have kept silent and how could any one else have borne it? But these matters, as I said, I shall pass over; for the majority of them have not been mentioned individually, and Antony is not present, who could inform you exactly of what he has done in each instance. As to Macedonia and Gaul and the remaining provinces and legions, yours are the decrees, Conscript Fathers, according to which you assigned to the various governors their separate charges and delivered to Antony Gaul, together with the soldiers. This is known also to Cicero. He was there and helped vote for all of them just like you. Yet how much better it would have been for him then to speak in opposition, if any item of business was not going as it should, and to instruct you in these matters that are now brought forward, than to be silent at the time and allow you to make mistakes, and now nominally to censure Antony but really to accuse the senate!

      [-24-] "Any sensible person СКАЧАТЬ