Tag: Quintus Tullius Cicero

This is part 3 of 3. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here.

Quid ego nunc tibi de Africa, quid de testium dictis scribam? nota sunt, et ea tu saepius legito; sed tamen hoc mihi non praetermittendum videtur, quod primum ex eo iudicio tam egens discessit quam quidam iudices eius ante illud iudicium fuerunt, deinde tam invidiosus ut aliud in eum iudicium cottidie flagitetur. hic se sic habet ut magis timeant, etiam si quierit, quam ut contemnant, si quid commoverit. quanto melior tibi fortuna petitionis data est quam nuper homini novo, C. Coelio! ille cum duobus hominibus ita nobilissimis petebat ut tamen in iis omnia pluris essent quam ipsa nobilitas, summa ingenia, summus pudor, plurima beneficia, summa ratio ac diligentia petendi; ac tamen eorum alterum Coelius, cum multo inferior esset genere, superior nulla re paene, superavit. qua re tibi, si facies ea quae natura et studia quibus semper usus es largiuntur, quae temporis tui ratio desiderat, quae potes, quae debes, non erit difficile certamen cum iis competitoribus qui nequaquam sunt tam genere insignes quam vitiis nobiles; quis enim reperiri potest tam improbus civis qui velit uno suffragio duas in rem publicam sicas destringere?
(Quintus Tullius Cicero, Commentariolum Petitionis 10-12)

Need I write now to you of Africa and the statements of the witness? All that is well known; read it yourself, again and again. Yet this, I think, I should not leave out—that he came out of that trial as impoverished as some of his jury were before that trial, and so hated that there are daily clamours for another prosecution against him. His condition is such that, so far from fearing him even if he is doing nothing, I should despise him if he makes trouble. How much better luck has fallen to you in your canvass than to C. Coelius, another “new man,” a while ago! He stood against two men of the highest nobility, yet whose nobility was the least of their assets—great intelligence, high conscience, many claims to gratitude, great judgement and perseverance in electioneering; yet Coelius, though much inferior in birth and superior in almost nothing, defeated one of them. So for you, if you do what you are well endowed for doing by nature and by the studies which you have always practised—what the occasion demands, what you can and should do—it wil not be a hard contest with these competitors who are by no means as eminent in birth as they are notable in vice. Can there be a citizen so vile as to want to unsheathe, with one vote, two daggers against the State? (tr. David Roy Shackleton Bailey)

This is part 2 of 3. Part 1 is here. Part 3 is here.

Alter vero, di boni! quo splendore est? primum nobilitate eadem. num maiore? non. sed virtute. quam ob rem? quod Antonius umbram suam metuit, hic ne leges quidem, natus in patris egestate, educatus in sororiis stupris, corroboratus in caede civium, cuius primus ad rem publicam aditus in equitibus Romanis occidendis fuit (nam illis quos meminimus Gallis, qui tum Titiniorum ac Nanneiorum ac Tanusiorum capita demetebant, Sulla unum Catilinam praefecerat); in quibus ille hominem optimum, Q. Caucilium, sororis suae virum, equitem Romanum, nullarum partium, cum semper natura tum etiam aetate quietum, suis manibus occidit. quid ego nunc dicam petere eum tecum consulatum qui hominem carissimum populo Romano, M. Marium, inspectante populo Romano vitibus per totam urbem ceciderit, ad bustum egerit, ibi omni cruciatu lacerarit, vix vivo et spiranti collum gladio sua dextera secuerit, cum sinistra capillum eius a vertice teneret, caput sua manu tulerit, cum inter digitos eius rivi sanguinis fluerent; qui postea cum histrionibus et cum gladiatoribus ita vixit ut alteros libidinis, alteros facinoris adiutores haberet; qui nullum in locum tam sanctum ac tam religiosum accessit in quo non, etiam si in aliis culpa non esset, tamen ex sua nequitia dedecoris suspicionem relinqueret; qui ex curia Curios et Annios, ab atriis Sapalas et Carvilios, ex equestri ordine Pompilios et Vettios sibi amicissimos comparavit; qui tantum habet audaciae, tantum nequitiae, tantum denique in libidine artis et efficacitatis, ut prope in parentum gremiis praetextatos liberos constuprarit?
(Quintus Tullius Cicero, Commentariolum Petitionis 9-10)

