The Second Oration Against Mark Antony

TO what destiny of mine, O conscript fathers, shall I say that it is owing, that none for the last twenty years has been an enemy to the republic without at the same time declaring war against me? Nor is there any necessity for naming any particular person; you yourselves recollect instances in proof of my statement. They have all hitherto suffered severer punishments than I could have wished for them; but I marvel that you, O Antonius, do not fear the end of those men whose conduct you are imitating. And in others I was less surprised at this. None of those men of former times was a voluntary enemy to me; all of them were attacked by me for the sake of the republic. But you, who have never been injured by me, not even by a word, in order to appear more audacious than Catiline, more frantic than Clodius, have of your own accord attacked me with abuse, and have considered that your alienation from me would be a recommendation of you to impious citizens.

Cicero (106 B.C.–43 B.C.)

(44 B.C.)

Born in 106 B.C., died in 43; served in the Social War in 89; Questor in Sicily in 75; Edile in 69; Pretor in 66; Consul during the Catiline conspiracy; banished in 58; Proconsul of Cilicia in 51–50; with the Pompeians in 49; proscribed by the Second Triumvirate, and slain in 43; of his orations fifty-seven have been preserved.



TO what destiny of mine, O conscript fathers, shall I say that it is owing, that none for the last twenty years has been an enemy to the republic without at the same time declaring war against me? Nor is there any necessity for naming any particular person; you yourselves recollect instances in proof of my statement. They have all hitherto suffered severer punishments than I could have wished for them; but I marvel that you, O Antonius, do not fear the end of those men whose conduct you are imitating. And in others I was less surprised at this. None of those men of former times was a voluntary enemy to me; all of them were attacked by me for the sake of the republic. But you, who have never been injured by me, not even by a word, in order to appear more audacious than Catiline, more frantic than Clodius, have of your own accord attacked me with abuse, and have considered that your alienation from me would be a recommendation of you to impious citizens.

What am I to think? That I have been despised? I see nothing either in my life, or in my influence in the city, or in my exploits, or even in the moderate abilities with which I am endowed, which Antonius can despise. Did he think that it was easiest to disparage me in the senate?—a body which has borne its testimony in favor of many most illustrious citizens that they governed the republic well, but in favor of me alone, of all men, that I preserved it. Or did he wish to contend with me in a rivalry of eloquence? This, indeed, is an act of generosity; for what could be a more fertile or richer subject for me, than to have to speak in defense of myself, and against Antonius? This, in fact, is the truth. He thought it impossible to prove to the satisfaction of those men who resembled himself, that he was an enemy to his country, if he was not also an enemy to me. And before I make him any reply on the other topics of his speech, I will say a few words respecting the friendship formerly subsisting between us, which he has accused me of violating—for that I consider a most serious charge.

He has complained that I pleaded once against his interest. Was I not to plead against one with whom I was quite unconnected, in behalf of an intimate acquaintance, of a dear friend? Was I not to plead against interest acquired not by hopes of virtue, but by the disgrace of youth? Was I not to plead against an injustice which that man procured to be done by the obsequiousness of a most iniquitous interposer of his veto, not by any law regulating the privileges of the pretor? But I imagine that this was mentioned by you, in order that you might recommend yourself to the citizens, if they all recollected that you were the son-in-law of a freedman, and that your children were the grandsons of Quintus Fabius, a freedman.

But you had entirely devoted yourself to my principles (for this is what you said); you had been in the habit of coming to my house. In truth, if you had done so, you would more have consulted your own character and your reputation for chastity. But you did not do so, nor, if you had wished it, would Caius Curio have ever suffered you to do so.

But I availed myself of your friendly assistance. Of what assistance? Although the instance which you cite I have myself at all times openly admitted. I preferred confessing that I was under obligations to you, to letting myself appear to any foolish person not sufficiently grateful. However, what was the kindness that you did me? Not killing me at Brundusium? Would you then have slain the man whom the conqueror himself, who conferred on you, as you used to boast, the chief rank among all his robbers, had desired to be safe, and had enjoined to go to Italy? Grant that you could have slain him, is not this, O conscript fathers, such a kindness as is done by banditti, who are contented with being able to boast that they have granted their lives to all those men whose lives they have not taken? and if that were really a kindness, then those who slew that man by whom they themselves had been saved, and whom you yourself are in the habit of styling most illustrious men, would never have acquired such immortal glory. But what sort of kindness is it, to have abstained from committing nefarious wickedness? It is a case in which it ought not to appear so delightful to me not to have been killed by you, as miserable, that it should have been in your power to do such a thing with impunity. However, grant that it was a kindness, since no greater kindness could be received from a robber; still in what point can you call me ungrateful? Ought I not to complain of the ruin of the republic, lest I should appear ungrateful toward you?

But he also read letters which he said that I had sent to him, like a man devoid of humanity and ignorant of the common usages of life. For who ever, who was even but slightly acquainted with the habits of polite men, produced in an assembly and openly read letters which had been sent to him by a friend, just because some quarrel had arisen between them? Is not this destroying all companionship in life, destroying the means by which absent friends converse together? How many jests are frequently put in letters, which, if they were produced in public, would appear stupid! How many serious opinions, which, for all that, ought not to be published! Let this be a proof of your utter ignorance of courtesy. Now mark, also, his incredible folly. What have you to oppose to me, O you eloquent man, as you seem at least to Mustela Tamisus, and to Tiro Numisius? And while these men are standing at this very time in the sight of the senate with drawn swords, I, too, will think you an eloquent man if you will show how you would defend them if they were charged with being assassins. However, what answer would you make if I were to deny that I ever sent those letters to you? By what evidence could you convict me? By my handwriting? Of handwriting indeed you have a lucrative knowledge. (Note: It has been pointed out that Cicero here means to insinuate that Mark Antony had been forging Cæsar’s handwriting and signature.) How can you prove it in that manner? For the letters are written by an amanuensis. By this time I envy your teacher, who for all that payment which I shall mention presently, has taught you to know nothing.

You have said that Publius Clodius was slain by my contrivance. What would men have thought if he had been slain at the time when you pursued him in the forum with a drawn sword, in the sight of all the Roman people; and when you would have settled his business if he had not thrown himself up the stairs of a bookseller’s shop, and shutting them against you, checked your attack by that means? And I confess that at that time I favored you, but even you yourself do not say that I had advised your attempt. But as for Milo, it was not possible even for me to favor his action; for he had finished the business before any one could suspect that he was going to do it. Oh, but I advised it! I suppose Milo was a man of such a disposition that he was not able to do a service to the republic if he had not some one to advise him to do it. But I rejoiced at it! Well, suppose I did; was I to be the only sorrowful person in the city, when every one else was in such delight? Although that inquiry into the death of Publius Clodius was not instituted with any great wisdom. For what was the reason for having a new law to inquire into the conduct of the man who had slain him, when there was a form of inquiry already established by the laws? However, an inquiry was instituted. And have you now been found, so many years afterward, to say a thing which, at the time that the affair was under discussion, no one ventured to say against me? But as to the assertion that you have dared to make, and that at great length, too, that it was by my means that Pompeius was alienated from his friendship with Cæsar, and that on that account it was my fault that the civil war was originated; in that you have not erred so much in the main facts, as (and that is of the greatest importance) in the times.

When Marcus Bibulus, a most illustrious citizen, was consul, I omitted nothing which I could possibly do or attempt to draw off Pompeius from his union with Cæsar. In which, however, Cæsar was more fortunate than I, for he himself drew off Pompeius from his intimacy with me. But afterward, when Pompeius joined Cæsar with all his heart, what could have been my object in attempting to separate them then? It would have been the part of a fool to hope to do so, and of an impudent man to advise it. However, two occasions did arise, on which I gave Pompeius advice against Cæsar. You are at liberty to find fault with my conduct on those occasions if you can. One was when I advised him not to continue Cæsar’s government for five years more. The other, when I advised him not to permit him to be considered as a candidate for the consulship when he was absent. And if I had been able to prevail on him in either of these particulars, we should never have fallen into our present miseries.

Moreover, I also, when Pompeius had now devoted to the service of Cæsar all his own power, and all the power of the Roman people, and had begun when it was too late to perceive all those things which I had foreseen long before, and when I saw that a nefarious war was about to be waged against our country, I never ceased to be the adviser of peace, and concord, and some arrangement. And that language of mine was well known to many people,—“I wish, O Cnæus Pompeius, that you had either never joined in a confederacy with Caius Cæsar, or else that you had never broken it off. The one conduct would have become your dignity, and the other would have been suited to your prudence.” This, O Marcus Antonius, was at all times my advice both respecting Pompeius and concerning the republic. And if it had prevailed, the republic would still be standing, and you would have perished through your own crimes, and indigence, and infamy.

But these are all old stories now. This charge, however, is quite a modern one: that Cæsar was slain by my contrivance. I am afraid, O conscript fathers, lest I should appear to you to have brought up a sham accuser against myself (which is a most disgraceful thing to do); a man not only to distinguish me by the praises which are my due, but to load me also with those which do not belong to me. For who ever heard my name mentioned as an accomplice in that most glorious action? And whose name has been concealed who was in the number of that gallant band? Concealed, do I say? Whose name was there which was not at once made public? I should sooner say that some men had boasted in order to appear to have been concerned in that conspiracy, though they had in reality known nothing of it, than that any one who had been an accomplice in it could have wished to be concealed.

