Dio's Rome, Volume 3. Cassius Dio Cocceianus

death. To dread any one, however, that was against you, and in your company to be a slave to any one would prove exceedingly unseasonable to me. Wherefore I deem this last to be the ruin and destruction not only of the body, but of the soul and reputation, by which we become in a certain sense immortal. But to die speaking and acting in your behalf I regard as equivalent to immortality.

      [-47-] "And if Antony, also, felt the force of this, he would never have entered upon such a career, but would have even preferred to die like his grandfather rather than to behave like Cinna who killed him. For, putting aside other considerations, Cinna was in turn slain not long afterward for this and the other sins that he had committed; so that I am surprised also at this feature in Antony's conduct, that, imitating his works as he does, he shows no fear of some day falling a victim to a similar disaster: the murdered man, however, left behind to this very descendant the reputation of greatness. But the latter has no longer any claim to be saved on account of his relatives, since he has neither emulated his grandfather nor inherited his father's property. Who is unaware of the fact that in restoring many who were exiled in Caesar's time and later, in accordance forsooth with directions in his patron's papers, he did not aid his uncle, but brought back his fellow-gambler Lenticulus, who was exiled for his unprincipal life, and cherishes Bambalio, who is notorious for his very name, while he has treated his nearest relatives as I have described and as if he were half angry at them because he was born into that family. Consequently he never inherited his father's goods, but has been the heir of very many others, some whom he never saw or heard of, and others who are still living. That is, he has so stripped and despoiled them that they differ in no way from dead men."

      DIO'S ROMAN HISTORY

      46

      The following is contained in the Forty-sixth of Dio's Rome:

      How Calenus replied to Cicero in defence of Antony (chapters 1-28).

      How Antony was defeated at Mutina by Caesar and the consuls (chapters 29-38).

      How Caesar came to Rome and was appointed consul (chapters 39-49).

      How Caesar, Antony, and Lepidus formed a solemn pact of union (chapters 50-56).

      Duration of time one year, in which there were the following magistrates here enumerated:

      C. Vibius C. filius Pansa Capronianus, Aulus Hirtius Auli filius (B.C. 43 = a. u. 711).

      (BOOK 46, BOISSAVAIN)

      [B.C. 43 (a. u. 711) ]

      [-1-] When Cicero had finished speaking in this vein, Quintus Fufius Calenus arose and said:—"Ordinarily I should not have wished either to say anything in defence of Antony or to assail Cicero. I really do not think it proper in such discussions as is the present to do either of these things, but simply to make known what one's opinion is. The former method belongs to the courtroom, whereas this is a matter of deliberation. Since, however, he has undertaken to speak ill of Antony on account of the enmity that exists between them, instead of sending him a summons, as he ought, if Antony were guilty of any wrong, and since he has further mentioned me in a calumnious fashion, as if he could not have exhibited his cleverness without heedlessly insulting one or two persons, it behooves me also to set aside the imputation against Antony and to bring counter-charges against the speaker. I would not have his innate impudence fail of a response nor let my silence aid him by incurring the suspicion of a guilty conscience; nor would I have you, deceived by what he said, come to a less worthy decision by accepting his private spleen against Antony in exchange for the common advantage. [-2-] He wishes to effect nothing else than that we should abandon looking out for the safest course for the commonwealth and fall into discord again. It is not the first time that he has done this, but from the outset, ever since he had to do with politics, he has been continually causing disturbance one way or the other.

      "Is he not the one who embroiled Caesar with Pompey and prevented Pompey from becoming reconciled with Caesar? The one who persuaded you to pass that vote against Antony by which he irritated Caesar, and persuaded Pompey to leave Italy and transfer his quarters to Macedonìa? This proved the chief cause of all the evils which befell us subsequently. Is not he the one who killed Clodius by the hand of Milo, and slew Caesar by the hand of Brutus? The one who made Catiline hostile to us and despatched Lentulus without a trial? [-3-] Hence I should be very much surprised at you, seeing that you then changed your mind about his conduct just mentioned and made him pay the penalty for it, if you should now heed him again, when his talk and actions are similar. Do you not see, too, that after Caesar's death when our affairs were settled in a most tranquil way by Antony, as not even his accuser can deny, the latter left town because he deemed our life of harmony to be alien and dangerous to him? That when he perceived that turmoil had again arisen, he bade a long farewell to his son and to Athens, and returned? That he insults and abuses Antony, whom he was wont to say he loved, and coöperates with Caesar, whose father he killed? And if chance so favor, he will ere long attack Caesar also. For the fellow is naturally distrustful and turbulent and has no ballast in his soul, and he is always stirring things up and twisting about, turning more ways than the sea-passage to which he fled and got the title of deserter for it, asking all of you to take that man for friend or foe whom he bids.

      [-4-] "For these reasons be on your guard against man. He is a juggler and imposter and grows rich and strong from the ills of others, blackmailing, dragging, tearing the innocent, as do dogs; but in the midst of public harmony he is embarrassed and withers away. It is not friendship or good-will among us that can support this kind of orator. From what other source do you think he has become rich or from what other source great? Certainly neither family nor wealth was bequeathed him by his father the fuller, who was always trading in grapes and olives, a man who was glad to make both ends meet by this and by his washing, and whose time was taken up every day and night with the vilest occupations. The son, having been brought up in them, not unnaturally tramples and dowses his superiors, using a species of abuse invented in the workshops and on the street corners.

      [-5-] "Now being of such an origin yourself, and after growing up naked among your naked companions, picking up pig manure and sheep dung and human excrement, have you dared, O most accursed wretch, first to slander the youth of Antony who had the advantage of pedagogues and teachers as his rank demanded, and next to impugn him because in celebrating the Lupercalia, an ancestral festival, he came naked into the Forum? But I ask you, you that always used all the clothes of others on account of your father's business and were stripped by whoever met you and recognized them, what ought a man who was not only priest but also leader of his fellow priests to have done? Not to conduct the procession, not to celebrate the festival, not to sacrifice according to ancestral custom, not to appear naked, not to anoint himself? 'But it is not for that that I censure him,' he answers, 'but because he delivered a speech and that kind of speech naked in the Forum.' Of course this man has become acquainted in the fuller's shop with all minute matters of etiquette, that he should detect a real mistake and be able to rebuke it properly.

      [-6-] "In regard to this matter I will say later all that needs to be said, but just now I want to ask the speaker a question or two. Is it not true that you for your part were nourished by the ills of others and educated in the misfortunes of your neighbors and for this reason are acquainted with no liberal branch of knowledge, that you have established a kind of association here and are always waiting, like the harlots, for a man who will give something, and that having many men in your pay to attract profit to you you pry into people's affairs to find out who has wronged (or seems to have wronged) whom, who hates whom, and who is plotting against whom? With these men you make common cause, and through these men you are supported, selling them the hopes that chance bestows, trading in the decisions of the jurors, deeming him alone a friend who gives more and more, and all those enemies who furnish you no business or employ some other advocate, while you pretend not even to know those who are already in your clutch and affect to be bored by them, but fawn upon and giggle at those just approaching, like the mistresses of inns?

      [-7-] How much better it were that you too should have been born Bambalio,—if this Bambalio really exists,—than to have taken up such a livelihood, in which it is absolutely inevitable that you should either sell your speech in behalf of the innocent, or else preserve the guilty. Yet you can not do even this effectively, though you wasted three years in Athens.