sentiments which you have been taught by another. And what wages have
you paid this rhetorician? Listen, listen, O conscript fathers,
and learn the blows which are inflicted on the republic. You have
assigned, O Antonius, two thousand acres[14] which is often translated
acre also, of land, in the Leontine district, to Sextus Clodius, the
rhetorician, and those, too, exempt from every kind of tax, for the
sake of putting the Roman people to such a vast expense that you might
learn to be a fool. Was this gift, too, O you most audacious of men,
found among Caesar's papers? But I will take another opportunity to
speak about the Leontine and the Campanian district; where he has
stolen lands from the republic to pollute them with most infamous
owners. For now, since I have sufficiently replied to all his charges,
I must say a little about our corrector and censor himself. And yet I
will not say all I could, in order that if I have often to battle
with him I may always come to the contest with fresh arms; and the
multitude of his vices and atrocities will easily enable me to do so.

XVIII. Shall we then examine your conduct from the time when you were
a boy? I think so. Let us begin at the beginning. Do you recollect
that, while you were still clad in the praetexta, you became a
bankrupt? That was the fault of your father, you will say. I admit
that. In truth, such a defence is full of filial affection. But it
is peculiarly suited to your own audacity, that you sat among the
fourteen rows of the knights, though by the Roscian law there was a
place appointed for bankrupts, even if any one had become so.

XIX. But let us say no more of your profligacy and debauchery. There
are things which it is not possible for me to mention with honour; but
you are all the more free for that, inasmuch as you have not scrupled
to be an actor in scenes which a modest enemy cannot bring himself to