ite man or a
negro? * * * Would you mind telling me what height Turselius stood?"
Here he names another of whose property Antony is supposed to have
obtained possession illegally. "I believe all you know of him is what
farms he had. * * * Do you bear in mind," he says, "that you were a
bankrupt as soon as you had become a man? Do you remember your early
friendship with Curio, and the injuries you did his father?" Here it is
impossible to translate literally, but after speaking as he had done
very openly, he goes on: "But I must omit the iniquities of your private
life. There are things I cannot repeat here. You are safe, because the
deeds you have done are too bad to be mentioned. But let us look at the
affairs of your public life. I will just go through them;" which he
does, laying bare as he well knew how to do, every past act. "When you
had been made Quaestor you flew at once to Caesar. You knew that he was
the only refuge for poverty, debt, wickedness, and vice. Then, when you
had gorged upon his generosity and your plunderings--which indeed you
spent faster than you got it--you betook yourself instantly to the
Tribunate. * * * It is you, Antony, you who supplied Caesar with an
excuse for invading his country." Caesar had declared at the Rubicon that
the Tribunate had been violated in the person of Antony. "I will say
nothing here against Caesar, though nothing can excuse a man for taking
up arms against his country. But of you it has to be confessed that you
were the cause. * * * He has been a very Helen to us Trojans. * * * He
has brought back many a wretched exile, but has forgotten altogether his
own uncle"--Cicero's colleague in the Consulship, who had been banished
for plundering his province. "We have seen this Tribune of the people
carried through the town on a British war-chariot. His lictors with
their laurels went before him. In the midst, on an open litter, was
carried an actress. When you come back from Thessaly with your legions
to Brundisium you did not kill me! Oh, what a kindness! * * * You with
those jaws of yours, with that huge chest, with that body like a
gladiator, drank so much wine at Hippea's marriage that in the sight of
all Rome you were forced to vomit.* * * When he had seized Pompey's
property he rejoiced like some stage-actor who in a play is as poor as
Poverty, and then suddenly becomes rich. All his wine, the great weight
of silver, the costly furniture and rich dresses, in a few days w