[56]
Those who came to the house, or those who
remained in the house? Those who were slain, or those, of whose number not one man was
wounded? Those who had no imaginable reason for acting so, or those who confess that they did
act so? But suppose I were to believe that you were afraid of being attacked, who ever laid
down such a principle as this, or who could have this granted him without extreme danger to
the whole body of citizens, that he might lawfully kill a man, if he only said that he was
afraid of being hereafter killed by him? [The rest of this oration is lost.]
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1856.
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