[56]
These words follow: “That more honour must not he given to
worthless citizens and rejected candidates.” Let us see who are
the rejected candidates; for I will show you afterwards who are the
worthless citizens. But still all men must allow that this expression suits
that man above all other who is beyond all question the most worthless of
all mortals. Who then, are the rejected candidates? Not, I imagine, they who
some time or other have failed to attain some honour more by the fault of
the city than by their own. For that is a thing which has frequently
happened to many most excellent citizens and most honourable men. Those are
the rejected candidates meant, whom, when they were proceeding to the most
violent measures, when they were preparing exhibitions of gladiators
contrary to the laws, when they were bribing in the most open manner, not
only strangers, but even their own relations, their neighbours, the men of
their own tribe, towns-people and countrymen, all rejected. We are warned
not to confer any additional honours on these men. It ought to be a very acceptable admonition that they give us; but still the Roman
people itself, of its own accord, without any warning on the part of the
soothsayers, has provided against this evil.
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