30.
[83]
But what comes next? Do I, who never praised Catiline, who never as consul countenanced
Catiline when he was on his trial, who have given evidence respecting the conspiracy against
others,—do I seem to you so far removed from sanity, so forgetful of my own
consistency, so forgetful of all the exploits which I have performed, as, though as consul I
waged war against the conspirators, now to wish to preserve their leader, and to bring my mind
now to defend the cause and the life of that same man whose weapon I lately blunted, and whose
flames I have but just extinguished? If, O judges, the republic itself, which has been
preserved by my labours and dangers, did not by its dignity recall me to wisdom and
consistency, still it is an instinct implanted by nature, to hate for ever the man whom you
have once feared, with whom you have contended for life and fortune, and from whose plots you
have escaped. But when my chief honours and the great glory of all my exploits are at stake;
when, as often as any one is convicted of any participation in this wickedness, the
recollection of the safety of the city having been secured by me is renewed, shall I be so mad
as to allow those things which I did in behalf of the common safety to appear now to have been
done by me more by chance and by good fortune than by virtue and wisdom?
[84]
“What, then, do you mean? Do you,” some one will say,
perhaps, “claim that a man shall be judged innocent, just because you have defended
him?” But I, O judges, not only claim nothing for myself to which any one can
object, but I even give up and abandon pretensions which are granted and allowed me by every
one. I am not living in such a republic—I have not exposed my life to all sorts of
dangers for the sake of my country at such a time,—they whom I have defeated are not
so utterly extinct,—nor are those whom I have preserved so grateful, that I should
think it safe to attempt to assume more than all my enemies and enviers may endure.
[85]
It would appear an offensive thing for him who
investigated the conspiracy, who laid it open, who crushed it, whom the senate thanked in
unprecedented language, to whom the senate decreed a supplication, which they had never
decreed to any one before for civil services, to say in a court of justice, “I would
not have defended him if he had been a conspirator.” I do not say that, because it
might be offensive; I say this, which in these trials relating to the conspiracy I may claim a
right to say, speaking not with authority but with modesty, “I who investigated and
chastised that conspiracy would certainly not defend Sulla, if I thought that he had been a
conspirator.” I, O judges, say this, which I said at the beginning, that when I was
making a thorough inquiry into those great dangers which were threatening everybody, when I
was hearing many thing; not believing everything, but guarding against everything, not one
word was said to me by any one who gave information, nor did any one hint any suspicion, nor
was there the slightest mention in any one's letters, of Publius Sulla.
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