The Prisoner's Defence

'Dost thou understand?' she asks. Do my words sink into thy mind? Or art thou dull "as the ass to the sound of the lyre"? Why dost thou weep? Why do tears stream from thy eyes?

'"Speak out, hide it not in thy heart."

If thou lookest for the physician's help, thou must needs disclose thy wound.'

Then I, gathering together what strength I could, began: 'Is there still need of telling? Is not the cruelty of fortune against me plain enough? Doth not the very aspect of this place move thee? Is this the library, the room which thou hadst chosen as thy constant resort in my home, the place where we so often sat together and held discourse of all things in heaven and earth? Was my garb and mien like this when I explored with thee nature's hid secrets, and thou didst trace for me with thy wand the courses of the stars, moulding the while my character and the whole conduct of my life after the pattern of the celestial order? Is this the recompense of my obedience? Yet thou hast enjoined by Plato's mouth the maxim, "that states would be happy, either if philosophers ruled them, or if it should so befall that their rulers would turn philosophers." By his mouth likewise thou didst point out this imperative reason why philosophers should enter public life, to wit, lest, if the reins of government be left to unprincipled and profligate citizens, trouble and destruction should come upon the good. Following these precepts, I have tried to apply in the business of public administration the principles which I learnt from thee in leisured seclusion. Thou art my witness and that divinity who hath implanted thee in the hearts of the wise, that I brought to my duties no aim but zeal for the public good. For this cause I have become involved in bitter and irreconcilable feuds, and, as happens inevitably, if a man holds fast to the independence of conscience, I have had to think nothing of giving offence to the powerful in the cause of justice. How often have I encountered and balked Conigastus in his assaults on the fortunes of the weak? How often have I thwarted Trigguilla, steward of the king's household, even when his villainous schemes were as good as accomplished? How often have I risked my position and influence to protect poor wretches from the false charges innumerable with which they were for ever being harassed by the greed and license of the barbarians? No one has ever drawn me aside from justice to oppression. When ruin was overtaking the fortunes of the provincials through the combined pressure of private rapine and public taxation, I grieved no less than the sufferers. When at a season of grievous scarcity a forced sale, disastrous as it was unjustifiable, was proclaimed, and threatened to overwhelm Campania with starvation, I embarked on a struggle with the prætorian prefect in the public interest, I fought the case at the king's judgment-seat, and succeeded in preventing the enforcement of the sale. I rescued the consular Paulinus from the gaping jaws of the court bloodhounds, who in their covetous hopes had already made short work of his wealth. To save Albinus, who was of the same exalted rank, from the penalties of a prejudged charge, I exposed myself to the hatred of Cyprian, the informer.

'Thinkest thou I had laid up for myself store of enmities enough? Well, with the rest of my countrymen, at any rate, my safety should have been assured, since my love of justice had left me no hope of security at court. Yet who was it brought the charges by which I have been struck down? Why, one of my accusers is Basil, who, after being dismissed from the king's household, was driven by his debts to lodge an information against my name. There is Opilio, there is Gaudentius, men who for many and various offences the king's sentence had condemned to banishment; and when they declined to obey, and sought to save themselves by taking sanctuary, the king, as soon as he heard of it, decreed that, if they did not depart from the city of Ravenna within a prescribed time, they should be branded on the forehead and expelled. What would exceed the rigour of this severity? And yet on that same day these very men lodged an information against me, and the information was admitted. Just Heaven! had I deserved this by my way of life? Did it make them fit accusers that my condemnation was a foregone conclusion? Has fortune no shame—if not at the accusation of the innocent, at least for the vileness of the accusers? Perhaps thou wonderest what is the sum of the charges laid against me? I wished, they say, to save the senate. But how? I am accused of hindering an informer from producing evidence to prove the senate guilty of treason. Tell me, then, what is thy counsel, O my mistress. Shall I deny the charge, lest I bring shame on thee? But I did wish it, and I shall never cease to wish it. Shall I admit it? Then the work of thwarting the informer will come to an end. Shall I call the wish for the preservation of that illustrious house a crime? Of a truth the senate, by its decrees concerning me, has made it such! But blind folly, though it deceive itself with false names, cannot alter the true merits of things, and, mindful of the precept of Socrates, I do not think it right either to keep the truth concealed or allow falsehood to pass. But this, however it may be, I leave to thy judgment and to the verdict of the discerning. Moreover, lest the course of events and the true facts should be hidden from posterity, I have myself committed to writing an account of the transaction.

