[19] Was any motion made? was any extraordinary investigation voted? But if any circumstance, if any man, if any occasion was ever important enough for such a step, certainly all these things were so in the greatest degree in that cause. The assassin had been stationed in the forum, and in the very vestibule of the senate. Death was being prepared for that man on whose life the safety of the senate depended. Moreover, at that crisis of the republic, when, if he alone had died, not only this state, but all the nations in the world would have been ruined, —unless, indeed, the crime was not to be punished because it was not accomplished, just as if the execution of crimes was chastised by the laws, and not the intentions of men,—certainly there was less cause to grieve, as the deed was not accomplished, but certainly not a whit the less cause to punish. [20] How often, O judges, have I myself escaped from the weapons and from the bloody hands of Publius Clodius! But if my good fortune, or that of the republic, had not preserved me from them, who would have proposed any investigation into my death [cap.8]