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[17]
I think,
indeed, that there is nothing so well entitled to be called the acts of Caesar
as Caesar's laws. Suppose he gave any one a promise, is that to be ratified,
even if it were a promise that he himself was unable to perform?
As, in fact, he has failed to perform many promises made to many people. And a
great many more of those promises have been found since his death, than the
number of all the services which he conferred on and did to people during all
the years that he was alive would amount to.
But all those things I do not change, I do not meddle with. Nay, I defend all his
good acts with the greatest earnestness. Would that the money remained in the
temple of Ops! Bloodstained, indeed, it may be, but still needful at these
times, since it is not restored to those to whom it really belongs.1Let
that, however, be squandered too, if it is so written in his acts.
1 See Philippic 2.
M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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