The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4Cicero, Marcus Tullius
History
The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4
Cicero, Marcus Tullius
Speeches, addresses, etc., Latin -- Translations into English
V. Do you think, then, O Marcus Lepidus, that the Antonii will be to
the republic such citizens as she will find Pompeius? In the one there
is modesty, gravity, moderation, integrity; in them (and when I speak
of them, I do not mean to omit one of that band of pirates), there is
lust, and wickedness, and savage audacity capable of every crime. I
entreat of you, O conscript fathers, which of you fails to see this
which Fortune herself, who is called blind, sees? For, saving the acts
of Caesar, which we maintain for the sake of harmony, his own house
will be open to Pompeius, and he will redeem it for the same sum for
which Antonius bought it. Yes, I say the son of Cnaeus Pompeius will
buy back his house. O melancholy circumstance! But these things have
been already lamented long and bitterly enough. You have voted a sum
of money to Cnaeus Pompeius, equal to that which his conquering
enemy had appropriated to himself of his father's property in the
distribution of his booty. But I claim permission to manage this
distribution myself, as due to my connexion and intimacy with his
father. He will buy back the villas, the houses, and some of the
estates in the city which Antonius is in possession of. For as for the
silver plate, the garments, the furniture, and the wine which that
glutton has made away with, those things he will lose without
forfeiting his equanimity. The Alban and Firmian villas he will
recover from Dolabella; the Tusculan villa he will also recover from
Antonius. And these Ansers who are joining in the attack on Mutina and
in the blockade of Decimus Brutus will be driven from his Falernian
villa. There are many others, perhaps, who will be made to disgorge
their plunder, but their names escape my memory. I say, too, that
those men who are not in the number of our enemies, will be made to
restore the possessions of Pompeius to his son for the price at which
they bought them. It was the act of a sufficiently rash man, not to
say an audacious one, to touch a single particle of that property;
but who will have the face to endeavour to retain it, when its most
illustrious owner is restored to his country? Will not that man
restore his plunder, who enfolding the patrimony of his master in
his embrace, clinging to the treasure like a dragon, the slave of
Pompeius, the freedman of Caesar, has seized upon his estates in
the Lucanian district? And as for those seven hundred millions of
sesterces which you, O conscript fathers, promised to the young man,
they will be recovered in such a manner that the son of Cnaeus Pompeius
will appear to have been established by you in his patrimony. This
is what the senate must do; the Roman people will do the rest
with respect to that family which was at one time one of the most
honourable it ever saw. In the first place, it will invest him with
his father's honour as an augur, for which rank I will nominate him
and promote his election, in order that I may restore to the son what
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