And since
 you were deceived in all this, O Erucius, and since you see that everything is altered;
 that the cause on behalf of Sextus Roscius is argued, if not as it should be, at all
 events with freedom, since you see that be is defended whom you thought was abandoned,
 that those who you expected would deliver him up to you are judging impartially, give us
 again, at last, some of your old skill and prudence; confess that you came hither with the
 hope that there would he a robbery here, not a trial. A trial is held on a charge of
 parricide, and no reason is alleged by the accuser why the son has slain his father. That which, in even the least offences and in the
 more trifling crimes, which are more frequent and of almost daily occurrence, is asked
 most earnestly and as the very first question, namely what motive there was for the
 offence; that Erucius does not think necessary to be asked in a case of parricide. A
 charge which, O judges, even when many motives appear to concur, and to be connected with
 one another, is still not rashly believed, nor is such a case allowed to depend on slight
 conjecture, nor is any uncertain witness listened to, nor is the matter decided by the
 ability of the accuser. Many crimes previously committed must be proved, and a most
 profligate life on the part of the prisoner, and singular audacity, and not only audacity,
 but the most extreme frenzy and madness. When all these things are proved, still there
 must exist express traces of the crime: where, in what manner, by whose means, and at what
 time the crime was committed. And unless these proofs are numerous and evident—so wicked,
 so atrocious, so nefarious a deed cannot be believed. 
 For the power of human feeling is great; the connection of blood is of mighty power;
 nature herself cries out against suspicions of this sort; it is a most undeniable portent
 and prodigy, for any one to exist in human shape, who so far outruns the beasts in
 savageness, as in a most scandalous manner to deprive those of life by whose means he has
 himself beheld this most delicious light of life; when birth, and bringing up, and nature
 herself make even beasts friendly to each other. Not many years ago they say that Titius Cloelius, a citizen of Terracina , a well-known man, when, having supped, he had
 retired to rest in the same room with his two youthful sons, was found in the morning with
 his throat cut: when no servant could be found nor any free man, on whom suspicion of the
 deed could be fixed, and his two sons of that age lying near him said that they did not
 even know what had been done; the sons were accused of the parricide. What followed? it
 was, indeed, a suspicious business; that neither of them were aware of it, and that some
 one had ventured to introduce himself into that chamber, especially at that time when two
 young men were in the same place, who might easily have heard the noise and defended him.
 Moreover, there was no one on whom suspicion of the deed could fall. Still as it was plain to the judges that they were found sleeping with
 the door open, the young men were acquitted and released from all suspicion. For no one
 thought that there was any one who, when he had violated all divine and human laws by a
 nefarious crime, could immediately go to sleep; because they who have committed such a
 crime not only cannot rest free from care, but cannot even breathe without fear.