1And what sort of time was it? 1A most distinguished and most courageous man was consul, Publius Lentulus, an enemy of Clodius, the avenger of that crime of his, the champion of the senate, the defender of your wishes, the protector of the public consensus, the restorer of my safety; 1seven praetors and eight tribunes of the plebs were his opponents and my defenders; 1Gnaeus Pompey, the author and leader of my return, was his enemy — the man whose most weighty and most honourable proposal concerning my restoration the whole senate followed, who exhorted the Roman people; 1who, after he had made a decree about me at Capua, himself gave the signal to all Italy, which longed for it and begged for his protection, to hurry to Rome to restore me; 1in short, the hatred of all citizens against him was burning with their longing for me, so that, had anyone killed him then, people would have been thinking not of impunity for him but of rewards.
40At that time Milo restrained himself, and twice summoned Publius Clodius to court, but never to violence. 40What then? 40When Milo was a private citizen and on trial before the people, with Publius Clodius as prosecutor, and an assault was made on Gnaeus Pompey as he spoke for Milo, what an opportunity, and indeed what a justification, was there then for crushing him? 40And recently, when Marcus Antonius had brought the highest hope of safety to all good men, and that most noble young man had most bravely taken up a most weighty share of public duty, and was already holding that beast entangled as it tried to slip the snares of a trial, what a place, what a moment that was, immortal gods!
40When in his flight he had hidden himself in the darkness of a stairway, would it have been a great matter for Milo to finish off that plague, with no odium to himself and the greatest glory for Marcus Antonius? 41What then? 41At the elections on the Campus, how often there was the chance! 41When he had burst into the voting enclosures and had seen to it that swords were drawn and stones thrown, and then, terrified by Milo's face, suddenly fled to the Tiber, you and all good men prayed that Milo might choose to use his courage.