themselves, and by now assisting them and now abandoning them[9] incurred
full responsibility for great numbers of them being slain and for the
fact that the entire region of Pontus and of the Parthians was not
subdued at that time immediately after the victory over Pharnaces. Caesar,
being called hither in haste to see what he was doing, did not finish
entirely any of those projects, as he was surely intending.

[-30-] "Even this result did not sober him, but when he was consul he
came naked, naked, Conscript Fathers, and anointed into the Forum, taking
the Lupercalia as an excuse, then proceeded in company with his lictors
to the rostra, and there harangued us from the elevation. From the day
the city was founded no one can point to any one else, even a praetor or
tribune or aedile, let alone a consul, who has done such a thing. To be
sure it was the festival of the Lupercalia, and the Lupercalia had been
put in charge of the Julian College[10]; yes, and Sextus Clodius had
trained him to conduct himself so, upon receipt of two thousand plethra
of the land of Leontini[11]. But you were consul, respected sir (for I
will address you as though you were present), and it was neither proper
nor permissible for you as such to speak in such a way in the Forum, hard
by the rostra, with all of us present, and to cause us both to behold
your remarkable body, so corpulent and detestable, and to hear your
accursed voice, choked with unguent, speaking those outrageous words; for
I will preferably confine my comment to this point about your mouth. The
Lupercalia would not have missed its proper reverence, but you disgraced
the whole city at once,--not to speak a word yet about your remarks on
that occasion. Who is unaware that the consulship is public, the property
of the whole people, that its dignity must be preserved everywhere, and
that its holder must nowhere strip naked or behave wantonly? [-31-] Did
he perchance imitate the famous Horatius of old or Cloelia of bygone
days? But the latter swam across the river with all her clothing, and