Nam si ad utilitatem vitae omnia consilia factaque nostra derigenda sunt, quid est tutius quam eam exercere artem qua semper armatus praesidium amicis, opem alienis, salutem periclitantibus, invidis vero et inimicis metum et terrorem ultro feras, ipse securus et velut quadam perpetua potentia ac  potestate munitus? Cuius vis et utilitas rebus prospere fluentibus aliorum perfugio et tutela intellegitur: sin proprium periculum increpuit, non hercule lorica et gladius in acie firmius munimentum quam reo et periclitanti eloquentia, praesidium simul ac telum, quo propugnare pariter et incessere sive in iudicio sive in senatu sive apud principem possis.
If practical advantage is to be the rule of all we think and all we do, can there be any safer line to take than the practice of an art which gives you an ever ready weapon with which to protect your friends, to succour those to whom you are a stranger, to bring deliverance to persons in jeopardy, and even to strike fear and terror into the hearts of malignant foes'while you yourself have no anxiety, entrenched as you are behind a rampart of inalienable authority and power? While things are going well with you, it is in the refuge it affords to others, and in the protection it gives them, that its efficacy and usefulness are most in evidence; but when danger hurtles round your own head, then surely no sword or buckler in the press of arms gives stouter support than does eloquence to him who is imperilled by a prosecution; for it is a sure defence and a weapon of attack withal, that enables you with equal ease to act on the defensive or to advance to the assault, whether in the law courts, or in the senate house, or in the Emperors cabinet council.
final_alignments\Tacitus_Dialogus.json