If, after having done so many services to the republic, I were to ask for myself no other
 reward from the senate and people of Rome beyond honourable ease, who is there who would not
 grant it to me? If I were to ask, that they would keep all honours, and commands, and provinces,
 and triumphs, and all the other insignia of eminent renown to themselves, and that they would
 allow me to enjoy the sight of the city which I had saved, and a tranquil and quiet mind?—What,
 however, if I do not ask this? what, if my former industry, my anxiety, my assistance, my
 labour, my vigilance is still at the service of my friends, and ready at the call of every one?
 If my friends never seek in vain for my zeal on their behalf in the forum, nor the republic in
 the senate house; if neither the holiday earned by my previous achievements, nor the
 excuse—which my past honours or my present age might supply me with, is employed to save me from
 trouble; if my good-will—my industry, my house, my attention, and my ears are always open to all
 men; if I have not even any time left to recollect and think over those things which I have done
 for the safety of the whole body of citizens; shall this still be called kingly power, when no
 one can possibly be found who would act as my substitute in it? All suspicion of aiming at kingly power is very far removed from me. If you ask who they are
 who have endeavoured to assume kingly power in Rome, without unfolding the records of the public
 annals, you may find them among the images in your own house. I suppose it is my achievements
 which have unduly elated me, and have inspired me with I know not how much pride. Concerning
 which deeds of mine, illustrious and immortal as they are, O judges, I can say thus much—that I,
 who have saved this city, and the lives of all the citizens, from the most extreme
 dangers, shall have gained quite reward enough, if no danger arises to myself out of the great
 service which I have done to all men. 
 In truth, I recollect in what state it is that I have done such great exploits, and in what
 city I am living. The forum is full of those men whom I, O judges, have taken off from your
 necks, but have not removed from my own. Unless you think that they were only a few men, who
 were able to attempt or to hope that they might be able to destroy so vast an empire. I was able
 to take away their firebrands, to wrest their torches from their hands, as I did; but their
 wicked and impious inclinations I could neither cure nor eradicate. Therefore I am not ignorant
 in what danger I am living among such a multitude of wicked men, since I see that I have
 undertaken single-handed an eternal war against all wicked men. 
 But if perchance, you envy that means of protection which I have, and if it seems to you to be
 of a kingly sort,—namely, the fact that all good men of all ranks and classes consider their
 safety as bound up with mine,—comfort yourself with the reflection that the dispositions of all
 wicked men are especially hostile to and furious against me alone; and they hate me, not only
 because I repressed their profligate attempts and impious madness, but still more because they
 think, that, as long as I am alive, they can attempt nothing more of the same sort. But why do I wonder if any wicked thing is said of me by wicked men,
 where Lucius Torquatus himself, after having in the first place laid such a foundation of virtue
 as he did in his youth, after having proposed to himself the hope of the most honourable dignity
 in the state, and, in the second place, being the son of Lucius Torquatus, a most intrepid
 consul a most virtuous senator, and at all times a most admirable citizen, is sometimes run away
 with by impetuosity of language? For when he had spoken in a low voice of the wickedness of
 Publius Lentulus, and of the audacity of all the conspirators, so that only you, who approve of
 those things, could hear what he said, he spoke with a loud querulous voice of the execution of
 Publius Lentulus and of the prison;