'What need to speak of the forged letters by which an attempt is made to prove that I hoped for the freedom of Rome? Their falsity would have been manifest, if I had been allowed to use the confession of the informers themselves, evidence which has in all matters the most convincing force. Why, what hope of freedom is left to us? Would there were any! I should have answered with the epigram of Canius when Caligula declared him to have been cognisant of a conspiracy against him. "If I had known," said he, "thou shouldst never have known." Grief hath not so blunted my perceptions in this matter that I should complain because impious wretches contrive their villainies against the virtuous, but at their achievement of their hopes I do exceedingly marvel. For evil purposes are, perchance, due to the imperfection of human nature; that it should be possible for scoundrels to carry out their worst schemes against the innocent, while God beholdeth, is verily monstrous. For this cause, not without reason, one of thy disciples asked, "If God exists, whence comes evil? Yet whence comes good, if He exists not?" However, it might well be that wretches who seek the blood of all honest men and of the whole senate should wish to destroy me also, whom they saw to be a bulwark of the senate and all honest men. But did I deserve such a fate from the Fathers also? Thou rememberest, methinks—since thou didst ever stand by my side to direct what I should do or say—thou rememberest, I say, how at Verona, when the king, eager for the general destruction, was bent on implicating the whole senatorial order in the charge of treason brought against Albinus, with what indifference to my own peril I maintained the innocence of its members, one and all. Thou knowest that what I say is the truth, and that I have never boasted of my good deeds in a spirit of self-praise. For whenever a man by proclaiming his good deeds receives the recompense of fame, he diminishes in a measure the secret reward of a good conscience. What issues have overtaken my innocency thou seest. Instead of reaping the rewards of true virtue, I undergo the penalties of a guilt falsely laid to my charge—nay, more than this; never did an open confession of guilt cause such unanimous severity among the assessors, but that some consideration, either of the mere frailty of human nature, or of fortune's universal instability, availed to soften the verdict of some few. Had I been accused of a design to fire the temples, to slaughter the priests with impious sword, of plotting the massacre of all honest men, I should yet have been produced in court, and only punished on due confession or conviction. Now for my too great zeal towards the senate I have been condemned to outlawry and death, unheard and undefended, at a distance of near five hundred miles away.^C Oh, my judges, well do ye deserve that no one should hereafter be convicted of a fault like mine!

'Yet even my very accusers saw how honourable was the charge they brought against me, and, in order to overlay it with some shadow of guilt, they falsely asserted that in the pursuit of my ambition I had stained my conscience with sacrilegious acts. And yet thy spirit, indwelling in me, had driven from the chamber of my soul all lust of earthly success, and with thine eye ever upon me, there could be no place left for sacrilege. For thou didst daily repeat in my ear and instil into my mind the Pythagorean maxim, "Follow after God." It was not likely, then, that I should covet the assistance of the vilest spirits, when thou wert moulding me to such an excellence as should conform me to the likeness of God. Again, the innocency of the inner sanctuary of my home, the company of friends of the highest probity, a father-in-law revered at once for his pure character and his active beneficence, shield me from the very suspicion of sacrilege. Yet—atrocious as it is—they even draw credence for this charge from thee; I am like to be thought implicated in wickedness on this very account, that I am imbued with thy teachings and stablished in thy ways. So it is not enough that my devotion to thee should profit me nothing, but thou also must be assailed by reason of the odium which I have incurred. Verily this is the very crown of my misfortunes, that men's opinions for the most part look not to real merit, but to the event; and only recognise foresight where Fortune has crowned the issue with her approval. Whereby it comes to pass that reputation is the first of all things to abandon the unfortunate. I remember with chagrin how perverse is popular report, how various and discordant men's judgments. This only will I say, that the most crushing of misfortune's burdens is, that as soon as a charge is fastened upon the unhappy, they are believed to have deserved their sufferings. I, for my part, who have been banished from all life's blessings, stripped of my honours, stained in repute, am punished for well-doing.

