9.
And in this matter I am only convicting you of inconsistency; who in the case
of this very Cato, whom you did not so much promote out of regard for his
dignity, as get out of the way lest he might hinder your
wickedness,—whom you had exposed to your Sergii, and Lollii, and
Titii, and your other leaders in massacre and conflagration, whom you
yourself had called the executioner of the citizens, the chief murderer of
men who had never been condemned, the very fountain of
cruelty,—you still by your motion conferred this honour and
command on him out of the regular course, and behaved with such violence,
that you were wholly unable to disguise your object and, the system of
wickedness which you had laid down for yourself.
[22]
You read letters in the assembly which you said had been sent to you by Caius
Caesar. “Caesar to Pulcher.” And when you proceeded to
argue that this was a proof of intimacy, because he only used the names of
himself and you, and did not add “proconsul,” or
“tribune of the people,” and then began to congratulate
you that you had got Marcus Cato out of the way of your tribuneship for the
remainder of the time, and that you had also taken away for the future the
power of giving extraordinary commissions;—letters which he never
sent to you at all, or which, if he did send them, he certainly never meant
to be read in the public assembly;—at all events, whether he sent
them or whether you forged them, your intention with respect to the honours
conferred upon Cato was revealed by the reading of those letters.
[23]
But, however, I will say no more about Cato,
whose eminent virtue, and dignity, and integrity, and moderation in that
business which he executed, appear like a screen to veil the iniquity of
your law and of your argument. What more need I say? Who was it who gave to
the most infamous man that has ever existed, to the most wicked and polluted
of all men, that rich and fertile Syria? Who gave him a war to carry on against nations who
were in a state of profound peace? Who gave him the money which was destined
for the purchase of lands and which had been taken by violence out of the
fruits of the achievements of Caesar? Who gave him an unlimited
command?1 And,
indeed, when you had given him Cilicia, you altered the terms of your bargain with him,
and you transferred Cilicia to the
praetor, again quite out of the regular course. And then, when the bribe had
been increased, you gave Syria to
Gabinius—expressly naming him. What more? Did you not, naming him
expressly, deliver over, bound and fettered, to Lucius Piso, the foulest,
the most cruel, the most treacherous of men, the most infamous of all men,
as stigmatised for every sort of wickedness and lust, free nations, who had
been declared free by numerous resolutions of the senate, and even by a
recent law of your own son-in-law? Did not you, after the recompense for
your service and the bribe of a province had been paid by him at my expense,
still divide the treasury with him?
[24]
Is it
so? Did you annul the arrangement of the consular provinces, which Caius
Gracchus, than whom there hardly ever lived a man more devoted to the
people, not only abstained from taking from the senate, but even passed a
solemn law to establish the principle that they were to be settled every
year by the senate;—did you, I say, disturb that arrangement, and
that too after it had been formally settled according to the Sempronian law?
You gave the provinces, in an irregular manner, without casting lots, not to
the consuls, but to the pests of the republic, expressly naming them. And
shall we be found fault with, because we have appointed a most illustrious
man, who has often been selected before on occasions of the greatest danger
to the republic, (expressly naming him,) to superintend a matter of the most
urgent importance, and which was previously in an almost desperate
condition?
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1 Gabinius is meant here; but Graevius thinks that there is a good deal of corruption in this passage.
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