[78]
And now, can I suppose that
any one doubts that you would never have allowed (especially as you made sure, as
you say, that a prosecution would be instituted against you) that pirate to escape
execution, and to live to increase your danger which was ever before your eyes? For
indeed, suppose he had died, whom could you (who say that you were afraid of a
prosecution) have convinced of it? When it was notorious that the captain of the
pirates had been seen by no one at Syracuse, and that all desired to see him; when no one had any doubt
that he had been released by you for a sum of money; when it was a common topic of
conversation that some one had been substituted in his place, who you wished to make
believe was the man; when you yourself had confessed that you had, for so long a
time before, been afraid of that accusation; if you had said that he had died, who
would have believed you?
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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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