[21]
Here who, O Romans can there be so obstinate against the
truth, so headstrong, so void of sense, as to deny that all these things which we see, and
especially this city, is governed by the divine authority and power of the immortal gods?
Forsooth, when this answer had been given, that massacre, and conflagration, and ruin was
prepared for the republic; and that, too, by profligate citizens, which, from the enormity of
the wickedness, appeared incredible to some people, you found that it had not only been
planned by wicked citizens, but had even been undertaken and commenced. And is not this fact
so present that it appears to have taken place by the express will of the good and mighty
Jupiter, that, when this day, early in the morning, both the conspirators and their accusers
were being led by my command through the forum to the Temple of Concord, at that very time
the statue was being erected? And when it was set up and turned towards you and towards the
senate the senate and you yourselves saw everything which had been planned against the
universal safety brought to light and made manifest.
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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.
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