[22]
I ask whether there was ever any one
before your time so wicked as to do such a thing as that? So that we may
know whether you are an imitator of old crimes or an inventor of new ones.
And when you, by counsels and atrocities of this sort, carried on under the
name of Caius Caesar a most merciful and excellent man, but in reality by
your own wickedness and audacity, had driven Marcus Bibulus from the forum,
and the senate-house, and the temples, and from all public places, and had
compelled him to shut himself up in his own house; and when the life of the
consul was only saved, not by the majesty of the empire, or by the sanctity
of the laws, but only by the protection which his own doors and walls
afforded him; did you not send a lictor to drag Marcus Bibulus from his
house by force, in order that, though even in the case of private
individuals the sanctity of their house is always observed, while you were
tribune of the people even his own house should not be a safe refuge for the
consul?
