has nothing to do with the present occasion. Let us consider more
important matters.

IX. You have said that Publius Clodius was slain by my contrivance.
What would men have thought if he had been slain at the time when you
pursued him in the forum with a drawn sword, in the sight of all the
Roman people; and when you would have settled his business if he had
not thrown himself up the stairs of a bookseller's shop, and, shutting
them against you, checked your attack by that means? And I confess
that at that time I favoured you, but even you yourself do not say
that I had advised your attempt. But as for Milo, it was not possible
even for me to favour his action. For he had finished the business
before any one could suspect that he was going to do it. Oh, but I
advised it. I suppose Milo was a man of such a disposition that he was
not able to do a service to the republic if he had not some one to
advise him to do it. But I rejoiced at it. Well, suppose I did; was I
to be the only sorrowful person in the city, when every one else was
in such delight? Although that inquiry into the death of Publius
Clodius was not instituted with any great wisdom. For what was the
reason for having a new law to inquire into the conduct of the man who
had slain him, when there was a form of inquiry already established by
the laws? However, an inquiry was instituted. And have you now been
found, so many years afterwards, to say a thing which, at the time
that the affair was under discussion, no one ventured to say against
me? But as to the assertion that you have dared to make, and that at
great length too, that it was by my means that Pompeius was alienated
from his friendship with Caesar, and that on that account it was my
fault that the civil war was originated; in that you have not erred so
much in the main facts, as (and that is of the greatest importance) in
the times.