Pro S. Roscio Amerino

PKO SEX. Roscio, §§ 144—148. 53
Eoscius has beconie yovu-s, do you not make it plain that
you are afraid of a contingency, wliich you more than the
rest of the world ought not to fear, that the childreu of
the proscribed may have their fathers' possessions restored
to them ?
146. Tou do a nrong, Chrysogonus, if you rest more
confident hopes for the security of your purchase on my
clienfs destruction than on the achlevements of Lucius
Sulla. But if there is no reason why my client should be
visited with such a disastrous fate, if he has given up to
you his all, saving only his hfe, and has not secretly kept
back for himself anything that belonged to his father, even
for a momento, in Heaven's name, what is the meaning of
your implacable relentlessness ? What is the natm'e of
your savage and brutal heart ? What robber was ever so
abandoned, what pii'ate so barbarous, as to prefer to di'ag
ofl' his plunder through gore when he might have his booty
intact without bloodshed ?
147. Tou know that my client has no money, no reckless
daring, no power, that he has never planned anything
against your interests, and yet you attack a man whom
you cannot fear and ought not to hate, and who you
see has now nothing left for you to rob him of : unless
you think it is a shame that you see sitting clothed in the
court the ma,n whom you drove from his inheritance naked
just as from a shipwreck ; as if forsooth you did not know
that my client is being supported and clothed by Caeciliaf^Ja*-^-CWft****
a lady who is universally respected, a lady who, though she '*^^->^%^^°(^
had a sire of high renown, imcles of glorious fame, and a
brother of great distinction, still, woman as she was, was
prompted by the manly spirit in her to take care to pay
back to them from her own glorious deeds distinctions in
no wise inferior to the honour she received from their high
position.
148. Do you think it is a shameful crime that he is
being energetically defended ? Believe me, if in return for
his father's hospitality and favours all my cUenfs guestfriends
consented to aid him and dared to defend him
without reserve, he would have a very abundant supply of
advocates ; but if everv one were to exact a vengeance for