matters of the greatest consequence, by which I granted. to you the privilege of doing justice to, and of receiving it from one another: and to these rules, which I prescribed to others, you saw me, like a private person, first yield obedience: neither have I made myself the judge of all sorts of crimes; but those of a private nature I submitted to your jurisdiction, which was never done by any of the former kings. By this it appears, that no crime has drawn upon me the ill-will of some people; but that the benefits I have conferred on the plebeians excite your unjust resentment; concerning which I have often given you my reasons, so that there is no necessity for me to repeat them. If you are of opinion that this man, when invested with the power, will administer it better than myself, I shall not envy the commonwealth a better governor: and, after I have surrendered the sovereignty to the people, from whom I received it, and am become a private person, I shall endeavour to make it appear to all the world, that I know both how to command with prudence, and how to obey with modesty.

XIX. Cicero's oration for Milo.

PART 1.

THOUGH, my lords, I am apprehensive, that, when I enter upon the defence of a brave man, it may be thought mean to betray any symptoms of cowardice, or to be unable to support my pleading with a dignity of courage equal to that of Titus Annius Milo, who is less concerned about his own fate than that of his country, yet am I dismayed with this unusual pomp of justice, this unprecedented array of terror: my eyes, in vain, on all sides, search for the venerable forms and ancient appearances of the forum; your bench is environed with attendants, and the bar with guards, hitherto unknown at a Roman trial.

For these troops, which stand before all the temples, however they are meant to overawe violence, strike terrer into the plea:ler; and though the guards, with which

this forum and these walls are lined, may be salutary, perhaps necessary; yet the very means of safety awaken the idea of danger. But, did I think that those soldiers were placed there to influence this trial in prejudice of Milo, I would yield, my lords, to necessity, ror imagine that, where so determined a force over-rules, the voice of eloquence can be heard. I am, however, supported and encouraged by the conduct of Pompey, who, as he is a person of the most consummate justice, will never expose to the sword of the soldier, the man whom he has given up to the judgment of this court; and as his wis dom is equal to his justice, he must think it inconsistent with both, should he strengthen the fury of popular commotion by the sanction of supreme authority. There fore, those arms, those officers, thaşe troops, are placed not to overawe, but to protect: while I plead, they bid. me, my lords, speak with composure, nay, with courage, and promise me not only safety but attention. The rest of the multitude, so many at least as are Roman citizens, is on our side; and every man of them, whom you per ceive crowding the places from whence the smallest part of the forum can be viewed, expecting the event of this trial, is interested in our favour; and thinks that the sentence which condemns or acquits. Milo, fixes the fate of himself, his posterity, his country, and his property.

One set of men are indeed our determined inveterate enemies; I mean those robbers and incendiaries trained up by the madness of Clodius, and supported by rapine, burnings, and every destructive species of public calamity; who, instigated by the speeches of yesterday, had the insolence to anticipate your judgment upon this case: but I hope, if these clamours are to have fect, it will be that of preserving to his own country a brave citizen, and one who, for your safety, always disregarded those ruthans and their threatenings.

any

ef.

Therefore, my lords, let fear, if you have any, be laid aside, and act with spirit. For if ever you had it in your power to judge of the honest and the brave; if ever the liberty of worthy citizens was in your hands; if ever men selected from the most illustrious of our orders, had an opportunity to render effectual, by their conduct and deeisions, those favourable intimations which they had`

before often given by their looks and 'words; in you' at's this instant all these powers are vested, that you may pronounce whether we, who have still been devoted to your authority, would languish under oppression; or, after long persecution, by the most abandoned citi zens, at last be relieved by your integrity, virtue, and wisdom.

For what, my lords, can be more irksome, what can be expressed or conceived more exquisitely tormenting, than that we, whose services to our country gave us a right to expect the highest honours, should now be subjected to the dread of the most infamous punishment? I thought, indeed, that all the storms and tempests which tumultuary faction and distracted counsels raise, must break upon the head of Milo, because he has ever pa. tronised virtue against licentiousness; but little did I imagine, when the affair was brought to a regular trial, wherein the greatest and most illustrious men in Rome were to sit as judges, that the enemies of Milo should harbour a thought of succeeding, while such men were on the bench, in their endeavours, not only to affect his life, but to stain his glory. For, my lords, unless you shall see to the strongest conviction, that Milo was treacherously beset by Clodius, I shall not endeavour to influence your judgment upon this fact, by displaying the tribuneship of Milo, nor the conduct of his whole life, spent in a series of successful services to his country: neither shall I plead the merit of those services as an atonement for one rash action; nor suggest, that if the safety of you, who sit on that tribunal, was incompatible with the life of Clodius, your deliverance was owing to the virtue of Milo, rather than the guardian genius of Rome. But, if the treachery of Clodius should appear plain as the sun at noon-day, I shall, my lords, beg, I shall conjure you, if we have lost all other advantages, that we may retain this one poor privilege of defending with impunity our lives against the unjust violence of our enemies.

