Two conspiracies are spoken of by you, O Torquatus; one, which is said to have been formed in
 the consulship of Lepidus and Volcatius, when your own father was consul elect; the other, that
 which broke out in my consulship. In each of these you say that Sulla was implicated. You know
 that I was not acquainted with the counsels of your father, a most brave man, and a most
 excellent consul. You know, as there was the greatest intimacy between you and me, that I knew
 nothing of what happened, or of what was said in those times; I imagine, because I had not yet
 become a thoroughly public character, because I had not yet arrived at the goal of honour which
 I proposed to myself; and because my ambition and my forensic labours separated me from all
 political deliberations. Who, then, was present at your
 counsels? All these men whom you see here, giving Sulla the countenance of their presence; and
 among the first was Quintus Hortensius—who, by reason of his honour and worth, and his admirable
 disposition towards the republic, and because of his exceeding intimacy with and excessive
 attachment to your father, was greatly moved by the thoughts of the common danger, and most
 especially by the personal peril of your father. Therefore, he was defended from the charge of
 being implicated in that conspiracy by that man who was present at and acquainted with all your
 deliberations, who was a partner in all your thoughts and in all your fears; and, elegant and
 argumentative as his speech in repelling this accusation was, it carried with it as much
 authority as it displayed of ability. Of that conspiracy, therefore, which is said to have been
 formed against you, to have been reported to you, and to have been revealed by you, I was unable
 to say anything as a witness. For I not only found out nothing, but scarcely did any report or
 suspicion of that matter reach my ears. They who were your
 counselors, who became acquainted with these things in your company,—they who were supposed to
 be themselves menaced with that danger, who gave no countenance to Autronius, who gave most
 important evidence against him,—are now defending Publius Sulla, are countenancing him by their
 presence here; now that he is in danger they declare that they were not deterred by the
 accusation of conspiracy from countenancing the others, but by the guilt of the men. But for the
 time of my consulship, and with respect to the charge of the greatest conspiracy, Sulla shall be
 defended by me. And this partition of the cause between Hortensius and me has not been made by
 chance, or at random, O judges, but as we saw that we were employed as defenders of a man
 against those accusations in which we might have been witnesses, each of us thought that it
 would be best for him to undertake that part of the case, concerning which he himself had been
 able to acquire some knowledge, and to form some opinions with certainty. 
 And since you have listened attentively to Hortensius, while speaking on the charge respecting
 the former conspiracy, now, I beg you, listen to this first statement of mine respecting the
 conspiracy which was formed in my consulship. 
 When I was consul I heard many reports, I made many inquiries, I learnt a great many
 circumstances concerning the extreme peril of the republic. No messenger, no information, no
 letters, no suspicion ever reached me at any time in the least affecting Sulla. Perhaps this
 assertion ought to have great weight when coming from a man who as consul had investigated the
 plots laid against the republic with prudence, had revealed them with sincerity had chastised
 them with magnanimity and who says that he himself never heard a word against Publius Sulla and
 never entertained a suspicion of him. But I do not as yet employ this assertion for the purpose
 of defending him I rather use it with a view to clear myself in order that Torquatus may cease
 to wonder that I, who would not appear by the side of Autronius, am now defending Sulla.
 For what was the cause of Autronius? and what is the cause
 of Sulla? The former tried to disturb and get rid of a prosecution for bribery by
 raising in the first instance a sedition among gladiators and runaway slaves, and after that as
 we all saw, by stoning people, and collecting a violent mob. Sulla, if his own modesty and worth
 could not avail him, sought no other assistance. The former, when he had been convicted, behaved
 in such a manner, not only in his secret designs and conversation, but in every look and in his
 whole countenance, as to appear an enemy to the most honourable orders in the state, hostile to
 every virtuous man, and a foe to his country. The latter considered himself so bowed down, so
 broken down by that misfortune, that he thought that none of his former dignity was left to him,
 except what he could retain by his present moderation.