For P. Sulla (21-25)

This Torquatus then, O judges, says that he cannot endure my kingly power. What is the meaning of my kingly power, O Torquatus? I suppose you mean the power I exerted in my consulship; in which I did not command at all, but on the contrary, I obeyed the conscript fathers, and all good men. In my discharge of that office, O judges, kingly power was not established by me, but put down. Will you say that then, when I had such absolute power and authority over all the military and civil affairs of the state, I was not a king, but that now, when I am only a private individual, I have the power of a king? Under what title? “Why, because,” says he, “those against whom you gave evidence were convicted, and the man whom you defend hopes that he shall be acquitted.” Here I make you this reply, as to what concerns my evidence: that if I gave false evidence, you also gave evidence against the same man; if my testimony was true, then I say, that persuading the judges to believe a true statement, which one has made on oath, is a very different thing from being a king. And of the hopes of my client, I only say, that Publius Sulla does not expect from me any exertion of my influence or interest, or, in short, anything except to defend him with good faith.

“But unless you,” says he, “had undertaken his cause, he would never have resisted me, but would have fled without saying a word in his defence.” Even if I were to grant to you that Quintus Hortensius, being a man of such wisdom as he is, and that all these men of high character, rely not on their own judgment but on mine; if I were to grant to you, what no one can believe, that these men would not have countenanced Publius Sulla if I had not done so too; still, which is the king, he whom men, though perfectly innocent, cannot resist, or he who does not abandon men in misfortune? But here too, though you had not the least occasion for it, you took a fancy to be witty, when you called me Tarquin, and Numa, and the third foreign king of Rome. I won't say any more about the word king; but I should like to know why you called me a foreigner. For, if I am such, then it is not so marvellous that I should be a king,—because, as you say yourself, foreigners have before now been kings at Rome,—as that a foreigner should be a consul at Rome. “This is what

I confess that I do, and I add, that I come from that municipal town from which salvation to this city and empire has more than once proceeded. But I should like exceedingly to know from you, how it is that those men who come from the municipal towns appear to you to be foreigners. For no one ever made that objection to that great man, Marcus Cato the elder, though he had many enemies, or to Titus Coruncanius, or to Marcus Curius, or even to that great hero of our own times, Caius Marius, through many men envied him. In truth, I am exceedingly delighted that I am a man of such a character that, when you were anxious to find fault with me, you could still find nothing to reproach me with which did not apply also to the greater part of the citizens.

And if we seem to you to be foreigners, we whose name and honours have now become familiar topics of conversation and panegyric throughout the city and among all men, how greatly must those competitors of yours seem to be foreigners, who now, having been picked out of all Italy, are contending with you for honour and for every dignity! And yet take care that you do not call one of these a foreigner, lest you should be overwhelmed by the votes of the foreigners. For if they once bring their activity and perseverance into action, believe me they will shake those arrogant expressions out of you, and they will frequently wake you from sleep, and will not endure to be surpassed by you in honours, unless they are also excelled by you in virtue.

And if, O judges, it is fit for me and you to be considered foreigners by the rest of the patricians, still nothing ought to be said about this blot by Torquatus. For he himself is on his mother's side, a citizen of a municipal town; a man of a most honourable and noble family, but still he comes from Asculum. Either let him, then, show that the Picentians alone are not foreigners, or else let him congratulate himself that I do not put my family before his. So do not for the future call me a foreigner, lest you meet with a sterner refutation; and do not call me a king, lest you be laughed at.