3.
[7]
But before I come to that part of my speech which especially belongs to this
trial, it seems necessary to refute those things which have been often said,
both in the senate by our enemies, and in the assembly of the people by
wicked men, and lately, too, by our prosecutors; so that when every cause of
alarm is removed, you may be able distinctly to see the matter which is the
subject of this trial. They say that that man ought no longer to see the
light who confesses that another man has been slain by him. In what city,
then, are these most foolish men using this argument? In this one, forsooth,
where the first trial for a man's life that took place at all was that of
Marcus Horatius, a most brave man, who even before the city was free was yet
acquitted by the assembly of the Roman people, though he avowed that his
sister had been slain by his hand.
[8]
Is there any one who does not know, that when inquiry is made into the
slaying of a man, it is usual either altogether to deny that the deed has
been done, or else to defend it on the ground that it was rightly and
lawfully done? unless, indeed, you think that Publius Africanus was out of
his mind, who, when he was asked in a seditious spirit by Caius Carbo, a
tribune of the people, what was his opinion of the death of Tiberius
Gracchus, answered that he seemed to have been rightly slain. For neither
could Servilius Ahala, that eminent man, nor Publius Nasica, nor Lucius
Opimius, nor Caius Marius, nor indeed the senate itself during my
consulship, have been accounted anything but wicked, if it was unlawful for
wicked citizens to be put to death. And therefore, O judges, it was not
without good reason, that even in legendary fables learned men have handed
down the story, that he, who for the sake of avenging his father had killed
his mother, when the opinions of men varied, was acquitted not
only by the voices of the gods, but even by the very wisest goddess.
[9]
And if the Twelve Tables have
permitted that a nightly robber may be slain any way, but a robber by day if
he defends himself, with a weapon, who is there who can think a man to be
punished for slaying another, in whatever way he is slain, when he sees that
sometimes a sword to kill a man with is put into our bands by the very laws
themselves?
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