[4]
But when I consider the way in which they are conducting their case, I do not see what more
impudent thing can be said; when I consider your hesitation in airing your decision, I am
afraid that what they seem to have been doing shamelessly, may have been done cunningly and
wisely; for if they had denied that violence had been committed by armed men, they would
easily have been convicted in a plain case by most unimpeachable witnesses: if they had
confessed it, and defended a deed which can never be rightfully done, as having been done by
them at that time legally, they hoped— what, indeed, they gained—that they
should give you cause to deliberate, and inspire you with proper hesitation and scrupulousness
in deciding: and also, though that is a most scandalous thing, they thought that the trial in
this case would appear to be not about the dishonesty of Sextus Aebutius, but about the civil
law.
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1856.
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