[38]
For what man ever intentionally beheld those sacred rites before you, so as to enable any one
to know what punishment followed that guilt? Could the blindness of your
eyes be a greater injury to you than that blindness of your lust? Do not
even you feel that those winking eyes of your ancestor1 were more
desirable for you than these glowing eyes of your sister? But, if you
observe carefully, you will see that though you have as yet escaped the
punishment of men, you have not escaped that of the gods. Men have defended
you in a most shameful affair; men have praised you though most infamous and
most guilty; men, for a bribe, have acquitted you by their decision, though
you all but confessed your guilt; men have felt no indignation at the
injuries inflicted on themselves by your lust; men have supplied you with
arms, some wishing them to be used against me, and others afterwards
intending them to he employed against that invincible citizen. I will quite
admit all the kindnesses which men have shown you, and that you need not
wish for greater.
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1 Appius Claudius, surnamed Caecus, or the Blind.
M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. George Bell & Sons, York Street, Covent Garden. 1891.
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