24.
[54]
“But my slave is not to be found, who was seen with your slaves. But my cottage
was burnt by your slaves.” What reply am I to make to this? I have proved that it
was false. Still I will admit it. What comes next? Does it follow from this that the household
of Marcus Tullius ought to be murdered? Scarcely, in truth, that they ought to be flogged,
scarcely, that they ought to be severely reprimanded. But granting that you were ever so
severe; the matter could be tried in the usual course of law, by an everyday sort of trial.
What was the need of violence? what was the need of armed men, of slaughter, and of bloodshed?
[55]
“But perhaps they would have proceeded to attack me.” This, in their
desperate case, is neither a speech nor a defence, but a mere guess, a sort of divination.
Were they coming to attack him? Whom? Fabius. With what intention? To kill him. Why? to gain
what? how did you find it out? And that I may set forth a plain case as briefly as possible,
is it possible to doubt, O judges, which side seems to have been the attacking
party?—
[56]
Those who came to the house, or those who
remained in the house? Those who were slain, or those, of whose number not one man was
wounded? Those who had no imaginable reason for acting so, or those who confess that they did
act so? But suppose I were to believe that you were afraid of being attacked, who ever laid
down such a principle as this, or who could have this granted him without extreme danger to
the whole body of citizens, that he might lawfully kill a man, if he only said that he was
afraid of being hereafter killed by him? [The rest of this oration is lost.]
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