[45a]
Africa itself is the parent of Sardinia, which has waged many most bitter wars against our
ancestors, and not only in its kingdoms which were loyal to their native monarchs, but even in
our very province, it kept itself from all alliance with us at the time of the Punic wars as
the case of Utica proves. The further Spain ennobled by the de[ath of the Scipios, and by the
funeral pile of the Saguntine loyalty, has the city of Gades joined to us by reciprocal good
offices, by common dangers, and by treaty. I ask now whether any city of Sardinia can be
mentioned which is joined to us by treaty? Not one. With what face, then, can a Sardinian
witness dare to come before the Roman people]
*** powerless in resources, treacherous by descent?
**** [Have you, too, come hither to repulse Marcus Scaurus from the consulship, and are you attempting to deprive him of the kindness of the Roman people? By what authority are you acting in this manner?] [The prosecutor has said that you are afraid lest Scaurus might purchase the consulship with that money which he has taken from the allies; and, as his father did before him, enter on his province before any decision could be come to respecting him, and again plunder other provinces before he gave any account of his former administration; and Triarius alleged this as the very reason why he had undertaken the conduct of this prosecution in so hasty and so disorderly a manner. What extraordinary thing is this? What prodigy is this?]
**** Did the sheepskins of the Sardinians move that man whom the royal purple could not influence
**** [For there is no one so completely a stranger in this city, no one whose ears are so much on their travels, and so wholly ignorant of the ordinary conversation in the republic, as not to know that Marcus Scaurus, when his step-father Sulla was victorious, and liberal enough to his comrades in victory, was so moderate that he would not allow any presents to be made to him, nor did he purchase anything at any auction. This seems a strange thing to others; but it was impossible for him to act otherwise. For he recollected that he was the son of that man, who, by the resolution of the senate, of which he was the chief; and almost by his own nod, had governed, I may almost say, the entire world. Wherefore, O you venal Sardinians, I command you
***]
**** when you hear this name, which is well known among all the nations upon earth, to entertain also, with respect to that noble family, the same sentiments which all the rest of the earth entertains. [At present, Marcus Scaurus, in mourning attire, worn out with tears and misery, is your suppliant, O judges, implores the aid of your good faith, entreats your pity and clemency, and fixes his eyes and hopes on your power and your protection. Do not, I entreat you, by the immortal gods, O judges, permit your fellow-citizen and suppliant to be deprived by unknown witnesses and barbarians, not only of the consulship by which he trusted to receive an accession of honour, but also of the other distinctions which he had acquired before, and of all his dignity and fortune. Scaurus, O judges, also begs and entreats you to save him from this, if he has never injured any one unjustly, nor offended any one's ears or inclination, if (to use the mildest expression) he has never given any one any reason to hate him. Once only has his filial affection imposed on him the duty of so doing]
****
****for as, out of many men who had done so, Dolabella was the only one of his father's enemies who remained, who had joined Quintus Caepio, his relation, in signing articles of accusation against Scaurus his father; he thought it behoved him for the sake of [his filial affection to continue that enmity which he had not originated himself; but had bequeathed to him as an inheritance; emulating Marcus and Lucius Lucullus, who being men of like industry and like piety with himself; when very young men, had adopted and followed out the quarrels of their fathers to their own great glory.] [But how great has been the injustice of Triarius accusing Scaurus of having so magnificent a house! Oh for that ancient and severe censor; according to whom even a man who had attained the highest honours of the state, and who was one of the chief men in it, was not allowed to have a convenient or splendid house]
**** especially when its nearness to the street, and the populous character of its situation, must remove from him all suspicion of laziness or ambition.
****** [But in what an arrogant way, O Triarius, did your oration go on, when you said that such enormous masses of Lucullus's marbles and pillars, which we now see placed in Scaurus's hall, were carried through the city, past the plaster ornaments on the tops of the temples of the gods, to a private house,—that the contractor for keeping the drains in repair had a claim for the damage done by dragging them up the Palatine Hill in wagons. I suppose those pillars which are thus held up to odium were carried there solely for the purpose of gratifying the pride of individuals, which the Roman people detests, and not for the sake of being a public ornament to the city, which it approves of. Are you the only man in Rome ignorant that Scaurus used those pillars when he was aedile for the ornamenting of the theatre, in order that, by the magnificence of his exhibition, and by his great liberality devoted in that manner to the honour of the immortal gods, he might increase the religious reverence with which the games were observed by the splendour of his preparation?]
