Pro P. Sulla

But there are letters of Faustus's extant, in which he begs and prays Publius Sulla to buy gladiators, and to buy this very troop: and not only were such letters sent to Publius Sulla, but they were sent also to Lucius Caesar, to Quintus Pompeius, and to Gains Memmius, by whose advice the whole business was managed. But Cornelius [*](This Cornelius is not the Roman knight mentioned before; but some freedman of Publius Sulla.) was appointed to manage the troop. If in the respect of the purchase of this household of gladiators no suspicion attaches to the circumstances, it certainly can make no difference that he was appointed to manage them afterwards. But still, he in reality only discharged the servile duty of providing them with arms; but he never did superintend the men themselves; that duty was always discharged by Balbus, a freedman of Faustus.

But Sittius was sent by him into further Spain; in order to excite sedition in that province. In the first place, O judges, Sittius departed, in the consulship of Lucius Julius and Caius Figulus, some time before this mad business of Catiline's, and before there was any suspicion of this conspiracy. In the second place, he did not go there for the first time, but he had already been there several years before, for the same purpose that he went now. And he went not only with an object but with a necessary object having some important accounts to settle with the king of Mauritania. But then, after he was gone, as Sulla managed his affairs as his agent he sold many of the most beautiful farms of Publius Sittius, and by this means paid his debts; so that the motive which drove the rest to this wickedness, the desire, namely, of retaining their possessions, did not exist in the case of Sittius, who had diminished his landed property to pay his debts.

But now, how incredible, how absurd is the idea that a man who wished to make a massacre at Rome, and to burn down this city, should let his most intimate friend depart, should send him away into the most distant countries! Did he so in order the more easily to effect what he was endeavoring to do at Rome, if there were seditions in Spain?—“But these things were done independently, and had no connection with one another.” Is it possible, then, that he should have thought it desirable, when engaged in such important affairs, in such novel and dangerous, and seditious designs, to send away a man thoroughly attached to himself, his most intimate friend, one connected with himself by reciprocal good offices and by constant intercourse? It is not probable that he should send a way, when in difficulty, and in the midst of troubles of his own raising, the man whom he had always kept with him in times of prosperity and tranquillity.

But is Sittius himself (for I must not desert the cause of my old friend and host) a man of such a character, or of such a family and such a school as to allow us to believe that he wished to make war on the republic? Can we believe that he, whose father when all our other neighbours and borderers revolted from us behaved with singular duty and loyalty to our republic, should think it possible himself to undertake a nefarious war against his country? A man whose debts we see were contracted not out of luxury but from a desire to increase his property which led him to involve himself in business and who, though he owed debts at Rome, had very large debts owing to him in the provinces and in the confederate kingdoms and when he was applying for them he would not allow his agents to be put in any difficulty by his absence but preferred having all his property sold and being stripped himself of a most beautiful patrimony, to allowing any delay to take place in satisfying his creditors.

And of men of that sort I never, O judges, had any fear when I was in the middle of that tempest which afflicted the republic. The sort of men who were formidable and terrible were those who clung to their property with such affection that you would say it was easier to tear their limbs from them than their lands but Sittius never thought that there was such a relationship between him and his estates, and therefore he cleared himself, not only from all suspicion of such wickedness as theirs, but even from being talked about not by arms, but at the expense of his patrimony.

But now, as to what he adds, that the inhabitants of Pompeii were excited by Sulla to join that conspiracy and that abominable wickedness, what sort of statement that I am quite unable to understand. Do the people of Pompeii appear to have joined the conspiracy? Who has ever said so? or when was there the slightest suspicion of this fact? “He separated then,” says he, “from the settlers, in order that when he had excited dissensions and divisions within, he might be able to have the town and nation of Pompeii in his power.” In the first place, every circumstance of the dissension between the natives of Pompeii and the settlers was referred to the patrons of the town, being a matter of long standing, and having been going on many years. In the second place, the matter was investigated by the patrons in such a way, that Sulla did not in any particular disagree with the opinions of the others. And lastly, the settlers themselves understand that the natives of Pompeii were not more denuded by Sulla than they themselves were.

