[9]
What? do you think
this can be endurable to any one,—that we should live on slender incomes
in such a way as not even to wish to acquire anything more; that we should be
content with maintaining our dignity, and the goodwill of the Roman people, not by
wealth, but by virtue; but that that man having robbed every one on all sides, and
having escaped with impunity, should live, in prosperity and abundance? that all
your banquets should be decorated with his plate, your forum and hall of assembly
with his statues and pictures? especially when, through your own valour, you are
rich in all such trophies? That it should be Verres who adorns your villas with his
spoils? That it should be Verres who is vying with Lucius Mummius: so that the one
appears to have laid waste more cities of the allies, than the other overthrew
belonging to the enemy? That the one, unassisted, seems to have adorned more villas
with the decorations of temples, than the other decorated-temples with the spoils of
the enemy? And shall he be dearer to you, in order that others may more willingly
become subservient to your covetousness at their own risk?
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