Pro L. Murena

But in truth, let us allow that these advantages are all equal,—let exertions displayed in the forum be allowed to be equal to military achievements,—let the votes of the quiet citizens be granted to be of equal weight with those of the I soldiers,—let it be of equal assistance to a man to have I exhibited the most magnificent games, and never to have exhibited any at all; what then? Do you think that in the praetorship itself there was no difference between your lot and that of my client Murena? His department was that which we and all your friends desired for you; that namely, of deciding the law; a business in which the importance of the business transacted procures great credit for a man, and the administration of justice earns him popularity; for which department a wise praetor, such as Murena was, avoids giving offence by impartiality in his decisions, and conciliates good-will by his good temper in hearing the cases brought before him. It is a very creditable employment and very well adapted to gain a man the consulship, being one in which the praise of justice, integrity and affability is crowned at the last by the pleasure of the games which he exhibits.

What department was it that your lot gave you? A disagreeable and odious one. That of inquiry into peculation, pregnant on the one side with the tears and mourning apparel of the accused, full on the other side of imprisonment and informers. In that department of justice judges are forced to act against their will, are retained by force contrary to their inclination. The clerk is hated, the whole body is unpopular. The gratifications given by Sulla are found fault with. Many brave men,—indeed, a considerable portion of the city is offended; damages are assigned with severity. The man who is pleased with the decision soon forgets it; he who loses his cause is sure to remember it. Lastly, you would not go to your province. I cannot find fault with that resolution in you, which, both as praetor and consul, I have adopted in my own case. But still Lucius Murena's conduct in his province procured him the affection of many influential men, and a great accession of reputation. On his road he held a levy of troops in Umbria. The republic enabled him to display his liberality, which he did so effectually as to engage in his interest many tribes which are connected with the municipalities of that district. And in Gaul itself, he contrived by his equity and diligence to enable many of our citizens to recover debts which they had entirely despaired of. In the meantime you were living at Rome, ready to help your friends. I confess that—but still recollect this, that the inclinations of some friends are often cooled towards those men by whom they see that provinces are despised.

And since I have proved, O judges, that in this con-test for the consulship Murena had the same claims of worth that Sulpicius had, accompanied with a very different fortune as respects the business of their respective provinces, I will say more plainly in what particular my friend Servius was inferior; and I will say those things while you are now hearing me,—now that the time of the elections is over—which I have often said to him by himself before the affair was settled. I often told you, O Servius, that you did not know how to stand for the consulship; and, in respect to those very matters which I saw you conducting and advocating in a brave and magnanimous spirit, I often said to you that you appeared to me to be a brave senator rather than a wise candidate. For, in the first place, the terrors and threats of accusations which you were in the habit of employing every day, are rather the part of a fearless man; but they have an unfavourable effect on the opinion of the people as regards a man's hopes of getting anything from them, and they even disarm the zeal of his friends. Somehow or other, this is always the case; and it has been noticed, not in one or two instances only, but in many; so that the moment a candidate is seen to turn his attention to provocations, he is supposed to have given up all hopes of his election.

What, then, am I saying? Do I mean that a man is not to prosecute another for any injury which he may have received? Certainly I mean nothing of the sort. But the times for prosecuting and for standing for the consulship are different. I consider that a candidate for any office, especially for the consulship, ought to come down into the forum and

“Do you see how gloomy that man looks? how dejected? He is out of spirits; he thinks he has no chance; he has laid down his arms.” Then a report gets abroad—“Do you know that he is thinking of a prosecution? He is seeking for evidence against his competitors; he is hunting for witnesses. I shall vote for some one else, as he knows that he has no chance.” The most intimate friends of such candidates as that are dispirited and disarmed, they abandon all anxiety in the matter,—they give up a business which is so manifestly hopeless, or else they reserve all their labour and influence to countenance their friend in the trial and prosecution which he is meditating. And, besides all this, the candidate himself cannot devote his whole thoughts, and care, and attention, and diligence to his own election; for he has also in his mind the thoughts of his prosecution—a matter of no small importance, but in truth of the very greatest. For it is a very serious business to be preparing measures by which to deprive a man, especially one who is not powerless or without resources—of his rights as a citizen; one who is defended both by himself and by his friend,—yes, and perhaps also by strangers. For we all of us naturally hasten to save any one from danger; and, if we are not notoriously enemies to them, we tender, even to utter strangers, when menaced by danger affecting their station as citizens, the services and zeal which are strictly speaking due only to the causes of our friends.

