Sca Urus

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[45a]

Africa itself is the parent of Sardinia, which has waged many most bitter wars against our ancestors, and not only in its kingdoms which were loyal to their native monarchs, but even in our very province, itkept itself from all alliance with us at the time of the Punic wars as thecase of Utica proves. The further Spain ennobled by the de[ath of theScipios, and by the funeral pile of the Saguntine loyalty, has the city ofGades joined to us by reciprocal good offices, by common dangers, and

by treaty. I ask now whether any city of Sardinia can be mentioned which is joined to us by treaty? Not one. With what face, then, can aSardinian witness dare to come before the Roman people]*** powerless in resources, treacherous by descent?**** [Have you, too, come hither to repulse Marcus Scaurus from the

consulship, and are you attempting to deprive him of the kindness ofthe Roman people? By what authority are you acting in this manner?]

[The prosecutor has said that you are afraid lest Scaurus mightpurchase the consulship with that money which he has taken from theallies; and, as his father did before him, enter on his province beforeany decision could be come to respecting him, and again plunder otherprovinces before he gave any account of his former administration; andTriarius alleged this as the very reason why he had undertaken theconduct of this prosecution in so hasty and so disorderly a manner.

What extraordinary thing is this? What prodigy is this?]**** Did the sheepskins of the Sardinians move that man whom theroyal purple could not influence****

[For there is no one so completely a stranger in this city, no one whoseears are so much on their travels, and so wholly ignorant of theordinary conversation in the republic, as not to know that MarcusScaurus, when his step-father Sulla was victorious, and liberal enoughto his comrades in victory, was so moderate that he would not allow

any presents to be made to him, nor did he purchase anything at anyauction. This seems a strange thing to others; but it was impossible forhim to act otherwise. For he recollected that he was the son of that man,

who, by the resolution of the senate, of which he was the chief; andalmost by his own nod, had governed, I may almost say, the entire

world. Wherefore, O you venal Sardinians, I command you***]**** when you hear this name, which is well known among all thenations upon earth, to entertain also, with respect to that noble family,the same sentiments which all the rest of the earth entertains.

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[At present, Marcus Scaurus, in mourning attire, worn out with tearsand misery, is your suppliant, O judges, implores the aid of your goodfaith, entreats your pity and clemency, and fixes his eyes and hopes on

your power and your protection. Do not, I entreat you, by the immortalgods, O judges, permit your fellow-citizen and suppliant to be deprived

by unknown witnesses and barbarians, not only of the consulship by which he trusted to receive an accession of honour, but also of theother distinctions which he had acquired before, and of all his dignityand fortune. Scaurus, O judges, also begs and entreats you to save himfrom this, if he has never injured any one unjustly, nor offended anyone's ears or inclination, if (to use the mildest expression) he has nevergiven any one any reason to hate him. Once only has his filial affectionimposed on him the duty of so doing]****

****for as, out of many men who had done so, Dolabella was the onlyone of his father's enemies who remained, who had joined QuintusCaepio, his relation, in signing articles of accusation against Scaurushis father; he thought it behoved him for the sake of [his filial affectionto continue that enmity which he had not originated himself; but had

bequeathed to him as an inheritance; emulating Marcus and LuciusLucullus, who being men of like industry and like piety with himself;

when very young men, had adopted and followed out the quarrels of

their fathers to their own great glory.]

[But how great has been the injustice of Triarius accusing Scaurus ofhaving so magnificent a house! Oh for that ancient and severe censor;according to whom even a man who had attained the highest honoursof the state, and who was one of the chief men in it, was not allowed tohave a convenient or splendid house]**** especially when its nearness to the street, and the populouscharacter of its situation, must remove from him all suspicion oflaziness or ambition.

******

[But in what an arrogant way, O Triarius, did your oration go on, when you said that such enormous masses of Lucullus's marbles and pillars, which we now see placed in Scaurus's hall, were carried through thecity, past the plaster ornaments on the tops of the temples of the gods,to a private house,—that the contractor for keeping the drains in repairhad a claim for the damage done by dragging them up the Palatine Hillin wagons. I suppose those pillars which are thus held up to odium

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were carried there solely for the purpose of gratifying the pride ofindividuals, which the Roman people detests, and not for the sake of

being a public ornament to the city, which it approves of. Are you theonly man in Rome ignorant that Scaurus used those pillars when he

was aedile for the ornamenting of the theatre, in order that, by themagnificence of his exhibition, and by his great liberality devoted inthat manner to the honour of the immortal gods, he might increase thereligious reverence with which the games were observed by thesplendour of his preparation?]***

***Moreover, I, who have pillars of Alban marble, brought them up inpanniers!

***

[What? what vast and what prodigal expense did you yourself, OTriarius, incur in procuring pillars!]

