and of the republic.
VI. But, since the republic has been now deprived of those men whom I have named, many and illustrious as they were, let us come to the living, since two of the men of consular rank are still left to us: Lucius Cotta, a man of the greatest genius and the most consummate prudence, proposed a supplication in my honour for those very actions with which you find fault, in the most complimentary language, and those very men of consular rank whom I have named, and the whole senate, adopted his proposal; an honour which has never been paid to any one else in the garb of peace from the foundation of the city to my time. With what eloquence, with what firm wisdom, with what a weight of authority did Lucius Caesar your uncle, pronounce his opinion against the husband of his own sister, your stepfather. But you, when you ought to have taken him as your adviser and tutor in all your designs, and in the whole conduct of your life, preferred being like your stepfather to resembling your uncle. I, who had no connexion with him, acted by his counsels while I was consul. Did you, who were his sister’s son, ever once consult him on the affairs of the republic?
But who are they whom Antonius does consult? O ye immortal gods, they are men whose birthdays we have still to learn. To-day Antonius is not coming down. Why? He is celebrating the birthday feast at his villa. In whose honour? I will name no one. Suppose it is in honour of some Phormio, or Gnatho, or even Ballio.{19} Oh the abominable profligacy of the man! Oh how intolerable is his impudence, his debauchery, and his lust! Can you, when you have one of the chiefs of the senate, a citizen of singular virtue, so nearly related to you, abstain from ever consulting him on the affairs of the republic, and consult men who have no property whatever of their own, and are draining yours?
VII. Yes, your consulship, forsooth, is a salutary one for the state, mine a mischievous one. Have you so entirely lost all shame as well as all chastity, that you could venture to say this in that temple in which I was consulting that senate which formerly in the full enjoyment of its honours presided over the world? And did you place around it abandoned men armed with swords? But you have dared besides (what is there which you would not dare?) to say that the Capitoline Hill, when I was consul, was full of armed slaves. I was offering violence to the senate, I suppose, in order to compel the adoption of those infamous decrees of the senate. O wretched man, whether those things are not known to you, (for you know nothing that is good,) or whether they are, when you dare to speak so shamelessly before such men! For what Roman knight was there, what youth of noble birth except you, what man of any rank or class who recollected that he was a citizen, who was not on the Capitoline Hill while the senate was assembled in this temple? who was there, who did not give in his name? Although there could not be provided checks enough, nor were the books able to contain their names.
In truth, when wicked men, being compelled by the revelations of the accomplices, by their own handwriting, and by what I may almost call the voices of their letters, were confessing that they had planned the parricidal destruction of their country, and that they had agreed to burn the city, to massacre the citizens, to devastate Italy, to destroy the republic; who could have existed without being roused to defend the common safety? especially when the senate and people of Rome had a leader then; and if they had one now like he was then, the same fate would befall you which did overtake them.
He asserts that the body of his stepfather was not allowed burial by me. But this is an assertion that was never made by Publius Clodius, a man whom, as I was deservedly an enemy of his, I grieve now to see surpassed by you in every sort of vice. But how could it occur to you to recal to our recollection that you had been educated in the house of Publius Lentulus? Were you afraid that we might think that you could have turned out as infamous as you are by the mere force of nature, if your natural qualities had not been strengthened by education?
VIII. But you are so senseless that throughout the whole of your speech you were at variance with yourself; so that you said things which had not only no coherence with each other but which were most inconsistent with and contradictory to one another; so that there was not so much opposition between you and me as there was between you and yourself. You confessed that your stepfather had been duplicated in that enormous wickedness, yet you complained that he had had punishment inflicted on him. And by doing so you praised what was peculiarly my achievement, and blamed that which was wholly the act of the senate. For the detection and arrest of the guilty parties was my work, their punishment was the work of the senate. But that eloquent man does not perceive that the man against whom he is speaking is being praised by him, and that those before whom he is speaking are being attacked by him. But now what an act, I will not say of audacity, (for he is anxious to be audacious,) but (and that is what he is not desirous of) what an act of folly, in which he surpasses all men, is it to make mention of the Capitoline Hill, at a time when armed men are actually between our benches—when men, armed with swords, are now stationed in this same temple of Concord, O ye immortal gods, in which, while I was consul, opinions most salutary to the state were delivered, owing to which it is that we are all alive at this day.
Accuse the senate; accuse the equestrian body, which at that time was united with the senate; accuse every order of society, and all the citizens, as long as you confess that this assembly at this very moment is besieged by Ityrean{20} soldiers. It is not so much a proof of audacity to advance these statements so impudently, as of utter want of sense to be unable to see their contradictory nature. For what is more insane than, after you yourself have taken up arms to do mischief to the republic, to reproach another with having taken them up to secure its safety? On one occasion you attempted even to be witty. O ye good gods, how little did that attempt suit you! And yet you are a little to be blamed for your failure in that instance, too. For you might have got some wit from your wife, who was an actress. “Arms to the gown must yield.” Well, have they not yielded? But afterwards the gown yielded to your arms. Let us inquire then whether it was better for the arms of wicked men to yield to the freedom of the Roman people, or that our liberty should yield to your arms. Nor will I make any further reply to you about the verses. I will only say briefly that you do not understand them, nor any other literature whatever. That I have never at any time been wanting to the claims that either the republic or my friends had upon me; but nevertheless that in all the different sorts of composition on which I have employed myself, during my leisure hours, I have always endeavoured to make my labours and my writings such as to be some advantage to our youth, and some credit to the Roman name. But, however, all this has nothing to do with the present occasion. Let us consider more important matters.
IX. You have said that Publius Clodius was slain by my contrivance. What would men have thought if he had been slain at the time when you pursued him in the forum with a drawn sword, in the sight of all the Roman people; and when you would have settled his business if he had not thrown himself up the stairs of a bookseller’s shop, and, shutting them against you, checked your attack by that means? And I confess that at that time I favoured you, but even you yourself do not say that I had advised your attempt. But as for Milo, it was not possible even for me to favour his action. For he had finished the business before any one could suspect that he was going to do it. Oh, but I advised it. I suppose Milo was a man of such a disposition that he was not able to do a service to the republic if he had not some one to advise him to do it. But I rejoiced at it. Well, suppose I did; was I to be the only sorrowful person in the city, when every one else was in such delight? Although that inquiry into the death of Publius Clodius was not instituted with any great wisdom. For what was the reason for having a new law to inquire into the conduct of the man who had slain him, when there was a form of inquiry already established by the laws? However, an inquiry was instituted. And have you now been found, so many years afterwards, to say a thing which, at the time that the affair was under discussion, no one ventured to say against me? But as to the assertion that you have dared to make, and that at great length too, that it was by my means that Pompeius was alienated from his friendship with Caesar, and that on that account it was my fault that the civil war was originated; in that you have not erred so much in the main facts, as (and that is of the greatest importance) in the times.
X. When Marcus Bibulus, a most illustrious citizen, was consul, I omitted nothing which I could possibly do or attempt to draw off Pompeius from his union with Caesar. In which, however, Caesar was more fortunate than I, for he himself drew off Pompeius from his intimacy with me. But afterwards, when Pompeius joined Caesar with all his heart, what could have been my object in attempting to separate them