United States or Moldova ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
But pray do nothing for my convenience unless it entirely suits your own, and your means. About the letter of Vatinius I laughed heartily. But though I know I am being watched by him, I can swallow his hatred and digest it too.
Attached to this speech for Sextius is a declamation against Vatinius, who was one of the witnesses employed by the prosecutor. Instead of examining this witness regularly, he talked him down by a separate oration. We have no other instance of such a forensic manoeuvre either in Cicero's practice or in our accounts of the doings of other Roman advocates. This has reached us as a separate oration.
After that feast, at which he was bored by the jesting of Vatinius with Nero, Lucan, and Seneca, he took part in a diatribe as to whether woman has a soul. Rising late, he used, as was his custom, the baths.
When the deputies met the next day, a great multitude from both sides assembled, and the expectations of every person concerning this subject were raised very high, and their minds seemed to be eagerly disposed for peace. Titus Labienus walked forward from the crowd, and in submissive terms began to speak of peace, and to argue with Vatinius.
When Vatinius, who had swellings in his neck, was pleading a cause, he called him the tumid orator; and having been told by some one that Vatinius was dead, on hearing soon after that he was alive, he said, "may the rascal perish, for his news not being true."
You, indeed, have done more wisely in having made yourself a home at Buthrotum. But, believe me, next to that free town of yours comes the borough of the Antiates. Could you have believed that there could be a town so near Rome, where there are many who have never seen Vatinius? Where there is no one besides myself who cares whether one of the twenty commissioners is alive and well?
The new-and-old wisdom, such as it was, made a profound impression on its contemporaries; men of the highest rank, of the greatest learning, of the most solid ability, belonging to very different parties the consul of 705, Appius Claudius, the learned Marcus Varro, the brave officer Publius Vatinius took part in the citation of spirits, and it even appears that a police interference was necessary against the proceedings of these societies.
But their conversation was suddenly interrupted by darts thrown from all sides, from which Vatinius escaped by being protected by the arms of the soldiers.
He mentions all these cases in the same letter, but so slightly that we cannot trouble ourselves with their details. We only feel that he was kept as busy as a London barrister in full practice. He also defended Vatinius that Vatinius with whose iniquities he had been so indignant at the trial of Sextius.
Within a few days after, on some of Cicero's acquaintances interceding for Vatinius, as desirous of reconciliation and friendship, for he was then his enemy, "What," he replied, "does Vatinius also wish to come and sup with me?" Such was his way with Crassus.
Word Of The Day