20.
[45]
That one thing remained for me which, perhaps, some men of bold, and
energetic, and magnanimous mind will say,—“You should
have struggled, you should have resisted, you should have fought to the
death.” With respect to which idea, I call you to witness, you my
country, and you, O household gods, and gods of my country, that it was for
the sake of your abodes and temples, that it was on account of the safety of
my own fellow-citizens, which has always been dearer to me than my own life,
that I avoided combat and bloodshed. In truth, O judges, if it had happened
to me when I was sailing in some ship with my friends, that many pirates
coming from many parts threatened to overwhelm that vessel with their
fleets, unless they surrendered me alone to them; if the crew had refused to
do so, and had preferred rather to perish with me than to surrender me to
the enemy, I should have thrown myself into the sea in order to save the
rest, rather than bring those who were so devoted to me, if not to certain
death, at all events into great danger of their lives.
[46]
But when, after the helm had been wrested
from the senate, so many armed fleets appeared ready to attack the vessel of
the republic, tossed about on the deep by the tempests of sedition and
discord, unless I alone were surrendered; when proscription, and plunder,
and massacre were threatened; when some stood aloof from defending me from
suspicion that their doing so might bring themselves into danger, and some
were prompted by their long-standing hatred of all good men, and some envied
me, and some thought that I was in their way, and some wished to revenge
some grief or other which they had suffered, and some were influenced by
hatred of the republic itself, and of the present state and tranquillity of
good men, and on account of all these numerous and various
causes were demanding me alone to be given up to them,—was I to
fight against them to the extreme, I will not say destruction, but danger at
all events, of you and your children, rather than by myself encounter and
endure on behalf of all that evil which was impending over all?
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. George Bell & Sons, York Street, Covent Garden. 1891.
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