[80]
And I am not sorry that I am defending the cause of Aulus
Cluentius at this time rather than at that time. For the cause remains the same, and cannot by
any means be altered; the violence of the times, and the unpopularity then stirred up, has
passed away; so that the evil that existed in the time is now no injury to us, the good which
there was in the cause is still advantageous to us. And, therefore, I perceive now how
attentively I am listened to, not only by those to whom the judgment and the power of deciding
belongs, but even by those whose influence is confined to their mere opinion. But if at that
time I had been speaking, I should not have been listened to: not that the circumstances were
different; they are exactly the same; but because the time was different—and of that
you may feel quite sure.
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1856.
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