ing the one, or protecting the other. And to engage you the more readily to this, my lords, I will lay open the very fentiments of my heart before you, and freely confefs my paffion for glory, which, though too keen, perhaps, is however virtuous. For what I did in conjunction with you during my confulfhip, for the fafety of this city and empire, for the lives of my fellowcitizens, and for the interests of the flate, Archias intends to celebrate in verfe, and has actually begun his poem. Upon reading what he has wrore, it appeared to me fo fublime, and gave me fo much pleafure, that I encouraged him to go on with it. For virtua defires no other reward for her toils and dangers, but praife and glory: take but this away, my lords, and what is there left in this fhort, this fcanty career of human life, that can tempt us to engage in fo many and fo great labours? Surely, if the mind had no thought of futurity, if the confined all her views within thofe limits which bound our prefent exiftence, the would neither waste her frength in fo great toils, nor harats herfelf with fo many cares and watchings, nor ftruggle fo often for life itself: but there is a certain principle in the breaft of every good man, which both day and night quickens him to the purfuit of glory, and puts him in mind that his fame is not to be measured by the extent of his prefent life, but that it runs parallel with the line of pofterity. Can we, who are engaged in the affairs of the state, and in fo many toils and dangers, think fo meanly as to imagine that, after a life of uninterrupted care and trouble, nothing fhall remain of us after death? If many of the greatest men have been careful to leave their ftatues and pictures, thefe reprefentations not of their minds. but of their bodies; ought not we to be much more defirous of leaving the portraits of our enterprizes and virtues drawn and finished by the most eminent artists? As for me, I have always imagined, whilft I was engaged in doing whatever I have done, that I was spreading my actions. over the whole earth, and that they would be held in eternal remembrance. But whether I fhall lofe my consciousness of this at death, or whether, as the wifeft men have thought, I fhall retain it after, at prefent the thought delights me, and my mind is filed with pleafing hopes. Do not then deprive us, my lords, of a man, whom modeity, a graceful manner, engag ing behaviour, and the affections of his friends, fo ftrongly recommended; the greatnefs of whofe genius may be estimated from this, that he is courted by the most eminent men of Rome; and whofe plea is fuch, that it has the law in its favour, the authority of a municipal town, the teftimony of Lucullus, and the register of Metellus. This being the cafe, we beg of you, my lords, fince in matters of fuch importance, not only the interceffion of men but of gods is neceffary, that the man, who has always celebrated your virtues, thofe of your generals, and the victo ries of the Roman people; who declares that he will raife eternal monuments to your praife and mine for our conduct in our late domeftic dangers; and who is of the number of thofe that have ever been accounted and pronounced divine, may be fo protected by you, as to have greater reafon to applaud your generofity, than to complain of your rigour. What I have faid, my lords, concerning this caufe, with my ufual brevity and fimplicity, is, I am confident, approved by all: what I have advanced upon poetry in general, and the genius of the defendant, contrary to the ufage of the forum and the bar, will, I hope, be taken in good part by you; by him who prefides upon the bench, I am convinced it will. Whitworth's Cicero. This beautiful oration was made in the 55th year of Cicero's age, upon the following occafion. In the year of Rome 701, T. Annius Milo, Q Metellus Scipio, and P. Plautius Hypfæus, flood candidates for the confulship; and, according to Plutarch, pushed on their several interefts with fuch open violence and bribery, as if it had been to be carried only by money or arms. P. Clodius, Milo's profeffed enemy, ftood at the fame time for the prætorship, and ufed all his intereft to disappoint Milo, by whofe obtaining the confulfhip he was fure to be controuled in the exercise of his magiftracy. The fenate and the better fort were generally in Milo's intereft; and Cicero, in par ticular, ferved him with diftinguished zeal: three of the tribunes were violent against him, the other feven were his faft friends; above all M. Cœlius, who, out of regard to Cicero, was very active in his fervice. But whilst matters were proceeding in a very favourable train for him, and nothing feemed wanting to crown his fuccefs, but to bring on the election, which his advertaries, for that reafon, endeavoured to keep back; all his hopes and fortunes were blafted at once by an unhappy rencounter with Clodius, in which Clodius was killed by his fervants, and by his command. His body was left in the Appian road, where it fell, but was taken up foon after by Tedius, a fenator, who happened to come by, and brought to Rome; where it was expofed, all covered with blood and wounds, to the view of the populace, who flocked about in crowds to lament the miferable fate of their leader. The next day, Sextus Clodius, a kinfman of the deceased, and one of his chief incendiaries, together with the three tribunes, Milo's enemies, employed all the arts of party and faction to inflame the mob, which they did to fuch a height of fury, that, fnatching up the body, they ran away with it into the fenate-houfe, and tearing up the benches, tables, and every thing combustible, dreffed up a funeral pile upon the fpot; and, together with the body, burnt the houfe itself, with a bafilica or public hall adjoining. Several other