Political Speeches (Oxford World's Classics) (46 page)

He even read out a letter
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he claimed I had sent him—thereby showing his lack of good manners and his ignorance of the common courtesies. After all, has anyone with the slightest understanding of how gentlemen behave towards one another ever produced a letter sent to him by a friend with whom he subsequently had had a disagreement and read it out in public? What does such behaviour amount to but the abolition of the bonds of society, the abolition of communication between absent friends? How many jokes are put in letters which, if published, would seem inappropriate—and how many confidences that ought never to be divulged!

[8] So much for his lack of manners: but look at his astonishing stupidity. What would you have to say to me in reply, O man of eloquence that you are—or at least appear to be to Mustela Seius and Tiro Numisius?
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And since, even as I speak, those two are standing armed with swords in full view of the senate, I shall certainly join
them in reckoning you eloquent—if, that is, you can explain how you are going to get them off when they are put on trial for bearing arms in public! Come on, then, what would you have to say to me if I told you that I never sent you that letter in the first place? How would you prove me wrong? By the handwriting—your knowledge of which has been so lucrative?
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But how could you? The letter is in the hand of a secretary. How I envy your teacher,
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who has taught you such ignorance in return for an enormous fee, the size of which I shall shortly reveal! [9] For what could be less intelligent for any person—let alone an orator—than to bring up a point against his opponent which, if it were countered with a simple denial, could not be taken further?

But as it happens I do not deny it—and on this issue I thereby prove you guilty not just of bad manners, but of madness. For is there a single word in that letter that does not betoken civility, respect, and goodwill? Indeed, your accusation consists of nothing other than that in that letter I did not think badly of you, and that I wrote to you as if to a citizen, as if to a man of honour, and not as if to a criminal and brigand. But for my part I am not going to publish your letter, even though, since you attacked me first, I would be perfectly within my rights to do so. In that letter you ask for my consent to the recall of some exile, and assure me that you will not recall him unless I agree to it. I then agreed to what you asked. After all, why should I stand up to your criminal behaviour, when neither the authority of this order nor the views of the Roman people nor any of the laws could hold it in check? [10] But why did you need to ask me in the first place, if the man’s recall had really been authorized by a law of Caesar’s? Of course, he wanted the credit for the favour to be mine
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—even though, if the law really had been carried, there would be no credit even for himself !

Conscript fathers, I have something to say in my own defence and much to say against Marcus Antonius. As to the former theme, I ask you to listen to me sympathetically as I defend myself; as to the latter, I shall myself make sure that you pay me close attention while I speak against him. At the same time I beg of you: if you agree that my whole life and particularly my public speaking have always been characterized by moderation and restraint, then please do not think that today, when I give this man the response he has provoked, I have forgotten my true nature. I am not going to treat him as a consul any
more than he has treated me as a consular. And whereas he cannot in any sense be regarded as a consul, either in his private life, or in his administration of the state, or in the manner of his appointment,
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I am beyond any dispute a consular.

[11] So to let you appreciate what sort of consul he professes himself to be, he attacked my consulship. Now that consulship, conscript fathers, was mine in name only: in reality it was yours. For what decision did I arrive at, what action did I take, what deed did I do other than by the advice, authority, and vote of this order?
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And now do you, as a man of wisdom, not merely of eloquence, dare to criticize those proceedings in the very presence of those by whose advice and wisdom they were transacted? But who was ever found to criticize my consulship except you and Publius Clodius? Indeed, Clodius’ fate awaits you, just as it did Gaius Curio, since you have at home the thing which did for both of them.
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[12] Marcus Antonius does not approve of my consulship. But Publius Servilius
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approved of it—of the consulars of that time I name him first, because his death is the most recent. Quintus Catulus approved of it, a man whose authority will always remain a living force in this country. The two Luculli, Marcus Crassus, Quintus Hortensius, Gaius Curio, Gaius Piso, Manius Glabrio, Manius Lepidus, Lucius Volcacius, and Gaius Figulus approved of it. Decimus Silanus and Lucius Murena,
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who were then consuls-elect, approved of it. Like the consulars, Marcus Cato
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approved of it—a man who in taking leave of life showed great foresight, especially in that he never saw you become consul. But Gnaeus Pompeius
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above all approved of my consulship in that, the moment he saw me on his return from Syria, he embraced me and congratulated me, saying that it was thanks to me that he would once again set eyes on his country. But why do I mention individuals? A packed senate approved my consulship
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so strongly that there was no one who did not thank me as if I were his parent, and who did not put it down to me that he was still in possession of his life, his property, his children, and his country.

