M. Tullius Cicero, Against Verres
C. D. Yonge, Ed.

Out of all the money which it was your duty to pay to the cultivators, you were in the habit of making deductions on certain pretexts; first of all for the examination, and for the difference in the exchanges; secondly, for some stealing money or other. All these names, O judges, do not belong to any legal demand, but to the most infamous robberies. For what difference of exchange can there be when all use one kind of money? And what is sealing money How has this name got introduced into the accounts of a magistrate? how came it to be connected with the public money? For the third description of deduction was such as if it were not only lawful, but even proper; and not only proper, but absolutely necessary. Two fiftieths were deducted from the entire sum in the name of the clerk. Who gave you leave to do this?—what law? what authority of the senate? Moreover where was the justice of your clerk taking such a sum, whether it was taken from the property of the cultivators, or from the revenues of the Roman people?