§10.32.1Balbus quaestor magna numerata pecunia, magno pondere auri, maiore argenti coacto de publicis exactionibus, ne stipendio quidem militibus reddito duxit se a Gadibus et triduum tempestate retentus ad Calpem K. Iun. traiecit sese m regnum Bogudis plane bene peculiatus.
The quaestor Balbus, having amassed a large sum of money, a great weight of gold, and a larger amount of silver extorted from public exactions, and not even having paid the soldiers their stipend, withdrew from Gades, and having been detained for three days by a storm, crossed over to Calpe on the Kalends of June, and thence betook himself into the kingdom of Bogud, clearly well-provided with private wealth.
his rumoribus utrum Gadis referatur an Romam (ad singulos enim. nuntios turpissime consilia mutat) nondum scio.
In the midst of these rumors, I do not yet know whether he is returning to Gades or to Rome (for at every single piece of news he changes his plans in the most shameful manner).
§10.32.2sed praeter furta et rapinas et virgis caesos socios haec quoque fecit, ut ipse gloriari solet, eadem quae Q. Caesar: ludis, quos Gadibus fecit, Herennium Gallum histrionem summo ludorum die anulo aureo donatum in xiiii sessum deduxit (tot enim fecerat ordines equestris loci); quattuorviratum sibi prorogavit; comitia bienni biduo habuit, hoc est renuntiavit quos ei visum est; exsules reduxit non horum temporum sed illorum quibus a seditiosis senatus trucidatus aut expulsus est Sex.
But besides his thefts and robberies and the scourging of our allies with rods, he also did these things, as he himself is accustomed to boast, the very same as Q. Caesar: at the games which he exhibited at Gades, on the last day of the games, he presented Herennius Gallus, an actor, with a gold ring and conducted him to a seat in the fourteen rows (for he had made that many rows for the equestrian order); he prolonged his own quattuorvirate; he held the elections of two years in two days, that is, he declared elected those whom he pleased; he recalled exiles, not of these present times, but of those times in which the senate was butchered or expelled by seditious men during the proconsulship of Sex.
Varo procos.
Varus.
§10.32.3illa vero iam ne Caesaris quidem exemplo, quod ludis praetextam de suo itinere ad L. Lentulum procos.
But those other deeds of his are now not even after the example of Caesar: namely, that at the games he exhibited a historical play (praetexta) about his own journey to solicit the proconsul L.
sollicitandum posuit, et quidem cum ageretur, flevit memoria rerum gestarum commotus; gladiatoribus autem Fadium quendam, militem Pompeianum, quia, cum depressus in ludum bis gratis depugnasset, auctorare sese nolebat et ad populum confugerat, primum Gallos equites immisit in populum (coniecti enim lapides sunt in eum, cum abriperetur Fadius), deinde abstractum defodit in ludo et vivum combussit, cum quidem pransus nudis pedibus, tunica soluta, manibus ad tergum reiectis inambularet et illi misero quiritanti: 'C. R. natus sum' responderet: 'abi nunc, populi fidem implora'; bestiis vero civis Romanos, in iis circulatorem quendam auctionum, notissimum hominem Hispali, quia deformis erat, obiecit.
Lentulus, and indeed, while it was being acted, he wept, moved by the memory of his own exploits; moreover, at the gladiatorial games, as for a certain Fadius, a soldier of Pompey's party—who, because after being forced into the gladiatorial school he had fought twice without pay, refused to bind himself by a gladiatorial oath and had fled to the people—Balbus first let loose Gallic horsemen upon the people (for stones were thrown at him when Fadius was being dragged away), and then, having dragged him out, buried him in the arena and burned him alive, while he himself, having dined, walked about barefooted, with his tunic loosened, and his hands thrown behind his back, and answered to that wretched man crying out: 'I was born a Roman citizen!', 'Go now, implore the protection of the people!'; and he threw Roman citizens to wild beasts, among them a certain auction-announcer, a very well-known man at Hispalis, because he was deformed.
Cum huiusce modi portento res mihi fuit.
It was with a monster of this kind that I had to deal.
§10.32.4sed de illo plura coram nunc, quod praestat, quid me velitis facere constituite.
But of him we shall say more in person; now, what is more important, determine what you wish me to do.
tris legiones firmas habeo, quarum unam, xxviii, cum ad se initio belli arcessisset Antonius hac pollicitatione, quo die in castra venisset, denarios quingenos singulis militibus daturum, in victoria vero eadem praemia quae suis legionibus (quorum quis ullam finem aut modum futurum putabit?) incitatissimam is retinui aegre me hercules, nec retinuissem si uno loco habuissem, utpote cum singulae quaedam cohortes seditionem fecerint.
I have three strong legions, of which one, the twenty-eighth, when Antony had summoned it to himself at the beginning of the war with this promise: that on the day it arrived in camp he would give five hundred denarii to each soldier, and in the event of victory the same rewards as to his own legions (of which who will think there would be any end or limit?), was highly excited, and I retained it with difficulty, by Hercules, nor should I have retained it if I had kept them in one place, since indeed certain individual cohorts committed mutiny.
reliquas quoque legiones non destitit litteris atque infinitis pollicitationibus incitare.
He did not cease to incite the remaining legions also by letters and infinite promises.
nec vero minus Lepidus ursit me et suis et Antoni litteris ut legionem xxx mitterem sibi.
Nor indeed did Lepidus press me less, both by his own and by Antony's letters, to send him the thirtieth legion.
§10.32.5itaque quem exercitum neque vendere ullis praemiis volui nec eorum periculorum metu, quae victoribus illis portendebantur, deminuere, debetis existimare retentum et conservatum rei p. esse atque ita credere, quodcumque imperassetis, facturum fuisse, si quod iussistis feci.
Therefore, as for this army, which I neither wished to sell for any rewards nor to diminish through fear of those dangers which were threatened by those victors, you ought to consider that it has been retained and preserved for the republic, and so to believe that, whatever you had commanded, it would have done, if I have done what you did command.
nam et provinciam in otio et exercitum in mea potestate tenui, finibus meae provinciae nusquam excessi, militem non modo legionarium sed ne auxiliarium quidem ullum quoquam misi et, si quos equites decedentis nactus sum, supplicio adfeci.
For I have kept both the province in peace and the army under my control; I have nowhere gone beyond the boundaries of my province; I have sent no soldier, not only of the legions but not even of the auxiliaries, anywhere; and if I caught any horsemen deserting, I punished them.
quarum rerum fructum satis magnum re p. salva tulisse me putabo; sed res p. si me satis novisset et maior pars senatus, maiores ex me fructus tulisset epistulam, quam Balbo, cum etiam nunc in provincia esset, scripsi, legendam tibi misi; etiam praetextam si voles legere, Gallum Cornelium, familiarem meum, poscito.
I shall think that I have reaped a sufficiently great fruit of these actions if the republic is safe; but if the republic and the majority of the senate had known me well enough, they would have reaped greater fruits from me. I have sent you to read the letter which I wrote to Balbus when he was even now in the province; also, if you wish to read the historical play, ask my friend Cornelius Gallus for it.
vi Idus Iun. Corduba.
June 8th, from Corduba.