Book 1

1. The uncle disowned. Children are to support their parents, or else be imprisoned. Two brothers were at odds with each other; one of them had a son. The uncle fell into poverty; though his father forbade it, the young man supported him; for this he was disowned, and said nothing. He was adopted by the uncle. The uncle, receiving an inheritance, became rich. The father began to be in want: with the uncle forbidding it, the young man supports him. He is disowned. He speaks against it.

He had now been brought to such a pass that he placed all his hope of last resort for support in that one house in which he kept a man both disowned and an enemy. "He himself," he says, "forbade me to be supported." Do you call the copying of another's fault innocence? Every prosperity is unstable and uncertain. Who would have believed, as Marius lay upon the rough sea-wall, that he had been a consul, or would be one again? What do you suppose the fortunate need not fear? What may the unfortunate not hope for? Not to send you off among more examples of fortune's instability, look at who is asked for support and who does the asking. I am no burdensome guest: I bring one old man. It is by this fault, father, that I have pleased you. The whole world would have perished, had mercy not put a limit to anger. Tossed between two fathers, the son of each, I am yet always disowned by the more fortunate one. Yet this, father, I call the gods to witness: I leave you a rich man. I will go round the doorways of strangers with you, father; I will show everyone both me, who gave support, and you, who refused it. I cannot be disowned for what I did under the compulsion of the law. What if you should forbid me to weep when I have seen a man in misery? Our feelings are not within our own power. Certain laws are unwritten, yet more certain than all that is written.

The other side. He has resolved to grow great out of the ill-will against me — a man who can boast of himself better than he can defend himself. My fear is a just one: that I may write an ungrateful man my heir, and leave behind me an enemy. Even if you do not hate the man who did me an injury, I hate the man who did you one. He ceases to be a son who has not only been disowned, but has been adopted by another as well. Hear how greatly I was in want: I begged of my brother. Who are you to pass judgement on the conduct of fathers? We do not refer our hatreds to you as arbitrator; we have the gods for judges.

Remarks made outside the controversia. Alfius Flavus, still in boy's dress, used to declaim controversiae in the school of Cestius. But his eloquence was always commended by something beyond eloquence; in the boy, his very age lent a charm to his talent.

2. The priestess who had been a prostitute. Let a priestess be chaste, born of the chaste, pure, born of the pure. A certain virgin, captured by pirates, was put up for sale; she was bought by a pimp and made a prostitute. She would entreat those who came to her for an alms. A soldier who had come to her, when he could not be entreated and tried to wrestle with her and use force, she killed. She was accused, acquitted, and sent back to her own people. She seeks a priesthood. There is opposition.

Your priestess would still be living in the brothel, had she not killed a man. What use to me is a priestess whose chastity hangs by a thread? This alone was wanting — that the temples should receive women whom either the prison or the brothel has cast out. I would call you unworthy of the priesthood even if you had merely passed through a brothel. "Fortune compelled me to suffer it, and all should pity me." But we do not make our priestesses out of objects of pity, nor is the highest honour among us the consolation of the worst of evils. So well was she guarded at home that she could be carried off; so dear was she to her own people that, once carried off, she was not ransomed; the pirates spared their captive only to sell her to a pimp; the pimp bought her only to prostitute her; she entreated those who came to her only until there was need of the sword. I am moved by my regard for all our virgins, if in the whole city no one could be found more chaste than a prostitute nor more pure than a killer. No woman is chaste enough about whom there is an inquiry. "I entreated them all," she says. If anyone doubted whether she was a prostitute, let him hear how seductive she is. Let us suppose three women seek the priesthood: one who was taken captive, another who has prostituted herself, a third who has killed a man — to all I say no.

The other side. The gods willed that there should be a marvel: liberty in a captive, modesty in a prostitute, innocence in one who has killed. Tell it freely, all of you, that men came to her as to a prostitute — so long as they left her as from a priestess. How chaste she is, the soldier showed; how innocent, the judge; how favoured of heaven, her return. Amid so many dangers the gods would not have preserved her, had they not meant to preserve her for themselves. The people brought to the saving of her chastity all that it had brought to the violating of it. Let her render to the gods the chastity she owes them.

Outside. One must keep far away from all that is obscene in words and in thoughts. Some things it is better to leave unsaid, to the detriment of one's case, than to say, to the detriment of decency.

