1And at this point too the conviction of Marcus Camurtius and Gaius Caesernius is cited. 1What folly! 1should I call it folly, or extraordinary shamelessness? 1Do you dare, when you come from that woman, to make mention of those men? 1do you dare to rouse the memory of so great an outrage, not extinguished, indeed, but suppressed by time? 1For on what charge and for what offence were they ruined? 1Surely because they avenged that same woman's resentment and injury with the abominable Vettian outrage. 1So was it in order that the name of Vettius might be heard in the case, that that old tale of the copper coin might be told again, that the case of Camurtius and Caesernius was revived?
1who, though they were certainly not liable under the law on violence, were nonetheless so entangled in that crime that they seemed fit to be freed from the snares of no law. 72But why is Marcus Caelius summoned to this trial? 72against whom neither a charge proper to this court is brought, nor indeed any charge of the kind which is outside the law but within the reach of your strictness. 72His early years were devoted to training and to those arts by which we are equipped for this practice of the forum, for entering public life, for office, glory and standing. 72He was on terms of friendship with older men whose industry and self-restraint he most wished to imitate, and with such pursuits among his contemporaries that he seemed to be seeking the same course of glory as the best and noblest.
73And when his age had now gained a little strength, he set out for Africa as a member of the staff of Quintus Pompeius, the proconsul, a most upright man and most scrupulous in every duty; 73in which province there were both his father's property and estates and also a certain provincial experience, granted not without reason by our ancestors to this age. 73He left there with the highest approval in Pompeius' judgement, as you will learn from his own testimony. 73He wished, according to ancient custom and the example of those young men who afterwards became the greatest men and most illustrious citizens in the state, that his industry should be made known to the Roman people through some notable prosecution.