but when the thoughts of my country, of your dangers, of this city, of all those shrines and temples which we see around us, of the infant children, and matrons, and virgins of the city occurred to me, and when those hostile and fatal torches destined for the entire conflagration of the whole city, when the arms which had been collected, when the slaughter and blood of the citizens, when the ashes of my country began to present themselves to my eyes, and to excite my feelings by the recollection, then I resisted him, then I resisted not only that enemy of his country, that parricide himself, but I withstood also his relations the Marcelli, father and son, one of whom was regarded by me with the respect due to a parent, and the other with the affection which one feels towards a son. And I thought that I could not, without being guilty of the very greatest wickedness, defend in their companion the same crimes which I had chastised in the case of others, when I knew him to be guilty.
And, on the same principle, I could not endure to see
Publius Sulla coming to me as a suppliant, or these same Marcelli in tears at his danger nor
could I resist the entreaties of Marcus Messala, whom you see in court, a most intimate friend
of my own. For neither was his cause disagreeable to my natural disposition nor had the man or
the facts anything in them at variance with my feelings of clemency his name had never been
mentioned, there was no trace whatever of him in the conspiracy; no information had touched him,
no suspicion had been breathed of him. I undertook his cause, O Torquatus; I undertook it, and I
did so