[13] But since the many distinguished gentlemen whom I have just named are all now lost to our country, I turn to the living. Out of the body of consulars, two are still with us. The gifted and judicious Lucius Cotta
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proposed a thanksgiving in the most complimentary terms for those very actions which you criticize, and the consulars
I have just named, together with the entire senate, accepted the proposal—an honour which I was the first civilian since the foundation of our city to receive. [14] Lucius Caesar,
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your uncle—what eloquence, what resolution, what authority he showed as he denounced his sister’s husband, your stepfather! He was the man you should have had as your guide and mentor in all your decisions throughout your life—and yet you chose to model yourself on your stepfather rather than your uncle! Although unrelated to him, I as consul accepted Caesar’s guidance—but did you, his sister’s son, ever ask his advice on any public matter at all?

Immortal gods, whose advice, then,
does
he ask? Those fellows, I suppose, whose very birthdays we are made to hear announced. [15] ‘Antonius is not appearing in public today.’ ‘Why ever not?’ ‘He is giving a birthday party at his house outside the city.’ ‘Who for?’ I will name no names: just imagine it’s now for some Phormio or other, now for Gnatho, now for Ballio
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even. What scandalous disgrace, what intolerable cheek, wickedness, and depravity! Do you have so readily available to you a leading senator, an outstanding citizen, and never consult him on matters of public interest—while all the time consulting people who have nothing of their own, but sponge off you instead?

Your consulship, then, is a blessing, and mine was a curse. Have you so lost your sense of shame, together with your decency, that you dare to say such a thing in the very temple
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where
I
used to consult the senate in its days of greatness, when it ruled the world—but where
you
have now stationed thugs armed with swords? [16] But you even dared (is there anything you would not dare?) to say that in my consulship the Capitoline path
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was packed with armed slaves. I was, I suppose, preparing violence to force the senate to pass those wicked decrees! You despicable wretch—whether you do not know what happened (since you know nothing of anything good) or whether you do—you who talk with such utter lack of shame before such men as these! When the senate was meeting in this temple, did any Roman equestrian, did any young noble except you, did anyone of any class who recalled that he was a Roman citizen fail to come to the Capitoline path? Did anyone fail to give in his name?
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And yet there were neither enough clerks nor enough registers to record all the names that were offered. [17] After all, traitors were admitting to the assassination of their homeland, and were compelled by the
testimony of their accomplices, by their own handwriting, and by the almost audible sound of the words they had written to confess that they had conspired to set fire to the city, to massacre the citizens, to devastate Italy, and to destroy their country. In such a situation, who would not be roused to defend the national security—particularly at a time when the senate and people of Rome had the sort of leader
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under whom, if we had a similar leader now, you would have met the same fate that those traitors did?

He claims I refused to hand over his stepfather’s body for burial. But not even Publius Clodius ever accused me of that, Clodius, who to my regret (because I had good reason to be his enemy) has now been outdone in every kind of vice by you. [18] But how did it occur to you to remind us that you were brought up in the house of Publius Lentulus? Was it that you were afraid we might find it impossible to believe that you could have turned out so bad by nature, unless nurture also were added? So obtuse were you that throughout your entire speech you were at issue with yourself, making statements that were not merely incoherent but actually inconsistent and incompatible: the result was that you seemed to be not so much in dispute with me as with yourself. You admitted that your stepfather was implicated in that terrible crime, and yet you complained that he was punished for it. Thus you praised what is properly mine and blamed what is entirely the senate’s. For I arrested the guilty men, but the senate punished them.
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What a clever orator this man is, since he fails to grasp that he is praising his opponent and criticizing his audience!