Moreover, how likely it is, that among such a number of men, some obscure, some young men who had not the wit to conceal any one, my name could possibly have escaped notice? Indeed, if leaders were wanted for the purpose of delivering the country, what need was there of my instigating the Bruti, one of whom saw every day in his house the image of Lucius Brutus, and the other saw also the image of Ahala? Were these the men to seek counsel from the ancestors of others rather than from their own? and out of doors rather than at home? What! Caius Cassius, a man of that family which could not endure, I will not say the domination, but even the power of any individual,—he, I suppose, was in need of me to instigate him? a man who, even without the assistance of these other most illustrious men, would have accomplished this same deed in Cilicia, at the mouth of the river Cydnus, if Cæsar had brought his ships to that bank of the river which he had intended, and not to the opposite one. Was Cnæus Domitius spurred on to seek to recover his dignity, not by the death of his father, a most illustrious man, nor by the death of his uncle, nor by the deprivation of his own dignity, but by my advice and authority? Did I persuade Caius Trebonius, a man whom I should not have ventured even to advise? On which account the republic owes him even a larger debt of gratitude, because he preferred the liberty of the Roman people to the friendship of one man, and because he preferred overthrowing arbitrary power to sharing it. Was I the instigator whom Lucius Tillius Cimber followed? a man whom I admired for having performed that action, rather than ever expected that he would perform it; and I admired him on this account, that he was unmindful of the personal kindnesses which he had received, but mindful of his country. What shall I say of the two Servilii? Shall I call them Cascas, or Ahalas? And do you think that those men were instigated by my authority rather than by their affection for the republic? It would take a long time to go through all the rest; and it is a glorious thing for the republic that they were so numerous, and a most honorable thing also for themselves.

But recollect, I pray you, how that clever man convicted me of being an accomplice in the business. When Cæsar was slain, says he, Marcus Brutus immediately lifted up on high his bloody dagger, and called on Cicero by name, and congratulated him on liberty being recovered. Why on me above all men? Because I knew of it beforehand? Consider rather whether this was not his reason for calling on me, that, when he had performed an action very like those which I myself had done, he called me above all men to witness that he had been an imitator of my exploits. But you, O stupidest of all men, do not you perceive, that if it is a crime to have wished that Cæsar should be slain—which you accuse me of having wished—it is a crime also to have rejoiced at his death? For what is the difference between a man who has advised an action, and one who has approved of it? Or what does it signify whether I wished it to be done, or rejoice that it has been done? Is there any one then, except you yourself and those men who wished him to become a king, who was unwilling that that deed should be done, or who disapproved of it after it was done? All men, therefore, are guilty as far as this goes. In truth, all good men, as far as it depended on them, bore a part in the slaying of Cæsar. Some did not know how to contrive it, some had not courage for it, some had no opportunity,—every one had the inclination.

Shall we then examine your conduct from the time when you were a boy? I think so. Let us begin at the beginning. Do you recollect that, while you were still clad in the pretexta, you became a bankrupt? That was the fault of your father, you will say. I admit that. In truth, such a defense is full of filial affection. But it is peculiarly suited to your own audacity, that you sat among the fourteen rows of the knights, though by the Roscian law there was a place appointed for bankrupts, even if any one had become such by the fault of fortune and not by his own. You assumed the manly gown, which you soon made a womanly one; at first a public prostitute, with a regular price for your wickedness, and that not a low one. But very soon Curio stepped in, who carried you off from your public trade, and, as if he had bestowed a matron’s robe upon you, settled you in a steady and durable wedlock. No boy bought for the gratification of passion was ever so wholly in the power of his master as you were in Curio’s. How often has his father turned you out of his house? How often has he placed guards to prevent you from entering? While you, with night for your accomplice, lust for your encourager, and wages for your compeller, were let down through the roof. That house could no longer endure your wickedness.

Do you not know I am speaking of matters with which I am thoroughly acquainted? Remember that time when Curio, the father, lay weeping in his bed; his son throwing himself at my feet with tears recommended to me you; he entreated me to defend you against his own father, if he demanded six millions of sesterces of you; for that he had been bail for you to that amount. And he himself, burning with love, declared positively that because he was unable to bear the misery of being separated from you, he should go into banishment. And at that time what misery of that most flourishing family did I allay, or rather did I remove! persuaded the father to pay the son’s debts; to release the young man, endowed as he was with great promise of courage and ability, by the sacrifice of part of his family estate; and to use his privileges and authority as a father to prohibit him not only from all intimacy with, but from every opportunity of meeting you. When you recollected that all this was done by me, would you have dared to provoke me by abuse if you had not been trusting to those swords which we behold.

But let us say no more of your profligacy and debauchery. There are things which it is not possible for me to mention with honor; but you are all the more free for that, inasmuch as you have not scrupled to be an actor in scenes which a modest enemy can not bring himself to mention.

Mark now, O conscript fathers, the rest of his life, which I will touch upon rapidly. For my inclination hastens to arrive at those things which he did in the time of the civil war, amid the greatest miseries of the republic, and at those things which he does every day. And I beg of you, though they are far better known to you than they are to me, still to listen attentively, as you are doing, to my relation of them. For in such cases as this, it is not the mere knowledge of such actions that ought to excite the mind, but the recollection of them also. And we must at once go into the middle of them, lest otherwise we should be too long in coming to the end.

He was very intimate with Clodius at the time of his tribuneship—he, who now enumerates the kindnesses which he did me. He was the firebrand to handle all conflagrations; and even in his house he attempted something. He himself well knows what I allude to. From thence he made a journey to Alexandria, in defiance of the authority of the senate, and against the interests of the republic, and in spite of religious obstacles; but he had Gabinius for his leader, with whom whatever he did was sure to be right. What were the circumstances of his return from thence? What sort of return was it? He went from Egypt to the farthest extremity of Gaul before he returned home. And what was his home? For at that time every man had possession of his own house; and you had no house anywhere, O Antonius. House, do you say? What place was there in the whole world where you could set your foot on anything that belonged to you, except Mienum, which you farmed with your partners, as if it had been Sisapo?

You came from Gaul to stand for the questorship. Dare to say that you went to your own father before you came to me. I had already received Cæsar’s letters, begging me to allow myself to accept of your excuses; and, therefore, I did not allow you even to mention thanks. After that, I was treated with respect by you, and you received attentions from me in your canvass for the questorship. And it was at that time, indeed, that you endeavored to slay Publius Clodius in the forum, with the approbation of the Roman people; and tho you made the attempt of your own accord, and not at my instigation, still you clearly alleged that you did not think, unless you slew him, that you could possibly make amends to me for all the injuries which you had done me. And this makes me wonder why you should say that Milo did that deed at my instigation; when I never once exhorted you to do it, who of your own accord attempted to do me the same service. Although, if you had persisted in it, I should have preferred allowing the action to be set down entirely to your own love of glory rather than to my influence.

It was you, you, I say, O Marcus Antonius, who gave Caius Cæsar, desirous as he already was to throw everything into confusion, the principal pretext for waging war against his country. For what other pretense did he allege? What cause did he give for his own most frantic resolution and action, except that the power of interposition by the veto had been disregarded, the privileges of the tribunes taken away, and Antonius’s rights abridged by the senate? I say nothing of how false, how trivial these pretenses were; especially when there could not possibly be any reasonable cause whatever to justify any one in taking up arms against his country. But I have nothing to do with Cæsar. You must unquestionably allow, that the cause of that ruinous war existed in your person.

O miserable man, if you are aware, more miserable still if you are not aware, that this is recorded in writings, is handed down to men’s recollection, that our very latest posterity in the most distant ages will never forget this fact, that the consuls were expelled from Italy, and with them Cnæus Pompeius, who was the glory and light of the empire of the Roman people; that all the men of consular rank, whose health would allow them to share in that disaster and that flight, and the pretors, and men of pretorian rank, and the tribunes of the people, and a great part of the senate, and all the flower of the youth of the city, and, in a word, the republic itself was driven out and expelled from its abode. As, then, there is in seeds the cause which produces trees and plants, so of this most lamentable war you were the seed. Do you, O conscript fathers, grieve that these armies of the Roman people have been slain? It is Antonius who slew them. Do you regret your most illustrious citizens? It is Antonius, again, who has deprived you of them. The authority of this order is overthrown; it is Antonius who has overthrown it. Everything, in short, which we have seen since that time (and what misfortune is there that we have not seen?) we shall, if we argue rightly, attribute wholly to Antonius. As Helen was to the Trojans, so has that man been to this republic—the cause of war, the cause of mischief, the cause of ruin. The rest of his tribuneship was like the beginning. He did everything which the senate had labored to prevent, as being impossible to be done consistently with the safety of the republic. And see, now, how gratuitously wicked he was in accomplishing his wickedness.

Then in this same tribuneship, when Cæsar while on his way into Spain had given him Italy to trample on, what journeys did he make in every direction! how did he visit the municipal towns! I know that I am only speaking of matters which have been discussed in every one’s conversation, and that the things which I am saying and am going to say are better known to every one who was in Italy at that time, than to me, who was not. Still I mention the particulars of his conduct, although my speech can not possibly come up to your own personal knowledge. When was such wickedness ever heard of as existing upon earth? or such shamelessness? Or such open infamy?

The tribune of the people was borne along in a chariot, lictors crowned with laurels 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. (Note: A note to Mr. Yonge’s translation explains that this woman was a courtezan who had been enfranchised by her master Volumnius, and that the name of Volumnia “was dear to the Romans as that of the wife of Coriolanus, to whose entreaties he had yielded when he drew off his army from the neighborhood of Rome.”) 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. Oh, 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.

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. But there was no one of those men who were with you at that time, who did not think that I ought to be spared. 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?

You came to Brundusium, to the bosom and embraces of your actress. What is the matter? Am I speaking falsely? How miserable is it not to be able to deny a fact which it is disgraceful to confess! If you had no shame before the municipal towns, had you none even before your veteran army? For what soldier was there who did not see her at Brundusium? Who was there who did not know that she had come so many days’ journey to congratulate you? Who was there who did not grieve that he was so late in finding out how worthless a man he had been following?

Again, you made a tour through Italy, with that same actress for your companion. Cruel and miserable was the way in which you led your soldiers into the towns; shameful was the pillage in every city, of gold and silver, and above all, of wine. And besides all this, while Cæsar knew nothing about it, as he was at Alexandria, Antonius, by the kindness of Cæsar’s friends, was appointed his master of the horse. Then he thought that he could live with Hippia by virtue of his office, and that he might give horses which were the property of the state to Sergius the buffoon. At that time he had selected for himself to live in, not the house which he now dishonors, but that of Marcus Piso. Why need I mention his decrees, his robberies, the possessions of inheritances which were given him, and those, too, which were seized by him? Want compelled him; he did not know where to turn. That great inheritance from Lucius Rubrius, and that other from Lucius Turselius, had not yet come to him. He had not yet succeeded as an unexpected heir to the place of Cnæus Pompeius, and of many others who were absent. He was forced to live like a robber, having nothing beyond what he could plunder from others.

