[80]
Greek nations give the honours of the gods to those men who have slain
tyrants. What have I not seen at Athens? what in the other cities of Greece?
What divine honours have I not seen paid to such men? What odes, what songs
have I not heard in their praise? They are almost consecrated to immortality
in the memories and worship of men. And will you not only abstain from
conferring any honours on the saviour of so great a people, and the avenger
of such enormous wickedness, but will you even allow him to be borne off for
punishment? He would confess,—I say, if he had done it, he would
confess with a high and willing spirit that he had done it for the sake of
the general liberty; a thing which would certainly deserve not only to be
confessed by him, but even to be boasted of.
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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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