THE SPEECH OF M. T. CICERO AGAINST PUBLIUS VATINIUS; CALLED ALSO, THE EXAMINATION OF PUBLIUS VATINIUS.

Translated by C.D. Yonge

THE ARGUMENT.

This speech arose out of the preceding one. Vatinius was a partisan and creature of Caesar's and instigated by him to appear as a witness against Sestius on his trial and Cicero was so indignant at a man of so infamous a character appearing against his friend that be exposed the whole iniquity of his life by the severity of his examination and the searching nature of the questions which he put to him. And he says of this speech himself (Epist. Fam. i. 9): “The whole of my examination of him consisted of nothing but a reproof of his conduct in his tribuneship; and I spoke with great freedom, and the greatest earnestness and indignation.”

Vatinius had also, while replying to Cicero's questions, attacked Cicero himself as having been a turncoat, and being now anxious himself to curry favour with Caesar, because he saw that his affairs were becoming more prosperous than they had been, and reminded him of his having not always entertained a favourable opinion of Caesar; and Cicero replied, that he still preferred the condition of Bibulus's consulship to the triumphs and victories of any one whatever.

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1. If, O Vatinius, I had chosen to regard merely what the unworthiness of your character deserved, I should have treated you in a way that would have been very pleasing to these men, and, as your evidence could not, on account of the infamy of your life and the scandal of your private conduct, be possibly considered of the slightest consequence, I should have dismissed you without saying a single word to you. For not one of these men considered it worth my while either to refute you, as if you were an adversary of any importance, or to question you, as if you were a scrupulous witness. But I was, perhaps, a little more intemperate just now than I should have been. For from detestation of you, in which, although, on account of your wicked conduct to me, I ought to go beyond all men, yet I am in fact surpassed by everybody, I was carried away so far, that though I did not despise you at all less than I detest you, still I chose to dismiss you in embarrassment and distress, rather than in contempt.

[2] Wherefore, that you may not wonder at my having paid you this compliment of putting questions to you, whom no one thinks worthy of being spoken to or visited, whom no one thinks deserving of a vote, or of the rights of a citizen, or even of the light of life; know that no motive would have induced me to do so, except that of repressing that ferocity of yours, and crushing your audacity, and checking your loquacity by entangling it in the few questions I should put to you. In truth, you ought, O Vatinius, even if you had become suspected by Publius Sestius undeservedly, still to pardon me, if, on the occasion of such great danger to a man who has done me such great services, I had yielded to the consideration of what his necessities required, and what his inclination deserved of me. [3] But you unintentionally showed a few moments ago that you spoke falsely in the evidence which you gave yesterday, when you asserted that you had never had the least conversation with Albinovanus, not only about the prosecution of Sestius, but about anything whatever; and yet you said just now that Titus Claudius had been in communication with you, and had asked your advice with respect to the conduct of the prosecution against Sestius, and that Albinovanus, who you had said before was hardly known to you, had come to your house, and had held a long conversation with you. And lastly, you said that you had given to Albinovanus the written harangues of Publius Sestius, which he had never had any knowledge of, and did not know where to find, and that they had been read at this trial. And by one of these statements you confessed that the accusers had been instructed and suborned by you; and by the other you confessed your own inconsistency, liable to the double charge of folly and of perjury; when you stated that the man who you had previously said was an entire stranger to you, had come to your house, and that you had given the documents which he asked for to aid him in his accusation to a man whom you had from the beginning considered a trickster and a prevaricator.

2. [4] You are too impetuous and fierce by nature. You do not think it allowable for a word to escape from any man's mouth which may not fall pleasantly and complimentary on your ears. You came forward in a rage with everybody which I perceived and comprehended the moment I saw you, before you began to speak, while Gellius, the dry nurse of all seditious men, was giving his evidence before you. For on a sudden you sprang forward like a serpent out of his hole, with eyes starting out of your head and your neck inflated and your throat swelling so that [5] * * * * * * I defended my old friend, who was, nevertheless an acquaintance of yours, though in this city an attack on another, such as you are now making, is sometimes found fault with, but the defence of a man never is.

