[13]
Here I will not at present implore your aid, O Roman knights—you
whose privileges are attacked by this prosecution,—before I
implore you, O senators, whose good faith towards this order of knights is
at stake; that good faith which has been often experienced before, and which
has been lately proved in this very cause. For when—when that most
virtuous and admirable consul Cnaeus Pompeius made a motion with respect to
this very inquiry—some, but very few, unfavourable opinions were
delivered, which voted that prefects, and scribes, and all the retinue of
magistrates were liable to the provisions of this law, you—you
yourselves, I say—and the senate, in a very full
house, resisted this; and although at that time, on account of the offences
committed by many men, people's minds were inflamed so that even innocent
people were in danger, still, though you could not wholly extinguish its
unpopularity, at all events you would not allow fuel to be added to the
existing fire.
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