[36]
But there were other grounds for fear, and other reasons for anxiety and
suspicion, O judges, which influenced me at that time. For I will explain to
you this day, O judges, all the principles of my conduct and of my designs;
and I will not be wanting to your great desire of hearing the truth, nor to
this multitude, the greatest which within my recollection, has ever appeared
in any court of justice. For if I, in so good a cause, when supported so
zealously by the senate, and by such an inconceivable unanimity on the part
of all virtuous men, ready to act in my behalf, and when all
Italy was stirred up and braced
for the contest,—yielded to the fury of a tribune of the people,
one of the most despicable of men; if I was afraid of the trifling but
audacious characters of those most contemptible consuls, then I should be
forced to confess that I was too timid, that I was a man of no courage, of
no decision, and of no wisdom.
This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
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.
The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.