or did he write at your entreaty? But do you put no questions to Marcus
 Aebutius, a most sensible and virtuous man, a relation of Falcidius? Do you decline to examine
 Caius Manilius his son-in-law, a man of equal integrity? men who certainly must have heard
 something of so large a sum of money, if it had been given. Did you, O Decianus, think that you
 were going to prove so heavy a charge, by reading these letters, and bringing forward these
 women, while the author whom you were quoting was kept at a distance? Especially when you
 yourself, by not producing Falcidius, declared your own opinion that a forged letter would have
 more weight than the feigned voice and simulated indignation of the man himself if present.
 But why keep on so long discussing and expostulating about the letters of Falcidius, or about
 Andron Sextilius, or about the income of Decianus, and say nothing about the safety of fortunes
 of the state, and the general interests of the republic? the whole of which are at stake in this
 trial, and are resting on your shoulders,—on yours, I say, you who are our judges. You see in
 what critical times, in what uncertain and variable circumstances, we are all at present placed.
 
 There are certain men who are planning many other things, and who are labouring most
 especially to cause your inclinations, your formal decisions and sentences to appear in a most
 unfavourable and odious light to all the most respectable citizen. You have given many important
 decisions in a manner suited to the dignity of the republic and particularly you have given many
 respecting the guilt of the conspirators. They do not think that the republic has been turned
 upside down enough unless they can overwhelm citizens who have deserved well of the republic
 with the same punishment as that with which this impious man Caius Antonius has been crushed.