The Orations, Volume 3. Cicero

ranks of men, to whom all Italy, to whom every nation upon earth, bore testimony that he had saved this city and empire? What would you say, O you most wicked and mischievous disgrace to the city? “Come forward, come forward, Lucullus, Servilius, while I dedicate the house of Cicero. Come, stand before me, and take hold of the door-post.” You are, in truth, a man of extraordinary audacity and impudence, but still your eyes, and countenance, and voice would have failed you while those men who, by their dignity, upheld the character of the Roman people and the authority of the empire, were striking terror into you by their dignified language, and saying that it would be impious for them to be present at your frantic deeds, and at such wicked and parricidal attacks on the country. And when you saw this, then you betook yourself to your kinsman,—not that he was selected by you, but that he was left you by the rest. And yet I believe that he,—if he is really descended from those men who, it is traditionally reported, learnt their sacred ceremonies from Hercules himself, after he had completed his labours,—would not have been so cruel with respect to the distress of a brave man, as with his own hands to place a tomb on the head of a man still living and breathing; as he either actually said and did nothing at all, and bore this as a punishment for the rashness of his mother, that he lent his presence though mute, and his name to this sin; or, if he did say anything in a few faltering words, and if he did touch the door-post with trembling hand, at all events he did nothing regularly or solemnly, nothing according to proper usages or established forms. He had seen Murena, his stepfather, the consul elect, in company with the Allobroges, bring to me when I was consul the proofs of the conspiracy for the general destruction. He had heard from him that he had twice received safety from me, once as an individual, and a second time in common with the whole body of citizens. Who is there, then, who can think that this new priest, performing this his first religious ceremony, and uttering these his first official words since his admission to the priesthood, would not have felt his tongue grow mute, and his hand grow torpid, and his mind become weakened and fail through fear; especially when out of all that numerous college he saw neither king, nor flamen, nor priest, and was compelled against his will to become a partner in another’s wickedness, and was enduring the most terrible punishment of his most disgraceful relationship?

      LIII. But to return to the question of the vindication of the public rights, which the priests themselves have always adapted not only to their own ceremonies, but also to the commands of the people. You have a statement in your records, that Caius Cassius the censor consulted the pontifical college about dedicating the statue of Concord, and that Marcus Æmilius, the Pontifex Maximus, answered him on behalf of the college, that, unless the Roman people had appointed him by name to superintend that business, it did not appear to them that the statue could properly be consecrated. What more? When Licinia,—a vestal virgin, a woman of the highest rank, and invested with the most holy of all priesthoods,—in the consulship of Titus Flamininus and Quintus Metellus, had dedicated an altar, and a little chapel, and a cushion at the foot of the sacred rock; did not Sextus Julius the prætor refer that matter to this college, in obedience to the authority of the senate? when Publius Scævola, the Pontifex Maximus, answered on behalf of the college, “that what Licinia, the daughter of Caius, had dedicated in a public place without the authority of the people, did not appear to be holy.” And with what impartiality and with what diligence the senate annulled that act, you will easily see from the words of the resolution of the senate. Read the resolution of the senate.

      [The resolution of the senate is read.]

      Do not you see that a commission is given to the prætor of the city, to take care that that which she had consecrated should not be accounted holy? and that, if any letters had been engraved or inscribed upon it, they should be removed? Shame on the times, and on their principles! Then the priests forbade the censor, a most holy man, to dedicate a statue to Concord in a temple which had not been duly consecrated. And after that the senate voted that that altar which had been consecrated on a most venerable spot, should be taken down in obedience to the authority of the priests, and did not permit any memorial of writing to exist as a relic of that dedication. You, O storm ravaging your country,—you whirlwind and tempest, dispelling peace and tranquillity,—did you hope that the republic would endure what you (in the shipwreck of the state, when darkness was spread over the republic, when the Roman people was overwhelmed, when the senate was overturned and expelled,) pulled down and built up? what you, after having violated every feeling of religion, still polluted under the name of religion? that it would endure the monument of the destruction of the republic which you erected in the house of this citizen who is now speaking, and in the city which he had preserved by his own exertions and dangers, to the disgrace of the knights and the grief of all virtuous men; that it would endure the inscription which you had placed there after having erased the name of Quintus Catulus, one moment longer than the time that it was absent from these walls, from which it had been driven at the same time that I myself was?

      But if, O priests, you decide that no man who had a right to do so by law performed this dedication, and that nothing was dedicated which lawfully might be; then why need I prove that third point which I originally proposed to establish; namely, that he did not dedicate it with those forms and words which such ceremonies require?

      LIV. I said at the beginning, that I was not going to say anything about your peculiar science; nor about the sacrifices, nor about the recondite laws of the priests. The arguments which I have hitherto advanced about the right of dedication, have not been drawn from any secret description of books, but are taken from common sources, from things openly done by the magistrates and referred to the sacred college, from resolutions of the senate, and from the law. Those inner mysteries, what ought to be said, or enjoined, or touched, or taken hold of, are still your own. But if it were proved that all these things had been done in a manner equal to the knowledge of Coruncanius, who is said to have been the most experienced of priests; or if that great man Marcus Horatius Pulvillus, who, when many men out of envy endeavoured to hinder his dedication by false pretences about religion, resisted them, and with the greatest firmness dedicated the Capitol, had himself presided at such a dedication as this, still I say that accuracy of religious observance would not hallow a wicked act; much less can that act have any validity which an unskilful young man, a new priest, influenced by the prayers of his sister and the threats of his mother, ignorant and unwilling, without colleagues, without books, without any adviser or assistant, ^{Ref. 019} is said to have performed by stealth, with trembling heart and faltering tongue; especially when that impure and impious enemy of all religion, who in defiance of all that is right or holy had often been as a woman among men, and a man among women, completed the business in so hurried and disorderly a manner, that neither his senses, nor his voice, nor his language, had any consistency in them.

      LV. It was then reported to you, O priests, and after that it became a common topic of conversation, how he, with preposterous language, with ill-omened auspices, at times interrupting himself, doubting, fearing, hesitating, pronounced and did everything in a manner wholly different from that which you have recorded as proper in your books. It is, indeed, not very strange that, in doing an act of such wickedness and such insanity, even his audacity could not wholly repress his fear. In truth, if no robber was ever so savage and inhuman, as, when he had plundered temples, and then, having been excited by dreams or some superstitious feelings, consecrated some altar on a desert shore, not to shudder in his mind when compelled to propitiate with his prayers the deity whom he has insulted by his wickedness; what do you suppose must have been the agitation of mind of that plunderer of every temple, and of every house, and of the whole city, when he was consecrating one single altar to avert the vengeance due to his numberless acts of wickedness? He could not possibly (although the insolence of power had elated his mind, and although he was armed by nature with incredible audacity) fail to blunder in his proceedings, or to keep constantly making mistakes, especially when he had a priest and teacher who was compelled to teach before he had learnt himself. There is great power, not only in the divinity of the immortal gods, but also in the republic itself. When the immortal gods saw the guardian and protector of their temples driven away in a most wicked manner, they were unwilling to quit their temples and to remove into his house. Therefore they alarmed the mind of that most insensible man with fear and anxiety. But the republic, although that was banished at the same time with myself, was still constantly present to the eyes of its destroyer, and from his excited and kindled frenzy was constantly demanding my restoration and its own.