M. Tullius Cicero, For Marcus Caelius
C. D. Yonge, Ed.

Therefore, I willingly allow that part of the cause to be concluded, summed up, as it has been, with dignity and elegance by Marcus Crassus; the part, I mean, which relates to the seditions at Naples, to the expulsion of the Alexandrians from Puteoli, and to the property of Palla. I wish he had also discussed the transaction respecting Dio. And yet on that subject what is there that you can expect me to say, when the man who committed the murder is not afraid, but even confesses it? For he is a king. But the man who is said to have been the assistant and accomplice in the murder, has been acquitted by a regular trial. What sort of crime, then, is this, that the man who has committed it does not deny it—that he who has denied it has been acquitted, and yet that a man is to be afraid of the accusation who was not only at a distance from the deed, but who has never been suspected of being even privy to it? And if the merits of his case availed Asicius more than the odium engendered by the fact of such a crime injured him, is your abuse to injure this man, who has never once had a suspicion of the crime breathed against him, not even by the vaguest report?