[31]
I add this consideration also: how can it be likely, that when the burden
of the tributes was already so heavy, an addition of our thousand talents
could he made to so large a sum which was to be collected? or that, when a
man, a most avaricious man as you make him out, was to receive
so large a reward, he would put up with a diminution of a thousand talents?
For it was not like Gabinius, to give up so vast a portion of what he had a
right to; nor was it natural for the king to allow him to impose so great an
additional tax on his subjects. Witnesses will be produced, deputies from
Alexandria. They have not said a word against Gabinius. Nay, they have even
praised Gabinius. Where, then, is that custom? what has become of the usages
of courts of justice? Where are your precedents? Is it usual to produce a
witness to give evidence against a man who has been the collector of money,
when he has not been able to say a word against the man in whose name the
money collected?
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. George Bell & Sons, York Street, Covent Garden. 1891.
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