Dio's Rome, Volume 3. Cassius Dio Cocceianus
occasion? By what help? Why, you always come trembling up to court as if you were going to fight in armor and after speaking a few words in a low and half-dead voice you go away, not remembering a word of the speech you practiced at home before you came, and without finding anything to say on the spur of the moment. In making affirmations and promises you surpass all mankind in audacity, but in the contests themselves beyond uttering some words of abuse and defamation you are most weak and cowardly. Do you think any one is ignorant of the fact that you never delivered one of those wonderful speeches of yours that you have published, but wrote them all up afterward, like persons who form generals and masters-of-horse out of day? If you feel doubtful of this point, remember how you accused Verres,—though, to be sure, you only gave him an example of your father's trade, when you made water.
[-8-] "But I hesitate, for fear that in saying precisely what fits your case I may seem to be uttering words that are unfitting for myself. 14 This I will pass over; and further, by Jupiter, also the affairs of Gabinius, against whom, you prepared accusers and then pled his cause in such a way that he was condemned; and the pamphlets which you compose against your friends, in regard to which you feel yourself so guilty that you do not dare to make them public. Yet it is a most miserable and pitiable state to be in, not to be able to deny these charges which are the most disgraceful conceivable to admit. But I will leave these to one side and bring forward the rest. Well, though we did grant the trainer, as you say, two thousand plethra of the ager Leontinus, we still learned nothing adequate from it.15 But who should not admire your system of instruction? And what is it? You are ever jealous of your superiors, you always toady to the prominent man, you slander him who has attained distinction, you inform against the powerful and you hate equally all the excellent, and you pretend love only for those through whom you may do some mischief. This is why you are always inciting the younger against their elders and lead those who trust you even in the slightest into dangers, where you desert them. [-9-] A proof of this is, that you have never accomplished any achievement worthy of a distinguished man either in war or in peace. How many wars have we won under you as praetor and what kind of territory did we acquire with you as consul? Your private activity all these years has consisted in continually deceiving some of the foremost men and winning them to your side and managing everything you like, while publicly you have been shouting and bawling out at random those detestable phrases,—'I am the only one that loves you,' or, if it should so chance, 'And what's-his-name, all the rest, hate you,' and 'I alone am friendly to you, all the rest are engaged in plots,' and other such stuff by which you fill some with elation and conceit, only to betray them, and scare the rest so that you gain their attachment. If any service is rendered by any one whomsoever of the whole people, you lay claim to it and write your own name upon it, repeating: 'I moved it, I proposed it, it was through me that this was done so.' But if anything happens that ought not to have occurred, you take yourself out of the way and censure all the rest, saying: 'You see I wasn't praetor, you see I wasn't envoy, you see I wasn't consul.' And you abuse everybody everywhere all the time, setting more store by the influence which comes from appearing to speak your mind boldly than by saying what duty demands: and you exhibit no important quality of an orator. [-10-] What public advantage has been preserved or established by you? Who that was really harming the city have you indicted, and who that was really plotting against us have you brought to light? To neglect the other cases,—these very charges which you now bring against Antony are of such a nature and so many that no one could ever suffer any adequate penalty for them. Why, then, if you saw us being wronged by him at the start, as you assert, did you never attack or accuse him at the time, instead of telling us now all the transgressions he committed when tribune, all his irregularities when master of horse, all his villanies when consul? You might at once, at the time, in each specific instance, have inflicted the appropriate penalty upon him, if you had wanted to show yourself in very deed a patriot, and we could have imposed the punishment in security and safety during the course of the offences themselves. One of two conclusions is inevitable,—either that you believed this to be so at the time and renounced the idea of a struggle in our behalf, or else that you could not prove any of your charges and are now engaged in a reckless course of blackmail.