But before I touch upon those points that more immediately affect the present question,, some things advanced in the senate often by our enemies, by ruffians, and lately by our accusers, before a certain assembly, are to be discussed; that, every medium of error being

dispelled, you may judge of the naked merits of the 'cause. They, my lords, deny that a man who confesses he has killed another, should be suffered to see the sun. In what place do these fools think they are arguing? Surely not in that city, where the first decision in a capital case was upon the life of the brave Horatius; who, before the date of Roman liberty, was acquitted by the assembled comitia of the Roman people, though he confessed that with his own hand he had killed his sister.

Where is the man who is ignorant, that, in cases of bloodshed, the fact is either absolutely denied, or, if admitted, maintained to be just and lawful? Were it not so, Africanus must be deemed a madman; who, being publicly asked by C. Carbo, the factious tribune of the people, what was his opinion of the death of Gracchus? answered, that he was lawfully killed. Nor can the great Ahala Servilius, P. Nasica, Opimius, Marius, or the senate, when I was consul, be deemed other. wise than criminal, if it is a crime to put to death the abandoned of our own country. Therefore, my lords, it is not without reason, that some ingenious writers have in fabulous histories informed us, that, when a diffe rence of opinion arose with regard to the man who had revenged the death of his father, by that of the murderess his mother, the parricide was acquitted by the oracle; an oracle too, my lords, pronounced by the goddess of avisdom herself. And if the twelve tables have made it lawful, absolutely and unconditionally, to kill a thief in the night, and by day, in case he shall defend himself with a weapon; who can be so unreasonable as to think that no circumstance or manner attending the killing of any man, ought to excuse the person who kills him, from punishment? since it is plain, that the laws themselves sometimes put into our hands, the sword which is to shed the blood of man. But if there can be a time, as there are many, when this is not only lawful but necessary, it is, when force can be repelled only by force. When a military tribune, a relation of Caius Marius, attempted to pollute the body of a soldier in that general's army, the ravisher was killed by the soldier, who was acquitted by that great man; since the virtuous youth chose to avoid, at the hazard of his life, what he

could not suffer without the violation of his honour. To a traitor then, and a robber, what death can be deemed unjust?

What avail those very guards, and to what purpose are they suffered to wear swords, if they are suffered upon no account to use them? The law says, that when our life is endangered by treachery, or by the insidious attacks of robbers and enemies, all the means which wề can use for our deliverance are justifiable. This, my lords, is a law not adopted by custom, but inherent to our being; a law not received, learned, or read, but an essential, cogenial, inseparable character of nature; a law which we have not by institution, but by constitu tion,-not derived from authority, but existing with consciousness. In short, my lords, statutes are silenced by arms; nor do they presume that a man is to wait for justice from the formal decision of a court, while the sword of violence is ready to put an end to his life.

Even that very law which prohibits not only murder, but the carrying a weapon with a design to murder, wisely, and in some measure tacitly, establishes the right of self-defence; that when the enquiry is not upon the manner, but the reasons of a man's being killed, the person who kills another with a weapon, in self-defence, may never, in the construction of the law, be presumed to wear that weapon with a murderous intention: this, my lords, I hope will be admitted as a principle; and Í make no doubt of being able to prove my defence, if you keep in your eye, what it is impossible you should lose sight of, I mean the lawfulness of killing the man who lies in wait to murder you.

XX. Cicero's oration for Milo.

PART II..

I COME now to consider an objection which is fre quently in the mouths of Milo's enemies; that the killing of Clodius was declared by the senate to be an act of treason against the commonwealth. But, my lords, how often did the senate, not only solemnly, but zealously approve the action! How often was this affair canvassed