M. Tullius Cicero, For Sestius
C. D. Yonge, Ed.

Has there ever been any sedition of which he has not been a prime mover? Has there ever been any seditious man with whom he has not been intimate? Has there ever been any turbulent assembly of which he has not been an exciter? Has he ever spoken well of any good man? Spoken well, do I say? Yes, rather, is there any brave and good citizen whom he has not attacked in the most wanton manner? A fellow who—not, I fancy, out of any desire, but merely in order to seem a favourer of the common people—took a freedwoman for his wife. [111] He voted concerning me; he was present at the assembly; he was present at all the banquets and mutual congratulations of that parricidal crew. However, he avenged me well when he kissed my enemies with that impure mouth of his. For, just as if it were owing to me that he has lost his property, he is an enemy to me on that very account, because he has nothing left. Have I, O Gellius, taken your patrimony from you, or have you devoured it? What? Were you, you gulf and whirlpool of your patrimony, were you gormandising at my risk, when you wished to prevent me from remaining any longer in the city, because as consul I had defended the republic against you and your associates? There is not one of your family who can bear the sight of you. All men avoid your approach, your conversation, your society. Postumius, the son of your sister, a young man of great prudence and high character, with the judgment of an man, branded you, when amid a great number of guardians he did not appoint you as one of the guardians of his children. But I have been carried away by indignation on my own account and on that of the republic (and I do not know which of us two he hates most) to say more than I need have said against that most frantic and impoverished glutton. [112] I return to my original subject, that, when the proceedings were being carried on against me, while the city was taken and oppressed, Gellius and Firmius and Titius, all Furies of the same class, were the chiefs and leaders of those mercenary bands, while the proposer of the law himself was in no respect free from being implicated in their baseness, and audacity, and iniquity. But when the law was passed for my restoration to my dignity, no one thought that either infirm health or old age supplied him with any reasonable excuse for being absent, there was no one who did not consider that by his vote he was recalling not only me but also the republic at the same time to its ancient position.