[19] Now here is a sign, I will not say of his impudence, since he wants to be called impudent, but of the last thing he wants to have ascribed to him, his stupidity—a quality in which he surpasses everyone else. He talked of the Capitoline path—and this at a time when armed men are patrolling our benches, and when soldiers, sword in hand, stand posted within this very sanctuary of Concord (immortal gods!), this actual sanctuary in which, during my consulship, the salutary measures which have ensured our survival to this day were proposed! Accuse the senate! Accuse the equestrian order, which at that time was united with the senate!
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Accuse all classes, all citizens—so long as you admit that this order at this very moment is being besieged by Ituraeans!
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It is not impudence which causes you to make such shameless accusations, but your failure to see the extent to which you contradict yourself. Obviously, then, you are ignorant.
For if you yourself have taken up arms in order to destroy your country, what is more insane than to reproach someone else for doing so in order to preserve it?

[20] But at one point you even attempted to be witty. Good gods, it didn’t suit you at all! You must carry some of the blame for this yourself—after all, you could always have borrowed some jokes from your actress wife.
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‘Let arms to the toga yield.’
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Yes? And didn’t they? But at a later point the toga yielded to your arms. We ought therefore to enquire whether it was better for the arms of criminals to yield to the freedom of the Roman people or for our freedom to yield to your arms. But I will not reply to you further about the verses. I will, though, make this brief observation—that you have no understanding of this or any literature at all, whereas I, without ever failing in my duty either to the state or to my friends, have nevertheless managed to devote my spare time to producing works in every literary genre, and by these compositions of the night I have succeeded in bringing some profit to the young and some credit to the reputation of Rome. But this is not the moment for this; let us pass on to more important matters.

[21] You said that I instigated the killing of Publius Clodius.
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Now what would people think if he had been killed at the time when you, sword in hand, chased him across the forum in full view of the Roman people? Indeed, you would have finished him off were it not for the fact that he threw himself beneath the stairs of a bookshop and, barricading himself in there, halted your attack.
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I admit that I supported you on that occasion; but not even you say that I put you up to it. But as for what Milo did, I did not have any opportunity of supporting him, since the deed was done before anyone had any notion it was going to take place. Nevertheless, you say I put him up to it. I suppose Milo’s character was such that he was incapable of being of service to his country unless someone were egging him on! But you say I was pleased at what happened. So? When the whole of Rome was celebrating, should I alone have had a long face? [22] Anyway, an inquiry
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was held into Clodius’ death—an inquiry rather inadvisedly set up, it is true. After all, what was the point of passing a law to establish a new court for murder when a legally constituted court already existed? Anyway, an inquiry was held; and the allegation that no one made against me while the trial was taking place
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you now turn up and make after so many years have elapsed.

[23] You dared to claim, and at enormous length too, that it was thanks to me that Pompeius was detached from Caesar’s friendship, and that it was therefore my fault that the Civil War happened. In this you were not entirely wrong; but you were wrong about the timing, and that is the most important thing. In the consulship of that outstanding citizen Marcus Bibulus
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I left no stone unturned in my efforts to win Pompeius away from his alliance with Caesar. But Caesar was more successful that I was: he won Pompeius away from his friendship with me. But after Pompeius had completely given himself over to Caesar, why should I try to draw him away from him? It would have been stupid to make the attempt, impertinent to advise it. [24] However, there were two occasions on which I did advise Pompeius against Caesar. Do blame me for them, if you can. The first was when I advised him not to extend Caesar’s command for a further five years, and the second when I advised him not to allow him to be given permission to stand for office in absence.
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Had I succeeded in persuading Pompeius on either of these points, we should never have reached the pitiful state we are in now.