6.
[12]
But what was it that you dared to say to me myself, in the presence of my
son-in-law, your own relation? “That Gabinius was a beggar,
without either house or property; that he could not exist if he did not
obtain a province; that you had hopes from a tribune of the people, if you
united your plans to his; that you had no hope at all from the senate; that
you were complying with his covetousness as I had done in the case of my
colleague; that there was no reason why I should implore the protection of
the consuls; that every one ought to take care of his own
interests.” And these things I scarcely venture to say. I am
afraid that there may be some one who does not clearly see his enormous
wickedness, concealed as it is under his impenetrable countenance; still I
will say it: he himself, at all events, will recognise the
truth, and will feel some pain in recollecting his crimes.
[13]
Do you recollect you infamous fellow, when about the fifth hour of the day I
came to you with Caius Piso, that you came out of some hovel or other with
your head wrapped up, and in slippers? and when you, with that fetid breath
of yours, had filled us with the odour of that vile cookshop, that you made
the excuse of your health, because you said that you were compelled to have
recourse to some vinous remedies? and when we had admitted the pretence,
(for what could we do?) we stood a little while amid the fumes and smell of
your gluttony, till you drove us away by filthy language and still more
filthy behaviour?
[14]
About two days afterwards you were brought forward in the assembly of the
people by that man with whom you had shared your consulship in that manner;
and when you were asked what were your sentiments respecting my consulship,
you, a very grave authority, some Calatinus, I suppose, or Africanus, or
Maximus, surely not a Caesoninus half-Placentian Calventius, make answer,
lifting one eyebrow up to your forehead, and depressing the other down to
your chin, “that you did not approve of its entirety.”
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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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