Book 4

pr.1. What the givers of games are wont to do, who, to keep the people's expectation in suspense, deal out new pairs of gladiators throughout all the days, so that there may be something both to delight the people and to recall it — this I do: I do not bring forth all at once; let the little book always have something new, so that it may stir you not only by the novelty of the epigrams, but also of their authors. Keener is the desire of learning the unknown than of going over the known. This we see happen in actors, in gladiators, in orators of whom fame has just promised something, in all things, in short:

pr.2. men flock to what is new, and do not come to what is known. Yet I will not wear out your expectation by bringing the men forth one by one: today I will be liberal and deal with a full hand. Asinius Pollio never declaimed with a crowd admitted; nor did ambition fail him in his studies: for he was the first of all Romans to recite his own writings before invited men. And from this comes what Labienus — a man of bitterer mind than tongue — says: "That old man of triumphs never committed his recitations to the people"; whether because he had too little confidence in them, or — what I should rather believe — so great an orator counted that work beneath his talent, and wished indeed to be exercised by it, but disdained to glory in it.

pr.3. I heard him both in his vigour and afterwards when he was an old man, when he was, as it were, instructing his grandson Marcellus Aeserninus. He would listen to him speaking, and first dispute about the part that Marcellus had spoken: he would point out what was passed over, fill out what was lightly touched, convict what was faulty. Then he would speak the opposite side. He was somewhat more florid in declaiming than in pleading: that strict, harsh, and over-angry judgement of his own talent so far stood idle that in many things he needed an indulgence which could scarcely be obtained from him.

pr.4. Marcellus, though a boy, was already of such promise that Pollio believed the succession of his own eloquence belonged to him, although he was leaving a son, Asinius Gallus, a great orator — but for this, that, as always happens, the greatness of his father did not bring him forward but buried him. I remember that, within the fourth day after he had lost his son Herius, he declaimed for us, but so much more vehemently than ever, that it was plain a man stubborn by nature was wrangling with his own fortune;

pr.5. nor did he relax anything from the accustomed order of his life. And so, when Gaius Caesar had died in Syria, and the deified Augustus complained by a letter — as was the way of that most merciful man, not only courteously but even familiarly — that in so great and recent a grief of his own a man most dear to him had dined at a full banquet, Pollio wrote back: "I dined on the very day I lost my son Herius." Who would exact a greater grief from a friend than from a father?

pr.6. O great men, who know not how to succumb to fortune, and make their adversities trials of their virtue! Asinius Pollio declaimed within the fourth day after he had lost his son: that proclamation was the act of a mighty spirit insulting its own ills. But on the other hand I know that Quintus Haterius bore the death of his son Sextus with so weak a spirit that not only did he yield to the recent grief, but could not endure even the memory of the old and faded one. I remember, when he was speaking the controversia about the man who, dragged away from the tombs of his three children, sues for injuries, his speech was broken in the middle by his weeping; then he spoke with so much the greater force, so much the more piteously, that it was plain how great a part of one's talent grief may sometimes be.

pr.7. Haterius declaimed extempore with the people admitted: he alone of all Romans whom I myself have known transferred the Greek facility into the Latin tongue. So great was the speed of his speech that it became a fault. And so the deified Augustus said very well: "Our Haterius needs a brake." So far did he seem not to run but to run downhill. Nor had he merely an abundance of words, but of matter too: as often as you wished, and as long as you wished, he would speak on the same theme, so many times over with new figures, new treatments, that he could be governed and not exhausted.

pr.8. By himself, however, he could not be governed; but he had a freedman whom he obeyed; he went just as that man either spurred him on or reined him in. He would bid him pass on when he had dwelt on a topic for some time: he passed on; he would bid him stand fast at the same topic: he stayed; he would bid him speak the epilogue: he spoke it. He had his talent in his own power, the measure of it in another's.

pr.9. He thought that to divide the controversia was to the purpose if one were questioning him, but not if one were hearing him. His order was the one that impulse had given; he did not direct himself to the declamatory rule. Nor did he guard his words. For the schools now shun certain words as if obscene, and cannot endure any that are somewhat coarse or drawn from everyday use. He, in this, humoured the schoolmen, that he should not use trodden and worn-out words; but he spoke certain old words, used by Cicero and then abandoned by the rest, which not even that most rapid current of his speech could hide. So far is anything unusual notable even in a crowd.

