[75]
But if you were afraid of
this accusation,—that some one might say that you had substituted some one
else, whom you had caused to be executed for the captain of the pirates, did you
think that it would be a stronger argument in your defence, to produce among
strangers a long time after, (because I required and compelled you to do so,) a man
who you said was the captain of the pirates; or to execute him, while the affair was
still of recent date, at Syracuse,
among people who knew him well, in the sight of almost all Sicily? See how great a difference it makes which
was done. In the one case there could have been no blame attached to you; in the
other you have no defence. And accordingly, all men have always done the one thing;
but I can find no one before you yourself, who has ever done the other. You detained
the pirate alive. Till when? As long as you were in command. Why did you do so? On
what account? According to what precedent? Why did you detain him so long? Why, I
say, while the Roman citizens who were taken in the pirate's company were
immediately put to death, did you give the pirates themselves so long a lease of
life?
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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