[43]
What was the meaning of that madness? Did you think that you
would never have to give an account of your actions? Did you think that such men as
these would never hear of these transactions? Is such an inheritance to be claimed
without the slightest grounds for such a claim, in order to become the plunder of
the praetor? is the name of the city to be introduced? is the base character of a
false accuser to be fixed upon an honourable state? And not this only, but is the
whole business to be conducted in such a matter that there is to be not even the
least appearance of justice kept up? For, in the name of the immortal gods, what
difference does it make whether the praetor commands and by force compels any one to
abandon all his property, or passed a sentence by which, without any trial, he must
lose all his fortune?
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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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