***For this I do marvel at and of this I do complain,—that any manshould be so anxious to do injury to another by his words, as to boreholes in the ship in which he himself is sailing.***

***Were you in want of a house? You had one. Had you too muchmoney? You were in want of money. But you went mad after pillars.

You were frantic to get hold of what belonged to other people. You valued a pulled down, windowless, destroyed house, at a greater pricethan yourself and all your fortunes.***

[What then? Suppose Scaurus had appealed to you as an arbitrator, to

decide “whether you had not gone to much greater expense, whether you had not committed much greater extravagance in proportion to your income, for pillars than he had,” would it have been necessary togo through the formalities of a trial to decide whether he had beenguilty of prodigality, who, being possessed of a most ample estate, andof great family wealth and reputation, had set off his dignity with a finehouse, or he who, when he was over head and ears in debt before, hadsought to obtain dignity by building a house?]***

As it would not be possible for you to escape this argument, will youstill argue and demand that Marcus Aemilius, with all his own

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dignity,— with the splendid memory of his father,— with the renown ofhis grandfather, be sacrificed to a most sordid, fickle and insignificantnation, and to a lot of (I had almost said) barbarian witnesses?***

***Wherever I turn, not only my thoughts, but even my eyes, everyplace supplies me with arguments to advance in favour of MarcusScaurus. That senate-house bears witness to you of the fearless anddignified way in which his father held the post of the chief man of thecity. Lucius Metellus himself, his grandfather, appears, O judges, tohave placed those most holy gods in that temple in your sight, that theymight gain from you the safety of his grandson by their entreaties, asthey have, before now, often aided by their divine assistance many

other men in distress who implored their help. That Capitol, adorned with three temples,—the approaches to the temples of the all-good andall-powerful Jupiter, and of Juno the queen, and of Minerva, adorned

by most magnificent presents of this man's father and of himself;defend Marcus Scaurus [before you now by the recollection of thismunificence and liberality to the public, from every suspicion of avariceor covetousness. That temple of Vesta, which is close at hand, warns

you to keep it in your minds.] That great Lucius Metellus, the PontifexMaximus, who, when that temple was on fire threw himself into themiddle of the flames, and saved from the fire that image of Minerva,

which, as if it were a pledge of our safety and of the empire, is guarded by the protection of Vesta;— would that that great man could be amongus, though but for a short time; he, forsooth, would save from theflames this man, his descendant, as he before saved from that otherconflagration that heavenly pledge of our safety. I am moved by thethought that the gods should be so little propitious to a priest, that eventhough they were saved by him, they do not preserve his race which

was recommended by him to their protection. But as for you, O MarcusScaurus, I see you, I do not merely think of you; nor, indeed, is it

without great distress and grief of mind that I do call you to mind when

I behold the mournful appearance of your son.

And I wish that, as during the whole of this cause you have beenconstantly present before my eyes, you would, in like manner, nowpresent yourself to the minds of these our judges, and plant yourselfdeeply in all their thoughts. If your appearance, I call [the gods to

witness, could come to life again, (for we have never seen any one equalto you in wisdom, and dignity, and firmness, and all other virtues,) it

would have such weight with every one, that whoever beheld it] even if by chance he did not recognise it would still pronounce it to be one ofthe chief men in the state.

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How, then, can I now address you? As a man? But you are no longeramong us. As a deceased person? But you live and flourish; but you arepresent to the minds of all this court,— you are visible to their eyes;

your godlike soul had nothing mortal about it, nor was anything belonging to you which could die, except your body. Whatever way,therefore, [it is proper for you to be addressed, be present to us, Ientreat you, and terrify, by your mere countenance,— by the bare sightof yourself; the emptiness and impudence of those most worthless andmendacious witnesses. Be present to us, and bring to your fellow-citizens the light of your counsel, to the authority of which they neverrepented deferring, and so prevent them from dishonouring your race

with ignominy and disaster, and from crushing by their sentence yourown son, who is no degenerate heir of his father's name.]

M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literallytranslated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street,Covent Garden. 1856.

The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support forentering this text.

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Sca Urus