M. Tullius Cicero, Against Piso
C. D. Yonge, Ed.

I have not yet said what you did yourself, but only what you allowed to be done. Nor does it make much difference, especially in a consul whether he himself harnesses the republic with pernicious laws mid infamous harangues, or allows others to harass it. Can there be any excuse for a consul, I will not say being disaffected to the state, but sitting with his hands before him dawdling and sleeping amid the greatest commotions of the republic? For nearly a hundred years had we possessed the Aelian and Fufian law; for four hundred years had we enjoyed the censor's power of deciding on, and animadverting on, the conduct of citizens; laws which I will not say no wicked man has ever dared to uproot, but which no one has ever been able to uproot, a power which no one, not if he were ever so profligate has ever attempted to diminish so as to prevent a formal judgment from being passed every fifth year on our morals.

[11] These things now, O worst of men, are entombed in the bosom of your consulship. Proceed on to the days which followed their funeral obsequies. In front of the tribunal of Aurelius, while you were not only shutting your eyes to the measure, which of itself would have been wicked enough, but while you were looking on with a more delighted countenance than usual, a levy of slaves was had by that man who never considered anything too infamous for him either to say or to do. Arms (O you betrayer of all temples) were placed in the temples of Castor by that robber, while you were looking on, to whom that temple, while you were consul, was a citadel for profligate citizens,—a receptacle for the veteran soldiers of Catiline,—a castle for forensic robbery, and the sepulchre of all law and of all religion. Not only my house, but the whole Palatine Hill, was crowded by the senate, by Roman knights, by the entire city, by the whole of Italy, while you not only never once came near that Cicero (for I omit all mention of domestic circumstances, which perhaps you would deny, and speak only of those facts which were done openly and are notorious)—you never, I say, came near that Cicero to whom all the comitia in which you were elected consul had given the first tablet of the prerogative tribe, but who in the senate was the third person whose opinion you asked; but more, you were present, yes, and you presided in the most cruel manner, over all the counsels which were entertained for the purpose of crushing me.