On which account I, who know by experience the troubles attending on standing for office, on defending and accusing prisoners, consider that the truth in respect of each business stands thus,—that in standing for an office, eagerness is the chief thing; in defending a man, a regard for one's duty is the principal thing shown; in accusing a man, the labour is greatest. And therefore I say decidedly that it is quite impossible for the same man to do justice properly to the part of an accuser and a candidate for the consulship. Few can play either part well; no one can do justice to both. Did you, when you turned aside out of the course prescribed for you as a candidate, and when you had transferred your attention to the task of prosecuting, think that you could fulfil all the requirements of both? You were greatly mistaken if you did; for what day was there after you once entered on that prosecution, that you did not devote the whole of it to that occupation? You demanded a law about bribery, though there was no deficiency of laws on that matter, for there was the Calpurnian law, framed with the greatest severity. Your inclinations and your wish procured compliance with your demand; but the whole of that law might perhaps have armed your accusation, if you had had a guilty defendant to prosecute; but it has been of great injury to you as a candidate.

A more severe punishment for the common people was demanded by your voice. The minds of the lower orders were agitated. The punishment of an exile was demanded in the case of any one of our order being convicted. The senate granted it to your request; but still it was with no good will that they established a more severe condition for our common fortunes at your instigation. Punishment was imposed on any one who made the excuse of illness. The inclinations of many men were alienated by this step, as by it they were forced either to labour to the prejudice of their health, or else through the distress of illness they were compelled to abandon the other enjoyments of life. What then, are we to say of this? Who passed this law? He, who, in so doing, acted in obedience to the senate, and to your wish. He, in short, passed it to whom it was not of the slightest personal advantage. Do you think that those proposals which, with my most willing consent, the senate rejected in a very full house, were but a slight hindrance to you? You demanded the confusion of the votes of all the centuries, the extension of the Manilian law, [*](This was not the Manilian law, in support of which Cicero spoke to confer the command in Asia on Pompeius; but a law enacting that the votes should be counted without any regard to the centuries in which they were given; but this law was repealed soon after its enactment. ) the equalization or all interest and dignity, and

All these measures were strengthening your hands as a prosecutor, but weakening your chance as a candidate. And by them all a violent blow was struck at your hopes of success, as I warned you; and many very severe things were said about it by that most able and most eloquent man, Hortensius, owing to which my task of speaking now is the more difficult; as, after both he had spoken before me, and also Marcus Crassus, a man of the greatest dignity, and industry, and skill as an orator, I, coming in at the end, was not to plead some part of the cause, but to say with respect to the whole matter whatever I thought advisable. Therefore I am forced to recur to the same ideas, and to a great extent, O judges, I have to contend with a feeling of satiety on your part. But still, O Servius, do you not see that you completely lay the axe to the root of your chance as a candidate, when you give the Roman people cause for apprehension that Catiline might be made consul through your neglect and, I may almost say, abandonment of your canvass, while you were intent on your prosecution?

In truth, men saw that you were hunting about for evidence; that you yourself looked gloomy, your friends out of spirits; they noticed your visits, your inquiries after proofs, your privy meetings with your witnesses, your conferences with your junior counsel; all which matters are certainly apt to make the countenance of a candidate look darker. Meantime they saw Catiline cheerful and joyous, accompanied by a band of youths, with a bodyguard of informers and assassins, elated by the hopes which he placed in the soldiers, and, as he himself said, by the promises of my colleagues; surrounded, too, with a numerous body of colonists from Arretium and Faesulae—a crowd made conspicuous by the presence of men of a very different sort in it, men who had been ruined by the disasters in the time of Sulla. His own countenance was full of fury; his eyes glared with wickedness; his discourse breathed nothing but arrogance. You might have thought that he had assured himself of the consulship, and that he had got it locked up at home. Murena he despised. Sulpicius he considered as his prosecutor, not as a competitor. He threatened him with violence; he threatened the republic.

