[131]
But if I or any one
else had been allowed to plead this cause before those censors, I would certainly have proved
to the satisfaction of men endowed with such prudence, (for the facts of the case prove it,)
that they themselves had ascertained nothing, had discovered nothing; but that in all those
notes appended to their animadversions nothing had guided them but rumour, and nothing had
been sought but popular applause. For to the name of Publius Popillius, who had condemned
Oppianicus. Lucius Gellius had appended a note, “because he had taken money to
condemn an innocent man.” Now what a real conjurer that man must be, O judges, to
know that a man was innocent, whom, very likely, he had never seen, when the very wisest men,
to say nothing of those who actually condemned him, after investigation of the case, said that
they, were not without doubt in the matter?
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.
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