[171]
If I were to choose to make these complaints and to utter these lamentations, not
to Roman citizens, not to any friends of our city, not to men who had heard of the
name of the Roman people,—if I uttered them not to men, but to
beasts,—or even, to go further, if I uttered them in some most desolate
wilderness to the stones and rocks, still all things, mute and inanimate as they
might be, would be moved by such excessive, by such scandalous atrocity of conduct.
But now, when I am speaking before senators of the Roman people, the authors of the
laws, of the courts of justice, and of all right, I ought not to fear that that man
will not be judged to be the only Roman citizen deserving of that cross of his, and
that all others will not be judged most undeserving of such a danger.
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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