And I took this precaution, though at so disturbed a time, and when all opportunities of acting were so sudden and so brief at the suggestion of some divine providence, as I said before, and not of my own accord, or of my own wisdom; taking care, in the first instance, that no one should be able to recollect of the danger to the republic, or to any individual, only as much as he pleased; and in the second place, that no one should be able at any time to find fault with that information, or to accuse us of having given credit to it rashly; and lastly, that no one should ever put any questions to me, or seek to learn anything from my private journals, lest I might be accused of either forgetting or remembering too much, and lest any negligence of mine should be thought discreditable, or lest any eagerness on my part might seem cruel.
But still, O Torquatus, I ask you, as your enemy was mentioned in the information, and as a
full senate and the memory of all men as to so recent an affair was a witness of that fact; as
my clerks would have communicated the information to you, my intimate friend and companion, if
you had wished for it, even before they had taken a copy of it; when you saw that there were any
incorrectnesses in it, why were you silent, why did you permit them? Why did you not make a
complaint to me or to some friend of mine? or why did you not at least, since you are so well
inclined to inveigh against your friends, expostulate passionately and earnestly with me? Do
you, when your voice was never once heard at the time, when, though the information was read,
and copied out, and published, you kept silence then,—do