on it. As for instance, if you were speaking in behalf of
some illustrious or gallant man, who has done great services to
the republic, you might, without appearing to have recourse to
deprecation, still employ it in this manner:--"But if, O judges, this
man, in return for the services which he has done you, and the zeal
which he has displayed in your cause at all times, were now, when he
himself is in such peril, to entreat you, in consideration of his many
good actions, to pardon this one error, it would only be what is due
both to your own character for clemency, and to his virtue, O judges,
for you to grant him this indulgence at his request." Then it will be
allowable to dwell upon the services which he has done, and by the
use of some common topic to lead the judges to feel an inclination to
pardon him.

Wherefore, although this kind of address has no proper place in
judicial proceedings, except to a certain limited extent; still,
because both the portion which is allowable must be employed at times,
and because it is often to be employed in all its force in the senate
or in the council, we will give rules for it also. For there was a
long deliberation in the senate and in the council about Syphax; and
there was a long discussion before Lucius Opimius and his bench of
assessors respecting Quintus Numitorius Pullus; and in this case the
entreaty for pardon had more influence than the strict inquiry into
the case. For he did not find it so easy to prove that he had always
been well affected towards the Roman people, by employing the
statement of the case founded on conjecture, as to show that it was
reasonable to pardon him on account of his subsequent services, when
he added the topics of deprecation to the rest of his defence.

XXXV. It will be desirable, therefore, for the man who entreats to be
pardoned for what he admits that he has done, to enumerate whatever
services of his he is able to, and, if possible, to show that they are
greater than those offences which he has committed, so that it may
appear that more good than evil has proceeded from him; and then to
put forward also the services done by his ancestors, if there are any
such; and also to show that he did what he did, not out of hatred, or
out of cruelty, but either through folly, or owing to the instigation
of some one, or for some other honourable or probable cause; and after
that to promise and undertake that he has been taught by this error of