Marcus Tullius Cicero, After His Return From Exile, 57BCE Part1

History’s Great Speeches

If, O conscript fathers, I return you thanks in a very inadequate manner for your kindness to me, and to my brother, and to my children, (which shall never be forgotten by us,) I beg and entreat you not to attribute it so much to any coldness of my disposition, as to the magnitude of the service which you have done me. For what fertility of genius, what copiousness of eloquence can be so great, what language can be found of such divine and extraordinary power, as to enable any one, I will not say to do due honour to the universal kindness of you all towards us, but even to count up and enumerate all the separate acts of kindness which we have received from you? You have restored to me my brother; whom I have wished for above all things; you have restored me to my most affectionate brother; you have restored us parents to our children, and our children to us; you have restored to us our dignity, our rank, our fortunes, the republic, which we reverence above all things, and our country, than which nothing can be dearer to us; you have restored us, in short, to ourselves.

And if we ought to consider our parents most dear to us, because by them our life, our property, our freedom, and our rights as citizens have been given to us; if we love the immortal gods, by whose kindness we have preserved all those things, and have also had other benefits added to them; if we are most deeply attached to the Roman people owing to the honours paid to us by whom we have been placed in this most noble council, and in the very highest rank and dignity and in this citadel of the whole earth, if we are devoted to this order of the senate by which we have been frequently distinguished by most honourable decrees in our favour, surely it is a boundless and infinite obligation which we are under to you, who, by your singular zeal and unanimity on my behalf, have combined at one time the benefits done us by our parents, the bounty of the immortal gods, the honours conferred on us by the Roman people, and your own frequent decisions in my case; in such a manner that, owing, as we do, much to you, and great gratitude to the Roman people, and innumerable thanks to our parents, and everything to the immortal gods, the honours and enjoyments which we had separately before by their instrumentality, we have now recovered all together by your kindness.

Therefore, O conscript fathers, we seem by your agency to have obtained a species of immortality, a thing too great to be even wished for by men. For what time will there ever be in which the memory and fame of your kindnesses to me will perish? The memory of your kindness, who, at the very time that you were besieged by violence and arms and terror and threats, not long after my departure all agreed in recalling me, at the motion of Lucius Ninnius, a most fearless and virtuous man, the most faithful and (if it had come to a battle) the least timid defender of my safety that that fatal year could produce. After the honour of making a formal decree to that effect was refused to you by the means of that tribune of the people, who as he was unable of himself to injure the republic, destroyed it as far as he could by the wickedness of another, you never kept silence concerning me, you never ceased to demand my safety from those consuls who had sold it. Therefore, at last it was owing to your authority and your zeal that that very year which I had preferred to have fatal to myself rather than to my country, elected these men as tribunes, who proposed a law concerning my safety, and constantly brought it under your notice. For the consuls being modest men, and having a regard for the laws, were hindered by a law, not by the one which had been passed concerning me, but by one respecting themselves, when my enemy had carried a clause, that when those men had come to life again who nearly destroyed the state, then I might return to the city. By which action he confessed two things—both that he longed for them to be living, and also that the republic would be in great peril, if either the enemies and murderers of the republic came to life again, or if I did not return.

Therefore, in that very year when I had departed, and when the chief man of the state was forced to defend his own life, not by the protection of the laws, but by that of his own walls,—when the republic was without consuls, and bereft, like an orphan, not only of its regular parents, but even of its annual guardians,—when you were forbidden to deliver your opinions,—when the chief clause of my proscription was repeatedly read,—still you never hesitated to consider my safety as united with the general welfare.

But when, by the singular and admirable virtue of Publius Lentulus the consul, you began on the first of January to see light arising in the republic out of the clouds and darkness of the preceding year,—when the great reputation of Quintus Metellus, that most noble and excellent man, and the virtue and loyalty of the praetors, and of nearly all the tribunes of the people, had likewise come to the aid of the republic,—when Cnaeus Pompeius, the greatest man for virtue, and glory, and achievements that any nation or any age has ever produced, the most illustrious man that memory can suggest thought that he could again come with safety into the senate,—then your unanimity with respect to my safety was so great that my body only was absent, my dignity had already returned to this country. And that month you were able to form an opinion as to what was the difference between me and my enemies. I abandoned my own safety, in order to save the republic from being (for my sake) stained with the blood of the citizens; they thought fit to hinder my return, not by the votes of the Roman people, but by a river of blood. Therefore, after those events, you gave no answers to the citizens, or the allies, or to kings; the judges gave no decisions; the people came to no vote on any matter; this body issued no declarations by its authority; you saw the forum silent the senate-house mute, the city dumb and dispirited. And then, too, when he had gone away, who, being authorized by you, had resisted murder and conflagration, you saw men rushing all over the city with sword and firebrand; you saw the houses of the magistrates attacked, the temples of the gods burnt, the faces of a most admirable man and illustrious consul burnt, the holy person of a most fearless and virtuous officer, a tribune of the people, not only laid hands on and insulted, but wounded with the sword and killed. And by that murder some magistrates were so alarmed, that partly out of fear of death, partly out of despair for the republic, they in some degree forsook my cause; but others remained behind, whom neither terror, nor violence, nor hope, nor fear, nor promises, nor threats, nor arms, nor firebrands, could influence so as to make them cease to stand by your authority, and the dignity of the Roman people, and my safety.

