The Orations, Volume 3

we are accustomed to dislike those who are timid and suppliant, and who pray to be allowed to live

behoves a grateful people to reward those citizens who have deserved well of the republic; it is the part of a brave man, not to be so moved even by execution itself, as to repent of having acted bravely.

general liberty; a thing which would certainly deserve not only to be confessed by him, but even to be boasted of.

He would confess,—I say, if he had done it, he would confess with a high and willing spirit that he had done it for the sake of the gen

what power of perpetual possession could you have had even in those things which you possess as your private property and in the strictest sense your own, while that frenzied man held the reins of government?

manner the city would receive this announcement?

would there in truth have been any reason to fear in what

greatly it concerned the interest of Publius Clodius that he should be slain, how greatly he hated him, and how great was his daring. Wherefore, he never exposed his life to danger without some sort of protection and guard, knowing that it was threatened, and that a large price, as it were, was set upon it.
Add to this consideration all the chances; add the always uncertain result of a battle, and the common fortune of Mars, who often overthrows the man who is already exulting and stripping his enemy, and strikes him to the ground by some mean agent; add the blundering conduct of a leader who had dined and drank, and who was yawning and drowsy; who, when he had left his enemy cut off in the rear, never thought of his companions on the outskirts of his train

Add to this consideration all the chances; add the always uncertain result of a battle, and the common fortune of Mars, who often overthrows the man who is already exulting and stripping his enemy, and strikes him to the ground by

other had concealed the fact of his intending to return on that day; that the one had in no respect whatever changed his intention, that the other had invented a false pretence for changing his mind; that the one, if he were plotting, would naturally wish night to come on when he was near the city, while an arrival at the city by night was to be feared by the other, even if he had no apprehension of danger from this man.