“Let us now examine the thing at the center of this, that very place of the ambush where they came together and for which party had an advantage. Is it still possible to have any doubt about this or to think about it any longer? Was it in front of Clodius’ home—a home where a thousand people could easily be housed because of those insanely large basements—was it there where Milo decided that he would choose this enemy on his higher ground when he was in a weaker position and for this very reason selected it as the best place for a fight?
The fact itself, sirs, is always pretty strong. If you were not listening to these matters but instead were viewing a picture it should still be clear which one of them was the aggressor…”
Videamus nunc id, quod caput est, locus ad insidias ille ipse, ubi congressi sunt, utri tandem fuerit aptior. Id vero, iudices, etiam dubitandum et diutius cogitandum est? Ante fundum Clodii, quo in fundo propter insanas illas substructiones facile hominum mille versabantur valentium, edito adversarii atque excelso loco superiorem se fore putarat Milo, et ob eam rem eum locum ad pugnam potissimum elegerat? An in eo loco est potius exspectatus ab eo, qui ipsius loci spe facere impetum cogitarat? Res loquitur ipsa, iudices, quae semper valet plurimum. Si haec non gesta audiretis, sed picta videretis, tamen appareret uter esset insidiator,
“The people were certain that their freedom was at risk. Their leaders did not agree. As far as a matter concerned the safety of the aristocrats, they were afraid of the rashness of the masses and the liberty in the vote. Tiberius Gracchus was introducing his agrarian law. It was welcomed by the people since it appeared to firm up the fortunes of the lower classes.
The aristocrats were against it because they believed it created unrest and imagined that the State would be disarmed of its greatest protectors once the rich were evicted from their long-term holdings. Gaius Gracchus was introducing a grain law. It was also welcome to the people for it provided plentiful food without labor. The Nobles were aghast because they believed that such a law disincentivized work in favor of laziness and that it would drain the treasury.”
Populus libertatem agi putabat suam. Dissentiebant principes et in salute optimatium temeritatem multitudinis et tabellae licentiam pertimescebant. Agrariam Ti. Gracchus legem ferebat. Grata erat populo; fortunae constitui tenuiorum videbantur. Nitebantur contra optimates, quod et discordiam excitari videbant et, cum locupletes possessionibus diuturnis moverentur, spoliari rem publicam propugnatoribus arbitrabantur. Frumentariam legem C. Gracchus ferebat. Iucunda res plebei; victus enim suppeditabatur large sine labore. Repugnabant boni, quod et ab industria plebem ad desidiam avocari putabant et aerarium exhauriri videbant.
Agrarian Law: Tiberius Gracchus introduced a law in 133 BCE that no holder of public land (ager publicus populi Romani) should have more than 500 iugera and that land should be re-distributed to the poor.
“These men have committed so much horror beyond their own criminal behavior that even while running a so-called democracy they turned each person’s house into a prison and put the police in our homes.”
“For such dealing with criminals, white or black, the South had no machinery, no adequate jails or reformatories; its police system was arranged to deal with blacks alone, and tacitly assumed that every white man was ipso facto a member of that police. Thus grew up a double system of justice, which erred on the white side by undue leniency and the practical immunity of red-handed criminals, and erred on the black side by undue severity, injustice, and lack of discrimination.”
“The fact that you didn’t hear my speeches is no great loss for you. When it comes to your envy of Hirtius, well, if you did not care for him, there would be no reason for envy, unless of course you were jealous of his own eloquence rather than the fact that he got to witness mine.
