At this point, Liberalis, I wish to offer a defense of the gods. For sometimes we are moved to say: “What could Providence mean by putting on the throne an Arrhidaeus27?” Was it to him, think you, that the honor was accorded? It was accorded to his father and to his brother. “Why did it make Gaius Caesar the ruler of the world? — a man so greedy of human blood that he ordered it to be shed in his presence as freely as if he intended to catch the stream in his mouth!” But tell me, do you think that it was to him this was accorded? It was accorded to his father Germanicus, to his grandfather and to his great-grandfather, and to others before them, men who were no less glorious, even if they passed their lives as private citizens on a footing of equality with others. Why, when you yourself were supporting Mamercus Scaurus28 for the consulship, were you not aware that he would try to catch in his open mouth the menstrual discharge of his own maidservants? Did he himself make any mystery of it? Did he wish to appear to be decent? I will repeat to you a story that he told on himself — it went the rounds, I recall, and was recounted in his presence. To Annius Pollio who was lying down he had proposed, using an obscene word, an act that he was more ready to submit to, and when he saw Pollio frown, he added; “If there is anything bad in what I have said, may it fall upon me and my head!” This story he used to tell against himself. Is it this man, so openly obscene, that you have admitted to the fasces and the tribunal? Of course it was while you were thinking of the great old Scaurus,29 who was president of the senate, and chafing to see his offspring obscure!