which the senate had labored to prevent, as being impossible to be done consistently with the safety of the republic. And see, now, how gratuitously wicked he was in accomplishing his wickedness. Then in this same tribuneship, when Cæsar while on his way into Spain had given him Italy to trample on, what journeys did he make in every direction! how did he visit the municipal towns! I know that I am only speaking of matters which have been discussed in every one's conversation, and that the things which I am saying and am going to say are better known to every one who was in Italy at that time, than to me, who was not. Still I mention the particulars of his conduct, altho my speech can not possibly come up to your own personal knowledge. When was such wickedness ever heard of as existing upon earth? or such shamelessness? or such open infamy?
The tribune of the people was borne along in a chariot, lictors crowned with laurels preceded him, among whom, on an open litter, was carried an actress; whom honorable men, citizens of the different municipalities, coming out from their towns under compulsion to meet him, saluted not by the name by which she was well known on the stage, but by that of Volumnia.[1] A car fol-
185
- ↑ A note to Mr. Yonge's translation explains that this woman was a courtezan who had been enfranchised by her master Volumnius, and that the name of Volumnia "was dear to the Romans as that of the wife of Coriolanus, to whose entreaties he had yielded when he drew off his army from the neighborhood of Rome."
