[47]
I said just now, O judges, that there were many censers, in
almost every house in fact; I assert also, that now there is not even one left. What
is the meaning of this? what monster, what prodigy did we send into the province?
Does it not appear to you that he desired, when he returned to Rome, to satisfy not the covetousness of one man,
not his own eyes only, but the insane passion of every covetous man, for as soon as
he ever came into any city, immediately the Cibyratic hounds of his were slipped, to
search and find cut everything. If they found any large vessel, any considerable
work, they brought it to him with joy; if they could hunt out any smaller vessel of
the same sort, they looked on those as a sort of lesser game, whether they were
dishes, cups, censers, or anything else. What weepings of women, what lamentations
do you suppose took place over these things? things which may perhaps seem
insignificant to you, but which excite great and bitter indignation, especially
among women, who grieve when those things are torn from their hands which they have
been accustomed to use in religious ceremonies, which they have received from their
ancestors, and which have always been in their family.
This text is part of:
M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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