The writings of Asinius
Pollio have conveyed down the memory of the same men, under honourable
characters. Corvinus Messala gloried to have had Cassius for his general:
and yet both Pollio and Corvinus became signally powerful in wealth and
honours under Augustus. That book of Cicero's, in which he exalted Cato to
the skies; what other animadversion did it draw from Caesar the Dictator,
than a written reply, in the same style and equality as if before his
judges he had made it? The letters of Marc Anthony; the speeches of
Brutus, are full of reproaches, and recriminations against Augustus; false
in truth, but urged with signal asperity: the poems of Bibaculus and those
of Catullus, stuffed with virulent satires against the Caesars, are still
read. But even the deified Julius, even the deified Augustus, bore all
these invectives and disdained them; whether with greater moderation or
wisdom, I cannot easily say. For, if they are despised, they fade away; if
you wax wroth, you seem to avow them to be just.
"Instances from the Greeks I bring none: with them not the freedom only,
but even the licentiousness of speech, is unpunished: or if any correction
is returned, it is only by revenging words with words.
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