Book 7

1. The man released by his son the pirate chief. A certain man brought a stepmother in over his two sons. He condemned one of them at home for parricide; he handed him over to his brother for punishment. The brother put him on a ship stripped of its tackle. Carried to the pirates, the young man became a pirate chief, captured his father as he travelled, and let him go. On his return the father disowns his son.

Bewildered by so great a storm, I could discern nothing, nor did I well remember whether my father or my stepmother had laid such a service upon me, whether he had meant it to be a service or a punishment, the avenging of parricide or a parricide. You bid me sew my brother into a sack? I cannot. Do you not forgive me? Or do you not believe me? I maintain that not even you could do it. No companion of his shipwreck was found; all the tackle was cut away, no support for hope. Am I to be excused to my father or to my brother? "This gift of your filial love I shall bear to the world below — that it was permitted me, through my brother, to die otherwise than as a parricide." "Your brother lives," he says. I do not believe it. "He saved me," he says. You have made me believe it. In a house in which a parricide was so easily believed, I could not kill my brother, nor my brother our father. Description of the storm: lightnings flashed from thick clouds on every side, and dread tempests had hidden the day; the sea had swollen, dreadful even to sound ships. "You have," I said, "brother, if you are innocent, a ship; if guilty, a sack." I could not commit parricide — how easily we all go astray — and thought it committed. "Brother," he said, "you will be the first in the house to commit parricide." There lay on the shore the ship that, even whole, had carried him unhappily. I will believe him a parricide, if he gave you back his own ship as you set out. Suddenly the blade slipped from my hand together with my courage, and by some bewilderment darkness was poured over my dazed eyes. I understood how hard it was to commit a parricide, even one a father had commanded. So may Fortune help me — she who alone looks upon the wretched in our house. My father set out on a calm sea, with a favourable journey, in a sound ship. What is this? The condemned man sailed more happily than the man who had condemned him. Do you think he learned innocence among the pirates, or that he did not lose it even among the pirates? You would have perished, father, had you not fallen in with a parricide. The very torn sails had filled out, and the shipwrecked vessel had outrun equipped fleets. You would know that the man was sailing who was to save his father. There was a ship — nay, there had been one. O cruel and stubborn stepmother! She rages no less; the seas are now at rest, the pirates show mercy, the angry spare. I have come to you to prove myself a parricide. Nature has opened many roads to death, and by many paths the fates run their course. O seas juster than verdicts! O storms milder than a father! Do you not think him merciful, who gave the man he had condemned to his brother for punishment? Lucullus's centurion could not kill Mithridates — Mithridates, good gods, how unquestionable a parricide! Rejoice, father, neither of your sons committed parricide. Tell, father, how he let you go, having been so let go himself. "He is guilty," you say; but to me he is a brother. The laws of nature are sacred even among pirates. "You should have said," he says, "that you could not." So did you not know it? It was not lawful, I ought not, I could not.

The other side. Deny now that he was a parricide, when you know he is a pirate. He let me go for his own defence, so that, because he had not killed me, he might seem not even to have wished it before. And who, moreover, is more wretched than I alone? I owe my life to a parricide.

Outside. A great band of the newer rhetoricians went over to this side, holding that something ought to be said against the stepmother; and there were those too who would not say it openly, but by hint and figures; which Passienus did not approve, asserting that to defame a stepmother is less modest or tolerable than to accuse her. Some had only their openings in their own power; afterwards they were carried away by impulse. It is more excusable to fall into a bad colour than to cross into it. Hispanus, using a harsh colour, said that he had chosen this kind of punishment as the graver: which colour displeased the prudent; for what hope of acquittal has a man, if he neither obeyed nor spared?

2. Popilius the slayer of Cicero. Let there be an action concerning character. Cicero defended Popilius, charged with parricide; he was acquitted. Sent by Antony, he killed the proscribed Tullius; he carried his head back to Antony. He is accused concerning his character.

