[32]
The senate then was in grief, the city wore an appearance of mourning, its
garments having been changed in accordance with the public resolution of the
senate. There was no municipal town in all Italy, no colony, no prefecture, no company of men
concerned in farming the public revenues, no guild or council,—no
public body, in short, of any kind whatever,—which had not passed
most honourable resolutions concerning my safety, when all on a sudden the
two consuls issue an edict that the senators are to return to their former
dress. What consul ever prohibited the senate from obeying its own decrees?
What tyrant ever forbade men who were miserable to mourn? Is it a small
thing, O Piso,—for I will say nothing about Gabinius, that you
have deceived men to such a degree as to disregard the authority of the
senate? to despise the advice of every virtuous man? to betray
the republic? to crush a citizen of consular rank? that you must dare also
to issue an edict that men are not to mourn for a disaster affecting me, and
themselves, and the republic, and are not to show their grief by changing
their garments? Whether that change of garment was assumed as a token of
grief, or as a form of solicitation, who ever was so cruel before as to
forbid any one mourning for himself, or entreating for others?
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. George Bell & Sons, York Street, Covent Garden. 1891.
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