SPEECH OF GAIUS COTTA TO THE
ROMAN PEOPLE.[1]
I have encountered many dangers, fellow citizens, at home and abroad, and many adversities, some of which I have endured, some averted by the gods' help and my own courage; in all these I never lacked resolution to decide or energy to act. Adversity and prosperity changed my resources, not my character. But in these present troubles it is different, and along with Fortune everything else has deserted me. Furthermore, old age, which is in itself an affliction, redoubles my anxiety, since it is my wretched lot, when near the end of life, not even to be able to hope for an honourable death. For if I am a traitor to you, and although twice born into this state,[2] hold cheap my country's gods, my fatherland, and its highest magistracy, what torture is enough for me while I live, and what punishment after death? Surely I have committed a crime too great to be expiated by all the torments related of the Nether World.
From early youth I have passed my life before your eyes both as a private citizen and in office; those who needed my voice, my counsel, my purse,
- ↑ During the year 75 B.C. there was civil discord at Rome and attacks were made upon the nobles by the commons. Alarmed by the dangerous outlook, Gaius Cotta, one of the consuls, put on mourning garb and made an address designed to calm the people.
- ↑ His recall from exile is regarded as a second birth; so Cicero, ad Att. 6. 6. 4, calls his recall a παλιγγενεσία.
