[42]
What cultivator of the soil, when you were
praetor, paid a tenth? Who paid two-tenths only? Who was there who did not think
himself treated with the greatest lenity if he paid three tenths instead of one,
except a few men, who, on account of a partnership with you in your robberies, paid
nothing at all? See how great a difference there is between your harshness and the
kindness of the senate. The senate, when owing to any necessity of the republic it
is compelled to decree that a second tenth shall be exacted, decrees that for that
second tenth money be paid to the cultivators, so that the quantity which is taken
beyond what is strictly due may be considered to be purchased, not to be taken away.
You, when you were exacting and seizing so many tenths, not by a decree of the
senate, but by your own edicts and nefarious regulations, shall you think that you
have done a great deed if you sell them for more than Lucius Hortensius, the father
of this Quintus Hortensius, did,—than Cnaeus Pompeius or Caius Marcellus
sold them for; men who did not violate justice, or law, or established rules?
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