30
The father infamously murdered; the house besieged; the property taken away, seized and plundered by enemies; the life of the son, hostile to their purposes, attacked over and over again by sword and treachery. What wickedness does there seem to be wanting in these numberless atrocities? And yet they crown and add to them by other nefarious deeds, they invent an incredible accusation; they procure witnesses against him and accusers of him by bribery; they offer the wretched man this alternative, whether he would prefer to expose his neck to Roscius to be assassinated by him, or, being sewn in a sack, to lose his life with the greatest infamy. They thought advocates would be wanting to him; they are wanting. There is not wanting in truth, O judges, one who will speak with freedom, and who will defend him with integrity, which is quite sufficient in this cause, (since I have undertaken it).
31
And perhaps in undertaking this cause I may have acted rashly, in obedience to the impulses of youth; but since I have once undertaken it, although forsooth every sort of terror and every possible danger were to threaten me on all sides, yet I will support and encounter them. I have deliberately resolved not only to say everything which I think is material to the cause, but to say it also willingly, boldly, and freely. Nothing can ever be of such importance in my mind that fear should be able to put a greater constraint on me than a regard to good faith.