20.
[42]
But as for this man, about whom I am now saying so much, O ye immortal gods!
what is he? what is his influence? what is there about him to give so great
a city, if it does fall, (may the gods avert the omen!) the comfort of at
least seeming to have been overthrown by a man? a fellow who, from the
moment of his father's death, made his tender age subservient to the lusts
of wealthy buffoons; when he had satiated their licentiousness, then he
turned to the domestic seduction of his own sister; then, when he had become
a man, he devoted himself to the concerns of a province, and to military
affairs, and suffered insults from the pirates; he satisfied the lusts even
of Cilicians and barbarians: afterwards, having in a most wicked manner
tampered with the army of Lucius Lucullus, he fled from thence, and at
Rome, the moment of his
arrival there, he began to compound with his own relations not to prosecute
them, and received money from Catiline to prevaricate in the most shameless
manner. From thence he went into Gaul with Murena; in which province he forged wills of dead
people, murdered wards, and made bargains and partnerships or wickedness
with many. When he returned from Gaul, he appropriated to himself all that most fruitful and
abundant source of gain which is derived from the Campus Martius, in such a manner that he
(a man wholly devoted to the people!) cheated the people in a most
scandalous manner, and also (merciful man that he is!) put the canvassers of
the different tribes to death at his own house in the most cruel manner.
Then came his quaestorship, so fatal to the republic, to our sacrifices, to
our religions observances, to your authority, and to the public courts of
justice; in which he insulted gods and men, virtue, modesty, the authority
of the senate, every right both human and divine, and the laws and the
tribunals of the country.
[43]
And this was
his first step; this (alas for the miserable times and for our senseless
discords!) was the first step of Publius Clodius towards the conduct of the
affairs of the republic; this was the path by which he first began to
approach and mount up to his present boast of being a friend of the people.
For the unpopularity arising from the treaty at Numantia, at the making of which he had
been present as quaestor to Caius Mancinus the consul, and the severity
displayed by the senate in repudiating that treaty, were a constant source
of grief and fear to Tiberius Gracchus; and that circumstance alienated him,
a brave and illustrious man, from the wisdom of the senators. And Caius
Gracchus was excited by the death of his brother, by affection for him, by
indignation, and by the greatness of his own mind, to seek to exact
vengeance for the slaughter of a member of his family. We know that
Saturninus was led to confess himself a friend of the people out of
indignation, because at a time of great dearness of provisions, the senate
removed him while he was quaestor from the superintendence of the corn
market which belonged to him by virtue of his office, and appointed Marcus
Scaurus to manage that business. And it was the breeze of popularity which
carried Sulpicius further than he intended, after he had set out in a good
cause, and had resisted Caius Julius when seeking to obtain the consulship
contrary to the laws.
This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
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.