[191]
I ask of you now, O Hortensius, with which of these classes you are going to
compare the conduct of Verres? With those, I suppose, who, influenced by their own
kindness, have granted, as a favour and as a convenience to the cities, permission
to give money instead of corn. And so I suppose the cultivators begged of him, that,
as they could not sell a modius of wheat for three
sesterces, they may be allowed to pay three denarii instead of each modius.
Or, since you do not dare to say this, will you take refuge in that assertion, that,
being influenced by the difficulty of carriage, they preferred to give three
denarii? Of what carriage? Wishing not to have to
carry it from what place to what place? from Philomelium to Ephesus? I
see what is the difference between the price of corn at different places; I see too
how many days' journey it is; I see that it is for the advantage of the Philomelians
rather to pay in Phrygia the price which
corn bears in Ephesus, than to carry it to
Ephesus, or to send both money and agents
to Ephesus to buy corn.
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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