[14]
You see now, O conscript fathers, that the money which is to belong to the decemvirs is
collected and heaped together from every possible source, and by every imaginable expedient.
The unpopularity arising from their possession of this large sum is to be diminished, for it
shall be spent in the purchase of lands. Exceedingly well. Who then is to buy those lands?
These same decemvirs. You, O Rullus— for I say nothing of the rest of
them,—are to buy whatever you like; to sell whatever you like, to buy or sell at
whatever price you please. For that admirable man takes care not to buy of any one against
his will. As if we did not understand that to buy of a man against his will is an injurious
thing to do; but to buy of one who has no objection, is profitable. How much land (to say
nothing of other people) will your father-in-law sell you? and, if I have formed a proper
estimate of the fairness of his disposition, will have no objection to sell you? The rest
will do the same willingly; they will be glad to exchange the unpopularity attaching to the
possession of land for money; to receive whatever they demand, and to part with what they can
scarcely retain.
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