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THE SIXTH ORATION OF M. T. CICERO AGAINST MARCUS ANTONIUS. CALLED ALSO THE SIXTH PHILIPPIC. ADDRESSED TO THE PEOPLE.
5.
[15]
Let us come to instances nearer our own time. The senate entrusted the defense of
the republic to Caius Marius and Lucius Valerius the consuls. Lucius Saturninus,
a tribune of the people, and Caius Glaucia the praetor, were slain. On that day,
all the Scauri, and Metelli, and
Claudii, and Catuli, and Scaevolae, and Crassi took arms. Do you think either
those consuls or those other most illustrious men deserving of blame? I myself
wished Catiline to perish. Did you who wish every one to be safe, wish Catiline
to be safe? There is this difference, O Calenus, between my opinion and yours. I
wish no citizen to commit such crimes as deserve to be punished with death. You
think that, even if he has committed them, still he ought to be saved. If there
is any thing in our own body which is injurious to the rest of the body, we
allow that to be burned and cut out, in order that a limb may be lost in
preference to the whole body. And so in the body of the republic, whatever is
rotten must be cut off in order that the whole may be saved.
[16]
Harsh language! This is much more harsh, “Let the
worthless, and wicked, and impious be saved; let the innocent, the honorable,
the virtuous, the whole republic be destroyed.” In the case of one
individual, O Quintus Fufius, I confess that you saw more than I did. I thought
Publius Clodius a mischievous, wicked, lustful, impious, audacious, criminal
citizen. You, on the other hand, called him religious, temperate, innocent,
modest; a citizen to be preserved and desired. In this one particular I admit
that you had great discernment, and that I made a great mistake. For as for your
saying that I am in the habit of arguing against you with ill temper, that is
not the case. I confess that I argue with vehemence, but not with ill temper. I
am not in the habit of getting angry with my friends every now and then, not
even if they deserve it.
[17]
Therefore, I can
differ from you without using any insulting language, though not without feeling
the greatest grief of mind. For is the dissension between you and me a trifling
one, or on a trifling subject? Is it merely a case of my favoring this man, and
you that man? Yes; I indeed favor Decimus Brutus, you favor Marcus Antonius; I
wish a colony of the Roman people to be preserved, you are anxious that it
should be stormed and destroyed.
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