Although all these things appeared such as might be endured,—although he attacked with equal fury the republic, and private individuals, and men who were at a distance, and men who were near, people who had no connection with him, and his own relations; yet somehow or other the incredible endurance of the state had by long use grown hardened and callous. But as for the things which were at hand, and were impending over you, in what manner was it possible for you either to avert them or to bear them? If he had once obtained real power,—I say nothing of our allies, of foreign nations, and kings, and tetrarchs; for you would have prayed that he might turn himself against them rather than against your possessions, your houses, and your money: money do I say? your children rather—I solemnly swear he would never have restrained himself from your children and from your wives. Do you think that these things are inventions of mine? They are evident; they are notorious to every one; they are proved. Is it an invention of mine that he was about to enlist an army of slaves in the city, by whose instrumentality he might take possession of the whole republic, and of the private fortune of every one? [77] Wherefore, if Titus Annius, holding in his hand a bloody sword, had cried out “Come hither, I beg of you, and listen to me, O citizens: I have slain Publius Clodius; with this sword and with this right hand I have turned aside from your necks the frenzied attacks of that man whom we were unable to restrain by any laws, or by any judicial proceedings whatever; by my single efforts has it been brought to pass that right and equity, and laws, and liberty, and modesty, and chastity remain in this city;” would there in truth have been any reason to fear in what manner the city would receive this announcement? For now, as it is, who is there who does not approve of what has been done? who does not praise it? who does not both say and feel that of all men to whom recollection can reach back, Titus Annius has done the republic the greatest service; that of all men he has diffused the greatest joy among the Roman people, and over the whole of Italy, and throughout all nations? I cannot form a conception of what would have been the old-fashioned joy of the Roman people. Already our age has seen many, and those most illustrious victories, won by consummate generals; but not one of them has brought with it a joy that either lasted so long or that was so excessive while it did last. [78]
Commit this fact to memory, O judges. I trust that you and your children will see many happy days in the republic. On every such occasion these will always be your feelings,—that if Publius Clodius had been alive, you never would have seen one of them. We have been led now to conceive the greatest, and, as I feel sure, the best-founded hopes, that this very day, this most admirable man being made our consul, when the licentiousness of men is checked, their evil passions put down, the laws and courts of justice reestablished on a firm footing, will be a salutary day for the republic. Is there, then, any one so insane as to think that he could have obtained all this while Publius Clodius was alive? What? why, what power of perpetual possession could you have had even in those things which you possess as your private property and in the strictest sense your own, while that frenzied man held the reins of government? [cap.29]