M. Tullius Cicero, Against Piso
C. D. Yonge, Ed.

[97] To all these numerous and weighty opinions formed respecting you in this manner, there has been added the private sentence of condemnation which you have passed upon yourself. Your secret arrival, your stealthy journey through Italy, your entry into the city deserted by your friends;—the fact of your sending no letters to the senate, of your addressing no congratulation to them on successes achieved by you during the whole of three summer campaigns, of your making no mention of any triumph;—you do not only omit to say what you did, but you do not even dare to say where you were.

When you had brought back the dry withered leaves of your laurels from that fountain and seed-ground of triumphs, when you threw them down and left them at the gate, then you yourself gave your verdict against yourself, and pronounced yourself “guilty.” And if you had done nothing deserving of honour, what had become of your army? where was the need for all that expense? what did you want with a military command? why did you seek for that province so fruitful in supplications and triumphs? But if you had ventured to cherish hopes of anything,—if you had nourished the thoughts which the name of “Imperator,” the fasces bound with laurel, and those trophies so full of disgrace and ridicule to you, show that you had entertained,—who can be more miserable, who more thoroughly condemned than you, who neither when absent ventured to write to the senate that the affairs of the republic had been prosperously conducted by you, nor dare to say as much when you are present?