M. Tullius Cicero, For Sulla
C. D. Yonge, Ed.

But why need I say more on this topic? I might speak perhaps, and I would speak willingly and gladly, if affection and fraternal love had impelled Lucius Caecilius a little beyond the limits which regular and strict duty requires of a man; I would appeal to your feelings, I would invoke the affection which every one feels for his own relations; I would solicit pardon for the error of Lucius Caecilius, from your own inmost thoughts and from the common humanity of all men. [65] The law was proposed only a few days; it was never begun to be put in train to be carried; it was laid on the table in the senate. On the first of January, when we had summoned the senate to meet in the Capitol, nothing took precedence of it; and Quintus Metellus the praetor said, that what he was saying was by the command of Sulla; that Sulla did not wish such a motion to be brought forward respecting his case. From that time forward Caecilius applied himself to many measures for the advantage of the republic; he declared that he by his intercession would stop the agrarian law, which was in every part of it denounced and defeated by me. He resisted infamous attempts at corruption; he never threw any obstacles in the way of the authority of the senate. He behaved himself in his tribuneship in such a manner, that, laying aside all regard for his own domestic concerns, he thought of nothing for the future but the welfare of the republic. [66] And even in regard to this very motion, who was there of us who had any fears of Sulla or Caecilius attempting to carry any point by violence? Did not all the alarm that existed at that time, all the fear and expectation of sedition, arise from the villainy of Autronius? It was his expressions and his threats which were bruited abroad; it was the sight of him, the multitudes that thronged to him, the crowd that escorted him, and the bands of his abandoned followers, that caused all the fear of sedition which agitated us. Therefore, Publius Sulla, as this most odious man was then his comrade and partner, not only in honour but also in misfortune, was compelled to lose his own good fortune, and to remain under a cloud without any remedy or alleviation.