He also, amusingly, didn’t even try to convince the court that Milo was innocent. He simply tried to argue that he shouldn’t be punished for murdering Clodius. His argument rested on three things: first, that it was self-defence; secondly, that the city was effectively at war so the laws shouldn’t really apply (the infamous line: silent enim leges inter arma); and thirdly, that Clodius was a villain and, had Milo deliberately murdered him (which he hadn’t), he would have been saving Rome from yet another populist leader of the plebs who threatened the stability of the Senate.
