Was there then any extraordinary investigation into the death of Africanus[6] voted? Certainly none. Why so? [17] Because the crime of murder is not different when eminent men, or when obscure ones are slain. Let there be a difference between the dignity of the lives of the highest and lowest citizens. If their death be wrought by wickedness, that must be avenged by the same laws and punishments in either case; unless, indeed, he is more a parricide who murders a father of consular rank than he who murders one of low degree; or, as if the death of Publius Clodius is to be more criminal because he was slain among the monuments of his ancestors,—for this is constantly said by that party; as if, I suppose, that illustrious Appius Caecus made that road, not that the nation might have a road to use, but that his own posterity might have a place in which to rob with impunity. [18] Therefore in that same Appian road, when Publius Clodius had slain a most accomplished Roman knight, Marcus Papirius, that crime was not to be punished; for a nobleman among his own family monuments had slain a Roman knight. Now what tragedies does the name of that same Appian road awaken? which, though nothing was said about it formerly, when stained with the murder of an honourable and innocent man, is now incessantly mentioned ever since it has been dyed with the blood of a robber and a parricide. But why do I speak of these things? A slave of Publius Clodius was arrested in the temple of Castor; whom he had placed there to murder Cnaeus Pompeius; the dagger was wrested from his hands and he confessed his design; after that Pompeius absented himself from the forum, absented himself from the senate, and from all public places; he defended himself within his own doors and walls, not by the power of the laws and tribunals.