Popilius killed Cicero. Do you now believe that this man killed his father? Meaning to kill Cicero, he should have begun with his father. "Antony ordered it," he says. Are you not ashamed, Popilius? Your commander believed you capable of committing parricide. He cut off the head, lopped off the hand. There is less crime in him that he killed Cicero. Good gods! I call the killing of Cicero a bad character. This alone is fortunate, that you killed your father before Cicero. More easily did Cicero move a judge for a parricide than himself for his client. To you, advocates, this precedent looks: Popilius hates none more than those to whom he owes most. He cut off the neck. Spare now, Popilius: Antony bade you do nothing but kill. Be ashamed, Popilius: your accuser lives. Antony would not have believed Popilius would do it, had he not remembered that he had committed parricide. The spirits of the dead, of old Popilius, and his father's unavenged shade pursue you, Cicero, that you may know him a parricide whom you denied to be one. The Minturnaean marsh did not swallow the exiled Marius; the Cimbrian saw him giving commands even in captivity. Gnaeus Pompeius, tamer of lands and sea, gladly professed himself the client of Hortensius; and Hortensius had defended Pompey's goods, not Pompey. So you, Popilius, if Antony had ordered it, would have killed even your father?

The other side. If you call those times into question, you speak not of a man's character, but of the commonwealth's. Do you wonder if at that time it was necessary for Popilius to kill, when it was necessary for Cicero to die? Cicero's proscription was to be killed, mine was to kill: my commander ordered it, my conqueror ordered it; could I refuse anything to the man to whom the commonwealth could refuse nothing?

Outside. Few of the historians have related that Popilius was the slayer of Cicero, and these too not that he was defended by Cicero on a charge of parricide, but in a private suit.

3. The thrice-disowned man holding poison. A man thrice disowned and thrice acquitted was caught in a secret part of the house by his father holding a drug. Asked what it was, he said it was poison, that he wished to die; and he poured it out. He is accused of parricide.

Tell me what I have done: surely not even my secrets escape you. When my father came upon me, I had fallen into these thoughts: was anyone ever so unhappy? Does anyone hate me more than I hate myself? I began to pity myself. Three times I pleaded my cause; to these punishments of mine poison was added; I will live, if not even this is enough for you. Mithridates had poison, Demosthenes had poison.

The other side. Though he says he wishes to die, he asks for life. I hold a parricide prepared even for his own death. How small is what you deny, when so great is what you confess? You sought poison, you bought poison, you brought poison into that house in which you had a father who was your enemy. Tell who sold it; it will be said to him: did you sell poison to anyone? to a disowned man? Did you not know to whom he meant to give it? Do you ask for whom he prepared the poison? He did not drink it. What he denies is parricide; what he confesses is poisoning. "I prepared it," he says, "for myself" — that no one may doubt whether he can kill another . . . I say your father was so hateful to you that you wished to kill him; you yourself confess he was so hateful that you wished to die.

Outside. A double conjecture from a single person: whether he prepared it for himself, or for his father. The deified Julius brought Laberius forward at his games as a mime, and then restored him to the equestrian order. When he bade him go and take his seat, all the knights so crowded together that they would not receive him as he came. Caesar had then enrolled many in the senate, both to refill the order, drained by the civil war, and to return thanks to those who had deserved well of his party. Cicero, jesting at both things, said to Laberius as he passed: "I would have received you, if I were not sitting in a narrow space." Laberius sent back to Cicero: "And yet you are wont to sit on two stools." This because Cicero had a bad name as neither a sure friend to Pompey nor to Caesar, but a flatterer of both.

4. The blind mother holding back her son. Let children support their parents, or be imprisoned. A certain man, who had a wife and a son, set out and fell among pirates. He wrote to both about his ransom. The wife, by weeping, was made blind; she demands support of her son as he goes to the ransom; she wishes to bind him for not staying.

About to sail, he left his son to his wife, and she was not yet blind. There is no reason for you to assess the woman's feeling by the law with which she threatens; she does everything to keep her son from being bound. Whenever there is a common right between two, the power becomes wholly his who is present.