But I ask you why I should not defend Caius Cornelius? I ask whether Cornelius has ever passed any law in defiance of the auspices? whether he has despised the Aelian or the Fufian law? when he has offered violence to the consul? whether he has occupied any temple with armed men? whether he has driven away by violence any magistrate who was exercising his veto? whether he has profaned any religious ceremonies? whether he has drained the treasury? whether he has pillaged the republic? These, all these, are actions of yours. No imputation of this sort is cast upon Cornelius. He was said to have read a document.¹ It was urged in his defence, his colleagues giving evidence in support of his cause, that he read it not for the sake of reading it but for the sake of examining it more particularly. However, it was quite certain that Cornelius dismissed the council that day, and submitted to the interposition of the veto. But you who are offended at my defending Cornelius, what cause do you bring to your advocates to uphold, or what countenance have you to show? when you already point out to them in an imperious manner, what a disgrace it will be to them if they defend you by thinking the defence of Cornelius a matter for accusation and abuse of me. [6] However, Vatinius, remember this—that a little after the time when I defended him in a way which you say gave great offence to all good men, I was appointed consul in the most honourable manner in which any one has been elected since the memory of man, not only by the exceeding zeal in my behalf of the entire Roman people, but also by the special and extraordinary exertions in my cause of every virtuous man; and that I gained all these honours by living in a modest manner, which you have over and over again said that you hoped to obtain by dealing in the most impudent prophecies.²

3. For as regards your having blamed me for my departure, and your having attempted to renew the grief and lamentation of those men to whom that day was most miserable, which, however, was to you most joyful, I will make you this reply,—that when you and the other pests of the republic were seeking a pretext to take up arms, and using my name as a cloak for your proceedings to pillage the property of the rich citizens, and to drink the blood of the chief men of the state, and satiate your barbarity and the long-standing hatred which you had cherished against all good men till it had become inveterate, I preferred to break the force of your frenzy and wickedness by yielding to it, rather than by resisting it. [7] Wherefore, I entreat you, O Vatinius, to pardon me for sparing the country which I had saved; and I beg you, if I bear with you who would willingly be a harasser and destroyer of the republic, to bear also with me who have been its preserver and its guardian. Do you find fault with that man for having departed from the city, who, as you see, was recalled by the regret of all the citizens, and by the grief of the republic herself?

Oh, but you say that men were anxious for my return, not for my sake, but for the sake of the republic. As if any man who had mixed himself up in the affairs of the state in a proper spirit could think anything more desirable for him than to be beloved by his fellow-citizens for the sake of the republic. [8] Forsooth, my nature, I suppose, is a harsh one, I am difficult of access, my countenance is forbidding, my answers to men are arrogant, my way of life insolent. No one ever sought the aid of my humanity,—no one was ever anxious for my intimacy, for my advice, or my aid; for mine, out of regret for whom (to say the least of it) the forum was sad, the senate-house silent, and all studies of virtuous and liberal sciences voiceless and lifeless.

However, I will allow that nothing was done for my sake. Let us admit that all those resolutions of the senate and commands of the people, and decrees of all Italy, and of all companies, and of all colleges and guilds concerning me were passed for the sake of the republic. What then, O man most ignorant of the character of solid glory and real dignity, could possibly happen better for me? What could be more desirable as regards the immortality of my glory and the everlasting recollection of my name, than for all my fellow citizens to be of this opinion,—that the safety of the state was indissolubly bound up with my individual safety? [9] But I will send you back the arrow which you aimed at me. For as you said that I was dear to the senate and people of Rome not so much for my own sake as for that of the republic, so I say that you, although you are a man of scandalous character, disgraced by every sort of foulness and infamy, still are detested by the city, not so much on your own account as for the sake of the republic.

4. And, that I may at length come to speak of you, this shall be the last thing which I will say of myself. What any one of us may say of himself, that is not the question. Let good men judge; that is the consideration of the greatest importance and weight. [10] There are two times at which the decisions of our fellow-citizens about us are looked for with anxiety,—one when our honours, and the other when our safety is at stake. Honours have been given to few men with such good-will on the part of the Roman people as I have experienced. No one has ever been restored to safety with such extraordinary zeal on the part of all the citizens as I have. But what men think of you we have already had experience when you were a candidate for honour; and now that your safety is at stake, we are in expectation of what we shall see.

However, not to compare myself with these the leading men of the state, who are here to give their countenance to Publius Sestius by their presence, but merely to compare myself to one, the most impudent and vilest of men, I will just ask you, O Vatinius,—you the most arrogant of all men, and also the most hostile to me,—whether you think it was better and more desirable for this state, for this republic, for this city, for these temples, and for the treasury, and for the senate-house, and for these men whom you see around us, and their property, fortunes, and children,—whether you think it was better and more desirable for all the rest of the citizens, and for the temples of the gods, and for the auspices, and for the religious rites and observances of the city, that I should have been born as a citizen in this city, or that you should? When you have answered me this question, either so impudently that men will hardly he able to keep their hands off you, or in so melancholy a manner as to burst that inflated neck and throat of yours; after that, reply to me from memory to these questions which I am going to put to you.

5. [11] And I will allow that dark period of your early youth to remain in obscurity. You may with impunity, as far as I am concerned, have broken through walls in your youth, and plundered your neighbours, and beaten your mother. Your infamous character has this advantage, that the baseness of your youth is concealed by your obscurity and vileness.

