And this, O judges, you may ascertain from the number of
 settlers, most honourable men, here present; who are here now, and are anxious and above all
 things desirous that the man, the patron, the defender, the guardian of that colony, (if they
 have not been able to see him in the safe enjoyment of every sort of good fortune and every
 honour,) may at all events, in the present misfortune by which he is attacked, be defended and
 preserved by your means. The natives of Pompeii are here also with equal eagerness, who are
 accused as well as he is by the prosecutors; men whose differences with the settlers about walks
 and about votes have not gone to such lengths as to make them differ also about their common
 safety. And even this virtue of Publius Sulla appears to me
 to be one which ought not to be passed over in silence;—that though that colony was originally
 settled by him, and though the fortune of the Roman people has separated the interests of the
 settlers from the fortunes of the native citizens of Pompeii, he is still so popular among, and
 so much beloved by both parties, that he seems not so much to have dispossessed the one party of
 their lands as to have settled both of them in that country. 
 “But the gladiators, and all those preparations for violence, were got together because of the
 motion of Caecilius.” And then he inveighed bitterly against Caecilius, a most virtuous and most
 accomplished man, of whose virtue and constancy, O judges, I will only say thus much,—that he
 behaved in such a manner with respect to that motion which he brought forward, not for the
 purpose of doing away with, but only of relieving his brother's misfortune, that though he
 wished to consult his brother's welfare, he was unwilling to oppose the interests of the
 republic; he proposed his law the impulse of brotherly affection, and he abandoned it because he
 was dissuaded from it by his brother's authority. And Sulla
 is accused by Lucius Caecilius, in that business in which both of them deserve praise. In the
 first place Caecilius, for having proposed a law in which he appeared to wish to rescind an
 unjust decision; and Sulla, who reproved him, and chose to abide by the decision. For the
 constitution of the republic derives its principal consistency from formal legal decisions. Nor
 do I think that any one ought to yield so much to his love for his brother as to think only of
 the welfare of his own relations, and to neglect the common safety of all. He did not touch the
 decision already given, but he took away the punishment for bribery which had been lately
 established by recent laws. And, therefore, by this motion he was seeking, not to rescind a
 decision, but to correct a defect in the law. When a man is complaining of a penalty, it is not
 the decision with which he is finding fault but the law. For the conviction is the act of
 judges, and that is let stand; the penalty is the act of the law, and that may be lightened.