The other side. One woman binds two with chains. To the conquered the mother threatens fetters; the victor must go to the pirates. A son in his father's power, I can serve no one but my father. You demand support from the man whom his father sends abroad. The first claim is the father's, the second the mother's. He is abroad, you at home; he a captive, you free; he among pirates, you among citizens; he bound, you loosed. But you are blind. He is the more unhappy, in that he sees his own chains, and the slaughters and wounds and crosses of those who are not ransomed. But it is dangerous. How many have thought nothing dangerous for their fathers! "She seeks not vengeance," he says, "but mercy." Does anyone so exact filial love as to hinder it?

Outside. Calvus, who long had a most unequal contest with Cicero over the supremacy in eloquence, was so impassioned a pleader that, in the middle of his speech, Vatinius the defendant cried out: "I ask you, judges: if this man is eloquent, must I therefore be condemned?"

5. The five-year-old witness against the agent. A certain man, his wife being dead, by whom he had a son, married another; he reared a son by her. He had a handsome agent. When the stepmother and stepson often quarrelled, he ordered the boy to move out; he rented a dwelling across the wall. There was a rumour of adultery between the mother and the agent. At a certain time the father was found killed in his bedchamber, the wife wounded, the common wall pierced through. It pleased the kinsmen to ask the five-year-old son, who had slept with them, whom he recognized as the slayer; he pointed at the agent with his finger. The son accuses the agent of homicide; the agent accuses him of parricide.

When I heard the cry, if there is any faith to be had, I believed adulterers had been caught. Give me the boy. Is anyone not content with one witness? Give me the people. He charges the stepson with parricide, the son with a lie. Tell, boy, who killed your father; tell boldly; you name the same man as the people. Night suits crime, the time for adultery. O the great perversity of the age into its opposite! There was found a man who could kill his father, but could not kill his stepmother. Show me this — not a wound, but a proof; show me the wound: how the slayer feared to kill her! Did that right hand wound you so lightly, which neither the wall nor the father withstood? Nothing is more sure than a boy as witness; for he has reached the years at which he understands, and not those at which he invents.

Outside. Vinicius, a man of the most exact talent, could neither say silly things nor bear them.

6. The madman who joined his daughter to a slave. A tyrant gave the slaves leave to ravish their mistresses. The leading men of the city fled, and among them one who had a son and a daughter. When all the slaves had violated their mistresses, this man's slave saved the maiden. The tyrant being killed, the leading men returned; they crucified the slaves; this man freed his slave and joined his daughter to him. He is accused by his son of madness.

We would have a solace, if the tyrant had made this marriage, not the father. Do you think him sane who chose to imitate a tyrant rather than a slave? He made himself like a tyrant, his daughter like the ravished, his freedman like the crucified. The master allowed his slave more than the tyrant did. Whoever makes this marriage is either mad or a tyrant. A noble son-in-law, who has nothing more glorious about him than that he is not among the crucified. Under her father she lost the virginity she had saved under the tyrant. Is he then worthy of marriage, because he is unworthy of the cross? The lot of the violated is better than the maiden's: to them it fell to change their marriages. A propitious father gave his daughter in marriage as an angry tyrant gave the daughters of others. When the father was sane, he fled that he might not see this marriage. Most wretched sister, under the tyrant you longed for your father; under your father you long for the tyrant. Is it not a reward for him, alone to look upon the crosses of all? He did not violate his mistress. Heap up his kindnesses: he neither killed his master nor gave poison. It is no kindness to abstain from crime. What others suffered under the tyranny, this woman suffered in freedom; the rest while their kinsmen were absent, she while hers were present; in others it is called defilement, in her marriage. He feared punishment; he knew the commonwealth would be freed, that those who had defiled would pay the penalty; and he saw the last hour drawing near for the tyranny. Gather, little slaves; gather, freedmen — a bought kinship.

The other side. If anyone had informed the tyrant, this man alone would have hung on the cross. I may give my daughter in marriage to whom I will. Marcus Cato married the daughter of his tenant. My daughter will not fear a husband's insolence, nor abusive words, nor a rival, nor divorce. Nature made no one free, no one a slave; fortune afterwards laid these names upon individuals. Lately we too were slaves. A slave was a king.

