The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [312]
13. Though as prose they were exceptionally beautiful.
14. He was also much given to sharp raillery against opponents and mocking them,
15. Which in judicial pleading might be allowable as rhetoric;
16. But he excited much ill-feeling by his readiness to attack anyone for the sake of a jest.
17. This manner, and his proneness to self-praise, clung to him like a disease.
18. But though he was intemperately fond of his own glory, he was free from envying others;
19. On the contrary, he was liberally profuse in praising both the ancients and his contemporaries.
20. And many such sayings of his are also remembered; as that he called Aristotle a river of flowing gold,
21. And said of Plato’s Dialogues that their language was transcendent.
22. He used to call Theophrastus his special luxury.
23. And being asked which of Demosthenes’ orations he liked best, he answered, the longest.
24. And as for the eminent men of his own time, either in eloquence or philosophy,
25. There was not one of them whom he did not, by writing or speaking favourably of him, render more illustrious.
26. He obtained of Caesar, when in power, Roman citizenship for Cratippus the Peripatetic,
27. And got the court of Areopagus, by public decree, to request his stay at Athens,
28. For the instruction of their youth and the honour of their city.
Chapter 77
1. The beginning of Cicero’s downfall was owed to one Clodius, who during the Catiline conspiracy had been one of Cicero’s staunchest allies.
2. Clodius was a bold youth of noble family, who fell in love with Pompeia, Caesar’s wife.
3. He was still beardless, and therefore thought he could get privately into her house dressed as a music-girl.
4. But coming into the large house by night, he lost his way in the passages,
5. And a servant belonging to Caesar’s mother, seeing him wandering about, enquired his name.
6. Being obliged to speak, he told her he was looking for one of Pompeia’s maids;
7. And she, perceiving that he was not a woman, shrieked out,
8. And called the other servants, who shut the gates, and searched everywhere until they found Clodius hidden in a chamber.
9. As a result Caesar divorced Pompeia, and Clodius was prosecuted.
10. Though Cicero and Clodius had been allied, in the trial Cicero refused to tell untruths about Clodius’ whereabouts on the night of the trespass, as Clodius wished of him.
11. Many other citizens also gave evidence against him, for perjuries, disorders, bribing the people and debauching women.
12. Notwithstanding all the evidence against Clodius’ character, the judges were frightened by the outcry among the common people,
13. Who united against the accusers and witnesses in the case, so that a guard had to be placed about the judges for their defence;
14. And most of them wrote their sentences on the tablets in such a way that they could not well be read.
15. It was decided, however, that there was a majority for his acquittal, and it was reported that bribery had been involved;
16. In reference to which Catulus remarked, when he next met the judges,
17. ‘You were very right to ask for a guard, to prevent your money being taken from you.’
18. And when Clodius upbraided Cicero that the judges had not believed his testimony,
19. ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘twenty-five of them trusted me and condemned you,
20. ‘And the other thirty did not trust you, for they did not acquit you till they got your money.’
21. Caesar, though cited, did not give his testimony against Clodius, and declared himself not convinced of his wife’s adultery,
22. But said he had put her away because it was fit that Caesar’s house should be free not only of the evil fact, but even of the mere rumour of it.
Chapter 78
1. Clodius, having escaped this danger, and been chosen one of the tribunes, immediately attacked Cicero, inciting people against him.
2. The common people he gained over with popular laws;
3. To each of the consuls he decreed large provinces: to Piso, Macedonia, and to Gabinius, Syria;