outrages were committed, fo that the fenate were obliged to pafs a decree, that the inter-rex, affifted by the tribunes and Pompey, should take care that the republic received no detriment; and that Pompey, in particular, fhould raife a body of troops for the common fecurity, which he prefently drew together from all parts of Italy. Amidit this confufion, the rumour of a dictator being induftriously fpread, and alarming the fenate, they refolved prefently to create Pompey the fingle conful, whofe election was accordingly declared by the inter-rex, after an inter-regnum of near two months. Pompey applied himself immediately to quiet the public diforders, and published feveral new laws, prepared by him for that purpofe; one of them was, to appoint a fpecial commiffion to enquire into Clodius's death, &c. and to appoint an extraordinary judge, of confular rank, to prefide in it. He attended Milo's trial himself with a strong guard, to preferve peace. The accufers were young Appius, the nephew of Clodius, M. Antonius, and P. Valerius. Cicero was the only advocate on Milo's fide; but as foon as he rose up to speak, he was received with fo rude a clamour by the Clodians, that he was much difcompofed and daunted at his firit fetting out: he recovered fpirit enough, however, to go through his fpeech, which was taken down in writing, and published as it was delivered; though the copy of it now extant, is fuppofed to have been retouched, and corrected by him afterwards, for a prefent to Milo, who was condemned, and went into exile at Marfeilles, a few days after his condemnation. THOUGH I am apprehenfive, my lords, it may feem a reflection on a perfon's character to difcover any figns of fear, when he is entering on the defence of fo brave a man, and particularly unbecoming in me, that when T. Annius. Milo himself is more concerned for the fafety of the ftate than his own, I should not be able to maintain an equal greatness of mind in pleading his caufe; yet I must own, the unusual manner in which this new kind of trial is conducted, strikes me with a kind of terror, while I am looking around me, in vain, for the ancient ufages of the forum, and the forms that have been hitherto obferved in our courts of judicature. Your bench is not furrounded with the ufual circle; nor is the crowd such as uled to throng us. For thofe guards you fee planted before all the temples, however intended to prevent all violence, yet strike the orator with terror; fo that even in the forum and during a trial, though attended with an ufeful and neceffary guard, I cannot help being under fome apprehenfions, at the fame time I am fenfible they are without foundation. Indeed, if I imagined it was ftationed there in oppofition to Milo, I fhould give way, my lords, to the times; and conclude there was no room for an orator in the midst of fuch an armed force. But the prudence of Pompey, a man of fuch diflinguifhed wisdom and equity, both chears and relieves me; whose juftice will never fuffer him to leave a perfon expofed to the rage of the foldiery, whom fions of the feverest punishments? For my own part, I always took it for granted, that the other forms and tempefts which are ufually raised in popular tumults would beat upon Milo, because he has conftantly approved himself the friend of good men in oppofition to the bad; but in a public trial, where the moft illuftrious perfons of all the orders of the ftate were to fit as judges, I never imagined that Milo's ene whom he has delivered up to a legal trial; nor his wisdom, to give the fanction of public authority to the outrages of a furious mob. Wherefore thofe arms, thofe centurions and cohorts, are fo far from threatening me with danger, that they affure me of protection; they not only banish my fears, but inspire me with courage; and promife that I fhall be heard not merely with fafety, but with filence and attention. As to the rest of the affem-mies could have entertained the leaft hope bly, thofe, at least, that are Roman citizens, they are all on our fide; nor is there a fingle perfon of all that multitude of fpectators, whom you fee on all fides of us, as far as any part of the forum can be diftinguished, waiting the event of the trial, who, while he favours Milo, does not think his own fate, that of his potterity, his country, and his property, likewife at stake. There is indeed one fet of men our inveterate enemies; they are thofe whom the madness of P. Clodius has trained up, and fupported by plunder, firing of houfes, and every fpecies of public mifchief; who were fpirited up by the speeches of yesterday, to dictate to you what fentence you fhould pafs. If thefe fhould chance to raise any clamour, it will only make you cautious how you part with a citizen who always defpifed that crew, and their loudest threatenings, where your fafety was concerned. A&t with fpirit then, my lords, and if you ever entertained any fears, difmifs them all. For if ever you had it in your power to determine in favour of brave and worthy men, or of deferving citizens; in a word, if ever any occafion was prefented to a number of perfons felected from the moft illuftrious orders, of declaring, by their actions and their votes, that regard for the brave and virtuous, which they had often expreffed by their looks and words; now is the time for you to exert this power in determining whether we, who have ever been devoted to your authority, fhall fpend the remainder of our days in grief and mifery, or after having been fo long infulted by the most abandoned citizens, fhall at laft through your means, by your fidelity, virtue and wifdom, recover our wonted life and vigour. For what, my lords, can be mentioned or conceived more grievous to us both; what more vexatious or trying, than that we who entered into the