Pro L. Flacco

For he, as a rhetorician, had some rich men for pupils whom he was going to make as foolish again as they were when they came to him, (for they could acquire nothing from him, except an ignorance of every sort of learning;) but he could not infatuate any one to such an extent as to get him to lend him a single farthing. Therefore, having left Rome secretly, and cheated numbers of people by trifling loans, he came into Asia; and when Hermippus asked him what he had done about the bond given to the Fufii, he said that he paid the entire sum to the Fufii. In the mean time, not long afterwards, a freedman comes to Hermippus with letters from the Fufii. The money is demanded of Hermippus. Hermippus demands it of Heraclides; however, he himself satisfies the claim of the Fufii who are at a distance, and discharges the security which he had given. He then prosecutes Heraclides, in spite of all his fuming and shuffling, in a formal manner: the cause is tried before judges.

Do not fancy, O judges, that the impudence of cheats and repudiators is not one and the same in all places. This man did the very same things which debtors here are in the habit of doing. He denied that he had ever borrowed any money at all at Rome. He asserted that he had actually never heard the name of the Fufii; and he attacked Hermippus himself, a most modest and virtuous man, an ancient friend and hereditary connection of my own, the most eminent and accomplished man in his city, with every sort of reproach and abuse. But after this voluble gentleman had delivered himself in that fashion with a prodigious rapidity of eloquence for some time, all of a sudden, when the evidence of the Fufii and the items of their claim were read, though a most audacious man, he got alarmed; through a most talkative one, he became dumb. Therefore, the judges at the first trial gave a decision against him, in a matter which certainly did not admit of much doubt. As he did not comply with their decision, he was given up to Hermippus and put in prison by him.

Now you know the honesty of the man and the value of his evidence, and the whole reason of his enmity to Flaccus. Having been released by Hermippus after having sold him a few slaves, he came to Rome from thence he returned into Asia, when my brother Quintus had succeeded Flaccus in that government and went to him and related his story in this manner, saying that the judges being compelled and put in fear by the violence of Flaccus had given a false decision against their will. My brother as became his impartiality and prudence, decreed that if he demurred to the previous decision, he was to give security to double the amount; and that if he said that they were compelled by fear at the first trial, he should have the same judges again. He refused this, and as if there had been no trial and no decision, he began on the spot to demand back from Hermippus the slaves which he himself had sold him. Marcus Gratidius, the lieutenant, before whom he went refused to give him leave to proceed with the action, but declared that he should adhere to the decision already given.

A second time, as he had no place anywhere where he could remain, he betook himself to Rome. Hermippus, who never yields to his impudence, follows him hither. Heraclides demands from Caius Plotius, a senator, a man of the highest character, who had served in Asia as lieutenant some slaves, which he said he had sold under compulsion, at a time when an unjust decision had been given against him. Quintus Naso, a most accomplished man, who had been praetor, is appointed judge; and when he showed that he was going to give sentence in favour of Plotius, Heraclides left the judge, and abandoned the whole cause as if he had not had a fair and legal trial. Do I appear to you, O judges, to be dwelling too much on each individual witness, and not to be discussing the whole class of witnesses, as I originally intended?

I come now to Lysanias, of the same city,—your own especial witness, Decianus,—a

I come now to that state to which I myself have shown great kindness and done many great services, and which my brother has shown the greatest attachment to and fondness for. And if that city had brought its complaints before you by the month of creditable and respectable men, I should be a little more concerned about it; but now what am I to think? Am I to think that the Trallians entrusted their cause to Maeandrius, a needy, sordid man, without honour, without character, without income? Where were the Pythodori, the Aetideni, the Lepisos, and the other men who are well known among us, and who are of high rank among their own people? where is their splendid and high-spirited display of the respectability of their city? Would they not have been ashamed, if they had been serious about this business, that Maeandrius should be called, I will not say their deputy, but even a Trallian at all? Would they ever have entrusted to this man as their deputy,—to this man as their public witness, Lucius Flaccus the hereditary patron of their city, whose father and ancestors had been so before him, to be ruined by the evidence of their city? This cannot be the fact, O judges; it never can be.