***
***Moreover, I, who have pillars of Alban marble, brought them up in panniers!
*** [What? what vast and what prodigal expense did you yourself, O Triarius, incur in procuring pillars!]
***For this I do marvel at and of this I do complain,—that any man should be so anxious to do injury to another by his words, as to bore holes in the ship in which he himself is sailing.
***
***Were you in want of a house? You had one. Had you too much money? You were in want of money. But you went mad after pillars. You were frantic to get hold of what belonged to other people. You valued a pulled down, windowless, destroyed house, at a greater price than yourself and all your fortunes.
*** [What then? Suppose Scaurus had appealed to you as an arbitrator, to decide “whether you had not gone to much greater expense, whether you had not committed much greater extravagance in proportion to your income, for pillars than he had,” would it have been necessary to go through the formalities of a trial to decide whether he had been guilty of prodigality, who, being possessed of a most ample estate, and of great family wealth and reputation, had set off his dignity with a fine house, or he who, when he was over head and ears in debt before, had sought to obtain dignity by building a house?]
*** As it would not be possible for you to escape this argument, will you still argue and demand that Marcus Aemilius, with all his own dignity,—with the splendid memory of his father,—with the renown of his grandfather, be sacrificed to a most sordid, fickle and insignificant nation, and to a lot of (I had almost said) barbarian witnesses?
***
***Wherever I turn, not only my thoughts, but even my eyes, every place supplies me with arguments to advance in favour of Marcus Scaurus. That senate-house bears witness to you of the fearless and dignified way in which his father held the post of the chief man of the city. Lucius Metellus himself, his grandfather, appears, O judges, to have placed those most holy gods in that temple in your sight, that they might gain from you the safety of his grandson by their entreaties, as they have, before now, often aided by their divine assistance many other men in distress who implored their help. That Capitol, adorned with three temples,—the approaches to the temples of the all-good and all-powerful Jupiter, and of Juno the queen, and of Minerva, adorned by most magnificent presents of this man's father and of himself; defend Marcus Scaurus [before you now by the recollection of this munificence and liberality to the public, from every suspicion of avarice or covetousness. That temple of Vesta, which is close at hand, warns you to keep it in your minds.] That great Lucius Metellus, the Pontifex Maximus, who, when that temple was on fire threw himself into the middle of the flames, and saved from the fire that image of Minerva, which, as if it were a pledge of our safety and of the empire, is guarded by the protection of Vesta;—would that that great man could be among us, though but for a short time; he, forsooth, would save from the flames this man, his descendant, as he before saved from that other conflagration that heavenly pledge of our safety. I am moved by the thought that the gods should be so little propitious to a priest, that even though they were saved by him, they do not preserve his race which was recommended by him to their protection. But as for you, O Marcus Scaurus, I see you, I do not merely think of you; nor, indeed, is it without great distress and grief of mind that I do call you to mind when I behold the mournful appearance of your son. And I wish that, as during the whole of this cause you have been constantly present before my eyes, you would, in like manner, now present yourself to the minds of these our judges, and plant yourself deeply in all their thoughts. If your appearance, I call [the gods to witness, could come to life again, (for we have never seen any one equal to you in wisdom, and dignity, and firmness, and all other virtues,) it would have such weight with every one, that whoever beheld it] even if by chance he did not recognise it would still pronounce it to be one of the chief men in the state. How, then, can I now address you? As a man? But you are no longer among us. As a deceased person? But you live and flourish; but you are present to the minds of all this court,—you are visible to their eyes; your godlike soul had nothing mortal about it, nor was anything belonging to you which could die, except your body. Whatever way, therefore, [it is proper for you to be addressed, be present to us, I entreat you, and terrify, by your mere countenance,—by the bare sight of yourself; the emptiness and impudence of those most worthless and mendacious witnesses. Be present to us, and bring to your fellow-citizens the light of your counsel, to the authority of which they never repented deferring, and so prevent them from dishonouring your race with ignominy and disaster, and from crushing by their sentence your own son, who is no degenerate heir of his father's name.]
