23.
You demanded a law about bribery, though there was no deficiency of laws on that matter, for
there was the Calpurnian law, framed with the greatest severity. Your inclinations and your
wish procured compliance with your demand; but the whole of that law might perhaps have armed
your accusation, if you had had a guilty defendant to prosecute; but it has been of great
injury to you as a candidate.
[47]
A more severe punishment for
the common people was demanded by your voice. The minds of the lower orders were agitated. The
punishment of an exile was demanded in the case of any one of our order being convicted. The
senate granted it to your request; but still it was with no good will that they established a
more severe condition for our common fortunes at your instigation. Punishment was imposed on
any one who made the excuse of illness. The inclinations of many men were alienated by this
step, as by it they were forced either to labour to the prejudice of their health, or else
through the distress of illness they were compelled to abandon the other enjoyments of life.
What then, are we to say of this? Who passed this law? He, who, in so doing, acted in
obedience to the senate, and to your wish. He, in short, passed it to whom it was not of the
slightest personal advantage. Do you think that those proposals which, with my most willing
consent, the senate rejected in a very full house, were but a slight hindrance to you? You
demanded the confusion of the votes of all the centuries, the extension of the Manilian law,
1 the equalization or all interest and dignity, and
of all the suffrages. Honourable men, men of influence in their neighbourhoods and
municipalities, were indignant that such a man should contend for the abolition of all degrees
in dignity and popularity. You also wished to have judges selected by the accuser at his
pleasure, the effect of which would have been, that the secret dislikes of the citizens, which
are at present confined to silent grumblings, would have broken out in attacks on the fortunes
of every eminent man.
[48]
All these measures were strengthening your hands as a prosecutor, but weakening your chance
as a candidate. And by them all a violent blow was struck at your hopes of success, as I
warned you; and many very severe things were said about it by that most able and most eloquent
man, Hortensius, owing to which my task of speaking now is the more difficult; as, after both
he had spoken before me, and also Marcus Crassus, a man of the greatest dignity, and industry,
and skill as an orator, I, coming in at the end, was not to plead some part of the cause, but
to say with respect to the whole matter whatever I thought advisable. Therefore I am forced to
recur to the same ideas, and to a great extent, O judges, I have to contend with a feeling of
satiety on your part.
This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
1 This was not the Manilian law, in support of which Cicero spoke to confer the command in Asia on Pompeius; but a law enacting that the votes should be counted without any regard to the centuries in which they were given; but this law was repealed soon after its enactment.
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.