1What? 1do you think I am angry with you, Sextus, when you punished my bitterest enemy far more cruelly even than my humanity could have demanded? 1You threw the bloody corpse of Publius Clodius out of the house, you cast it into the street, you left it, stripped of ancestral masks, funeral rites, procession and eulogy, half burnt on ill-omened logs, to be torn apart by dogs in the night. 1Therefore, although you acted wickedly, still, since it was on my enemy that you displayed your cruelty, I cannot praise you, but I certainly ought not to be angry. 34You have heard, judges, how much it mattered to Clodius that Milo should be killed: now turn your minds in turn to Milo.
34What did it matter to Milo that Clodius should be killed? 34what reason was there why Milo should, I will not say commit it, but even wish for it? 34'Clodius stood in Milo's way in his hope of the consulship.' 34But he was being elected in spite of Clodius's opposition, or rather was being elected all the more because of it, nor did he find me a better canvasser than Clodius. 34There weighed with you, judges, the memory of Milo's services to me and to the state; there weighed my prayers and tears, by which I felt then that you were wonderfully moved; but far more weighty was the fear of impending dangers.
34For which of the citizens could picture to himself the unbridled praetorship of Publius Clodius without the greatest fear of revolution? 34And you saw that it would be unbridled, unless there were a consul who would dare and be able to bind it fast. 34Since the whole Roman people felt that Milo alone was that man, who would hesitate by his vote to free himself from fear and the state from danger? 34But now, with Clodius removed, Milo must strive by ordinary means to maintain his standing; 34that unique glory, granted to him alone, which was growing daily through the crushing of Clodius's frenzies, has now fallen with the death of Clodius.
34You have gained this: that you need fear no citizen; 34he has lost the exercise of his courage, the support for his consulship, the everlasting fountain of his glory. 34And so Milo's consulship, which could not be shaken while Clodius lived, has at last begun to be assailed now that he is dead. 34So the death of Clodius not only does Milo no good, but actually harms him. 35'But hatred prevailed, he acted in anger, he acted as an enemy, he was the avenger of a wrong, the punisher of his own grievance.' 35What? 35if these feelings, I will not say were greater in Clodius than in Milo, but were at their height in him and absent in Milo, what more do you want?
35For why should Milo have hated Clodius, the harvest and material of his own glory, beyond that civic hatred with which we hate all the wicked? 35Clodius had reason to hate him, first as the defender of my safety, then as the harrier of his madness and the tamer of his armed bands, and finally even as his own prosecutor; 35for Clodius was a defendant under the Plotian law, prosecuted by Milo, as long as he lived. 35With what feelings, pray, do you believe that tyrant bore this? 35how great was his hatred, and how justified even, in an unjust man?