You stood for the quaestorship with Publius Sestius; while he was talking of nothing but the object which he had in view at the moment and you were constantly saying that you were thinking of obtaining a second consulship. I ask you this. Do you recollect when Publius Sestius was unanimously elected quaestor, that you then were named as the last quaestor, against the will of every one; not owing to the kindness which the people felt for you, but only to that of the consul? [12] In that magistracy, when the province of Ostia, down by the water's edge, had fallen to your lot, raising a great outcry at the time, were you not sent by me, as I was consul, to Puteoli, to prevent gold and silver being exported from thence? While occupied in the discharge of that duty, do you remember that, as you acted as if you supposed that you had been sent, not as a guardian to take care and keep the wealth at home, but as a carrier to distribute it, and as you in a most robber-like manner were examining into every one's house, and store, and ship, and harassing men occupied in business and in trade with most iniquitous law proceedings, frightening merchants as they disembarked from their ships, and delaying them as they were embarking,—do you recollect, I say, that violent hands were laid on you in Puteoli while you were present among the body of the Roman settlers? and that the complaints of the people of Puteoli were brought before me as consul? Do you recollect that after your quaestorship you went as lieutenant into the further Spain, Caius Cosconius being the proconsul? Do you recollect too, that though that journey into Spain is usually made by land, or if any one chooses to go by sea, there is a regular route by which they sail, you came into Sardinia, and from thence into Africa? Were you not in the kingdom of Hiempsal,—a proceeding on your part which was perfectly illegal without a decree of the senate to authorize it? Were you not in the kingdom of Mastanesosus?³ Did you not come to the strait by way of Mauritania? and did you ever hear of any lieutenant of any part of Spain before you who went to that province by that route? [13] You were made tribune of the people, (for why need I put questions to you about the iniquities and most sordid robberies which you committed in Spain?) I ask of you first in a general manner what description of dishonesty and wickedness did you omit to practise in your discharge of that office? And I now give you this warning,—not to mix up your own infamy with the high character of most eminent men. I, in whatever questions I put to you, will question you yourself only, and I will drag you forth not from the dignity of a great man, which you affect, but from your own obscurity and darkness. And all my weapons shall be directed at you in such a manner, that no one else shall be wounded (to use an expression of your own) through your side; my arrows shall stick in your lungs and in your entrails.

6. [14] And since the beginnings of all great things are derived from the gods, I wish you to answer me,—you, who are accustomed to call yourself a Pythagorean, and to put forth the name of a most learned man as a screen to bide your own savage and barbarian habits,—what depravity of intellect possessed you, what excessive frenzy seized on you, and made you, when you had begun your unheard-of and impious sacrifices, accustomed as you are to seek to evoke the spirits of the shades below, and to appease the Dî Manes with the entrails of murdered boys, despise the auspices under which this city was founded, by which the whole of this republic and empire is kept together, and, at the very beginning of your tribuneship, give notice to the senate that the responses of the augurs and the arrogance of that college should be no obstacle to your proceedings? [15] Next to that I ask you whether you kept your promise in that particular? Did the fact of your knowing that on that day the heavens had been observed, delay, or not delay your summoning the council, and proposing your intended law? And since this is the one thing which you say belongs to you in common with Caesar, I will separate you from him, not only for the sake of the republic, but also for the sake of Caesar, lest any stain from your extraordinary infamy should seem to attach itself to his dignity. First of all, I ask you whether you trust your case to the senate, as Caesar does? Next, what sort of authority that man has who defends himself by the conduct of another and not by his own? Next (for my real sentiments will at times burst forth, and I cannot help saying without circumlocution what I feel,) even if Caesar had been rather violent in any particular, if the importance of the contest and anxiety for glory, and his eminent courage, and his admirable nobility of character had carried him away at all, which would have been endurable in that great man, and would have deserved to be obliterated from our minds by the mighty exploits which he has subsequently performed, will you, you wretch, assume the same privilege to yourself, and is the voice of Vatinius, the thief and sacrilegious man, to be heard, demanding that the same indulgence is to be allowed to him that is allowed to Caesar? For this is what I ask of you.

