ing the one, or protecting the other. And to engage you the more readily to this, my lords, I will lay open the very fentiments of my heart before you, and freely confefs my passion for glory, which, though too keen, perhaps, is however virtuous. For what I did in conjunction with you during my confulship, for the fafety of this city and empire, for the lives of my fellowcitizens, and for the interests of the flate, Archias intends to celebrate in verse, and has actually begun his poem. Upon reading what he has wrore, it appeared to me fo fublime, and gave me so much pleasure, that I encouraged him to go on with it. For virtua defires no other reward for her toils and dangers, but praise and glory: take but this away, my lords, and what is there left in this short, this scanty career of human life, that can tempt us to engage in fo many and fo great labours? Surely, if the mind had no thought of futurity, if the confined all her views within those limits which bound our prefent exiftence, the would neither waite her ftrength in fo great toils, nor harats herself with fo many cares and watchings, nor ftruggle fo often for life itself: but there is a certain principle in the breast of every good man, which both day and night quickens him to the pursuit of glory, and puts him in mind that his fame is not to be measured by the extent of his pretent life, bat that it runs parallel with the line of pofterity.

Can we, who are engaged in the affairs of the state, and in fo many toils and dangers, think fo meanly as to imagine that, after a life of uninterrupted care and trouble, nothing shall remain of us after death? If many of the greatest men have been careful to leave their flatues and pictures, these representations not of their minds but of their bodies; ought not we to be much more defirous of leaving the portraits of our enterprizes and virtues drawn and finished by the most eminent artists? As for me, I have always imagined, whilft I was engaged in doing whatever I have done, that I was spreading my actions over the whole earth, and that they would be held in eternal remembrance. But whether I shall lofe my confciousness of this at death, or whether, as the wifeft men have thought, I shall retain it after, at present the thought delights me, and my mind is filed with pleasing hopes. Do not then deprive us, my lords, of a man, whom modeity, a graceful manner, engag

ing behaviour, and the affections of his friends, so strongly recommended; the greatness of whose genius may be estimated from this, that he is courted by the moft eminent men of Rome; and whose plea is fuch, that it has the law in its favour, the authority of a municipal town, the teftimony of Lucullus, and the register of Metellus. This being the cafe, we beg of you, my lords, fince in matters of fuch importance, not only the intercession of men but of gods is neceffary, that the man, who has always celebrated your virtues, those of your generals, and the victories of the Roman people; who declares that he will raise eternal monuments to your praise and mine for our conduct in our late domeftic dangers; and who is of the number of those that have ever been accounted and pronounced divine, may be so protected by you, as to have greater reafon to applaud your generofity, than to complain of your rigour. What I have faid, my lords, concerning this caufe, with my usual brevity and fimplicity, is, I am confident, approved by all what I have advanced upon poetry in general, and the genius of the defendant, contrary to the usage of the forum and the bar, will, I hope, be taken in good part by you; by him who prefides upon the bench, I am convinced it will.

This beautiful oration was made in the 55th year of Cicero's age, upon the following occasion. In the year of Rome 701, T. Annius Milo, Q Metelius Scipio, and P. Plautius Hyp. fæus, flood candidates for the confulship; and, according to Plutarch, pushed on their several interests with fuch open violence and bribery, as if it had been to be carried only by money or arms. P. Clodius, Milo's profeffed enemy, stood at the fame time for the prætorship, and used all his interest to disappoint Milo, by whose obtaining the confulship he was fure to be controuled in the exercise of his magiftracy. The fenate and the better fort were generally in Milo's intereft; and Cicero, in particular, ferved him with diftinguished zeal: three of the tribunes were violent against him, the other seven were his fast friends; above all M. Cœlius, who, out of regard to Cicero, was very active in his service. But whilft matters were proceeding in a very favourable train for him, and nothing seemed wanting to crown his fuccefs, but to bring on the election, which his advertaries, for that reafon, endeavoured to keep back; all his hopes and fortunes were blasted at once by an unhappy rencounter with Clodius, in which Clodius was killed by his servants, and by his command. His body was left in the Appian road, where it fell, but was taken up foon after by Tedius, a fenator, who happened to come by, and brought to Rome; where it was exposed, all covered with blood and wounds, to the view of the populace, who flocked about in crowds to lament the miserable fate of their leader. The next day, Sextus Clodius, a kinsman of the deceased, and one of his chief incendiaries, together with the three tribunes, Mito's enemies, employed all the arts of party and faction to inflame the mob, which they did to fuch a height of fury, that, snatching up the body, they ran away with it into the fenate-house, and tearing up the benches, tables, and every thing combustible, dressed up a funeral pile upon the spot; and, together with the body, burnt the house itself, with a bafilica or public hall adjoining. Several other outrages were committed, so that the fenate were obliged to pass a decree, that the inter-rex, affifted by the tribunes and Pompey, should take care that the republic received no detriment; and that Pompey, in particular, should raise a body of troops for the common security, which he presently drew together from all parts of Italy. Amidit this confufion, the rumour of a dictator being industrioufly spread, and alarming the senate, they refolved presently to create Pompey the fingle conful, whose election was accordingly declared by the inter-rex, after an inter-regnum of near two months. Pompey applied himself immediately to quiet the public diforders, and published several new laws, prepared by him for that purpose; one of them was, to appoint a special commiffion to enquire into Clodius's death, &c. and to appoint