And this, O judges, you may ascertain from the number of settlers, most honourable men, here present; who are here now, and are anxious and above all things desirous that the man, the patron, the defender, the guardian of that colony, (if they have not been able to see him in the safe enjoyment of every sort of good fortune and every honour,) may at all events, in the present misfortune by which he is attacked, be defended and preserved by your means. The natives of Pompeii are here also with equal eagerness, who are accused as well as he is by the prosecutors; men whose differences with the settlers about walks and about votes have not gone to such lengths as to make them differ also about their common safety.

And even this virtue of Publius Sulla appears to me to be one which ought not to be passed over in silence;—that though that colony was originally settled by him, and though the fortune of the Roman people has separated the interests of the settlers from the fortunes of the native citizens of Pompeii, he is still so popular among, and so much beloved by both parties, that he seems not so much to have dispossessed the one party of their lands as to have settled both of them in that country. “But the gladiators, and all those preparations for violence, were got together because of the motion of Caecilius.” And then he inveighed bitterly against Caecilius, a most virtuous and most accomplished man, of whose virtue and constancy, O judges, I will only say thus much,—that he behaved in such a manner with respect to that motion which he brought forward, not for the purpose of doing away with, but only of relieving his brother's misfortune, that though he wished to consult his brother's welfare, he was unwilling to oppose the interests of the republic; he proposed his law the impulse of brotherly affection, and he abandoned it because he was dissuaded from it by his brother's authority.

And Sulla is accused by Lucius Caecilius, in that business in which both of them deserve praise. In the first place Caecilius, for having proposed a law in which he appeared to wish to rescind an unjust decision; and Sulla, who reproved him, and chose to abide by the decision. For the constitution of the republic derives its principal consistency from formal legal decisions. Nor do I think that any one ought to yield so much to his love for his brother as to think only of the welfare of his own relations, and to neglect the common safety of all. He did not touch the decision already given, but he took away the punishment for bribery which had been lately established by recent laws. And, therefore, by this motion he was seeking, not to rescind a decision, but to correct a defect in the law. When a man is complaining of a penalty, it is not the decision with which he is finding fault but the law. For the conviction is the act of judges, and that is let stand; the penalty is the act of the law, and that may be lightened.

Do not therefore, alienate from your cause the inclinations of those orders of men which preside over the courts of justice with the greatest authority and dignity. No one, has attempted to annul the decision which has been given; nothing of that sort has been proposed. What Caecilius always thought while grieved at the calamity which had befallen his brother, was, that the power of the judges ought to be preserved unimpaired, but that the severity of the law required to be mitigated. But why need I say more on this topic? I might speak perhaps, and I would speak willingly and gladly, if affection and fraternal love had impelled Lucius Caecilius a little beyond the limits which regular and strict duty requires of a man; I would appeal to your feelings, I would invoke the affection which every one feels for his own relations; I would solicit pardon for the error of Lucius Caecilius, from your own inmost thoughts and from the common humanity of all men.

The law was proposed only a few days; it was never begun to be put in train to be carried; it was laid on the table in the senate. On the first of January, when we had summoned the senate to meet in the Capitol, nothing took precedence of it; and Quintus Metellus the praetor said, that what he was saying was by the command of Sulla; that Sulla did

And even in regard to this very motion, who was there of us who had any fears of Sulla or Caecilius attempting to carry any point by violence? Did not all the alarm that existed at that time, all the fear and expectation of sedition, arise from the villainy of Autronius? It was his expressions and his threats which were bruited abroad; it was the sight of him, the multitudes that thronged to him, the crowd that escorted him, and the bands of his abandoned followers, that caused all the fear of sedition which agitated us. Therefore, Publius Sulla, as this most odious man was then his comrade and partner, not only in honour but also in misfortune, was compelled to lose his own good fortune, and to remain under a cloud without any remedy or alleviation.

At this point you are constantly reading passages from my letter, which I sent to Cnaeus Pompeius about my own achievements, and about the general state of the republic; and out of it you seek to extract some charge against Publius Sulla. And because I wrote that an attempt of incredible madness, conceived two years before, had broken out in my consulship, you say that I, by this expression, have proved that Sulla was in the former conspiracy. I suppose I think that Cnaeus Piso, and Catiline, and Vargunteius were not able to do any wicked or audacious act by themselves, without the aid of Publius Sulla!