fervice of our country from the hopes of the highest honours, cannot even be free from the apprehen not only of destroying his safety, while fuch perfons were upon the bench, but even of giving the leaft ftain to his honour. In this caufe, my lords, I fhall take no advantage of Annius's tribuneship, nor of his important fervices to the ftate during the whole of his life, in order to make out his defence, unless you fhall fee that Clodius himself actually lay in wait for him; nor fhall 1 intreat you to grant a pardon for one rash action, in confideration of the many glorious things he has performed for his country; nor require, that if Clodius's death prove a bleffing to you, you should afcribe it rather to Milo's virtue, than the fortune of Rome: but if it should appear clearer than the day, that Clodius did really lie in wait, then I muft befeech and adjure you, my lords, that if we have loft every thing elle, we may at least be allowed, without fear of punishment, to defend our lives against the infolent attacks of our enemies. But before I enter upon that which is the proper fubject of our prefent enquiry, it will be neceliary to confute thofe notions which have been often advanced by our enemies in the fenate, often by a fet of worthless fellows, and even lately by our accufers before an affembly, that having thus removed all ground of mistake, you may have a clearer view of the matter that is to come before you. They fay, that a man who confeffes he has killed another, ought not to be fuffered to live. But where, pray, do thefe ftupid people ufe this argument? Why truly, in that very city where the firft perfon that was ever tried for a capital crime was the brave M. Horatius; who before the ftate was in poffeffion of its liberty, was acquitted by the comitia of the Roman people, though he confeffed he had killed his fifter with his own hand. Can any one be fo ignorant as not to know, that in cafes of bloodfhed the fact is either abfolutely denied, or maintained to be just and lawful? Were it not fo, P. Africanus must be reckoned out out of his fenfes, who, when he was afked into our conftitution; it is the dictate, not in a feditious manner by the tribune Carbo of education, but inftinct, that if our lives before all the people, what he thought of fhould be at any time in danger from conGracchus's death? faid, that he deterved cealed or more open affaults of robbers or to die. Nor can Ahala Servilius, P. Nafi- private enemies, every honourable method Ca, L. Opimius, C. Marius, or the fenate fhould be taken for our fecurity. Laws, itclf, during my confulate, be acquitted my lords, are filent amidit arms; nor do of the molt enormous guilt, if it be a they require us to wait their decifions, crime to put wicked citizens to death. It when by fuch a delay one must fuffer an is not without reafon therefore, my lords, undeferved punishment himself, rather than that learned men have informed us, though inflict it justly on another. Even the law in a fabulous manner, how that, when a itself, very wifely, and in fome measure difference arofe in regard to the man who tacitly, allows of felf-defence, as it does had killed his mother in revenge for his not forbid the killing of a man, but the father's death, he was acquitted by a di- carrying a weapon in order to kill him: vine decree, nay, by a decree of the god- fince then the ftrefs is laid not upon the d.fs of Wisdom herfelf. And if the twelve weapon but the end for which it was cartables allow a man, without fear of punish- ried, he that makes ufe of a weapon only ment, to take away the life of a thief in to defend himfeif, can never be condemned the night, in whatever fituation he finds as wearing it with an intention to take him; and, in the day-time, if he uses a away a man's life. Therefore, my lords, weapon in his defence; who can imagine let this principle be laid down as the founthat a person muft univerfally deserve pu- dation of our plea: for I don't doubt but nishment for killing another, when he can- I fhall make out my defence to your fatifnot but fee that the laws themfelves, in faction, if you only keep in mind what I fome cafes, put a fword into our hands for think it is impoffible for you to forget, this very purpofe? that a man who lies in wait for another may be lawfully killed. But if any circumftance can be alledged, and undoubtedly there are many fuch, in which the putting a man to death can be vindicated, that in which a perfon has afted upon the principle of felf-defence, mult certainly be allowed fufficient to rendr the action not only juft, but neceffary. When a military tribune, a relation of C. Marius, made an unnatural attempt upon the body of a foldier in that general's army, he was killed by the man to whom he offered violence; for the virtuous youth chole rather to expofe his life to hazard, than fubmit to fuch dishonourable treatment; and he was acquitted by that great man, and delivered from all apprehenfions of danger. But what death can be deemed unjust, that is inflicted on one who lies in wait for another, on one who is a pubLic robber? To what purpose have we a train of attendants? or why are they furLiked with arms? It would certainly be unlawful to wear them at all, if the ufe of then was abfolutely forbid for this, my lords, is not a written, but an innate law. We have not been taught it by the learned, we have not received it from our ancestors, we have not taken it from books; but it is derived from, it is forced upon us by rature, and stamped in indelible characters upon our very frame: it was not conveyed to us by inftruction, but wrought I come now to confider what is frequently infiited upon by Milo's enemies; that the killing of P. Clodius has been declared by the fenate a dangerous attack upon the ftate. But