an extraordinary judge, of confular rank, to preside in it. He attended Milo's trial himself with a strong guard, to preferve peace. The accufers were young Appius, the nephew of Clodius, M. Antonius, and P. Valerius. Cicero was the only advocate on Milo's fide; but as soon as he rofe up to speak, he was received with fo rude a clamour by the Clodians, that he was much difcomposed and daunted at his firit setting out: he recovered fpirit enough, however, to go through his speech, which was taken down in writing, and published as it was delivered; though the copy of it now extant, is supposed to have been retouched, and corrected by him afterwards, for a present to Milo, who was condemned, and went into exile at Marseilles, a few days after his condemnation.

THOUGH I am apprehenfive, my lords, it may seem a reflection on a perfon's character to discover any figns of fear, when he is entering on the defence of fo brave a man, and particularly unbecoming in me, that when T. Annius Milo himself is more concerned for the fafety of the state than his own, I should not be able to maintain an equal greatness of mind in pleading his cause; yet I must own, the unusual manner in which this new kind of trial is conducted, strikes me with a kind of terror, while I am looking around me, in vain, for the ancient usages of the forum, and the forms that have been hitherto observed in our courts of judicature. Your bench is not furrounded with the usual circle; nor is the crowd such as used to throng us. For those guards you fee planted before all the temples, however intended to prevent all violence, yet ftrike the orator with terror; so that even in the forum and during a trial, though attended with an useful and necessary guard, I cannot help being under fome apprehenfions, at the fame time I am sensible they are without foundation. Indeed, if I imagined it was stationed there in opposition to Milo, I should give way, my lords, to the times; and conclude there was no room for an orator in the midft of such an armed force. But the prudence of Pompey, a man of such diftinguished wisdom and equity, both chears and relieves me; whose justice will never fuffer him to leave a person exposed to the rage of the foldiery, whom he has delivered up to a legal trial; nor his wisdom, to give the fanction of public authority to the outrages of a furious mob. Wherefore those arms, those centurions and cohorts, are so far from threatening me with danger, that they affure me of protection; they not only banish my fears, but inspire me with courage; and promise that I shall be heard not merely with safety, but with filence and attention. As to the rest of the affem bly, those, at least, that are Roman citizens, they are all on our fide; nor is there a fingle person of all that multitude of spectators, whom you fee on all fides of us, as far as any part of the forum can be distinguished, waiting the event of the trial, who, while he favours Milo, does not think his own fate, that of his posterity, his country, and his property, likewife at stake.

There is indeed one set of men our inveterate enemies; they are those whom the madness of P. Clodius has trained up, and supported by plunder, firing of houses, and every fpecies of public mischief; who were spirited up by the speeches of yesterday, to dictate to you what sentence you should pass. If these should chance to raise any clamour, it will only make you cautious how you part with a citizen who always despised that crew, and their loudest threatenings, where your fafety was concerned. Act with spirit then, my lords, and if you ever entertained any fears, difmiss them all. For if ever you had it in your power to determine in favour of brave and worthy men, or of deferving citizens, in a word, if ever any occafion was presented to a number of perfons selected from the most il'aftrious orders, of declaring, by their actions and their votes, that regard for the brave and virtuous, which they had often expressed by their looks and words; now is the time for you to exert this power in determining whether we, who have ever been devoted to your authority, shall fpend the remainder of our days in grief and mifery, or after having been fo long infulted by the most abandoned citizens, shall at haft through your means, by your fidelity, virtue and wisdom, recover our wonted life and vigour. For what, my lords, can be mentioned or conceived more grievous to us both; what more vexatious or trying, than that we who entered into the service of our country from the hopes of the highest honours, cannot even be free from the apprehen

