[79]
In this cause we fear no witness; we feel sure that no one
knows, or has ever seen, or has ever heard anything against us. But still, if the
consideration of the fortune of Publius Sulla has no effect on you, O judges, let a regard for
your own fortune weigh with you. For this is of the greatest importance to you who have lived
in the greatest elegance and safety, that the causes of honourable men should not be judged of
according to the caprice, or enmity, or worthlessness of the witnesses; but that in important
investigations and sudden dangers, the life of every man should be the most credible witness.
And do not you, O judges, abandon and expose it, stripped of its arms, and defenceless, to
envy and suspicion. Fortify the common citadel of all good men, block up the ways of escape
resorted to by the wicked. Let that witness be of the greatest weight in procuring either
safety or punishment for a man, which is the only one that, from its own intrinsic nature, can
with ease be thoroughly examined, and which cannot be suddenly altered and remodelled.
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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