Athens, and observe how much more truth and humanity there shall be in my discourse upon fortune than in his. If you are determined, Æschines, to scrutinize my fortune, compare it with your own; and, if you find mine better than yours, cease to revile it. Look, then, from the very beginning. And I pray and entreat that I may not be condemned for bad taste. I don't think any person wise who insults poverty, or who prides himself on having been bred in affluence: but by the slander and malice of this cruel man I am forced into such a discussion; which I will conduct with all the moderation that circumstances allow. I had the advantage, Eschines, in my boyhood of going to proper schools, and having such allowance as a boy should have who is to do nothing mean from indigence. Arrived at man's estate, I lived suitably to my breeding; was choir-master, ship-commander, ratepayer; backward in no acts of liberality public or private, but making myself useful to the commonwealth and to my friends. When I entered upon State affairs, I chose such a line of politics, that both by my country and many people of Greece I have been crowned many times, and not even you my enemies venture to say that the line I chose was not honourable. Such, then, has been the fortune of my life: I could enlarge upon it, but I forbear, lest what I pride myself in should give offence. But you, the man of dignity, who spit upon others, look what sort of fortune is yours compared with mine. As a boy you were reared in abject poverty, waiting with your father on the school, grinding the ink, sponging the benches, sweeping the room, doing the duty of a menial rather than a freeman's son. After you were grown up, you attended your mother's initiations, reading her books and helping in all the ceremonies: at night wrapping the noviciates in fawn-skin, swilling, purifying, and scouring them with clay and bran, raising them after the lustration, and bidding them say, "Bad I have scaped, and better I have found"; priding yourself that no one ever howled so lustily, — and I believe him! for don't suppose that he who speaks so loud is not a splendid howler! In the daytime you led your noble orgiasts, crowned with fennel and poplar, through the highways, squeezing the big-cheeked serpents, and lifting them over your head, and shouting and capering, saluted by the beldames as Leader, Conductor, Chestbearer, Fan-bearer, and the like; getting as your reward tarts and biscuits and rolls; for which any man might well bless himself and his fortune! - When you were enrolled among your fellow-townsmen, by what means I stop not to inquire, you immediately selected the most honourable of employments, that of clerk and assistant to our petty magistrates. From this you were removed after a while, having done yourself all that you charge others with; and then, sure enough, you disgraced not your antecedents by your subsequent life, but, hiring yourself to those ranting players, as they were called, Simylus and Socrates, you acted third parts, collecting figs and grapes and olives like a fruiterer, and getting more from them than from the playing, in which the lives of your whole company were at stake: for there was an implacable and incessant war between them and the audience, from whom you received so many wounds, that no wonder you taunt as cowards people inexperienced in such encounters. But, passing over what may be imputed to poverty, I will come to the direct charges against your character. You espoused such a line of politics, (when at last you thought of taking to them,) that, if your country prospered, you lived the life of a hare, fearing and trembling, and ever expecting to be scourged for the crimes. of which your conscience accused you; though all have seen how bold you were during the misfortunes of the rest. A man who took courage at the death of a thousand citizens, what does he deserve at the hands of the living? A great deal more that I could say about him I shall omit: for it is not all I can tell of his turpitude and infamy which I ought to let slip from my tongue, but only what is not disgraceful to myself to mention. Contrast now the circumstances of your life and mine, gently and with temper, Eschines, and then ask these people whose fortune they would each of them prefer. You taught reading, I went to school; you performed initiations, I received them; you danced in the chorus, I furnished it; you were assembly-clerk, I was a speaker; you acted third parts, I heard you; you broke down, and I hissed; you have worked as a statesman for the enemy, I for my country. I pass by the rest; but this very day I am on my probation for a crown, and am acknowledged to be innocent of all offence; whilst you are already judged to be a pettifogger, and the question is, whether you shall continue that trade or at once be silenced by not getting a fifth part of the votes. A happy fortune, do you see, you have enjoyed, that you should denounce mine as miserable! PANEGYRIC ON JULIUS CÆSAR. MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO. THIS day, Conscript Fathers, has brought with it an end to the long silence in which I have of late indulged; not out of any fear, but partly from sorrow, partly from modesty; and at the same time it has revived in me my ancient habit of saying what my wishes and opinions are. For I cannot by any means pass over in silence such great humanity, such unprecedented and unheard-of clemency, such moderation in the exercise of supreme and universal power, such incredible and almost godlike wisdom. For, now that Marcus Marcellus, Conscript Fathers, has been restored to you and the Republic, I think that not only his voice and authority are preserved and restored to you and to the Republic, but my own also. For I was concerned, Conscript Fathers, and most exceedingly grieved, when I saw such a man as he is, who had espoused the same cause which I had, not enjoying the same good fortune as myself; nor could I persuade myself to think it right or fair that I should be going on in my usual routine, while that rival and imitator of my zeal and labours, who had been a companion and comrade of mine throughout, was separated from me. You, therefore, Caius Cæsar, have reopened to me my former habits of life, which were closed up. and have raised, as it were, a standard to all these men, as a sort of token to lead them to entertain hopes of the general welfare of the Republic. For it was seen by me before in many instances, and especially in my own, and now it is clearly understood by everybody, since you have granted Marcus Marcellus to the Senate and people of Rome, in spite of your recollection of all the injuries you have received at his hands, that you prefer the authority of this order and the dignity of the Republic to the indulgence of your own resentment or suspicions. No one is blest with such a stream of genius, no one is endowed with such vigour and richness of eloquence, either as a speaker or a writer, as to be able, I will not say to extol, but even plainly to relate, O Cæsar, all your achievements. Nevertheless I assert, and with your leave I maintain, that in all of them you never gained greater and truer glory than you have acquired this day. I am accustomed often to keep this idea before my eyes, and to affirm it in conversation, that all the exploits of our own generals, all those of foreign nations and of the most powerful States, all the mighty deeds of the most illustrious monarchs, can be compared with yours neither in the magnitude of your wars, nor in the variety of countries which you have conquered, nor in the rapidity of your conquests, nor in the great difference of character with which your wars have been marked; and that those countries the most remote from each other could not be travelled over more rapidly by any one in a journey than they have been visited by your, I will not say journeys, but victories. And if I were not to admit that those actions are so great that scarcely any man's mind or comprehension is capable of doing justice to them, I should be very senseless. But there are other actions greater than those. For some people are in the habit of disparaging military glory, and of denying the whole of it to the generals, and of giving the multitude a share of it also, so that it may not be the peculiar property of the commanders. And no doubt, in the affairs of war, the valour of the troops, the advantages of situation, the |