3. The unchaste woman from the rock. Let an unchaste woman be cast down from the rock. A woman condemned for unchastity, before she was cast down, called upon Vesta; cast down, she lived. She is demanded back for punishment.

This alone was wanting — that she should be more virtuous on the rock than she had been in the shrine. Can there be any doubt that she must be cast down again and again, until the very thing is brought about for which she was cast down? She thinks the misfortune of her perishing serves as her defence. What am I to pray for, troublesome woman, except that you not perish even when twice cast down? Shall I set out with whom, or when, she committed her defilement? Because I proved these things, you condemned her. Do you not think the law took precaution that she should perish, when it took precaution as to how she should perish? You judge ill of the gods, if they come to their priestess's aid so late. Did the gods then prefer to acquit a condemned woman rather than a priestess?

The other side. Condemned, she was cast down; acquitted, she came down. You would think the girl was not flung down but lowered. The law would not have deferred a priestess all the way to the rock, had it not been awaiting the verdict of the gods. The height of the cliff was dreadful even to those who looked down from it without danger.

4. The brave man without hands. Whoever catches an adulterer with the adulteress, provided he kills both bodies, shall be free of guilt. Let it be lawful to punish adultery in a mother and a son. A brave man lost his hands in war. He caught an adulterer with his wife, by whom he had a grown son; he ordered his son to kill the man. The son did not kill him; the adulterer escaped. He disowns his son. The son speaks against it.

I alone of all husbands neither let the adulterers go nor killed them. Who would not suppose either that I had no son, or that my son had no hands? This fellow was conceived — by whom, we shall learn when I have caught adulterers in the act. Then for the first time I felt that I had lost my hands. In war I lost my own hands; at home I lost my son's as well. As vainly did I run to my son as to a sword. He did not go to war, and refused his hands to his country before he refused them to his father. He fought for you to the point that he could not fight for himself. Young man, follow the men you let go. "I could not," he says, "kill my mother." That you may be the better excused, add your father too.

The other side. I thought it a second parricide to kill a mother before her father's eyes. Crimes are not always within our control, and merciful Nature weakens even fierce spirits. At the spectacle of so unlooked-for an outrage I was stunned in my whole body. Father, you lacked hands; I lacked everything. Before I came back to my senses, they were gone. The crime you were commanding was greater than the one you had caught in the act. If you exact of me anything beyond my strength, I will say: forgive me, I cannot. A father forgives a son who refuses a voyage, if he cannot bear the sea; he forgives one who does not follow the camp, if he cannot, even though the father himself be a soldier. Recite the law itself: "Let it be lawful for the husband, and lawful also for the son." Why does it name so many, unless it thinks there are some who cannot? The adulterers escaped between a crippled father and a stunned son.

5. The ravisher of two women. Let a ravished woman choose either the death of her ravisher or marriage without a dowry. In one night a certain man ravished two women. One chooses death, the other marriage.

He is accused on the charge of outrage, and on the charge of outrage he is defended; he goes to law with one ravished woman, and calls upon the other to plead for him. Avenge it, fathers; let the severity of public discipline rise up the stronger; now they are ravished two at a time. The people gather as if struck by some public terror, scarcely able to believe there was one ravisher of two. He ravished one to do her injury, the other to win his defence. You would already have perished, ravisher, had you not deserved to perish twice over. If he had ravished you first and you had chosen marriage, and then he had violated this woman before you were wed, would you deny that he must die at the bidding of the woman he ravished? You can do nothing more for the ravisher than to keep him from perishing by your own law; against another's law you have no right. You grant the ravisher that you yourself do not kill him; you cannot grant that no one kill him.

The other side. Between verdicts that are equal, let the gentler win. Cite Verginia, name Lucretia: still the Sabine women are more in number. It will be an affront to me, that you are judged worthy to have a man killed for your honour, while I am judged unworthy to have one saved for mine.

6. The pirate chief's daughter. A man captured by pirates wrote home about his ransom; he was not ransomed. The pirate chief's daughter made him swear to take her as his wife if he were set free. He swore. Leaving her father, she followed the young man. He married her. He came into a childless inheritance. His father orders him to dismiss the pirate chief's daughter and marry the childless heiress. When he refuses, the father disowns him.

