Orations (M. Tullius Cicero)

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	Orations Author: M. Tullius Cicero	Translator: C. D. Yonge
127	O mea frustra semper verissima auguria rerum futurarum ! Dicebam illis in Capitolio liberatoribus nostris , cum me ad te ire vellent , ut ad defendendam rem publicam te adhortarer , quoad metueres , omnia te promissurum ; simul ac timere desisses , similem te futurum tui . Itaque cum ceteri consulares irent , redirent , in sententia mansi : neque te illo die neque postero vidi neque ullam societatem optimis civibus cum importunissimo hoste foedere ullo confirmari posse credidi . Post diem tertium veni in aedem Telluris et quidem invitus , cum omnis aditus armati obsiderent .	O how vain have at all times been my too true predictions of the future! I told those deliverers of ours in the Capitol, when they wished me to go to you to exhort you to defend the republic, that as long as you were in fear you would promise every thing, but that as soon as you had emancipated yourself from alarm you would be yourself again. Therefore, while the rest of the men of consular rank were going backward and forward to you, I adhered to my opinion, nor did I see you at all that day, or the next; nor did I think it possible for an alliance between virtuous citizens and a most unprincipled enemy to be made, so as to last, by any treaty or engagement whatever. The third day I came into the temple of Tellus, even then very much against my will, as armed men were blockading all the approaches.
128	Qui tibi dies ille , Antoni , fuit ? Quamquam mihi inimicus subito exstitisti , tamen me tui miseret quod tibi invideris .	What a day was that for you, O Marcus Antonius! Although you showed yourself all on a sudden an enemy to me; still I pity you for having envied yourself.
129	Qui tu vir , di immortales , et quantus fuisses , si illius diei mentem servare potuisses ! Pacem haberemus , quae erat facta per obsidem puerum nobilem , M . Bambalionis nepotem . Quamquam bonum te timor faciebat , non diuturnus magister offici , improbum fecit ea quae , dum timor abest , a te non discedit , audacia . Etsi tum , cum optimum te putabant me quidem dissentiente , funeri tyranni , si illud funus fuit , sceleratissime praefuisti . Tua illa pulchra laudatio , tua miseratio , tua cohortatio ; tu , tu , inquam , illas faces incendisti , et eas quibus semustilatus ille est et eas quibus incensa L . Bellieni domus deflagravit . Tu illos impetus perditorum hominum et ex maxima parte servorum quos nos vi manuque reppulimus in nostras domos immisisti . Idem tamen quasi fuligine abstersa reliquis diebus in Capitolio praeclara senatus consulta fecisti , ne qua post Idus Martias immunitatis tabula neve cuius benefici figeretur . Meministi ipse de exsulibus , scis de immunitate quid dixeris . Optimum vero quod dictaturae nomen in perpetuum de re publica sustulisti : quo quidem facto tantum te cepisse odium regni videbatur ut eius omnem propter proximum dictatorem metum tolleres . Constituta res publica videbatur aliis ,	What a man, O ye immortal gods! and how great a man might you have been, if you had been able to preserve the inclination you displayed that day;—we should still have peace which was made then by the pledge of a hostage, a boy of noble birth, the grandson of Marcus Bamballo. Although it was fear that was then making you a good citizen, which is never a lasting teacher of duty; your own audacity, which never departs from you as long as you are free from fear, has made you a worthless one. Although even at that time, when they thought you an excellent man, though I indeed differed from that opinion, you behaved with the greatest wickedness while presiding at the funeral of the tyrant, if that ought to be called a funeral. All that fine panegyric was yours, that commiseration was yours, that exhortation was yours. It was you—you, I say—who hurled those firebrands, both those with which your friend himself was nearly burned, and those by which the house of Lucius Bellienus was set on fire and destroyed. It was you who let loose those attacks of abandoned men, slaves for the most part, which we repelled by violence and our own personal exertions; it was you who set them on to attack our houses. And yet you, as if you had wiped off all the soot and smoke in the ensuing days, carried those excellent resolutions in the Capitol, that no document conferring any exemption, or granting any favor, should he published after the ides of March. You recollect yourself, what you said about the exiles; you know what you said about the exemption; but the best thing of all was, that you forever abolished the name of the dictatorship in the republic. Which act appeared to show that you had conceived such a hatred of kingly power that you took away all fear of it for the future, on account of him who had been the last dictator.