fions of the feverest punishments? For my own part, I always took it for granted, that the other forms and tempests which are usually raised in popular tumults would beat upon Milo, because he has conftantly approved himself the friend of good men in oppofition to the bad; but in a public trial, where the most illustrious perfons of all the orders of the state were to fit as judges, I never imagined that Milo's enemies could have entertained the leaft hope not only of destroying his safety, while such perfons were upon the bench, but even of giving the least stain to his honour. In this cause, my lords, I shall take no advantage of Annius's tribuneship, nor of his important services to the state during the whole of his life, in order to make out his defence, unless you shall fee that Clodius himself actually lay in wait for him; nor shall 1 intreat you to grant a pardon for one rash action, in confideration of the many glorious things he has performed for his country; nor require, that if Clodius's death prove a blessing to you, you should ascribe it rather to Milo's virtue, than the fortune of Rome: but if it should appear clearer than the day, that Clodius did really lie in wait, then I must beseech and adjure you, my lords, that if we have loft every thing else, we may at least be allowed, without fear of punishment, to defend our lives against the infolent attacks of our enemies.

But before I enter upon that which is the proper subject of our present enquiry, it will be neceffary to confute those notions which have been often advanced by our enemies in the senate, often by a fet of worthless fellows, and even lately by our accufers before an affembly, that having thus removed all ground of mistake, you may have a clearer view of the matter that is to come before you. They fay, that a man who confefles he has killed another, ought not to be suffered to live. But where, pray, do these stupid people ufe this argument? Why truly, in that very city where the first person that was ever tried for a capital crime was the brave M. Horatius; who before the state was in poffefsion of its liberty, was acquitted by the comitia of the Roman people, though he confeffed he had killed his fister with his own hand. Can any one be so ignorant as not to know, that in cafes of bloodshed the fact is either abfolutely denied, or maintained to be just and lawful? Were it not fo, P. Africanus must be reckoned

out

out of his fenfes, who, when he was asked in a feditious manner by the tribune Carbo before al the people, what he thought of Gracchus's death? faid, that he deserved to die. Nor can Ahala Servilius, P. Nafica, L. Opimius, C. Marius, or the fenate itself, during my confulate, be acquitted of the molt enormous guilt, if it be a crime to put wicked citizens to death.

It

is not without reason therefore, my lords, that learned men have informed us, though in a fabulous manner, how that, when a difference arose in regard to the man who had killed his mother in revenge for his father's death, he was acquitted by a divine decree, nay, by a decree of the goddifs of Wisdom herself. And if the twelve tables allow a man, without fear of punishment, to take away the life of a thief in the night, in whatever situation he finds him; and, in the day-time, if he uses a weapon in his defence; who can imagine that a perfon must universally deserve punishment for killing another, when he can not but fee that the laws themselves, in some cafes, put a sword into our hands for this very purpose ?

But if any circumstance can be alledged, and undoubtedly there are many fuch, in which the putting a man to death can be vindicated, that in which a person has afted upon the principle of felf-defence, muft certainly be allowed fufficient to rendr the action not only juit, but necessary. When a military tribune, a relation of C. Marius, made an unnatural attempt upon the body of a foldier in that general's army, he was killed by the man to whom he of fered violence, for the virtuous youth chose rather to expose his life to hazard, than submit to fuch dishonourable treatment; and he was acquitted by that great man, and delivered from all apprehenfions of danger. But what death can be deemed unjuft, that is inflicted on one who lies in wait for another, on one who is a public robber? To what purpose have we a train of attendants? or why are they furnished with arms? It would certainly be unlawful to wear them at all, if the use of then was absolutely forbid for this, my lords, is not a written, but an innate law. We have not been taught it by the learned, we have not received it from our ancestors, we have not taken it from books; but it is derived from, it is forced upon us by rature, and stamped in indelible characters upon our very frame: it was not conveyed to us by inftruction, but wrought

into our constitution; it is the dictate, not of education, but instinct, that if our lives should be at any time in danger from concealed or more open affaults of robbers or private enemies, every honourable method should be taken for our security. Laws, my lords, are filent amidst arms; nor do they require us to wait their decifions, when by such a delay one must suffer an undeserved punishment himself, rather than inflict it justly on another. Even the law itself, very wifely, and in some meafure tacitly, allows of felf-defence, as it does not forbid the killing of a man, but the carrying a weapon in order to kill him: since then the stress is laid not upon the weapon but the end for which it was carried, he that makes use of a weapon only to defend himself, can never be condemned as wearing it with an intention to take away a man's life. Therefore, my lords, let this principle be laid down as the foundation of our plea: for I don't doubt but I shall make out my defence to your fatiffaction, if you only keep in mind what I think it is impoffible for you to forget, that a man who lies in wait for another may be lawfully killed.

