[71]
Listen now to what his orders were; and conceal, if you can, that you are aware of
what all Sicily well knew, that the praetor
himself was the farmer of the tenths, or rather the lord and sovereign of all the
allotments in the province. He orders the Agyrians to take the tenths themselves in
the name of their city, and to give a compliment to Apronius. If he had bought them
at a high price, since you are a man who inquired into the proper price with great
diligence, who, as you say, sold them at a high price, why do you think that a
compliment ought to be added as a present to the purchaser? Be it so; you did think
so. Why did you order them to add it? What is the meaning; of taking and
appropriating money, for which the law has a hold on you, if this is not
it,—I mean the compelling men by force and despotic power against their
will to give a compliment to another, that is to say, to give him money?
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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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