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  • THE SPEECH OF M. T. CICERO FOR HIS HOUSE. ADDRESSED TO THE PRIESTS
  • THE SPEECH OF M. T. CICERO RESPECTING THE ANSWERS OF THE SOOTHSAYERS. ADDRESSED TO THE SENATE.
  • THE SPEECH OF M. T. CICERO IN DEFENCE OF CNAEUS PLANCIUS.
  • THE SPEECH OF M. T. CICERO IN DEFENCE OF PUBLIUS SESTIUS.
  • THE SPEECH OF M. T. CICERO AGAINST PUBLIUS VATINIUS; CALLED ALSO, THE EXAMINATION OF PUBLIUS VATINIUS.
  • THE SPEECH OF M. T. CICERO IN DEFENCE OF MARCUS CAELIUS.
  • THE SPEECH OF M. T. CICERO ON THE SUBJECT OF THE CONSULAR PROVINCES.
  • THE SPEECH OF M. T. CICERO IN DEFENCE OF LUCIUS CORNELIUS BALBUS.
  • THE ORATION OF M. T. CICERO AGAINST LUCIUS CALPURNIUS PISO.
  • THE SPEECH OF M. T. CICERO IN DEFENCE OF TITUS ANNIUS MILO.
  • THE SPEECH OF M. T. CICERO IN DEFENCE OF CAIUS RABIRIUS POSTUMUS.
  • THE SPEECH OF M. T. CICERO IN BEHALF OF MARCUS CLAUDIUS MARCELLUS.
  • THE SPEECH OF M. T. CICERO IN DEFENCE OF QUINTUS LIGARIUS.
  • THE SPEECH OF M. T. CICERO IN BEHALF OF KING DEIOTARUS. ADDRESSED TO CAIUS CAESAR.
    		•

    M. Tullius Cicero, Orations: for his house, Plancius, Sextius, Coelius, Milo, Ligarius, etc. (ed. C. D. Yonge)

    Editions and translations: Latin (ed. Albert Clark) | English (ed. C. D. Yonge)
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    [p. 68]

    THE SPEECH OF M. T. CICERO RESPECTING THE ANSWERS OF THE SOOTHSAYERS. ADDRESSED TO THE SENATE.

    THE ARGUMENT.

    This speech was spoken towards the close of the year after the last speech, but it follows it in nearly all editions, as it relates in some degree to the same subject. In the early part of the summer many prodigies were reported to have happened in the neighborhood of Rome. And the senate consulted the soothsayers as to the cause of them, and as to the means of averting their consequences. The soothsayers made answer, that the solemn shows and plays had been negligently exhibited; that sacred places had been treated as profane; that ambassadors had been ill-treated and slain; that good faith and oaths had been disregarded, and ancient and secret sacrifices neglected and profaned. That these prodigies had been sent as warnings by the gods, lest the Romans should bring evil on themselves and on their country by continuing their disorderly conduct and dissensions. That therefore the evils must be amended, or removed as far as possible, and supplications made to Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and the other gods.

    After this answer had been received, Clodius, who was now aedile, called the people together, and made them a speech to prove that the evils which had especially offended the gods were the tyrannical conduct of Cicero, and the restoration of his house, after it had been consecrated to the service of religion. Cicero replied to this harangue the next day in the senate, arguing that all the offenses which could have excited the displeasure of the gods were much more fairly imputable to Clodius than to him; and after exculpating himself, and dwelling on the outrages of which Clodius had notoriously been guilty, he exhorted all citizens of all classes to lay aside their mutual animosities, as the only way of regaining the favour of the gods and their former prosperity.

    I. Yesterday, O conscript fathers, when I was greatly moved by the thoughts of your dignity, and of the great attendance of the Roman knights to whom a senate was given, I thought myself bound to check the shameless impudence of Publius Clodius, when he was hindering the cause of the publicans from being proceeded with by the most foolish possible [p. 69] questions, and was studying to save Publius Tullio the Syrian and was, even before your eyes selling himself to him to whom, indeed, he had already been entirely sold. Therefore I checked the man in his frenzy and exultation, the very moment that I gave him a hint of the danger of a public trial; and by two half-uttered words I bridled all the violence and ferocity of that gladiator.

    [2] But he, ignorant what sort of men the consuls were, pale and fuming with me burst on a sudden out of the senate house, with some broken and empty threats and with those denunciations with which he used to terrify us in the time of Piso and Gabinius. And when I began to press upon him, as he was departing, I received the greatest reward of my exertions by all of you rising up at the same time with me, and by all the publicans thronging round me to escort me. But that senseless man stopped on a sudden out of countenance, colourless, and voiceless; then he looked back; and, as soon as he beheld Cnaeus Lentulus1 the consul, he fell down almost on the threshold of the senate house from the recollection, I imagine, of his dear friend Gabinius and from regret for Piso. And why need I speak at all of his unbridled and headlong fury? He cannot be wounded by me with more severe language than he was on the instant being crushed and overwhelmed at the very moment of his acting in that manner by Publius Servilius. And even if I were able to equal the extraordinary and almost divine energy and dignity of that man, still I cannot doubt that those weapons which out enemy hurled at him would appear less powerful and less sharp than those which the colleague of his father aimed at him.

    1 This is not the same Lentulus as had been consul the preceding year. This was Cnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus; the former consul was Publius Cornelius Lentulus Spinther.

    Preferred URL for linking to this page: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Cic.+Har.+1

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

    This text is based on the following book(s):
    M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. George Bell & Sons, York Street, Covent Garden. 1891.
    OCLC: 4709897


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