[77]
What more shall I say? What would you say, if the very day before
you were compelled by me to confess that, though you had put Roman citizens to
death, the pirate captain was alive and in your house—if, I say, the very
day before, he had escaped from your house, and had been able to collect an army
against the Roman people? Would you say, “He dwelt with me, he was in my
house; in order the more easily to refute the accusations of my enemies, I reserved
this man alive and in safety for my trial?” Is it so? Will you defend
yourself from danger, at the risk of the whole community? Will you regulate the time
of the punishments which are due to conquered enemies, by what is convenient for
yourself, not by what is expedient for the Roman people? Shall an enemy of the Roman
people be kept in private custody? But even those who have triumphs, and who on that
account keep the generals of the enemy alive a longer time, in order that, while
they are led in triumph, the Roman people may enjoy an ennobling spectacle, and a
splendid fruit of victory; nevertheless, when they begin to turn their chariot from
the forum towards the Capitol, order them to be taken back to prison, and the same
day brings to the conquerors the end of their authority, and to the conquered the
end of their lives.
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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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