[18]
Therefore in that same Appian road,
when Publius Clodius had slain a most accomplished Roman knight, Marcus
Papirius, that crime was not to be punished; for a nobleman among his own
family monuments had slain a Roman knight. Now what tragedies does the name
of that same Appian road awaken? which, though nothing was said about it
formerly, when stained with the murder of an honourable and innocent man, is
now incessantly mentioned ever since it has been dyed with the blood of a
robber and a parricide. But why do I speak of these things? A slave of
Publius Clodius was arrested in the temple of Castor; whom he had placed
there to murder Cnaeus Pompeius; the dagger was wrested from his hands and
he confessed his design; after that Pompeius absented himself from the
forum, absented himself from the senate, and from all public places; he
defended himself within his own doors and walls, not by the power of the
laws and tribunals.
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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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