in that assembly! How great was the satisfaction of the whole order! How loud, how unreserved their ap plause! When in the fullest house were found four, or at most five, senators, who did not take the part of Milo! For the truth of this, my lords, I appeal to the short-lived harangues of that scorched tribune, in which he every day invidiously alledged, that the senators decreed not according to their own sentiments, but in compliance with my direction; and daily inveighed against my power. If you choose to call it power, rather than a reasonable degree of authority in a rightful cause, to which one may have a title by extraordiuary services to his country; or a moderate credit with worthy men, on account of my painful endeavours to promote the public good; you may term it so, provided I shall always exert it in protection of the virtuous against the fury of the wicked.

But this special commission, though I am far from saying it is iniquitous, was what the senate never thought fit to grant; because many laws and precedents, both with regard to riots and murders, are extant. Nor, in deed, was that assembly so deeply affected by the death of Clodius, as to issue out any such extraordinary.com mission. For who can imagine that the senate, who was deprived of the power of judging him upon the commission of an incestuous whoredom, would grant any extraordinary commission for enquiring into the circumstances of his death? But why then (may it be said) did the senate adjudge the burning of the court, the attack upon the house of Lepidus, and this very bloodshed, to be acts of treason against the commonwealth? Because all acts of violence committed in a free state, by one citizen against another, are, in the eye of the law, presumed to be committed against the state.

For though such a defence against violence is never desirable, yet sometimes it may be unavoidable; nay, even on the days when the Gracchi were killed, and when the armed force of Saturninus was suppressed, when, though all was done for the public welfare, yet the republic received a wound. Therefore I was of opinion, that, when it appeared a man was killed on the Appian way, the person who acted on the defensive, was guilty of no act of treason against the state. But, as

the ease included a charge of premeditated violence, I reserved the cognizance of that to the proper judges, and I admitted of the fact. And, if the fury of that seditious tribune had suffered the senate to act according to its own sentiments, we should at this time have had no new commission for a trial; for the senate was coming to a resolution, that the affair should only be specially tried, according to our ancient laws.

The vote was divided, at whose request I shall not say; for it is unnecessary to display the personal faults of every man. Thus the authority remaining in the senate was by a mercenary interposition abolished.

But it may be said, that Pompey, by the bill which he brought in, had an eye both to the action and its motives: for its enacting clauses related to the bloodshed in the Appian way, where Publius Clodius was killed. But what did it enact? Why, that it might be tried. What was to be tried? Whether it was committed. Nobody disputes that it was. Then, by whom? That we likewise confess. Thus Pompey perceived, though the fact was confessed, yet that still a matter of law might arise to acquit the prisoner. I say, that, üñiess Pompey had been sensible that the prisoner, upon confession, might be acquitted, when he perceived that we confessed, he would never have ordered a new commis. sion for a trial, nor have put, my lords, into your hands a saving as well as a condemning letter. Surely to me, Pompey seems not only to have decreed nothing harsh against Milo, but his decision appears to direct you in the point which you ought principally to have in view; for, to grant a person, who is convicted of a fact upon his own confession, the liberty of making his own defence, is a plain inplication that the judges are of opinion, that the enquiry ought not to be upon the matter of fact, but of law. Now Pompey is at freedom candidly to declare, whether his proceeding in this affair was from a regard to the memory of Clodius, or to the necessity of the juncture.

M. Drusus, a tribune of the people, a man of the highest quality, an assertor, nay, in these days, almost the protector of the rights of the senate, and uncle to the brave Marcus Cato, one of our judges, was killed in his own house. But the people never intermeddled

with the enquiry into this murder, nor did the senate grant any extraordinary commission for a trial on that account. We have heard from our fathers the grief, the consternation, which appeared in this city, when Publius Africanus, in the night-time was assassinateed, as he reposed on his own bed. What breast then was so obdurate as not to sigh, what heart so insensible as not to grieve, that a man whom the wishes of mankind, could wishes have prevailed, would have rendered immortal, should be cut off before the natural conrse of his life was fulfilled?

