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Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches — Volume 1 by Baron Thomas Babington Macaulay Macaulay
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in itself the worst evils of every other system, and combines
more than Athenian turbulence with more than Persian despotism?"

"Good Gods! Caesar. It is not safe for you to speak, or for us
to listen to, such things, at such a crisis."

"Judge for yourselves what you will hear. I will judge for
myself what I will speak. I was not twenty years old when I
defied Lucius Sylla, surrounded by the spears of legionaries and
the daggers of assassins. Do you suppose that I stand in awe of
his paltry successors, who have inherited a power which they
never could have acquired; who would imitate his proscriptions,
though they have never equalled his conquests?"

"Pompey is almost as little to be trifled with as Sylla. I heard
a consular senator say that, in consequence of the present
alarming state of affairs, he would probably be recalled from the
command assigned to him by the Manilian law."

"Let him come,--the pupil of Sylla's butcheries,--the gleaner of
Lucullus's trophies,--the thief-taker of the Senate."

"For Heaven's sake, Caius!--if you knew what the Consul said"--

"Something about himself, no doubt. Pity that such talents
should be coupled with such cowardice and coxcombry. He is the
finest speaker living,--infinitely superior to what Hortensius
was, in his best days;-- a charming companion, except when he
tells over for the twentieth time all the jokes that he made at
Verres's trial. But he is the despicable tool of a despicable
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