The chief of those men was Publius Lentulus, the parent and god of my life, and fortune, and memory, and name. He thought that the best proof that he could give of his virtue, the best indication that he could afford of his disposition, the greatest ornament with which he could embellish his consulship would be the restoration of me to myself, to my friends, to you, and to the republic. And as soon as ever he was appointed consul elect he never hesitated to express an opinion concerning my safety worthy both of himself and of the republic. When the veto was interposed by the tribune of the people,—when that admirable clause was read: “That no one should make any motion before you that no one should propose any decree to you that no one should raise any discussion, or make any speech or take any vote or frame any law;” he thought all that as I have said before, a proscription and not a law, by which a citizen who had deserved well of the republic was by name and without any trial, taken from the senate and the republic at the same time. But as soon as he entered on his office, I will not say what did he do before, but what else did he do at all, except labour by my preservation to establish your authority and dignity on a firm basis for the future? O ye immortal gods! what great kindness do you appear to have shown me, in making Publius Lentulus consul this year. How much greater still would your bounty have been, had he been so the preceding year; for I should not have been in want of such medicine as a consul could give, unless I had fallen by a wound inflicted by a consul. I had been often told by one of the wisest of men and one of the most virtuous of citizens, Quintus Catulus, that it was not often that there was one wicked consul, but that there had never been two at the same time since the foundation of Rome, except in that terrible time of Cinna. Wherefore, he used to say that my interest would always be firmly secured, as long as there was even one virtuous consul in the republic. And he would have spoken the truth, if that state of things with respect to consuls could have remained lasting and perpetual, that, as there never had been two bad ones in the republic, so there never should be. But if Quintus Metellus had been at that time consul, who was then my enemy, do you doubt what would have been his feelings with regard to my preservation, when you see that he was a mover and seconder of the measure proposed for my restoration? But at that time there were two consuls, whose minds, narrow, contemptible, mean, groveling, dark, and dirty, were unable to look properly at, or to uphold, or to support the mere name of the consulship, much less the splendour of that honour, and the importance of that authority. They were not consuls, but dealers in provinces, and sellers of your dignity. One of whom demanded back from me, in the hearing of many, Catiline, his lover; the other ‘’reclaimed Cethegus, his cousin;—the two most wicked men in the memory of man, who (I will not call them consuls, but robbers) not only deserted, in a cause in which, above all others, the welfare of the republic and the dignity of the consulship was concerned, but betrayed me, and opposed me, and wished to see me stripped of all aid, not only from themselves, but also from you and from the other orders of the state. One of them, however, deceived neither me nor any one else.

