[194]
It is a shameful
action, O judges, intolerable, permitted to no one by law, but perhaps not yet
punished in any instance. Still this very thing, which I say ought not to be
endured, I grant to you, O Verres; I make you a present of it. If in any place of
that province corn was at the price at which he valued it, then I think that this
charge ought not to have any weight against him. But when it was fetching two
sesterces, or even three at the outside, in any
district of the province which you choose to name, you exacted twelve. If there
cannot be any dispute between you and me either about the price of corn, or about
your valuation, why are you sitting there? What are you waiting for? What will you
say in your defence? Does money appear to have been appropriated by you contrary to
the laws, contrary to the interests of the republic, to the great injury of our
allies? Or will you say in your defence, that all this has been done lawfully,
regularly, in a manner advantageous to the republic, without injury to any one?
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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