However, we will say nothing of these things, which are acts of a more hardy sort of villainy. Let us speak rather of his meaner descriptions of worthlessness. You, with those jaws of yours, and those sides of yours, and that strength of body suited to a gladiator, drank such quantities of wine at the marriage of Hippia, that you were forced to vomit the next day in the sight of the Roman people. O action disgraceful not merely to see, but even to hear of. If this had happened to you at supper amid those vast drinking cups of yours, who would not have thought it scandalous? But in an assembly of the Roman people, a man holding a public office, a master of the horse, to whom it would have been disgraceful even to belch, vomiting filled his own bosom and the whole tribunal with fragments of what he had been eating reeking with wine. But he himself confesses this among his other disgraceful acts. Let us proceed to his more splendid offenses.

Cæsar came back from Alexandria, fortunate, as he seemed at least to himself; but in my opinion no one can be fortunate who is unfortunate for the republic. The spear was set up in front of the temple of Jupiter Stator, and the property of Cnæus Pompeius Magnus—(miserable that I am, for even now that my tears have ceased to flow, my grief remains deeply implanted in my heart)—the property, I say, of Cnæus Pompeius the Great was submitted to the pitiless voice of the auctioneer. On that one occasion the state forgot its slavery, and groaned aloud; and though men’s minds were enslaved, as everything was kept under by fear, still the groans of the Roman people were free. While all men were waiting to see who would be so impious, who would be so mad, who would be so declared an enemy to gods and to men as to dare to mix himself up with that wicked auction, no one was found except Antonius, even though there were plenty of men collected round that spear (Note: Mr. Yonge observes that the custom of erecting a spear wherever an auction was held is well known; it is said to have arisen from the ancient practice of selling under a spear the booty acquired in war.) who would have dared anything else. One man alone was found to dare to do that which the audacity of every one else had shrunk from and shuddered at. Were you, then, seized with such stupidity—or, I should rather say, with such insanity—as not to see that if you, being of the rank in which you were born, acted as a broker at all, and above all as a broker in the case of Pompeius’s property, you would be execrated and hated by the Roman people, and that all gods and all men must at once become and forever continue hostile to you? But with what violence did that glutton immediately proceed to take possession of the property of that man, to whose valor it had been owing that the Roman people had been more terrible to foreign nations, while his justice had made it dearer to them.

When, therefore, this fellow had begun to wallow in the treasures of that great man, he began to exult like a buffoon in a play, who has lately been a beggar, and has become suddenly rich. But, as some poet or other says,—

“Ill-gotten gain comes quickly to end.”

It is an incredible thing, and almost a miracle, how he in a few, not months, but days, squandered all that vast wealth. There was an immense quantity of wine, an excessive abundance of very valuable plate, much precious apparel, great quantities of splendid furniture, and other magnificent things in many places, such as one was likely to see belonging to a man who was not indeed luxurious, but who was very wealthy. Of all this in a few days, there was nothing left. What Charybdis was ever so voracious? Charybdis, do I say? Charybdis, if she existed at all, was only one animal. The ocean, I swear most solemnly, appears scarcely capable of having swallowed up such numbers of things so widely scattered, and distributed in such different places, with such rapidity. Nothing was shut up, nothing sealed up, no list was made of anything. Whole storehouses were abandoned to the most worthless of men. Actors seized on this, actresses on that; the house was crowded with gamblers, and full of drunken men; people were drinking all day, and that, too, in many places; there were added to all this expense (for this fellow was not invariably fortunate) heavy gambling losses. You might see in the cellars of the slaves couches covered with the most richly embroidered counterpanes of Cnæus Pompeius. Wonder not, then, that all these things were so soon consumed. Such profligacy as that could have devoured not only the patrimony of one individual, however ample it might have been (as indeed his was), but whole cities and kingdoms.

And then his houses and gardens! Oh, the cruel audacity! Did you dare to enter into that house? Did you dare to cross that most sacred threshold? And to show your most profligate countenance to the household gods who protect that abode? A house which for a long time no one could behold, no one could pass by without tears! Are you not ashamed to dwell so long in that house? One in which, stupid and ignorant as you are, still you can see nothing which is not painful to you.

When you behold those beaks of ships in the vestibule, and those warlike trophies, do you fancy that you are entering into a house which belongs to you? It is impossible. Although you are devoid of all sense and all feeling—as in truth you are—still you are acquainted with yourself, and with your trophies, and with your friends. Nor do I believe that you, either waking or sleeping, can ever act with quiet sense. It is impossible but that. Were you ever so drunk and frantic—as in truth you are—when the recollection of the appearance of that illustrious man comes across you, you should be roused from sleep by your fears, and often stirred up to madness if awake. I pity even the walls and the roof. For what had that house ever beheld except what was modest, except what proceeded from the purest principles and from the most virtuous practice. For that man was, O conscript fathers, as you yourselves know, not only illustrious abroad, but also admirable at home; and not more praiseworthy for his exploits in foreign countries, than for his domestic arrangements. Now in his house every bedchamber is a brothel, and every dining-room a cookshop. Although he denies this—do not, do not make inquiries: he is become economical. He desired that mistress of his to take possession of whatever belonged to her, according to the laws of the Twelve Tables. He has taken his keys from her, and turned her out of doors. What a well-tried citizen! of what proved virtue is he! The most honorable passage in whose life is the one when he divorced himself from this actress.

Though you yourself took no personal share in it, partly through timidity, partly through profligacy, you had tasted, or rather had sucked in, the blood of fellow citizens: you had been in the battle of Pharsalia as a leader; you had slain Lucius Domitius, a most illustrious and highborn man; you had pursued and put to death in the most barbarous manner many men who had escaped from the battle, and whom Cæsar would perhaps have saved, as he did some others.

And, after having performed these exploits, what was the reason why you did not follow Cæsar into Africa—especially when so large a portion of the war was still remaining? And accordingly, what place did you obtain about Cæsar’s person after his return from Africa? What was your rank? He whose questor you had been when general, whose master of the horse when he was dictator, to whom you had been the chief cause of war, the chief instigator of cruelty, the sharer of his plunder, his son, as you yourself said, by inheritance, proceeded against you for the money which you owed for the house and gardens, and for the other property which you had bought at that sale. At first you answered fiercely enough; and that I may not appear prejudiced against you in every particular, you used a tolerably just and reasonable argument. “What, does Caius Cæsar demand money of me? Why should he do so, any more than I should claim it of him? Was he victorious without my assistance? No; and he never could have been. It was I who supplied him with a pretext for civil war; it was I who proposed mischievous laws; it was I who took up arms against the consuls and generals of the Roman people, against the senate and people of Rome, against the gods of the country. Against its altars and hearths, against the country itself. Has he conquered for himself alone? Why should not those men whose common work the achievement is, have the booty also in common?” You were only claiming your right, but what had that to do with it? He was the more powerful of the two.

Oh, how splendid was that eloquence of yours, when you haranged the people stark naked! What could be more foul than this? More shameful than this? More deserving of every sort of punishment? Are you waiting for me to prick you more? This that I am saying must tear you and bring blood enough if you have any feeling at all. I am afraid that I may be detracting from the glory of some most eminent men. Still my indignation shall find a voice. What can be more scandalous than for that man to live who placed a diadem on a man’s head when every one confesses that that man was deservedly slain who rejected it? And, moreover, he caused it to be recorded in the annals, under the head of Lupercalia, “That Marcus Antonius, the consul, by command of the people, had offered the kingdom to Caius Cæsar, perpetual dictator; and that Cæsar had refused to accept it.” I now am not much surprised at your seeking to disturb the general tranquility; at your hating not only the city but the light of day; and at your living with a pack of abandoned robbers, disregarding the day, and yet regarding nothing beyond the day. For where can you be safe in peace? What place can there be for you where laws and courts of justice have sway, both of which you, as far as in you lay, destroyed by the substitution of kingly power? Was it for this that Lucius Tarquinius was driven out; that Spurius Cassius, and Spurius Mælius, and Marcus Manlius were slain; that many years afterward a king might be established at Rome by Marcus Antonius, though the bare idea was impiety? However, let us return to the auspices.

Oh, what a splendid progress of yours was that in the months of April and May, when you attempted even to lead a colony to Capua! How you made your escape from thence, or rather how you barely made your escape, we all know. And now you are still threatening that city. I wish you would try, and we should not then be forced to say “barely.” However, what a splendid progress of yours that was! Why need I mention your preparations for banquets, why your frantic hard drinking? Those things are only an injury, to yourself; these are injuries to us. We thought that a great blow was inflicted on the republic when the Campanian district was released from the payment of taxes, in order to be given to the soldiery, but you have divided it among your partners in drunkenness and gambling. I tell you, O conscript fathers, that a lot of buffoons and actresses have been settled in the district of Campania. Why should I now complain of what has been done in the district of Leontini? Although formerly these lands of Campania and Leontini were considered part of the patrimony of the Roman people, and were productive of great revenue, and very fertile. You gave your physician three thousand acres; what would you have done if he had cured you? And two thousand to your master of oratory; what would you have done if he had been able to make you eloquent?

In public transactions nothing is more authoritative than law; in private affairs the most valid of all deeds is a will. Of the laws, some he abolished without giving the least notice; others he gave notice of bills to abolish. Wills he annulled; though they have been at all times held sacred even in the case of the very meanest of the citizens. As for the statues and pictures which Cæsar bequeathed to the people, together with his gardens, those he carried away, some to the house which belonged to Pompeius, and some to Scipio’s villa.

And are you then diligent in doing honor to Cæsar’s memory? Do you love him even now that he is dead? What greater honor had he obtained than that of having a holy cushion, an image, a temple, and a priest? As then Jupiter, and Mars, and Quirinus have priests, so Marcus Antonius is the priest of the god Julius. Why then do you delay? Why are you not inaugurated? Choose a day. select some one to inaugurate you; we are colleagues; no one will refuse, O you detestable man, whether you are the priest of a tyrant, or of a dead man! I ask you, then, whether you are ignorant what day this is? Are you ignorant that yesterday was the fourth day of the Roman games in the Circus? and that you yourself submitted a motion to the people, that a fifth day should be added besides, in honor of Cæsar? Why are we not all clad in the pretexta? Why are we permitting the honor which by your law was appointed for Cæsar to be deserted? Had you no objection to so holy a day being polluted by the addition of supplications, while you did not choose it to be so by the addition of ceremonies connected with a sacred cushion? Either take away religion in every case, or preserve it in every case.

