Section 10
Original Latin
quae cum ita sint, quid est quod de eius civitate dubitetis, praesertim cum aliis quoque in civitatibus fuerit ascriptus? etenim cum mediocribus multis et aut nulla aut humili aliqua arte praeditis gratuito civitatem in Graecia homines impertiebant, Reginos credo aut Locrensis aut Neapolitanos aut Tarentinos, quod scaenicis artificibus largiri solebant, id huic summa ingeni praedito gloria noluisse! quid? cum ceteri non modo post civitatem datam sed etiam post legem Papiam aliquo modo in eorum municipiorum tabulas inrepserunt, hic qui ne utitur quidem illis in quibus est scriptus, quod semper se Heracliensem esse voluit, reicietur?
Musean translation
Complete machine-assisted Musean translation made directly from the Latin in Clark’s 1911 edition; source-language model review recorded. Perseus transcription: CC BY-SA 4.0, credited to the Perseus Project, Tufts University.
Since this is so, what reason have you to doubt his citizenship, especially when he was also enrolled as a citizen in other communities? For when people throughout Greece freely granted citizenship to many ordinary men, men with no skill at all or only some humble accomplishment, I suppose the people of Rhegium or Locri or Naples or Tarentum refused this man, whose genius had won the highest renown, what they regularly bestowed on theatrical performers! And consider this: while others somehow slipped into the registers of those municipalities not only after citizenship had been granted but even after the Papian law, is this man to be rejected—he who makes no use even of the citizenships under which he is enrolled, because he has always wished to be a citizen of Heraclea?
Plain English translation
Complete machine-assisted Plain English translation made independently and directly from the Latin, not from the Musean edition; source-language model review recorded. Perseus transcription: CC BY-SA 4.0, credited to the Perseus Project, Tufts University.
Given these facts, what reason have you to doubt his citizenship? Particularly since other towns had also put him on their citizen lists? People in Greece freely granted citizenship to many ordinary men with little skill or none at all. So I suppose the people of Rhegium, Locri, Naples, or Tarentum refused this man, whose talent had won the highest praise, something they regularly gave to stage performers!
And consider this. Other people somehow slipped into those towns’ registers, not just after citizenship was granted, but even after the Papian law. Yet this man does not even rely on the other registers where his name appears. He has always wanted to be regarded as a citizen of Heraclea. Is he to be rejected?
About this section
Section 10 is part of For Archias the Poet by Marcus Tullius Cicero. This page sets the Latin original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is section 10 of 32 in the work, which is kept in the Roman tradition.
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