[54]
But all these topics, which belong peculiarly to
the orator, and which might do some service in my hands if I were to work
them up and dilate upon them in this presence, not because of any natural
ability that I possess, but because of my constant practice in, and habit
of, speaking, I, from a view to brevity, forbear to urge. For I have, O
judges, a man whom you will willingly allow to be connected with you by the
religious obligation of taking a similar oath with yourselves, Lucius
Lucceius, a most religious man, and a most conscientious witness; who if
such guilt so calculated to compromise his credit and his fortunes had been
brought into his household by Caelius, could not have failed to hear of it,
and would never have been indifferent to it and would never have borne it.
Could such a man as he, a man of such humanity, a man devoted to such
pursuits as his, and embued with all his learning and
accomplishments, have been indifferent to the imminent danger of that man to
whom he had become attached on account of these very studies and pursuits?
And when he would have been most indignant at hearing of such a crime if it
had been committed against a stranger, would he have omitted taking any
notice of it when it affected his own guest? When he would have grieved if
he had found out that such a deed had been perpetrated by strangers, would
he have thought nothing of it when attempted by his own household? An action
which he would blame if done in the fields or in public places, was he
likely to think lightly of when it was begun in his own city and in his own
house? What he would not have concealed if it threatened any country person
with danger, can he, a learned man himself, be supposed to have kept secret
when a plot was laid against a most learned man?
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