Recollect then, O Marcus Antonius, that day on which you abolished the dictatorship. Set before you the joy of the senate and people of Rome; compare it with this infamous market held by you and by your friends, and then you will understand how great is the difference between praise and profit. But in truth, just as some people, through some disease which has blunted the senses, have no conception of the niceness of food, so men who are lustful, avaricious, and criminal, have no taste for true glory. But if praise can not allure you to act rightly, still can not even fear turn you away from the most shameful actions? You are not afraid of the courts of justice. If it is because you are innocent, I praise you; if because you trust in your power of overbearing them by violence, are you ignorant of what that man has to fear, who on such an account as that does not fear the courts of justice?

But if you are not afraid of brave men and illustrious citizens, because they are prevented from attacking you by your armed retinue, still. believe me, your own fellows will not long endure you. And what a life is it, day and night to be fearing danger from one’s own people! Unless, indeed, you have men who are bound to you by greater kindnesses than some of those men by whom he was slain were bound to Cæsar; or unless there are points in which you can be compared with him.

In that man were combined genius, method. memory, literature, prudence, deliberation, and industry. He had performed exploits in war which, though calamitous for the republic, were nevertheless mighty deeds. Having for many years aimed at being a king, he had with great labor, and much personal danger, accomplished what he intended. He had conciliated the ignorant multitude by presents, by monuments, by largesses of food, and by banquets; he had bound his own party to him by rewards, his adversaries by the appearance of clemency. Why need I say much on such a subject? He had already brought a free city, partly by fear, partly by patience, into a habit of slavery.

With him I can, indeed, compare you as to your desire to reign; but in all other respects you are in no degree to be compared to him. But from the many evils which by him have been burnt into the republic, there is still this good: that the Roman people has now learnt how much to believe every one, to whom to trust itself, and against whom to guard. Do you never think on these things? And do you not understand that it is enough for brave men to have learnt how noble a thing it is as to the act, how grateful it is as to the benefit done, how glorious as to the fame acquired, to slay a tyrant? When men could not bear him, do you think they will bear you? Believe me, the time will come when men will race with one another to do this deed, and when no one will wait for the tardy arrival of an opportunity.

Consider, I beg you, Marcus Antonius, do some time or other consider the republic: think of the family of which you are born, not of the men with whom you are living. Be reconciled to the republic. However, do you decide on your conduct. As to mine, I myself will declare what that shall be. I defended the republic as a young man; I will not abandon it now that I am old. I scorned the sword of Catiline; I will not quail before yours. No; I will rather cheerfully expose my own person, if the liberty of the city can be restored by my death.

Note: The second oration against Antony (here abridged) was never actually delivered by Cicero, the reason being explained in “the argument” prefixed to Mr. Yonge’s translation, as follows: “The senate met in the temple of Concord, but Cicero himself was persuaded not to attend by his friends, who were afraid of Antony proceeding to actual violence against him (and indeed he brought a strong guard of armed men with him to the senate). He spoke with the greatest fury against Cicero, charging him with having been the principal author and contriver of Cæsar’s murder, hoping by this to inflame the soldiers, whom he had posted within hearing of his harang. Soon after this, Cicero removed to a villa near Naples for greater safety, and here he composed this second philippic, which he did not publish immediately, but contented himself at first with sending a copy to Brutus and Cassius, who were much pleased with it.” Read more!

The Second Oration Against Catiline

AT length, O Romans, we have dismissed from the city or driven out or, when he was departing of his own accord, we have pursued with words Lucius Catiline, mad with audacity, breathing wickedness, impiously planning mischief to his country, threatening fire and sword to you and to the city. He has gone, he has departed, he has disappeared, he has rushed out. No injury will now be prepared against these walls within the walls themselves by that monster and prodigy of wickedness. And we have, without controversy, defeated him, the sole general of this domestic war. For now that dagger will no longer hover about our sides; we shall not be afraid in the campus, in the forum, in the senate-house,—aye, and within our own private walls. He was moved from his place when he was driven from the city. Now we shall openly carry on a regular war with an enemy without hindrance. Beyond all question we ruin the man; we have defeated him splendidly when we have driven him from secret treachery into open warfare. But that he has not taken with him his sword red with blood as he intended,—that he has left us alive,—that we wrested the weapon from his hands,—that he has left the citizens safe and the city standing, what great and overwhelming grief must you think that this is to him! Now he lies prostrate, O Romans, and feels himself stricken down and abject, and often casts back his eyes toward this city, which he mourns over as snatched from his jaws, but which seems to me to rejoice at having vomited forth such a pest, and cast it out of doors.

Cicero (106 B.C.–43 B.C.)

(63 B.C.)

Born in 106 B.C., died in 43; served in the Social War in 89; Questor in Sicily in 75; Edile in 69; Pretor in 66; Consul during the Catiline conspiracy; banished in 58; Proconsul of Cilicia in 51–50; with the Pompeians in 49; proscribed by the Second Triumvirate, and slain in 43; of his orations fifty-seven have been preserved.



AT length, O Romans, we have dismissed from the city or driven out or, when he was departing of his own accord, we have pursued with words Lucius Catiline, mad with audacity, breathing wickedness, impiously planning mischief to his country, threatening fire and sword to you and to the city. He has gone, he has departed, he has disappeared, he has rushed out. No injury will now be prepared against these walls within the walls themselves by that monster and prodigy of wickedness. And we have, without controversy, defeated him, the sole general of this domestic war. For now that dagger will no longer hover about our sides; we shall not be afraid in the campus, in the forum, in the senate-house,—aye, and within our own private walls. He was moved from his place when he was driven from the city. Now we shall openly carry on a regular war with an enemy without hindrance. Beyond all question we ruin the man; we have defeated him splendidly when we have driven him from secret treachery into open warfare. But that he has not taken with him his sword red with blood as he intended,—that he has left us alive,—that we wrested the weapon from his hands,—that he has left the citizens safe and the city standing, what great and overwhelming grief must you think that this is to him! Now he lies prostrate, O Romans, and feels himself stricken down and abject, and often casts back his eyes toward this city, which he mourns over as snatched from his jaws, but which seems to me to rejoice at having vomited forth such a pest, and cast it out of doors.

But if there be any one of that disposition which all men should have, who yet blames me greatly for the very thing in which my speech exults and triumphs—namely, that I did not arrest so capital mortal an enemy rather than let him go—that is not my fault, O citizens, but the fault of the times. Lucius Catiline ought to have been visited with the severest punishment, and to have been put to death long since; and both the customs of our ancestors, and the rigor of my office, and the republic, demanded this of me; but how many, think you, were there who did not believe what I reported? How many who out of stupidity did not think so? How many who even defended him? How many who, out of their own depravity, favored him? If, in truth, I had thought that, if he were removed, all danger would be removed from you, I would long since have cut off Lucius Catiline, had it been at the risk. Not only of my popularity, but even of my life.

But as I saw that, since the matter was not even then proved to all of you, if I had punished him with death, as he had deserved, I should be borne down by unpopularity, and so be unable to follow up his accomplices, I brought the business on to this point that you might be able to combat openly when you saw the enemy without disguise. But how exceedingly I think this enemy to be feared now that he is out of doors, you may see from this,—that I am vexed even that he has gone from the city with but a small retinue. I wish he had taken with him all his forces. He has taken with him Tongillus, with whom he had been said to have a criminal intimacy, and Publicius, and Munatius, whose debts contracted in taverns could cause no great disquietude to the republic. He has left behind him others—you all know what men they are, how overwhelmed with debt, how powerful, how noble.

Therefore, with our Gallic legions, and with the levies which Quintus Metellus has raised in the Picenian and Gallic territory, and with these troops which are every day being got ready by us, I thoroughly despise that army composed of desperate old men, of clownish profligates, and uneducated spendthrifts: of those who have preferred to desert their bail rather than that army, and which will fall to pieces if I show them not the battle array of our army, but an edict of the pretor. I wish he had taken with him those soldiers of his, whom I see hovering about the forum, standing about the senate-house, even coming into the senate, who shine with ointment, who glitter in purple; and if they remain here, remember that that army is not so much to be feared by us as these men who have deserted the army. And they are the more to be feared, because they are aware that I know what they are thinking of, and yet they are not influenced by it.

I know to whom Apulia has been allotted, who has Etruria, who the Picenian territory, who the Gallic district, who has begged for himself the office of spreading fire and sword by night through the city. They know that all the plans of the preceding night are brought to me. I laid them before the senate yesterday. Catiline himself was alarmed and fled. Why do these men wait? Verily, they are greatly mistaken if they think that former lenity of mine will last forever.

What I have been waiting for, that I have gained—namely, that you should all see that a conspiracy has been openly formed against the republic; unless, indeed, there be any one who thinks that those who are like Catiline do not agree with Catiline. There is not any longer room for lenity; the business itself demands severity. One thing, even now, I will grant—let them depart, let them begone. Let them not suffer the unhappy Catiline to pine away for want of them. I will tell them the road. He went by the Aurelian road. If they make haste, they will catch him by the evening. O happy republic, if it can cast forth these dregs of the republic! Even now, when Catiline alone is got rid of, the republic seems to me relieved and refreshed; for what evil or wickedness can be devised or imagined which he did not conceive? What prisoner, what gladiator, what thief, what assassin, what parricide, what forger of wills, what cheat, what debauchee, what spendthrift, what adulterer, what abandoned woman, what corrupter of youth, what profligate, what scoundrel can be found in all Italy, who does not avow that he has been on terms of intimacy with Catiline? What murder has been committed for years without him? What nefarious act of infamy that has not been done by him?

