ontroversy about my
house. I delivered a speech before the pontifices on the 29th of
September. I pleaded my cause with care, and if I ever was worth
anything as a speaker, or even if I never was on any other occasion, on
this one at any rate my indignation at the business, and the importance
of it, did add a certain vigour to my style.[384] Accordingly, the
rising generation must not be left without the benefit of this speech,
which I shall send you all the same, even if you don't want it.[385] The
decree of the pontifices was as follows: "If neither by order of the
people nor vote of the plebs the party alleging that he had dedicated
had been appointed by name to that function, nor by order of the people
or vote of the plebs had been commanded to do so, we are of opinion that
the part of the site in question may be restored to M. Tullius without
violence to religion." Upon this I was at once congratulated--for no one
doubted that my house was thereby adjudged to me--when all on a sudden
that fellow mounts the platform to address a meeting, invited to speak
by Appius,[386] and announces at once to the people that the pontifices
had decided in his favour,[387] but that I was endeavouring to take
forcible possession; he exhorts them to follow himself and Appius to
defend their own shrine of Liberty.[388] Hereupon, when even those
credulous hearers partly wondered and partly laughed at the fellow's mad
folly, I resolved not to go near the place until such time as the
consuls by decree of the senate had given out the contract for restoring
the colonnade of Catulus.[389] On the 1st of October there was a full
meeting of the senate. All the pontifices who were senators were invited
to attend, and Marcellinus,[390] who is a great admirer of mine, being
called on to speak first, asked them what was the purport of their
decree. Then M. Lucullus, speaking for all his colleagues, answered that
the pontifices were judges of a question of religion, the senate of the
validity of a law: that he and his colleagues had given a decision on a
point of religion; in the senate they would with the other senators
decide on the law. Accordingly, each of them, when asked in their proper
order for their opinion, delivered long arguments in my favour. When it
came to Clodius's turn, he wished to talk out the day, and he went on
endlessly; however, after he had spoken for nearly three hours, he was
forced by the loud expression of the senate's disg