[50]
In truth, O Erucius, you would have been a ridiculous accuser, if you had been born in
those times when men were sent for from the plough to be made consuls. Certainly you,
who think it a crime to have superintended the cultivation of a farm, would consider
that Atilius, whom those who were sent to him found sowing seed with his own hand, a
most base and dishonourable man. But, forsooth, our ancestors judged very differently
both of him and of all other such men. And therefore from a very small and powerless
state they left us one very great and very prosperous. For they diligently cultivated
their own lands, they did not graspingly desire those of others; by which conduct they
enlarged the republic, and this dominion, and the name of the Roman people, with lands
and conquered cities, and subjected nations.
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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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