you then had in hand by shouting and
bawling and alone of all the people opposing the public peace of the
State, until you became vexed and because of his conduct passed the vote
that you did. Then, though by law he was not permitted to be absent from
town a single night, he escaped from the city, abandoning the duties of
his office, and, having gone as a deserter to Caesar's camp, guided the
latter back as a foe to his country, drove you out of Rome and all the
rest of Italy, and, in short, became the prime cause of all the civil
disorders that have since taken place among you. Had he not at that time
acted contrary to your wishes, Caesar would never have found an excuse for
the war and could not, in spite of all his shamelessness, have gathered a
competent force in defiance of your resolutions; but he would have
either voluntarily laid down his arms, or been brought to his senses
unwillingly. As it is, this fellow is the man who furnished him with the
excuses, who destroyed the prestige of the senate, who increased the
audacity of the soldiers. He it is who planted the seeds of evils which
sprang up afterward: he it is who has proved the common bane not only of
us, but also of practically the whole world, as, indeed, Heaven rather
plainly indicated. When, that is to say, he proposed those astonishing
laws, the whole air was filled with thunder and lightning. Yet this
accursed wretch paid no attention to them, though he claims to be a
soothsayer, but filled not only the city but the whole world with the
evils and wars which I mentioned.

[-28-] "Now after this is there any need of mentioning that he served as
master of the horse an entire year, something which had never before been
done? Or that during this period also he was drunk and abusive and in the
assemblies would frequently vomit the remains of yesterday's debauch on
the rostra itself, in the midst of his harangues? Or that he went about
Italy at the head of pimps and prostitutes and buffoons, women as well as
men, in company with the lictors bearing festoons of laurel? Or that he
alone of mankind dared to buy the property of Pompey, having no regard
for his own dignity or the great man's memory, but grasping eagerly those
possessions over which we even now as at that time shed a tear? He threw
himself upon this and many other estates with the evident intention of
making no recompense for them. Yet with all his insolence and violence
the price was nevertheless c