[228]
And if all this is
endured,—if by their care, and expense, and labour, they consult your
advantage and that of the Roman people rather than themselves and their own
profit,—still, ought they also to bear these new edicts and commands of
the praetors, and the imperiousness of Apronius, and the robberies and rapine of the
slaves of Venus? Ought they also to supply corn which ought to be purchased of them
without getting any payment for it? Ought they also, though they are willing to
supply corn for the granary without payment, to be forced to pay large sums too?
Ought they also to endure all these injures and all these losses accompanied with
the greatest insult and contumely? Therefore, O judges, those things which they have
not at all been able to bear, they have not borne. You know that over the whole of
Sicily the allotments of land are
deserted and abandoned by their owners. Nor is there anything else to be gained by
this trial, except that our most ancient and faithful allies, the Sicilians, Roman
settlers, and the cultivators of the soil, owing to your strictness and your care,
may return to their farms and to their homes under my guidance and through my
instrumentality.
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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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