1Does anything else, then, come to judgement except which of the two laid an ambush for the other? 1Certainly nothing: if Milo laid it for Clodius, let him not go unpunished; 1if Clodius laid it for Milo, then let us be cleared of crime. 32How, then, can it be proved that Clodius laid an ambush for Milo? 32In the case of so bold and so wicked a beast it is enough to show that he had a strong motive, a strong hope, and great advantages set before him in the death of Milo. 32So let that famous maxim of Cassius, 'who stood to gain', hold good in the case of these persons, although good men are not driven to wrongdoing by any gain, while the wicked often are by a small one.
32And yet, with Milo killed, Clodius would gain this: not only that he would be praetor without having as consul the man under whom he could commit no crime, but also that he would be praetor under those consuls with whose connivance, if not their help, he hoped he could have free play in those mad schemes of his: for they, as he himself reasoned, would not wish to check his attempts, even if they could, since they believed they owed him so great a favour, and, if they did wish, would perhaps scarcely be able to break the audacity of a most criminal man, now strengthened by long habit.
33Or are you alone ignorant, judges, are you strangers living in this city, are your ears travelling abroad and not present amid this widespread talk of the citizens, of what laws — if they are to be called laws and not firebrands for the city and plagues for the state — he was going to impose and brand upon us all? 33Produce, produce, I beg you, Sextus Clodius, that notebook of your laws which they say you snatched from the house and carried off from amid the weapons and the crowd at night like the Palladium, so that, no doubt, you could hand on this splendid gift and instrument of the tribunate to someone, if you found one, who would hold the tribunate at your bidding.
33And he looked at me with those very eyes with which he used to look when he threatened everyone with everything. 33Of course I am moved by this light of the senate house!