[17]
For, as respects the charges that have been brought against him of being in
debt, as regards the reproaches which have been levelled at him on the score
of prodigality, and of the demands that have been made to see his accounts,
just see how briefly I will reply to them. In the first place, he, who is
still under the power of his father, keeps no accounts. He has never any
transactions connected with borrowing or lending. As to his extravagance,
there is one particular item of expense objected to him, that for his house.
You say that he dwells in a house which he rents for thirty thousand
sesterces.1 Now, I see by this, that Publius Clodius wants to sell
his house; for it is his house that Caelius lives in, at a rent, I suppose,
of ten thousand sesterces. And you, O prosecutors, out of your anxiety to
please him, have permitted yourselves this enormous lie to suit his
purposes.
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1 About two hundred and forty pounds.
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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