[8]
Let it, however, be so decreed if you like. For I will undertake, and, as I hope, I shall
find one who will not think it suitable to his dignity to refuse what you decide on for the
sake of the universal safety. He imposes besides a severe punishment on the burgesses of the
municipal town if any of the prisoners escape; he surrounds them with the most terrible
guard, and with everything worthy of the wickedness of abandoned men. And he proposes to
establish a decree that no one shall be able to alleviate the punishment of those whom he is
condemning by a vote of either the senate or the people. He takes away even hope, which alone
can comfort men in their miseries; besides this, he votes that their goods should be
confiscated; he leaves life alone to these infamous men, and if he had taken
that away; he would have relieved them by one pang of many tortures of mind and body, and of
all the punishment of their crimes. Therefore, that there might be some dread in life to the
wicked, men of old have believed that there were some punishments of that sort appointed for
the wicked in the shades below; because in truth they perceived that if this were taken away
death itself would not be terrible.
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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