And did you not even then, my great Paullus,[7] dare to send expresses to Rome crowned with laurel? Yes, says he, I sent them. Did you? Who ever read them? who ever demanded to have them read? For it makes no difference, as far as my argument is concerned, whether you, being overwhelmed by the consciousness of your wicked actions, never dared to write any letters to that body which you had treated with contempt, which you had ill-treated, which you had sought to destroy, or whether your friends concealed your letters, and by their silence expressed their condemnation of your rashness and audacity. And I do not know whether I should not prefer that you should appear so utterly destitute of all shame as to have sent the letters, and that your friends should appear to have had more modesty and more sense than yourself, rather than that you should seem to have had some little modesty, and that your conduct should not have been condemned by the judgment of your friends. [40]