*** powerless in resources, treacherous by descent?
**** [Have you, too, come hither to repulse Marcus Scaurus from the consulship, and are you attempting to deprive him of the kindness of the Roman people? By what authority are you acting in this manner?] [The prosecutor has said that you are afraid lest Scaurus might purchase the consulship with that money which he has taken from the allies; and, as his father did before him, enter on his province before any decision could be come to respecting him, and again plunder other provinces before he gave any account of his former administration; and Triarius alleged this as the very reason why he had undertaken the conduct of this prosecution in so hasty and so disorderly a manner. What extraordinary thing is this? What prodigy is this?]
**** Did the sheepskins of the Sardinians move that man whom the royal purple could not influence
**** [For there is no one so completely a stranger in this city, no one whose ears are so much on their travels, and so wholly ignorant of the ordinary conversation in the republic, as not to know that Marcus Scaurus, when his step-father Sulla was victorious, and liberal enough to his comrades in victory, was so moderate that he would not allow any presents to be made to him, nor did he purchase anything at any auction. This seems a strange thing to others; but it was impossible for him to act otherwise. For he recollected that he was the son of that man, who, by the resolution of the senate, of which he was the chief; and almost by his own nod, had governed, I may almost say, the entire world. Wherefore, O you venal Sardinians, I command you
***]
**** when you hear this name, which is well known among all the nations upon earth, to entertain also, with respect to that noble family, the same sentiments which all the rest of the earth entertains. [At present, Marcus Scaurus, in mourning attire, worn out with tears and misery, is your suppliant, O judges, implores the aid of your good faith, entreats your pity and clemency, and fixes his eyes and hopes on your power and your protection. Do not, I entreat you, by the immortal gods, O judges, permit your fellow-citizen and suppliant to be deprived by unknown witnesses and barbarians, not only of the consulship by which he trusted to receive an accession of honour, but also of the other distinctions which he had acquired before, and of all his dignity and fortune. Scaurus, O judges, also begs and entreats you to save him from this, if he has never injured any one unjustly, nor offended any one's ears or inclination, if (to use the mildest expression) he has never given any one any reason to hate him. Once only has his filial affection imposed on him the duty of so doing]
****
****for as, out of many men who had done so, Dolabella was the only one of his father's enemies who remained, who had joined Quintus Caepio, his relation, in signing articles of accusation against Scaurus his father; he thought it behoved him for the sake of [his filial affection to continue that enmity which he had not originated himself; but had bequeathed to him as an inheritance; emulating Marcus and Lucius Lucullus, who being men of like industry and like piety with himself; when very young men, had adopted and followed out the quarrels of their fathers to their own great glory.] [But how great has been the injustice of Triarius accusing Scaurus of having so magnificent a house! Oh for that ancient and severe censor; according to whom even a man who had attained the highest honours of the state, and who was one of the chief men in it, was not allowed to have a convenient or splendid house]
**** especially when its nearness to the street, and the populous character of its situation, must remove from him all suspicion of laziness or ambition.
****** [But in what an arrogant way, O Triarius, did your oration go on, when you said that such enormous masses of Lucullus's marbles and pillars, which we now see placed in Scaurus's hall, were carried through the city, past the plaster ornaments on the tops of the temples of the gods, to a private house,—that the contractor for keeping the drains in repair had a claim for the damage done by dragging them up the Palatine Hill in wagons. I suppose those pillars which are thus held up to odium were carried there solely for the purpose of gratifying the pride of individuals, which the Roman people detests, and not for the sake of being a public ornament to the city, which it approves of. Are you the only man in Rome ignorant that Scaurus used those pillars when he was aedile for the ornamenting of the theatre, in order that, by the magnificence of his exhibition, and by his great liberality devoted in that manner to the honour of the immortal gods, he might increase the religious reverence with which the games were observed by the splendour of his preparation?]