[-11-] "That this is so I will show you clearly, Conscript Fathers, by going over each point in detail. Antony did say some words during his tribuneship in Caesar's behalf: Cicero and some others spoke in behalf of Pompey. Why now does he accuse him of preferring one man's friendship, but acquit himself and the rest who warmly embraced the opposite cause? Antony, to be sure, hindered at that time some measures adverse to Caesar from being passed: and Cicero hindered practically everything that was known to be favorable to Caesar. 'But Antony obstructed,' he replies, 'the public judgment of the senate.' Well, now, in the first place, how could one man have had so much power? Second, if he had been condemned for this, as is said, how could he have escaped punishment? 'Oh, he fled, he fled to Caesar and got out of the way.' Of course you, Cicero, did not 'leave town' just now, but you fled, as in your former exile.16 Don't be so ready to apply your own shame to all of us. To flee is what you did, in fear of the court, and pronouncing condemnation on yourself beforehand. Yes, to be sure, an ordinance was passed for your recall; how and for what reasons I do not say, but at any rate it was passed, and you did not set foot in Italy before the recall was granted. But Antony both went away to Caesar to inform him what had been done and returned, without asking for any decree, and finally effected peace and friendship with him for all those that were found in Italy. And the rest, too, would have had a share in it, if they had not taken your advice and fled. [-12-] Now in view of those circumstances do you dare to say he led Caesar against his country and stirred up the civil war and became more than any one else responsible for the subsequent evils that befell us? Not so, but you, who gave Pompey legions that belonged to others and the command, and undertook to deprive Caesar even of those that had been given him: it was you, who agreed with Pompey and the consuls not to accept the offers made by Caesar, but to abandon the city and the whole of Italy: you, who did not see Caesar even when he entered Rome, but had run off to Pompey and into Macedonia. Not even to him, however, did you prove of any assistance, but you neglected what was going on, and then, when he met with misfortune, you abandoned him. Therefore you did not aid him at the outset on the ground that he had the juster cause, but after setting in motion the dispute and embroiling affairs you lay in wait at a safe distance for a favorable turn; you at once deserted the man who failed, as if that somehow proved him guilty, and went over to the victor, as if you deemed him more just. And in addition to your other defects you are so ungrateful that not only are you not satisfied to have been preserved by him, but you are actually displeased that you were not made master of the horse.
[-13-] "Then with this on your conscience do you dare to say that Antony ought not to have held the office of master of the horse for a year, and that Caesar ought not to have remained dictator for a year? But whether it was wise or necessary for these measures to be framed, at any rate they were both passed, and they suited us and the people. Censure these men, Cicero, if they have transgressed in any particular, but not, by Jupiter, those whom they have chosen to honor for showing themselves worthy of so great a reward. For if we were forced by the circumstances that then surrounded us to act in this way and contrary to good policy, why do you now lay this upon Antony's shoulders, and why did you not oppose it then if you were able? Because, by Jupiter, you were afraid. Then shall you, who were at that time silent, obtain pardon for your cowardice, and shall he, because he was preferred before you, submit to penalties for his excellence? Where did you learn that this was just, or where did you read that this was lawful?
[-14-] "'But he did not rightly use his position as master of horse.' Why? 'Because,' he answers, 'he bought Pompey's possessions.' How many others are there who purchased numberless articles, no one of whom is blamed? That was the purpose in confiscating certain articles and exposing them in the market and proclaiming them by the voice of the public crier, to have somebody buy them. 'But Pompey's goods ought not to have been sold.' Then it was we who erred and did wrong in confiscating them; or (to clear your skirts and ours) it was at least Caesar who acted irregularly, he who ordered this to be done: yet you did not censure him at all. I maintain that in this charge he is proven to be absolutely beside himself. He has brought against Antony two quite opposite accusations,—one, that after helping Caesar in very many ways and receiving in return
Dio has in this sentence imitated almost word for word the utterance of Demosthenes, inveighing against Aischines, in the speech on the crown (Demosthenes XVIII, 129).
Compare Book Forty-five, chapter 30.
There is a play on words here which can not be exactly rendered. The Greek verb [Greek: