The Portable Roman Reader (Portable Library) (25 page)

Their states account it the highest praise by devastating their borders to have areas of wilderness as wide as possible around them. They think it the true sign of valour when the neighbours are driven to retire from their lands and no man dares to settle near, and at the same time they believe they will be safer thereby, having removed all fear of a sudden inroad. When a state makes or resists aggressive war officers are chosen to direct the same, with the power of life and death. In time of peace there is no general officer of state, but the chiefs of districts and cantons do justice among their followers and settle disputes. Acts of brigandage committed outside the borders of each several state involve no disgrace; in fact, they affirm that such are committed in order to practice the young men and to diminish sloth. And when any of the chiefs has said in public assembly that he will be leader, “Let those who will follow declare it,” then all who approve the cause and the man rise together to his service and promise their own assistance, and win the general praise of the people. Any of them who have not followed, after promise, are reckoned as deserters and traitors, and in all things afterwards trust is denied to them. They do not think it right to outrage a guest; men who have come to them for any cause they protect from mischief and regard as sacred; to them the houses of all are open, with them is food shared.

Now there was a time in the past when the Gauls were superior in valour to the Germans and made aggressive war upon them, and because of the number of their people and the lack of land they sent colonies across the Rhine. And thus the most fertile places of Germany round the Hercynian forest (which I see was known by report to Eratosthenes and certain Greeks, who call it the Orcynian forest) were seized by the Volcæ Tectosages, who settled there, and the nation maintains itself to this day in those settlements, and enjoys the highest reputation for justice and for success in war. At the present time, since they abide in the same condition of want, poverty, and hardship as the Germans, they adopt the same kind of food and bodily training. Upon the Gauls, however, the neighbourhood of our provinces and acquaintance with oversea commodities lavishes many articles of use or luxury; little by little they have grown accustomed to defeat, and after being conquered in many battles they do not even compare themselves in point of valour with the Germans.

The breadth of this Hercynian forest, above mentioned, is as much as a nine days’ journey for an unencumbered person; for in no other fashion can it be determined, nor have they means to measure journeys. It begins in the borders of the Helvetii, the Nemetes, and the Rauraci, and, following the direct line of the river Danube, it extends to the borders of the Daci and the Anartes; thence it turns leftwards, through districts apart from the river, and by reason of its size touches the borders of many nations. There is no man in the Germany we know who can say that he has reached the edge of that forest, though he may have gone forward a sixty days’ journey, or who has learnt in what place it begins. It is known that many kinds of wild beasts not seen in any other places breed therein, of which the following are those that differ most from the rest of the animal world and appear worthy of record.

There is an ox shaped like a stag, from the middle of whose forehead between the ears stands forth a single horn, taller and straighter than the horns we know. From its top branches spread out just like open hands. The main features of female and of male are the same, the same the shape and the size of the horns.

There are also elks so-called. Their shape and dappled skin are like unto goats, but they are somewhat larger in size and have much blunted horns. They have legs without nodes or joints, and they do not lie down to sleep, nor, if any shock has caused them to fall, can they raise or uplift themselves. Trees serve them as couches; they bear against them, and thus, leaning but a little, take their rest. When hunters have marked by their tracks the spot to which they are wont to betake themselves, they either undermine all the trees in that spot at the roots or cut them so far through as to leave them just standing to outward appearance. When the elks lean against them after their fashion, their weight bears down the weakened trees and they themselves fall along with them.

A third species consists of the ure-oxen so-called. In size these are somewhat smaller than elephants; in appearance, colour, and shape they are as bulls. Great is their strength and great their speed, and they spare neither man nor beast once sighted. These the Germans slay zealously, by taking them in pits; by such work the young men harden themselves and by this kind of hunting train themselves, and those who have slain most of them bring the horns with them to a public place for a testimony thereof, and win great renown. But even if they are caught very young, the animals cannot be tamed or accustomed to human beings. In bulk, shape, and appearance their horns are very different from the horns of our own oxen. The natives collect them zealously and encase the edges with silver, and then at their grandest banquets use them as drinking-cups.

Book VI, Chapters 21-28

(Marcus Tullius Cicero, 106 B.C.-43 B.C.)

 

 

I
N HEAVEN’S name, Catiline, how long will you abuse our patience? How long will that madness of yours mock us? To what limit will your unbridled audacity vaunt itself? Is it nothing to you that the Palatine has its garrison by night, nothing to you that the city is full of patrols, nothing that the populace is in a panic, nothing that all honest men have joined forces, nothing that the senate is convened in this stronghold, is it nothing to see the looks on all the faces? Do you not know that your plans are disclosed? Do you not see that your conspiracy is bound hand and foot by the knowledge of all these men? Who of us do you think is ignorant of what you did last night, what you did the night before, where you were, whom you called together, what plan you took? What an age! What morals! The senate knows these things, the consul sees them. Yet this man lives. Lives, did I say? Nay, more, he walks into the senate, he takes part in the public counsel. He singles out and marks with his glance each one of us for murder. But we, brave men indeed, seem to be doing our duty by the state if we avoid his fury and his shafts. You ought to have been led to death long ago by the consul’s order,· Catiline. That destruction which for a long time you have been planning for all of us ought to be visited on you yourself. Shall that distinguished man, Publius Scipio, the pontifex maximus, though he was a private citizen, have killed Tiberius Gracchus, who was only slightly undermining the foundations of the state, and shall we, who are consuls, put up with Catiline, who is anxious to destroy the whole world with murder and fire? For I pass over these precedents as too old, that Gaius Servilius Ahala with his own hand killed Spurius Mælius, who was getting up a revolution. There was once, there was indeed in this state such courage that brave men suppressed a traitorous citizen with more severity than the most hated enemy. We have, Catiline, a decree of the senate against you, potent and stern. The state does not lack the approval nor the support of this body. It is we, I say it openly, we, the consuls, who are lacking.

