3.
[4]
Oh, the good faith of gods and men! no witness is found in a case involving a sum of three
million two hundred thousand sesterces! Among how many men? Among more than six hundred. In
what countries did this transaction take place? In this place, in this very place which you
see. Was the money given irregularly? No money at all was touched without many memoranda.
What, then, is the meaning of this accusation, which finds it easier to ascend the Alps than a few steps of the treasury; which defends the
treasury of the Ruteni with more anxiety than that of the Roman people; which prefers using
unknown witnesses to known ones, foreign witnesses to citizens; which thinks that it is
establishing a charge more plainly by the capricious evidence of barbarians than by documents
written by our fellow citizens?
[5]
Of two magistracies, each of
which is occupied in handling and dealing with large sums of money, the triumvirate 1 and the quaestorship, such accurate
accounts have been rendered, that in those things which were done in the sight of men, which
affected many men's interests, and which were set forth both in public and private registers,
no hint of robbery, no suspicion of any offence can possibly arise.
[6]
The embassy to Spain followed, in a
most disturbed time of the republic; when, on the arrival of Lucius Sulla in Italy, great armies quarrelled about the tribunals and the
laws; and in this desperate state of the republic
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