But in what other man were there ever so many allurements for youth as in him, who both indulged in infamous love for others, and encouraged their infamous affections for himself, promising to some enjoyment of their lust, to others the death of their parents, and not only instigating them to iniquity, but even assisting them in it. But now, how suddenly had he collected, not only out of the city, but even out of the country, a number of abandoned men? No one, not only at Rome, but in every corner of Italy, was overwhelmed with debt whom he did not enlist in this incredible association of wickedness.

And, that you may understand the diversity of his pursuits and the variety of his designs, there was no one in any school of gladiators, at all inclined to audacity, who does not avow himself to be an intimate friend of Catiline—no one on the stage, at all of a fickle and worthless disposition, who does not profess himself his companion. And he, trained in the practice of insult and wickedness, in enduring cold, and hunger, and thirst, and watching, was called a brave man by those fellows, while all the appliances of industry and instruments of virtue were devoted to lust and atrocity.

But if his companions follow him,—if the infamous herd of desperate men depart from the city, oh! Happy shall we be, fortunate will be the republic, illustrious will be the renown of my consulship. For theirs is no ordinary insolence,—no common and endurable audacity. They think of nothing but slaughter, conflagration and rapine. They have dissipated their patrimonies, they have squandered their fortunes. Money has long failed them, and now credit begins to fail; but the same desires remain which they had in their time of abundance. But if in their drinking and gambling parties they were content with feasts and harlots, they would be in a hopeless state indeed; but yet they might be endured. But who can bear this, that indolent men should plot against the bravest,—drunkards against the sober,—men asleep against men awake,—men lying at feasts, embracing abandoned women, languid with wine, crammed with food, crowned with chaplets, reeking with ointments, worn out with lust, belch out in their discourse the murder of all good men, and the conflagration of the city?

But I am confident that some fate is hanging over these men, and that the punishment long since due to their iniquity, and worthlessness, and wickedness, and lust, is either visibly at hand or at least rapidly approaching. And if my consulship shall have removed, since it can not cure them, it will have added, not some brief span, but many ages of existence to the republic. For there is no nation for us to fear,—no king who can make war on the Roman people. All foreign affairs are tranquilized, both by land and sea, by the valor of one man. Domestic war alone remains. The only plots against us are within our own walls,—the danger is within,—the enemy is within. We must war with luxury, with madness, with wickedness. For this war, O citizens, I offer myself as the general. I take on myself the enmity of profligate men. What can be cured, I will cure, by whatever means it may be possible. What must be cut away, I will not suffer to spread, to the ruin of the republic. Let them depart, or let them stay quiet; or if they remain in the city and in the same disposition as at present, let them expect what they deserve.

But there are men, O Romans, who say that Catiline has been driven by me into banishment. But if I could do so by a word, I would drive out those also who say so. Forsooth, that timid, that excessively bashful man could not bear the voice of the consul; as soon as he was ordered to go into banishment, he obeyed, he was quiet. Yesterday, when I had been all but murdered at my own house, I convoked the senate in the temple of Jupiter Stator; I related the whole affair to the conscript fathers; and when Catiline came thither, what senator addressed him? Who saluted him? Who looked upon him not so much even as an abandoned citizen, as an implacable enemy? Nay, the chiefs of that body left that part of the benches to which he came naked and empty.

On this I, that violent consul, who drive citizens into exile by a word, asked of Catiline whether he had been at the nocturnal meeting at Marcus Lecca’s or not; when that most audacious man, convicted of his own conscience, was at first silent. I related all the other circumstances; I described what he had done that night, where he had been, what he had arranged for the next night, how the plan of the whole war had been laid down by him. When he hesitated, when he was convicted, I asked why he hesitated to go whither he had been long preparing to go; when I knew that arms, that the axes, the fasces, and trumpets, and military standards, and that silver eagle to which he had made a shrine in his own house, had been sent on, did I drive him into exile who I knew had already entered upon war? I suppose Manlius, that centurion who has pitched his camp in the Fæsulan district, has proclaimed war against the Roman people in his own name; and that camp is not now waiting for Catiline as its general, and he, driven forsooth into exile, will go to Marseilles, as they say, and not to that camp.

Oh, the hard lot of those, not only of those who govern, but even of those who save the republic! Now, if Lucius Catiline, hemmed in and rendered powerless by my counsels, by my toils, by my dangers, should on a sudden become alarmed, should change his designs, should desert his friends, should abandon his design of making war, should change his path from this course of wickedness and war, and betake himself to flight and exile, he will not be said to have been deprived by me of the arms of his audacity, to have been astounded and terrified by my diligence, to have been driven from his hope and from his enterprise, but, uncondemned, and innocent, to have been driven into banishment by the consul by threats and violence; and there will be some who will seek to have him thought not worthless but unfortunate, and me considered not a most active consul, but a most cruel tyrant. I am not unwilling, O Romans, to endure this storm of false and unjust popularity as long as the danger of this horrible and nefarious war is warded off from you. Let him be said to be banished by me as long as he goes into banishment; but, believe me, he will not go. I will never ask of the immortal gods, O Romans, for the sake of lightening my own unpopularity, for you to hear that Lucius Catiline is leading an army of enemies, and is hovering about in arms; but yet in three days you will hear it. And I much more fear that it will be objected to me some day or other, that I have let him escape, rather than that I have banished him. But when there are men who say he has been banished because he has gone away, what would these men say if he had been put to death?

But those men who keep saying that Catiline is going to Marseilles do not complain of this so much as they fear it; for there is not one of them so inclined to pity, as not to prefer that he should go to Manlius rather than to Marseilles. But he, if he had never before planned what he is now doing, yet would rather be slain while living as a bandit, than live as an exile; but now, when nothing has happened to him contrary to his own wish and design—except, indeed, that he has left Rome while we are alive—let us wish rather that he may go into exile than complain of it.

But why are we speaking so long about one enemy; and about that enemy who now avows that he is one; and whom I now do not fear, because, as I have always wished, a wall is between us; and are saying nothing about those who dissemble, who remain at Rome, who are among us? Whom, indeed, if it were by any means possible, I should be anxious not so much to chastise as to cure, and to make friendly to the republic; nor, if they will listen to me, do I quite know why that may not be. For I will tell you, O Romans, of what classes of men those forces are made up, and then, if I can, I will apply to each the medicine of my advice and persuasion.

There is one class of them, who, with enormous debts, have still greater possessions, and who can by no means be detached from their affection to them. Of these men the appearance is most respectable, for they are wealthy, but their intention and their cause are most shameless. Will you be rich in lands, in houses, in money, in slaves, in all things, and yet hesitate to diminish your possessions to add to your credit? What are you expecting? War? What! In the devastation of all things, do you believe that your own possessions will be held sacred? Do you expect an abolition of debts? They are mistaken who expect that from Catiline. There may be schedules made out, owing to my exertions, but they will be only catalogs of sale. Nor can those who have possessions be safe by any other means; and if they had been willing to adopt this plan earlier, and not, as is very foolish, to struggle on against usury with the profits of their farms, we should have them now richer and better citizens. But I think these men are the least of all to be dreaded, because they can either be persuaded to abandon their opinions, or if they cling to them, they seem to me more likely to form wishes against the republic than to bear arms against it.

There is another class of them, who, although they are harassed by debt, yet are expecting supreme power; they wish to become masters. They think that when the republic is in confusion they may gain those honors which they despair of when it is in tranquility. And they must, I think, be told the same as every one else—to despair of obtaining what they are aiming at; that in the first place, I myself am watchful for, am present to, am providing for the republic. Besides that, there is a high spirit in the virtuous citizens, great unanimity, great numbers, and also a large body of troops. Above all that, the immortal gods will stand by and bring aid to this invincible nation, this most illustrious empire, this most beautiful city, against such wicked violence. And if they had already got that which they with the greatest madness wish for, do they think that in the ashes of the city and blood of the citizens, which in their wicked and infamous hearts they desire, they will become consuls and dictators and even kings? Do they not see that they are wishing for that which, if they were to obtain it, must be given up to some fugitive slave, or to some gladiator?

There is a third class, already touched by age, but still vigorous from constant exercise; of which class is Manlius himself, whom Catiline is now succeeding. These are men of those colonies which Sulla established at Fæesulæ, which I know to be composed, on the whole, of excellent citizens and brave men; but yet these are colonists, who, from becoming possessed of unexpected and sudden wealth, boast themselves extravagantly and insolently; these men, while they build like rich men, while they delight in farms, in litters, in vast families of slaves, in luxurious banquets, have incurred such great debts, that, if they would be saved, they must raise Sulla from the dead; and they have even excited some countrymen, poor and needy men, to entertain the same hopes of plunder as themselves. And all these men, O Romans, I place in the same class of robbers and banditti. But, I warn them, let them cease to be mad, and to think of proscriptions and dictatorships; for such a horror of these times is ingrained into the city, that not even men, but it seems to me that even the very cattle would refuse to bear them again.

There is a fourth class, various, promiscuous and turbulent; who indeed are even now overwhelmed; who will never recover themselves; who, partly from indolence, partly from managing their affairs badly, partly from extravagance, are embarrassed by old debts; and worn out with bail bonds, and judgments and seizures of their goods, are said to be betaking themselves in numbers to that camp both from the city and the country. These men I think not so much active soldiers as lazy insolvents; who, if they can not stand at first, may fall, but fall so, that not only the city but even their nearest neighbors know nothing of it. For I do not understand why, if they can not live with honor, they should wish to die shamefully; or why they think they shall perish with less pain in a crowd, than if they perish by themselves.

There is a fifth class, of patricides, assassins, in short of all infamous characters, whom I do not wish to recall from Catiline, and indeed they can not be separated from him. Let them perish in their wicked war, since they are so numerous that a prison can not contain them.

There is a last class, last not only in number but in the sort of men and in their way of life: the especial bodyguard of Catiline, of his levying; aye, the friends of his embraces and of his bosom, whom you see with carefully combed hair, glossy, beardless, or with well-trimmed beards; with tunics with sleeves, or reaching to the ankles, and clothed with veils, not with robes; all the industry of whose life, all the labor of whose watchfulness, is expended in suppers lasting till daybreak.

