1Come now, compare the journey of the unencumbered brigand with Milo's encumbrances. 1Always before, Clodius travelled with his wife; this time without her; 1never except in a carriage; this time on horseback; 1Greek hangers-on wherever he went, even when he was hurrying to the camp in Etruria; this time no frivolities in his retinue. 1Milo, who never did so, this time by chance was taking his wife's boy musicians and troops of maidservants; 1Clodius, who always took harlots with him, always catamites, always whores, this time took no one but men of whom you would say each had been picked, man by man. 1Why, then, was he beaten? 1Because the traveller is not always killed by the brigand; sometimes the brigand is killed by the traveller; 1because, although Clodius was prepared and fell upon men unprepared, still Clodius, a woman, had fallen upon men.
56Nor indeed was Milo ever so unprepared against him as not to be fairly well prepared. 56He always kept in mind how much it mattered to Publius Clodius that he should perish, how greatly Clodius hated him, and how much Clodius would dare. 56For this reason he never exposed to danger his life, which he knew had been put up for the greatest rewards and almost knocked down to the bidder, without a guard and without protection. 56Add chance, add the uncertain outcomes of battles and Mars who favours both sides, who often overthrows and strikes down a man already despoiling and exulting, by the hand of one laid low; 56add the incompetence of a commander who had lunched, drunk and was yawning, who, having left his enemy cut off in his rear, gave no thought to the hindmost of his companions; and when he fell among them, burning with anger and despairing of their master's life, he was caught in the punishment which those faithful slaves exacted from him for their master's life.
57Why, then, did he free them? 57He was afraid, no doubt, that he would be informed against, that they could not endure pain, that they would be forced by torture to confess that Publius Clodius had been killed on the Appian Way by Milo's slaves. 57What need is there of terror? 57what are you asking? 57Did he kill him? 57He did. 57Rightly or wrongly? 57That is no business of the torturer: on the rack the inquiry is into the fact, in court into the right.