put him to death with a view to the safety of his country, they were of opinion that the same brave man, after he had saved the state, by exposing his own life to danger, would cheerfully submit to the laws; and, leaving us to enjoy the blessings he had preserved, be satisfied himself with immortal glory. Others talked in a more frightful manner, and called him a Cataline: he will break out, said they; he will seize some strong place; he will make war upon his country. How wretched is often the fate of those citizens who have done the most important services to their country! Their noblest actions are not only forgotten, but they are even suspected of the most impious. These suggestions, therefore, were groundless: yet they must have proved too well founded, had Milo done any thing that could not be defended with truth and justice.

Why should I mention the calumnies that were afterwards heaped upon him? And though they were such as would have filled with terror any breast that had the least consciousness of guilt, yet how he bore them !---Immortal gods!-bore them, did I say? Nay, how he despised and set them at nought! Though a guilty person, even of the greatest courage, nor an innocent person, unless ended with the greatest fortitude, could never have neglected them. It was whispered about, that a vast number of shields, swords, bridles, darts, and javelins might be found; that there was not a street, nor lane, in the city, where Milo had not hired a house; that arms were conveyed down the Tiber to his seat at Occiculum; that his house on the Capitoline-hill was filled with shields; and that every other place was full of hand-grenades for firing the city. These stories were not only reported, but almost believed; nor were they looked upon as groundless till after a search was made. I could not, indeed, but applaud the wonderful diligence of Pompey upon the occasion: but, to tell you freely, my lords, what I think, those who are charged with the care of the whole republic, are obliged to hear too many stories; nor, indeed, is it in their power to avoid it. He could not refuse an audience to a paltry fellow of a priest, (Licinius I think he is called,) who gave information that Milo's slaves, having got drunk at his house, confessed to him a plot they had formed to murder

Pompey, and that afterwards one of them had stabbed him, to prevemt his discovering it. Pompey received this intelligence at his gardens. I was sent for immediately; and, by the advice of his friends, the aflair was laid before the senate. I could not help being in the greatest consternation, to see the guardian, both of me and my country, under so great an apprehension; yet I could not help wondering that such credit was given to a butcher; that the confessions of a parcel of drunken slaves should be read; and that a wound in the side, which seemed to be the prick only of a needle, should be taken for the thrust of a gladiator. But, as I understand, Pompey was shewing his caution, rather than his fear; and was disposed to be suspicious of every thing, that you might have reason to fear nothing. There was a rumour also, that the house of C. Cæsar, so eminent for his rank and courage, was attacked for several hours in the night. Nobody heard, nobody perceived any thing of it, though the place was so public; yet the af fair was thought fit to be enquired into. I could never

suspect a man of Pompey's distinguished valour, of being timorous; nor yet think any caution too great in one who has taken upon himself the defence of the whole republic. A senator too, in a full house, affirmed lately in the capitol, that Milo had a dagger under his gown at the very time: upon which he stript himself, in that most sacred temple, that, since his life and manners could not gain him credit, the thing itself might speak for him.

These stories were all discovered to be false, malicious forgerics: but if, after all, Milo must still be feared; it is no longer the affair of Clodius, but your suspicions, Pompey, which we dread: your, your suspicions, I say, and speak it so that you may hear me. If f you are afraid of Milo; if you imagine that he is either now forming, or has ever before contrived, any wicked design against your life; if the forces of Italy, as some of your agents alledge, if this armed force, if the capitoline troops, if these sentries and guards, if the chosen band of young men that guard your person and your house, is armed against the assaults of Milo; if all these precautions are taken, and pointed against him; great, undoubtedly, must be his strength, and incredible his valour, far sur

passing the forces and power of a single man, since the most eminent of all our generals is fixed upon, and the whole republic armed to resist him. But who does not know that all the infirm and feeble parts of the state are committed to your care, to be restored and strengthened by this armed force? Could Milo have found an opportunity, he would immediately have convinced you, that no man ever had a stronger affection for another, than he has for you; that he never declined any danger, where your dignity was concerned; that, to raise your glory, he often encountered that monster Clodius; that his tribunate was employed, under your direction, in securing my safety, which you had then so much at heart, that you afterwards protected him when his life was in danger, and used your interest for him when he stood for the prætorship; that there were two persons whose warmest friendship he hoped he might always depend upon; yourself, on account of the obligations you laid him under; and me, on account of the favours I received from him. If he had failed in the proof of all this; if your suspicions had been so deeply rooted as not to be removed; if Italy, in a word, must never have been free from new levies, nor the city from arms, without Milo's destruction; he would not have scrupled, such is his nature and principles, to bid adieu to his country: but first he would have called upon thee, O thou great one, as he now does.

