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

3. [8] Or must a long speech be delivered about the theft of public funds or the arson of a public archive? Of this charge, Gaius Rabirius' kinsman, Gaius Curtius, by virtue of his own good character, was most honorably acquitted by a very distinguished court of justice. Rabirius himself, in fact, not only was never summoned to court on these charges, but he was not even called into the slightest suspicion by word of mouth. Or must a more thorough rebuttal be offered concerning his sister's son whom you alleged was murdered by my client when a death in the family was needed as a plea for a stay in the trial? What is as likely as a sister's husband being dearer to Rabirius than a sister's son and so much dearer that the life of the one was cut short in the most savage way when a postponement in the trial of two days was needed for the other? Or is more to be said about the retention of slaves not his own in violation of a Fabian law or the scourging of Roman citizens against a Porcian law, when Gaius Rabirius was honored enthusiastically by all Apulia and wholeheartedly by Campania? When not only men but nearly entire regions themselves, aroused rather more broadly than his name or boundaries of his neighborhood warranted, rallied to fight off his legal perils? Why would I prepare a long speech in answer to declarations made in this same proposal of a fine, namely, that my client spared neither his virtue and decency nor those of another? [9] Rather, I suspect that Labienus laid down the ruling of half hour ahead of time so that I would not say more about his virtue and decency. Therefore, for these charges that long for the thoroughness of an advocate, you do understand your half hour has been long enough.

That other part about the murder of Saturninus, you wanted to be short and curtailed. This part, however, cries out for and demands, not the talents of an orator, but the support of a consul. [10] The charge concerning the condemnation for treason, which you keep accusing me of having abolished, is directed against me, not Rabirius. Would that I, Roman citizens, had been the first or the only man to have abolished that condemnation from this Republic! Would that this deed, which Labienus maintains is a charge against me, were testimony to my praises and no other's! What possible wish would I rather be granted than I, in my consulship, abolished the executioner from the forum and the cross from the Campus Martius? But that praise falls first to our ancestors, Roman citizens, who expelled the kings, and, afterwards, did not retain a trace of kingly savagery among a free people, and, secondly, to the many brave men who did not want your freedom to be unsafe from the severity of its punishments but fortified by the leniency of its laws.