But if he had placed any hope at all, not only in his cause, but in any honourable defence, or in the eloquence or in the influence of any one, he would not be so eager in collecting and catching at all these things; he would not scorn and despise the senatorial body to such a degree, as to procure a man to be selected out of the senate at his will to be made a criminal of, who should plead his cause This refers to the same subject as the previous note. before him, while he in the meantime was preparing whatever he had need of.

And what the circumstances are on which he founds his hopes, and what hopes he builds on them, and what he is fixing his mind on. I see clearly. But how he can have the confidence to think that he can effect anything with the present praetor, and the present bench of Judges, I cannot conceive. This one thing I know, which the Roman people perceived too when he rejected “In any given case the litigant parties agreed upon a judex, or accepted him whom the magistrates proposed; a party had the power of rejecting a proposed judex, though there must have been some limit to this power.” (Cic. Pro Cluent. 43.) Smith, Dict. Ant. v. Judex. What the limits to this power were, or under what restrictions it was exercised, we do not now know. the judges, that his hopes were of that nature that he placed all his expectations of safety in his money; and that if this protection were taken from him, he thought nothing would be any help to him. In truth, what genius is there so powerful, what faculty of speaking, what eloquence so mighty, as to be in any particular able to defend the life of that man, convicted as it is of so many vices and crimes, and long since condemned by the inclinations and private sentiments of every one?