The Orations, Volume 3. Cicero

the same time his headlong and unbridled covetousness. That fellow never thought of any monument, or any religion; he wished to dwell splendidly and magnificently, and to unite two large and noble houses. At the same moment that my departure deprived him of all pretence for bloodshed, he was begging Quintus Seius to sell him his house; and when he refused to do so, he threatened that he would block up all his lights. Postumus declared that as long as he was alive that house should never belong to Clodius. That acute young man took the hint from his own mouth, as to what was best for him to do; and in the most open manner he took the man off by poison. He bought the house, after wearying out all the other bidders, for almost half as much again as he thought it really worth. What is my object in making this statement. That house of mine is almost entirely empty; scarcely one-tenth part of my house has been added to Catulus’s portico. The pretence was a promenade, and a monument, and that Tanagræan lady Liberty, (all Roman liberty having been entirely put down). He had set his heart upon a portico with private chambers, paved to the distance of three hundred feet, with a fine court surrounded by a colonnade, on the Palatine Hill, commanding a superb view, and everything else in character, so as far to surpass all other houses in luxury and splendour. And that scrupulous man, while be was both buying and selling my house at the same moment, still, even in a time of such darkness as that, did not venture to give in his own name as the purchaser. He put up that fellow Scato, a man whose virtue it was, no doubt, that had made him poor; so poor that among the Marsi, where he was born, he had no house in which he could take refuge from the rain; and yet he said now that he had purchased the finest house on the Palatine Hill. The lower part of the house he assigned not to his own Fonteian family, but to the Clodian family which he had quitted; but of all the numerous family of Clodius, no one applied for any share in his liberality except those who were utterly destitute from indigence and wickedness.

      XLV. Will you, O priests, sanction this universal and unprecedented tyranny of every sort, this impudence and audacity and covetousness? “Oh,” says he, “a priest was present.” Are you not ashamed, when the matter is being discussed before the priests, to say that a priest was present, not the college of priests? especially when, as tribune of the people, you had power to summon them and even to compel their attendance. Be it so. You did not call in the whole college. Well. Which of the college was it who was present? For he had vested that authority in one individual which belongs to all of them; however, the age and rank of the man invest him with additional dignity. There was need also of knowledge; and although they were all of them learned men, still no doubt age gives them still more experience. Who then was it who was present? “The brother,” says he, “of my wife.” If we ask what was his authority, although he is of such an age that he cannot as yet have much, still even such authority as a young man can have is to be considered as diminished in his case, by reason of his near connexion with and relationship to you. But if we ask what knowledge he has, who could have less than he who had only come into the college a few days before? And he was the more bound to you by your recent kindness to him, inasmuch as he had seen himself, the brother of your wife, preferred by you to your own brother. Although in that matter you took care that your brother should not be able to accuse you.

      Do you then call that a dedication, to which you were not able to invite the college of pontiffs, or any single priest distinguished by honours conferred on him by the Roman people; nor even any other young man, though you had some most intimate friends in the college? He only was present, if indeed he was present, whom you yourself instigated, whom his sister entreated, and whom his mother compelled to be so.

      Take care now, O priests, what decision you give in this cause of mine, concerning the fortunes of all the citizens. Do you think that the house of every single citizen can be consecrated by the word of a priest, if he takes hold of a door-post and says something or other? But those dedications, and those religious ceremonies respecting temples and shrines, were instituted by our ancestors to do honour to the immortal gods, without inflicting any misfortune on their fellow-citizens. A tribune of the people has been found, who, assisted by the forces of the consuls, has rushed with all the violence of insanity on that citizen, whom, after he had been beaten down, the republic itself raised up again with its own hands.

      XLVI. What next? Suppose any one like that fellow,—for there will not be wanting men who will be willing to imitate him,—should by violence oppress some one who does not resemble me, to whom the republic does not owe as much as it does to me, and should dedicate his house by the agency of one priest; will you determine by your authority that a deed done in that manner ought to stand? Will you say, “What priest will such a man be able to find?” What? Cannot a tribune of the people be himself a priest also at the same time? Marcus Drusus, that most illustrious tribune of the people, was a priest also. Therefore, if he had taken hold of a door-post of the house of Quintus Cæpio his enemy, and had uttered a few words, would the house of Cæpio have been dedicated to the gods? I say nothing here about the privileges of the priesthood, nor about the language of the dedication itself; I say nothing about religion, or religious ceremonies; I do not deny that I am ignorant of those matters, of which I should conceal my knowledge, even if I were acquainted with them, that I might not appear troublesome to others, and over curious to you; although many particulars of your usages do escape, and often reach the ears of the laity. I think, for instance, that I have heard that at the dedication of a temple, a door-post must be taken hold of. For the door-post is there where the entrance to the temple and its folding-doors are. But no one ever took hold of the posts of a promenade in dedicating that; but if you have dedicated a statue or an altar, that cannot be moved from its place afterwards without impiety. But you will not be able now to allege this, since you have said that the priest did lay hands on the post.

      Although, why do I say anything about the dedication? or why do I discuss your right and the religious features of the case, contrary to my original intention?

      XLVII. But, even if I were to allow that everything had been done with the regular forms of expression, according to ancient and established usages, I should still defend myself by the common law of the republic. When, after the departure of that citizen, to whose single exertions the senate and all good men had so often decided that the safety of the state was owing, you, with the aid of two most wicked consuls, were keeping down the republic which was groaning under the oppression of your most shameful robberies; when you had dedicated, with the countenance of some obscure priest, the house of that man who was unwilling that the country which had been preserved by him should perish on any pretence connected with him; could the republic when it had recovered itself endure that? Once, O priests, gave an opening for such religious acts as this, and you will very soon find no escape at all for any one’s property. If a priest has laid his hand on a door-post, and has transferred expressions intended for the honour of the immortal gods to the injury of the citizens, will the holy name of religion avail to procure the ratification of such an injury, and yet will it not avail if a tribune of the people consecrates the goods of any citizen with a form of words no less ancient and almost equally solemn? But Caius Atinius, within the recollection of our fathers, consecrated the property of Quintus Metellus, who, as censor, had expelled him from the senate; (your grandfather, O Quintus Metellus, and yours, O Publius Servilius, and your great-grandfather, O Publius Scipio;) placing a little brazier on the rostra and summoning a flute-player to assist him. What then? Did that frenzy of a tribune of the people, derived from some precedents of extreme antiquity, do any injury to Quintus Metellus, that great and most illustrious man? Certainly not. We have seen a tribune of the people do the same thing to Cnæus Lentulus the censor. Did he then at all bind the property of Lentulus to any peculiar sanctity?

      But why should I speak of other men? You yourself, I say, with your head veiled, having summoned an assembly, having placed a brazier on the spot, consecrated the property of your dear friend Gabinius, to whom you had given all the kingdoms of the Syrians, and Arabians, and Persians. But if nothing was really effected at that time, why should my property be affected by the same measures? If, on the other hand, that consecration was valid, why did that abyss of a man, who had swallowed up with you all the blood of the republic, raise a villa as high as the heavens on my Tusculan estate, out of the funds of the public treasury? And why have I not been allowed to look upon the ruins of my property,—I, who am the only person who prevented the whole city from being in a similar condition?

      XLVIII. I say nothing about Gabinius. Why? Did not Lucius Munius,