Against Lucius Calpurnius Piso

O ye immortal gods, what a day is this which has dawned

What specimen, even the slightest, have you ever given of ability? Of ability, do I say? Rather should I say, what proof have you ever given of being an honourable or a free man? You, who by your complexion seem to throw a doubt on your country, by your speech on your family, by your morals on your name

This has nothing to do with leading us to think slightly of Placentia, of which place he boasts that he is a native: for my nature does not incline me to his; nor does the dignity of a municipal town, especially of one which has deserved exceedingly well at my hands, allow me to entertain such feelings.

There was a certain Insubrian who was both a merchant and a crier; he, when he had come to Rome with his daughter, ventured to call a young man of high birth, named Caesoninus, the son of a most thorough rogue: he gave his daughter in marriage to him. And she became the mother of you, a beast rather than a man. [Concerning Piso’s maternal grandfather] When he had settled on the banks of the Po at Placentia, a few years afterwards he obtained the freedom of that city; for it was a city at that time. For before that he was considered a Gaul; then a man of Gallic extraction; and at last he began to be considered a sort of half-Placentian.