[67]
As gold, under
pretence of being given to the Jews, was accustomed every year to be exported out of Italy and
all the provinces to Jerusalem, Flaccus issued an edict establishing a law that it should not
be lawful for gold to be exported out of Asia. And who is there, O judges, who cannot honestly
praise this measure? The senate had often decided, and when I was consul it came to a most
solemn resolution that gold ought not to be exported. But to resist this barbarous
superstition were an act of dignity, to despise the multitude of Jews, which at times was most
unruly in the assemblies in defence of the interests of the republic, was an act of the
greatest wisdom. “But Cnaeus Pompeius, after he had taken Jerusalem, though he was a
conqueror, touched nothing which was in that temple.”
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1856.
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