| From: Cicero’s Pro Caelio http://www.hoocher.com/procaeliotranslation.htm (with some corrections by P. Swarney 2007)
13. There are two charges then, one about the gold
and one about the poison. And one and the same person is implicated in
both. He got the gold from Clodia, he wanted the poison to give to Clodia,
they say. Nothing else is basis for legal action; all else is simple
slander, fitter for a quarrel than a public inquiry. "You adulterer! You
libertine! You bribery-agent!" This is the language of abuse, not of legal
prosecution. There is no foundation for such accusations. They are the
rash insults of an irritated accuser acting without authority. But of the
two aforenamed items I see the author, I see the fountainhead, the fixed
responsibility, the prime mover. He needed gold; he got it from Clodia,
got it without a witness, kept it as long as he liked. A signal proof this
of a somewhat special intimacy! He wished to kill the said Clodia; he
secured poison, suborned her slaves, brewed his broth, laid the scene for
the crime, and brought the potion thither. Could it have been that when
they fell out so cruelly there was some consequent ill-feeling on her
side?
Our whole concern in this case, jurors, is with Clodia, a
woman not only noble but even notorious. Of her I will say no more than is
necessary to refute the charges. And you too, Gnaeus Domitius, sensible
man that you are, you understand that our whole business here is with her
and her only. If she does not admit that she obliged Caelius with the loan
of the gold, if she does not accuse him of preparing poison for her, then
my behavior is ungentlemanly in dragging in a matron's name otherwise than
the respect due to ladies requires. But if on the contrary aside from that
woman their case against Caelius is deprived of all strength and
foundation, what else can I do as an advocate but repel those who press
the assault? Which I would do all the more vehemently if I did not have
cause for ill-feeling toward that woman's lover-I am sorry; I meant to say
"brother." I am always making that slip. But now I will handle her with
moderation, and proceed no further than my honor and the case itself
demand. I have never thought it right to take up arms against a lady,
especially against one whose arms are so open to all.
14. First I would like to ask her: "Shall I deal with you
severely and strictly and as they would have done in the good old days? Or
would you prefer something more indulgent, bland, sophisticated?" If in
that austere mode and manner, I shall have to call up someone from the
dead, one of those old gentlemen bearded not with the modern style of
fringe that so titillates her, but with one of those bristly bushes we see
on antique statues and portrait-busts. And be will scold the woman and
speak for me and keep her from getting angry with me as she might
otherwise do. So let us call up some ancestor of hers, preferably old
blind Appius Claudius himself. He will be the least likely to be grieved,
since he won't have to look at her. Doubtless if he rose among us be would
say something about like this: "Woman, what business did you have with
Caelius, a man scarce out of his teens, a man not your husband? Why were
you so friendly with him as to lend him gold? Or how did you grow so
unfriendly as to fear his poison? Did you never hear that your father,
uncle, grandfather, great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather, and
great-great-great-grandfather were consuls? Did you forget that only
recently you were the wife of Quintus Metellus, a gentleman of the highest
type, a distinguished patriot who had only to show his face to eclipse
almost all other citizens in character, reputation, dignity? Born of a
high-ranking family, married into a prominent family, how did it happen
that you admitted Caelius to such familiarity? Was he a relative or friend
of your husband? Not at all. What was it then but hot and headstrong
passion? If the portraits of us male ancestors meant nothing to you, how
could my granddaughter, Quinta Claudia, have failed to inspire you to
emulate her domestic virtue and womanly glory? Or that vestal virgin of
our name who kept her arms around her father throughout his triumph and
foiled the tribune's attempt to drag him from his chariot? Why choose to
imitate your brother's vices in preference to the good qualities of your
father and grandfather and of men and women of our line on back to myself?
