[85]
But why do I ask of you what
defence you are going to employ, instead of rather asking the city itself what you
have done. Read the public testimony of the Liparans, and after that read how the
money was given to Valentius. [The public testimony is read.] [The statement how the
money was paid, extracted out of the public accounts, is read.] Was even this little
state, so far removed out of your reach and out of your sight, separated from
Sicily, placed on a barren and
uncultivated island, turned as a sort of crown to all your other iniquities, into a
source of plunder and profit to you in this matter of corn? You had given the whole
island to one of your companions as a trifling present, and still were these profits
from corn exacted from it as from the inland states? And therefore the men who for
so many years, before you came as praetor, were in the habit of ransoming their
lands from the pirates, now had a price set on themselves, and were compelled to
ransom themselves from you.
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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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