[66]
You see, O judges, what sort of conflagration, and how vast a
torrent of collectors spread itself with violence, not only over the fields but also
over all the other property of the cultivators; not only over the property, but also
over the rights of liberty and of the state. You see some men suspended from trees;
others beaten and scourged; others kept as prisoners in the public place; others
left standing alone at a feast; others condemned by the physician and crier of the
praetor; and nevertheless the property of all of them is carried off from the fields
and plundered at the same time. What is all this? Is this the rule of the Roman
people? Are these the laws of the Roman people? are these their tribunals? are these
their faithful allies? is this their suburban province? Are not rather all these
things such that even Athenio would not have done them if he had been victorious in
Sicily? I say, O judges, that the
evidence of fugitive slaves would not have equalled one quarter of the wickedness of
that man.
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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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