[38]
In truth, if we wish to disturb all these things, and to throw them into confusion,
we shall render life full of danger, intrigue, and enmity; if such allurements are
to have no scruples to protect them; if the connection between men in prosperous and
doubtful fortunes is to cause no friendship; if the customs and principles of our
ancestors are to have no authority. He is the common enemy of all men who has once
been the enemy of his own connections. No wise man ever thought that a traitor was
to be trusted; Sulla himself, to whom the arrival of the fellow ought to have been
most acceptable, removed him from himself and from his army: he ordered him to
remain at Beneventum, among those
men whom he believed to be exceedingly friendly to his party, where he could do no
harm to his cause and could have no influence on the termination of the war.
Afterwards, indeed, he rewarded him liberally; he allowed him to seize some estates
of men who had been proscribed lying in the territory of Beneventum; he loaded him with honour as a
traitor; he put no confidence in him as a friend.
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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