For P. Sulla (40-42)

Torquatus being cut off from this article of his accusation, again turns against me, and accuses me. He says that I have made an entry in the public registers of a different statement from that which was really made. O ye immortal gods! (for I will give you what belongs to you; nor can I attribute so much to my own ability, as to think that I was able, in that most turbulent tempest which was afflicting the republic, to manage, of my own power, so many and such important affairs,—affairs arising so unexpectedly, and of such various characters,) it was you, in truth, who then inflamed my mind with the desire of saving my country; it was you who turned me from all other thoughts to the one idea of preserving the republic; it was you who, amid all that darkness of error and ignorance, held a bright light before my mind!

I saw this, O judges, that unless, while the recollection of the senate on the subject was still fresh, I bore evidence to the authority and to the particulars of this information by public records, hereafter some one, not Torquatus, nor any one like Torquatus, (for in that indeed I have been much deceived,) but some one who had lost his patrimony, some enemy of tranquillity, some foe to all good men, would say that the information given had been different; in order the more easily, when some gale of odium had been stirred up against all virtuous men, to be able, amid the misfortunes of the republic, to discover some harbour for his own broken vessel. Therefore, having introduced the informers into the Senate, I appointed senators to take down every statement made by the informers, every question that was asked, and every answer that was given.

And what men they were! Not only men of the greatest virtue and good faith, of which sort of men there are plenty in the senate, but men, also, who I knew from their memory, from their knowledge, from their habit and rapidity of writing, could most easily follow everything that was said. I selected Caius Cosconius, who was praetor at the time; Marcus Messala, who was at the time standing for the praetorship; Publius Nigidius, and Appius Claudius. I believe that there is no one who thinks that these men were deficient either in the good faith or in the ability requisite to enable them to give an accurate report.