[2]
And though there is much that is scandalous
in such a state of things, yet is there nothing more intolerable than that
they now seek to employ not their bands of robbers, not men desperate
through want and wickedness, but you yourselves, the best men in the city,
for the purpose of bringing us and other most virtuous men into danger. And
they now think that, as they were unable to destroy them by stones, and
swords, and firebrands, by violence, and personal force, and armed bands,
they will be able to effect their purpose through the instrumentality of
your authority, your integrity, and your judicial decisions.
But, O judges, since I am compelled now to exert that voice in order to ward
off danger from them, which I had hoped to be able to devote to returning
thanks to, and to commemorating the kindness of those men who have conferred
the greatest services on me, I entreat you to allow that voice to be useful
to them to whose exertions it is owing that it has been restored at all to
myself, and to you and to the Roman people.
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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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