You do wrong, O Chrysogonus, if
 you place greater hope of being able to preserve your purchase, than in those exploits
 which Lucius Sulla has performed But if you have no cause for wishing this unhappy man to
 be afflicted with such a grievous calamity; if he has given up to you everything but his
 life, and has reserved to himself nothing of his paternal property, not even as a memorial
 of his father—then, in the name of the gods, what is the meaning of this cruelty, of this
 savage and inhuman disposition? What bandit was ever so wicked, what pirate was ever so
 barbarous, as to prefer stripping off his spoils from his victim stained with his blood,
 which he might possess his plunder unstained, without blood? You know that the man has nothing, dares do nothing, has no power, has
 never harboured a thought against your estate; and yet you attack him whom you cannot
 fear, and ought not to hate; and when you see he has nothing left which you can take away
 from him—unless you are indignant at this, that you see him sitting with his clothes on in
 this court whom you turned naked out of his patrimony, as if off a wreck; as if you did
 not know that be is both fed and clothed by Caecilia, the daughter of Balearicus, In the tenth chapter she is called the daughter of Metellus Nepos; so,
 if the reading there be correct, it must be corrupt here, which is probably the case.
 According to Graevius, she was a woman held in such esteem that, in the Marsic war, the
 temple of Juno Sospita was restored by a decree of the senate in compliance with a dream
 seen by her, as Cicero records in the treatise De Divinatione . the
 sister of Nepos, a most incomparable woman, who, though she had a most illustrious father,
 most honourable uncles, a most accomplished brother, yet, though she was a woman, carried
 her virtue so far, as to confer on them no less honour by her character than she herself
 received from their dignity. Does it appear to you a shameful thing that he is defended with earnestness? Believe me,
 if, in return for the hospitality and kindness of his father, all his hereditary friends
 were to choose to be present and dared to speak with freedom, he would be defended
 numerously enough; and if because of the greatness of the injury, and because the
 interests of the whole republic are imperilled by his danger, they all were to punish this
 conduct, you would not in truth be able to sit in that place. Now he is defended so that
 his adversaries ought not to be indignant at it, and ought not to think that they are
 surpassed in power. What is done at home is done by
 means of Caecilia; the management of what takes place in the forum and court of justice,
 Messala, as you, O judges, see, has undertaken. And if he were of an age and strength
 equal to it, he would speak himself for Sextus Roscius. But since his age is an obstacle
 to his speaking, and also his modesty which sets off his age, he has entrusted the cause
 to me, who he knew was desirous of it for his sake, and who ought to be so, He himself, by
 his assiduity, by his wisdom, by his influence, and by his industry, has taken care that
 the life of Sextus Roscius, having been saved out of the bands of assassins, should be
 committed to the decisions of the judges. Of a truth, O judges, it was for this nobility
 that the greatest part of the city was in arms; this was all done that the nobles might be
 restored to the state, who would act as you see Messala acting; who would defend the life
 of an innocent man; who would resist injury; who would rather show what power they had in
 procuring the safety than the destruction of another. And if all who were born in the same
 rank did the same, the republic would be less harassed by them, and they themselves would
 be less harassed by envy. But if, O judges, we cannot prevail with Chrysogonus to be content with our money, and
 not to aim at our life; if he cannot be induced, when he has taken from us everything
 which was our private property, not to wish to take away this light of life also which we
 have in common with all the world; if he does not consider it sufficient to glut his
 avarice with money, if he be not also dyed with blood cruelly shed—there is one refuge, O
 judges; there is one hope left to Sextus Roscius, the same which is left to the
 republic—your ancient kindness and mercy; and if that remain, we can even yet be saved.
 But if that cruelty which at present stalks abroad in the republic has made your
 dispositions also more harsh and cruel, (but that can never be the case,) then there is an
 end of everything, O judges; it is better to live among brute beasts than in such a savage
 state of things as this.