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I ought not, O Caesar, to endeavour, as is often done by men in such danger
as this, to move your pity by my language. There is no need of my doing so.
Your feelings are of their own accord accustomed to come to the aid of the
suppliant and unfortunate, without being elicited by the eloquence of
anybody. Place before your eyes two kings, and contemplate with your mind
what you cannot behold with your eyes. You will surely yield to your
feelings of compassion what you refused to your resentment. There are many
monuments of your clemency, but the chief, sure, are the secure happiness of
those men to whom it is you have been the author of safety. And if such an
action is glorious in the case of a private individual, much more will it be
celebrated when it is a king who is the object of it. The title of King has
always been accounted a holy name in this city; but the names of ally and
king, when united together, are then the holiest of all titles.
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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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