M. Tullius Cicero, For Milo
C. D. Yonge, Ed.

There is, there is indeed, such a heavenly power. It is not the truth, that in these bodies and in this feebleness of ours there is something which is vigorous and endued with feeling, and nothing which is so in this vast and beautiful movement of nature. Unless perhaps some people think that there is no such thing in existence because it is not apparent, nor visible: just as if we were able to see our own mind,—that by which we are wise, by which we have foresight, by which we do and say these very things which we are doing and saying; or as if we could plainly feel what sort of thing it is, or where it is. That divine power; that very same divine power which has often brought incredible prosperity and power to this city, has extinguished and destroyed this mischief; by first of all inspiring it with the idea of venturing to irritate by violence and to attack with the sword the bravest of men, and so leading it on to be defeated by the man whom if it had only been able to defeat it would have enjoyed endless licence and impunity. [85] That result was brought about, O judges, not by human wisdom, nor even by any moderate degree of care on the part of the immortal gods. In truth, those very holy places themselves which beheld that monster fall, appear to have been moved themselves, and to have asserted their rights over him.

I implore you, I call you to witness,—you, I say, O you Alban hills and groves, and you, O you altars of the Albans, now overthrown, but nevertheless partners of and equals in honour with the sacred rites of the Roman people,—you, whom that man with headlong insanity, having cut down and destroyed the most holy groves, had overwhelmed with his insane masses of buildings; it was your power then that prevailed, it was the divinity of your altars, the religious reverence due to you, and which he had profaned by every sort of wickedness, that prevailed; and you, too, O sacred Jupiter of Latium, whose lakes and groves and boundaries he had constantly polluted with every sort of abominable wickedness and debauchery, you at last from your high and holy mountain, opened your eyes for the purpose of punishing him; it is to you, to all of you, that those punishments, late indeed, but still just and well deserved, have been made an atonement for his wickedness. [86]

Unless, perchance, we are to say that it was by accident that it happened that it was before the very shrine of the Good Goddess which is in the farm of Titus Sextus Gallius, a most honourable and accomplished young man,—before the Good Goddess herself, I say, that when he had begun the battle, he received that first wound under which he gave up that foul soul of his; so that he did not seem to have been acquitted in that iniquitous trial, but only to have been reserved for this conspicuous punishment.