[127]
Wait a little, O judges, wait a little, if you can, for confirmation of my speech.
I say that the cultivators have been driven away by that man's avarice: Metellus
writes word that those who were left have been reassured by him. I say that the
fields have been abandoned, and the allotments deserted: Metellus writes word that
there is great penury among the cultivators. When he writes this, he shows that the
allies and friends of the Roman people have been cast down, and driven off, and
stripped of all their fortunes; and yet if any calamity had happened to these men by
his means, even without any injury to our revenues, you ought to punish him,
especially while judging according to that law which was established for the sake of
the allies. But when our allies are oppressed and ruined, and the revenues of the
Roman people diminished at the same time,—when our supplies of corn and
provisions, our wealth, and the safety of the city and of our armies for the future
is destroyed by his avarice, at least have a regard to the advantage of the Roman
people, if you have no anxiety to show your regard for our most faithful allies.
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.