[135]
But he brings forward two arguments in
his defence. First of all, “I exhibit,” says he,
“men fighting with beasts, and the law only speaks of
gladiators.” A very clever idea! Listen now to a statement which
is still more ingenious. He says that he has not exhibited
gladiators, but one single gladiator; and that he has limited the whole of
his aedileship to this one exhibition. A true aedileship truly. One lion,
two hundred men who fight with beasts. However, let him urge this defence. I
wish him to feel confidence in his case; for he is in the habit of appealing
to the tribunes of the people, and to use violent means to upset those
tribunals in which be has not confidence. And I do not so much wonder that
he despises my law, as having been framed by a man whom he considers his
enemy, as at his having made up his mind to regard no law whatever which has
been passed by a consul. He despises the Caecilian Didian law and the
Licinian Junian law. Does he also deny that the law of Caius
Caesar—who he is in the habit of boasting has been adorned and
strengthened and armed by his law and by his kindness, respecting extortion
and corruption,—is a law? And do they complain that there are
other men, too, who wish to rescind the acts of Caesar, while this most
excellent law is neglected by his brother-in-law and by this slave?
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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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