[29]
But you seemed to me to wish to bring
Caelius into some sort of odium by means of the common irregularities into
which youth is apt to fall. And, therefore, all that silence with which your
speech was received was produced by the fact that, though we had but one
criminal before us, we were thinking of the vices of many. It is an easy
matter to declaim against luxury. The day would fail me if I were to attempt
to enumerate everything that may be said on that subject. The field of
seductions, and adulteries and wantonness, and extravagance is boundless.
Even though you do not fix your eyes on any particular criminal, but only on
the vices themselves, still they are capable of being made the objects of
very eloquent and fluent vituperation. But it becomes your wisdom, O judges,
not to be diverted from the case of the man who is on his trial before you;
nor to let loose against an individual, and him too on his trial, the stings
with which your severity and dignity is armed when the accuser has sought to
rouse them against the general fact of luxury, against vices in general and
the present state of morals, and the present times while by this means the
defendant is not being impeached for any crime of his own, but is having
unjust odium excited against him on account of the vices of many others.
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. George Bell & Sons, York Street, Covent Garden. 1891.
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