1But before I come to that part of my speech which properly belongs to your inquiry, I think I must refute the charges which have often been bandied about in the senate by our enemies, and in the assembly by the wicked, and a little while ago by the prosecutors, so that, with every misconception removed, you may clearly see the matter which is coming to judgement. 1They say that it is not right for one who admits that a man has been killed by him to look upon the light. 1In what city, pray, do these most foolish men argue this? 1In that city, of course, which saw as its first capital trial that of Marcus Horatius, a very brave man, who, though the state was not yet free, was nevertheless acquitted by the assembly of the Roman people, although he admitted that his sister had been killed by his own hand.
8Or is there anyone who does not know that, when there is an inquiry into the killing of a man, it is usual either to deny outright that it was done or to maintain that it was done rightly and lawfully? 8Unless indeed you think that Publius Africanus was mad, who, when he was asked seditiously in an assembly by Gaius Carbo, tribune of the plebs, what he thought about the death of Tiberius Gracchus, replied that he seemed to have been justly slain. 8For neither the famous Servilius Ahala, nor Publius Nasica, nor Lucius Opimius, nor Gaius Marius, nor the senate in my consulship could escape being held wicked, if it were a sin for criminal citizens to be put to death.
8And so, judges, it is not without reason that most learned men have handed down to memory, even in fictitious tales, that the man who had killed his mother to avenge his father was acquitted, when men's votes were divided, by the verdict not only of a god but also of the wisest goddess. 9But if the Twelve Tables willed that a thief by night might be killed with impunity in any circumstances, and a thief by day if he defended himself with a weapon, who is there who thinks that, in whatever way a man has been killed, the killer must be punished, when he sees that a sword for killing a man is sometimes held out to us by the laws themselves?