7. [16] You were a tribune of the people. Separate yourself from the consul. You had nine gallant men for your colleagues. Of these there were three whom you knew to be every day observing the heavens, whom you used to laugh at, whom you used to call private individuals, of whom you see two now sitting here in their robes of office; (you know that you sold the official robe of an aedile which you had had made for yourself to no purpose;) and the third, you are aware, after that tribuneship, in which you oppressed and ill-treated him, gained the consular authority, though a very young man. There were six others; of whom some openly adopted your opinion, and some held a sort of middle course. All had laws which they wished to propose; and among them my own intimate friend Caius Cosconius, one of our judges, had several, some even drawn up by my advice; a man who makes you ready to burst with envy when you see him invested with the rank of aedile. [17] I wish you to reply to me. Did any one of the whole college venture to bring forward any law, except you alone? And how did you become possessed of so much audacity, how did you dare to act with so much violence, as alone—you, a man raised out of the mud, beyond all comparison the lowest of all men in every respect—to think that a proper subject for your contempt and scorn, and derision, which all your nine colleagues thought deserving of their fear and awe? Have you ever known of any one tribune of the people, since the foundation of the city, having transacted business with the people when it was known that any magistrate was observing the heavens? [18] I wish you also to answer me, as, while you were tribune of the people, the Aelian and Fufian laws still existed in the republic; laws which have repeatedly checked and repressed the frenzy of the tribunes; in contravention of which no one has ever dared to act except you; (though those same laws the year after, when two men were sitting in the temple, whom I will not call consuls, but betrayers of this state, and pestilences, were destroyed at the same time with the auspices, and the power of intercession, and all public law:) Did you ever hesitate to transact business with the people, and to convene the assembly in defiance of these laws? Have you ever heard of any one out of all the tribunes of the people that ever existed, however seditious they may have been, being so audacious as to summon an assembly in defiance of the Aelian and Fufian laws?

8. [19] I ask you this, also, whether you endeavoured, whether you wished, whether, in short, you intended, (for these all amount to the same thing, so that if it ever only occurred to your mind, there is no one who would not think you worthy of the greatest severity of punishment,)—I ask you, I say, whether you ever intended in the course of that intolerable (I will not say reign of yours, for that is a word which you would like me to use, but) piratical power, to be made augur in the room of Quintus Metellus? so that whoever beheld you might feel a twofold grief and misery, both from his regret for a most illustrious and most gallant citizen, and from the honour of a most worthless and infamous one. I ask you, did you think, I will not say, that the republic had been so undermined while you were tribune, or that the constitution had been so much battered and shaken, but that this city had been so entirely stormed and overthrown, that we could endure Vatinius for an augur? [20] Here also I ask, if you had been made augur, as you were anxious to be, the bare idea of which on your part caused us, who hated you, a pain which we could hardly endure, while they who were your intimate friends could scarcely forbear laughing at it; still I ask, I say, if in addition to the other wounds under which you believed the republic to be sinking, you had added the deadly and fatal blow of your augurship, would you have decreed that which every augur ever since the time of Romulus has invariably decreed, that when Jupiter was sending forth his lightning it was impious to transact business with the people; or, because you had constantly done so, would you as augur have put an end to the system of taking auspices altogether?

9. [21] And, not to waste any more words on your augurship, (and I speak of it all against my will, as I do not wish to recollect the ruin of the republic; for, indeed, you yourself never thought that you would be augur as long as not only the majesty of these men, but as long as that city itself remained standing,)—still, to pass over your dreams, I will come to your acts of wickedness. I wish you to answer me. When you were leading Marcus Bibulus, the consul,—I will not call him a man of the justest sentiments with respect to the republic, lest so powerful a man as you, who disagreed with him, should be offended with me; but I will call him a man who certainly never took any violent steps, who never performed any act of hostility towards you in the republic, but who only felt in his heart a great disapproval of your actions;—when, I say, you were leading him, the consul, to prison, and when your colleagues sitting at the Valerian⁴ table ordered him to be released did you or did you not make a bridge in front of the rostra, by joining the stages together along which bridge, a consul of the Roman people, a man of the greatest moderation and wisdom removed from all assistance cut off from all his friends, was to be led by the inflamed violence of profligate men, a most shameful and miserable spectacle, not only to prison but to execution and to death? [22] I ask whether there was ever any one before your time so wicked as to do such a thing as that? So that we may know whether you are an imitator of old crimes or an inventor of new ones. And when you, by counsels and atrocities of this sort, carried on under the name of Caius Caesar a most merciful and excellent man, but in reality by your own wickedness and audacity, had driven Marcus Bibulus from the forum, and the senate-house, and the temples, and from all public places, and had compelled him to shut himself up in his own house; and when the life of the consul was only saved, not by the majesty of the empire, or by the sanctity of the laws, but only by the protection which his own doors and walls afforded him; did you not send a lictor to drag Marcus Bibulus from his house by force, in order that, though even in the case of private individuals the sanctity of their house is always observed, while you were tribune of the people even his own house should not be a safe refuge for the consul?