130	mihi vero nullo modo , qui omnia te gubernante naufragia metuebam . Num igitur me fefellit , aut num diutius sui potuit esse dissimilis ? Inspectantibus vobis toto Capitolio tabulae figebantur , neque solum singulis venibant immunitates sed etiam populis universis : civitas non iam singillatim , sed provinciis totis dabatur . Itaque si haec manent quae stante re publica manere non possunt , provincias universas , patres conscripti , perdidistis , neque vectigalia solum sed etiam imperium populi Romani huius domesticis nundinis deminutum est .	To other men the republic now seemed established, but it did not appear so at all to me, as I was afraid of every sort of shipwreck, as long as you were at the helm. Have I been deceived? or, was it possible for that man long to continue unlike himself? While you were all looking on, documents were fixed up over the whole Capitol, and exemptions were being sold, not merely to individuals, but to entire states. The freedom of the city was also being given now not to single persons only, but to whole provinces. Therefore, if these acts are to stand,—and stand they can not if the republic stands too,—then, O conscript fathers, you have lost whole provinces; and not the revenues only, but the actual empire of the Roman people has been diminished by a market this man held in his own house.
131	Vbi est septiens miliens quod est in tabulis quae sunt ad Opis ? Funestae illius quidem pecuniae , sed tamen quae nos , si eis quorum erat non redderetur , a tributis posset vindicare . Tu autem quadringentiens sestertium quod Idibus Martiis debuisti quonam modo ante Kalendas Aprilis debere desisti ? Sunt ea quidem innumerabilia quae a tuis emebantur non insciente te , sed unum egregium de rege Deiotaro , populi Romani amicissimo , decretum in Capitolio fixum : quo proposito nemo erat qui in ipso dolore risum posset continere .	Where are the seven hundred millions of sesterces which were entered in the account-books which are in the temple of Ops? a sum lamentable indeed, as to the means by which it was procured, but still one which, if it were not restored to those to whom it belonged, might save us from taxes. And how was it, that when you owed forty millions of sesterces on the fifteenth of March, you had ceased to owe them by the first of April? Those things are quite countless which were purchased of different people, not without your knowledge; but there was one excellent decree posted up in the Capitol affecting king Deiotarus, a most devoted friend to the Roman people. And when that decree was posted up, there was no one who, amid all his indignation, could restrain his laughter.
132	Quis enim cuiquam inimicior quam Deiotaro Caesar ? aeque atque huic ordini , ut equestri , ut Massiliensibus , ut omnibus quibus rem publicam populi Romani caram esse sentiebat . Igitur a quo vivo nec praesens nec absens rex Deiotarus quicquam aequi boni impetravit , apud mortuum factus est gratiosus . Compellarat hospitem praesens , computarat pecuniam , in eius tetrarchia unum ex Graecis comitibus suis conlocarat , Armeniam abstulerat a senatu datam . Haec vivus eripuit , reddit mortuus .	For who ever was a more bitter enemy to another than Caesar was to Deiotarus? He was as hostile to him as he was to this order, to the equestrian order, to the people of Massilia, and to all men whom he knew to look on the republic of the Roman people with attachment. But this man, who neither present nor absent could ever obtain from him any favor or justice while he was alive, became quite an influential man with him when he was dead. When present with him in his house, he had called for him though he was his host, he had made him give in his accounts of his revenue, he had exacted money from him; he had established one of his Greek retainers in his tetrarchy, and he had taken Armenia from him, which had been given to him by the senate. While he was alive he deprived him of all these things; now that he is dead, he gives them back again.