7. Beware the traitor. A father and son sought the command; the son was preferred. When war was joined he was captured. Ten envoys were sent to ransom the general. As they went, the father met them; he said that he had brought the gold for the ransom too late, that his son had been crucified. They arrived, and the general said to them from the cross: "Beware the traitor." The father is made defendant for treason.

The general bore the punishment, the traitor the price. We saw this man sadder when his son was declared general than when he was captured. How did you return safe, an old man, alone, with the gold, when even generals are captured? He received more gold than could be hidden. Do not wonder: he had sold both the general and his son. "Beware the traitor." We have already taken care, at the elections. The enemy would have taken the gold from you, had they not given it. "Beware the traitor." The dying man's information was brief, the son's modest. Why were you let go? If nothing else, you both begot a leader and wished to be a leader yourself. He came forward as a candidate against his father: even then he modestly informed against us. Your son was unwilling to entrust the commonwealth to you. Our envoys carried gold, the father carried it off. You did not stand rigid and motionless, you did not cling there as if you too were fixed to it. Why do you withdraw so quickly? He still lives and speaks. By his voice he informed of the treason, by his silence of the traitor. The best of generals did not cease to care for the commonwealth even on the cross. To you he did not say: beware the treason. Neither could the general be silent about the treason, nor the son speak of the traitor. Wait while the envoys are sent. You say: feeling does not endure delay. Then if you cannot ransom him alive, at least ransom him dead. Never was an enemy so hard that he was not bent by a father's tears. "Beware the treason"; that is, let no one go out without the guards' knowledge, let no one reach the enemy without the commonwealth's knowledge, let no one return from the enemy's camp heavy with gold. Nothing is wanting to the information: of the treason the general tells you, of the traitor the envoys. The question is removed. Do you ask whom he meant? Look at the man to whom he said nothing.

The other side. At the elections I yielded to my son. I did not wait for the decree, but, frantic and astounded, I ran off at once. In short, I made haste and did not arrive in time. I knew that enemies are often bent by fathers' tears.

Outside. Latro did not trouble to say that no treason had been committed, but that he was not the traitor. "A man who defends more than himself," he said, "is suspect to the judge." Cestius, having set the deliberative theme — "Alexander deliberates whether to sail the Ocean, when a voice was heard: 'How far, O unconquered one?'" — to a pupil who was describing at length Alexander's victories and the nations subdued, and adding, "how far after these?" cried out: "And you, how far?"

8. The choice to be changed when the ravisher is convicted. Let a ravished woman choose either the death of her ravisher or marriage without a dowry. A ravished woman, brought forward, chose marriage. The young man denied that he was the ravisher. He was convicted. She seeks his death. The ravisher speaks against it.

It was lawful for you to choose no more than once. Set before yourselves the face of punishment, the executioner, the axe: that this be lawful even once is too much. In this confusion I was so led astray that I did not know what I had done. I am punished more heavily when I am ashamed of having sinned than when I sinned. She chose marriage; and she did not yet know how modest a husband she would have. You let the ravisher go; will you kill the husband? Is then what he violated less than what he denied? So did we deny the wrong more dangerously than we did it? On a certain night — what shall I say? It is no longer a shame not to deny. Night, wine, error — why are you angry, girl? Now he does not deny it. A judge cannot recall the tablet he has cast concerning a defendant; the examiner does not change his pronouncement. Nothing is so civil, so useful, as that a power that is great should be brief. If you choose death today, you will do what has never been done: you will have chosen both.

The other side. In the former trial his aim was to pay no penalty at all for the defilement; in this his aim is that he himself should make the choice. Would that what frees him from fear — that he knows the clemency of his own judge — did not do so. There is a certain modesty close to innocence, to offer oneself to the laws. The law does not add how often she may choose, but from what: "either this," it says, "or that"; it does not add: "not more than once."