[23] Answer me at the same time, you who call us tyrants who are agreed together as to our views for the general safety, were not you a tribune of the people, but in reality an intolerable tyrant raised of some obscure mud and darkness? and did not you attempt in the first instance to overturn the republic, which was originally founded in obedience to auspices, by the destruction of those same auspices arm after that have not you been the only man to trample under foot and disregard those most holy laws, I mean the Aelian and Fufian laws,—which subsisted through the furious times of the Gracchi, and through all the audacity of Saturninus,—which survived unhurt the rabble of Drusus,⁵ and the contests of Sulpicius,⁶ and the massacres of Cinna, and even the battles and bloodshed of Sulla? Did you not threaten the consul with death, and blockade him when he had shut himself up in his house, and attempt even to drag him out of his house? And you, who by means of that magistracy emerged out of actual beggary, and who now even alarm us by your riches, were you not so inhuman as to endeavour, by means of your proposed law, to get rid of and destroy the chosen men and chief leaders of the state?

10. [24] When you had produced in the assembly Lucius Vettius, who had confessed in the senate that he had been armed with the intention of putting Cnaeus Pompeius, that great and illustrious citizen, to death with his own hands; when you had produced him as a witness in the rostra, and placed him in that temple and place consecrated by the auspices; (in that place in which other tribunes of the people have been in the habit of bringing forward the chief men of the state, in order to sanction their authority by their presence, there you wished Vettius the informer to employ his tongue and voice in support of your wickedness and ambitious designs:)—did not Lucius Vettius say, in that assembly which you had convened, when questioned by you, that he had had those men for the originators and encouragers of, and accomplices in that wicked conduct, whom if the city had been deprived of, (and that was your real object at that time,) it could not have continued to stand?

You had endeavoured to murder Marcus Bibulus, as you were not contented with shutting him up in his house; you had stripped him of his consulship,⁷ you were anxious to deprive him of his country. You wished also to murder Lucius Lucullus, whose exploits you envied above measure, because, I suppose, you from your boyhood had had an eye yourself to the glory of a general; and Caius Curio, the unceasing enemy of all wicked men, the leader of the public council, a man of the greatest freedom in maintaining the common liberties of the citizens, with his son, the chief of the youth of Rome, and who had already shown more devotion to the cause of the republic than could have been expected from his age; [25] and Lucius Domitius, whose dignity and respectability of character, I suppose, blinded the eyes of Vatinius, and whom you hated at the moment on account of your common hatred of all virtuous men and whom you had long feared with reference to the future on account of the hopes which all men had conceived, and indeed do still entertain of him; and Lucius Lentulus, this man who is one of our judges now—the priest of Mars because he was at that time a competitor of your dear friend Gabinius—all these you wished to crush by means of the information of this same Vettius. But if Lentulus had then defeated that disgrace and pest of the republic, which he was prevented from doing by your wickedness, the republic would not have been defeated; moreover, you wished by means of the same information and the same accusation to involve his son in his father's ruin. You comprehended in the same information of Vettius and in the same body of criminals, Lucius Paullus, who was at the time quaestor in Macedonia. How good a citizen! how great a man! who had already banished by his laws two impious traitors to their country, domestic enemies; a man born for the salvation of the republic. [26] Why should I complain of your conduct to myself? When I ought rather to return you thanks, for having thought me deserving of not being separated from the number of gallant and virtuous citizens.

11. But how was it that you were so insane as when Vettius had now summed up his oration just as you pleased, and had uttered his calumnies against all the lights of the city, and had descended from the rostra—to call him back on a sudden, and converse with him in the sight of the Roman people? and then to ask him whether he could not give the name of any one else? Were you not pressing upon him to name Caius Piso, my son-in-law; who, at a time when there was a great abundance of virtuous young men, still has left no one behind him of equal temperance, and virtue, and piety to himself? and also Marcus Laterensis, a man who devotes all his days and nights to thinking of glory and of the republic? Did not you, O you most profligate and abandoned enemy, propose an investigation into the conduct of so many honourable and excellent men, and at the same time most honourable rewards for your informer Vettius? and afterwards, when this conduct of yours was condemned, not merely by the secret feelings of every one, but by their open reproaches, did you not strangle that very man Vettius in prison, in order that there might be no evidence of your having procured his information by bribery, and that no investigation of that guilt might be instituted so as to affect you yourself? [27] And since you are constantly repeating that you proposed a law to allow each party to reject judges alternately, in order that every one may see that you could not contrive even to do right without committing some crime or other, I ask you whether, after a just law had been proposed at the beginning of your magistracy, and after you had also proposed several others, you were waiting till Caius Antonius was prosecuted before Cnaeus Lentulus Clodianus?⁸ And after a prosecution was instituted against him, did you not immediately pass a law against him, “Whoever was prosecuted after the proposal of your law,” in order that a man of consular rank—unhappy man!—might be deprived by just that moment of time, of the benefit and equitable provisions of your law?