And I need not remind you with what terror all good men were seized in consequence of these occurrences, and how entirely they would all have despaired of the republic if he had been made consul. All this you yourselves recollect; for you remember, when the expressions of that wicked gladiator got abroad, which he was said to have used at a meeting at his own house, when he said that it was impossible for any faithful defender of the miserable citizens to be found, except a man who was himself miserable; that men in an embarrassed and desperate condition ought not to trust the promises of men of a flourishing and fortunate estate; and therefore that those who were desirous to replace what they had spent, and to recover what they had lost, had better consider what he himself owed, what he possessed, and what he would dare to do; that that man ought to be very fearless and thoroughly overwhelmed by misfortune, who was to be the leader and standard-bearer of unfortunate men.

Then, therefore, when these things had been heard, you recollect that a resolution of the senate was passed, on my motion, that the comitia should not be held the next day, in order that we might be able to discuss these matters in the senate. Accordingly, the next day, in a full meeting of the senate, I addressed Catiline himself; and desired him, if he could, to some explanation of these reports which had been brought to me. And he—for he was not much addicted to disguising his intentions—did not attempt to clear himself; but openly avowed and adopted the statements. For he said then, that there were two bodies of the republic,—the one weak with a weak head, the other powerful without a head,—and that, as this last had deserved well of him, it should never want a head as long as he lived. The whole senate groaned at hearing itself addressed in such language, and passed a resolution not severe enough for such unworthy conduct; for some of them were against too rigorous a resolution, because they had no fear; and some, because they had a great deal. Then he rushed forth from the senate, triumphing and exulting,—a man who never ought to have been allowed to leave it alive,

Being influenced then by these facts, and knowing that men who were already associated in a conspiracy were being brought down by Catiline into the Campus Martius, armed with swords, I myself descended into the campus with a guard of brave men, and with that broad and shining breastplate, not in order to protect me, (for I knew that Catiline would aim at my head and neck, not at my chest or body,) but in order that all good men might observe it, and, when they saw their consul in fear and in danger, might as they did, throng together for my assistance and protection. Therefore, as, O Servius, men thought you very remiss in prosecuting the contest, and saw Catiline inflamed with hope and desire, all who wished to repel that pest from the republic immediately joined the party of Murena.

And in the consular comitia the sudden inclination of men's feelings is often of great weight, especially as, in this case, it took the direction of a very gallant man, who was assisted by many other concurrent aids in his application for the office. He was born or a most honourable father and ancestors; he had passed his youth in a most modest manner; he had discharged the office of a lieutenant with great credit; he had been praetor, as such he had been approved as a judge; he had been popular through his liberality; be had been highly honoured in his province; he had been very diligent in his canvass, and had carried it on so as neither to give way if any one threatened him, nor to threaten any one himself. Can we wonder that the sudden hope which Catiline now entertained of obtaining the consulship was a great assistance to this man?

The third topic which I have got to speak about refers to the charge of bribery; which has been already entirely refuted by those who have spoken before me, but which must still be discussed by me, since such is the will of Murena. And while speaking on this point, I will reply to what Postumius, my own intimate friend, a most accomplished man, has said about the trials of agents, and about sums of money which he asserts have been found; and to what Servius Sulpicius, that able and virtuous young man, has said about the centuries of the knights; and to what Marcus Cato, a man eminent in every kind of virtue, has said about his own accusation, about the resolution of the senate, and about the republic in general.

