1Although I fear, judges, that it may be shameful for one who is beginning to speak on behalf of a very brave man to be afraid, and that it is hardly fitting, when Titus Annius himself is more disturbed about the safety of the state than about his own, that I should be unable to bring to his case an equal greatness of spirit, nevertheless this new form of a new court frightens my eyes, which, wherever they have fallen, look in vain for the old custom of the forum and the former practice of the courts. 1For your bench is not encircled by a ring of onlookers, as it used to be; 1we are not packed round by the usual throng; 2nor do those guards which you see in front of all the temples, although they have been posted against violence, fail nonetheless to bring the orator some measure of terror, so that in the forum and in court, although we are fenced in by guards that are salutary and necessary, we cannot even be free from fear without some fear.
2If I thought they were set against Milo, I would yield to the times, judges, for amid so great a force of arms I would not think there was any room for an oration. 2But I am revived and restored by the policy of Gnaeus Pompey, a man of the greatest wisdom and justice, who surely would think it neither consistent with his justice to hand over to the weapons of soldiers the same man whom he had delivered as a defendant to the verdicts of judges, nor consistent with his wisdom to arm the recklessness of an excited mob with public authority. 3Therefore those arms, those centurions and cohorts proclaim to us not danger but protection, and urge us to be not only calm but also stout of heart, and promise my defence not only help but also silence.
3As for the rest of the crowd, at least the part of it that consists of citizens, it is wholly ours, and there is not one of those whom you see looking on from every side from which any part of the forum can be seen, and awaiting the outcome of this trial, who does not, while he favours Milo's courage, also think that his own fate, that of his children, of his country and of his fortunes is being fought out on this present day.