I confess that it would have been a fine thing for the wicked to have been conquered by the good, if I could have seen the end of the victory (which, in truth I could not). For where should I have found to stand by me so brave a consul as Lucius Opimius or as Caius Marius or as Lucius Flaccus? under whom, as her leaders, the republic did put down wicked men with armed citizens, or if I could not get men as fearless as those, yet where could I find men as just as Publius Mucius, who, after Tiberius Gracchus had been slain, defended Publius Scipio and asserted that the aims which he as a private individual had taken up, had been taken up in strict accordance with the law? We, then, should have had to fight with the consuls. I say no more, except this one thing; I saw that there were formidable adversaries ready to dispute the victory with us, and no one who would avenge us if we fell. [89] If, then, I was wanting to these aids to the cause of my safety, because I was unwilling to do battle for it, I will then confess, as you say, that assistance was not wanting to me, but that I myself was wanting to the assistance which I had. But if, the greater I saw the zeal of good men in my behalf, the more I thought it my duty to consult their interests and to spare them, do you find fault with me for the same conduct which was considered a credit to Quintus Metellus and which is to this day, and always will be, his greatest glory? for it is well known—as you may hear from many who were present at the time—that he departed greatly against the will of all good men; and there is not the slightest doubt that he would have had the best of it if they had come to a struggle and a trial of arms. Therefore, though he was defending his own actions, and not those of the senate, though it was his own opinion that he was resolutely upholding and not the welfare of the republic,—still when he endured that voluntary wound he surpassed in glory and credit the justest and most illustrious triumphs of all the Metelli; because he would not be the cause of even those wickedest of citizens being slain, and because he provided against the danger of any good man being involved in their slaughter. And should I,—seeing such great danger before us, as, if I were defeated, the total destruction of the republic must ensue, and if I got the better, an endless contest would follow, should I, I say, give any one reason to style me the destroyer of the republic, after having been its saviour? [cap.37] [90]
You say that I was afraid of death. But I should think it wrong to accept even immortality at the expense of the welfare of the republic; much less should I be willing to die, if by that means I was to damage the commonwealth. For as for those men who have given up their lives for the sake of the state, (although you may say that I am talking foolishly,) I have never considered that they had met with death so much as with immortality. But if I had at that time fallen by the weapons and hands of wicked men, the republic would for ever have lost the civil guardian of its safety. Moreover, if any violence of disease, or if nature itself had carried me off, still the resources of posterity would have been diminished, because by my death the opportunity would have been lost of showing what great zeal of the senate and people of Rome was to be exerted in retaining me. Should I, if I had ever had any extravagant fondness for life, have challenged the weapons of all those parricides in the month of December of the year of my consulship, when, if I had remained quiet for twenty days longer, they would all have fallen on the vigilance of other consuls? Wherefore, if fondness for life when contrary to the interests of the republic is shameful, at all events a desire for death in my case, which must have been accompanied with injury to the state, would have been more shameful still.