A wife of good hope, a daughter-in-law of good hope, who can love even a captive, and hate even a father. "I lay," he says, "in prison and in darkness." Tell me, I beg, the kindnesses of your father-in-law. The girl was moved not by pity but by lust.

The other side. She did not abandon me in a place into which even my father feared to come. You would have seen my limbs crushed by chains, my eyes shrunken and drawn inward with wasting, my hands worn by the fetters and useless: who but a merciful woman could love such a man? In all his consulships Marius has nothing more glorious than that he was his own founder. If hereditary portraits had carried Pompey aloft, no one would have called him the Great. Rome bore Servius as her king. What do you make of those men called from the plough, who by their own poverty made the commonwealth blessed? We cannot be fortunate together: what is our custom, we shall be unfortunate together.

7. The tyrannicide released by the pirates. Children are to support their parents, or else be imprisoned. A certain man killed one brother who was a tyrant and another caught in adultery, while their father pleaded for them. Captured by pirates, he wrote to his father about his ransom. The father sent a letter to the pirates: if they cut off the man's hands, he would pay double the money. The pirates released him. The father fell into poverty and asks for support. When the son refuses, the father wishes to have him led off to prison. The son speaks against it.

"If you cut them off" — if you are angry, write rather, "if you kill him." As a tyrannicide, I ask for the tyrant's end. I do not fear that the judges should bind the hands the pirates loosed. You plead for an adulterous son. Now ask how tyrants come to be made. "I will give double" — it is plain, he pleads for an only son. "I will give double" — one sum for the son, one for the tyrannicide. "If you cut off his hands" — this we did neither to the adulterer nor to the tyrant. And do you even now demand my hands? Deny that the letter is yours; and you have the proof — say: I am in the habit of pleading even for the adulterer. They sent me back to the commonwealth with my hands, to my father with his letters. This was wanting to the tales of our age — that the story should be told of a man loosed by pirates and bound by his father. A buyer of cruelty such as not even a pirate would be the seller. "I will give double" — what need of it? I could have been freed more cheaply. "That you cut off his hands" — the brigands were dumbfounded and said: tell your father that pirates do not sell everything. What kind of father to wish for I do not know: rich, he cripples me; poor, he binds me; neither course suits my hands. Where is the patrimony with which you equip tyrants, with which you make adulterers?

The other side. I have reared three monsters raging against each other and against me: one who could crush his country, another who could violate his brother, another his father. This law was written for bad fathers; for good ones are supported even without a law. I knew the pirates would not act unless they received money; and had they hoped for it, they would surely have cut off his hands. That was no anger of a father, but cunning: I had nothing from which to ransom him, I could beg of no one in a city so greedy that not even sons support their fathers; I used my judgement, knowing that pirates are not cruel but greedy: I made them despair of being able to ransom him. Whether I planned it wisely I do not know; for the moment I planned it luckily. My mind was driven out of me from the time I saw one son on the citadel, another in adultery, a third in parricide, while I was left alone, childless, an old man. This colour must be carried off by sheer force of feeling; for great power is needed to make oneself pitiable by self-accusation. I remember the man was called sane among scholars, and a scholar among the sane.

8. The thrice-brave man. Whoever has done a brave deed three times shall be exempt from military service. A father holds back his thrice-brave son, who wishes to go out into the battle line a fourth time; when the son refuses, he disowns him.

What is left over from my country I claim for myself, the father. O how weary I am already, with my son still fighting! Now on your behalf I cannot tell what even the law fears. Do you wonder if what is enough for the law is too much for a father? My reason for disowning is that I may not live without a son. My power to disown is in the power of the disowned. The best end of valour is to leave off before you fail. The law too, in the thrice-brave man, either distrusts him or takes thought for him.

The other side. Surely the disowned are allowed to fight. It shames me — the thrice-conquered serve in the army. A senator, after his sixty-fifth year, is neither compelled nor forbidden to come into the senate-house. Whatever is given in the name of honour is permitted either way; otherwise it ceases to be a reward, if necessity is laid upon it. You command leisure to a spirit that is not at leisure. A tumult has broken out; the eyes of all the citizens are turned upon me, and as yet, the truth must be told, my country owes me nothing: I have never fought except under compulsion. So far my soldiering has been the law's duty. The Athenians won the day with a disowned man for their general. What a difference! He blotted out his disowning by his valour; I earned mine.