y "barely."
However, what a splendid progress of yours that was! Why need
I mention your preparations for banquets, why your frantic
hard-drinking? Those things are only an injury to yourself; these are
injuries to us. We thought that a great blow was inflicted on the
republic when the Campanian district was released from the payment of
taxes, in order to be given to the soldiery; but you have divided
it among your partners in drunkenness and gambling. I tell you, O
conscript fathers, that a lot of buffoons and actresses have been
settled in the district of Campania. Why should I now complain of what
has been done in the district of Leontini? Although formerly these
lands of Campania and Leontini were considered part of the patrimony
of the Roman people, and were productive of great revenue, and very
fertile. You gave your physician three thousand acres; what would you
have done if he had cured you? and two thousand to your master of
oratory; what would you have done if he had been able to make you
eloquent? However, let us return to your progress, and to Italy.

XL. You led a colony to Casilinum, a place to which Caesar had
previously led one. You did indeed consult me by letter about the
colony of Capua, (but I should have given you the same answer about
Casilinum,) whether you could legally lead a new colony to a place
where there was a colony already. I said that a new colony could not
be legally conducted to an existing colony, which had been established
with a due observance of the auspices, as long as it remained in a
flourishing state; but I wrote you word that new colonists might
be enrolled among the old ones. But you, elated and insolent,
disregarding all the respect due to the auspices, led a colony to
Casilinum, whither one had been previously led a few years before; in
order to erect your standard there, and to mark out the line of the
new colony with a plough. And by that plough you almost grazed the
gate of Capua, so as to diminish the territory of that flourishing
colony. After this violation of all religious observances, you hasten
off to the estate of Marcus Varro, a most conscientious and upright
man, at Casinum. By what right? with what face do you do this? By just
the same, you will say, as that by which you entered on the estates of
the heirs of Lucius Rubrius, or of the heirs of Lucius Turselius,
or on other innumerable possessions. If you got the right from any
auction, let the auction have all