[76]
They drive away by force Marcus
Cispius, a most gallant and virtuous man and a tribune of the people, as he
was coming into the forum; they make a great slaughter in the forum; and all
of them, with drawn and bloody swords, looked about with their eyes for, and
demanded with their cries, my brother, a most virtuous man, a most brave
one, and one most devoted to me. And he willingly, such was his grief, and
so great his regret for me, would have exposed his body to their weapons,
not with a view of resisting them, but with the object of meeting death, if
he had not preserved his life in the hope of my return. However, he endured
some violence from those wicked robbers; and as he had come down for the
purpose of begging the safety of his brother from the Roman
people, having been driven from the rostra, he
lay down in the place of the comitia, and
covered himself with the corpses of slaves and freedmen, and defended his
life that day by the protection which night and flight afforded him, not by
that of the laws or courts of justice.
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