[123]
And since my speech has carried me on to this point the actor bewailed my
misfortune so repeatedly, while he was pleading my cause so mournfully, that
his beautiful voice was hindered by his tears. Nor were the poets, whose
genius I have always had an affection for, wanting to my necessities at that
time, and the Roman people approved of their words, not only with their
applause, but even with their groans. Ought then Aesop or Accius to have
said these things on my behalf of the Roman people had been free, or ought
they to have left them to the chief men of the state to say? In the Brutus,
I was mentioned by name: “Tullius, who had established the liberty
of the citizens.” It was encored again and again. Did the Roman
people appear to be giving slight indications that it had been established
by me and by the senate, though profligate citizens accused us as having
destroyed it?
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