[139]
Enough has been done by me, O judges, to satisfy the Sicilians, enough to discharge
my duty and obligation to them, enough to acquit me of my promise and of the labour
which I have undertaken. The remainder of the accusation, O judges, is one which I
have not received from any one, but which is, if I may so say, innate in me; it is
one which has not been brought to me, but which is deeply fixed and implanted in all
my feelings; it is one which concerns not the safety of the allies, but the life and
existence of Roman citizens, that is to say, of every one of us. And in urging this,
do not, O judges, expect to hear any arguments from me, as if the matter were
doubtful. Everything which I am going to say about the punishment of Roman citizens,
will be so evident and notorious, that I could produce all Sicily as witnesses to prove it. For some insanity,
the frequent companion of wickedness and audacity, urged on that man's unrestrained
ferocity of disposition and inhuman nature to such frenzy, that he never hesitated,
openly, in the presence of the whole body of citizens and settlers, to employ
against Roman citizens those punishments which have been instituted only for slaves
convicted of crime.
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. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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.