pr.10. This excepted, no one was either fitter for the schoolmen or more like them; but while he would speak nothing except elegantly, except brilliantly, he often fell into things that could not escape ridicule. I remember that, when he was defending a freedman charged with having been his patron's catamite, he said: "Unchastity in a free-born man is a crime, in a slave a necessity, in a freedman a duty." The thing went off into jests: "You do me no duty," and "He is much engaged in duties to that man." From this, the unchaste and the obscene were for a while commonly called "dutiful."

pr.11. I remember too that this rejoinder, set down by him thus, furnished great matter for the jests of Asinius Pollio and then of Cassius Severus: "But," he said, "amid the boyish bosoms of your schoolfellows you bade lust with an obscene hand." And very many things of this kind were charged against him. There was much you would reprehend, much you would admire, since he flowed like a torrent, great indeed but turbid. Yet he redeemed his faults with virtues, and had more for you to praise than to forgive — as in the declamation in which he wept.

1. The father dragged from the tombs by a spendthrift. A certain man who had lost three children, while he sat beside the tomb, was carried off by a dissolute young man into a neighbouring garden, had his hair shorn, and was compelled to take part in a banquet with his garments changed. Once let go, he sues for injuries.

Never are tears suppressed by command; nay, they are even provoked. There is no greater cause for weeping than not to be able to weep. He carried me off in such a state that I should be ashamed to come to a banquet, and let me go in such a state that I should be ashamed to return to the tomb. I suppose someone wonders that I come into the forum when I have just lost my children. But I have already been at a banquet. "How long," he says, "will you weep?" There is a certain pleasure for the wretched in their very ills, and all adverse fortune has its solace in lamentation. There you forbid me to weep, where you yourself would cruelly not weep. Since to weep is the most wretched thing, how unhappy am I, to whom not even this is allowed! I have seen the thirst of the drunken and the hunger of the vomiting. Who is this who demands the censorship of mourning over a weeping father? Flung into every outrage of gluttony and lust, to be marked by every censor, he composes precepts for the age: he knows how much a father ought to weep over three lost children — a man whom, if he lived, a father would weep. An old man, bereaved, unhappy, I take this one solace amid my miseries, that I cannot be more wretched. I see the ashes of my own in the tomb. It is a great solace to call again and again on the names of my children, that will not answer. Here I must live, lest I meet anyone, thinking of marriage, thinking of children, as a dire omen. He forces a man to weep who does not allow it . . . To linger at that banquet would be an injury even to a fortunate father.

The other side. I complained first of the inhumanity of those who were connected to him by kinship: is no one his friend, no one, I say, his kinsman? But they knew his frenzy better, I see. On a festal day my companions and friends were with me, one of whom said: "Why do we let this wretched man perish? No one sets a limit to weeping for himself; they are ashamed to leave off, they wish to be compelled." I would console you longer, were you not now able also to accuse me.

2. The blinded Metellus. Let a priest be whole. The pontifex Metellus, when the temple of Vesta was burning, lost his eyes while snatching the Palladium. The priesthood is refused him.

Mother Vesta, perhaps you would have no priest, had you not had Metellus. I plead the cause of the holy rites, not of Metellus: it concerns them more that Metellus not lose the priesthood, than it concerns Metellus. Metellus was not yet so great when we gave him the priesthood. The anxious city hung in suspense; two things were in peril than which the people had nothing more precious, the sacred objects and Metellus. O the man who must be made priest, were he not so already! The law refers wholeness to the mind, not to the body. The law willed this to be assessed then, when a man sought the priesthood, not when he held it. You have, Vesta, a double merit of your pontifex: he saved the sacred things and did not see them.

Outside. Pollio: if he had been made blind before this, he would not have lifted them; if he was made blind afterwards, he saw.

The other side. A priest not whole of body is a thing to be avoided, as of ill omen. This is marked even in victims; how much more in priests? After the priesthood, infirmity is the more to be watched; for not without the anger of the gods is a priest made infirm. It is plain that the gods are not propitious to a priest whom they do not save even when he saves.

