[110]
You write, “If any one has made, or shall have made his
heir......” What are we to think? Suppose a man has bequeathed in legacies
more than comes to his heir or heirs, as by the Voconian law a man may do who is not
included in the census? Why do you not guard against this, as it comes under the
same class? Because in your expressions you are not thinking of the interests of a
class, but of an individual; so that it is perfectly evident that you were
influenced by a desire for money. And if you had issued this edict with only a
prospective operation, it would have been less iniquitous; still it would have been
scandalous: but in that case, though it might have been blamed, it could not have
been doubted about, for no one would have broken it. Now it is an edict of such a
sort, that any one can see that it was written, not for the people, but for the
second heir of Publius Annius.
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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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