In these bands are all the gamblers, all the adulterers, all the unclean and shameless citizens. These boys, so witty and delicate, have learned not only to love and be loved, not only to sing and to dance, but also to brandish daggers and to administer poisons; and unless they are driven out, unless they die, even should Catiline die, I warn you that the school of Catiline would exist in the republic. But what do those wretches want? Are they going to take their wives with them to the camp? Flow can they do without them, especially in these nights? and how will they endure the Apennines, and these frosts, and this snow? unless they think that they will bear the winter more easily because they have been in the habit of dancing naked at their feasts. O war much to be dreaded, when Catiline is going to have his bodyguard of prostitutes!

Array now, O Romans, against these splendid troops of Catiline, your guards and your armies; and first of all oppose to that worn-out and wounded gladiator your consuls and generals; then against that banished and enfeebled troop of ruined men lead out the flower and strength of all Italy; instantly the cities of the colonies and municipalities will match the rustic mounds of Catiline; and I will not condescend to compare the rest of your troops and equipments and guards with the want and destitution of that highwayman. But if, omitting all these things in which we are rich and of which he is destitute, the senate, the Roman knights, the people, the city, the treasury, the revenues, all Italy, all the provinces, foreign nations,—if, I say, omitting all these things, we choose to compare the causes themselves which are opposed to one another, we may understand from that alone how thoroughly prostrate they are. For on the one side are fighting modesty, on the other wantonness; on the one chastity, on the other uncleanness; on the one honesty, on the other fraud; on the one piety, on the other wickedness; on the one consistency, on the other insanity; on the one honor, on the other baseness; on the one continence, on the other lust; in short, equity, temperance, fortitude, prudence, all the virtues contend against iniquity with luxury, against indolence, against rashness, against all the vices; lastly, abundance contends against destitution, good plans against baffled designs, wisdom against madness, well-founded hope against universal despair. In a contest and war of this sort, even if the zeal of men were to fail, will not the immortal gods compel such numerous and excessive vices to be defeated by these most eminent virtues?

And as this is the case, O Romans, do ye as I have said before, defend your house with guards and vigilance. I have taken care and made arrangements that there shall be sufficient protection for the city without distressing you and without any tumult. All the colonists and citizens of your municipal towns, being informed by me of this nocturnal sally of Catiline, will easily defend their cities and territories; the gladiators which he thought would be his most numerous and most trusty band, although they are better disposed than part of the patricians, will be held in check by our power. Quintus Metellus, whom I, making provision for this, sent on to the Gallic and Picenian territory, will either overwhelm the man, or will prevent all his motions and attempts; but with respect to the arrangements of all other matters, and maturing and acting on our plans, we shall consult the senate, which, as you are aware, is convened.

Now once more I wish those who have remained in the city, and who, contrary to the safety of the city and of all of you, have been left in the city by Catiline, although they are enemies, yet because they were born citizens, to be warned again and again by me. If my lenity has appeared to any one too remiss, it has been only waiting that that might break out which was lying hid. As to the future, I can not now forget that this is my country, that I am the consul of these citizens, that I must either live with them, or die for them. There is no guard at the gate, no one plotting against their path; if any one wishes to go, he can provide for himself; but if any one stirs in the city, and if I detect not only any action, but any attempt or design against the country, he shall feel that there are in this city vigilant consuls, eminent magistrates, a brave senate, arms, and prisons; which our ancestors appointed as the avengers of nefarious and convicted crimes.

And all this shall be so done, O Romans, that affairs of the greatest importance shall be transacted with the least possible disturbance; the greatest dangers shall be avoided without any tumult; an internal civil war the most cruel and terrible in the memory of man, shall be put an end to by me alone in the robe of peace acting as general and commander-in-chief. And this I will so arrange, O Romans, that if it can be by any means managed, even the most worthless man shall not suffer the punishment of his crimes in this city. But if the violence of open audacity, if danger impending over the republic drives, me of necessity from this merciful disposition, at all events I will manage this, which seems scarcely even to be hoped for in so great and so treacherous a war, that no good man shall fall, and that you may all be saved by the punishment of a few.

And I promise you this, O Romans, relying neither on my own prudence, nor on human counsels, but on many and manifest intimations of the will of the immortal gods; under whose guidance I first entertained this hope and this opinion; who are now defending their temples and the houses of the city, not afar off, as they were used to, from a foreign and distant enemy, but here on the spot, by their own divinity and present help. And you, O Romans, ought to pray to and implore them to defend from the nefarious wickedness of abandoned citizens, now that all the forces of all enemies are defeated by land and sea, this city which they have ordained to be the most beautiful and flourishing of all cities.

Note: In the “argument” prefixed to the second oration against Catiline, it is said that when Catiline alleged his high birth, and the stake which he had in the prosperity of the commonwealth, as arguments to make it appear improbable that he should seek to injure it, and called Cicero a stranger, and a new inhabitant of Rome, the senate interrupted him with a general outcry, calling him traitor and parricide; upon which, being rendered furious and desperate, he declared aloud what he had before said to Cato, that since he was circumvented and driven headlong by his enemies, he would quench the flame which his enemies were kindling around him in the common ruin. And so he rushed out of the temple.” Read more!

In Opposition to a New Agrarian Law

AFTER a very long interval, almost beyond the memory of our times, you have for the first time made me, a new man, consul; and you have opened that rank which the nobles have held strengthened by guards, and fenced round in every possible manner, in my instance first, and have resolved that it should in future be open to virtue. Nor have you only made me consul, though that is of itself a most honorable thing, but you have made me so in such a way as very few nobles in this city have ever been made consuls, before in, and no new man whatever before me.

Cicero (106 B.C.–43 B.C.)

(61 B.C.)

Born in 106 B.C., died in 43; served in the Social War in 89; Questor in Sicily in 75; Edile in 69; Pretor in 66; Consul during the Catiline conspiracy; banished in 58; Proconsul of Cilicia in 51–50; with the Pompeians in 49; proscribed by the Second Triumvirate, and slain in 43; of his orations fifty-seven have been preserved.



AFTER a very long interval, almost beyond the memory of our times, you have for the first time made me, a new man, consul; and you have opened that rank which the nobles have held strengthened by guards, and fenced round in every possible manner, in my instance first, and have resolved that it should in future be open to virtue. Nor have you only made me consul, though that is of itself a most honorable thing, but you have made me so in such a way as very few nobles in this city have ever been made consuls, before in, and no new man whatever before me.

For, in truth, if you please to recollect, you will find that those new men who have at any time been made consuls without a repulse, have been elected after long toil, and on some critical emergency, having stood for it many years after they had been pretors, and a good deal later than they might have done according to the laws regulating the age of candidates for the office; but that those who stood for it in their regular year were not elected without a repulse; that I am the only one of all the new men whom we can remember who has stood for the consulship the first moment that by law I could,—who has been elected consul the first time that I have stood; so that this honor which you have conferred on me, having been sought by me at the proper time, appears not to have been filched by me on the occasion of some unpopular candidate offering himself,—not to have been gained by long perseverance in asking for it, but to have been fairly earned by my worth and dignity. This, also, is a most honorable thing for me, O Romans, which I mentioned a few minutes ago,—that I am the first new man for many years on whom you have conferred this honor; that you have conferred it on my first application, in my proper year. But yet nothing can be more splendid or more honorable for me than this circumstance,—that at the comitia at which I was elected you delivered not your ballot, the vindication of your silent liberty, but your eager voices as the witnesses of your good will toward and zeal for me. And so it was not the last tribe of the votes, but the very first moment of your meeting—it was not the single voices of the criers, but the whole Roman people with one voice that declared me consul.

I think this eminent and unprecedented kindness of yours, O Romans, of great weight as a reward for my courage, and as a source of joy to me, but still more calculated to impress me with care and anxiety. For, O Romans, many and grave thoughts occupy my mind, which allow me but little rest day or night. First, there is anxiety about discharging the duties of the consulship, which is a difficult and important business to all men, and especially to me above all other men; for if I err, I shall obtain no pardon—if I do well, I shall get but little praise, and that, too, extorted from unwilling people—if I am in doubt, I have no faithful counselors to whom I can apply—if I am in difficulty, I have no sure assistance from the nobles on which I can depend.

For I will speak the truth, O Romans; I can not find fault with the general principle of an agrarian law, for it occurs to my mind that two most illustrious men, two most able men, two men most thoroughly attached to the Roman people, Tiberius and Caius Gracchus, established the people on public domains which had previously been occupied by private individuals. Nor am I a consul of such opinions as to think it wrong, as most men do, to praise the Gracchi, by whose counsels, and wisdom, and laws, I see that many parts of the republic have been greatly strengthened. Therefore, when at the very beginning, I, being the consul-elect, was informed that the tribunes-elect of the people were drawing up an agrarian law, I wished to ascertain what their plans were. In truth, I thought that, since we were both to act as magistrates in the same year, it was right that there should be some union between us, for the purpose of governing the republic wisely and successfully. When I wished to join them familiarly in conversation I was shut out—their projects were concealed from me; and when I assured them that, if the law appeared to me to be advantageous to the Roman people, I would assist them in it and promote it, still they rejected this liberality of mine with scorn, and said that I could not possibly be induced to approve of any liberal measures.

I do assert to you, O Romans, that by this beautiful agrarian law, by this law calculated solely for the good of the people, nothing whatever is given to you, everything is sacrificed to a few particular men; that lands are displayed before the eyes of the Roman people, liberty is taken away from them; that the fortunes of some private individuals are increased, the public wealth is exhausted; and lastly, which is the most scandalous thing of all, that by means of a tribune of the people, whom our ancestors designed to be the protector and guardian of liberty, kings are being established in the city. And when I have shown to you all the grounds for this statement, if they appear to you to be erroneous, I will yield to your authority, I will abandon my own opinion. But if you become aware that plots are laid against your liberty under a pretense of liberality, then do not hesitate, now that you have a consul to assist you, to defend that liberty which was earned by the sweat and blood of your ancestors, and handed down to you, without any trouble on your part.

