[8]
Must I needs make a long speech on the topics of peculation, or of burning the registers? of
which charge Caius Curtius, a relation of Caius Rabirius, was most honourably acquitted, as
was due to his virtue, by a most illustrious bench of judges. But Rabirius himself not only
was never prosecuted on either of these charges, but never fell under any the very slightest
suspicion of them; nor was any such idea ever breathed by any one. Or must I be careful to
reply to what has been said touching his sister's son? who, you said, had been murdered by
him, as he sought an excuse for putting off the trial on the pretext of a domestic calamity.
For what is more natural than that his sister's husband should be dearer to him than his
sister's son? and so much dearer; that he would deprive the one of life in a most cruel
manner, in order to gain a two days' adjournment of his trial for the other? Or need I say
much respecting the detention of another man's slaves contrary to the Fabian law, or of the
scourging and putting to death of Roman citizens, contrary to the Porcian law, when Caius
Rabirius is honoured with the zeal displayed in his behalf by all Apulia, and by the eminent good-will of the state of Campania; and when not only individuals, but I may almost say
whole nations, have flocked hither to deliver him from danger, brought up from a greater
distance than his name as a neighbour of theirs on their borders required? For why need I
prepare a long speech on that point when it is set down in the count which assesses the
damages, that he had regard to neither his own chastity nor to that of others?
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