M. Tullius Cicero, For Sulla
C. D. Yonge, Ed.

[31] in which there was, first of all, this absurdity, that when he wished to gain your approval of the inconsiderate things which he had said, but did not wish those men, who were standing around the tribunal, to hear them, he did not perceive that, while he was speaking so loudly, those men whose favour he was seeking to gain could not hear him, without your hearing him too, who did not approve of what he was saying; and, in the second place, it is a great defect in an orator not to see what each cause requires. For nothing is so inconsistent as for a man who is accusing another of conspiracy, to appear to lament the punishment and death of conspirators; which is not, indeed, strange to any one, when it is done by that tribune of the people who appears to be the only man left to bewail those conspirators; for it is difficult to be silent when you are really grieved. But, if you do anything of that sort, I do greatly marvel at you, not only because you are such a young man as you are, but because you do it in the very cause in which you wish to appear as a punisher of conspiracy.