***
***Moreover, I, who have pillars of Alban marble, brought them up in panniers!
*** [What? what vast and what prodigal expense did you yourself, O Triarius, incur in procuring pillars!]
***For this I do marvel at and of this I do complain,—that any man should be so anxious to do injury to another by his words, as to bore holes in the ship in which he himself is sailing.
***
***Were you in want of a house? You had one. Had you too much money? You were in want of money. But you went mad after pillars. You were frantic to get hold of what belonged to other people. You valued a pulled down, windowless, destroyed house, at a greater price than yourself and all your fortunes.
*** [What then? Suppose Scaurus had appealed to you as an arbitrator, to decide “whether you had not gone to much greater expense, whether you had not committed much greater extravagance in proportion to your income, for pillars than he had,” would it have been necessary to go through the formalities of a trial to decide whether he had been guilty of prodigality, who, being possessed of a most ample estate, and of great family wealth and reputation, had set off his dignity with a fine house, or he who, when he was over head and ears in debt before, had sought to obtain dignity by building a house?]
*** As it would not be possible for you to escape this argument, will you still argue and demand that Marcus Aemilius, with all his own dignity,—with the splendid memory of his father,—with the renown of his grandfather, be sacrificed to a most sordid, fickle and insignificant nation, and to a lot of (I had almost said) barbarian witnesses?
***
***Wherever I turn, not only my thoughts, but even my eyes, every place supplies me with arguments to advance in favour of Marcus Scaurus. That senate-house bears witness to you of the fearless and dignified way in which his father held the post of the chief man of the city. Lucius Metellus himself, his grandfather, appears, O judges, to have placed those most holy gods in that temple in your sight, that they might gain from you the safety of his grandson by their entreaties, as they have, before now, often aided by their divine assistance many other men in distress who implored their help. That Capitol, adorned with three temples,—the approaches to the temples of the all-good and all-powerful Jupiter, and of Juno the queen, and of Minerva, adorned by most magnificent presents of this man's father and of himself; defend Marcus Scaurus [before you now by the recollection of this munificence and liberality to the public, from every suspicion of avarice or covetousness. That temple of Vesta, which is close at hand, warns you to keep it in your minds.] That great Lucius Metellus, the Pontifex Maximus, who, when that temple was on fire threw himself into the middle of the flames, and saved from the fire that image of Minerva, which, as if it were a pledge of our safety and of the empire, is guarded by the protection of Vesta;—would that that great man could be among us, though but for a short time; he, forsooth, would save from the flames this man, his descendant, as he before saved from that other conflagration that heavenly pledge of our safety. I am moved by the thought that the gods should be so little propitious to a priest, that even though they were saved by him, they do not preserve his race which was recommended by him to their protection. But as for you, O Marcus Scaurus, I see you, I do not merely think of you; nor, indeed, is it without great distress and grief of mind that I do call you to mind when I behold the mournful appearance of your son. And I wish that, as during the whole of this cause you have been constantly present before my eyes, you would, in like manner, now present yourself to the minds of these our judges, and plant yourself deeply in all their thoughts. If your appearance, I call [the gods to witness, could come to life again, (for we have never seen any one equal to you in wisdom, and dignity, and firmness, and all other virtues,) it would have such weight with every one, that whoever beheld it] even if by chance he did not recognise it would still pronounce it to be one of the chief men in the state. How, then, can I now address you? As a man? But you are no longer among us. As a deceased person? But you live and flourish; but you are present to the minds of all this court,—you are visible to their eyes; your godlike soul had nothing mortal about it, nor was anything belonging to you which could die, except your body. Whatever way, therefore, [it is proper for you to be addressed, be present to us, I entreat you, and terrify, by your mere countenance,—by the bare sight of yourself; the emptiness and impudence of those most worthless and mendacious witnesses. Be present to us, and bring to your fellow-citizens the light of your counsel, to the authority of which they never repented deferring, and so prevent them from dishonouring your race with ignominy and disaster, and from crushing by their sentence your own son, who is no degenerate heir of his father's name.]
