In this cause we fear no witness; we feel sure that no one knows, or has ever seen, or has ever heard anything against us. But still, if the consideration of the fortune of Publius Sulla has no effect on you, O judges, let a regard for your own fortune weigh with you. For this is of the greatest importance to you who have lived in the greatest elegance and safety, that the causes of honourable men should not be judged of according to the caprice, or enmity, or worthlessness of the witnesses; but that in important investigations and sudden dangers, the life of every man should be the most credible witness. And do not you, O judges, abandon and expose it, stripped of its arms, and defenceless, to envy and suspicion. Fortify the common citadel of all good men, block up the ways of escape resorted to by the wicked. Let that witness be of the greatest weight in procuring either safety or punishment for a man, which is the only one that, from its own intrinsic nature, can with ease be thoroughly examined, and which cannot be suddenly altered and remodelled.

What? Shall this authority, (for I must continually speak of that though I will speak of it with timidity and moderation,)—shall, I say, this authority of mine, when I have kept aloof from the cause of every one else accused of this conspiracy, and have defended Sulla alone, be of no service to my client? This is perhaps a bold thing to say, O judges; a bold thing, if we are asking for anything; a bold thing, if, when every one else is silent about us, we will not be silent ourselves. But if we are attacked, if we are accused, if we are sought to be rendered unpopular, then surely, O judges, you will allow us to retain our liberty, even if we cannot quite retain all our dignity.

All the men of consular rank are accused at one swoop; so that the name of the most honourable office in the state appears now to carry with it more unpopularity than dignity. “They stood by Catiline,” says he, “and praised him.” At that time there was no conspiracy known of or discovered. They were defending a friend. They were giving their suppliant the countenance of their presence. They did not think the moment of his most imminent danger a fit time to reproach him with the infamy of his life. Moreover, even your own father, O Torquatus, when consul, was the advocate of Catiline when he was prosecuted on a charge of extortion: he knew he was a bad man, but he was a suppliant; perhaps he was an audacious man, but he had once been his friend. And, as he stood by him after information of that first conspiracy had been laid before him, he showed that he had heard something about him, but that he had not believed it. “But he did not countenance him by his presence at the other trial, when the rest did.” If he himself had afterwards learnt something, of which he had been ignorant when consul, still we must pardon those men who had heard nothing since that time. But if the first accusation had weight, it ought not to have had more weight when it was old than when it was fresh. But if your parent, even when he was not without suspicion of danger to himself, was still induced by pity to do honour to the defence of a most worthless man by his curule chair, by his own private dignity, and by that of his office as consul, then what reason is there for reproaching the men of consular rank who gave Catiline the countenance of their presence?