On my part, my sweetest friend, I am nothing. Or, I am so dissatisfied with my speeches since I lost my old competitors as you are applauding—if I ever publish anything worthy of my reputation, I groan at this line, “these weapons strike on a feather bound body, not an armored one, and my fame has been exposed for what it is” as Philoctetes complains in Accius”
Quod declamationibus nostris cares, damni nihil facis. quod Hirtio invideres nisi eum amares, non erat causa invidendi, nisi forte ipsius eloquentiae magis quam quod me audiret invideres. nos enim plane, mi suavissime Volumni, aut nihil sumus aut nobis quidem ipsis displicemus gregalibus illis quibus te plaudente vigebamus amissis, ut etiam, si quando aliquid dignum nostro nomine emisimus, ingemiscamus quod haec ‘pinnigero, non armigero in corpore tela exerceantur,’ ut ait Philoctetes apud Accium, ‘abiecta gloria.’
“You have to believe, by god, that he will be no better in the future after getting this judgment from you and will never stop taking bribes against you if you acquit him.”
“The crime was less offensive than the acquittal.”
Minus crimine quam absolutione peccatum est
Demosthenes, On the False Legation
“For your reputation, for your religion, for your safety, for every advantage you have, do not acquit this man—no, exact vengeance upon him to make him an example to everyone, to our citizens and to the rest of the world.”
“This is a domestic problem, in which sometimes it is enough to claim that there was only one crime, or it was just a mistake, or less severe than is claim for an acquittal”
Est enim domestica disceptatio, in qua et semel peccasse et per errorem et levius quam obiciatur absolutioni nonnumquam sufficit.
Dinarchus, Against Demosthenes 29
“Do not acquit this man, citizens, do not acquit and leave unpunished someone who has signed off on the misfortunes of this state and the world, a man who has been caught in corruption against the state….”
“Today you need to change your minds about what you have done. You need to refuse to keep being abused by these people. Don’t reproach those who have done wrong in private! Do not acquit the guilty when it is in your power to punish them.”
“You need to understand that it is impossible for you to acquit. If you ignore the charge when they admit that they are conspiring against the traders, then you will seem to make a judgment against the importers. If they were making up any other kind of defense, no one would criticize a vote to acquit since you can choose to believe whatever side you want. But, as things are now, you can’t imagine you are doing something amazing if you acquit unpunished those who admit that they broke the law!”
“Sallust is assailed by an epigram of no less repute: “Crispus, pickpocket of the words of Ancient Cato / and architect of Jugurtha’s history”. This is a pitifully minor concern—for it is easy for anyone and really poor because the composer will not fit words to facts but will introduce unrelated facts when the words are easier to use.
Neologism, as I said in the first book, is more a custom of the Greeks who are not reluctant to change words for certain sounds and feelings with a liberty little different from when early human beings first gave names to things. Our rare attempts in compounding or deriving new words have rarely been welcomed as sufficient.”
Nec minus noto Sallustius epigrammate incessitur et verba antiqui multum furate Catonis,: Crispe, Iugurthinae conditor historiae.
Odiosa cura: nam et cuilibet facilis et hoc pessima, quod eius studiosus non verba rebus aptabit, sed res extrinsecus arcesset quibus haec verba conveniant. Fingere, ut primo libro dixi, Graecis magis concessum est, qui sonis etiam quibusdam et adfectibus non dubitaverunt nomina aptare, non alia libertate quam qua illi primi homines rebus appellationes dederunt. Nostri aut in iungendo aut in derivando paulum aliquid ausi vix in hoc satis recipiuntur.
“For these reasons, the tyrant could not enjoy eating even though he had the tastiest food or forget his problems by drinking. He did not live a single day easily without seeing that he was suffering terrible things. When he was sober, he wanted to be drunk because he thought it would relieve him of his suffering; but when he was drunk he believed he was destroyed because he couldn’t help himself. When he was awake, he prayed to fall asleep to forget his fears; but when he was asleep, he burst out of bed because he thought even his dreams were killing him. Nothing helped him, not the golden plane-tree, Semiramis’ mansions, or even the walls of Babylon.
The most absurd thing of all, moreover, was that he feared unarmed men but was entrusting himself to armed ones and that even though he forced everyone who cam near him to be searched for weapons, he lived in the middle of armed men. He was constantly running from the weaponless to the armed and from the armed to the defenseless. He was guarded from the people by his bodyguard and guarded from them by his eunuchs.
