[4]
For whom else can I appeal to? whom
can I cite? whom can I entreat? The senate? Nay; the senate itself implores assistance from
you, and feels that the confirmation of its authority is submitted to your decision. The Roman
knights? You yourselves, the fifty chief men of that body, will declare how far your
sentiments are in unison with those of the rest. Shall I appeal to the Roman people? That body
has delivered over to you all its power over us in our case. Wherefore, unless we can maintain
in this place, and before you, and by your means, O judges, I will not say our authority, for
that is lost but our safety, which hangs on a slender hope, and that hope our last, we have no
place of refuge beyond to which we can betake ourselves. Unless perchance, O judges, you fail
to see, as yet, what is the real object of this proceeding, what is really at stake, and what
is the cause, the foundations of which are being now laid.
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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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