The neatness of Cicero's transitions may be seen to good advantage in this oration. In the present section he passes by a clever turn from the safety of the allies to the safety of the revenues. Our ancestors took all possible pains to defend their allies even when they had suffered nothing themselves: shall we hesitate to defend our allies when our government has been insulted, — especially when on their safety depend our chief revenues? propter socios (emphat.): these wars have a place in the argument solely on account of their motive. The events referred to are the following: Antiochus the Great, king of Syria, was defeated by Scipio Asiaticus at Magnesia, B.C. 190. Philip V, king of Macedonia, was defeated by Flamininus, at Cynoscephalae, B.C. 197. The Aetolians had helped Rome against Philip, and then joined Antiochus against her; they were obliged to submit after the battle of Magnesia. Carthage had been forced into a third war in B.C. 149, and was taken and destroyed by Scipio Aemilianus in B.C. 146. agatur, etc., it is a question of your richest revenues. The province of Asia, like Sicily, paid as a tax the tenth of all products (decumae). The collection of this was farmed out by the censors to companies of publicani belonging to the equestrian order. All other provinces regularly paid a stipendium, or fixed tax, which they raised themselves. tanta, only so great. eis, abl. with contenti. via contenti, i.e. they will hardly pay the costs of their own defence. Asia: this description of Asia Minor is no longer true, for bad government and bad cultivation have exhausted its natural wealth. pastionis, pasture land, let to publicans, who paid a tax called scriptura. exportantur: the portoria were tolls and customs duties paid upon goods both exported and imported; the rate was 2 1/2, or (in Sicily) 5 per cent ad valorem.
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Select Orations of. Cicero. Allen and Greenough's Edition. Revised by J. B. Greenough and G. L. Kittredge, with a special vocabulary by J. B. Greenough.
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