the fenate has declared their approbation of it, not only by their fuffrages, but by the warmelt tellimonies in favour of Milo. For how often have I pleaded that very cau'e before them? How great was the fatisfaction of the whole order! How loudly, how publicly did they applaud me! In the fulleft houfe, when were there found four, at molt five, who did not approve of Milo's conduct? This appears plainly from the lifelefs harangues of that finged tribune, in which he was continually inveighing against my power, and alledging that the fenate, in their decree, did not follow their own judgment, but were merely under my direction and influence. Which, if it must be called power, rather than a moderate share of authority in just and lawful cafes, to which one may be entitled by fervices to his country; or fome degree of interest with the worthy part of mankind, on account of my readiness to exert myself in defence of the innocent; let it be called fo, provided it is employed for the protection of the virtuous against the fury of ruffians. But as for this extraordinary trial, though I do not blame it, yet the fenate never thought of granting it; because we had laws and precedents already, but in regard to murder and violence: nor did Clodius's death give them fo much concern as to occafion an extraordinary commiffion. For if the fenate was deprived of the power of paffing fentence upon him for an incestuous debauch, who can imagine they would think it neceflary to grant any extraordinary trial for enquiring into his death! Why then did the fenate decree that burning the court, the affault upon M. Lepidus's houfe, and even the death of this man, were actions injurious to the republic? becaufe every act of violence committed in a free ftate by one citizen against another, is an act against the ftate. For even force in one's own defence is never defirable, though it is fometimes necessary; unlefs indeed it be pretended that no wound was given the flate, on the day when the Gracchi were flain, and the armed force of Saturninus crufhed. might be acquitted, after making his confeffion, he would never have directed any enquiry to be made, nor have put into your hands, my lords, an acquitting as well as a favourable letter. But Cn. Pompey feems to me not only to have determined nothing fevere against Milo, but even to have pointed out what you are to have in view in the courfe of the trial. For he who did not punish the confeffion of the fact, but allowed of a defence, was furely of opinion that the cause of the bloodshed was to be enquired into, and not the fact itself. I refer it to Pompey himself, whether the part he acted in this affair proceeded from his regard to the memory of P. Clodius, or from his regard to the times. M. Drufus, a man of the higheft quality, the defender, and in thofe times almoft the patron, of the fenate, uncle to that brave man M. Cato, now upon the bench, and tribune of the people, was killed in his own houfe. And yet the people were not confulted upon his death, nor was any commiffion for a trial granted by the fenate on account of it. What deep diftrefs is faid to have spread over the whole city, when P. Africanus was affaffi When it appeared, therefore, that a man had been killed upon the Appian way, I was of opinion that the party who acted in his own defence fhould not be deemed an enemy to the state; but as both contri-nated in the night time as he lay on his vance and force had been employed in the affair, I referred the merits of the caufe to a trial, and admitted of the fact. And if that frantic tribune would have permitted the senate to follow their own judgment, we should at this time have had no new commiffion for a trial: for the fenate was coming to a refolution, that the caufe fhould be tried upon the old laws, only not according to the ufual forms. A divifion was made in the vote, at whofe request I know not; for it is not necessary to expofe the crimes of every one. Thus the remainder of the fenate's authority was deftroyed by a mercenary interpofition. But, it is faid, that Pompey, by the bill which he brought in, decided both upon the nature of the fact in general, and the merits of this caufe in particular. For he published a law concerning this encounter in the Appian way, in which P. Clodius was killed. But what was the law? why, that enquiry fhould be made into it. And what was to be enquired into? whether the fact was committed? But that is not difputed. By whom? that too is clear. For Pompey faw, though the fact was confeffed, that the juftice of it might be defended. If he had not feen that a perfon own bed? What breaft did not then figh, what beart was not pierced with grief, that a perfon, on whom the wishes of all men would have conferred immortality, could wishes have done it, should be cut off by fo early a fate? was no decree made then for an enquiry into Africanus's death? None. And why? Because the crime is the fame, whether the character of the perfons that fuffer be illuftrious or obfcure. Grant that there is a difference, as to the dignity of their lives, yet their deaths, when they are the effect of villainy, are judged by the fame laws, and attended by the fame punishments: unless it be more a heinous parricide for a man to kill his father if he be of a confular dignity, than if he were in a private ftation; or the guilt of Clodius's death be aggravated by his being killed amongst the monuments of his ancestors; for that too has been urged; as if the great Appius Cæcus had paved that road, not for the convenience of his country, but that his pofterity might have the privilege of committing acts of violence with impunity. And accordingly when P. Clodius had killed M. Papirius, a moft accomplished perfon of the Equeftrian order, on this Appian way, |