2
Therefore, as matters stood at first your decision was more difficult, but my defence was easy. For I originally rested my whole case on the evidence; now I rest it on the confession of my adversary; and to oppose his audacity in acts of violence, his impudence in a court of justice, may fairly be considered as the task of your power, not of my abilities.— For what is easier than to decide on the case of a man who confesses the fact? But it is difficult for me to speak with sufficient force of that which cannot be by language made out worse than it is in reality, and cannot be made more plain by my speech than it is by the confession of the parties actually concerned.
3
As, therefore, on account of the reasons which I have stated, my system of defence must be changed, I must also forget for a little time, in the case of Publius Fabius, that lenity of mine which I practiced at the previous trial, when I restrained myself from using any arguments which might have the appearance of attacking him, so much that I seemed to be defending his reputation with no less care than the cause of Marcus Tullius. Now, since Quinctius has thought it not foreign to the subject to introduce so many statements, false for the most part and most wickedly invented, concerning the life and habits and character of Marcus Tullius, Fabius must pardon me for many reasons, if I do not now appear to spare his character so much, or to show the same regard for it now as I did previously.
