This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
Table of Contents:
THE SIXTH ORATION OF M. T. CICERO AGAINST MARCUS ANTONIUS. CALLED ALSO THE SIXTH PHILIPPIC. ADDRESSED TO THE PEOPLE.
31.
[77]
But mark now the trifling character of the fellow. When about the tenth hour of
the day he had arrived at Red Rocks, he skulked into a little petty wine-shop,
and, hidden there, kept on drinking till evening. And from thence getting into a
gig and being driven rapidly to the city, he came to his own house with his head
veiled. “Who are you?” says the porter. “An
express from Marcus.” He is at once taken to the woman for whose sake
he had come; and he delivered the letter to her. And when she had read it with
tears (for it was written in a very amorous style, but the main subject of the
letter was that he would have nothing to do with that actress for the future;
that he had discarded all his love for her, and transferred it to his
correspondent), when she, I say, wept plentifully, this soft-hearted man could
bear it no longer; he uncovered his head and threw himself on her neck. Oh the
worthless man (for what else can I call him? there is no more suitable
expression for me to use)! was it for this that you disturbed the city by
nocturnal alarms, and Italy with fears
of many days' duration, in order that you might show yourself unexpectedly, and
that a woman might see you before she hoped to do so?
[78]
And he had at home a pretense of love; but out of doors a
cause more discreditable still, namely, lest Lucius Plancus should sell up his
sureties, But after you had been produced in the assembly by one of the tribunes
of the people, and had replied that you had come on your own private business,
you made even the people full of jokes against you. But, however, we have said
too much about trifles. Let us come to more important subjects.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.