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THE SIXTH ORATION OF M. T. CICERO AGAINST MARCUS ANTONIUS. CALLED ALSO THE SIXTH PHILIPPIC. ADDRESSED TO THE PEOPLE.
[15]
Let us come to instances nearer our own time. The senate entrusted the defense of
the republic to Caius Marius and Lucius Valerius the consuls. Lucius Saturninus,
a tribune of the people, and Caius Glaucia the praetor, were slain. On that day,
all the Scauri, and Metelli, and
Claudii, and Catuli, and Scaevolae, and Crassi took arms. Do you think either
those consuls or those other most illustrious men deserving of blame? I myself
wished Catiline to perish. Did you who wish every one to be safe, wish Catiline
to be safe? There is this difference, O Calenus, between my opinion and yours. I
wish no citizen to commit such crimes as deserve to be punished with death. You
think that, even if he has committed them, still he ought to be saved. If there
is any thing in our own body which is injurious to the rest of the body, we
allow that to be burned and cut out, in order that a limb may be lost in
preference to the whole body. And so in the body of the republic, whatever is
rotten must be cut off in order that the whole may be saved.
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