And when he says this, he does not perceive that the man who laid it open took care that all men should see that which had previously been hidden. Wherefore that conspiracy, if it was laid open by me, is now as evident in all its particulars to Hortensius as it is to me. And when you see that he, a man of such rank, and authority, and virtue, and wisdom, has not hesitated to defend this innocent Publius Sulla, I ask why the access to the cause which was open to Hortensius, ought to be closed against me? I ask this also,—if you think that I, who defend him, am to he blamed, what do you think of those excellent men and most illustrious citizens, by whose zeal and dignified presence you perceive that this trial is attended, by whom the cause of my client is honoured, by whom his innocence is upheld? For that is not the only method of defending a man's cause which consists in speaking for him. All who countenance him with their presence, who show anxiety in his behalf, who desire his safety, all, as far as their opportunities allow or their authority extends, are defending him.
This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
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.
The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.