Philippics, 13.17

Cicero  translated by C. D. Yonge

« Cic. Phil. 13.16 | Cic. Phil. 13.17 | Cic. Phil. 13.18 | About This Work »

17Who is more fortunate than Lentulus, as I said before, and who is more sensible? The Roman people saw his sorrow and his tears at the Lupercal festival. They saw how miserable, how overwhelmed he was when Antonius placed a diadem on Cæsar’s head and preferred being his slave to being his colleague. And even if he had been able to abstain from his other crimes and wickednesses, still on account of that one single action I should think him worthy of all punishment. For even if he himself was calculated to be a slave, why should he impose a master on us? And if his childhood had borne the lusts of those men who were tyrants over him, was he on that account to prepare a master and a tyrant to lord it over our children? Therefore since that man was slain, he himself has behaved to all others in the same manner as he wished him to behave to us.

« Cic. Phil. 13.16 | Cic. Phil. 13.17 | Cic. Phil. 13.18 | About This Work »