34. But why do I complain
that you have disregarded the insults4250
| 4250 Lit.,
“complain of the neglected insults of the other gods.” |
offered to the other deities? That
very
Jupiter, whose name you should not have spoken without
fear and
trembling over your whole body, is described as confessing his faults
when overcome by
lust4251
| 4251
Lit., “as a lover by.” Cf. Homer, Il.,
14, 312. |
of his
wife, and, hardened in
shamelessness, making known, as if he were
mad and ignorant,
4252
the mistresses
he preferred to his spouse, the
concubines he preferred to his
wife;
you say that those who have uttered so marvellous things are chiefs and
kings among
poets endowed with godlike genius, that they are persons
most holy; and so utterly have you lost sight of your
duty in the
matters of
religion which you bring forward, that words are of more
importance, in your opinion, than the
profaned majesty of the
immortals. So then, if only you felt any
fear of the gods, or
believed with confident and unhesitating assurance that they existed at
all, should you not, by bills, by popular votes, by
fear of the
senate’s
decrees, have
hindered, prevented,
and forbidden
any one to speak at random of the gods otherwise than in a pious
manner?
4253
| 4253
Lit., “except that which was full of religion.” |
Nor
have they obtained this honour even at your
hands, that you should
repel insults offered to them by the same
laws by which you ward them
off from yourselves. They are
accused of treason among you who
have whispered any
evil about your kings. To degrade a
magistrate, or use insulting
language to a senator, you have made by
decree a crime, followed by the severest
punishment. To
write a satirical poem, by which a slur is cast upon the
reputation and
character of another, you determined, by the
decrees of the decemvirs,
should not go unpunished; and that no one might assail your
ears with
too
wanton abuse, you established formulæ
4254
| 4254
i.e., according to which such offenses should be punished. |
for severe affronts. With you
only the gods are unhonoured, contemptible,
vile; against whom you
allow any one
liberty to say what he will, to accuse them of the deeds
of baseness which his lust has invented and devised. And
yet you do not blush to raise against us the charge of want of
regard for deities so infamous, although it is much better to
disbelieve the existence of the gods than to think they are such, and
of such repute.
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