[15]
And also a supplication 1 was decreed in my name, (which is the
first time since the building of the city that such an honour has ever been paid to a man in
a civil capacity,) to the immortal gods, for their singular kindness. And it was decreed in
these words, “because I had delivered the city from conflagrations, the citizens
from massacre, and Italy from war.” And if this supplication be compared with
others, O citizens, there is this difference between them,—that all others have
been appointed because of the successes of the republic; this one alone for its preservation.
And that which was the first thing to be done, has been done and executed; for Publius
Lentulus, though, being convicted by proofs and, by his own confession, by the judgment of
the senate he had lost not only the rights of a praetor but also those of a citizen, still
resigned his office; so that though Caius Marcius, that most illustrious of men, had no
scruples about putting to death Caius Glaucius the praetor against whom nothing had been
decreed by name, still we are relieved from that scruple in the case of Publius Lentulus, who
is now a private individual.
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1 A supplication was a solemn thanksgiving to the gods, decreed by the senate, when all the temples were opened and the statues of the gods placed in public upon couches (pulvinaria), to which the people offered up their thanksgivings and prayers. It was usually decreed on the intelligence arriving of any great victory, and the number of days which it was to last was proportioned to the importance of the victory. It was generally regarded as a prelude to a triumph. Of course, from what has been said, it must have been usually confined to generals; who laid aside the toga on leaving the city to assume the command of the army, and assumed the paludamentum, or military robe.
M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1856.
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