[70]
And
so that fellow, far more wicked and infamous than even the notorious Hadrian, 1 was a good deal more fortunate.
He, because Roman citizens could not tolerate his avarice, was burnt alive at
Utica in his own house; and that was
thought to have happened to him so deservedly, that all men rejoiced, and no
punishment was inflicted for the deed. This man, scorched indeed though he was by
the fire made by our allies, yet escaped from those flames and that danger; and has
not even yet been able to imagine what he had done, or what had happened to bring
him into such great danger. For he cannot say:—“When I was
trying to put down a sedition, when I was ordering corn, when I was collecting money
for the soldiers, when in short I was doing something or other for the sake of the
republic, because I gave some strict order, because I punished some one, because I
threatened some one, all this happened.” Even if he were to say so, still
he ought not to be pardoned, if he seemed to have been brought into such great
danger through issuing too savage commands to our allies.
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1 This had happened about twelve years before, in the consulship of the younger Marius and Carbo, A.U.C. 672.
M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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