The Orations, Volume 3. Cicero
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to all those cities by which Marcus Tullius . . . .” Was that all? No—it went, “a citizen who had done the greatest services to the republic, had been received:” and do you, one single pernicious citizen, deny that that citizen has been legally restored, whom the whole senate, even while he was absent, considered not only a citizen, but has at all times considered a most illustrious one? But as the annals of the Roman people and the records of antiquity relate, that great man Cæso Quintius, and Marcus Furius Camillus, and Marcus Servilius Ahala, though they had deserved exceedingly well of the republic, still had to endure the violence and passion of an excited people; and after they had been condemned by the comitia centuriata and had gone into banishment, were again restored to their former dignity by the same people in a more placable humour. But if, in the case of those men who were thus condemned, their calamity not only did not diminish the glory of their most illustrious names, but even added fresh lustre to it; (for, although it is more desirable to finish the course of one’s life without pain and without injury, still it contributes more to the immortality of a man’s glory to have been universally regretted by his fellow-citizens, than never to have been injured;) shall a similar misfortune have in my case the force of a reproach or of an accusation, when I left the city without any sentence of the people, and have been restored by most honourable resolutions of every order of society? Publius Popillius was always a brave and wise citizen in every point of view; yet in the whole of his life there is nothing which sheds a greater lustre on his character than this very calamity. For who would have recollected now that he conferred great benefits on the republic, if he had not been expelled by the wicked and restored by the good? The conduct of Quintus Metellus as a military commander was admirable, his censorship was splendid, his whole life was full of wisdom and dignity; and yet it is his calamity which has handed down his praises to everlasting recollection.
XXXIII. But if the injury inflicted on them by their enemies was not any disgrace to those men who were expelled unjustly, but still who were restored according to law, after their enemies had been slain, after the tribunes had brought forward motions respecting them; not by the authority of the senate, not by the comitia centuriata, not by the decrees of all Italy, not by the universal regret of the state; do you think that in my case, who departed uncondemned, who departed at the same time as the republic, and returned with the greatest dignity, while you were still alive, while one of your brothers was one of the consuls who brought me back, and the other was the prætor who demanded my recal, your wickedness ought to be any discredit to me? And if the Roman people, being inflamed with passion or envy, had driven me out of the city, and afterwards, remembering my services to the republic, had recollected itself, and shown its repentance for its rashness and injustice by restoring me; yet, in truth, no one would have been so senseless, as to think that such conduct on the part of the people ought not rather to be considered an honour to me than a disgrace. But now, when of all the people no one has accused me, when it is impossible for me to have been condemned, seeing that I have never been accused, since I was not even expelled in such a way that I could not have got the better of my adversaries if I had contested the point with them by force; and when, on the other hand, I have at all times been defended and praised and honoured by the Roman people; what pretence has any one for thinking himself better off than I am, at all events as far as the people are concerned?
Do you think that the Roman people consists of those men who can be hired for any purpose? who are easily instigated to offer violence to magistrates? to besiege the senate? to wish every day for bloodshed, conflagration and plunder? a people, indeed, whom you could not possibly collect together unless you shut up all the taverns; a people to whom you gave the Lentidii, and Lollii, and Plaguleii, and Sergii, for leaders. Oh for the splendour and dignity of the Roman people, for kings, for foreign nations, for the most distant lands to fear; a multitude collected of slaves, of hirelings, of criminals, and beggars! That was the real beauty and splendour of the Roman people, which you beheld in the Campus Martius at that time, when even you were allowed to speak in opposition to the authority and wishes of the senate and of all Italy. That is the people—that, I say, is the people which is the lord of kings, the conqueror and commander-in-chief of all nations, which you, O wicked man, beheld in that most illustrious day when all the chief men of the city, when all men of all ranks and ages considered themselves as giving their votes, not about the safety of a citizen, but about that of the state; when men arrive into the Campus, the municipal towns having been all emptied, not the taverns.
XXXIV. By the aid of this people, if there had then been real consuls in the republic, or if there had been no consuls at all, I should without any difficulty have resisted your head-long frenzy and impious wickedness. But I was unwilling to take up the public cause against armed violence, without the protection of the people. Not that I disapproved of the late rigour of Publius Scipio, that bravest of men, when he was only a private individual; but Publius Mucius the consul, who was considered somewhat remiss in defending the republic, immediately defended, and, more than that, extolled the action of Scipio in many resolutions passed by the senate. But, in my case, I, if you were slain, should have had to contend by force of arms against the consuls, or if you were alive, against both you and them together. There were many other circumstances also to be feared at that time. The contest would, in truth, have reached the slaves. So great an hatred of all good men had still got possession of the minds of impious citizens, being burnt as it were into their wicked minds by that ancient conspiracy.
Here, too, you warn me not to boast. You say that those things are intolerable which I am accustomed to assert concerning myself; and being a witty man, you put on quite a polite and elegant sort of language. You say that I am accustomed to say that I am Jupiter; and also to make a frequent boast that Minerva is my sister. I will not so much defend myself from the charge of insolence in calling myself Jupiter, as from that of ignorance in thinking Minerva the sister of Jupiter. But even if I do say so, I at all events claim a virgin for my sister; but you would not allow your sister to remain a virgin. Consider rather whether you have not a right to call yourself Jupiter, because you have established a right to call the same woman both sister and wife.
XXXV. And since you find fault with me for this, that you assert that I am accustomed to speak too boastfully of myself, I ask, who ever heard me speak in this way, or speak of myself at all, except when I was compelled, and was doing so of necessity? For if, when robberies, and bribery, and lust are imputed to me, I am accustomed to reply that the country was saved by my prudence, and labour, and personal danger, I ought not to be considered as boasting of my own exploits, so much as refusing to confess what is imputed to me. But if, before these most miserable periods of the republic, nothing else was ever imputed to me, except the cruelty of my conduct at that time when I warded off destruction from the republic, what will you say? Ought I when accused in this manner, not to have replied at all, or to have replied in an abject tone? But I have always thought it for the interest of even the republic itself, that I should uphold by my language the propriety and glory of that most noble exploit which I performed by the authority of the senate, with the consent of all virtuous men, for the safety of my country; especially when I am the only person in this republic who have been able to say on oath, in the hearing of the Roman people, that this city and this republic had been saved by my exertions. That accusation of cruelty has long since been extinguished, because men see that I was regretted, and demanded and sent for back by the wishes of all the citizens, not as a cruel tyrant, but as a most merciful parent. Another charge has risen up. That departure of mine from the city is attacked, which accusation I cannot reply to without the greatest credit to myself. For what, O priests, ought I to say? That I fled from a consciousness of guilt? But that which was imputed to me as a crime, not only was not a crime, but was the most glorious action ever performed since the birth of man. That I feared the sentence of the people? But not only was there no trial at any time before the people, but if there had been, I should have departed with redoubled glory. That the protection of the good was wanting to me? It is false. That I was afraid of death? That is an assertion disgraceful to those who make it.
XXXVI. I am therefore compelled to say that which I would not say if I were not compelled. (For I have never said anything at all in the way of extolling myself for the sake of gaining praise, but only with a view to repel an accusation.) I say, therefore, and I say it with the loudest voice I can command, when the inflamed violence of all the profligate citizens and conspirators, a tribune of the people being their leader, the consuls being their instigators, the