sflent: notice the emphatic position. velit: subjunctive because of sit. ante . . . quam: ยง 434 (262); G. 574, R.1; H. (p.293, footnote 1); cf. 14.-B. 507, 4, footnote 1 etsi, i.e. there is no need for me to appeal to the law of nature to establish the right to kill in self-defence, for this right is established by the judicial interpretation of a particular statute (of Sulla). This statute (de sicariis) dealt with murder in general and went so far as to provide a penalty for the carrying of a weapon with intent to kill. The courts had ruled, says Cicero, that, under this law, a man who carried a weapon for self-defence was not carrying it hominis occidendi causa, in the meaning of the statute. judicaretur: the subject is antecedent of qui. hoc maneat in causa, let this point stand as the law of the case.
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Select Orations of. Cicero. Allen and Greenough's Edition. Revised by J. B. Greenough and G. L. Kittredge, with a special vocabulary by J. B. Greenough.
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