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.There was nothing in the wholeworld which anyone wanted to buy that this fellow was not ready to sell.13The Latin is, non solum de die, sed etiam in diem, vivere; which the commentators explain, De die is to feast everyday and all day.Banquets de die are those which beginbefore the regular hour. (Like Horace s Partem solidodemere de die. ) To live in diem is to live so as to have nothought for the future. - Graevius. Caesar, too, I suppose, made the law about the exiles which you have postedup.I do not wish to press upon anyone in misfortune; I only complain, in the firstplace, that the return of those men has had discredit thrown upon it, whose causeCaesar judged to be different from that of the rest; and in the second place, I donot know why you do not mete out the same measure to all.For there cannot bemore than three or four left.Why do not they who are in similar misfortune enjoya similar degree of your mercy? Why do you treat them as you treated your un-cle? about whom you refused to pass a law when you were passing one about allthe rest; and whom at the same time you encouraged to stand for the censorship,and instigated him to a canvass, which excited the ridicule and the complaint ofeveryone.But why did you not hold that comitia? Was it because a tribune of the peopleannounced that there had been an ill-omened flash of lightning seen? When youhave any interest of your own to serve, then auspices are all nothing; but when itis only your friends who are concerned, then you become scrupulous.Whatmore? Did you not also desert him in the matter of the septemvirate? 14 Yes, for14The septemviri, at full length septemviri epulones orepulonum, were originally triumviri.They were first createdB.C.198, to attend to the epulum Jovis, and the banquetsgiven in honor of the other gods, which duty had originallybelonged to the pontifices.Julius Caesar added three more, he interfered with me. What were you afraid of? I suppose you were afraid thatyou would be able to refuse him nothing if he were restored to the full possessionof his rights.You loaded him with every species of insult, a man whom you oughtto have considered in the place of a father to you, if you had had any piety or natu-ral affection at all.You put away his daughter, your own cousin, having alreadylooked out and provided yourself beforehand with another.That was not enough.You accused a most chaste woman of misconduct.What can go beyond this? Yetyou were not content with this.In a very full Senate held on the first of January,while your uncle was present, you dared to say that this was your reason for ha-tred of Dolabella, that you had ascertained that he had committed adultery withyour cousin and your wife.Who can decide whether it was more shameless ofyou to make such profligate and such impious statements against that unhappywoman in the Senate, or more wicked to make them against Dolabella, or morescandalous to make them in the presence of her father, or more cruel to makethem at all?but that alteration did not last.They formed a collegium, andwere one of the four great religious corporations at Rome withthe pontifices, the augures, and the quindecemviri.Smith,Dictionary of Antiquities, v.Epulones. However, let us return to the subject of Caesar s written papers.How werethey verified by you? For the acts of Caesar were for peace s sake confirmed bythe Senate; that is to say, the acts which Caesar had really done, not those whichAntonius said that Caesar had done.Where do all these come from? By whom arethey produced and vouched for? If they are false, why are they ratified? If theyare true, why are they sold? But the vote which was come to enjoined you, afterthe first of June, to make an examination of Caesar s acts with the assistance of acouncil.What council did you consult? whom did you ever invite to help you?what was the first of June that you waited for? Was it that day on which you, hav-ing travelled all through the colonies where the veterans were settled, returned es-corted by a band of armed men?Oh, what a splendid progress of yours was that in the months of April andMay, when you attempted even to lead a colony to Capua! How you made yourescape from thence, or rather how you barely made your escape, we all know.And now you are still threatening that city.I wish you would try, and we shouldnot then be forced to say barely. However, what a splendid progress of yoursthat was! Why need I mention your preparations for banquets, why your frantichard drinking? Those things are only an injury to yourself; these are injuries to us.We thought that a great blow was inflicted on the republic when the Campaniandistrict was released from the payment of taxes, in order to be given to thesoldiery; but you have divided it among your partners in drunkenness and gam-bling.I tell you, O conscript fathers, that a lot of buffoons and actresses have been settled in the district of Campania.Why should I now complain of what hasbeen done in the district of Leontini? Although formerly these lands of Campaniaand Leontini were considered part of the patrimony of the Roman people, andwere productive of great revenue, and very fertile.You gave your physician threethousand acres; what would you have done if he had cured you? and two thou-sand to your master of oratory; what would you have done if he had been able tomake you eloquent? However, let us return to your progress, and to Italy.You led a colony to Casilinum, a place to which Caesar had previously ledone.You did indeed consult me by letter about the colony of Capua (but I shouldhave given you the same answer about Casilinum), whether you could legallylead a new colony to a place where there was a colony already.I said that a newcolony could not be legally conducted to an existing colony, which had been es-tablished with a due observance of the auspices, as long as it remained in a flour-ishing state; but I wrote you word that new colonists might be enrolled among theold ones.But you, elated and insolent, disregarding all the respect due to the aus-pices, led a colony to Casilinum, whither one had been previously led a few yearsbefore; in order to erect your standard there, and to mark out the line of the newcolony with a plough.And by that plough you almost grazed the gate of Capua,so as to diminish the territory of that flourishing colony.After this violation of allreligious observances, you hasten off to the estate of Marcus Varro, a most consci-entious and upright man, at Casinum.By what right? with what face do you dothis? By just the same, you will say, as that by which you entered on the estates of the heirs of Lucius Rubrius, or of the heirs of Lucius Turselius, or on other innu-merable possessions.If you got the right from any auction, let the auction have allthe force to which it is entitled; let writings be of force, provided they are the writ-ings of Caesar, and not your own; writings by which you are bound, not those bywhich you have released yourself from obligation
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