[30]
I say, then, that this man is adorned with
every high quality, both such as are eminent abroad and amiable at home. I admit that he was inferior to you in some points, such
as those of name and family; but in others I assert that he was superior to
every one within the recollection of the present generation, in the zeal of
his fellow-citizens, and neighbours, and of the companies of farmers in his
behalf; equal to any one in virtue, integrity, and modesty; and yet do you
wonder at his being elected aedile?
Do you try to defile the brilliancy of such a life as this with those
imputations? You impute adulteries to him which no one can recognise, not
only by having ever heard any one's name mentioned, but even by having heard
a suspicion breathed against him. You call him twice-married, in order to
invent new words, and not only new accusations. You say that some one was
taken by him into his province to gratify his lust; but that is not an
accusation, but a random lie, ventured on from the expectation of impunity.
You say that an actress was ravished by him. And this is said to have
happened at Atina, while he was
quite young, by a sort of established licence of proceeding towards
theatrical people, well known in all towns.
This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
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.
The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.