[-26-] “His private life and his private examples of licentiousness and avarice I shall willingly pass over, not because one would fail to discover that he had committed many abominable outrages in the course of them, but because, by Hercules, I am ashamed to describe minutely and separately—­especially to you who know it as well as I—­how he conducted his youth among you who were boys at the time, how he auctioned off the vigor of his prime, his secret lapses from chastity, his open fornications, what he let be done to him as long as it was possible, what he did as early as he could, his revels, his periods of drunkenness, and all the rest that follows in their train.  It is impossible for a person brought up in so great licentiousness and shamelessness to avoid defiling his entire life:  and so from his private concerns he brought his lewdness and greed to bear upon public matters.  On this I will refrain from dilating, and likewise by Jupiter on his visit to Gabinius in Egypt and his flight to Caesar in Gaul, that I may not be charged with going minutely into every detail; for I feel ashamed for you, that knowing him to be such a man you appointed him tribune and master of the horse and subsequently consul.  I will at present recite only his drunken insolence and abuses in these very positions.

[-27-] “Well, then, when he was tribune he first of all prevented you from settling suitably the work you then had in hand by shouting and bawling and alone of all the people opposing the public peace of the State, until you became vexed and because of his conduct passed the vote that you did.  Then, though by law he was not permitted to be absent from town a single night, he escaped from the city, abandoning the duties of his office, and, having gone as a deserter to Caesar’s camp, guided the latter back as a foe to his country, drove you out of Rome and all the rest of Italy, and, in short, became the prime cause of all the civil disorders that have since taken place among you.  Had he not at that time acted contrary to your wishes, Caesar would never have found an excuse for the war and could not, in spite of all his shamelessness, have gathered a competent force in defiance of your resolutions; but he would have either voluntarily laid down his arms, or been brought to his senses unwillingly.  As it is, this fellow is the man who furnished him with the excuses, who destroyed the prestige of the senate, who increased the audacity of the soldiers.  He it is who planted the seeds of evils which sprang up afterward:  he it is who has proved the common bane not only of us, but also of practically the whole world, as, indeed, Heaven rather plainly indicated.  When, that is to say, he proposed those astonishing laws, the whole air was filled with thunder and lightning.  Yet this accursed wretch paid no attention to them, though he claims to be a soothsayer, but filled not only the city but the whole world with the evils and wars which I mentioned.