The senate once decreed that Lucius Opimius, the consul, should “take measures that the state might suffer no harm.” Not a single night intervened. There was killed because of a vague suspicion of treason Gaius Gracchus, whose father, grandfather, and ancestors were most distinguished men. There was killed with his children Marcus Fulvius, an ex-consul. A similar decree of the senate entrusted the state to Gaius Marius and Lucius Valerius, the consuls. Did death and the vengeance of the state have to wait a day for the punishment of Lucius Saturninus, the tribune of the people, and Gaius Servilius, the prætor? But we have now for twenty days been allowing the edge of our authority to grow dull. For we have a senate’s decree of this kind. But it is merely inserted in the records like a sword buried in its sheath. According to this decree of the senate, Catiline, you should have been instantly executed. You are living—and you are living not to repent, but to augment, your effrontery. I wish, Conscript Fathers, to be merciful. I wish not to seem lax when the perils of the state are so great, but now I condemn myself for inaction and remissness. There is in Italy a camp of enemies of the Roman people, situated in the passes of Etruria, their number is increasing daily; but you behold the commander of that camp and the leader of the enemy inside the walls and even in the senate plotting daily from within the city the destruction of the state. But if, Catiline, I shall order you to be seized, to be executed, I shall have to fear, I suppose, not that all respectable people may say I acted too tardily, but that someone may say that I acted too cruelly! But for a special reason I cannot yet bring myself to do what I should have done long ago. Then at last you shall be executed when no one so depraved, so abandoned, so like yourself, can be found who does not admit that this was done justly. As long as anyone exists who will dare defend you, you will live, and live as you live now, surrounded by many competent guards whom I have set so that you may not be able to move against the state. The eyes and the ears of many shall watch you, although you may not know it, as they have done heretofore.

For what is there, Catiline, for you to wait for longer, if neither night with its darkness can hide your criminal assemblies nor a private house with its walls confine the voices of your conspiracy, if they are patent, if all burst into view? Abandon now that foul plan of yours, be persuaded by me, forget your murder and arson. You are encompassed on all sides; all your plans are clearer to us than the light of day. You may now recall them with me. Do you remember that I said in the senate on the twenty-first of October that Gaius Manlius, a tool and a slave of your bold scheme, would be in arms on a particular day and that that day would be the twenty-seventh of October? Was I wrong, Catiline, in asserting a thing so crucial, so criminal, so unbelievable, but, what was much more surprising, was I mistaken in the day? I also said in the senate that you had postponed till the twenty-eighth of October the slaughter of the influential citizens though by that time many of the chief men of the state had fled from Rome, not so much to save themselves, as to thwart your plans. Can you deny that, on that very day, shut in by my guards, and by my foresight, you could not move against the state, when you said that, in spite of the departure of the others, you would still be content with killing us who had remained? When you thought that by a night attack you would seize Præneste actually on the first of November, did you know that that colony was fortified at my command by my guards, my forces, and my troops? You do nothing, you attempt nothing, you think of nothing which I do not hear and see and understand plainly.

Review with me now the events of the night before last. Now you will know that I watch much more vigilantly for the safety of the state than you do for its destruction. I say that the night before last you came into the Street of the Scythe-makers (I will not deal in general terms), you came to the house of Marcus Læca; to the same place came many of your allies animated by the same madness and wickedness. You do not dare to deny it, do you? Why are you silent? I will convict you if you do deny. For I see here in the senate some who were there with you. 0 ye immortal gods! Where in the world are we? What sort of a commonwealth do we possess? In what city are we living? Here, here in our very midst, Conscript Fathers, in this most sacred and dignified council of the whole world, are men who plan for the destruction of all of us, who plan for the destruction of this city and even the destruction of the whole world! I, the consul, see them and I consult them on affairs of state, and those who ought to have been slain by the sword I do not yet wound even with my voice! You were, then, at the house of Læca on that night, Catiline, you apportioned the parts of Italy, you determined where you wished each man to go, you selected those whom you would leave at Rome, those whom you would take with you, you parcelled out the parts of the city to be burned, you averred that you yourself would go presently, you said that you would be delayed a little while because I still lived. Two Roman knights were found who would relieve you of that anxiety and they promised that they would kill me on my couch that very night a little before dawn. I learned all these things almost before your council was dismissed; I fortified and strengthened my home with more numerous guards, I refused admittance to those whom you had sent to salute me in the morning, for those very men did come whose coming at that hour I had already foretold to many eminent gentlemen.