[45]
What answer will you make to me now? Unless, perhaps, you say what, although it
cannot possibly be admitted as an excuse, yet must be urged in a trial for
extortion, that that ship was built with your own money. Dare, at least, to say this
which is necessary. Do not be afraid, O Hortensius, of my asking how it became
lawful for a senator to build a ship? Those are old and dead laws, as you are
accustomed to call them, which forbid it. There was such a republic here, once, O
judges; there was such strictness in the tribunals, that an accuser would have
thought such a transaction worthy to be classed among the most serious crimes. For
what did you want of a ship? when, if you were going anywhere on account of the
state, ships were provided for you at the public expense, both to convey you, and to
guard you? But it is not possible for you to go anywhere on your own private
account, nor to send for articles across the sea from those countries in which it is
not lawful for you to have any possessions, or any dealings.
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