[55]
What does Naevius say to all
this? Forsooth, he laughs at our madness in expecting a consideration of the highest
duty, or looking for the practices of good men in his conduct. What have I to do, says
he, with all this sanctimoniousness and punctiliousness? Let good men, says he, look to
these duties, but let them think of me thus; let them ask not what I have, but by what
means I have acquired it, and in what rank I was born, and in what manner I was brought
up. I remember, there is an old proverb about a buffoon; “that it is a much
easier thing for him to become rich than to become the head of a family.”
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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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