Cicero

Now, Vatinius himself had swellings on his neck, and once when he was pleading a case Cicero called him a tumid orator. Again, after hearing that Vatinius was dead, and then after a little learning for a surety that he was alive, Wretchedly perish, then, said Cicero, the wretch who lied!

And again, Caesar once got a decree passed that the land in Campania should be divided among his soldiers, and many of the senators were dissatisfied, and Lucius Gellius, who was about the oldest of them, declared that it should never be done while he was alive; whereupon Cicero said: Let us wait, since Gellius does not ask for a long postponement.

There was a certain Octavius, too, who was reputed to be of African descent; to this man, who said at a certain trial that he could not hear Cicero, the orator replied: And yet your ear is not without a perforation.[*](Usually the mark of a slave.) And when Metellus Nepos declared that Cicero had brought more men to death as a hostile witness than he had saved from it as an advocate, Yes, said Cicero, I admit that my credibility is greater than my eloquence.

Again, when a certain young man who was accused of having given his father poison in a cake put on bold airs and threatened to cover Cicero with abuse, That, said Cicero, I would rather have from you than a cake. There was Publius Sextius, too, who retained Cicero as an advocate in a case, along with others, and then wanted to do all the speaking himself, and would allow no one else a word; when it was clear that he was going to be acquitted by the jurors and the vote was already being given, Use your opportunity today, Sextius, said Cicero, for to-morrow you are going to be a nobody.

Publius Consta, too, who wanted to be a lawyer, but was ignorant and stupid, was once summoned by Cicero as witness in a case; and when he kept saying that he knew nothing, Perhaps, said Cicero, you think you are being questioned on points of law. Again, in a dispute with Cicero, Metellus Nepos asked repeatedly Who is your father? In your case, said Cicero, your mother has made the answer to this question rather difficult.