?" Then with rapid words he heaps upon the unfortunate man
accusations of personal incompetencies. Nobody complains, says Cicero,
that that fellow of yesterday, Gabinius, should have been made Consul:
we have not been deceived in him. "But your eyes and eyebrows, your
forehead, that face of yours, which should be the dumb index of the mind
within, have deceived those who have not known you. Few of us only have
been aware of your infamous vices, the sloth of your intellect, your
dulness, your inability to speak. When was your voice heard in the
Forum? when has your counsel been put to the proof? when did you do any
service either in peace or war? You have crept into your high place by
the mistakes of men, by the regard to the dirty images of your
ancestors, to whom you have no resemblance except in their present grimy
color. And shall he boast to me," says the orator, turning from Piso to
the audience around, "that he has gone on without a check from one step
in the magistracy to another? That is a boast for me to make, for
me--"homini novo"--a man without ancestors, on whom the Roman people has
showered all its honors. You were made AEdile, you say; the Roman people
choose a Piso for their AEdile--not this man from any regard for himself,
but because he is a Piso. The Praetorship was conferred not on you but on
your ancestors who were known and who were dead! Of you, who are alive
no one has known anything. But me--!" Then he continues the contrast
between himself and Piso; for the speech is as full of his own merits as
of the other man's abominations.

So the oration goes on to the end. He asserts, addressing himself to
Piso, that if he saw him and Gabinius crucified together, he did not
know whether he would be most delighted by the punishment inflicted on
their bodies or by the ruin of their reputation. He declares that he has
prayed for all evil on Piso and Gabinius, and that the gods have heard
him, but it has not been for death, or sickness, or for torment, that he
had prayed, but for such evils as have in truth come upon them. Two
Consuls sent with large armies into two of the grandest provinces have
returned with disgrace. That one--meaning Piso--has not dared even to
send home an account of his doings; and the other--Gabinius--has not had
his words credited by the Senate, nor any of his requests granted! He
Cicero, had hardly dared to hope for all this, but the gods had done it
for him! The most absurd passage i