[26]
That ill-omened pest of the state even complains that the corn should have
been taken out of the impure mouth of Sextus Clodius, and that the republic
in its extremest peril should have implored the aid of that man by whom it
recollected that it had often been preserved, and had its power
extended. Clodius thinks that nothing ought to be done out of the regular
course. What! what sort of law is it that you say that you passed about me,
you parricide, you fratricide, you murderer of your sister; did you not pass
that out of the regular course? Was it lawful for you to pass, I will not
say a law, but a wicked private bill, concerning the ruin of a citizen, the
preserver of the republic, as all gods and men have long since agreed to
call him, and, as you yourself confess, when he was not only uncondemned but
even unimpeached, amid the mourning of the senate and the lamentation of all
good men, rejecting the prayers of all Italy, while the republic lay oppressed and captive at your
feet? And was it not lawful for me, when the Roman people implored me, when
the senate requested me, when the critical state of the republic demanded it
of me, to deliver an opinion concerning the safety of the Roman people?
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