M. Tullius Cicero, On his House
C. D. Yonge, Ed.

I say nothing about Gabinius. Why? Did not Lucius Munius,¹ the most fearless and most excellent of all men, consecrate your property by your own precedent? And if, because you yourself are concerned, you say that that action ought not to be ratified, did you in that splendid tribuneship of yours establish laws which, the moment that they were turned against yourself, you repudiated, though you made use of them to ruin other people? If that consecration be legal, then what is there in your property which can be applied to other than holy uses? Or has a consecration no power, while a dedication draws with it the sanctions of religion? What then was the meaning of your summoning that flute-player to be a witness? What was the object of your brazier? What became of your prayers? What was the meaning of all your old-fashioned expressions? Did you wish to lie, to deceive, to abuse the divine reverence due to the immortal gods, in order to strike terror into men? For if that act is once ratified—I say nothing about Gabinius,—most certainly your house and whatever else you have is consecrated to Ceres. But if that was a joke of yours, what can be more impure than you who have polluted every sort of religion by lies and adulteries?