Then in this same tribuneship, when Caesar while on his way into Spain had given him Italy to trample on, what journeys did he make in every direction! how did he visit the municipal towns!  I know that I am only speaking of matters which have been discussed in every one’s conversation, and that the things which I am saying and am going to say are better known to every one who was in Italy at that time, than to me, who was not.  Still I mention the particulars of his conduct, although my speech cannot possibly come up to your own personal knowledge.  When was such wickedness ever heard of as existing upon earth? or such shamelessness? or such open infamy?

XXIV.  The tribune of the people was borne along in a chariot, lictors crowned with laurel preceded him; among whom, on an open litter, was carried an actress; whom honourable men, citizens of the different municipalities, coming out from their towns under compulsion to meet him, saluted not by the name by which she was well known on the stage, but by that of Volumnia.[16] A car followed full of pimps; then a lot of debauched companions; and then his mother, utterly neglected, followed the mistress of her profligate son, as if she had been her daughter-in-law.  O the disastrous fecundity of that miserable woman!  With the marks of such wickedness as this did that fellow stamp every municipality, and prefecture, and colony, and, in short, the whole of Italy.

To find fault with the rest of his actions, O conscript fathers, is difficult, and somewhat unsafe.  He was occupied in war; he glutted himself with the slaughter of citizens who bore no resemblance to himself.  He was fortunate—­if at least there can be any good fortune in wickedness.  But since we wish to show a regard for the veterans, although the cause of the soldiers is very different from yours; they followed their chief; you went to seek for a leader; still, (that I may not give you any pretence for stirring up odium against me among them,) I will say nothing of the nature of the war.

When victorious, you returned with the legions from Thessaly to Brundusium.  There you did not put me to death.  It was a great kindness!  For I confess that you could have done it.  Although there was no one of those men who were with you at that time, who did not think that I ought to be spared.  For so great is men’s affection for their country, that I was sacred even in the eyes of your legions, because they recollected that the country had been saved by me.  However, grant that you did give me what you did not take away from me; and that I have my life as a present from you, since it was not taken from me by you; was it possible for me, after all your insults, to regard that kindness of yours as I regarded it at first, especially after you saw that you must hear this reply from me?