Did I break the agreement with King Pyrrhus that you might every day enter
into disgusting agreements with your paramours? Did I bring in the Appian
Aqueduct that you might put its waters to your dirty uses? Did I build the
15. But perhaps it was a mistake for me to introduce such
an august personage, gentlemen. He might suddenly turn on Caelius and make
him feel the weight of his censorial powers. Though I will see to this
later; I am convinced I can justify Marcus Caelius' behavior to the most
captious of critics. But as for you, woman-I am not speaking to you now
through the mouth of another-if you have in mind to make good what you are
doing, saying, pretending, plotting, and alleging, you had better do some
explaining as well, and account for this extraordinarily intimate
association. The prosecutors have been lavish with their tales of affairs,
amours, adulteries, Baiae, beach-picnics, banquets, drinking-bouts,
songfests, musical ensembles, and yachting parties. And they indicate that
they are describing all this with your full permission. Since for some
rash, mad purpose you have been willing to have all these stories come out
at a trial in the forum, you must either tone down their effect by showing
they are groundless, or else admit that no one need believe your charges
and your testimony.
But if you would rather I dealt with you more suavely, I
will take this tack: I will whisk that old fellow off the scene, unfeeling
rustic that he is, and will bring on someone of your own day, your younger
brother, say, the most sophisticated of all that crew. He loves you
dearly. When be was a young sprout he used to sleep with big sister
because, I am told, he was subject to mysterious nervousness and fanciful
fears at night. Suppose we let him talk to you: "Why are you making such a
fuss, sister? Why are you behaving like an insane woman?
Why, with shout and speech inflate A little thing into a
great?
You saw a young man living nearby. He had a fresh
complexion. He was tall. He was handsome. His eyes were attractive. You
were much taken with all this. You wanted to see him more often. You met
sometimes on the same suburban estates. A woman of means, you thought to
bind the young man with fetters of gold, still dependent on a tightfisted
father. But you can't. He kicks, be spits, he bucks. He doesn't set much
value on your presents. Well, go somewhere else. You have gardens on the
16. I come now to you, Caelius. It is your turn now, and I
must assume the authority and severity of a father. But I am in doubt as
to what type of parent I ought to be. Shall I enact that choleric, flinty
specimen in Caecilius:
Now at length my soul is burning, Now my heart is
heaped with wrath.
Or that other one:
You wretch! You rascal!
Overbearing and past all bearing are fathers of that ilk:
What shall I wish? What shall I say?
You swine! your faults in every way
Cause all I wish to go astray!
Such a father would say:
"Why did you move to that whorish neighborhood? Why
didn't
you escape when you saw the snares?"
Why did you flirt with another man's wife?
Scatter your pennies like peas?
Well, in your hour of trouble and strife
Don't come to me if you please.
I mean to hug for the rest of my life Myself in my own bed of ease.
To such a disagreeable, blunt old curmudgeon Caelius might
reply that it was not monetary considerations that made him stray. "What
proof of that?" His lack of exorbitant expenses, lavish outlay, need to
refinance debts. "But what about the stories?" How many people can escape
gossip, especially in a town that dotes on it so? Do you wonder that the
woman's neighbor was talked about when her own brother couldn’t keep nasty
people from spreading rumors? Suppose I play the part of the kind and
forgiving father, the one, you know, who says:
So my son has demolished the door?
We'll rebuild it once more.
Has he ripped all his wardrobe to tatters?
Well, not that that matters.
Then Caelius will have an easy time of it. For he will have
no trouble defending all his conduct. I am not saying anything against
that woman now; but if there were someone-not the same as her, you
understand-some woman who made herself cheap and easy to approach, who
always had some man or other banging about openly acknowledged as her
current interest, in whose gardens and home and place at Baiae anybody and
everybody could arrange assignations with her permission, who even boarded
young men and made up deficiencies in their allowances out of her own
purse, if this person, being widowed, lived loosely, being forward, lived
wantonly, being rich, lived extravagantly, being prurient, lived like a
harlot, am I to think a man an adulterer if he does not address her
exactly like a lady?
