[116]
I, then, ask you, above all men, O
Scaurus, you who have exhibited the most splendid and magnificent games of
all men,—whether any one of those popular characters was ever a
spectator of your games? whether any one of them ever trusted himself to the
theatre and to the Roman people? That very chief buffoon of all that man who
was not only spectator, but it the same time actor and
spouter,—that man who filled up all his sister's interludes who is
introduced into companies of women as a singing-girl,—neither
ventured to go to see your games in that furious tribuneship of his, nor any
other games either except those from which he had some difficulty in
escaping with his life. Once altogether, I say, did that popular man venture
to trust himself among the spectators of the games when in the temple of
Honour and Virtue honour was paid to virtue and when the monument of Caius
Marius, the preserver of this empire had afforded a place in which the
citizens could provide for the safety of a man who was a fellow citizen of
his own municipal town, and defender of the republic.
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