[146]
You say well, Alba. I will
agree to your conditions. You think that conjecture avails nothing at a
trial,—that suspicion avails nothing,—that the character of
one's previous life avails nothing,—nor the evidence of virtuous
men,—nor the authority or letters of cities. You demand evident proof I do
not ask for judges like Cassius. I do not ask for the ancient impartiality of courts
of justice. I do not, O judges, implore your good faith, your self-respect, your
conscientiousness in giving judgment. I will take Alba for my judge; that man who is
himself desirous of being considered an unprincipled buffoon: who by the buffoons
has always been considered as a gladiator, rather than as a buffoon. I will bring
forward such a case about the tenths that Alba shall confess that Verres, in the
case of the corn, and in that of the property of the cultivators of the soil has
been an open and undisguised robber.
This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.