[81]
Will you then spare this man, O judges? whose offences are so great that they whom
he injured could neither wait for the legitimate time to take their revenge, nor
restrain to a future time the violence of their indignation. You were besieged? By
whom? By the citizens of Lampsacus—barbarous men, I suppose, or, at all events, men
who despised the name of the Roman people. Say rather, men, by nature, by custom,
and by education most gentle; moreover, by condition, allies of the Roman people, by
fortune our subjects, by inclination our suppliants—so that it is evident
to all men, that unless the bitterness of the injury and the enormity of the
wickedness had been such that the Lampsacenes thought it better to die than to
endure it, they never would have advanced to such a pitch as to be more influenced
by hatred of your lust—than by fear of your office as lieutenant.
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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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