Against Flaccus (171-175)

I consented when they were stripped of their possessions, giving immunity to those who were plundering them; and on this account I have myself been deprived of all my paternal and maternal inheritance, and of all that I have ever acquired by gift or favour, and of everything else that ever became mine in any other manner.

In times past I reproached them with ignominy as being foreigners, though they were in truth sojourners in the land entitled to full privileges, in order to give pleasure to their enemies who were a promiscuous and disorderly multitude, by whom I, miserable man that I was, was flattered and deceived; and for this I have been myself branded with infamy, and have been driven as an exile from the whole of the habitable world, and am shut up in this place.

Again, I led some of them into the theatre, and commanded them to be shamelessly and unjustly insulted in the sight of their greatest enemies; and therefore I justly have been myself led not into a theatre or into one city, but into many cities, to endure the utmost extremity of insult, being ill-treated in my miserable soul instead of my body; for I was led in procession through the whole of Italy as far as Brundusium, and through all Peloponnesus as far as Corinth, and through Attica, and all the islands as far as Andros, which is this prison of mine;

and I am thoroughly assured that even this is not the limit of my misfortunes, but that others are still in store for me, to fill up the measure as a requital for all the evils which I have done. I put many persons to death, and when some of them were put to death by others, I did not chastise their murderers. Some were stoned; some were burnt alive; others were dragged through the middle of the market-place till the whole of their bodies were torn to pieces.

And for all this I know now that retribution awaits me, and that the avengers are already standing as it were at the goal, and are pressing close to me, eager to slay me, and every day, or I may rather say, every hour, I die before my time, enduring many deaths instead of one, the last of all." [*] [*]