The forum had been taken in the preceding year; the temple of Castor having been occupied by runaway slaves, as if it had been a fortress! not a word was said against such conduct. Everything was done by the clamour and impetuosity, and violence, and assaults of men desperate through indigence and through their natural audacity. And you endured that it should be so. The magistrates were driven from the temples; others were altogether cut off from all approach to them or to the forum. No one offered any resistance. Gladiators were taken out of the praetor's train and introduced into the senate and confessed that they had been thrown into prison by Milo, that they had been released by Serranus. Yet no mention was made of these things. The forum was strewed with the corpses of Roman citizens murdered in a nocturnal massacre. There not only was no new sort of investigation into such events instituted, but even the old courts of justice were abolished. You saw a tribune of the people lying down stricken to the ground with more than twenty wounds and almost dead; the house of another tribune of the people, a man of godlike virtue (for I will say what I think myself, and what all men agree with me in thinking,) a man of most eminent, unheard-of, unprecedented greatness of mind, and wisdom, and integrity, was attacked with fire and sword by the army of Clodius. [cap.40] [86]
And while speaking on this topic you praise Milo, and you praise him deservedly. For what man have we ever seen of more admirable virtue? a man who, without any expectation of reward beyond this, which is now thought an old-fashioned and contemptible thing—namely, the esteem of the good, has voluntarily encountered every sort of danger, and the most arduous labours, and the most severe contests, and the most bitter enmities? who appears to me to be the only citizen who has shown not only by words but by actions what ought to be done, and what was necessary to be done, in the republic by the leading men; that such men's duty was to resist the wickedness of audacious men, men who would overturn the republic, by means of the laws, and of the courts of justice; but that if the laws were inefficient, if there were no courts of justice, if the republic was seized and held in subjection by the violence and conspiracy and armed force of audacious men, then that it was absolutely necessary for our lives and liberties to be defended by armed guards and by troops. To think in this way is a sign of prudence; to act in accordance with such sentiments is a proof of bravery; to think rightly, and to act bravely at the same time, is a proof of perfect and consummate virtue.