It was then reported to you, O priests, and after that it became a common topic of conversation, how he, with preposterous language with ill-omened auspices, at times interrupting himself, doubting, fearing, hesitating, pronounced and did everything in a manner wholly different from that which you have recorded as proper in your books. It is, indeed, not very strange that in doing an act of such wickedness and such insanity, even his audacity could not wholly repress his fear. In truth, if no robber was ever so savage and inhuman, as, when he had plundered temples, and then, having been excited by dreams or some superstitious feelings, consecrated some altar on a desert shore, not to shudder in his mind when compelled to propitiate with his prayers the deity whom he has insulted by his wickedness; what do you suppose must have been the agitation of mind of that plunderer of every temple, and of every house, and of the whole city, when he was consecrating one single altar to avert the vengeance due to his numberless acts of wickedness?
This text is part of:
M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. George Bell & Sons, York Street, Covent Garden. 1891.
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