But first of all I will say a little, which has just occurred to me, about the hard fortune of Lucius Murena. For I have often before now, O judges, judging both by the miseries of others, and by my own daily cares and labours, considered those men fortunate, who, being at a distance from the pursuits of ambition, have addicted themselves to ease and tranquillity of life; and now especially I am so affected by these serious and unexpected dangers of Lucius Murena, that I am unable adequately to express my pity for the common condition of all of us, or for his particular state and fortune; who while, after an uninterrupted series of honours attained by his family and his ancestors, he was endeavouring to mount one step higher in dignity, has incurred the danger of losing both the honours bequeathed to him by his forefathers, and those too which have been acquired by himself, and now, on account of his pursuit of this new honour, is brought into the danger of losing his ancient fortune also.

And as these are weighty considerations, O judges, so is this the most serious matter of all, that he has men for accusers who, instead of proceeding to accuse him on account of their private enmity against him, have become his personal enemies, being carried away by their zeal for their accusation. For, to say nothing of Servius Sulpicius, who, I am aware, is influenced not by any wrong done by Lucius Murena, but only by the party spirit engendered by the contest for honour, his father's friend, Cnaeus Postumius, is his accuser, an old neighbour and intimate friend of his own, as he says himself; who has mentioned many reasons for his intimacy with him, while he has not been able to mention one for any enmity towards him. Servius Sulpicius accuses him, the companion of his son,—he, by whose genius all the friends of his father ought to be only the more defended. Marcus Cato accuses him, who, though he has never been in any matter whatever at variance with Murena, yet was born in this city under such circumstances that his power and genius ought to be a protection to many who were even entire strangers to him, and ought to be the ruin of hardly any personal enemy.

In the first instance then I will reply to Cnaeus Postumius,

I come now to Marcus Cato, who is the mainstay and prop of the whole prosecution; who is, however, so zealous and vehement a prosecutor, that I am much more afraid of the weight of his name, than of his accusation. And with respect to this accuser, O judges, first of all I will entreat you not to let Cato's dignity, nor your expectation of his tribuneship, nor the high reputation and virtue of his whole life, be any injury to Lucius Murena. Let not all the honours of Marcus Cato, which he has acquired in order to be able to assist many men, be an injury to my client alone. Publius Africanus had been twice consul, and had destroyed those two terrors of this empire, Carthage and Numantia, when he prosecuted Lucius Cotta. He was a man of the most splendid eloquence, of the greatest good faith, of the purest integrity; his authority was as great almost as that of the Roman people itself, in that empire which had been mainly saved by his means. I have often heard old men say that this very extraordinarily high character of the accuser was of the greatest service to Lucius Cotta. Those wise men who then were the judges in that cause, did not like any one to be defeated in a trial, if he was to appear overwhelmed only by the excessive influence of his adversary.

What more shall I say? Did not the Roman people deliver Sergius Galba (the fact is preserved in the recollection of every one) from your grandfather, that most intrepid and prosperous man, Marcus Cato, who was zealously seeking his ruin? At all times in this city the whole people, and also the judges, wise men, looking far into futurity, have resisted the overweening power of prosecutors. I do not like an accuser bringing his personal power, or any predominant influence, or his own eminent authority, or his own excessive popularity, into a court of justice. Let all these things have weight to ensure the safety of the innocent, to aid the weak, to succour the unfortunate. But in a case where the danger and ruin of citizens may ensue, let them be rejected.

For if perchance any one should say that Cato would not have come forward as an accuser if he had not previously made up his mind about the justice of the cause, he will then be laying down a most unjust law, O judges, and establishing a miserable condition for men in their danger, if he thinks that the opinion of an accuser is to have against a defendant the weight of a previous investigation legally conducted. I, O Cato, do not venture to find fault with your intentions, by reason of my extraordinarily high opinion of your virtue; but in some particulars I may perhaps be able slightly to amend and reform them. “You are not very wrong,” said an aged tutor to a very brave man; “but if you are wrong, I can set you right.” But I can say with the greatest truth that you never do wrong, and that your conduct is never such in any point as to need correction, but only such as occasionally to require being guided a little. For nature has herself formed you for honesty, and gravity, and moderation, and magnanimity, and justice; and for all the virtues required to make a great and noble man. To all these qualities are added an education not moderate, nor mild, but as it seems to me, a little harsh and severe, more so than either truth or nature would permit.