133	At quibus verbis ? Modo aequum sibi videri , modo non iniquum . Mira verborum complexio ! At ille numquam — semper enim absenti adfui Deiotaro — quicquam sibi quod nos pro illo postularemus aequum dixit videri . Syngrapha sesterti centiens per legatos , viros bonos , sed timidos et imperitos , sine nostra , sine reliquorum hospitum regis sententia facta in gynaecio est , quo in loco plurimae res venierunt et veneunt . Qua ex syngrapha quid sis acturus meditere censeo : rex enim ipse sua sponte , nullis commentariis Caesaris , simul atque audivit eius interitum , suo Marte res suas recuperavit .	And in what words? At one time he says, “that it appears to him to be just,...” at another, “that it appears not to be unjust...” What a strange combination of words! But while alive (I know this, for I always supported Deiotarus, who was at a distance), he never said that anything which we were asking for, for him, appeared just to him. A bond for ten millions of sesterces was entered into in the women's apartment (where many things have been sold, and are still being sold), by his ambassadors, well-meaning men, but timid and inexperienced in business, without my advice or that of the rest of the hereditary friends of the monarch. And I advise you to consider carefully what you intend to do with reference to. this bond. For the king himself, of his own accord, without. waiting for any of Caesar's memoranda, the moment that her heard of his death, recovered his own rights by his own courage and energy.
134	Sciebat homo sapiens ius semper hoc fuisse ut , quae tyranni eripuissent , ea tyrannis interfectis ei quibus erepta essent recuperarent . Nemo igitur iure consultus , ne iste quidem , qui tibi uni est iure consultus , per quem haec agis , ex ista syngrapha deberi dicet pro eis rebus quae erant ante syngrapham recuperatae . Non enim a te emit , sed prius quam tu suum sibi venderes ipse possedit . Ille vir fuit ; nos quidem contemnendi qui auctorem odimus , acta defendimus .	He, like a wise man, knew that this was always the law, that those men from whom the things which tyrants had taken away had been taken, might recover them when the tyrants were slain. No lawyer, therefore, not even he who is your lawyer and yours alone, and by whose advice you do all these things, will say that any thing is due to you by virtue of that bond for those things which had been recovered before that bond was executed. For he did not purchase them of you; but, before you undertook to sell him his own property, be had taken possession of it. He was a man—we, indeed, deserve to be despised, who hate the author of the actions, but uphold the actions themselves.
135	Quid ego de commentariis infinitis , quid de innumerabilibus chirographis loquar ? quorum etiam institores sunt qui ea tamquam gladiatorum libellos palam venditent . Itaque tanti acervi nummorum apud istum construuntur ut iam expendantur , non numerentur pecuniae . At quam caeca avaritia est ! Nuper fixa tabula est qua civitates locupletissimae Cretensium vectigalibus liberantur , statuiturque ne post M . Brutum pro consule sit Creta provincia . Tu mentis compos , tu non constringendus ? An Caesaris decreto Creta post M . Bruti decessum potuit liberari , cum Creta nihil ad Brutum Caesare vivo pertineret ? At huius venditione decreti — ne nihil actum putetis — provinciam Cretam perdidistis . Omnino nemo ullius rei fuit emptor cui defuerit hic venditor .	Why need I mention the countless mass of papers, the innumerable autographs which have been brought forward? writings of which there are imitators who sell their forgeries as openly as if they were gladiators playbills. Therefore, there are now such heaps of money piled up in that man's house, that it is weighed out instead of being counted. But bow blind is avarice! Lately, too, a document has been posted up by which the most wealthy cities of the Cretans are released from tribute; and by which it is ordained that after the expiration of the consulship of Marcus Brutus, Crete shall cease to be a province. Are you in your senses.? Ought you not to be put in confinement? Was it possible for there really to be a decree of Caesar's exempting Crete after the departure of Marcus. Brutus, when Brutus had no connection whatever with Crete while Caesar was alive? But by the sale of this decree (that you may not, O conscript fathers, think it wholly ineffectual) you have lost the province of Crete. There was nothing in the whole world which any one wanted to buy that this fellow was not ready to sell.
136	Et de exsulibus legem quam fixisti Caesar tulit ? Nullius insector calamitatem : tantum queror , primum eorum reditus inquinatos quorum causam Caesar dissimilem iudicarit ; deinde nescio cur non reliquis idem tribuas : neque enim plus quam tres aut quattuor reliqui sunt . Qui simili in calamitate sunt , cur tua misericordia non simili fruuntur , cur eos habes in loco patrui ? de quo ferre , cum de reliquis ferres , noluisti : quem etiam ad censuram petendam impulisti , eamque petitionem comparasti quae et risus hominum et querelas moveret . Cur autem ea comitia non habuisti ?	Caesar too, I suppose, made the law about the exiles which you have posted up. I do not wish to press upon any one in misfortune; I only complain, in the first place, that the return of those men has had discredit thrown upon it, whose cause Caesar judged to be different from that of the rest; and in the second place, I do not know why you do not mete out the same measure to all. For there can not be more than three or four left. Why do not they who are in similar misfortune enjoy a similar degree of your mercy? Why do you treat them as you treated your uncle? about whom you refused to pass a law when you were passing one about all the rest; and whom at the same time you encouraged to stand for the censorship, and instigated him to a canvass, which excited the ridicule and the complaint of every one.