[28] You will say that there was great intimacy between you and Quintus Maximus. An admirable defence of your guilt! No doubt it is the greatest praise of Maximus, that after he had adopted the quarrel against Caius Antonius, and undertaken the prosecution, and after a president of the court and a bench of judges had been selected, he was unwilling to allow his adversary a power of striking off judges which would have been too favourable for him. * * *

Quintus Maximus did nothing inconsistent either with his own virtue, or with the precedents of those most illustrious men, the Paulli, the Maximi, and Africani; whose renown we not only hope will be renewed by this man's virtue, but we actually see that it is so. It is your dishonesty, your guilt, your wickedness, that when you had proposed a law under a pretence of mercy, you put it off till a time when it might serve a purpose of cruelty. And now, indeed, Caius Antonius consoles himself under his misery with this one fact that he had rather be at a distance to hear that the images of his father and his brother, and that his brother's daughter, are placed, not in the house of their family, but in prison, than be at hand to see it.

12. [29] And since you so despise the property of others, and boast in a most intolerable manner of your own riches, I desire you to answer me, whether you, while tribune of the people, made any treaties with foreign states, or kings, or tetrarchs? whether you got any money out of the treasury by your laws? whether you did not at that time deprive people of the most valuable part of their privileges? whether it was Caesar or the farmers of the revenue that you were robbing? And as this is the case, I ask you whether, having been a most miserably poor man, you did not become an exceedingly rich one that very year in which a most stringent law was passed about extortion and peculation? So that all men may see that you trampled not only on the acts of us whom you call tyrants, but even on the laws of your own most intimate friend; before whom you are in the habit of employing hard words against us, who are very friendly to him, while you abuse him in the most insulting manner every time that you say that he is in the least degree connected with you.

[30] And I wish also to know this from you, with what design or with what intention you attended at the banquet given by Quintus Arrius, an intimate friend of mine, in a black robe? who you ever saw do such a thing before? who you ever heard of having done such a thing? What precedent had you for such conduct, or what custom can you plead for it? You will say that you did not approve of those supplications. Very well. Suppose that those supplications were inexcusable. Do you not see that I am not questioning you at all with respect to the occurrence of that year, nor of those circumstances in which you may appear to be concerned in common with any eminent men; but only about your own peculiar acts of wickedness? Grant that the supplication was informal. Still, tell me, who ever went to a banquet in a mourning garment? For by such conduct the banquet itself is turned into a funeral feast; though the proper intention of a banquet is to be a scene of enjoyment and compliment.

13. [31] But I pass over the fact of its having been a banquet of the Roman people, the day of festival, adorned with the exhibition of silver plate, and robes, and all sorts of furniture and ornaments; I ask who ever in a time of domestic mourning, who ever at a funeral of one of his own family, sat down to supper in a black robe? who ever, except you, as he was leaving a bath, had a black gown given to him? When so many thousand men were sitting at the feast, when the master of the feast himself, Quintus Arrius, was in a white robe, you introduced yourself into the temple of Castor, with Caius Fidulus and the rest of your Furies, in black garments, like the assistants at a funeral. Who was there who did not then receive you with groans? who was there who did not lament over the fate of the republic? what other topic of conversation was there at that banquet except this, that this city, so great and so wise, was now exposed not only to your frenzy, but also to your derision? [32] Were you ignorant of the usual practice on such occasions? had you never seen a feast of the sort? had you never, when a boy or young man, been among the cooks? had you not a short time before satisfied your ancient voracity at that most magnificent banquet of Faustus, a noble young man? And when did you ever see the master of a feast and his friends in mourning, and in black robes, while sitting at a feast? What insanity took possession of you, that you should think, that, unless you did what it was impious to do, unless you insulted the temple of Castor, and the name of a feast, and the eyes of a citizen, and ancient custom, and the authority of the man who had invited you, you had not given sufficient proof that you did not think that a properly decreed and formal supplication?

