M. Tullius Cicero, Speech before Roman Citizens on Behalf of Gaius Rabirius, Defendant Against the Charge of Treason
William Blake Tyrrell, Ed.

7. [20] A decree of the senate was passed that Gaius Marius and Lucius Valerius, consuls, summon the tribunes of the commoners and the praetors who seemed to them suitable, and give their attention that the sovereignty and majesty of the Roman people be preserved. They summon all the tribunes of the commoners except Saturninus, the [praetors] except Glaucia. They order whoever wishes the Republic to be safe to take up weapons and follow them. All obey. From the temple of Sancus and the public armories, weapons are given to the Roman people, with the Gaius Marius, consul, overseeing the distribution.

At this juncture, to pass over the rest, I have a question for you personally, Labienus. Since Saturninus was holding the Capitolium under arms, with him were Gaius Glaucia, Gaius Saufeius, and even that Gracchus from the shackles of the workhouse, and I will add to their number, as you want it so, your uncle Quintus Labienus, and since, on the other hand, in the forum were the consuls Gaius Marius and Lucius Valerius Flaccus, and behind them, the entire senate (that senate that you yourselves, who elicit ill-will against the present day senators, [are wont to praise], so that more easily you can disparage the present senate), since the order of the knights—but what knights, immortal gods! of our fathers and of that time, who held a large part of the Republic and all the honor of the public courts—since all men of all orders who believed that on the survival of the Republic rested their own survival had taken up weapons, just what was Gaius Rabirius to do?

[21] I ask of you personally, Labienus. After the consuls had issued the call to arms in accord with the decree of the senate, after an armed Marcus Aemilius, first senator of the senate, had assumed his post in the Comitium, a man who, although he could barely walk, reckoned his slowness of foot would be an impediment not for pursuit but for flight and, at last, after Quintus Scaevola, consumed by old age, wasted by disease, crippled, stricken in arm and leg, and disabled, leaned on his spear and displayed the strength of his mind and infirmity of his body, after Lucius Metullus, Servius Galba, Gaius Serranus, Publius Rutilius, Gaius Fimbria, Quintus Catulus and all who at the time were former consuls had taken up weapons for the common safety, after all the praetors, the entire nobility and youth were on the run, Gnaeus and Lucius Domitius, Lucius Crassus, Quintus Mucius, Gaius Claudius, Marcus Drusus, after all the men named Octavius, Metellus, Iulius, Cassius, Cato, and Pompeius, after Lucius Philippus, Lucius Scipio, after Marcus Lepidus, after Decimus Brutus, after Publius Servilius himself, present here today, under whose generalship, Labienus, you served, after Quintus Catulus, present here today, merely a youth at the time, after Gaius Curio, present here today, and, finally, after all the most famous men were with the consuls, just what was it proper for Gaius Rabirius to do? Was he to ensconce himself in the dark, shut in and hidden, concealing his own cowardice with the safeguards of shadows and walls? Or was he to proceed to the Capitolium and join up with your uncle and the others who were seeking refuge in death because of the repulsiveness of their lives? Or with Marius, Scaurus, Catulus, Metellus, Scaevola, and with all good men, was he to enter into an alliance of both survival and peril?