137	An quia tribunus plebis sinistrum fulmen nuntiabat ? Cum tua quid interest , nulla auspicia sunt ; cum tuorum , tum fis religiosus . Quid ? eundem in vii viratu nonne destituisti ? intervenit enim cui metuisti , credo , ne salvo capite negare non posses . Omnibus eum contumeliis onerasti quem patris loco , si ulla in te pietas esset , colere debebas . Filiam eius , sororem tuam , eiecisti , alia condicione quaesita et ante perspecta . Non est satis : probri insimulasti pudicissimam feminam . Quid est quod addi possit ? Contentus eo non fuisti : frequentissimo senatu Kalendis Ianuariis sedente patruo hanc tibi esse cum Dolabella causam odi dicere ausus es quod ab eo sorori et uxori tuae stuprum esse oblatum comperisses . Quis interpretari potest , impudentiorne qui in senatu , an improbior qui in Dolabellam , an impurior qui patre audiente , an crudelior qui in illam miseram tam spurce , tam impie dixeris .	But why did you not hold that comitia? Was it because a tribune of the people announced that there had been an ill-omened flash of lightning seen? When you have any interest of your own to serve, then auspices are all nothing; but when it is only your friends who are concerned, then you become scrupulous. What more? Did you not also desert him in the matter of the septemvirate? “Yes, for he interfered with me.” What were you afraid of? I suppose you were afraid that you would be able to refuse him nothing if he were restored to the full possession of his rights. You loaded him with every species of insult, a man whom you ought to have considered in the place of a father to you, if you had had any piety or natural affection at all, You put away his daughter, your own cousin, having already looked out and provided yourself beforehand with another. That was not enough. You accused a most chaste woman of misconduct. What can go beyond this? Yet you were not content with this. In a very full senate held on the first of January, while your uncle was present, you dared to say that this was your reason for hatred of Dolabella, that you had ascertained that he had committed adultery with your cousin and your wife, Who can decide whether it was more shameless of you to make such profligate and such impious statements against that unhappy woman in the senate, or more wicked to make them against Dolabella, or more scandalous to make them in the presence of her father, or more cruel to make them at all?
138	Sed ad chirographa redeamus . Quae tua fuit cognitio ? Acta enim Caesaris pacis causa confirmata sunt a senatu : quae quidem Caesar egisset , non ea quae egisse Caesarem dixisset Antonius . Vnde ista erumpunt , quo auctore proferuntur ? Si sunt falsa , cur probantur ? si vera , cur veneunt ? At sic placuerat ut ex Kalendis Iuniis de Caesaris actis cum consilio cognosceretis . Quod fuit consilium , quem umquam convocasti , quas Kalendas Iunias exspectasti ? an eas ad quas te peragratis veteranorum coloniis stipatum armis rettulisti ? O praeclaram illam percursationem tuam mense Aprili atque Maio , tum cum etiam Capuam coloniam deducere conatus es ! Quem ad modum illinc abieris vel potius paene non abieris scimus .	However, let us return to the subject of Caesar's written papers. How were they verified by you? For the acts of Caesar were for peace's sake confirmed by the senate; that is to say, the acts which Caesar had really done, not those which Antonius said that Caesar had done. Where do all these come from? By whom are they produced and vouched for? If they are false, why are they ratified? If they are true, why are they sold? But the vote which was come to enjoined you, after the first of June, to make an examination of Caesar's acts with the assistance of a council. What council did you consult? whom did you ever invite to help you? what was the first of June that you waited for? Was it that day on which you, having traveled all through the colonies where the veterans were settled, returned escorted by a band of armed men? Oh what a splendid progress of yours was that in the months of April and May, when you attempted even to lead a colony to Capua! How you made your escape from thence, or rather how you barely made your escape, we all know.
