[109]
But as I have said, the case of the men of Aetna is clear enough, and established both by public and by private
documents. The task allotted to my diligence is to be required of me rather in the
district of Leontini, for this reason, because the Leontini themselves have not
assisted me much by their public authority. Nor, in truth, while that fellow was
praetor, did these injuries of the farmers very greatly affect them, or rather, I
might say, they did them good. This may, perhaps, appear a marvellous or even an
incredible thing to you, that in such general distress of the cultivators of the
soil, the Leontini, who were the heads of the corn interest, should have been free
from injury and calamity. This is the reason, O judges, that in the territory of
Leontini, no one of the Leontini, with the exception of the single family of
Mnasistratus, occupies any land. And so, O judges, you shall hear the evidence of
Mnasistratus, a most honest and virtuous man. Do not expect to hear any others of
the Leontini, whom not only Apronius, but whom even a tempest in their fields could
not injure. They in truth not only suffered no inconvenience, but even in the rapine
of Apronius they found gain and advantage.
This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.