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Consequently, while to devote one's life to the task of
accusation, and to be tempted by the hope of reward
to bring the guilty to trial is little better than making
one's living by highway robbery, none the less to rid
one's country of the pests that gnaw its vitals is
conduct worthy of comparison with that of heroes,
who champion their country's cause in the field of
battle. For this reason men who were leaders of the
state have not refused to undertake this portion of
an orator's duty, and even young men of high rank
have been regarded as giving their country a pledge
of their devotion by accusing bad citizens, since it
was thought that their hatred of evil and their
readiness to incur enmity were proofs of their confidence in their own rectitude.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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