Yesterday, O conscript fathers, when I was greatly moved by the thoughts of
your dignity, and of the great attendance of the Roman knights to whom a
senate was given, I thought myself bound to check the shameless impudence of
Publius Clodius, when he was hindering the cause of the publicans from being
proceeded with by the most foolish possible questions, and was
studying to save Publius Tullio the Syrian and was, even before your eyes
selling himself to him to whom, indeed, he had already been entirely sold.
Therefore I checked the man in his frenzy and exultation, the very moment
that I gave him a hint of the danger of a public trial; and by two
half-uttered words I bridled all the violence and ferocity of that
gladiator.
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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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