[70]
The cause has now been fully stated by me, O judges, and summed up. You now
understand how important an action this is which has been submitted to your
decision; how serious a charge is confided to you. You are
presiding over an investigation into a charge of violence;—into a
law which concerns the empire, the majesty of the state, the condition of
the country, and the safety of all the citizens;—a law which
Quintus Catulus passed at a time when armed dissensions were dividing the
people, and when the republic was almost at its last gasp;—a law
which, after the flame which raged so fiercely in my consulship had been
allayed, extinguished the smoking relics of the conspiracy. Under this law
the youth of Marcus Caelius is demanded, not for the sake of enduring any
punishment called for by the republic, but in order to be sacrificed to the
lust and profligate pleasures of a woman.
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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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