" So the issue came down to whether plotting to commit treason could be equated with the act of treason itself. Cato was in no doubt that this was so, but he was arguing in the heat of the moment. In the final analysis, he and the other Senators were behaving not as legal experts but as politicians forced to come to a quick decision in an emergency. Nobody at the time challenged their right to do so. "

― Anthony Everitt , Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician