M. Tullius Cicero, For King Deiotarius
C. D. Yonge, Ed.

[21] “Oh, he put it off,” says the prosecutor, “till the next day, in order that when he arrived at the Luceian fort, he might there put his designs in execution.”I do not understand the effect of his changing the place; but still the whole case was conducted in an incriminatory manner. “When,” says the prosecutor, “you said after supper that you wished to vomit, they began to lead you to the bath-room; for that was the place where the ambuscade was; but still that same fortune of yours saved you; you said that you had rather go to your bedroom.” May the gods forgive you, you run-away slave! Are you so utterly, not only worthless and infamous, but also stupid and senseless? What? were they brazen statues that he had planted in ambush, so that they could not be moved from the bath-room to the bed-chamber?

Here you have the whole charge as to the ambuscade: for he said nothing further. “In all this,” says he, “I was his accomplice.” What do you mean? Was he so demented as to allow a man to leave him who was privy to so enormous a wickedness? As even to send him to Rome, where he knew his grandson was, who was most bitterly hostile to him, and where Caius Caesar was, against whom he had laid this plot? especially when he was the only man who could give any information against him in his absence.