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

But it is foolish of us to dare to compare Drusus, Africanus, Pompeius or ourselves with Publius Clodius. All these things were endurable. The death of Publius Clodius no one can bear with equanimity. The senate is in mourning; the knights grieve, the whole state is broken down as if with age; the municipalities are in mourning, the colonies are bowed down; the very fields even regret so beneficent, so useful, so kind hearted a citizen! [21] That was not the cause, O judges, it was not indeed why Pompeius thought an investigation ought to be proposed by him; but being a man wise and endowed with lofty and almost divine intellect, he saw many things, that Clodius was his personal enemy, Milo his intimate friend; he feared that if he were to rejoice in the common joy of all men the belief in his reconciliation with Clodius would be weakened. He saw many other things, too, but this most especially,—that in whatever terms of severity he proposed the motion, still you could decide fearlessly. Therefore he selected the very lights of the most eminent ranks of the state. He did not, indeed as some are constantly saying, exclude my friends in selecting the tribunal; for neither did that most just man think of this, nor, when he was selecting good men, could he have managed to do so, even had he wished for my influence would not be limited by my intimacies which can never be very extensive, because one cannot associate habitually with many people, but, if we have any influence, we have it on this account, because the republic has associated us with the virtuous; and when he was selecting the most excellent of them, and as he thought that it especially concerned his credit to do so, he was unable to avoid selecting men who were well disposed towards me.

[22] But as for his especially appointing you, O Lucius Domitius, to preside over this investigation, in that he was seeking nothing except justice, dignity, humanity and good faith. He passed a law that it must be a man of consular dignity, because, I suppose, he considered the duty of the men or the highest rank to resist both the fickleness of the multitude and the rashness of the profligate; and of the men of consular rank he selected you above all; for from your earliest youth you had given the most striking proofs how you despised the madness of the people.