1These things were done just as I have set them out, judges: the waylayer was overcome, violence was conquered by violence, or rather audacity was crushed by courage. 1I say nothing of what the state has gained, nothing of what you have gained, nothing of what all good men have: by all means let that be of no benefit to Milo, who was born under such a destiny that he could not even save himself without saving the state and you along with him. 1If this could not be done lawfully, I have nothing to defend. 1But if reason has prescribed to the learned, necessity to barbarians, custom to nations, and nature herself to wild beasts, that they should always drive off all violence, by whatever means they can, from their body, their head, their life, you cannot judge this deed wicked without judging at the same time that all who have fallen among brigands must perish either by their weapons or by your verdicts.
31If he had thought so, surely it would have been preferable for Milo to offer his throat to Publius Clodius, which had been sought by him more than once and not then for the first time, rather than to have his throat cut by you because he had not surrendered it to Clodius to be cut. 31But if none of you thinks so, the question now coming to judgement is not whether he was killed, which we admit, but whether rightly or wrongly, which has often been inquired into in many cases. 31That an ambush was laid is agreed, and that is what the senate judged to have been done against the state; 31by which of the two it was laid is uncertain.
31It was concerning this, then, that a bill was passed for an inquiry. 31Thus both the senate censured the deed, not the man, and Pompey proposed an inquiry concerning the right, not the fact.