There was no one he could trust and no refuge he could find to live a single day without fear. He was suspicious of everything he ate and drank and had people to test everything he consumed like scouts going ahead on a road filled with assassins. He didn’t dare to trust those closest to him, including his wife and children. But even though this autocracy was so hard and unfortunate, be was neither willing nor capable of escaping it.”
“You have to believe, by god, that he will be no better in the future after getting this judgment from you and will never stop taking bribes against you if you acquit him.”
“The crime was less offensive than the acquittal.”
Minus crimine quam absolutione peccatum est
Demosthenes, On the False Legation
“For your reputation, for your religion, for your safety, for every advantage you have, do not acquit this man—no, exact vengeance upon him to make him an example to everyone, to our citizens and to the rest of the world.”
“This is a domestic problem, in which sometimes it is enough to claim that there was only one crime, or it was just a mistake, or less severe than is claim for an acquittal”
Est enim domestica disceptatio, in qua et semel peccasse et per errorem et levius quam obiciatur absolutioni nonnumquam sufficit.
Dinarchus, Against Demosthenes 29
“Do not acquit this man, citizens, do not acquit and leave unpunished someone who has signed off on the misfortunes of this state and the world, a man who has been caught in corruption against the state….”
“Today you need to change your minds about what you have done. You need to refuse to keep being abused by these people. Don’t reproach those who have done wrong in private! Do not acquit the guilty when it is in your power to punish them.”
“You need to understand that it is impossible for you to acquit. If you ignore the charge when they admit that they are conspiring against the traders, then you will seem to make a judgment against the importers. If they were making up any other kind of defense, no one would criticize a vote to acquit since you can choose to believe whatever side you want. But, as things are now, you can’t imagine you are doing something amazing if you acquit unpunished those who admit that they broke the law!”
“[Solon] believed that someone who managed their own personal affairs badly would manage matters of state similarly. It did not seem likely to the lawgiver that that the same person who was a scoundrel in private would be a useful citizen in public. He also did not think it right that a person should come to speak in public before being prepared for it, not just for words but in life.
And he also thought that advice from a good and noble person, however poorly and simply it was framed, is beneficial to those who hear it, while the words of a person who has no shame, who has made a mockery of his own body and who has shamefully managed his inheritance—well, these words he believed would never help the people who heard them, not even if they were delivered well.
This is why he keeps these kinds of people from the platform, why he forbids them from addressing the public. If someone speaks, then, not merely against these precepts but also for the sack of bribery and criminality, and if the state can no longer endure such a person, he adds “Let any citizens who desires it, and who is able, sue him…”
“Leaders, this violence, this crime, this rage was what I defended from the necks of all good people with my body—I met with my skin the full force of civil strife, the explosive savagery of criminals which was just now bursting out because it had found such daring leaders after it had grown for so long as hatred suppressed.
Against me alone the consular firebrands fell, thrown by the tribunes’ hands; all the criminal points of conspiracy which I had broken before struck me. But if I had done what many of the bravest men found pleasing and had decided to face this force in open arms, I would have been victorious with the death of so many criminals who were still citizens or I would have fallen with the Republic following the death of so many good people, something those criminals wished for most.”
Hanc ego vim, pontifices, hoc scelus, hunc furorem meo corpore opposito ab omnium bonorum cervicibus depuli omnemque impetum discordiarum, omnem diu collectam vim improborum, quae inveterata compresso odio atque tacito iam erumpebat nancta tam audaces duces, excepi meo corpore. In me uno consulares faces, iactae manibus tribuniciis, in me omnia, quae ego quondam rettuderam, coniurationis nefaria tela adhaeserunt. Quod si, ut multis fortissimis viris placuit, vi et armis contra vim decertare voluissem, aut vicissem cum magna internicione improborum, sed tamen civium, aut interfectis bonis omnibus, quod illis optatissimum erat, una cum re publica concidissem
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