[3]
Although I do not assume so much, or claim
so much importance for myself, O judges, as to think that Cnaeus Plancius is
entitled to impunity on account of his kindness towards me. If I do not
display to you that his life is most upright, his habits most virtuous, his
good faith unimpeachable,—if I do not prove him to be a man of
perfect temperance, piety, and innocence, I will not object to your
punishing him; but if I establish that he has every quality which may be
expected in the character of a virtuous man, then I will beg of you, O
judges, to grant, at my entreaty, your pity to that man, through whose pity
it is that I myself have been preserved in safety. In truth, in addition to
the labour which I am devoting to this cause, in a greater degree than I
think necessary in other trials. I have this anxiety also, that I have not
only to speak on behalf of Cnaeus Plancius, whose safety I am bound to
defend equally with my own, but on behalf of myself also, since the
prosecutors have said almost more about me than they have about the merits
of the case, and about the real defendant.
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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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