but when the thoughts of my country, of your
 dangers, of this city, of all those shrines and temples which we see around us, of the infant
 children, and matrons, and virgins of the city occurred to me, and when those hostile and fatal
 torches destined for the entire conflagration of the whole city, when the arms which had been
 collected, when the slaughter and blood of the citizens, when the ashes of my country began to
 present themselves to my eyes, and to excite my feelings by the recollection, then I resisted
 him, then I resisted not only that enemy of his country, that parricide himself, but I withstood
 also his relations the Marcelli, father and son, one of whom was regarded by me with the respect
 due to a parent, and the other with the affection which one feels towards a son. And I thought
 that I could not, without being guilty of the very greatest wickedness, defend in their
 companion the same crimes which I had chastised in the case of others, when I knew him to be
 guilty. And, on the same principle, I could not endure to see
 Publius Sulla coming to me as a suppliant, or these same Marcelli in tears at his danger nor
 could I resist the entreaties of Marcus Messala, whom you see in court, a most intimate friend
 of my own. For neither was his cause disagreeable to my natural disposition nor had the man or
 the facts anything in them at variance with my feelings of clemency his name had never been
 mentioned, there was no trace whatever of him in the conspiracy; no information had touched him,
 no suspicion had been breathed of him. I undertook his cause, O Torquatus; I undertook it, and I
 did so willingly, in order that, while good men had always, as I hope, thought me
 virtuous and firm, not even bad men might he able to call me cruel. 
 This Torquatus then, O judges, says that he cannot endure my kingly power. What is the meaning
 of my kingly power, O Torquatus? I suppose you mean the power I exerted in my consulship; in
 which I did not command at all, but on the contrary, I obeyed the conscript fathers, and all
 good men. In my discharge of that office, O judges, kingly power was not established by me, but
 put down. Will you say that then, when I had such absolute power and authority over all the
 military and civil affairs of the state, I was not a king, but that now, when I am only a
 private individual, I have the power of a king? Under what title? “Why, because,” says he,
 “those against whom you gave evidence were convicted, and the man whom you defend hopes that he
 shall be acquitted.” Here I make you this reply, as to what concerns my evidence: that if I gave
 false evidence, you also gave evidence against the same man; if my testimony was true, then I
 say, that persuading the judges to believe a true statement, which one has made on oath, is a
 very different thing from being a king. And of the hopes of my client, I only say, that Publius
 Sulla does not expect from me any exertion of my influence or interest, or, in short, anything
 except to defend him with good faith.