139	Cui tu urbi minitaris . Vtinam conere , ut aliquando illud ‘ paene ’ tollatur ! At quam nobilis est tua illa peregrinatio ! Quid prandiorum apparatus , quid furiosam vinolentiam tuam proferam ? Tua ista detrimenta sunt , illa nostra : agrum Campanum , qui cum de vectigalibus eximebatur ut militibus daretur , tamen infligi magnum rei publicae volnus putabamus , hunc tu compransoribus tuis et conlusoribus dividebas . Mimos dico et mimas , patres conscripti , in agro Campano conlocatos . Quid iam querar de agro Leontino ? quoniam quidem hae quondam arationes Campana et Leontina in populi Romani patrimonio grandiferae et fructuosae ferebantur . Medico tria milia iugerum : quid , si te sanasset ? rhetori duo : quid , si te disertum facere potuisset .	And now you are still threatening that city. I wish you would try, and we should not then be forced to say “barely.” However, what a splendid progress of yours that was! Why need I mention your preparations for banquets, why your frantic hard drinking? Those things are only an injury to yourself; these are injuries to us. We thought that a great blow was inflicted on the republic when the Campanian district was released from the payment of taxes, in order to be given to the soldiery; but you have divided it among your partners in drunkenness and gambling. I tell you, O conscript fathers, that a lot of buffoons and actresses have been settled in the district of Campania. Why should I now complain of what has been done in the district of Leontini? Although formerly these lands of Campania and Leontini were considered part of the patrimony of the Roman people, and were productive of great revenue, and very fertile. You gave your physician three thousand acres; what would you have done if he had cured you? and two thousand to your master of oratory; what would you have done if he had been able to make you eloquent? However, let us return to your progress, and to Italy.
140	Sed ad iter Italiamque redeamus . Deduxisti coloniam Casilinum , quo Caesar ante deduxerat . Consuluisti me per litteras de Capua tu quidem , sed idem de Casilino respondissem : possesne ubi colonia esset , eo coloniam novam iure deducere . Negavi in eam coloniam quae esset auspicato deducta , dum esset incolumis , coloniam novam iure deduci : colonos novos ascribi posse rescripsi . Tu autem insolentia elatus omni auspiciorum iure turbato Casilinum coloniam deduxisti , quo erat paucis annis ante deducta , ut vexillum tolleres , ut aratrum circumduceres ; cuius quidem vomere portam Capuae paene perstrinxisti , ut florentis coloniae territorium minueretur .	You led a colony to Casilinum, a place to which Caesar had previously led one. You did indeed consult me by letter about the colony of Capua (but I should have given you the same answer about Casilinum), whether you could legally lead a new colony to a place where there was a colony already. I said that a new colony could not be legally conducted to an existing colony, which had been established with a due observance of the auspices, as long as it remained in a flourishing state; but I wrote you word that new colonists might be enrolled among the old ones. But you, elated and insolent, disregarding all the respect due to the auspices, led a colony to Casilinum, whither one had been previously led a few years before; in order to erect your standard there, and to mark out the line of the new colony with a plow. And by that plow you almost grazed the gate of Capua, so as to diminish the territory of that flourishing colony.
141	Ab hac perturbatione religionum advolas in M . Varronis , sanctissimi atque integerrimi viri , fundum Casinatem . Quo iure , quo ore ? ‘ Eodem ,’ inquies ‘ quo in heredum L . Rubri , quo in heredum L . Turseli praedia , quo in reliquas innumerabilis possessiones .’ Et si ab hasta , valeat hasta , valeant tabulae , modo Caesaris , non tuae , quibus debuisti , non quibus tu te liberavisti . Varronis quidem Casinatem fundum quis venisse dicit , quis hastam istius venditionis vidit , quis vocem praeconis audivit ? Misisse te dicis Alexandream qui emeret a Caesare ; ipsum enim exspectare magnum fuit .	After this violation of all religious observances, you hasten off to the estate of Marcus Varro, a most conscientious and upright man, at Casinum. By what right? with what face do you do this? By just the same, you will say, as that by which you entered on the estates of the heirs of Lucius Rubrius, or of the heirs of Lucius Turselius, or of other innumerable possessions. If you got the right from any auction, let the auction have all the force to which it is entitled; let writings be of force, provided they are the writings of Caesar, and not your own; writings by which you are bound, not those by which you have released yourself from obligation.
