52 BC

SPEECH IN DEFENCE OF TITUS ANNIUS MILO

by Marcus Tullius Cicero

translated by Charles Duke Yonge, A.B.

THE ARGUMENT -

Titus Annius Milo, often in the following speech called only Titus Annius, stood for the consulship while Clodius was a candidate for the praetorship, and daily quarrels took place in the streets between their armed retainers and gladiators. Milo, who was dictator of Lanuvium, his native place, was forced to go thither to appoint some priests, etc.; and Clodius, who had been to Africa, met him on his road. Milo was in his carriage with his wife, and was accompanied by a numerous retinue, among whom were some gladiators. Clodius was on horseback, with about thirty armed men. The followers of each began to fight, and when the tumult had become general, Clodius was slain, probably by Milo himself. The disturbances at Rome became so formidable that Pompey was created sole consul; and soon after he entered on his office, A.U.C. 702, Milo was brought to trial. This speech, however, though composed by Cicero, was not spoken, for he was so much alarmed by the violence of Clodius's friends, that he did not dare to use the plain language he had proposed. Milo was convicted and banished to Marseilles.

SPEECH IN DEFENCE OF TITUS ANNIUS MILO -

ALTHOUGH I am afraid, O judges, that it is a base thing for one who is beginning to speak for a very brave man to be alarmed, and though it is far from becoming, when Titus Annius Milo himself is more disturbed for the safety of the republic than for his own, that I should not be able to bring to the cause a similar greatness of mind, yet this novel appearance of a new * manner of trial alarms my eyes, which, wherever they fall, seek for the former customs of the forum and the ancient practice in trials. For your assembly is not surrounded by a circle of by-standers as usual; we are not attended by our usual company. *(2) -

* This was an extraordinary trial, held under a new law just passed by Pompey; and it was presided over, not by the praetor, but by Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, who was expressly appointed by the comitia president of the judges on this occasion.

*(2) Pompey was present at the trial, surrounded by his officers, and he had filled the forum and all its precincts with armed men, for the sake of keeping the peace. -

For those guards which you behold in front of all the temples, although they are placed there as a protection against the violence, yet they bring no aid to the orator; so that even in the forum and in the court of justice itself, although we are protected with all salutary and necessary defences, yet we cannot be entirely without fear. But if I thought this adverse to Milo, I should yield to the times, O judges, and among such a crowd of armed men, I should think there was no room for an orator. But the wisdom of Cnaeus Pompeius, a most wise and just man, strengthens and encourages me; who would certainly neither think it suitable to his justice to deliver that man up to the weapons of the soldiery whom he had given over as an accused person to the decision of the judges, nor suitable to his wisdom to arm the rashness of an excited multitude with public authority.

So that those arms, those centurions, those cohorts, do not announce danger to us, but protection; nor do they expect us only to be calm, but even to be courageous; nor do they promise only assistance to my defense, but also silence. And the rest of the multitude, which consists of citizens, is wholly ours; nor is there any one individual among those whom you see from this place gazing upon us from all sides from which any part of the forum can be seen, and watching the result of this trial, who, while he favors the virtue of Milo, does not think that this day in reality his own interests, those of his children, his country, and his fortunes, are at stake.

There is one class adverse and hostile to us- those whom the madness of Publius Clodius has fed on rapine, on conflagration, and on every sort of public disaster; and who were, even in the assembly held yesterday, exhorted * to teach you, by their clamor, what you were to decide. But such shouts, if any reached you, should rather warn you to retain him as a citizen who has always slighted that class of men, and their greatest clamor, in comparison with your safety. Wherefore, be of good courage, O judges, and lay aside your alarm, if indeed you feel any; for if ever you had to decide about good and brave men, and about citizens who had deserved well of their country, if ever an opportunity was given to chosen men of the most honorable ranks to show by their deeds and resolutions that disposition toward brave and good citizens which they had often declared by their looks and by their words, all that power you now have, when you are to determine whether we who have always been wholly devoted to your authority are to be miserable, and to mourn forever, or whether, having been long harassed by the most abandoned citizens, we shall at length be reprieved and set up again by you, your loyalty, your virtue, and your wisdom. -

* Munatius Plancus, the day before, had exhorted the people not to suffer Milo to escape. -

For what, O judges, is more full of labor than we both are, what can be either expressed or imagined more full of anxiety and uneasiness than we are, who being induced to devote ourselves to the republic by the hope of the most honorable rewards, yet cannot be free from the fear of the most cruel punishments? I have always thought indeed that Milo had to encounter the other storms and tempests in these billows of the assemblies because he always espoused the cause of the good against the bad; but in a court of justice, and in that council in which the most honorable men of all ranks are sitting as judges, I never imagined that Milo's enemies could have any hope of diminishing his glory by the aid of such men, much less of at all injuring his safety.