1Nor indeed does he say these things, judges, weeping, as I do now, but with this same face that you see. 1For he denies, he denies that he did what he did for ungrateful citizens; that he did it for timid ones, who look round at every danger, he does not deny. 1The common people and the lowest mob, who under the leadership of Publius Clodius were threatening your fortunes, he reminds you he made his own so that your lives might be safer, so as not only to sway them by his courage but also to soothe them with his three inheritances; nor does he fear that, while he has appeased the common people with his gifts, he has not won you over by his singular services to the state.
1He says that the senate's goodwill towards him has often been seen at these very times, and that your demonstrations, enthusiasm and words, and those of your orders, he will take away with him, whatever course fortune takes. 96He also recalls that he lacked only the herald's voice, which he least wanted, but that he was declared consul by all the votes of the people, which was the one thing he desired; 96and that now, finally, if these arms are to be turned against him, what stands in his way is the suspicion of a crime, not a charge based on fact. 96He adds these points, which are certainly true: that brave and wise men are wont to pursue not so much the rewards of right actions as the right actions themselves; 96that he has done nothing in his life except most gloriously, if indeed nothing is more excellent for a man than to free his country from dangers.
97Happy, he says, are those for whom such a deed has brought honour from their fellow citizens, yet those are not wretched who have outdone their fellow citizens in kindness. 97But still, of all the rewards of virtue, if rewards were to be taken into account, the most splendid reward is glory; 97this alone consoles the brevity of life with the memory of posterity, makes us present when absent and alive when dead; 97this, finally, is the one by whose steps men seem to climb even to heaven. 98'Of me,' he says, 'the Roman people will always speak, all nations will always speak; no length of years will ever fall silent.
98Why, at this very time, when all the firebrands of odium against me are being kindled by my enemies, still in every gathering of men I am celebrated with thanks given and congratulations offered and in all talk. 98I pass over the festal days in Etruria, both kept and instituted. 98This is the hundredth day since the death of Publius Clodius, and, I think, one more. 98Wherever the borders of the empire of the Roman people reach, there not only the report of it but also the joy has already travelled. 98Therefore where this body of mine may be, I am not,' he says, 'concerned, since the glory of my name already moves in every land and will always dwell here.'