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[15]

He, therefore, having been not only released from danger by you, but having been also distinguished by you with the highest honours, is now accused of having intended to assassinate you in his own house—a thing which you cannot in truth possibly suspect, unless you consider him to have been utterly mad. For, to say nothing of what a deed of enormous wickedness it would have been to assassinate his guest in the sight of his own household gods; what a deed of enormous unreasonableness it would have been to have extinguished the brightest light of all nations, and of all human recollection; what a deed of enormous ferocity it would have been to have had no dread of the conqueror of the whole earth; what a sign of an inhuman and ungrateful disposition it would have been to be found to behave like a despot to the very man by whom be had been addressed as a king;—to say nothing of all this, what a deed of utter frenzy would it have been to rouse all kings, of whom there were numbers on the borders of his own kingdom, all free nations, all the allies, all the provinces, all the arms, in short, of every people on earth against himself alone! To what misery would he not have exposed his kingdom, his house, his wife, and his beloved son, not merely by the accomplishment of such a crime, but even by the bare idea of it!


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