M. Tullius Cicero, For Milo
C. D. Yonge, Ed.

[31] And if he had thought that this was the law, it would have been preferable for Milo to offer his throat to Publius Clodius,—which was not attacked by him once only, nor for the first time on that day,—rather than now to be destroyed by you because he did not surrender himself then to be destroyed by him. But if there is no one of you who entertains such an opinion as that, then the question which arises for the consideration of the court is not whether he was slain or not which we admit but whether he was slain legally or illegally, which is an inquiry which has often been instituted in any causes. It is quite plain that a plot was laid and that if a thing which the senate has decided to be contrary to the laws of the republic. By whom it was laid is a question. And on this point an inquiry has been ordered to be instituted. So the senate has marked its disapproval of the fact not of the man; and Pompeius has appointed this inquiry into the merits of the case and not into the fact of its existence.