Philippics, 8.15

Cicero  translated by C. D. Yonge

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15V. Let us come to instances nearer our own time. The senate entrusted the defence of the republic to Caius Marius and Lucius Valerius the consuls. Lucius Saturninus, a tribune of the people, and Caius Glaucia the prætor, were slain. On that day, all the Scauri, and Metelli, and Claudii, and Catuli, and Scævolæ, and Crassi took arms. Do you think either those consuls or those other most illustrious men deserving of blame? I myself wished Catiline to perish. Did you who wish every one to be safe, wish Catiline to be safe? There is this difference, O Calenus, between my opinion and yours. I wish no citizen to commit such crimes as deserve to be punished with death. You think that, even if he has committed them, still he ought to be saved. If there is anything in our own body which is injurious to the rest of the body, we allow that to be burnt and cut out, in order that a limb may be lost in preference to the whole body. And so in the body of the republic, whatever is rotten must be cut off in order that the whole may be saved.

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