I myself lately saw in some trial a Trallian witness of the name of Philodorus, I saw Parrhasius, I saw Archidemus, when this identical man Maeandrius came to me as a sort of attorney, suggesting to me what I might say, if I pleased, against his own fellow-citizens and his own city. For there is nothing more worthless than that fellow,—nothing more needy, nothing more infamous. Wherefore, if the Trallians employ him as the relater of their indignation, and the keeper of their letters, and the witness of their injuries, and the utterer of their complaints, let them lower their high tone for the future, let them restrain their high spirit, let them bridle their arrogance, let them confess that the best representative of their city is to be found in the person of Maeandrius. But if they themselves have always thought this man a man to be buffeted and trampled upon at home, let them cease to think that there is any authority in that evidence which there is no respectable person to father. But I will explain what the facts of the case really are, that you may know why that city was neither severe in attacking Flaccus, nor very anxious to defend him.

The city was offended with him on account of the affair of Castricius; concerning the whole of which Hortensius has made a sufficient reply. Very much against its will, it had paid Castricius some money which had long been due to him. Hence comes all its hatred to Flaccus, and this is his whole offence. And when Laelius had arrived in that city among a set of angry men, and had re-opened their indignation with respect to Castricius by mentioning the subject, the chief men jumped up and left the place, and refused to be present in that assembly, and would not assist in carrying the decree, or in framing the deposition. And to such an extent was that assembly deprived of the presence of the nobles of the city, that Maeandrius was the chief of the chief men present; and it was by his tongue, acting like a sort of fan of sedition, that assembly of needy men was ventilated.

Therefore, now learn the justice of the grief and complaints of a city, a moderate city, as I have always considered it, and a worthy one, as the citizens themselves wish it to be thought. They complain that the money which was deposited amongst them, in the name of Flaccus's father,—money which had been collected from different cities,—has been taken away from them. At another time I will inquire of them what power Flaccus had in the matter. At present I only ask the Trallians, whether they say the money, which they complain has been taken from them, was their own,—was a contribution from the other cities for their use. I wish to hear this. We do not

What then? “This you had no right to touch.” Presently I will see to that; but first of all I will deal with this. A dignified, a wealthy, a noble city complains that it is not allowed to retain what does not belong to it. It says that it has been plundered, because it has not in its possession what never was its own. What can be said or imagined more shameless than this? A town was selected in which, above all others, the money contributed by all Asia for the honours of Lucius Flaccus should be deposited. All this money was transferred from the purpose of doing him honour, and employed in gainful traffic and usury. Many years afterwards it was recovered.

What injury was done to the city? “But the city is very indignant at it.” I dare say. For the profit is wrenched from it contrary to its hopes, which had already been devoured in expectation. “But it complains;” and a most impudent complaint it is. For we cannot reasonably complain of everything at which we are annoyed. “But it accuses him in the severest language.” Not the city, but ignorant men do so, who have been stirred up by Maeandrius. And while on this topic I beg you over and over again to recollect how great is the rashness of a multitude,—how great the peculiar levity of Greeks,—and how great is the influence of a seditious speech in a public assembly. Even here, in this most dignified and well-regulated of cities, when the forum is full of courts of justice, full of magistrates, full of most excellent men and citizens,—when the senate-house, the chastiser of rashness, the directress in the path of duty, commands and surveys the rostra, still what storms do we see excited in the public assemblies? What do you think is the case at Tralles? is it the same as is the case at Pergamus? Unless, perchance, these cities wish it to be believed that they could more easily be influenced by one letter of Mithridates, and impelled to violate the claims of their friendship with the Roman people, and their own plighted faith, and all the rights and duties of humanity, than to injure by their evidence the son of a man whom they had thought it necessary to drive from their walls by force of arms.

Do not, then, oppose to me the names of those noble cities, for those whom this family has scorned as enemies, it will never be afraid of as witnesses. But you must confess, if your cities are governed by the counsels of your chief men, that it was not by the rashness of the multitude, but by the deliberate counsel of the nobles, that war was undertaken by those cities against the Roman people; or if that disturbance was at that time caused by the rashness of the ignorant mob, then permit me to separate the errors of the Roman people from the general cause.