[8]
But if any pretence for the accusation—if
any suspicion of this act—if, in short, any, the least thing be
found,—so that in bringing forward this accusation they shall seem to have had
some real object,—if you find any cause whatever for it, except that plunder
which I have mentioned, I will not object to the life of Sextus Roscius being abandoned
to their pleasure. But if there is no other object in it, except to prevent anything
being wanting to those men, whom nothing can satisfy, if this alone is contended for at
this moment, that the condemnation of Sextus Roscius may be added as a sort of crown, as
it were, to this rich and splendid booty,—though many things be infamous,
still is not this the most infamous of all things, that you should be thought fitting
men for these fellows now to expect to obtain by means of your sentences and your oaths,
what they have hitherto been in the habit of obtaining by wickedness and by the sword;
that though you have been chosen out of the state into the senate because of your
dignity, and out of the senate into this body because of your inflexible love of
justice—still assassins and gladiators should ask of you, not only to allow
them to escape the punishment which they ought to fear and dread at your hands for their
crimes, but also that they may depart from this court adorned and enriched with the
spoils of Sextus Roscius?
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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