Sil.  Caesar, thy fraud is worse than violence.

Tib. 
   Silius, mistake us not, we dare not use
   The credit of the consul to thy wrong;
   But only to preserve his place and power,
   So far as it concerns the dignity
   And honour of the state.

Arr.  Believe him, Silius.

Cot.  Why, so he may, Arruntius.

Arr. 
   I say so. 
   And he may choose too.

Tib. 
   By the Capitol,
   And all our gods, but that the dear republic,
   Our sacred laws, and just authority
   Are interess’d therein, I should be silent.

Afer. 
   ’Please Caesar to give way unto his trial,
   He shall have justice.

Sil. 
   Nay, I shall have law;
   Shall I not, Afer? speak.

Afer.  Would you have more?

Sil. 
   No, my well-spoken man, I would no more;
   Nor less:  might I enjoy it natural, . 
   Not taught to speak unto your present ends,
   Free from thine, his, and all your unkind handling,
   Furious enforcing, most unjust presuming,
   Malicious, and manifold applying,
   Foul wresting, and impossible construction.

Afer.  He raves, he raves.

Sil. 
   Thou durst not tell me so,
   Hadst thou not Crease’s warrant. 
   I can see Whose power condemns me.

Var. 
   This betrays his spirit: 
   This doth enough declare him what he is.

Sil.  What am I? speak.

Var.  An enemy to the state.

Sil. 
   Because I am an enemy to thee,
   And such corrupted ministers o’ the state,
   That here art made a present instrument
   To gratify it with thine own disgrace.

Sej. 
   This, to the consul, is most insolent,
   And impious.

Sil. 
   Ay, take part.  Reveal yourselves,
   Alas!  I scent not your confederacies,
   Your plots, and combinations!  I not know
   Minion Sejanus hates me:  and that all,
   This boast of law, and law, is but a form,
   A net of Vulcan’s filing, a mere ingine,
   To take that life by a pretext of justice,
   Which you pursue in malice!  I want brain,
   Or nostril to persuade me, that your ends,
   And purposes are made to what they are,
   Before my answer!  O, you equal gods,
   Whose justice not a world of wolf-turn’d men
   Shall make me to accuse, howe’er provoked;
   Have I for this so oft engaged myself? 
   Stood in the heat and fervour of a fight,
   When Phoebus sooner hath forsook the day
   Than I the field, against the blue-eyed Gauls,
   And crisped Germans? when our Roman eagles
   Have fann’d the fire, with their labouring wings,
   And no blow dealt, that left not death behind it? 
   When I have charged, alone, into the troops
   Of curl’d Sicambrians, routed them, and came
   Not off, with backward ensigns of a slave;