[106]
Which, then, could more easily give an account of his vote,—he who
said that he had been consistent with himself and with the previous decision, or he who said
that he had been lenient to the principal offender, and very severe against his assistants and
accomplices? But concerning their decision I have no occasion to say anything; for I have no
doubt, that such men as they, being influenced by some sudden suspicion, avoided the point at
issue. On which account I find no fault with the mercy of those who acquitted him. I approve
of the firmness of those men who, in giving their judgment, followed the precedent of the
previous decisions of their own accord, and not in consequence of the fraudulent trick of
Stalenus; but I praise the wisdom of those men who said that to their minds it was not proved,
who could by no means acquit a man whom they knew to be very guilty, and whom they themselves
had already condemned twice before, but who, as such a disgraceful plan, and as a suspicion of
such an atrocious act had been suggested to them, preferred condemning him a little later,
when the facts were clearly ascertained.
This text is part of:
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.