'And now methinks I see the villainous dens of the wicked surging with joy and gladness, all the most recklessly unscrupulous threatening a new crop of lying informations, the good prostrate with terror at my danger, every ruffian incited by impunity to new daring and to success by the profits of audacity, the guiltless not only robbed of their peace of mind, but even of all means of defence. Wherefore I would fain cry out:

"Do you feel these things," she said, "and do they sink into your mind? Or are you an ass listening to the lyre? Why do you weep, why do you stream with tears? Speak out, do not hide it in your heart. If you are waiting for the physician's help, you must uncover the wound."

Then I, gathering my spirit into its strength: "Does the harshness of the fortune that rages against me still need any reminder? Is it not plain enough by itself? Does the very look of this place not move you? Is this the library that you yourself had chosen as your surest seat in my house, where you so often sat with me and discoursed on the knowledge of things human and divine? Was this my bearing, was this my face, when I searched out the secrets of nature with you, when you traced for me with your rod the paths of the stars, when you shaped my character and the whole plan of my life after the pattern of the heavenly order? Is this the reward I receive for following you?

"And yet you sanctioned this judgment through the mouth of Plato: that states would be blessed if either lovers of wisdom governed them, or those who governed them happened to take up the study of wisdom. You warned me, through the mouth of that same man, that this is the reason it is necessary for the wise to take up public affairs: lest the helm of cities, left to wicked and criminal citizens, should bring plague and ruin upon the good. Following this authority, then, I wished to carry into the practice of public administration what I had learned from you in our private leisure. You, and God who set you in the minds of the wise, are my witnesses that I brought nothing to any office except the common zeal for the good of all. From this came grave and irreconcilable quarrels with the wicked, and — as freedom of conscience allows — for the sake of defending justice I always scorned to give offense to the powerful.

"How many times did I block Conigastus's way as he made an assault upon the fortunes of every weak man! How often did I throw down Triguilla, the steward of the royal house, from an injustice begun, indeed already carried out! How often did I shield with my authority, against the dangers facing them, the wretched whom the ever-unpunished greed of the barbarians harassed with endless false charges! Never did anyone draw me aside from right to wrong. I grieved no less than those who suffered when the fortunes of the provincials were ruined, now by private plunder, now by public taxes. When, in a time of bitter famine, a grievous and impossible compulsory purchase was decreed that seemed certain to crush the province of Campania with want, I took up the fight against the praetorian prefect for the sake of the common good; I argued the case with the king himself hearing it, and won, so that the forced purchase was not exacted. Paulinus, a man of consular rank, whose wealth the palace dogs had already devoured in hope and ambition, I dragged out of the very jaws of those gaping mouths. To keep Albinus, a man of consular rank, from being seized by the penalty of an accusation already prejudged, I set myself against the hatred of the informer Cyprian.

"Do I seem to have stirred up great enough quarrels against myself? But I ought to have been safer among the rest, since out of love for justice I kept nothing in reserve among the courtiers by which I might have been safer. But by whose informing were we struck down? One of them was Basilius, once driven out of the royal service, who was forced into denouncing my name by the pressure of another's debt. As for Opilio and Gaudentius, when the royal censure had decreed that they go into exile for their countless and manifold frauds, and when, refusing to obey, they took refuge in the sanctuary of the sacred buildings, and when this was made known to the king, he issued an edict that, unless they left the city of Ravenna within the appointed day, they should be driven out branded on their foreheads. What could seem to be added to such severity? And yet on that very day the denunciation of my name was accepted on the information of those same men. What then? Did my arts deserve this? Or did a sentence passed beforehand make those accusers just? Did Fortune feel no shame — if not at the innocence accused, then at least at the baseness of the accusers?

"But you will ask the substance of the charge of which we are accused. We are said to have wished the Senate safe. You want the manner? We are charged with having hindered the informer from delivering the documents by which he would make the Senate guilty of treason. What then, my mistress, do you judge? Shall I deny the charge, so as not to be a shame to you? But I did wish it, and I will never cease to wish it. Shall I confess it? But then the work of hindering the informer has come to an end. Or shall I call it a crime to have wished the safety of that order? Yet by its own decrees against me, that order had made this a crime. But folly, ever lying to itself, cannot alter the true deserts of things, nor do I think it right, by the Socratic principle, either to have concealed the truth or to have conceded a lie. But however that may be, I leave it to be weighed by your judgment and that of the wise. And so that the course and truth of the matter may not be hidden from those who come after, I have committed it also to writing and to memory.