For whoever could have any hope of any good existing in that man, the earliest period of whose life was made openly subservient to everyone's lusts; who had not the heart to repel the obscene impurity of men from the holiest portion of his person? who, after he had ruined his own estate with no less activity than he afterwards displayed in his endeavours to ruin the republic, supported his indigence and his luxury by every sort of pandering and infamy; who, if he had not taken refuge at the altar of the tribuneship, would not have been able to escape from the authority of the praetor, nor the multitude of his creditors, nor the seizure of his goods. And if he had not while in discharge of that office, passed that law about the piratical war, he, in truth, would have yielded to his own poverty and wickedness, and had recourse to piracy himself; and who would have done so with less injury to the republic than he did by remaining within our walls as an impious enemy and robber. It was he who was inspecting victims, and sitting in the discharge of that duty, when a tribune of the people procured a law to be passed that no regard should be had to the auspices,—that no one should on that account be allowed to interrupt the assembly or the comitia, or to put his veto on the passing of a law; and that the Aelian and Fufian laws should have no validity, which our ancestors had enacted, intending them to be the firmest protection of the republic against the insanity of the tribunes. And he also afterwards, when a countless multitude of virtuous men had come to him from the Capitol as suppliants, and in morning garments, and when all the most noble young men of Rome, and all the Roman knights, had thrown themselves at the feet of that most profligate pander, with what an expression of countenance did that curled and perfumed debauchee reject, not only the tears of the citizens, but even the prayers of his country! Nor was he content with that but he even went up to the assembly, and there said what even if his man Catiline had come to life again he would not have dared to say,—that he would make the Roman knights pay for the nones of December of my consulship, and for the Capitoline Hill; and he not only said this, but he even summoned those before him that suited him. And this imperious consul actually banished from the city Lucius Lamia, a Roman knight, a man of the highest character, and a very eager advocate of my safety, because of his intimacy with me, and very much attached to the state, as it was likely that a man of his fortune would be. And when you had passed a resolution to change your garments, and had changed them, and though, indeed, all virtuous men had already done the same thing, he, reeking with perfumes, clad in his toga praetexta, which all the praetors and aediles had at that time laid aside, derided your mourning garb, and the grief of a most grateful city, and did what no tyrant ever did,—he issued an edict that you should lament your disasters in secret and not presume openly to bewail the miseries of your country.

And when in the Circus Flaminius (I will not say the consul had been conducted into the assembly by a tribune of the people, but) the archpirate had been brought in by another robber, he came first a man of what exceeding dignity, full of wine, sleep, and debauchery! with hair dripping with ointments, with carefully arranged locks, with heavy eyes, moist cheeks, a husky and drunken voice; and he, a grave authority, said that he was greatly displeased at citizens having been executed without having been formally condemned. Where is it that this great authority has lain hid so long out of our sight? Why has the extraordinary virtue of this ringletted dunce been wasted so long in scenes of debauchery and gluttony? For that other man, Caesoninus Calventius, from his youth up has been habituated to the forum, though, except his assumed and crafty melancholy, there was no single thing to recommend him,—no knowledge of the law, no skill in speaking, no knowledge of military affairs or of men, no liberality. And if, while passing him, you noticed how ungentlemanlike, and rough, and sulky he looked, though you might think him a barbarian and a boor, still you would not suppose him to be lascivious and profligate. You would think it made no difference whether you were standing in the forum with this man, or with a barbarian from Aethiopia; there he was, in that sense, without flavour, a mute, slow, uncivilized piece of goods. You would be apt to suppose him a Cappadocian just escaped out of a lot of slaves for sale. Then, again, how lustful was he at home,—how impure, how intemperate. He was not like a front-door, open for the reception of legitimate pleasures, but when he began to devote himself to literature, and, become rather a postern for all sorts of secret gratification. And glutton that he was, to learn philosophy with the Greeks, then he became an Epicurean, not because he was really much devoted to that sect such as it is, but because he was caught by that one expression about pleasure. And he has masters, none of those foolish fellows who go on for whole days discussing duty and virtue,—who exhort men to labour, to industry, to encounter dangers for the sake of their country, but men who argue that no hour ought to be unoccupied by pleasure; that in every part of the body there ought always to be some joy and delight to be perceived. He uses his masters as a sort of superintendents of his lusts; they seek out and scent out all sorts of pleasures; they are the seasoners and furnishers of his banquets they appraise and value the different pleasures, they give a formal decision and judgment as to how much indulgence ought to be allowed to each separate pleasure. He, becoming accomplished in all these arts, despised this most prudent city to such a degree that he thought that all his lusts and all his atrocities could be concealed, if he only thrust his ill-omened face into the forum.

He deceived me, though I will not so much say me (for I know, from my connection with the Pisos how much the Transalpine blood on his mother's side had removed him from the qualities of that family) but he deceived you and the Roman people, not by his wisdom or his eloquence, as is often the case with many men, but by his wrinkled brow and solemn look. Lucius Piso, did you dare at that time with that eye (I will not say with that mind), with that forehead (I will not say with what character), and with that arrogance (for I cannot say, after such achievements), to unite with Aulus Gabinius in forming plans for my ruin? Did not the odour of that man's perfumes, or his breath reeking with wine, or his forehead marked with the traces of the curling-iron, lead you to think that as you were like him in reality, you were no longer able to use the impenetrability of your countenance to conceal such enormous atrocities? Did you dare to continue with that man to abandon the consular dignity,—the existing condition of the republic,—the authority of the senate,—the fortunes of a citizen who had above all others deserved well of the republic, to the provinces? While you were consul, according to your edicts and commands, it was not allowed to the Roman senate or people to come to the assistance of the republic, I will not say by their votes and their authority, but even by their grief and their mourning garb.

