[101]
But those who are desirous to be defenders of the
republic, if they be fickle men, soon give up the task; if they be at all
timid men, they abandon it; and those alone remain and endure everything for
the sake of the republic, who are such men as your father was, O Marcus
Scaurus, who resisted all seditious men, from the time of Caius Gracchus to
that of Quintus Varius, whom no violence, no threats, and no unpopularity
ever shook; or such as Quintus Metellus, the uncle of your mother; who, when
as censor he had branded a man most flourishing in the popular esteem,
Lucius Saturninus, and when he had expunged a pretended Gracchus from the
list of the citizens, in spite of the violence of an excited mob, and when
he alone had refused to swear obedience to a law which he considered had not
been legally enacted, preferred to abandon the city rather
than his opinion; or, (to leave off quoting ancient examples, of which there
is an abundance worthy of the glory of this empire, while yet I avoid naming
any one who is now alive,) such as Quintus Catulus lately was, whom neither
the tempest of danger nor the breeze of honour could ever move from his
straight course, either by hope or fear.
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