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THE SIXTH ORATION OF M. T. CICERO AGAINST MARCUS ANTONIUS. CALLED ALSO THE SIXTH PHILIPPIC. ADDRESSED TO THE PEOPLE.
[16]
It is from Aricia that we have
received the Voconian and Atinian laws; from Aricia have come many of those magistrates who have filled our
curule chairs, both in our fathers' recollection and in our own; from Aricia have sprung many of the best and
bravest of the Roman knights. But if you disapprove of a wife from Aricia, why do you approve of one from
Tusculum? Although the father
of this most virtuous and excellent woman, Marcus Atius Balbus, a man of the
highest character, was a man of praetorian rank; but the father of your
wife,—a good woman, at all events a rich one,—a fellow of
the name of Bambalio, was a man of no account at all. Nothing could be lower
than he was, a fellow who got his surname as a sort of insult, derived1 from the hesitation of his speech
and the stolidity of his understanding. Oh, but your grandfather was nobly born.
Yes, he was that Tuditanus who used to put on a cloak and buskins, and then go
and scatter money from the rostra among the people. I wish he had bequeathed his
contempt of money to his descendants! You have, indeed, a most glorious nobility
of family!
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