[137]
This was the most shameless business of all. Three hundred denarii were openly
exacted (for this, forsooth, was permitted by the laws) from each censor, to be paid
down for the praetors statue. There were appointed a hundred and thirty censors.
They gave one sum of money for the censorship contrary to the law; these thirty-nine
thousand denarii they openly paid down for the statue, in compliance with the laws.
First of all, what was all that money for? Secondly, why did the censors pay it to
you for your statue? I suppose there is a regular order of censors, a college of
them. They are a distinct class of men! Why, it is either cities in their capacity
of communities, that confer these honours, or men according to their classes, as
cultivators, as merchants, as shipowners. But why to censors rather than to aediles?
Is it for any service that they have done? Therefore, will you confess that these
things were begged of you,—for you will not dare to say they were
purchased of you;—that you granted those magistracies to men out of
favour, and not with a new to the interests of the republic? And when you confess
this, will any one doubt that you incurred that unpopularity held hatred among the
different tribes of that province, not out of ambition, nor for the sake of doing a
kindness to any one, but with the object of procuring money?
This text is part of:
M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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