142	Quis vero audivit umquam — nullius autem salus curae pluribus fuit — de fortunis Varronis rem ullam esse detractam ? Quid ? si etiam scripsit ad te Caesar ut redderes , quid satis potest dici de tanta impudentia ? Remove gladios parumper illos quos videmus : iam intelleges aliam causam esse hastae Caesaris , aliam confidentiae et temeritatis tuae . Non enim te dominus modo illis sedibus sed quivis amicus , vicinus , hospes , procurator arcebit .	But who says that the estate of Varro at Casinum was ever sold at all? who ever saw any notice of that auction? who ever heard the voice of the auctioneer? You say that you sent a man to Alexandria to buy it of Caesar. It was too long to wait for Caesar himself to come! But who ever heard (and there was no man about whose safety more people were anxious) that any part whatever of Varro's property had been confiscated? What? what shall we say if Caesar even wrote you that you were to give it up? What can be said strong enough for such enormous impudence? Remove for a while those swords which we see around us. You shall now see that the cause of Caesar's auctions is one thing and that of your confidence and rashness is another. For not only shall the owner drive you from that estate, but any one of his friends, or neighbors, or hereditary connections, and any agent, will have the right to do so.
143	At quam multos dies in ea villa turpissime es perbacchatus ! Ab hora tertia bibebatur , ludebatur , vomebatur . O tecta ipsa misera , ‘ quam dispari domino ' — quamquam quo modo iste dominus — sed tamen quam ab dispari tenebantur ! Studiorum enim suorum M . Varro voluit illud , non libidinum deversorium . Quae in illa villa antea dicebantur , quae cogitabantur , quae litteris mandabantur ! iura populi Romani , monumenta maiorum , omnis sapientiae ratio omnisque doctrinae . At vero te inquilino — non enim domino — personabant omnia vocibus ebriorum , natabant pavimenta vino , madebant parietes , ingenui pueri cum meritoriis , scorta inter matres familias versabantur . Casino salutatum veniebant , Aquino , Interamna : admissus est nemo . Iure id quidem ; in homine enim turpissimo obsolefiebant dignitatis insignia .	But how many days did he spend reveling in the most scandalous manner in that villa! From the third hour there was one scene of drinking, gambling, and vomiting. Alas for the unhappy house itself! how different a master from its former one has it fallen to the share of! Although, how is he the master at all? but still by how different a person has it been occupied! For Marcus Varro used it as a place of retirement for his studies, not as a theatre for his lusts. What noble discussions used to take place in that villa! what ideas were originated there! what writings were composed there! The laws of the Roman people, the memorials of our ancestors, the consideration of all wisdom and all learning, were the topics that used to be dwelt on then;—but now, while you were the intruder there (for I will not call you the master), every place was resounding with the voices of drunken men; the pavements were floating with wine; the walls were dripping; nobly-born boys were mixing with the basest hirelings; prostitutes with mothers of families. Men came from Casinum, from Aquinum, from Interamna to salute him. No one was admitted. That, indeed, was proper. For the ordinary marks of respect were unsuited to the most profligate of men.
144	Cum inde Romam proficiscens ad Aquinum accederet , obviam ei processit , ut est frequens municipium , magna sane multitudo . At iste operta lectica latus per oppidum est ut mortuus . Stulte Aquinates : sed tamen in via habitabant . Quid Anagnini ? Qui , cum essent devii , descenderunt ut istum , tamquam si esset consul , salutarent . Incredibile dictu , sed inter omnis constabat neminem esse resalutatum , praesertim cum duos secum Anagninos haberet , Mustelam et Laconem , quorum alter gladiorum est princeps , alter poculorum .	When going from thence to Rome he approached Aquinum, a pretty numerous company (for it is a populous municipality) came out to meet him. But he was carried through the town in a covered litter, as if he had been dead. The people of Aquinum acted foolishly, no doubt; but still they were in his road. What did the people of Anagnia do? who, although they were out of his line of road, came down to meet him, in order to pay him their respects, as if he were consul. It is an incredible thing to say, but still it was only too notorious at the time, that he returned nobody's salutation; especially as he had two men of Anagnia with him, Mustela and Laco; one of whom had the care of his swords, and the other of his drinking-cups.