[35]
Do you not see now, how I deliver you from the danger of any sudden
popularity among the wicked, and reconcile you to all good men? who love you, and cherish you,
and who always will cherish you; nor, if perchance you for a while abandon me, will they on
that account allow you to abandon them and the republic and your own dignity.
But now I return to the cause; and I call you, O judges, to hear witness to
this;—that this necessity of speaking of myself was imposed on me by him. For if
Torquatus had been content with accusing Sulla, I too at the present time should have done
nothing beyond defending him who had been accused; but when he, in his whole speech, inveighed
against me, and when, in the very beginning, as I said, he sought to deprive my defence of all
authority, even if my indignation had not compelled me to speak, still the necessity of doing
justice to my cause would have demanded this speech from me.
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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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