"For of the forged letters, by which I am charged with having hoped for Roman freedom, what need is there to speak? Their fraud would have been laid open, if I had been allowed to use the confession of the informers themselves, which in all affairs carries the greatest weight. For what freedom is left to hope for? And would that any could be hoped for! I would have answered with the word of Canius, who, when he was charged by Gaius Caesar, son of Germanicus, with having been privy to a conspiracy made against him, said: 'If I had known of it, you would not have.'

"In this matter sorrow has not so dulled my senses that I should complain that wicked men have made their criminal schemes against virtue; but what I deeply wonder at is that they have accomplished what they hoped. For to wish what is worse may perhaps be our human weakness, but that whatever each wicked man has conceived against innocence should be able to succeed, with God looking on, is like a monstrous thing. Hence it was not without reason that one of your own household asked: 'If there is a God, where do evils come from? But where do goods come from, if there is none?'

"But let it be granted that wicked men, who thirst for the blood of all good men and of the whole Senate, wished to destroy me too, whom they had seen defending the good and the Senate. But did I deserve the same from the Fathers as well? You remember, I think — since you, present, always guided whatever I was about to say or do — you remember, I say, how at Verona, when the king, eager for the common ruin, was scheming to transfer to the whole order of the Senate the charge of treason brought against Albinus, with what unconcern for my own danger I defended the innocence of the entire Senate. You know that I speak the truth in this, and that I never boasted of it in any self-praise. For the secret satisfaction of a self-approving conscience is somehow diminished whenever a man, by parading his deed, receives the reward of reputation.

"But you see what outcome has received our innocence. In place of the rewards of true virtue we suffer the penalties of a false crime. And when did the open confession of any crime ever find judges so united in severity that not one of them was softened, either by the error of human judgment itself, or by the lot of fortune that is uncertain for all mortals? If we had been said to have wished to set fire to the sacred buildings, to butcher the priests with an impious sword, to plot the murder of all good men, still the sentence would have punished me only when present, when I had confessed or been convicted. Now, nearly five hundred miles away, mute and undefended, for too keen a devotion to the Senate I am condemned to death and proscription. How worthy a Senate — that no one could ever be convicted of a like crime!

"The dignity of this charge even those who brought it saw; and so that they might darken it with the taint of some crime, they lied that I had defiled my conscience with sacrilege out of ambition for office. And yet you, planted within me, drove every desire for mortal things from the seat of my soul, and under your eyes there could be no place for sacrilege. For day by day you instilled into my ears and thoughts that Pythagorean saying: 'Follow God.' Nor was it fitting that I should seek the protection of the basest spirits, I whom you were forming to such excellence that you might make me like to God. Besides, the innocent sanctuary of my home, the company of my most honorable friends, my father-in-law too, a holy man and worthy of reverence equally with you, defend us from all suspicion of this crime. But — what wickedness! — they take from you the proof of so great a crime, and by this very thing we shall seem to have been akin to sorcery: that we have been steeped in your teachings, schooled in your ways. So it is not enough that your reverence has done me no good, unless you yourself are torn the more by my disgrace.

"But to my troubles this further heap is added: that the judgment of most people looks not to the merits of things but to the outcome of fortune, and reckons only those things to have been providential which good luck has commended. And so it happens that good repute is the first of all things to desert the unfortunate. What rumors among the people now, what discordant and many opinions there are, I am loath to recall. This much only I will say: that the last burden of adverse fortune is this — that when some crime is fastened on the wretched, they are believed to have deserved what they suffer. And I indeed, driven from all my goods, stripped of my offices, fouled in reputation, have suffered punishment for a good deed.

"But I seem to see the wicked workshops of criminals overflowing with joy and gladness, every most desperate man threatening with new frauds of denunciation, the good lying prostrate in terror at my peril, every scoundrel spurred on to dare a crime by impunity and to accomplish it by rewards, while the innocent are deprived not only of safety but even of any defense." And so I am moved to cry out: