Pro A. Cluentio

And this principle you, O judges, ought, as your wisdom and humanity prompts and enables you to do, to consider over in your mind carefully; and to be thoroughly aware what disaster and what danger the tribunitian power can bring upon every one individual among us, especially when it is egged on by party spirit, and by assemblies of the people, stirred up in a seditious manner. In the very best times, forsooth, when men defended themselves, not by boastings addressed to the populace, but by their own worth and innocence, still neither Publius Popillius, nor Quintus Metellus, most illustrious and most honourable men, could withstand the power of the tribunes; much less at the present time, with such manners as we now have, and such magistrates, can we possibly be saved without the aid of your wisdom, and without the relief which is afforded by the courts of justice.

That court of justice then, O judges, was not like a court of justice; for in it there was no moderation preserved, no regard was had to custom and usage, nor was the cause of the defendant properly advocated. It was all violence, and, as I have said before, a sort of earthquake or tempest,—it was anything rather than a court of justice, or a legal discussion, or a judicial investigation. But if there be any one who thinks that that was a regular proceeding, and who thinks it right to adhere to the decision that was then delivered; still he ought to separate this cause from that one. For it is said that a great many things were demanded of him either because he had not taken the oath to observe the law, or because he had not cast lots for electing judges in the room of those to whom objection had been made in a legal manner. But the case of Cluentius can in no particular be connected with these, laws, in accordance with which a penalty was sought to be recovered from Junius.