XXV. Cicero's oration for Milo.

PART VII.

CONSIDER how uncertain and variable the condition of life is, how unsettled and inconstané a thing fortune; what unfaithfulness is to be found amongst friends; what disguises suited to times and circumstances; what desertion, what cowardice in our dangers, even of those who are dearest to us. There will there will, I say, be a time, and the day will certainly come, when you, with safety still, I hope, to your fortunes, though changed perhaps by some turn of the common times, which, as

experience shows, will often happen to us all, may want the attection of the friendless, the fidelity of the wor thiest, and the courage of the bravest man living. Though who can believe that Pompey, so well skilled in the laws of Rome, in ancient usages, and the constitution of his country, when the senate had given it him in charge to see that the republic received no detriment; --a sentence always sufficient for arming the consuls, without assigning them an armed force;-that he, I say, when an army and a chosen band of soldiers were assigned him, should wait the event of this trial, and defend the conduct of the man who wanted to abolish trjals? It was sufficient that Pompey cleared Milo from those charges that were advanced against him, by enacting a law, according to which, in my opinion, Milo ought, and, by the confession of all, might lawfully be acquitted. But by sitting in that place, attended by a numerous guard assigned him by public authority, he sufficiently declares his intention is not to overawe, (for what can be more unworthy a man of his character, than to oblige you to condemn a person, whom, from numerous precedents, and by virtue of his own authority, he might have punished himself?) but to protect you: he means only to convince you that, notwithstanding yesterday's riotous assembly, you are at full liberty to pass sentence according to your own judgments.

But, my lords, the Clodian accusation gives me no concern; for I am not so stupid, so void of all experience, or so ignorant of your sentiments, as not to know your opinion in relation to the death of Clodius: and, though I had not refuted the charge, as I have done, yet Milo might, with safety, have made the following glorious declaration in public, though a false one: "I have slain, not a Sp. Mælius, who was suspected of aiming at the regal power, because he courted the favour of the people by lowering the price of corn, and bestowing extravagant presents to the ruin of his own estate; not a Tiberius Gracchus, who seditiously deposed his col league from his magistracy; though even their destroyers have filled the world with the glory of their exploits: but I have slain the man (for he had a right to use this language, who had saved his country at the hazard of his own life) whose abominable adulteries our noblest

matrons discovered, even in the most sacred recesses of the immortal gods: the man, by whose punishment the senate frequently determined to atone for the violation of our religious rites: the man whose incest with his own sister, Lucullus swore he had discovered by due examination: the man who, by the violence of his slaves, expelled a person esteemed by the senate, the people, aud all nations, as the preserver of the city and the lives of the citizens: the man who gave and took away kingdoms, and parcelled out the world to whom he pleased: the man, who, after having committed several murders in the forum, by force of arms obliged a citizen of illustrious virtue and character to confine himself within the walls of his own house: the man who thought no instance of villainy or lust unlawful: the man who fired the temple of the Nymphs, in order to destroy the public register, which contained the censure of his crimes: in a word, the man who governed himself by no law, disregarded all civil institutions, and observed no bounds in the division of property; who never attempted to seize the estate of another by quirks of law, suborned evidence, or false oaths, but employed the more effectual means of regular troops, encampments, and standards; who, by his armed forces, endeavoured to drive from their possessions, not only the Tuscans, (for them he utterly despised,) but Q. Varius, one of our judges, that brave man and worthy citizen; who, with his architects and measures, traversed the estates and gardens of a great many citizens, and grasped, in his own imagination, all that lies between Janiculum and the Alps; who, when he could not persuade Titus Pacavius, an illustrious and brave Roman knight, to sell an island upon the Pretian lake, immediately conveyed timber, stone, mortar, and sand, into the island in boats, and made no scruple of building a house on another person's estate, even while the proprietor was viewing him from the opposite bank; who had the impudence, immortal gods! to declare to such a man as Titus Furfanius, (for I shall omit the affair relating to the widow Scantia, and the young Apronius, both of whom he threatened with death, if they did not yield to him the possession of their gardens,) who had the impudence, I say, to declare to Titus Furfanius, that if he did not give him the sum of money he de