Outside. This colour Gallio did not approve, asserting, with the highest honour to Metellus, that the case must be argued against Metellus in such a way that he too be compelled, along with the judges, to consult the duty of the pontiffs.

3. The exile, father of the ravished woman. Let one condemned for unintentional homicide be exiled for five years. Let a ravished woman choose the death of her ravisher or marriage without a dowry. A man who had a daughter and a son, condemned for unintentional homicide, went into exile. His daughter was ravished; the ravisher betook himself to the girl's father; he obtained from him that he should bid his daughter choose marriage, and that he should give a letter to the son. On the brother's advice the girl chose death. The father returned; he disowns the son.

How shall I excuse myself to the commonwealth, from which I have taken two? Neither through my fault: in the one, fortune deceived me; in the other, my son. The daughter obeyed even her brother; the son obeyed not even his father. "By human errors," he says — I recognized my own prayers. "You can show all men," he says, "how unable you are to kill a man." You know I owe a citizen to the commonwealth: yet this difference there will be, that the unintentional we killed, the intentional we saved. I saw someone in exile beneath my own fortune.

The other side. He burst in insolently as into an exile's house. He reached the father, he did not spare his modesty. But I was complaining that he did the absent man an injury. I cannot be disowned for what was done by law. You could not, father, judge of an injury you did not know. Many things are wrung from us that we are unwilling to write. And you were in a fortune in which you could receive an injury, and he was the sort who could do an injury even in his own country. Because he knew his cause was bad, he pleaded it before one who did not know it. He returned proud, he bade us choose marriage, he compelled us; he seemed to have compelled in the same way there too. Yet by the letters he gained something: no one ever perished more slowly. He gathered a huge number of desperate men, stormed the house, harried the girl. This the ravisher had not told you.

Outside. Latro used to say that one who put forward another defendant in his own place was always hateful. Here the deed must not be diverted upon the sister's will. "One who defends," he said, "a charge is heard as a defendant; one who transfers it, as an accuser. But he is in a bad position who has the defendant's fortune and the accuser's odium." Asinius Pollio used to say that the colour should be shown in the narration, but carried through in the arguments. They acted unwisely who in the narration used up all the instruments of the colour; for they put more than the narration required, and less than the proof.

4. The man who conquered with the arms of a tomb. Let there be an action for a violated tomb. When there was war in a certain city, a brave man, having lost his own arms in the battle line, took the arms of a brave man from his tomb. He fought bravely and put them back. Having received a reward, he is accused of violating a tomb.

I had scarcely touched the arms; they followed me. If I take these, they are arms; if I leave them, they are spoils. You would have seen a tomb truly violated, had the enemy come there. Each of us lent what the other lacked: he gave arms to the man, I gave a man to the arms. The commonwealth gained much, the brave man lost nothing. It is necessity that lightens a ship by jettison, necessity that overwhelms fires by demolition: necessity is the law of the moment. Is nothing done lawfully on behalf of the laws? It went better with the very tomb, in which the victorious arms are now more renowned. For the commonwealth temples are often stripped, and we melt down their offerings for the use of soldiers' pay.

The other side. We have a defendant sluggish in battle, bold in flight, base no less in his defence than in his crime. He lost his own arms. This he could not excuse, unless he had snatched another's. He snatched another's. This he could not excuse, unless he had lost his own. Victorious arms, arms consecrated to the gods of the dead, arms that made you too a brave man. "I put back the arms," he says. He boasts that he did not lose these too. "I am not held by the law, because I put them back." You are held, by Hercules, as much as one who has wounded a man, even though he has healed the wound; as much as one who has stolen something, even though he has given it back when caught. This is not a crime to be remitted to him on account of his valour: we have already returned the favour to his valour; it has obtained its reward. We must be fair: we have honoured one brave man; let us avenge another.

5. The stepson who is a physician. A certain man disowned his son. The disowned son studied medicine. When the father was ill and the physicians said he could not be healed, the son healed him. He was taken back. Afterwards the stepmother began to be ill; the physicians despaired. The father asks his son to treat the stepmother. When the son refuses, he disowns him. The son speaks against it.