As to the other, good heavens! What is his claim to glory? First, he has the same noble birth. Any greater nobility? No. But he has greater manliness. Why? Only because Antonius is afraid of his own shadow, whereas Catiline does not even fear the law. Born in his father’s beggary, bred in debauchery with his sister, grown up in civil slaughter, his first entry into public life was a massacre of Roman Knights (for Sulla had put Catiline in sole charge of those Gauls we remember, who kept mowing off the heads of Titinius and Nanneius and Tanusius and all). Among them he killed with his own hands his sister’s husband, the excellent Quintus Caucilius, a Roman Knight, neutral in politics, a man always inoffensive by nature and by that time also through advancing age. Need I go on? He to be running for the consulship with you—he who scourged Marcus Marius, the Roman People’s darling, all around the town before the Roman People’s eyes, drove him to the tomb, mangled him there with every torture, and with a sword in his right hand, holding his head of hair in his left, severed the man’s neck as he barely lived and breathed and carried the head in his hand, while rills of blood owed between his fingers! And then he lived with actors and gladiators as his accomplices, the former in lust, the latter in crime—he who could not enter any place so sacred and holy that he did not leave it under suspicion of being polluted by his mere wickedness, even if other people were guiltless; who got as his closest friends from the Senate House men like Curius and Annius, from the auctioneers’ halls men like Sapala and Carvilius, from the Order of Knights men like Pompilius and Vettius; who has such impudence, such wickedness, and besides such skill and efficiency in his lust that he has raped children in smocks practically at their parents’ knees. (tr. David Roy Shackleton Bailey)

This is part 1 of 3. Part 2 is here. Part 3 is here.

Ac multum etiam novitatem tuam adiuvat quod eius modi nobiles tecum petunt ut nemo sit qui audeat dicere plus illis nobilitatem quam tibi virtutem prodesse oportere. nam P. Galbam et L. Cassium summo loco natos quis est qui petere consulatum putet? vides igitur amplissimis ex familiis homines, quod sine nervis sint, tibi pares non esse. at Antonius et Catilina molesti sunt. immo homini navo, industrio, innocenti, diserto, gratioso apud eos qui res iudicant, optandi competitores ambo a pueritia sicarii, ambo libidinosi, ambo egentes. eorum alterius bona proscripta vidimus, vocem denique audivimus iurantis se Romae iudicio aequo cum homine Graeco certare non posse, ex senatu eiectum scimus optimorum censorum existimatione, in praetura competitorem habuimus amico Sabidio et Panthera, cum ad tabulam quos poneret non haberet (quo iam in magistratu amicam quam domi palam haberet de machinis emit); in petitione autem consulatus caupones omnes compilare per turpissimam legationem maluit quam adesse et populo Romano supplicare.
(Quintus Tullius Cicero, Commentariolum Petitionis 7-8)

Another great help for your status as a “new man” is that your noble competitors are persons of whom nobody would venture to say that they should get more from their rank than you from your moral excellence. Who would think that Publius Galba and Lucius Cassius, high-born as they are, are candidates for the consulship? So you see that men of the greatest families are not equal to you, because they lack vigour. Or are Antonius and Catiline supposed to be the trouble? On the contrary, two assassins from boyhood, both libertines, both paupers, are just the competitors to be prayed for by a man of energy, industry, and blameless life, an eloquent speaker, with influence among those who judge in the law courts. Of those two, we have seen the one sold up by legal process; we have heard him declare on oath that he cannot compete in fair trial in Rome against a Greek; we know he was expelled from the Senate by the decision of admirable censors. He was a fellow candidate of ours for the praetorship, when Sabidius and Panthera were his only friends, when he had no slaves left to auction off (already in office he bought from the stands in the slave market a girl friend to keep openly at home). In consular candidature, rather than present himself to solicit the votes of the Roman people, he preferred a most wicked mission abroad, where he plundered all the innkeepers. (tr. David Roy Shackleton Bailey)

Haec veniebant mihi in mentem de duabus illis commentationibus matutinis, quod tibi cotidie ad Forum descendenti meditandum esse dixeram: “novus sum, consulatum peto.” tertium restat: “Roma est,” civitas ex nationum conventu constituta, in qua multae insidiae, multa fallacia, multa in omni genere vitia versantur, multorum arrogantia, multorum contumacia, multorum malevolentia, multorum superbia, multorum odium ac molestia perferenda est. video esse magni consili atque artis in tot hominum cuiusque modi vitiis tantisque versantem vitare offensionem, vitare fabulam, vitare insidias, esse unum hominem accommodatum ad tantam morum ac sermonum ac voluntatum varietatem.
(Quintus Tullius Cicero, Commentariolum Petitionis 54)

All these things have occurred to me regarding the first two of the morning meditations I suggested as you go down to the Forum: “I am an outsider. I want to be a consul.” Now let me turn briefly to the third: “This is Rome.” Our city is a cesspool of humanity, a place of deceit, plots, and vice of every imaginable kind. Anywhere you turn you will see arrogance, stubbornness, malevolence, pride, and hatred. Amid such a swirl of evil, it takes a remarkable man with sound judgment and great skill to avoid stumbling, gossip, and betrayal. How many men could maintain their integrity while adapting themselves to various ways of behaving, speaking, and feeling? (tr. Philip Freeman)