The first clause in this agrarian law is one by which, as they think, you are a little proved, to see with what feelings you can bear a diminution of your liberty. For it orders “the tribune of the people who has passed this law to create ten decemvirs by the votes of seventeen tribes, so that whomsoever a majority consisting of nine tribes elects, shall be a decemvir.” On this I ask, on what account the framer of this law has commenced his law and his measures in such a manner as to deprive the Roman people of its right of voting? As often as agrarian laws have been passed, commissioners, and triumvirs, and quinquevirs, and decemvirs have been appointed. I ask this tribune of the people, who is so attached to the people, whether they were ever created except by the whole thirty-five tribes? In truth, as it is proper for every power, and every command, and every charge which is committed to any one, to proceed from the entire Roman people, so especially ought those to do so, which are established for any use and advantage of the Roman people; as that is a case in which they all together choose the man who they think will most study the advantage of the Roman people, and in which also each individual among them by his own zeal and his own vote assists to make a road by which he may obtain some individual benefit for himself. This is the tribune to whom it has occurred above all others to deprive the Roman people of their suffrages, and to invite a few tribes, not by any fixed condition of law, but by the kindness of lots drawn, and by chance, to usurp the liberties belonging to all.

Who passed the law? Rullus. (Note: Publius Servilius Rullus, a tribune of the people.) Who prevented the greater portion of the people from having a vote? Rullus. Who presided over the comitia? Who summoned to the election whatever tribes he pleased, having drawn the lots for them without any witness being present to see fair play? Who appointed whatever decemvirs he chose? This same Rullus. Whom did he appoint chief of the decemvirs? Rullus. I hardly believe that he could induce his own slaves to approve of this; much less you, who are the masters of all nations. Therefore, the most excellent laws will be repealed by this law without the least suspicion of the fact. He will seek for a commission for himself by virtue of his own law; he will hold comitia, though the greater portion of the people is stripped of their votes; he will appoint whomsoever he pleases, and himself among them; and forsooth he will not reject his own colleagues—the backers of this agrarian law; by whom the first place in the unpopularity which may possibly arise from drawing the law, and from having his name at the head of it, has indeed been conceded to him, but the profit from the whole business, they, who in the hope of it are placed in this position, reserve to themselves in equal shares with him.

But now take notice of the diligence of the man, if indeed you think that Rullus contrived this, or that it is a thing which could possibly have occurred to Rullus. Those men who first projected these measures saw, that, if you had the power of making your selection out of the whole people, whatever the matter might be in which good faith, integrity, virtue, and authority, were required, you would beyond all question entrust it to Cnæus Pompeius (Note: Pompey the Great, in the year of this oration, had Just ended the war with Mithridates, had annexed Syria and Palestine to Rome and had a triumph. In the following year he became a triumvir with Cæsar and Crassus.) as the chief manager. In truth, after you had chosen one man out of all the citizens, and appointed him to conduct all your wars against all nations by land and sea, they saw plainly that it was most natural that, when you were appointing decemvirs, whether it was to be looked on as committing a trust to, or conferring an honor on a man, you would commit the business to him, and most reasonable that he should have this compliment paid him. Therefore, an exception is made by this law, mentioning not youth, nor any legal impediment, nor any command or magistracy, which might be encumbered with obstacles arising either from the business with which it was already loaded, or from the laws. There is not even an exception made in the case of any convicted person, to prevent his being made a decemvir. Cnæus Pompeius is excepted and disabled from being elected a colleague of Publius Rullus (for I say nothing of the rest). For he has worded the law so that only those who are present can stand for the office—a clause which was never yet found in any other law, not even in the laws concerning those magistrates who are periodically elected. But this clause was inserted, in order that if the law passed you might not be able to give him a colleague who would be a guardian over him, and a check upon his covetousness.

Here, since I see that you are moved by the dignity of the man, and by the insult put upon him by this law, I will return to the assertion that I made at the beginning, that a kingly power is being erected, and your liberties entirely taken away by this law. Did you think, otherwise, that when a few men had cast the eyes of covetousness on all your possessions, they would not in the very first place take care that Cnæus Pompeius should be removed from all power of protecting your liberty, from all power to promote, from all commission to watch over, and from all means of protecting your interests? They saw, and they see still, that if, through your own imprudence and my negligence, you adopt this law, without understanding its effect, you would afterward, when you were creating decemvirs, think it expedient to oppose Cnæus Pompeius as your defense against all defects and wickednesses in the law. And is this a slight argument to you, that these are men by whom dominion and power over everything is sought, when you see that he, whom they see will surely be the protector of your liberty, is the only one to whom that dignity is denied?

Besides all this, he gives the decemvirs authority pretorian in name, but kingly in reality. He describes their power, as a power for five years; but he makes it perpetual. For he strengthens it with such bulwarks and defenses that it will be quite impossible to deprive them of it against their own consent. Then he adorns them with apparitors, and secretaries, and clerks, and criers, and architects; besides that, with mules, and tents, and centuries, and all sorts of furniture; he draws money for their expenses from the treasury; he supplies them with more money from the allies; he appoints them two hundred surveyors from the equestrian body every year as their personal attendants, and also as ministers and satellites of their power. You have now, O Romans, the form and very appearance of tyrants; you see all the ensigns of power, but not yet the power itself. For, perhaps, some one may say, “Well, what harm do all those men, secretary, lictor, crier, and chicken-feeder do me?” I will tell you. These things are of such a nature that the man who has them without their being conferred by your vote, must seem either a monarch with intolerable power, or if he assumes them as a private individual, a madman.

Just see what great authority they are invested with, and you will say that it is not the insanity of private individuals, but the immoderate arrogance of kings. First of all, they are entrusted with boundless power of acquiring enormous sums of money out of your revenues, not by farming them, but by alienating them. In the next place, they are allowed to pursue an inquiry into the conduct of every country and of every nation, without any bench of judges; to punish without any right of appeal being allowed; and to condemn without there being any means of procuring a reversal of their sentence. They will be able for five years to sit in judgment on the consuls, or even on the tribunes of the people themselves; but all that time no one will be able to sit in judgment on them. They will be allowed to fill magisterial offices; but they will not be allowed to be prosecuted. They will have power to purchase lands, from whomsoever they choose, whatever they choose, and at whatever price they choose. They are allowed to establish new colonies, to recruit old ones, to till all Italy with their colonists; they have absolute authority for visiting every province, for depriving free people of their lands, for giving or taking away kingdoms, whenever they please. They may be at Rome when it is convenient to them; but they have a right also to wander about wherever they like with supreme command, and with a power of sitting in judgment on everything. They are allowed to put an end to all criminal trials; to remove from the tribunals whoever they think fit; to decide by themselves on the most important matters; to delegate their power to a questor; to send about surveyors; and to ratify whatever the surveyor has reported to that single decemvir by whom he has been sent.

It is a defect in my language, O Romans, when I call this power a kingly power. For in truth, it is something much more considerable; for there never was any kingly power that, if it was not defined by some express law, was not at least understood to be subject to certain limitations. But this power is absolutely unbounded; it is one within which all kingly powers, and your own imperial authority, which is of such wide extent, and all other powers, whether freely exercised by your permission, or existing only by your tacit countenance, are, by express permission of the law, comprehended.

You have now seen how many things and what valuable things the decemvirs are likely to sell with the sanction of the law. That is not enough. When they have sated themselves with the blood of the allies, and of foreign nations, and of kings, they will then cut the sinews of the Roman people; they will lay hands on your revenues; they will break into your treasury. For a clause follows, in which he is not content with permitting, if by chance any money should be wanting (which, however, can be amassed in such quantities from the effect of the previous clauses, that it ought not to be wanting), but which actually (as if that was likely to be the salvation of you all) orders and compels the decemvirs to sell all your revenues, naming each item separately. And do you now read to me in regular order, the catalog of the property of the Roman people which is for sale according to the written provisions of this law. A catalog which I think, in truth, will be miserable and grievous to the very crier himself. He is as prodigal a spendthrift with regard to the property of the republic, as a private individual is with regard to his own estate, who sells his woods, before he sells his vineyards. You have gone all through Italy, now go on into Sicily. There is nothing in that province which your ancestors have left to you as your own property, either in the towns or in the fields, which he does not order to be sold. All that property, which, having been gained by their recent victory, your ancestors left to you in the cities and territories of the allies, as both a bond of peace and a monument of war, will you now, though you received it from them, sell it at this man’s instigation?

Here for a moment I seem, O Romans, to move your feelings, while I make plain to you the plots which they think have escaped every one’s notice, as having been laid by them against the dignity of Cnæus Pompeius. And, I beseech you, pardon me if I am forced to make frequent mention of that man’s name. You, O Romans, imposed this character on me, two years ago, in this very same place, and bound me to share with you in the protection of his dignity during his absence, in whatever manner I could. I have hitherto done all that I could, not because I was persuaded to it by my intimacy with him, nor from any hope of honor, or of any most honorable dignity; which I have gained by your means, in his absence, though no doubt with his perfect good will. Wherefore, when I perceive that nearly the whole of this law is made ready, as if it were an engine for the object of overthrowing his power, I will both resist the designs of the men who have contrived it, and I will enable you not only to perceive, but to be entire masters of the whole plot which I now see in preparation.

But I beg you now, O Romans, to take notice how Rullus is planning to besiege and occupy all Italy with his garrison. He permits the decemvirs to lead colonists, whomsoever he may choose to select, into every municipality and into every colony in all Italy; and he orders lands to be assigned to those colonists. Is there any obscurity here in the way in which greater powers and greater defenses than your liberty can tolerate are sought after? Is there any obscurity here in the manner in which kingly power is established? Is there any disguise about your liberty being wholly destroyed? For when it is one and the same body of men who with their resources lay siege, as it were, to all the riches and all the population—that is to say, to all Italy—and who propose to hold all your liberties in blockade by their garrisons and colonies,—what hope, aye, what possibility even is left to you of ever recovering your liberty? But the Campanian district, the most fertile section of the whole world, is to be divided in accordance with the provisions of this law; and a colony is to be led to Capua, a most honorable and beautiful city. But what can we say to this?

