[200]
Wherefore, O judges, if you hate wickedness, prevent the
approach of a mother to a son's blood; inflict on the parent this incredible misery, of the
victory and safety of her children; allow the mother (that she may not rejoice at being
deprived of her son) to depart defeated rather by your equity. But if, as your nature
requires, you love modesty, and beneficence, and virtue, then at last raise up this your
suppliant, O judges, who has been exposed for so many years to undeserved odium and
danger,—who now for the first time, since the beginning of that fire kindled by the
actions and fanned by the desires of others, has begun to raise his spirits from the hope of
your equity, and to breathe awhile after the alarms he has suffered,—all whose hopes
depend on you,—whom many, indeed, wish to be saved, but whom you alone have the
power to save.
This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
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.
The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.