1He seemed to breathe again because it was no one else rather than I who was speaking. 1I began to speak. 1Up to the moment, judges, when I named Chrysogonus, I noticed that he was joking and busy with other things; 1but as soon as I touched on him, the fellow at once sat up and seemed astonished. 1I understood what had stung him. 1I named him a second and a third time. 1After that, people kept running to and fro, to tell Chrysogonus, I suppose, that there was someone in the state who dared to speak against his wishes; 1that the case was being conducted otherwise than he had supposed, the purchase of the property was being exposed, the partnership was being very roughly handled, his influence and power were being disregarded, the judges were listening carefully, and the people thought the affair outrageous.
61Since these things have deceived you, Erucius, and since you see that everything has been turned round, that the case for Sextus Roscius is being pleaded, if not skilfully, at least freely, that the man you thought had been handed over you realise is being defended, that those you hoped would hand him over you see are judging him, give us back at last that old cunning and shrewdness of yours, and confess that you came here in the hope that there would be a robbery here, not a trial. 61The charge being tried is parricide; 61no reason has been given by the accuser why the son killed his father.
62What in the smallest offences, and in those lighter faults which are more frequent and by now almost daily, is asked above all and first, namely what the motive for the crime was, that Erucius thinks need not be asked in a case of parricide. 62In that crime, judges, even when many motives seem to have come together in one place and to agree with one another, still it is not believed rashly, nor is the matter weighed on slight conjecture, nor is an unreliable witness heard, nor is the case decided by the accuser's cleverness. 62There must be shown not only many crimes committed earlier and a man's utterly abandoned life, but also a singular audacity, and not audacity alone but the utmost frenzy and madness.
62Even when all these are present, there must still be clear traces of the crime: where, by what means, through whom, at what time the crime was committed. 62And unless these are many and manifest, surely a deed so wicked, so atrocious, so unholy cannot be believed. 63For great is the force of human feeling; 63the bond of blood counts for much; 63nature herself cries out against suspicions of that kind; 63it is a most certain portent and prodigy that there should be anyone in human shape and form who has so far surpassed the beasts in savagery that he has most shamefully robbed of the light those through whom he first beheld this sweetest light, when even wild animals are bound to one another by birth and rearing and by nature herself.