Against Publius Vatinius

If, O Vatinius, I had chosen to regard merely what the unworthiness of your character deserved, I should have treated you in a way that would have been very pleasing to these men, and, as your evidence could not, on account of the infamy of your life and the scandal of your private conduct, be possibly considered of the slightest consequence, I should have dismissed you without saying a single word to you. For not one of these men considered it worth my while either to refute you, as if you were an adversary of any importance, or to question you, as if you were a scrupulous witness. But I was, perhaps, a little more intemperate just now than I should have been. For from detestation of you, in which, although, on account of your wicked conduct to me, I ought to go beyond all men, yet I am in fact surpassed by everybody, I was carried away so far, that though I did not despise you at all less than I detest you, still I chose to dismiss you in embarrassment and distress, rather than in contempt.