17. Someone will say, "Are these the lessons you taught
him? Is this the way you educate young men? Was ft for this that the
father entrusted his boy to you? To waste his youth in love and sensual
pleasure, and then bring you in to defend his conduct and his
inclinations?" In answer I might say this, gentlemen: if there ever lived
a man so upright and naturally virtuous and continent that he disdained
all temptations of the flesh, sacrificed body and intellect to attain his
ambitions, shut his ears to the call of rest and recreation and play and
the distracting voices of his fellows, and thought nothing in life worth
aiming at but what is consonant with honor and dignity, such a man to my
way of thinking was singularly blessed by heaven. I imagine that our
Camilli, Fabricii, and Curii fell into that category, and all the heroes
who did so much with so little.
But we look in vain for such paragons as things are today,
and are hard put to find them even in books. The blueprints of that
ancient austerity are crumbling with age. And not only in our own country,
where this stem regimen was honored more in action than in words; the
learned Greeks too, who used at least to be able to talk and write nobly
even if they failed to live up to their teachings, have changed their code
with the change in their fortunes. So some of them have taught that the
wise make pleasure then universal criterion, a disgusting line of
reasoning that even men of culture have dallied with. Others have opined
that, the life of honor ought to be combined with the life of pleasure,
glibly yoking together a pair that are sure to kick each other out of the
traces. While those who say, "No, the way to glory leads straight through
the land of toil and self-sacrifice," hear their words resound in almost
empty lecture-halls. For nature herself woos us with honeyed words, till
virtue is lulled and can scarce hold up her eyelids, and then takes her by
the band and shows her those lubricious paths where she can hardly go or
stay without disastrous trip or slip, and lastly indicates that wondrously
enticing and richly varied world of pleasure and whispers, "Take it; it is
yours." Is it any wonder that youth falls, when even seasoned climbers
have been known to take the plunge? So if someone here and there is found
to avert his eyes from the gorgeous surface of things, refuse to fall prey
to the lures of scent and touch and taste, deaden his ears to all that
sweet siren-song, I and a few others call him a darling of the gods, but
the most of mankind will say he is a man of singularly morose disposition.
18. In consequence the path of rectitude lies deserted now.
No one bothers to keep it open, and weed and thicket grow wild. Give youth
some leeway then; allow our young men to stray a little; do not rein in
every pleasure; let the ideal and forthright life suffer an occasional
check; let reason give way now and then to appetite and desire. Provided
that in all this some bounds are not overstepped. Let youth retain some
measure of innocence; let it not corrupt another man's wife, throw away
its patrimony, or whelm itself in debt; let it spare the homes and
families of others, nor ruin the chaste nor wreck the righteous nor shame
the good; let it abstain from violence, dangerous intrigue, and crime. So
that at last when it has paid its respects to the demands of the flesh and
allotted due time to boyish sport and the silly desires of the young and
fervent blood, it may call a halt at last and face the claims of family,
career, and country, and what reason in advance could not dissipate mere
satiety may put away and experience despise.
We know many outstanding citizens, and our fathers and
forefathers knew many more, gentlemen, whose youth blazed up in a
holocaust of desire, only to leave in maturity a substantial residue of
excellent qualities. I would rather not name names, but you can think of
examples yourselves. I see no point in reviewing here the record of any
illustrious life merely to smirch it by mention of some minor peccadillo.
I could instance, if I liked, any number of famous men: this one as a
youth chafed at the bit, that one squandered his substance on riotous
living, a third was laid low by debt and extravagance, a fourth reveled in
lust. But all these faults were palliated by the virtues that developed
later, and anyone who cared might excuse them with the simple words, "Yes,
but the man was young. "
19. But the fact is, Marcus Caelius' case is different. I
can speak a little more confidently now about his more creditable
activities, since I rely on your good common sense and boldly paint both
sides of the picture. You will find no riotous living, no extravagance or
debt in him, no ungovernable urge to go to carouses and dens of
ill-repute. Not to mention the vice of gluttony, which in fact is not so
characteristic of youth as of age. And the so-called delights of love,
which are not generally bothersome to the more intelligent type of men
when they mature-the desire flowers and withers early-never had so much
power as to hold him completely enthralled. You heard him when he defended
himself, you have beard him before in the role of prosecutor. (I say this
not to boast of my pupil, but because his defense demands it.) And you
have perception enough to understand what oratorical ability, what ease,
what a wealth of words and sentiments he commands. And you saw that it
was not merely a matter of natural talent, which often shines bright of
itself when the light has not been nurtured by training, but rather that
he had in him, unless my fondness deceivers me, a systematic knowledge
that could only be the product of education and practice, of toil and
midnight oil.
