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. Who, indeed, is of so profligate a disposition, as, when he sees these things, to be able
 to be silent and to disregard them? You have murdered my father when he had not been
 proscribed; you have classed him when murdered in the number of proscribed persons; you
 have driven me by force from my house; you are in possession of my patrimony. What would
 you more? have you not come even before the bench with sword and arms, that you may either
 convict Sextus Roscius or murder him in this presence? We lately had a most audacious man in this city, Caius Fimbria, a man, as is well known
 among all except among those who are mad themselves, utterly insane. He, when at the
 funeral of Caius Marius, had contrived that Quintus Scaevola, the most venerable and
 accomplished man in our city, should be wounded;—(a man in whose praise there is neither
 room to say much here, nor indeed is it possible to say more than the Roman people
 preserves in its recollection)—he, I say, brought an accusation against Scaevola, when he
 found that he might possibly live. When the question was asked him, what he was going to
 accuse that man of, whom no one could praise in a manner sufficiently suitable to his
 worth, they say that the man, like a madman as he was, answered, for not having received
 the whole weapon in his body. A more lamentable thing was never seen by the Roman people,
 unless it were the death of that same man, which was so important that it crushed and
 broke the hearts of all his fellow-citizens; for endeavouring to save whom by an
 arrangement, he was destroyed by them. Scaevola was trying to effect
 an accommodation between the parties of Sulla and Marius when he was murdered by them. Is not this case very like that speech and action of
 Fimbria? You are accusing Sextus Roscius. Why so? Because he escaped out of your hands;
 because he did not allow himself to be murdered. The one action, because it was done
 against Scaevola, appears scandalous; this one, because it is done by Chrysogonus, is
 intolerable. For, in the name of the immortal gods, what is there in this cause that
 requires a defence? What topic is there requiring the ability of an advocate, or even very
 much needing eloquence of speech? Let us, O judges, unfold the whole case, and when it is
 set before our eyes, let us consider it; by this means you will easily understand on what
 the whole case turns, and on what matters I ought to dwell, and what decision you ought to
 come to. There are three things, as I think, which are at the present time hindrances to Sextus
 Roscius:—the charge brought by his adversaries, their audacity, and their power. Erucius
 has taken on himself the pressing of this false charge as accuser; the Roscii have claimed
 for themselves that part which is to be executed by audacity; but Chrysogonus, as being
 the person of the greatest influence, employs his influence in the contest. On all these
 points I am aware that I must speak.