“Quippe ubi se multi, per somnia saepe loquentes,
               Aut morbo delirantes, protraxe ferantur,
               Et celata diu in medium peccata dedisse.”

["Surely where many, often talking in their sleep, or raving in
disease, are said to have betrayed themselves, and to have given
publicity to offences long concealed.”—­Lucretius, v. 1157.]

Apollodorus dreamed that he saw himself flayed by the Scythians and afterwards boiled in a cauldron, and that his heart muttered these words “I am the cause of all these mischiefs that have befallen thee.”  Epicurus said that no hiding-hole could conceal the wicked, since they could never assure themselves of being hid whilst their conscience discovered them to themselves.

                    “Prima est haec ultio, quod se
               Judice nemo nocens absohitur.”

["Tis the first punishment of sin that no man absolves himself.” or: 
“This is the highest revenge, that by its judgment no offender is
absolved.”—­Juvenal, xiii. 2.]

As an ill conscience fills us with fear, so a good one gives us greater confidence and assurance; and I can truly say that I have gone through several hazards with a more steady pace in consideration of the secret knowledge I had of my own will and the innocence of my intentions: 

         “Conscia mens ut cuique sua est, ita concipit intra
          Pectora pro facto spemque metumque suo.”

["As a man’s conscience is, so within hope or fear prevails, suiting
to his design.”—­Ovid, Fast., i. 485.]

Of this are a thousand examples; but it will be enough to instance three of one and the same person.  Scipio, being one day accused before the people of Rome of some crimes of a very high nature, instead of excusing himself or flattering his judges:  “It will become you well,” said he, “to sit in judgment upon a head, by whose means you have the power to judge all the world.”  Another time, all the answer he gave to several impeachments brought against him by a tribune of the people, instead of making his defence:  “Let us go, citizens,” said he, “let us go render thanks to the gods for the victory they gave me over the Carthaginians as this day,” and advancing himself before towards the Temple, he had presently all the assembly and his very accuser himself following at his heels.  And Petilius, having been set on by Cato to demand an account of the money that had passed through his hands in the province of Antioch, Scipio being come into the senate to that purpose, produced a book from under his robe, wherein he told them was an exact account of his receipts and disbursements; but being required to deliver it to the prothonotary to be examined, he refused, saying, he would not do himself so great a disgrace; and in the presence of the whole senate tore the book with his own hands to pieces.  I do not believe that the most seared conscience could