And the prosecutor has dared, while pleading in this cause, to exhort you, O judges, to show at last some severity, and at length to apply some healing measures to the republic. But that is not a remedy when the knife is applied to some sound and healthy part of the body, that is the act of an executioner and mere inhumanity. Those are the men who really apply healing remedies to the republic, who cut out some pestilence as if it were a wen on the person of the state. [136]