I come now to confider what is frequently infiited upon by Milo's enemies; that the killing of P. Clodius has been declared by the fenate a dangerous attack opon the ftate. But the fenate has declared their approbation of it, not only by their fuffrages, but by the warmest teftimonies in favour of Milo. For how often have [ pleaded that very cau'e before them? How great was the fatisfaction of the whole order! How loudly, how publicly did they applaud me! In the fullest house, when were there found four, at molt five, who did not approve of Milo's conduct? This appears plainly from the lifeless harangues of that finged tribune, in which he was continually inveighing against my power, and alledging that the fenate, in their decree, did not follow their own judginent, but were merely under my direction and influence. Which, if it must be called power, rather than a moderate share of authority in just and lawful cafes, to which one may be entitled by services to his country; or some degree of interest with the worthy part of mankind, on account of my readiness to exert myself in defence of the innocent; let it be called fo, provided it is employed for the protection of the virtuous against the fury of ruffians. But as for this extraordinary trial, though I do not blame it, yet the senate never thought of granting it; because we had laws and precedents already, but in regard to murder and violence: nor did Clodius's death give them so much concern as to occafion an extraordinary commiffion. For if the fenate was deprived of the power of paffing sentence upon him for an inceftuous debauch, who can imagine they would think it neceffary to grant any extraordinary trial for enquiring into his death! Why then did the fenate de cree that burning the court, the affault upon M. Lepidus's house, and even the death of this man, were actions injurious to the republic? because every act of violence committed in a free state by one citizen against another, is an act against the itate. For even force in one's own defence is never definable, though it is sometimes neceffary; unless indeed it be pretended that no wound was given the state, on the day when the Gracchi were flain, and the armed force of Saturninus crush

ed.

When it appeared, therefore, that a man had been killed upon the Appian way, I was of opinion that the party who acted in his own defence should not be deemed an enemy to the state; but as both contrivance and force had been employed in the affair, I referred the merits of the cause to a trial, and admitted of the fact. And if that frantic tribune would have permitted the fenate to follow their own judgment, we should at this time have had no new commiffion for a trial: for the fenate was coming to a refolution, that the cause should be tried upon the old laws, only not according to the usual forms. A divifion was made in the vote, at whose request I know not; for it is not neceffary to expose the crimes of every one. Thus the remainder of the fenate's authority was destroyed by a mercenary interpofition. But, it is faid, that Pompey, by the bill which he brought in, decided both upon the nature of the fact in general, and the merits of this cause in particular. For he published a law concerning this encounter in the Appian way, in which P. Clodius was killed. But what was the law? why, that enquiry should be made into it. And what was to be enquired into? whether the fact was committed? But that is not disputed. By whom? that too is clear. For Pompey faw, though the fact was confeffed, that the justice of it might be defended. If he had not seen that a perfon

a

might be acquitted, after making his confession, he would never have directed any enquiry to be made, nor have put into your hande, my lords, an acquitting as well as favourable letter. But Cn. Pompey seems to me not only to have determined nothing fevere against Milo, but even to have pointed out what you are to have in view in the course of the trial. For he who did not punith the confeffion of the fact, but allowed of a defence, was surely of opinion that the cause of the bloodshed was to be enquired into, and not the fact itself. I refer it to Pompey himself, whether the part he acted in this affair proceeded from his regard to the memory of P. Clodius, or from his regard to the times.

M. Drufus, a man of the highest quality, the defender, and in those times almost the patron, of the fenate, uncle to that brave man M. Cato, now upon the bench, and tribune of the people, was killed in his own house. And yet the people were not confulted upon his death, nor was any commission for a trial granted by the fenate on account of it. What deep difstress is faid to have spread over the whole city, when P. Africanus was aflaffinated in the night time as he lay on his own bed? What breast did not then figh, what heart was not pierced with grief, that a person, on whom the wishes of all men would have conferred immortality, could withes have done it, should be cut off by fo early a fate? was no decree made then for an enquiry into Africanus's death? None. And why? Because the crime is the fame, whether the character of the perfons that fuffer be illustrious or obscure. Grant that there is a difference, as to the dignity of their lives, yet their deaths, when they are the effect of villainy, are judged by the fame laws, and attended by the fame punishments: unless it be more a heinous parricide for a man to kill his father if he be of a confular dignity, than if he were in a private station; or the guilt of Clodius's death be aggravated by his being killed amongst the monuments of his ancestors; for that too has been urged; as if the great Appius Cæcus had paved that road, not for the convenience of his country, but that his pofterity might have the privilege of committing acts of violence with impunity. And accordingly when P. Clodius had killed M. Papirius, a most accomplished perfon of the Equestrian order, on this Appian way,