Cato the Younger

But their schemes were discovered, and Cicero brought the matter before the senate for deliberation.[*](Cf. the Caesar, vii. 4-viii. 2; and the Cicero, x. ff.) The first speaker, Silanus, expressed the opinion that the men ought to suffer the extremest fate, and those who followed him in turn were of the same mind, until it came to Caesar.

Caesar now rose, and since he was a powerful speaker and wished to increase every change and commotion in the state as so much stuff for his own designs, rather than to allow them to be quenched, he urged many persuasive and humane arguments. He would not hear of the men being put to death without a trial, but favoured their being kept in close custody,

and he wrought such a change in the opinions of the senate, which was in fear of the people, that even Silanus recanted and said that he too had not meant death, but imprisonment; for to a Roman this was the extremest of all evils.