[12]
And he also afterwards, when a countless
multitude of virtuous men had come to him from the Capitol as suppliants, and in morning
garments, and when all the most noble young men of Rome, and all the Roman knights, had thrown
themselves at the feet of that most profligate pander, with what an expression of countenance
did that curled and perfumed debauchee reject, not only the tears of the citizens, but even
the prayers of his country! Nor was he content with that but he even went up to the assembly,
and there said what even if his man Catiline had come to life again he would not have dared to
say,—that he would make the Roman knights pay for the nones of December of my
consulship, and for the Capitoline Hill; and he not only said this, but he even summoned those
before him that suited him. And this imperious consul actually banished from the city Lucius
Lamia, a Roman knight, a man of the highest character, and a very eager advocate of my safety,
because of his intimacy with me, and very much attached to the state, as it was likely that a
man of his fortune would be. And when you had passed a resolution to change your garments, and
had changed them, and though, indeed, all virtuous men had already done the same thing, he,
reeking with perfumes, clad in his toga praetexta, which all the
praetors and aediles had at that time laid aside, derided your mourning garb, and the grief of
a most grateful city, and did what no tyrant ever did,—he issued an edict that you
should lament your disasters in secret and not presume openly to bewail the miseries of your
country.
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