[139]
But I, if I
said anything of that sort, did not mention it as a thing within my own knowledge, nor did I
state it in evidence; and that speech was prompted rather by the occasion, than by my judgment
and deliberate intention. For when I was acting as accuser, and had proposed to myself at the
beginning to rouse the feelings of the Roman people and of the judges; and as I was mentioning
all the errors of the courts of justice, relying not on my own opinion, but on the common
report of men; I could not pass over that matter which had been so universally discussed. But
whoever thinks that he has my positive opinions recorded indelibly in those orations which we
have delivered in the courts of justice, is greatly mistaken. For all those speeches are
speeches of the cause, and of the occasion, and are not the speeches of the men or of the
advocates themselves. For if the causes themselves could speak for themselves, no one would
employ an orator. But, as it is, we are employed, in order to say, not things which are to be
considered as asserted on our own authority, but things which are derived from the
circumstances of the cause itself.
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