For C. Rabirius (6-10)

Now, since, O Titus Labienus, you have sought to cramp my industry by a narrow space of time, and have denied the usual length of a defence which I was prepared to use, confining me to a single half-hour; I will comply with the conditions laid down by the accuser, (which is a most scandalous thing to have to do,) and yield to the power of our enemy, (which is a most miserable fate for a man to be compelled to,) although in prescribing to me this half-hour you have left me only the part of an advocate, and have ignored my

Unless, perhaps, you think it necessary for me to reply to you at some length about the sacred places and groves which you have said were violated by my client; though in making this accusation you never said anything more than that this charge had been made against Caius Rabirius by Caius Macer. And with respect to this matter I marvel that you recollect what his enemy Macer accused Caius Rabirius of, and forget what impartial judges decided on their oaths.

Moreover, I suspect that it was on that account that I was limited by Labienus to half an hour, in order that I might not be able to say much on this question of chastity. Therefore, you perceive that this half-hour is too long for me to discuss those charges which especially require the care of an advocate.

For as for the trial for treason, which, when you accuse me, you say has been put an end to by me, that is a charge against me; and not against Rabirius. And I wish, O Romans, that I was the first or the only person, who had abolished that in this republic. I wish that that, which he brings forward as a charge against me, might be an evidence of my peculiar glory. For what can be desired by any one which I should prefer to being said in my consulship to have banished the executioner from the forum, and the gallows from the Campus? But that credit belongs, in the first instance, O Romans, to our ancestors, who, after the kings had been expelled, did not choose to retain any vestige of kingly cruelty among a free people; and in the second instance, to many gallant men, who thought it fit that your liberty should not be an unpopular thing from the severity of the punishments with which it was protected but that it should be defended by the lenity of the laws.