[83]
Ask this of Sextus Clodius the
framer of your laws. Bid him come forward; he is keeping out of the way; but
if you order him to be looked for they will find the man in your sister's
house hiding himself with his head down. But if no one in his senses ever
called your father a citizen—yes, by Jove, a good citizen, and one
very unlike you, if no one I say, ever called him an exile, who, when a
tribune of the people had proposed a bill against him, would not appear on
account of the iniquity of that period of Cinna's triumph, and who, on that
account had his command taken from him; if, I say, in his case, a punishment
inflicted by law carried no disgrace with it, on account of the violent
character of those times, could there, in my ease, be any penalty against me
as if I had been condemned when I never was tried when I never was accused
when I never was summoned by any tribune of the people, and, especially, a
penalty which was not mentioned not even in the proposed bill itself?
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