14. [33] I will also ask you about this thing which you did as a private individual; a matter in which you, at all events, will not be able to say that your cause is at all connected with that of any other illustrious man. I ask you, whether you were not prosecuted in accordance with the provisions of the Licinian and Junian laws? whether Caius Memmius, the praetor, did not in accordance with that law, order you by his edict to appear on the thirtieth day? When that day arrived, did you not do what was not only never done before in this republic, but what was never even heard of, at any time since the beginning of the world? Did you not appeal to the tribunes of the people to save you from the necessity of pleading your cause? I have put the case too lightly; although that of itself would be an unprecedented and an intolerable thing to have done; but did you not appeal by name to that pest of the year, to that Fury of his country, to that storm which was desolating the republic, to Clodius? and when he could not by any right which he possessed, or by virtue of any precedent or by any power given him by his office, offer any obstacle to proceedings in a court of justice, he had recourse to his usual violence and frenzy, and put himself at the head of your soldiers as their leader. And, in respect to this transaction, that you may not consider anything as a direct statement of mine, rather than as elicited by questions put to you, I will not impose on myself the burden of producing any evidence in support of what I say; and what I see that I shall have to state in the same place in a short time, I will reserve at present and I will not accuse you; but as I have done with respect to other matters, I will only put questions to you. [34] I ask you then, O Vatinius, whether any one in the state since the first foundation of the city, has ever appealed to the tribunes of the people to interpose and save him from having to plead his case? Has any criminal ever mounted up to the tribunal of the president of the court which tried him and driven him down from thence by violence? and upset all the benches? and overturned all the balloting urns? and in short, in disturbing the court of justice committed all those crimes on account of which courts of justice were instituted? Are you aware that Memmius fled at that time? that your accusers were with difficulty saved from your hands and those of your friends? that the judges were even driven away out of the tribunals which were near? that in the forum, in broad daylight in the sight of the Roman people, the investigation was put an end to, and the magistrates, and the usages of our ancestors, and the laws, and the judges, and the defendant and the penalty, were all alike disregarded and trampled on? Do you know that all these circumstances were, by the diligence of Caius Memmius, entered and proved in the public records? And moreover, I ask you this, when, after you had had an accusation preferred against you, you returned from your lieutenancy, in order that no one might think that you wished to avoid a trial; and when you used to say that, though you might have done whichever you pleased, still you preferred pleading your cause, as you had been accused; I ask, I say, how it was consistent with that conduct of yours, in being unwilling to avail yourself of the door of escape which your lieutenancy opened to you, for you to have recourse to an impious source of assistance by means of a most dishonest appeal?

15. [35] And since mention has been made of your lieutenancy, I wish also to hear from you, by what resolution of the senate you were appointed lieutenant? I understand, from your gestures, what answer you are going to give. By your own law, you say. Are not you, then, a most manifest parricide of your country? Had not you had regard to the idea that the conscript fathers might be wholly destroyed from out of the republic?—did you not even leave this to the senate, which no one ever took from it—the privilege, namely, of having all lieutenants appointed by authority of that order? Did the great public council appear to you so contemptible? did the senate appear so depressed? did the republic appear so miserable and prostrate, that the senate was no longer able to appoint, in conformity with the uniform precedent of our ancestors, the messengers of peace and war, and managers, and interpreters, and authors of warlike determinations, and ministers of the different sorts of provincial duty?

[36] You had taken from the senate the power of decreeing provinces to the different magistrates, and the decision as to what general was to be appointed to a command, and the management of the treasury; things which the Roman people never coveted for itself, as it never endeavoured to deprive the republic of the direction of the supreme council.⁹ Come, some of these things have been also done by others; it has seldom happened, but still it has happened, that the people has selected a general. Who ever heard that lieutenants have been appointed without a resolution of the senate to authorize it? No one before you. Immediately after you, Clodius did the same thing, in the case of those two pestilences of the republic; and, on this account, you deserve to be punished with still greater misfortunes; because you have injured the republic, not only by your deed, but also by your example; and because you are not only infamous yourself, but you have also wished to teach others to be so too. Do you not know that, on all these accounts, you have been branded with the unfavourable judgment of those most strict men, the Sabines, of those brave tribes, the Marsi and the Peligni, people of the same tribe as yourself, and that there is no other instance, since the foundation of Rome, of any man of the Sergian tribe having lost the votes of that tribe? [37] And I wish to hear this also from you, why it is, since I carried the law with respect to bribery and corruption in accordance with the terms of a resolution of the senate and carried it without violence, and with every proper regard to the auspices and to the Aelian and Fufian laws that you do not consider that a law? especially as I obey your laws whatever the means are by which they were carried; while my law expressly forbids any one to exhibit shows of gladiators within two years of his standing, or being about to stand for an office, unless he does so in compliance with a will on a day appointed in the will. How can you be so insane as to dare to exhibit shows of gladiators actually at the very time when you are a candidate? Do you think that any tribune of the people can be found like that undeniable gladiator of yours, who will interpose to save you from being prosecuted according to the provisions of my law?