By what arrangement did it come about that at my disowning my father fell ill, and at my return my stepmother? The diseases yielded to filial devotion. I leave off medicine, much toil, much wakefulness; add to this that those who are healed are ungrateful. As a physician I may be deceived, and as a stepson I cannot be excused. "The physicians say," he says, "it is the same disease" — those, namely, who said you could not be healed. But I leave the house, if you grant that she can be healed thus. I fear fortune. It will be laid to my charge if anything happens. See, you yourself do not believe that I am unable. All the physicians deny it, and now they have been more careful, because in your case they were deceived. I am not of so great skill as I seem: great teachers are needed; I, a disowned man, studied. Do you ask how I healed you? I helped you not as a physician but as a son; you were suffering from longing; whatever you received from my hands was pleasing to you. As soon as I entered, you were revived: I noticed what in you needed healing. She does not suffer from the same disease. Many things are unlike: sex, age, temperament. Nothing profits the sick more than to be treated by the one they wish. Grave diseases are cured by bold remedies, which I do not dare to use on a stepmother.

Outside. A young man ought to bear no grudge against his stepmother; otherwise he both hates and rejoices. A young man is to be borne with if he excuses himself; not if he takes revenge.

The other side. There is cause for mourning, for weeping; was it for this you saved me? An enemy once healed a wound he had made, chiefly because no other could heal it. They say she cannot be healed. No one undertakes it; for no one wishes to snatch the treatment from a son.

Outside. Pollio used to say: between fathers and sons the judge thinks only that lawful which is fitting.

6. The indistinguishable son and stepson. A certain man, his wife being dead, who had perished in childbirth, married another; he sent the boy to the country. By her in time he got a son. He brought up both boys in the country; after a long time they returned, alike. When the mother asks which is hers, he does not tell her. He is accused by her of ill-treatment.

Why do you weep, boys? Be at ease; I do not remember. Already there are lawsuits, and I have not yet told. What kind of stepmother will you be, who so long to become one? One is yours, the other is your son's brother, and if you would permit it, neither is a stepson. While you wish to be mother of the one, you are stepmother of both. If you compel me, I will lie: not as a mother but as a stepmother you will be deceived. These two Nature herself willed not to be distinguished. I would tell, were you not so stubbornly asking. This one is yours. Why do you look at the other with a stepmother's eyes? That one is yours. To you alone has it fallen to have a stepson and not be a stepmother.

The other side. She sues for ill-treatment; for the son was banished to the country by the father and brought up so that he could be unknown even to his mother. To you both have returned as sons, to her both as stepsons; she is the more cruelly without a son, the nearer she has come to him. You fear her unfairness, when, unfair yourself, you love more the one to whom you wish to give another's mother than the one to whom you do not wish to give back his own.

Outside. As to the husband's colour, Romanius Hispo and Pompeius Silo used this: "I do not know, and therefore I do not tell." Some mixed the two and, using both, said: "I do not know, but even if I knew I would not tell" — which Latro and Cestius used. But Asinius Pollio approved neither colour. "If he says, 'I do not know,'" he said, "he convinces no one: the wife herself would not be asking him, unless he could know." For it can be said against the husband: "Ask the nurse, ask the tutor; it is not likely that no one is in the house who knows." But that mixed colour spoils both — the credibility of one who is ignorant, and the confidence of one who will not tell. For when he says, "even if I knew, I would not tell," he makes the judge think he does know; when he says, "I do not know," he makes it seem that he ought to tell, if he knows. He himself, however, used this colour, which he called the simplest: "I know, but I do not tell, because this is useful for the boys"; and to your son: "I shall love more the one who will seem to have no mother."

7. The tyrannicide who was the tyrant's lover. Let there be a reward for a tyrannicide. A man caught in adultery by the tyrant wrested the sword from the tyrant and killed him. He seeks the reward. There is opposition.

