Cum Senatui gratias egit

What shall I say of that most illustrious man, Titus Annius? [*](This was Titus Annius Milo, by which last name he is best known to us. He was tribune, and finding it impossible to bring Clodius to justice in the legal way, resolved to deal with him according to his own fashion, and bought a troop of gladiators, at the head of whom he had daily skirmishes with him in the streets.) or, who can ever speak of such a citizen in an adequate or worthy manner? For when he saw that a wicked citizen, or, it would be more correct to say, a domestic enemy, required (if it were only possible to employ the laws) to be crushed by judicial proceedings, or that if violence hindered and put an end to the courts of justice, in that case audacity must be put down by virtue, madness by courage, rashness by wisdom, hand by hand, violence by violence, he first of all prosecuted him for violence; when he saw that the very man whom he was prosecuting had destroyed the courts of justice, he took care that he should not be able to carry everything by violence. He taught us that neither private houses, nor temples, nor the forum, nor the senate-house could be defended from the bands of domestic robbers without the greatest gallantry, and large resources and numerous forces. He was the first man after my departure who relieved the virtuous from fear, and deprived the audacious of hope; who delivered this august body from alarm, and the city from slavery.