Philippicae

But since the republic has been now deprived of those men whom I have named, many and illustrious as they were, let us come to the living, since two of the men of consular rank are still left to us: Lucius Cotta, a man of the greatest genius and the most consummate prudence, proposed a supplication in my honour for those very actions with which you find fault, in the most complimentary language, and those very men of consular rank whom I have named, and the whole senate, adopted his proposal; an honour which has never been paid to any one else in the garb of peace from the foundation of the city to my time. With what eloquence, with what firm wisdom, with what a weight of authority did Lucius Caesar your uncle, pronounce his opinion against the husband of his own sister, your stepfather. But you, when you ought to have taken him as your adviser and tutor in all your designs, and in the whole conduct of your life, preferred being like your stepfather to resembling your uncle. I, Who had no connection with him, acted by his counsels while I was consul. Did you, who were his sister's son, ever once consult him on the affairs of the republic?

But who are they whom Antonius does consult? O ye immortal gods, they are men whose birthdays we have still to learn. Today Antonius is not coming down. Why? He is celebrating the birthday feast at his villa. In whose honor? I will name no one. Suppose it is in honor of some Phormio, or Gnatho, or even Ballio. [*](These were the names of slaves.) Oh the abominable profligacy of the man! oh how intolerable is his impudence, his debauchery, and his lust! Can you, when you have one of the chiefs of the senate, a citizen of singular virtue, so nearly related to you, abstain from ever consulting him on the affairs of the republic, and consult men who have no property whatever of their own, and are draining yours?

Yes, your consulship, forsooth, is a salutary one for the state, mine a mischievous one. Have you so entirely lost all shame as well as all chastity, that you could venture to say this in that temple in which I was consulting that senate which formerly in the full enjoyment of its honors presided over the world? And did you place around it abandoned men armed with swords? But you have dared besides (what is there which you would not dare?) to say that the Capito line Hill, when I was consul was full of aimed slaves. I was offering violence to the senate, I suppose, in order to compel the adoption of those infamous decrees of the senate. O wretched man, whether those things are not known to you (for you know nothing that is good), or whether they are, when you dare to speak so shamelessly before such men! For what Roman knight was there, what youth of noble birth except you, what man of any rank or class who recollected that he was a citizen, who was not on the Capitoline Hill while the senate was assembled in this temple? who was there, who did not give in his name? Although there could not be provided checks enough, nor were the books able to contain their names.

In truth, when wicked men, being compelled by the revelations of the accomplices, by their own handwriting, and by what I may almost call the voices of their letters, were confessing that they had planned the parricidal destruction of their country, and that they had agreed to burn the city, to massacre the citizens, to devastate Italy, to destroy the republic; who could have existed without being roused to defend the common safety? especially when the senate and people of Rome had a leader then, and if they had one now like he was then, the same fate would befall you which did overtake them.

He asserts that the body of his stepfather was not allowed burial by me. But this is an assertion that was never made by Publius Clodius, a man whom, as I was deservedly an enemy of his, I grieve now to see surpassed by you in every sort of vice. But how could it occur to you to recall to our recollection that you had been educated in the house of Publius Lentulus? Were you afraid that we might think that you could have turned out as infamous as you are by the mere force of nature, your natural qualities had not been strengthened by education?