[155]
How abundantly Apronius is
praised by Timarchides! How splendidly! Whom ought I to expect to be otherwise than
pleased with that man who is so highly approved by Timarchides? “You have
ample funds.” It is quite inevitable that what there was superfluous of
the gain you both made by the corn, must have gone chiefly to the man by whose
intervention you transacted that business. “Get hold of the new clerks and
officers. 1
—Use every means that offer, in concert with Lucius Vulteius, who has the
greatest influence.” See now, what an opinion Timarchides has of his own
dishonest cunning, when he gives precepts of dishonesty to Apronius! Now these
words, “Use every means in your power ” 2 —Does not he seem to be drawing words out of
his master's house, suited to every sort of iniquity? “I beg, my brother,
that you will trust your own little brother,” your comrade, indeed, in
gain and robbery, your twin-brother and image in worthlessness, dishonesty, and
audacity.
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1 The Latin is apparitor, which was “the general name for the public servants of the magistrates at Rome,—accensi, carnifex, lictores, scribae, &c. &c. They were called apparitores because they were at hand to execute the commands of the magistrates. Their service or attendance was called apparitio.”—Smith, Dict. Ant. in voce.
2 The Latin is caede, concide. “N.B. caede concide, Cic. proverbially; i.e. use every means in your power "—Riddle's Lat. Dict. in Concido.
M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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