less under an obligation to praise me,
because in everything I ever wrote[88] my praise of Pompey was
practically a reflexion on him. This day has brought me very close to
Crassus, and yet in spite of all I accepted with pleasure any
compliment--open or covert--from Pompey. But as for my own speech, good
heavens! how I did "put it on" for the benefit of my new auditor Pompey!
If I ever did bring every art into play, I did then--period, transition,
enthymeme, deduction--everything. In short, I was cheered to the echo.
For the subject of my speech was the dignity of the senate, its harmony
with the equites, the unanimity of Italy, the dying embers of the
conspiracy, the fall in prices, the establishment of peace. You know my
thunder when these are my themes. It was so loud, in fact, that I may
cut short my description, as I think you must have heard it even in
Epirus. The state of things at Rome is this: the senate is a perfect
Areopagus. You cannot conceive anything firmer, more grave, or more
high-spirited. For when the day came for proposing the bill in
accordance with the vote of the senate, a crowd of our dandies with
their chin-tufts assembled, all the Catiline set, with Curio's girlish
son at their head, and implored the people to reject it. Moreover, Piso
the consul, who formally introduced the bill, spoke against it.
Clodius's hired ruffians had filled up the entrances to the voting
boxes. The voting tickets were so manipulated that no "ayes" were
distributed. Hereupon imagine Cato hurrying to the rostra, delivering an
admirable invective against the consul, if we can call that an
"invective" which was really a speech of the utmost weight and
authority, and in fact containing the most salutary advice. He is
followed to the same effect by your friend Hortensius, and many
loyalists besides, among whom, however, the contribution of Favonius was
conspicuous. By this rally of the Optimates the _comitia_ is dissolved,
the senate summoned. On the question being put in a full house--in spite
of the opposition of Piso, and in spite of Clodius throwing himself at
the feet of the senators one after the other--that the consuls should
exhort the people to pass the bill, about fifteen voted with Curio, who
was against any decree being passed; on the other side there were fully
four hundred. So the vote passed. The tribune Fufius then gave in.[89]
Clodius delivered some wretched speeches to the people, in which he
bestowed some