He would not have done the tyrannicide, had the tyrant not armed him. Whose lover was he not, who was even the tyrant's? He charges us with the fact that, caught in adultery, he was unwilling to die. Your tyrannicide might lawfully have been killed by the tyrant. A contest entered into on equal terms public fortune drew apart: not the more innocent conquered, but the stronger. The tyrant brought a sword with him; for so those come who mean to kill. Why do you alone come for the reward? You certainly killed the tyrant along with an adulteress. He took up no breastplate or shield, but a thin and transparent garment; drenched in perfume, he entered the chamber, in which he had carefully ascertained that the tyrant was not. Our tyrannicide prayed that he might not find the tyrant. Let the tyrant lead a tyrannicide to the citadel — not his wife; hatred, not love; when about to climb, let him bring a spirit, let him bring a blade; let him go where he may find the tyrant. Every honourable work the will begins, the opportunity completes. Virtue is often honoured even where the outcome has failed it; crimes too are punished, though they have stopped short of the outcome; an unlucky virtue does not lose the title of glory, nor does fortuitous good luck intercept the glory of virtue. Never would the wisdom of our ancestors buy a tyrannicide with such great gifts, if lust too could promise it. They fought in a new and unheard-of fashion, the tyrannicide for adultery, the tyrant for chastity. You killed a husband; fortune killed a tyrant. I wish a tyrant to fall for the commonwealth; let an angry citizen kill him, let him mingle with the wounds such curses as a husband would have brought against an adulterer. From an adulteress's kisses you run to a reward. I would not have a tyrannicide play the lover before he kills the tyrant. The Roman people would not have its enemy conquered by poison, nor by treachery. I will honour a sudden tyrannicide; I will not honour a fortuitous one, nor a forced one.

The other side. "You had no blade," he says. For what did it profit the tyrant that he had one? In the man who comes unarmed to a tyrant the valour is not less, but the danger greater. Do not ask what I brought into the citadel; I brought back a tyrannicide. The sword is not mine; but the hand is mine, the spirit is mine, the plan, the danger, the tyrannicide are mine. Do you call adultery the means by which it was brought about that no one fear adultery? The citadel being carefully fortified, seeking an opportunity, I tried the slaves, I tried the friends; through the wife alone the opportunity shone forth. I did not think that to defile the tyrant's wife was adultery, any more than to kill a tyrant is homicide. To carry a blade into the citadel was dangerous; to find one, easy. "If I find the tyrant," I said, "whatever lies to hand will be a weapon. Surely a tyrant is always wont to have a blade about him. The sword, between two men, belongs to the stronger." How anxious an adulterer I was, lest I should not be caught!

8. The patron reclaiming the services he had remitted. Let things done by force and fear be void. In the civil war a patron, conquered and proscribed, took refuge with his freedman. He was received by him and asked to remit his services. He remitted them, a formal record being made. Restored, he imposes the services. The freedman speaks against it.

As patron I seek restoration from my freedman. If you had wished then to bargain with me for the services, I would have given my word. I lost my goods in the war; I came to my restoration stripped bare; now I look to the services of my freedmen. Bring out the tablets, crueller than that tablet of proscription: that one pursued those it had conquered, these pursued those they had received; in that one was vengeance, in these treachery; in short, that one has now ceased, these persist. "It was not my force," he says, "but another's." He is equally deserving of punishment who himself applies force and who uses to his own profit the force applied by another. I fell first upon this man, and while I feared to offend, I followed him in his demand. He did not receive me, he shut me in. Nothing is baser than a venal mercy.

The other side. You have no need of power: you know that he obeys you even when he cannot be compelled. Whatever services you impose, you will never impose any so dangerous as those you imposed. I have your own judgements: you judged well of a slave — you freed him; well of a freedman — proscribed, you entrusted yourself to me of all men. If I had not wished to have a patron, I could have done so. You were the one of the proscribed who could then even be entreated. Your restoration remitted to you your proscription; it did not annul whatever you did during the proscription.

Outside. All inveighed against the freedman. Varius Geminus and Otho Junius pleaded more gently, so that the patron should seem about to remit the services, if he won. For Otho said: "Let me seem by my own judgement to have remitted them; I will do it, I will remit them. Why do you fear me as though I had promised against my will?" On the contrary Cestius says: colours of this kind are to be used then, when there is reason to fear that we may seem to demand a hard thing, when, against an honourable person, the judge must be beguiled by a gentler promise. What do we fear in this person and cause, except this one thing that must be feared from this colour — that, if we wish to remit it, we may even seem to have wished to?