Pro A. Cluentio

I complied with his wishes, and yet I did it (for it is not a thing which we ought to do at all times) because I saw that the cause itself could be amply defended on its own merits, without any reference to law at all. I saw that in this defence, which I now have employed, there was more dignity, but that in that one which he begged me not to use, there would be less trouble. But if I had no other object in view beyond merely gaining this cause, I should have read the laws to you, and then have summed up. Nor am I moved by that argument which Attius uses when he says that it is a scandalous thing that, if a senator should procure a wrongful conviction of any one, he should be made liable to the laws, but that if a Roman knight does the same, he should not.

Although I should grant to you that it would be a scandalous thing, (and the fact I will examine into presently,) still you must inevitably grant to me that it is a much more scandalous thing that the laws should be departed from in that state which is entirely held together by the laws; for this is the bond of this dignity which we enjoy in the republic, this is the foundation of our liberty, this is the source of justice. The mind, and spirit, and wisdom, and intentions of the city are all situated in the laws. As our bodies cannot, if deprived of the mind, so the state, if deprived of law, cannot use its separate parts, which are to it as its sinews, its blood, and its limbs. The ministers of the law are the magistrates; the interpreters of the law are the judges; lastly, we are all servants of the laws, for the very purpose of being able to be freemen.