Kitap 5
11.12
The pro Milone iii. 7. will give us an example of argument from the greater to the less: They say that he who confesses to having killed a man is not fit to look upon the light of day. Where is the city in which men are such fools as to argue thus? It is Rome itself, the city whose first trial on a capital charge was that of Marcus Horatius, the bravest of men, who, though the city had not yet attained its freedom, was none the less acquitted by the assembly of the Roman people, in spite of the fact that he confessed that he had slain his sister with his own hand. The following pro Mil. xxvii. 72. is an example of argument from the less to the greater: I killed, not Spurius Maelius, who by lowering the price of corn and sacrificing his private fortune fell under the suspicion of desiring to make himself king, because it seemed that he was courting popularity with the common people overmuch, and so on till we come to, No, the man I killed (for my client would not shrink from the avowal, since his deed had saved his country) was he who committed abominable adultery even in the shrines of the gods ; then follows the whole invective against Clodius.
