The Orations, Volume 3. Cicero

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СКАЧАТЬ read that some of the most illustrious men of our country had rushed into the middle of the enemy to manifest death for the sake of the safety of their army. And could I doubt that if I were to sacrifice myself for the safety of the entire republic, I should in this point be better off than the Decii, because they could not even hear of their glory, while I should be able to be even a spectator of my own renown?

      XXV. Therefore your frenzy, being disconcerted, kept making vain attacks. For the bitterness of my fortune had exhausted all the violence of all the wicked citizens. In such terrible disaster and such wide-spread ruin, there was no room for any new cruelty. Cato was next to me. Was there nothing which you could do, beyond making him who had been my leader and guide in all my conduct, a partner also in my misfortune? What? Could you banish him? No. What then? You could send him away for the money of Cyprus. One booty may have been lost; another will be sure to be found; only let this man be got out of the way. Accordingly, the hated Marcus Cato is commissioned to go to Cyprus, as if it was a kindness that was being conferred on him. Two men are removed, whom the wicked men could not bear the sight of; one by the most discreditable sort of honour, the other by the most honourable possible calamity. And that you may be aware that that man had been an enemy not to their persons, but to their virtues, after I was driven out, and Cato despatched on his commission, he turns himself against that very man by whose advice and by whose assistance he was in the habit of saying in the assemblies that he had done and continued to do what he was then doing and everything which he had hitherto done. He thought that Cnæus Pompeius, who he saw was in every one’s opinion by far the first man in the city, would not much longer tolerate his frenzy. After he had filched out of his custody by treachery the son of a king who was our friend,—himself being an enemy and a prisoner,—and having provoked that most gallant man by this injury, he thought that he could contend with him by the aid of those troops against whom I had been unwilling to struggle at the risk of the destruction of all virtuous citizens, especially as at first he had the consuls to help him. But after a time Gabinius broke his agreement with him; but Piso continued faithful to him. You saw what massacres that man then committed, what men he stoned, what numbers he made to flee; how easily by means of his armed bands and his daily plots did he compel Cnæus Pompeius to absent himself from the forum and the senate-house, and to confine himself to his own house, even after he had been already deserted by the best part of his forces. And from this you may judge how great that violence was at its first rise, and when first collected together, when even after it was scattered and almost extinct it alarmed Cnæus Pompeius in this way.

      XXVI. That most prudent man, Lucius Cotta, a man most deeply attached to the republic and to me, and above all to truth, saw this when he delivered his opinion on the first of January. He then considered it unnecessary that any law should be passed for my return. He said that I had consulted the interests of the republic; that I had yielded to the tempest; that I had been more friendly to you and to the rest of the citizens than to myself and to my own relations; that I had been driven away by the disturbances of a body of men banded together for purposes of bloodshed, and by an unprecedented exercise of power; that no law could possibly have been passed affecting my status as a citizen; that no law had been drawn up in writing, that none could have any validity; that everything had been done in disregard of the laws and of the usages of our ancestors, in a rash and turbulent manner, by violence and frenzy. But if that were a law, then it was not lawful for the consuls to refer the matter to the senate, ^{Ref. 013} nor for him himself to express his opinion upon it in the senate. And as both these things were being done, it was not right that it should be decreed that a law should be passed concerning me, lest that which was no law at all, should be in consequence decided to be a law. No opinion could be truer, sounder, more expedient, or better for the republic. For the wickedness and frenzy of the man being stigmatised by it, all danger of similar disgrace to the republic for the future was removed. Nor did Cnæus Pompeius, who delivered a most elaborate opinion and most honourable to me, nor did you, O priests, who defended me by your decision and authority, fail to see that that was no law at all, and that it was rather the heat of the times, an interdict of wickedness, a voice of frenzy. But you were anxious to guard against any popular odium being excited against you; if we appeared to have been restored without any decision of the people. And with the same idea the senate adopted the opinion of Marcus Bibulus, a most fearless man, that you should decide the question relating to my house: not that he doubted that nothing had been done by Clodius with due regard either to the laws, or to the requirements of religion, or to the rights of the citizens; but that, as wicked men were so numerous, no one should at any time arise and say that there was anything holy about my house. For as often as the senate has expressed any opinion at all in my case, so often has it decided that that was no law at all, since indeed, according to that writing which that fellow drew up, it was forbidden to express any opinion at all. And that kindred pair, Piso and Gabinius, saw this. Those men, so obedient to the laws and courts of justice,—when the senate in very full houses kept constantly entreating them to make a motion respecting me,—said that they did not disapprove of the object, but that they were hindered by that fellow’s law. And this was true; but it was the law which he had passed about giving them Macedonia and Syria.

      XXVII. But you, O Publius Lentulus, neither as a private individual nor as consul ever thought that it was a law. For when the tribunes of the people made a motion, you as consul elect often delivered your opinion concerning my affairs; and from the first of January to the time that the whole affair was completed, you persevered in making motions respecting me, you proposed a law, you passed it; none of which things could legally have been done by you if that thing of Clodius’s had been a law. But Quintus Metellus your colleague, a most illustrious man, even though he was a brother of Clodius, when he joined you in making a motion in the senate respecting my affairs, expressed his opinion that that was no law at all which men utterly unconnected with Clodius,—namely Piso and Gabinius, considered was a law. But how did those men who had such respect for Clodius’s laws observe the rest of the laws? The senate indeed, whose authority is of the very greatest weight on all questions affecting the power of the laws, as often as it has been consulted in my case, has decided that that was no law at all. And you, O Lentulus, showed that you were aware of its not being one in that law which you carried concerning me. For that law was not framed in such terms as that I might be allowed to come to Rome, but that I should come to Rome. For you did not wish to propose to make that lawful for me to do, which was lawful already; but you wished me to be in the republic, appearing to have been sent for by the command of the Roman people, rather than to have been restored for the purpose of aiding in the management of the republic.

      Did you then, O you most monstrous pest, dare to call that man an exile, when you yourself were branded with such wickedness and such crimes that you made every place which you approached very like a place of banishment? For what is an exile? The name itself is an indication of misfortune, not of disgrace. When, then, is it disgraceful? In reality when it is the punishment of guilt; but in the opinion of men, when it is the punishment of a condemned person. Is it then owing to any crime of mine that I bear the name of an exile, or owing to any judicial sentence? Owing to any crime? Even you, whom those satellites of yours call the prosperous Catiline, do not dare to affirm that, nor do any one of those men who used to say so, venture to say so now. There is not only no one so ignorant now as to say that those actions which I did in my consulship were errors; but no one is such an enemy to his country as not to confess that the country was preserved by my counsels.

      XXVIII. For what deliberative assembly is there in the whole earth, whether great or little, which has not expressed that opinion of my exploits which is most desirable and most honourable for me? The greatest council of the Roman people, and of all peoples, and nations, and kings, is the senate. That decreed that all men who desired the safety of the republic should come forward to defend me alone, and showed its opinion that the republic could not have been saved if I had not existed, and could not last if I did not return. The next in rank to this dignified body is the equestrian order. All the companies of public contractors passed most favourable and honourable decrees respecting my consulship and my actions. The scriveners, who are much connected with us in matters relating to public registers and monuments, took good care that their sentiments and resolutions respecting my services to the republic should not be left in doubt. There is no corporation in СКАЧАТЬ