[82]
But even those very parricides, whose unbridled frenzy is nourished by long
impunity, were thrown into such consternation by the violence of their deed,
that if the belief of the death of Sestius had lasted a little longer, they
would have done as they were thinking of, and have slain their own friend
Gracchus, for the sake of attributing the crime to us. That clown, however,
being rather wary, (for those wicked men could not conceal their design,)
perceived that his own blood was sought for for the purpose of extinguishing
the unpopularity of this atrocity of Clodius, and got hold of a cloak belonging to a mule-driver, in which he had originally come to
Rome to the comitia, and put a mower's basket on his head, and when some
were asking for Numerius, and some for Quintius, he was saved by the mistake
of the double name.1 And you are all
aware that he was in danger until it was ascertained that Sestius was alive;
and if that had not been discovered a little sooner than I could have
wished, they would not, indeed, have been able to transfer the odium of the
death of their hired tool to those on whom they expected to shift it; but
they would have diminished the infamy of their abominable wickedness by one
crime which every one would have been glad of.
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1 The man's real name was Numerius Quinctius, who had assumed the name of Gracchus, to which he had no right, in order to make himself popular with the multitude; who, perhaps, on that account elected him tribune.
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