Did you think that you were consul at Capua, a city where there was once the abode of arrogance, or at Rome, where all the consuls that ever existed before you were obedient to the senate? Did you dare, when you were brought forward in the Flaminian Circus, with your colleague, to say that you had always been merciful? by which expression you declared that the senate and all virtuous men were cruel at the time that I warded off ruin from the republic. You were a merciful man when you handed me over,—me, your own relation,—me, whom at your comitia you had appointed as chief guardian of the prerogative tribe, whose opinions on the calends of January you had asked then, bound and helpless to the enemies of the republic! You repelled my son-in-law, your own kinsman; you repelled your own near relation, my daughter, with most haughty and inhuman language, from your knees; and you, also, O man of singular mercy and clemency, when I, together with the republic, had fallen, not by a blow aimed by a tribune, but by a wound inflicted by a consul, behaved with such wickedness and such intemperance, that you did not allow one single hour to elapse between the time of my disaster and your plunder; you did not allow even time for the lamentations and groans of the city to die away. It was not yet openly known that the republic had fallen, when you thought fit to arrange its interment. At one and the same moment my house was plundered and set on fire, my property from my house on the Palatine Hill was taken to the house of the consul who was my neighbour, the goods from my Tusculan villa were also taken to the house of my neighbour there, the other consul; when, while the same mob of artisans were giving their votes, the same gladiator proposing and passing laws, the forum being unoccupied, not only by virtuous men, but even by free citizens, and being entirely empty, the Roman people being utterly ignorant what was going on, the senate being beaten down and crushed, there being two wicked and impious consuls, the treasury, the prisoners, the legions, allies and military commands, were given away as they pleased.

But the ruin wrought by these consuls you, O consuls, have prevented from spreading further by your virtue, being assisted as you have been by the admirable loyalty and diligence of the tribunes of the people and the praetors. What shall I say of that most illustrious man, Titus Annius? or, who can ever speak of such a citizen in an adequate or worthy manner? For when he saw that a wicked citizen, or, it would be more correct to say, a domestic enemy, required (if it were only possible to employ the laws) to be crushed by judicial proceedings, or that if violence hindered and put an end to the courts of justice, in that case audacity must be put down by virtue, madness by courage, rashness by wisdom, hand by hand, violence by violence, he first of all prosecuted him for violence; when he saw that the very man whom he was prosecuting had destroyed the courts of justice, he took care that he should not be able to carry everything by violence. He taught us that neither private houses, nor temples, nor the forum, nor the senate-house could be defended from the bands of domestic robbers without the greatest gallantry, and large resources and numerous forces. He was the first man after my departure who relieved the virtuous from fear, and deprived the audacious of hope; who delivered this august body from alarm, and the city from slavery. And Publius Sextius following the same line of conduct with equal virtue, courage, and loyalty, thought that there were no enmities, no efforts of violence, no attacks, no dangers even to his life, which it became him to shun, in defence of my safety, of your authority, and of the constitution of the state. He, by his diligence, so recommended the cause of the senate, thrown into disorder as it was by the harangues of wicked men, to the multitude, that your name soon became the most popular of all names, your authority the object of the greatest affection to all men. He defended me by every means that a tribune of the people could employ; and supported me by every sort of kind attention, just as if he had been my own brother; by his clients, and freedmen, and household, and resources, and letters, I was so much supported, that he seemed to be not only my assistant under, but my partner in calamity. Now you have seen the kindness and zeal of the others; how devoted to me was Caius Cestilius, how attached to you, how uniformly faithful to our cause. What did Marcus Cispius do? I know how much I owe to him and to his father and brother; and they, though they had some personal grudge against me on their own private account, still disregarded their private dislike out of recollection of my services to the state. Also, Titus Fadius, who was my quaestor, and Marcus Curtius, to whose father I was quaestor, cherished the memory of our connection with all zeal, and affection, and courage. Caius Messius made many speeches in my behalf, for the sake both of our friendship and of the republic. And he at the beginning proposed a special law respecting my safety. If Quintus Fabricius could only have effected, in spite of violence and arms, what he endeavoured to do in my behalf, we should have recovered our position in the month of January. His own inclination prompted him to labour for my safety, violence checked him, your authority recalled him.