16. [38] And if you disregard and despise all these considerations, because you have persuaded yourself, as you are in the habit of boasting openly, that though gods and men may be both unwilling, still you shall be able to gain everything which you desire in consequence of the incredible regard which Caius Caesar has for you; have you ever heard, has any one told you, that lately at Aquileia, Caius Caesar, when some accidental mention was made of some circumstances, said that he was exceedingly indignant that Caius Alfius had been passed over, because he knew the admirable loyalty and honesty of the man; and that he was also greatly annoyed at any one having been made praetor, who was wholly opposed to his opinions and interests? That, on that, some one asked him how he liked Vatinius being repulsed? and that he replied, that Vatinius had done nothing in his tribuneship without a sufficient recompense; and that, as he cared about nothing but money, he could afford to fail in attaining honour with great equanimity. [39] And if that man, who for the sake of increasing his own dignity has willingly allowed you to go on in your headlong course at your own risk, with no fault of his own, judges you himself to be totally unworthy of all honour; if your neighbours, and your connections, and the men of your own tribe hate you so, as to think your repulse their triumph; if no one beholds you without groaning, if no one mentions your name without cursing you, if men shun you, avoid you, and cannot bear to hear your name; if, when they see you, they shudder at you as an evil omen; if your relations disown you, and the men of your own tribe execrate you, and your neighbours dread you, and your connections are ashamed of you; lastly, if all your evil humours have left your odious face and settled in other places; if you are the object of general hatred to the people and the senate, and to all the tribes of the country; what reason can you have for wishing for the praetorship rather than for death? especially as you try to make yourself out a friend of the people, and as you cannot possibly do anything which would be more agreeable to the people than you would if you were to kill yourself!

[40] But that we may hear at length how fully you reply to my interrogations, I will now conclude my examination of you, and at the end I will ask you a few questions relating to the cause itself.

17. I ask you what is the meaning of all this inconsistency and levity of yours, that in this trial you extolled Titus Annius in the very same words in which good men and good citizens have been in the habit of extolling him, when lately, when you were produced before the people by that foul Fury, Clodius, you gave false evidence against him with the greatest eagerness? Is this to be a matter left to your option and in your power, so that when you see Clodius's band of artisans, and that troop of furious and abandoned men, you then say, as you said in the assembly, that Milo¹⁰ has besieged the republic with gladiators and men who combat with beasts; but when you come before such men as these, then you do not venture to say anything against a citizen of extraordinary virtue, and integrity, and wisdom, and firmness? [41] But as you praise Titus Annius so excessively, and by your encomium cast some sort of slight stain on that most illustrious man, (for Titus Annius would prefer being one of those men who are loaded with reproaches by you,) still I ask, since in the administration of the affairs of the republic there has been an entire community of and agreement in every counsel between Titus Annius and Publius Sestius, (a fact which has been proved not only by the decision of the good, but also by that of the wicked; for each of them is now on his trial on the same account and for the same accusation,—the one having had a prosecution instituted against him by that man whom you are sometimes accustomed to confess is the only man who is more worthless than yourself, and the other being reduced to the same condition by your design indeed, not with his assistance,)—I ask, I say, how you can separate those men in your evidence, whom you connect together by your accusation?

The last thing which I wish you to answer me is this:—As you said a great deal against Albinovanus with respect to his prevarication, I wish to know whether you said or did not say that you were not pleased at Sestius being prosecuted for violence, and that he ought not to have been so prosecuted; and that there was no law and no charge on which he was not more liable to impeachment? Did you also say that the cause of Milo, a most admirable man, was generally considered as closely connected with his cause? and that the things which were done by Sestius in my behalf were agreeable to good men? I am not now arguing against the inconsistency of your language and of your evidence; for you have given evidence at great length against those identical actions of this man which you say have been approved of by good men; and as for the man with whom you connect the cause and danger of my client, Sestius, you have extolled him with the highest praises. But I ask this;—whether you think that Publius Sestius ought to be condemned according to the provisions of a law under which you say that he never ought to have been accused at all? or, if you think that your opinion ought not be asked while you are giving your evidence, lest I should appear to be attributing to you any authority by so doing, I ask whether you gave evidence against a man on his trial for violence, who you say never ought to have been prosecuted for violence at all?



¹ There is some corruption in the text here.

² The critics say that Cicero intends a pun here, by the similarity of the sound of the word he uses, “vaticinando,” to Vatinius's name.

³ It is unknown what country is meant, except that it is evidently some part of Africa.

⁴ The Valeria tabula was a part of the forum where the tribunes of the people were in the habit of sitting.

⁵ Cicero refers here to the Marcus Livius Drusus who, A. U. C. 661, brought forward an entire series of measures, calculated, as he said, to remedy the evils of the state; among others, one to give the freedom of the city to all the inhabitants of Italy. He was privately assassinated.

⁶ Publius Sulpicius Rufus was a partisan of Marius; and, as tribune of the people, the instigator of some violent measures against Sulla. After Sulla had driven Marius out of the city, Sulpicius was slain and put to death.

⁷ After the violent way in which Caesar's partisans had treated Bibulus, which has been alluded to in the preceding chapter, Bibulus complained to the senate the next day; but finding that assembly too completely intimidated to take any notice of it, he retired to his own house, and there shut himself up for the remaining eight months of the year of his consulship and determined to act no more in public except by means of edicts.

⁸ There is some great corruption or the text here.

⁹ There is apparently some considerable corruption of the text here.

¹⁰ Titus Annius are the two other names of Milo.