28.
The next thing is that charge about the Jewish gold. And this, forsooth, is the reason why
this cause is pleaded near the steps of Aurelius. It is on account of this charge, O Laelius,
that this place and that mob has been selected by you. You know how numerous that crowd is,
how great is its unanimity, and of what weight it is in the popular assemblies. I will speak
in a low voice, just so as to let the judges hear me. For men are not wanting who would be
glad to excite that people against me and against every eminent man; and I will not assist
them and enable them to do so more easily.
[67]
As gold, under
pretence of being given to the Jews, was accustomed every year to be exported out of Italy and
all the provinces to Jerusalem, Flaccus issued an edict establishing a law that it should not
be lawful for gold to be exported out of Asia. And who is there, O judges, who cannot honestly
praise this measure? The senate had often decided, and when I was consul it came to a most
solemn resolution that gold ought not to be exported. But to resist this barbarous
superstition were an act of dignity, to despise the multitude of Jews, which at times was most
unruly in the assemblies in defence of the interests of the republic, was an act of the
greatest wisdom. “But Cnaeus Pompeius, after he had taken Jerusalem, though he was a
conqueror, touched nothing which was in that temple.”
[68]
In the first place, he acted wisely, as he did in many other instances, in
leaving no room for his detractors to say anything against him, in a city so prone to
suspicion and to evil speaking. For I do not suppose that the religion of the Jews, our
enemies, was any obstacle to that most illustrious general, but that he was hindered by his
own modesty. Where then is the guilt? Since you nowhere impute any theft to us, since you
approve of the edict, and confess that it was passed in due form, and did not deny that the
gold was openly sought for and produced the facts of the case themselves show that the
business was executed by the instrumentality of men of the highest character. There was a
hundredweight of gold, more or less openly seized at Apamea, and weighed out in the forum at
the feet of the praetor, by Sextus Caesius, a Roman knight, a most excellent and upright man;
twenty pounds weight or a little more were seized at Laodicea, by Lucius Peducaeus, who is
here in court, one of our judges; some was seized also at Adramyttium, by Cnaeus Domitius, the
lieutenant, and a small quantity at Pergamus.
[69]
The amount of
the gold is known; the gold is in the treasury; no theft is imputed to him; but it is
attempted to render him unpopular. The speaker turns away from the judges, and addresses
himself to the surrounding multitude. Each city, O Laelius, has its own peculiar religion we
have ours. While Jerusalem was flourishing, and while the Jews were in a peaceful state, still
the religious ceremonies and observances of that people were very much at variance with the
splendour of this empire and the dignity of our name and the institutions of our ancestors.
And they are the more odious to us now because that nation has shown by arms what were its
feelings towards our supremacy. How dear it was to the immortal gods is proved by its having
been defeated, by its revenues having been farmed out to our contractors, by its being reduced
to a state of subjection.
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