The Orations, Volume 3. Cicero

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СКАЧАТЬ you order him to be looked for, they will find the man in your sister’s house, hiding himself with his head down. But if no one in his senses ever called your father, a citizen—ay, by Jove, a good citizen, and one very unlike you;—if no one, I say, ever called him an exile, who, when a tribune of the people had proposed a bill against him, would not appear on account of the iniquity of that period of Cinna’s triumph, and who, on that account, had his command taken from him; if, I say, in his case, a punishment inflicted by law carried no disgrace with it, on account of the violent character of those times, could there, in my case, be any penalty against me as if I had been condemned, when I never was tried, when I never was accused, when I never was summoned by any tribune of the people, and, especially, a penalty which was not mentioned, not even in the proposed bill itself?

      XXXII. But just remark what the difference is between that most iniquitous misfortune inflicted on your father, and between my fortune and condition which I am now discussing. Lucius Philippus the censor, in reading the roll of the senate, passed over his own uncle, your father, a most excellent citizen, the son of a most illustrious man, himself a man of such severity of character that if he were alive you would not have been suffered to live. For he had no reason to allege why those acts should not be ratified which had been done in that republic in which, at that very time, he had been willing to take upon himself the office of censor. But as for me, Lucius Cotta, a man of censorian rank said in the senate on his oath, that if he had been censor at the time that I left the city, he should have retained me on the list as a senator in my proper place. Who appointed any judge in my place? who of my friends made a will at the time that I was absent, and did not give me the same that he would have given me if I had been in the city? who was there, I will not say only among the citizens, but even among the allies, who hesitated to receive and assist me in defiance of your law? Lastly, the whole senate, long before the law was passed respecting me, “Voted, that thanks should be given to all those cities by which Marcus Tullius . . . .” Was that all? No—it went, “a citizen who had done the greatest services to the republic, had been received:” and do you, one single pernicious citizen, deny that that citizen has been legally restored, whom the whole senate, even while he was absent, considered not only a citizen, but has at all times considered a most illustrious one? But as the annals of the Roman people and the records of antiquity relate, that great man Cæso Quintius, and Marcus Furius Camillus, and Marcus Servilius Ahala, though they had deserved exceedingly well of the republic, still had to endure the violence and passion of an excited people; and after they had been condemned by the comitia centuriata and had gone into banishment, were again restored to their former dignity by the same people in a more placable humour. But if, in the case of those men who were thus condemned, their calamity not only did not diminish the glory of their most illustrious names, but even added fresh lustre to it; (for, although it is more desirable to finish the course of one’s life without pain and without injury, still it contributes more to the immortality of a man’s glory to have been universally regretted by his fellow-citizens, than never to have been injured;) shall a similar misfortune have in my case the force of a reproach or of an accusation, when I left the city without any sentence of the people, and have been restored by most honourable resolutions of every order of society? Publius Popillius was always a brave and wise citizen in every point of view; yet in the whole of his life there is nothing which sheds a greater lustre on his character than this very calamity. For who would have recollected now that he conferred great benefits on the republic, if he had not been expelled by the wicked and restored by the good? The conduct of Quintus Metellus as a military commander was admirable, his censorship was splendid, his whole life was full of wisdom and dignity; and yet it is his calamity which has handed down his praises to everlasting recollection.

      XXXIII. But if the injury inflicted on them by their enemies was not any disgrace to those men who were expelled unjustly, but still who were restored according to law, after their enemies had been slain, after the tribunes had brought forward motions respecting them; not by the authority of the senate, not by the comitia centuriata, not by the decrees of all Italy, not by the universal regret of the state; do you think that in my case, who departed uncondemned, who departed at the same time as the republic, and returned with the greatest dignity, while you were still alive, while one of your brothers was one of the consuls who brought me back, and the other was the prætor who demanded my recal, your wickedness ought to be any discredit to me? And if the Roman people, being inflamed with passion or envy, had driven me out of the city, and afterwards, remembering my services to the republic, had recollected itself, and shown its repentance for its rashness and injustice by restoring me; yet, in truth, no one would have been so senseless, as to think that such conduct on the part of the people ought not rather to be considered an honour to me than a disgrace. But now, when of all the people no one has accused me, when it is impossible for me to have been condemned, seeing that I have never been accused, since I was not even expelled in such a way that I could not have got the better of my adversaries if I had contested the point with them by force; and when, on the other hand, I have at all times been defended and praised and honoured by the Roman people; what pretence has any one for thinking himself better off than I am, at all events as far as the people are concerned?

      Do you think that the Roman people consists of those men who can be hired for any purpose? who are easily instigated to offer violence to magistrates? to besiege the senate? to wish every day for bloodshed, conflagration and plunder? a people, indeed, whom you could not possibly collect together unless you shut up all the taverns; a people to whom you gave the Lentidii, and Lollii, and Plaguleii, and Sergii, for leaders. Oh for the splendour and dignity of the Roman people, for kings, for foreign nations, for the most distant lands to fear; a multitude collected of slaves, of hirelings, of criminals, and beggars! That was the real beauty and splendour of the Roman people, which you beheld in the Campus Martius at that time, when even you were allowed to speak in opposition to the authority and wishes of the senate and of all Italy. That is the people—that, I say, is the people which is the lord of kings, the conqueror and commander-in-chief of all nations, which you, O wicked man, beheld in that most illustrious day when all the chief men of the city, when all men of all ranks and ages considered themselves as giving their votes, not about the safety of a citizen, but about that of the state; when men arrive into the Campus, the municipal towns having been all emptied, not the taverns.

      XXXIV. By the aid of this people, if there had then been real consuls in the republic, or if there had been no consuls at all, I should without any difficulty have resisted your head-long frenzy and impious wickedness. But I was unwilling to take up the public cause against armed violence, without the protection of the people. Not that I disapproved of the late rigour of Publius Scipio, that bravest of men, when he was only a private individual; but Publius Mucius the consul, who was considered somewhat remiss in defending the republic, immediately defended, and, more than that, extolled the action of Scipio in many resolutions passed by the senate. But, in my case, I, if you were slain, should have had to contend by force of arms against the consuls, or if you were alive, against both you and them together. There were many other circumstances also to be feared at that time. The contest would, in truth, have reached the slaves. So great an hatred of all good men had still got possession of the minds of impious citizens, being burnt as it were into their wicked minds by that ancient conspiracy.

      Here, too, you warn me not to boast. You say that those things are intolerable which I am accustomed to assert concerning myself; and being a witty man, you put on quite a polite and elegant sort of language. You say that I am accustomed to say that I am Jupiter; and also to make a frequent boast that Minerva is my sister. I will not so much defend myself from the charge of insolence in calling myself Jupiter, as from that of ignorance in thinking Minerva the sister of Jupiter. But even if I do say so, I at all events claim a virgin for my sister; but you would not allow your sister to remain a virgin. Consider rather whether you have not a right to call yourself Jupiter, because you have established a right to call the same woman both sister and wife.

      XXXV. And since you find fault with me for this, that you assert that I am accustomed to speak too boastfully of myself, I ask, who ever heard me speak in this way, or speak of myself at all, except when I was compelled, and was doing so of necessity? For if, when robberies, and bribery, and lust are imputed to me, I am accustomed to reply that СКАЧАТЬ