Was then no new trial granted for enquiring into the death of Africanus? None. Why? Because murder is equally heinous in its own nature, whether it is the fate of the eminent or the obscure. A difference indeed lies in the two characters; but the impious murder of the one is subjected to the same penalty, and judged by the same laws, with that of the other; unless it be said that the crimes of a parricide receive some aggravation from his killing a senator, beyond what they would have admitted of, had he been the murderer of a private person; or that the circumstances of the death of Clodius were more heinous, as he fell upon the monuments of his family; for that too has been insisted upon: as if the great Appius Caecus had paved that road, not to be a conveniency and an ornament to his country, but as a sanctuary to screen the felonies of his posterity.

When P. Clodius on the same road killed M. Papirius, that accomplished Roman knight, his crime must pass unpunished; for, as he was a person of quality, he had only killed a Roman knight upon the monuments of his own family. What a fruitful source of declamation has this Appian name afforded! While it was stained with the murder of a brave and an innocent man, it was never mentioned; but now, that it is discoloured with the blood of a robber and a murderer, it is become a common-place of conversation. But why do I dwell upon these circumstances? When a slave of P. Clodius was seized in the temple of Castor, where he had been placed to assassinate Pompey, the wretch confessed the design, as they were wresting the dagger out of his hand. Pompey afterwards absented from the forum, he absented from the senate, he absented from the public, and

thought fit to put himself under the protection of the wall and gates of his house, rather than of the laws and judges of his country. But did any law at that time pass? Was any extraordinary commission for a trial then granted? Yet if ever any circumstance was so affecting, if ever any person was of such dignity, if ever any juncture was of such importance, as to make that measure expedient; in this case they strongly operated: a traitor was posted in the forum, even in the threshold of the senate-house, with a design to assassinate the man upon whose life the preservation of the state depended, and at a juncture too, so critical to the republic, that, had he then fallen, not only this city, but the body of the Roman empire, must have shared in his fate. And did he escape punishment, only because his designs proved abortive ? As if the laws of Rome were to règard, not the intention of the criminal, but the success of his crime. The villany not being perpetrated, did indeed alleviate the grief of the public, but never could/ extenuate the guilt of the villain.

How often, my lords, have I myself escaped the threatening sword, and butchering hand of Clodius! And if I had not owed my safety to my own, or my country's good fortune, where is the man who would have procured an extraordinary trial upon my death?

But it is weak in me to presume to compare a Drusus, an Africanus, a Pompey, or a Cicero, to Clodius; their lives could easily be dispensed with: but, at the thought. of the death of Clodius, the senate is afflicted; the whole equestrian order grieved; the city all of a sudden is struck with age and infirmity; the Roman corporations are in mourning; our colonies in consternation; even the fields themselves regret the loss of a citizen so benevolent, so upright, and so humane. These were not, my lords, indeed they were not, the reasons why Pompey thought himself obliged to order a commission for a special trial. But that prndent person, who is endued with an almost divine penetration, comprehended many points within his view.

He reflected that Clodius had been his enemy, that Milo was his friend; and justly dreaded, that, if he appeared to share in the general joy, he might appear insin cere in the ties of a newly-cemented friendship.

He had a great many other circumstances in his eye, but this especially ;-that though he was obliged to enact with severity, yet that you, my lords, would judge with courage, He therefore chose for judges the very lights of our most illustrious bodies; nor, as has been falsely asserted, did he keep my friends out of the commission. This is what that excellent person never had in his thoughts; and, if he confined his choice of the judges to men of probity and honour, he could not have had it in his power. My interest, my lords, is not confined to my intimate friends, who cannot be numerous, because the endearing familiarities of life can never be very extensive; but, if I have any interest, it is owing to the connections which my public character has led me into with the best men in the commonwealth. As Pompey, therefore, wisely thought that his reputation was interested in choosing the best from among all good men to sit upon that tribunal, he was under the necessity of choosing my friends.

In making you, Lucius Domitius, the president of this court, he consulted nothing but equity, resolution, bumanity, and honour. By his law he enacted, that the president of this court should be a person of consular dignity; because, I suppose, he held it as a maxim, that men of distinction ought to be proof against the attacks both of an inconstant populace and a desperate faction: and that he distinguished you from the rest of your or der, is owing to the many conspicuous proofs, which from your early youth you have given of your contempt of popular madness.

XXI. Cicero's oration for Milo..

PART III.

THEREFORE, my lords, that we may at last come to the nature of this crime, and the merits of the question; if the confession of the fact is by no means unprecedented, if the determination of the senate has been entirely agreeable to what we contended for, if the very enactor of the law was of opinion, that, though no question of fact could arise, yet there might of law; if the judges whe