M. Tullius Cicero, Against Vatinius
C. D. Yonge, Ed.

And, not to waste any more words on your augurship, (and I speak of it all against my will, as I do not wish to recollect the ruin of the republic; for, indeed, you yourself never thought that you would be augur as long as not only the majesty of these men, but as long as that city itself remained standing,)—still, to pass over your dreams, I will come to your acts of wickedness. I wish you to answer me. When you were leading Marcus Bibulus, the consul,—I will not call him a man of the justest sentiments with respect to the republic, lest so powerful a man as you, who disagreed with him, should be offended with me; but I will call him a man who certainly never took any violent steps, who never performed any act of hostility towards you in the republic, but who only felt in his heart a great disapproval of your actions;—when, I say, you were leading him, the consul, to prison, and when your colleagues sitting at the Valerian¹ table ordered him to be released did you or did you not make a bridge in front of the rostra, by joining the stages together along which bridge, a consul of the Roman people, a man of the greatest moderation and wisdom removed from all assistance cut off from all his friends, was to be led by the inflamed violence of profligate men, a most shameful and miserable spectacle, not only to prison but to execution and to death?