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24.
[58]
The tribune of the people was borne along in a chariot, lictors crowned with
laurel preceded him; among whom, on an open litter, was carried an actress; whom
honorable men, citizens of the different municipalities, coming out from their
towns under compulsion to meet him, saluted not by the name by which she was
well known on the stage, but by that of Volumnia.1 A car followed
full of pimps; then a lot of debauched companions; and then his mother, utterly
neglected, followed the mistress of her profligate son, as if she had been her
daughter-in-law. O the disastrous fecundity of that miserable woman! With the
marks of such wickedness as this did that fellow stamp every municipality, and
prefecture, and colony, and, in short, the whole of Italy.
[59]
To find fault with the rest of his actions, O conscript fathers, is difficult,
and somewhat unsafe. He was occupied in war; he glutted himself with the
slaughter of citizens who bore no resemblance to himself He was
fortunate—if at least there can be any good fortune in wickedness. But
since we wish to show a regard for the veterans, although the cause of the
soldiers is very different from yours; they followed their chief; you went to
seek for a leader; still (that I may not give you any pretense for stirring up
odium against me among them), I will say nothing of the nature of the war.
When victorious, you returned with the legions from Thessaly to Brundusium. There you did not put me to death. It was a great
kindness! For I confess that you could have done it. Although there was no one
of those men who were with you at that time, who did not think that I ought to
be spared.
[60]
For so great is men's affection
for their country; that I was sacred even in the eyes of your legions, because
they recollected that the country had been saved by me. However, grant that you
did give me what you did not take away from me; and that I have my life as a
present from you, since it was not taken from me by you; was it possible for me,
after all your insults, to regard that kindness of yours as I regarded it at
first, especially after you saw that you must hear this reply from me?
M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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