[47]
Must I not think you senseless
and frantic, and out of your mind,—must I not think you madder
than that Orestes in the tragedy, or than Athamas, when you dared first of
all to act so, (for this is the head and front of your offending,) and
again, a short time afterwards, when Torquatus, a most influential and
conscientious man, pressed you openly to confess that you left Macedonia, that province into which you
had carried so vast an army, without one single soldier? I say nothing of
your having lost the greater part of your army; that might be owing to your
ill fortune. But what reason can you allege for having disbanded any part of
your army? What power had you to do so? What law, what resolution of the
senate authorized such a step? Where was your right to do so? What precedent
was there for it? What is this but madness, but ignorance of men, ignorance
of the laws, and of the senate, and of the constitution?
To wound one's body is a trifle; to wound one's life, one's character, one's
safety, like this, is a more serious business.
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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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