[26]
Do you not understand, in the first place, what
sort of men, what sort of citizens they were whom, now that they are dead, you are accusing of
the greatest wickedness? Are you not aware, how many of those who are still alive, you, by the
same accusation, are bringing into peril of their lives? For if Caius Rabirius committed a
capital crime in having borne arms against Lucius Saturninus, yet the age which he was then of
might furnish him with some excuse by which to secure himself from danger. But how are we to
defend Quintus Catulus, the father of this Catulus, a man in whom the very highest wisdom,
eminent virtue, and singular humanity were combined? and Marcus Scaurus, a man of great
gravity, wisdom, and prudence? or the two Mucii, or Lucius Crassus, or Marcus Antonius, who
was at that time outside the city with a guard? all men than whom there was no one of greater
wisdom or ability in the whole city; or how are we to defend the other men of equal dignity,
the guardians and counselors of the republic, who behaved in the same way, now that they are
dead?
This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1856.
The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.