Now, O conscript fathers, I see what is my interest; if you follow the opinion of Caius
Caesar, (since he has adopted this path in the republic which is accounted the popular one,)
perhaps since he is the author and promoter of this opinion, the popular violence will be less
to be dreaded by me; if you adopt the other opinion, I know not whether I am not likely to have
more trouble; but still let the advantage of the republic outweigh the consideration of my
danger. For we have from Caius Caesar, as his own dignity and as the illustrious character of
his ancestors demanded, a vote as a hostage of his lasting good-will to the republic; it has
been clearly seen how great is the difference between the lenity of demagogues, and a
disposition really attached to the interests of the people.
I see that of those men who wish to be considered attached to the people one man is absent,
that they may not seem forsooth to give a vote about the lives of Roman citizens. He only three
days ago gave Roman citizens into custody, and decreed me a supplication, and voted most
magnificent rewards to the witnesses only yesterday. It is not now doubtful to any one what he,
who voted for the imprisonment of the criminals, congratulation to him who had detected them,
and rewards to those who had proved the crime, thinks of the whole matter, and of the cause.
But Caius Caesar considers that the Sempronian The Sempronian law was
proposed by Caius Gracchus, B.C. 123, and enacted that the people
only should decide respecting the life or civil condition of a citizen. It is alluded to also
in the oration Pro Rabir. c. 4, where Cicero says, “Caius
Gracchus passed a law that no decision should be come to about the life of a Roman citizen
without your command,” speaking to the Quirites. law
was passed about Roman citizens, but that he who is an enemy of the republic can by no means be
a citizen; and moreover that the very proposer of the Sempronian law suffered punishment by the
command of the people. He also denies that Lentulus, a briber and a spendthrift, after he has
formed such cruel and bitter plans about the destruction of the Roman people and the ruin of
this city, can be called a friend of the people. Therefore this most gentle and merciful man
does not hesitate to commit Publius Lentulus to eternal darkness and imprisonment, and
establishes a law to all posterity that no one shall be able to boast of alleviating his
punishment or hereafter to appear a friend of the people to the destruction of the Roman
people. He adds also the confiscation of their goods, so that want also and beggary may be
added to all the torments of mind and body.
Wherefore, if you decide on this you give me a companion in my address, dear and acceptable
to the Roman people; or if you prefer to adopt the opinion of Silanus, you will easily defend
me and yourselves from the reproach of cruelty, and I will prevail that it shall be much
lighter. Although, O conscript fathers, what cruelty can there be in chastising the enormity of
such excessive wickedness? For I decide from my own feeling. For so may I be allowed; to enjoy
the republic in safety in your company, as I am not moved to be somewhat vehement in this cause
by any severity of disposition, (for who is more merciful than I am?) but rather by a singular
humanity and mercifulness. For I seem to myself to see this city, the light of the world and
the citadel of all nations, falling on a sudden by one conflagration. I see in my mind's eye
miserable and unburied heaps of cities in my buried country; the sight of Cethegus and his
madness raging amid your slaughter is ever present to my sight.
But when I have set before myself Lentulus reigning, as he himself confesses
that he had hoped was his destiny, and this Gabinius arrayed in the purple and Catiline arrived
with his army, then I shudder at the lamentation of matrons, and the flight of virgins and of
boys and the insults of the vestal virgins; and because these things appear to me exceedingly
miserable and pitiable, therefore I show myself severe and rigorous to those who have wished to
bring about this state of things. I ask, forsooth, if any father of a family, supposing his
children had been slain by a slave, his wife murdered, his house burnt, were not to inflict on
his slaves the severest possible punishment would he appear clement and merciful or most
inhuman and cruel? To me he would seem unnatural and hard-hearted who did not soothe his own
pain and anguish by the pain and torture of the criminal. And so we, in the case
of these men who desired to murder us, and our wives, and our children,—who endeavoured to
destroy the houses of every individual among us, and also the republic, the home of all,—who
designed to place the nation of the Allobroges on the relics of this city, and on the ashes of
the empire destroyed by fire;—if we are very rigorous, we shall be considered merciful; if we
choose to be lax, we must endure the character of the greatest cruelty, to the damage of our
country and our fellow-citizens.