In the Senate after his Return (11-15)

And he also afterwards, when a countless multitude of virtuous men had come to him from the Capitol as suppliants, and in morning garments, and when all the most noble young men of Rome, and all the Roman knights, had thrown themselves at the feet of that most profligate pander, with what an expression of countenance did that curled and perfumed debauchee reject, not only the tears of the citizens, but even the prayers of his country! Nor was he content with that but he even went up to the assembly, and there said what even if his man Catiline had come to life again he would not have dared to say,—that he would make the Roman knights pay for the nones of December of my consulship, and for the Capitoline Hill; and he not only said this, but he even summoned those before him that suited him. And this imperious consul actually banished from the city Lucius Lamia, a Roman knight, a man of the highest character, and a very eager advocate of my safety, because of his intimacy with me, and very much attached to the state, as it was likely that a man of his fortune would be. And when you had passed a resolution to change your garments, and had changed them, and though, indeed, all virtuous men had already done the same thing, he, reeking with perfumes, clad in his toga praetexta, which all the praetors and aediles had at that time laid aside, derided your mourning garb, and the grief of a most grateful city, and did what no tyrant ever did,—he issued an edict that you should lament your disasters in secret and not presume openly to bewail the miseries of your country.

You would think it made no difference whether you were standing in the forum with this man, or with a barbarian from Aethiopia; there he was, in that sense, without flavour, a mute, slow, uncivilized piece of goods. You would be apt to suppose him a Cappadocian just escaped out of a lot of slaves for sale. Then, again, how lustful was he at home,—how impure, how intemperate. He was not like a front-door, open for the reception of legitimate pleasures, but when he began to devote himself to literature, and, beastly rather a postern for all sorts of secret gratification. And glutton that he was, to learn philosophy with the Greeks, then he became an Epicurean, not because he was really much devoted to that sect such as it is, but because he was caught by that one expression about pleasure. And he has masters, none of those foolish fellows who go on for whole days discussing duty and virtue,—who exhort men to labour, to industry, to encounter dangers for the sake of their country, but men who argue that no hour ought to be unoccupied by pleasure; that in every part of the body there ought always to be some joy and delight to be perceived.

He uses his masters as a sort of superintendents of his lusts; they seek out and scent out all sorts of pleasures; they are the seasoners and furnishers of his banquets they appraise and value the different pleasures, they give a formal decision and judgment as to how much indulgence ought to be allowed to each separate pleasure. He, becoming accomplished in all these arts, despised this most prudent city to such a degree that he thought that all his lusts and all his atrocities could be concealed, if he only thrust his ill-omened face into the forum.