39
But here is the strongest and most striking proof of all: the man who was wronged and victimized by me—as he says—did not dare for four years to denounce me before you. Everyone else, when in love, and deprived of the object of desire, and battered with blows, immediately in his anger seeks redress; but this man seeks it long afterwards.
40
So, gentlemen, that I am not to blame for any of these occurrences has, I conceive, been sufficiently proved. And observe the spirit in which I treat quarrels arising from this sort of affair: although I had suffered a variety of outrages at Simon’s hands, and had even had my head broken by him, I could not bring myself to denounce him, as I felt it extravagant, just because of a mutual rivalry over a child, to press for a man’s expulsion from his native land.
41
Besides, I did not see that there was any premeditation of wounding in the case of a man who gave a wound without meaning to kill. For who is so simple as to premeditate a long time ahead how some enemy of his shall come by a wound?
