Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata

Vatinius, who was at odds with Cicero, and was a bad character generally, Cicero heard was dead, and then later discovered that he was alive. Curses on the rascal who lied so ! said he. [*](Ibid. chap. xxvi. (873 E).)

To a man who appeared to be of African race, and

Cicero summoned as a witness in a certain case Castus Popillius, who wanted to be a lawyer, but was ignorant and stupid. When he denied knowing anything, Cicero said, Very likely you think you are being asked about some point of law ! [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Cicero, chap. xxvi. (874 A), where the name of the man is given as Publius Consta.)

Hortensius, the orator, received as a fee a silver sphinx from Verres. When Cicero used innuendo in something that he said, Hortensius declared that he had no skill in solving riddles. Cicero retorted, And yet you have the sphinx at your house ! [*](Life of Cicero, chap. vii. (864 D), where the sphinx is of ivory. Cf. also Pliny, Natural History, xxxiv. 18 (48), and Quintillian, Inst. Or. vi. 3. 98. Intimacy with the sphinx, the author of riddles, should have helped Hortensius!)

Meeting Voconius with three daughters who had very ugly faces, he said softly to his friends,

Phoebus forbade when he his children got.[*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Cicero, chap. xxvii. (874 D). The verse may possibly be from the Oedipus of Euripides. Cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., adespota, no. 378.)

When Faustus, the son of Sulla, because of a multitude of debts, posted a notice of an auction of his goods, Cicero said, I find this notice more welcome than the kind which his father used to post. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Cicero, chap. xxvii. (874 D), and Cicero, Letters to Atticus, ix. 11. The reference, of course, is to the proscription lists of men condemned which Sulla posted.)

When Pompey and Caesar took opposite sides, he said, I know from whom I flee without knowing to whom to flee. [*](Ibid. chap. xxxvii. (879 D); Cicero, Letters to Atticus, viii. 7. 2 ego vero quem fugiam habeo, quem sequar non habeo. )

He blamed Pompey for abandoning the city,

When he went over to Pompey s side, changing his mind again, and was asked by Pompey where he had left Piso, his son-in-law, he said, With your father-in-law ! [*](Pompey married Caesar’s daughter Julia as his fourth wife.)

One man changed from Caesar’s side to Pompey’s, and said that as the result of haste and eagerness he had left his horse behind. Cicero said that the man showed greater consideration-for his horse !

To the man who reported that Caesar’s friends were downcast he retorted, You speak as if they were Caesar’s foes ! [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Cicero, chap. xxxviii. (880 B).)

After the battle of Pharsalus, when Pompey had fled, one Nonius declared that on their side were still seven eagles, and exhorted them, therefore, to have courage. Your advice would be good, said Cicero, if we were making war on jackdaws. [*](Ibid. 880 C.)

After Caesar had conquered, he set up again with honour Pompey s statues which had been thrown down. Cicero, in speaking of him, said that Caesar, by restoring Pompey’s statues, made his own secure. [*](Plutarch repeats this story in Moralia, 91 A; Life of Caesar, chap. lvii. (734 E); Life of Cicero, chap. xl. (881 D). Cf. Suetonius, Divus Iulius, 75.)

He set a very high value on excellent speaking, and strove especially for this, so much so that once, when he had a case to plead before the court of the centum viri, and the day was almost come, and his

Gaius Caesar, while still a young man, in trying to escape from Sulla, fell into the hands of pirates. First of all, when demand was made upon him for a very large sum of money, he laughed at the robbers for their ignorance of the man they had in their power, and agreed to give double the sum. Later, being kept under guard while he was getting together the money, he enjoined upon the men that they should give him a quiet time for sleep and should not talk. He wrote speeches and poems, and read them to his captors, and those who did not speak very highly of them he called dull barbarians, and threatened laughingly to hang them. And this he actually did a little later. For when the ransom was brought, and he was set free, he got together men and ships from Asia Minor, seized the robbers, and crucified them. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Caesar, chaps. i.-ii. (708 A-D); Suetonius, Divus Iulius, 4: Velleius Paterculus, Roman History, ii. 41; Valerius Maximus, vi. 9. 15.)

In Rome he entered into a contest against Catulus, the leading man among the Romans, for the office of Pontifex Maximus, [*](In 63 B.C.) and, as he was accompanied to the door by his mother, he said, To-day, mother, you shall have as your son a Pontifex Maximus or an exile. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Caesar, chap. vii. (710 D); Suetonius, Divus Iulius, 13.)

He put away his wife Pompeia because her name was linked in gossip with Clodius, but later, when Clodius was brought to trial on this charge, and

While he was reading of the exploits of Alexander, he burst into tears, and said to his friends, When he was of my age he had conquered Darius, but, up to now, nothing has been accomplished by me. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Caesar, chap. xi. (712 F) and Perrin’s note in vol. vii. of the L.C.L.; Dio Cassius, xxxvii. 52. 2: Suetonius, Divus Iulius, 7.)

As he was passing by a miserable little town in the Alps, his friends raised the question whether even here there were rival parties and contests for the first place. He stopped and becoming thoughtful said, I had rather be the first here than the second in Rome. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Caesar, chap. xi. (712 F).)