[207]
All the provinces are mourning; all the nations that are free are complaining;
every kingdom is expostulating with us about our covetousness and our injustice;
there is now no place on this side of the ocean, none so distant, none so out of the
way, that, in these latter times, the lust and iniquity of our citizens has not
reached it. The Roman people is now no longer able to bear (I have not to say the
violence, the arms, and the war, but) the mourning, the tears, and the complaints,
of all foreign nations. In a case of this sort, in speaking of customs of this sort,
if he who is brought before the tribunal, when he is detected in evident crimes,
says that others have also done the same, he will not want examples; but the
republic will want safety, if, by the precedents of wicked men, wicked men are to be
delivered from trial and from danger.
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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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