But my reason for testifying to his character I beg you will not ask,either in the case of this defendant or of others,lest I retaliate by asking you the same question when you come home:though I can do so even before you return:for remember for whom you sent a certificate of character from the ends of the earth.However,don't be afraid,for those same persons are praised by myself,and will continue to be so.Yet,after all,there was also the motive spurring me on to undertake his defence,of which,during the trial,when Iappeared for him,I remarked that I was doing just what the parasite in the Eunuchus advised the captain to do:
"As oft as she names Phxdria,you retort With Pamphila.If ever she suggest,'Do let us have in Phudria to our revel:'
Quoth you,'And let us call on Pamphila To sing a song.'If she shall praise his looks,Do you praise hers to match them:and,in fine,Give tit for tat,that you may sting her soul."So I asked the jurors,since certain men of high rank,who,had also done me very great favours,were much enamoured of my enemy,and often under my very eyes in the senate now took him aside in grave consultation,now embraced him familiarly and cheerfully--since these men had their Publius,to grant me another Publius,in whose person I might repay a slight attack by a moderate retort.And,indeed,I am often as good as my word,with the applause of gods and men.So much for Vatinius.Now about Crassus.I thought I had done much to secure his gratitude in having,for the sake of the general harmony,wiped out by a kind of voluntary act of oblivion all his very serious injuries,when he suddenly undertook the defence of Gabinius,whom only a few days before he had attacked with the greatest bitterness.
Nevertheless,I should have borne that,if he had done so without casting any offensive reflexions on me.But on his attacking tile,though I was only arg-tling and not inveighing against him,I fired up not only,I think,with the passion of the moment--for that perhaps would not have been so hot--but the smothered wrath at his many wrongs to me,of which I thought I had wholly got rid,having,unconsciously to myself,lingered in my soul,it suddenly shewed itself in full force,And it was at this precise time that certain persons (the same whom I frequently indicate by a sign or hint),while declaring that they had much enjoyed my outspoken style,and had never before fully realized that I was restored to the Republic in all my old character,and when my conduct of that controversy had gained me much credit outside the house also,began saying that they were glad both that he was now my enemy,and that those who were involved with him would never be my friends.So when their ill-natured remarks were reported to me by men of most respectable character,and when Pompey pressed me as he had never done before to be reconciled to Crassus,and Caesar wrote to say that he was exceedingly grieved at that quarrel,I took into consideration not only my circumstances,but my natural inclination:and Crassus,that our reconciliation might,as it were,be attested to the Roman people,started for his province,it might almost be said,from my hearth.For he himself named a day and dined with me in the suburban villa of my son-in-law Crassipes.On this account,as you say that you have been told,I supported his cause in the senate,which I had undertaken on Pompey's strong recommendation,as I was bound in honour to do.