For this is what I say,—if the Campanian land be divided, the common people are driven out of and banished from the lands, not settled and established in them. For the whole of the Campanian district is cultivated and occupied by the common people, and by a most virtuous and moderate common people. And that race of men of most virtuous habits, that race of excellent farmers and excellent soldiers, is wholly driven out by this tribune who is so devoted to the people. And these miserable men, born and brought up on those lands, practiced in tilling the ground, will have no place to which, when so suddenly driven out, they can betake themselves. The entire possession of the Campanian district will be given over to these robust, vigorous, and audacious satellites of the decemvirs. And, as you now say of your ancestors, “Our ancestors left us these lands,” so your posterity will say of you, “Our ancestors received these lands from their ancestors, but lost them.”

I think, indeed, that if the Campus Martius were to be divided, and if every one of you had two feet of standing ground allotted to him in it, still you would prefer to enjoy the whole of it together, than for each individual to have a small portion for his own private property. Wherefore, even if some portion of these lands were to come to every individual among you—which is now indeed held out to you as a lure, but is in reality destined for others—still they would be a more honorable possession to you when possessed by the whole body, than if distributed in bits to each citizen. But now when you are not to have any share in them, but when they are being prepared for others and taken from you, will you not most vigorously resist this law as you would an armed enemy, fighting in defense of your lands.

Then that standard of a Campanian colony, greatly to be dreaded by this empire, will be erected at Capua by the decemvirs. Then that other Rome, which has been heard of before, will be sought in opposition to this Rome, the common country of all of us. Impious men are endeavoring to transfer our republic to that town in which our ancestors decided that there should be no republic at all, when they resolved that there were but three cities in the whole earth, Carthage, Corinth, and Capua, which could aspire to the power and name of the imperial city. Carthage has been destroyed, because, both from its vast population, and from the natural advantages of its situation, being surrounded with harbors, and fortified with walls, it appeared to project out of Africa, and to threaten the most productive islands of the Roman people. Of Corinth there is scarcely a vestige left. For it was situated on the straits and in the very jaws of Greece, in such a way that by land it held the keys of many countries, and that it almost connected two seas, equally desirable for purposes of navigation, which were separated by the smallest possible distance. These towns, though they were out of the sight of the empire, our ancestors not only crushed, but, as I have said before, utterly destroyed, that they might never be able to recover and rise again and flourish. Concerning Capua they deliberated much and long. Public documents are extant, O Romans; many resolutions of the senate are extant. Those wise men decided that, if they took away from the Campanians their lands, their magistrates, their senate, and the public council of that city, they would leave no image whatever of the republic; there would be no reason whatever for their fearing Capua. Therefore, you will find this written in ancient records: that there should be a city which might be able to supply the means for the cultivation of the Campanian district; that there should be a place for collecting the crops in and storing them, in order that the farmers, when wearied with the cultivation of the lands, might avail themselves of the homes afforded them by the city; and that on that account the buildings of the city were not destroyed.

See, now, how wide is the distance between the counsels of our ancestors and the insane projects of these men. They chose Capua to be a refuge for our farmers, a market for the country people, a barn and granary for the Campanian district. These men, having expelled the farmers, have wasted and squandered your revenues, are raising this same Capua into the seat of a new republic, are preparing a vast mass to be an enemy to the old republic. But if our ancestors had thought that any one in such an illustrious empire, in such an admirable constitution as that of the Roman people, would have been like Marcus Brutus or Publius Rullus (for these are the only two men whom we have hitherto seen, who have wished to transfer all this republic to Capua), they would not, in truth, have left even the name of that city in existence. But they thought that in the case of Corinth and Carthage, even if they had taken away their senates and their magistrates, and deprived the citizens of the lands, still men would not be wanting who would restore those cities, and change the existing state of things in them before we could hear of it. But here, under the very eyes of the senate and Roman people, they thought that nothing could take place which might not be put down and extinguished before it had got to any head, or had assumed any definite shape. Nor did that matter deceive those men, endued as they were with divine wisdom and prudence. For after the consulship of Quintus Fulvius and Quintus Fabius, by whom, when they were consuls, Capua was defeated and taken, I will not say there has been nothing done, but nothing has been even imagined in that city against this republic.

Many wars have been waged since that time with kings—with Philip, and Antiochus, and Perses, and Pseudophilippus, and Aristonicus, and Mithridates, and others. Many terrible wars have existed beside—the Carthaginian, the Corinthian, and the Numantian wars. There have been also many domestic seditions which I pass over. There have been wars with our allies,—the Fregellan War, the Marsic War; in all which domestic and foreign wars Capua has not only not been any hindrance to us, but has afforded us most seasonable assistance in providing the means of war, in equipping our armies, and receiving them in their houses and homes. There were no men in the city who, by evil-disposed assemblies, by turbulent resolutions of the senate, or by unjust exertions of authority, threw the republic into confusion, and sought pretexts for revolution. For no one had any power of summoning an assembly, or of convening any public council. Men were not carried away by any desire for renown, because where there are no honors publicly conferred, there can be no covetous desire of reputation. They were not quarreling with one another out of rivalry or out of ambition, for they had nothing left to quarrel about,—they had nothing which they could seek for in opposition to one another,—they had no room for dissensions. Therefore, it was in accordance with a deliberate system, and with real wisdom, that our ancestors changed the natural arrogance and intolerable ferocity of the Campanians into a thoroughly inactive and lazy tranquility. And by this means they avoided the reproach of cruelty, because they did not destroy from off the face of Italy a most beautiful city; and they provided well for the future, in that, having cut out all the sinews of the city, they left the city itself enfeebled and disabled.

Ought we not to think that those men who foresaw all these things, O Romans, ought to be venerated and worshiped by us, and classed almost in the number of the immortal gods? For what was it which they saw? They saw this, which I entreat you now to remark and take notice of. Manners are not implanted in men so much by the blood and family, as by those things which are supplied by the nature of the plan toward forming habits of life, by which we are nourished, and by which we live. The Carthaginians, a fraudulent and lying nation, were tempted to a fondness for deceiving by a desire of gain, not by their blood, but by the character of their situation, because, owing to the number of their harbors, they had frequent intercourse with merchants and foreigners. The Ligurians, being mountaineers, are a hardy and rustic tribe. The land itself taught them to be so by producing nothing which was not extracted from it by skilful cultivation, and by great labor. The Campanians were always proud from the excellence of their soil, and the magnitude of their crops, and the healthiness, and position, and beauty of their city. From that abundance, and from this affluence in all things, in the first place, originated those qualities—arrogance, which demanded of our ancestors that one of the consuls should be chosen from Capua; and in the second place, that luxury which conquered Hannibal himself by pleasure, who up to that time had proved invincible in arms.

When those decemvirs shall, in accordance with the law of Rullus, have led six hundred colonists to that place; when they shall have established there a hundred decurions, ten augurs, and six priests, what do you suppose their courage, and violence, and ferocity will be then? They will laugh at and despise Rome, situated among mountains and valleys, stuck up, as it were, and raised aloft, amid garrets, with not very good roads, and with very narrow streets, in comparison with their own Capua, stretched out along a most open plain, and in comparison of their own beautiful thoroughfares. And as for the lands, they will not think the Vatican or Pupinian district fit to be compared at all to their fertile and luxuriant plains. And all the abundance of neighboring towns which surround us they will compare in laughter and scorn with their neighbors. They will compare Labici, Fidenæ, Collatia,—even Lanuvium itself, and Aricia, and Tusculum, with Cales, and Teanum, and Naples, and Puteoli, and Cumæ, and Pompeii, and Nuceria. By all these things they will be elated and puffed up, perhaps not at once, but certainly when they have got a little more age and vigor they will not be able to restrain themselves; they will go on further and further. A single individual, unless he be a man of great wisdom, can scarcely, when placed in situations of great wealth or power, contain himself within the limits of propriety; much less will those colonists, sought out and selected by Rullus, and others like Rullus, when established at Capua, in that abode of pride, and in the very home of luxury, refrain from immediately contracting some wickedness and iniquity. Aye, and it will be much more the case with them, than with the old genuine Campanians, because they were born find trained up in a fortune which was theirs of old, but were deprived by a too great abundance of everything; but these men, being transferred from the most extreme indigence to a corresponding affluence, will be affected, not only by the extent of their riches, but also by the strangeness of them.

I do not wonder that you, men of such folly and intemperance as you are, should have desired these things,—I do marvel that you should have hoped that you could obtain them while I am consul. For, as all consuls ought to exercise the greatest care and diligence in the protection of the republic, so, above all others, ought they to do so who have not been made consuls in their cradles, but in the Campus. No ancestors of mine went bail to the Roman people for me: you gave credit to me; it is from me that you must claim what I am bound to pay: all your demands must be made on me. As, when I stood for the consulship, no authors of my family recommended me to you; so, if I commit any fault, there are no images of my ancestors which can beg me off from you.

Wherefore, if only life be granted me, as far as I can I will defend the state from the wickedness and insidious designs of those men. I promise you this, O Romans, with good faith; you have entrusted the republic to a vigilant man, not to a timid one; to a diligent man, not to an idle one. I am consul; how should I fear an assembly of the people? How I should be afraid of the tribunes of the people? How should I be frequently or causelessly agitated? How should I fear lest I may have to dwell in a prison, if a tribune of the people orders me to be led thither I for I, armed with your arms, adorned with your most honorable ensigns, and with command and authority conferred by you, have not been afraid to advance into this place, and, with you for my backers, to resist the wickedness of man; nor do I fear lest the republic, being fortified with such strong protection, may be conquered or overwhelmed by those men. If I had been afraid before, still now, with this assembly, and this people, I should not fear. For who ever had an assembly so well inclined to hear him while advocating an agrarian law, as I have had while arguing against one? if, indeed, I can be said to be arguing against one, and not rather upsetting and destroying one. From which, O Romans, it may be easily understood that there is nothing so popular, as that which I, the consul of the people, am this year bringing to you; namely, peace, tranquility and ease. All the things which when we were elected you were afraid might happen, have been guarded against by my prudence and caution. You not only will enjoy ease—you who have always wished for it; but I will even make those men quiet, to whom our quiet has been a source of annoyance.

Note: Delivered to the people in the Roman forum; Cicero’s second oration on the same subject, the first having been delivered in the senate. Translated by Charles Duke Yonge. Abridged. Read more!