[64]
I now come to that argument of yours, “I did not drive him away, if I never
allowed him to approach.” I think that you yourself, O Piso, perceive how much narrower and how much more unreasonable that defence is,
than if you were even to employ that other one, “They were not armed,—
they had only bludgeons and stones.” If, in truth, the option were given to me, who
do not profess to be a very fluent speaker, which argument I would prefer advancing in
defence, either that a man had not been driven away who had been met on his entrance with
violence and arms, or, that those men were not armed, who had neither swords nor shields; as
far as proving my case goes, I should consider both the positions equally trifling and
worthless; but as for making a speech about them, I think that I might find some arguments to
make it appear that those men were not armed who had no shield nor any description of iron
weapon; but I should be wholly at a loss if I had to maintain that a man who had been repulsed
and put to flight had not been driven away.
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