Well, consider, gentlemen. Those vices that Caelius is
charged with and these accomplishments I am discussing can hardly coexist
in the same man. It is impossible for a mind enslaved to lust, love,
longing, and desire, a mind distracted by either too much or too little of
that sort of thing, to meet the standards of oratory, however low they may
be set. A man of that kind could not deliver a good speech; he could not
even prepare one. Or do you perhaps suppose there is some other reason why
there are and always have been so few men who take the pains to speak
well, although there are so many rewards in fame, satisfaction, influence,
and honor to be gained by it? To reach the goal you have to keep
recreation at a minimum, give up your hobbies, your sport, your moments of
levity, your social life, and practically cut out seeing your friends. It
is the labor involved that frightens men away, and not so much that their
talents or early training are deficient. If my client had lived the life
of pleasure, would he, while still a very young man, have haled an
ex-consul into court? If he were a mere voluptuary afraid of work, would
he engage every day in legal battles, making enemies, starting suits,
exposing his own neck to the axe, and in general, for months on end, with
the whole Roman people as audience, fighting the fight whose end is either
glory or extinction?
20. "But," you say, "I get a whiff of something rotten when
think about his moving to that neighborhood and when I remember the gossip
about him. And don't those trips to Baiae hint at something?" Not merely
hint, they shout to heaven that a certain woman is so far gone in vice
that, far from hunting for shadows and solitude to conceal her wantonness,
she flaunts her outrageous conduct in broad day in the most frequented
places. Anyone who thought young men ought to be forbidden to visit
prostitutes would certainly be the virtuous of the virtuous, that I cannot
deny. But he would be out of step not only with this easy-going age but
also our ancestors, who customarily made youth that concession. Was there
ever a time when this was not habitual practice, when it was censured and
not permitted, in short when what is allowable was not allowed?
Here I will get to the root of the matter, without
mentioning any woman's name: so much I leave to be inferred. Imagine a
woman with no husband who turns her house into a house of assignation,
openly behaves like a harlot, entertains at her table men who are perfect
strangers, and does all this in town, in her suburban places, and in the
crowded vacation land around Baiae; in fine, imagine that her walk, her
way of dressing, the company she keeps, her burning glances, her free
speech, to say nothing of her embraces and kisses or her capers at
beach-parties and banquets and yachting-parties, are all so suggestive
that she seems not merely a whore but a particularly shameless and forward
specimen of the profession. Well, if a young man had some desultory
relations with her, would you call him an adulterer, Lucius Herennius, or
simply a lover? Would you say he was laying siege to her innocence, or
simply gratifying her lust?
Clodia, I am not thinking now of the wrongs you have done
me. I am putting to one side the memory of my humiliation. I pass over
your cruel treatment of my family while I was away. Consider that nothing
I have said has been said against you. But I would like to ask you a few
questions since the prosecutors say they have their evidence from you and
are using you as their chief witness. If there were any such woman as I
have just described, a woman unlike you, who lived and acted like a common
prostitute, would you think it very disgraceful or dishonorable for a
young man to have something to do with her? If you are not such a
woman-and I hope indeed you are not-then what do you complain of in
Caelius? But if they mean to say you are, then why are we to fear such an
indictment, when you yourself snap your fingers at it? Answer, and
establish the defense. Either be modest and admit that Marcus Caelius did
nothing out of order, or flaunt your impudence and thereby give him and
all the others an excellent wherewithal to defend themselves.
From: Cicero’s Pro Caelio http://www.hoocher.com/procaeliotranslation.htm (with some corrections by P. Swarney 2007)
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