Formerly, O judges, I had determined to conduct this cause in a different manner, thinking
 that our adversaries would deny that their household was implicated in such a violent and
 atrocious murder. Accordingly, I came with a mind free from care and anxiety, because I was
 aware that I could easily prove that by witnesses. But now, when it has been confessed, not
 only by that most honourable man, Lucius Quinctius, 
 but when Publius Fabius himself has not hesitated to admit the facts which are the
 subject of this trial, I come forward to plead this cause in quite a different manner from
 that in which I was originally prepared to argue it. For then my anxiety was to be able
 to prove what I asserted had been done. Now all my speech is to be directed to this point, to
 prevent our adversaries from being in a better position, merely because they have admitted
 what they could not possibly deny though they greatly wished to do so. 
					 Therefore, as matters stood at first your decision was more difficult, but my
 defence was easy. For I originally rested my whole case on the evidence; 
 now I rest it on the confession of my adversary; and to oppose his audacity in acts of
 violence, his impudence in a court of justice, may fairly be considered as the task of your
 power, not of my abilities.— For what is easier than to decide on the case of
 a man who confesses the fact? But it is difficult for me to speak with sufficient force of
 that which cannot be by language made out worse than it is in reality, and cannot be made more
 plain by my speech than it is by the confession of the parties actually concerned.
				 As, therefore, on account of the reasons which I have stated, my system of defence must be
 changed, I must also forget for a little time, in the case of Publius Fabius, that lenity of mine
 which I practiced at the previous trial, when I restrained myself from using any arguments
 which might have the appearance of attacking him, so much that I seemed to be defending his
 reputation with no less care than the cause of Marcus Tullius. Now, since Quinctius has
 thought it not foreign to the subject to introduce so many statements, false for the most part
 and most wickedly invented, concerning the life and habits and character of Marcus Tullius,
 Fabius must pardon me for many reasons, if I do not now appear to spare his character so much,
 or to show the same regard for it now as I did previously.
					 At the former trial I kept all my stings sheathed; but
 since, in that same previous trial, he thought it a part of his duty to show no
 forbearance whatever to his adversary, how ought I to act, I, a Tullius for another Tullius, a
 man kindred to me in disposition not less than in name? And it seems to me, O judges, that I
 have more need to feel anxious as to whether my conduct will be approved in having said
 nothing against him before, than blamed for the reply I now make to him. 
				 But I both did at that time what I ought to have done, and I shall do now
 what I am forced to do. For when it was a dispute about money matters, because we said that
 Marcus Tullius had sustained damage, it appeared foreign to my character to say anything of
 the reputation of Quintus Fabius; not because the case did not open the door to such
 statements. What is my conduct then? Although the cause does require it, still, unless when he
 absolutely compels me against my will, I am not inclined to condescend to speak ill of him.
 Now that I am speaking under compulsion, if I say anything strong, still I will do even that
 with decency and moderation, and only in such a way that, as he could not consider me hostile
 to him at the former trial, so he may now know that I am a faithful and trustworthy friend to
 Marcus Tullius.