XVI. But let us now examine the rest of the clauses of the answers of the soothsayers.—“That ambassadors have been slain contrary to all divine and human law.” What is this? I see here a mention of the deputies from Alexandria; and I cannot refute it. For my feelings are, that the privileges of ambassadors are not only fenced round by human protection, but are also guarded by divine laws. But I ask of that man, who, as tribune, filled the forum with judges whom he took out of the prisons,—by whose will every dagger is now guided and every cup of poison dispensed,—who has made a regular bargain with Hermarchus of Chios,—whether he is at all aware that one most active adversary of Hermarchus, of the name of Theodosius, having been sent as ambassador to the senate from a free city, was assassinated with a dagger? and I know to a certainty that that cannot have appeared less scandalous to the immortal gods than the case of the Alexandrians. Nor am I now attributing every action of this sort to you alone. There would be greater hope of safety if there were no other wicked man but you; but there are more, and on this account you feel more confidence, and we almost distrust the protection of the law. Who is there who is not aware that Plato, a man of high character and high rank in his own country, came from Orestis, which is a free part of Macedonia, to Thessalonica, as an ambassador to our general, as he called himself? and this great general of ours, being angry at not being able to extort money from him, threw him into prison, and sent his own physician to him, who in a most infamous and barbarous manner cut the veins of an ambassador, an ally, a friend, and a freeman. He did not wish his own forces to be made bloody by crime; but he polluted the name of the Roman people with such guilt that it cannot be expiated by any means but his own punishment. What sort of executioner must we think that this man has in his train, when he uses even his physicians not to procure health but to inflict death?
XVII. But let us read what follows. “That good faith and oaths have been disregarded.” What this means by itself, I cannot easily explain; but from that which follows I suspect that it refers to the manifest perjury of your judges, from whom, some time ago, the money which they had received would have been taken away, if they had not entreated the protection of the senate. And this is the reason why I imagine that they are the persons alluded to, because I lay it down as a fact, that that is the most remarkable and notorious perjury ever committed in this city, and yet that you yourself are not threatened with the punishment of perjury by those men with whom you conspired.
And I see that in the answers of the soothsayers this is added: “That the ancient and secret sacrifices have been performed with less than due diligence, and have been polluted.” Are they the soothsayers who say this, or the gods of our country and our household gods? I suppose there are many persons to whom a suspicion of this guilt attaches;—who but this one man? Is it mentioned obscurely what sacrifices have been polluted? What can be expressed in a plainer, more dignified, or more solemn manner? “Ancient and secret.” I say that Lentulus, a dignified and eloquent orator, did not, when he was accusing you, make use of any expressions more frequently than these, which now are extracted from the Etruscan books, and turned against and applied to you. In truth, what sacrifice is there so ancient as this, which we have received from the kings, and which is contemporary with the city itself? But what is so secret as that which excludes not only all curious eyes, but even all accidental ones? which not only no wickedness, but which even no unintentional chance can penetrate? That sacrifice no one, ever since the world began, has ever profaned, no one has ever approached, no one has ever disregarded, no man has ever thought of beholding without horror, before Publius Clodius. It is performed by the vestal virgins; it is performed on behalf of the Roman people; it is performed in the house of a supreme magistrate; it is performed with incredible solemnity; it is performed to that goddess whose very name it is not lawful for men to know, and whom that fellow calls Good, because she has pardoned him such enormous wickedness.
XVIII. She has not pardoned you, believe me. No; unless, perchance, you think yourself pardoned because the judges dismissed you, after they had squeezed and drained everything out of you, acquitted by their decision, condemned by all the rest of the citizens; or because you have not been deprived of your eyes, as is, according to the common belief, the consequence of such impiety. For what man ever intentionally beheld those sacred rites before you, so as to enable any one to know what punishment followed that guilt? Could the blindness of your eyes be a greater injury to you than that blindness of your lust? Do not even you feel that those winking eyes of your ancestor Ref. 024 were more desirable for you than these glowing eyes of your sister? But, if you observe carefully, you will see that though you have as yet escaped the punishment of men, you have not escaped that of the gods. Men have defended you in a most shameful affair; men have praised you though most infamous and most guilty; men, for a bribe, have acquitted you by their decision, though you all but confessed your guilt; men have felt no indignation at the injuries inflicted on themselves by your lust; men have supplied you with arms, some wishing them to be used against me, and others afterwards intending them to be employed against that invincible citizen. I will quite admit all the kindnesses which men have shown you, and that you need not wish for greater. But what greater punishment can be inflicted on man by the immortal gods than frenzy and madness? unless, perhaps, you think that those persons, whom in tragedies you see tortured and destroyed by wounds and agony of body, are enduring a more terrible form of the wrath of the immortal gods than those who are brought on the stage in a state of insanity. Those howlings and groans of Philoctetes are not so pitiable (sad though they be) as that exultation of Athamas, or that dream of those who have slain their mother. You, when you are uttering your frantic speeches to the assembly—when you are destroying the houses of the citizens—when you are driving virtuous men from the forum with stones—when you are hurling burning firebrands at your neighbours’ houses—when you are setting fire to holy temples—when you are stirring up the slaves—when you are throwing the sacred rites and games into confusion—when you see no difference between your wife and your sister—when you do not perceive whose bed it is that you enter—when you go ramping and raging about—you are then suffering that punishment which is the only one appointed by the immortal gods for the wickedness of men. For the infirmity of our bodies is of itself liable to many accidents; moreover, the body itself is often destroyed by some very trivial cause; and the darts of the gods are fixed in the minds of impious men. Wherefore you are more miserable while you are hurried into every sort of wickedness by your eyes, than you would be if you had no eyes at all.
XIX. But since enough has been said of all these offences which the soothsayers say have been committed, let us see now what these same soothsayers say that we are being warned of at this time by the immortal gods. They warn us “to take care that bloodshed and danger be not brought upon the senators and chief men of the state, through the discord and dissension of the nobles; and that our senators do not become disheartened from being deprived of support, by which the provinces may fall under the power of a single master, and our armies be defeated, and a great loss of power ensue.” All these are the words of the soothsayers; I am not adding anything of my own. Who, then, of the nobles is it who is causing this discord? The same man: and that not by any force of his own genius or wisdom, but by some blundering of ours; which he—for it was not very much concealed—easily perceived. For this consideration makes the present distress of the republic the more shameful, that even by him it is not afflicted in such a way that it may seem to fall like a brave man in battle, having received honourable wounds in front from a gallant foe.
Tiberius Gracchus overturned the constitution of the state; a man of such great force of character, and eloquence, and dignity, that he fell short in no respect of the surpassing and eminent virtue of his father, and of his grandfather, Africanus, except in the fact of his revolting from the senate. Caius Gracchus followed in his steps. How great was his genius! how great his energy! how impetuous his eloquence! so that all men grieved that all those good qualities and accomplishments were not joined to a better disposition and to better intentions. Lucius Saturninus himself was so furious and almost insane a man, that he was an admirable leader,—perfect in exciting and inflaming the minds of the ignorant. For why should I speak of Publius Sulpicius? whose dignity, and sweetness, and emphatic conciseness in speaking was so great that he was able by his oratory to lead even wise men into error, and virtuous men into pernicious sentiments. To be battling with these men, and to be daily struggling