For who ever could have any hope of any good existing in that man, the
 earliest period of whose life was made openly subservient to everyone's lusts; who had not the
 heart to repel the obscene impurity of men from the holiest portion of his person? who, after
 he had ruined his own estate with no less activity than he afterwards displayed in his
 endeavours to ruin the republic, supported his indigence and his luxury by every sort of
 pandering and infamy; who, if he had not taken refuge at the altar of the tribuneship, would
 not have been able to escape from the authority of the praetor, nor the multitude of his
 creditors, nor the seizure of his goods. And if he had not while in discharge of that office,
 passed that law about the piratical war, he, in truth, would have yielded to his own poverty
 and wickedness, and had recourse to piracy himself; and who would have done so with less
 injury to the republic than he did by remaining within our walls as an impious enemy and
 robber. It was he who was inspecting victims, and sitting in the discharge of that duty, when
 a tribune of the people procured a law to be passed that no regard should be had to the
 auspices,—that no one should on that account be allowed to interrupt the assembly or the
 comitia , or to put his veto on the passing of a law; and
 that the Aelian and Fufian “The Aelia
 lex and Rufia lex were passed about the end of
 the sixth century of the city, and gave all magistrates the obnuntiatio , or power of preventing or dissolving the comitia by observing the omens, and declaring them to be unfavourable.”—Smith,
 Dict. Ant. p. 560, v. Lex . laws should have no
 validity, which our ancestors had enacted, intending them to be the firmest protection of the
 republic against the insanity of the tribunes. 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. And when in the Circus Flaminius The Circus
 Flaminius was outside the walls of the city, and the assembly was held there to allow Caesar
 to be present, who, being now invested with a military command, could not come into the
 city. (I will not say the consul had been conducted into the assembly by a tribune of
 the people, but) the archpirate had been brought in by another robber, he came first a man of
 what exceeding dignity, full of wine, sleep, and debauchery! with hair dripping with
 ointments, with carefully arranged locks, with heavy eyes, moist cheeks, a husky and drunken
 voice; and he, a grave authority, said that he was greatly displeased at citizens having been
 executed without having been formally condemned. Where is it that this great authority has
 lain hid so long out of our sight? Why has the extraordinary virtue of this ringletted dunce
 been wasted so long in scenes of debauchery and gluttony? For that other man, Caesoninus
 Calventius, from his youth up has been habituated to the forum, though, except his assumed and
 crafty melancholy, there was no single thing to recommend him,—no knowledge of the law, no
 skill in speaking, no knowledge of military affairs or of men, no liberality. And if, while
 passing him, you noticed how ungentlemanlike, and rough, and sulky he looked, though you might
 think him a barbarian and a boor, still you would not suppose him to be lascivious and
 profligate. 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. 
 He deceived me, though I will not so much say me (for I know, from my
 connection with the Pisos how much the Transalpine blood on his mother's side had removed him
 from the qualities of that family) but he deceived you and the Roman people, not by his wisdom
 or his eloquence, as is often the case with many men, but by his wrinkled brow and solemn
 look.