[26]
But I will make my
complaint of this conduct, if ever the time comes that there is any discussion
concerning you among that body, which, up to this time, has been affronted by no one
but you. With what face have you presented yourself before the eyes of the Roman
people? when you have not yet pulled down that cross, which is even now stained with
the blood of a Roman citizen, which is fixed up in your city by the harbour, and
have not thrown it into the sea and purified all that place, before you came to
Rome, and before this tribunal. On the
territory of the Mamertines, connected with us by treaty, at peace with us, is that
monument of your cruelty raised. Is not your city the only one where, when any one
arrives at it from Italy, he sees the cross
of a Roman citizen before he sees any friend of the Roman people? which you are in
the habit of displaying to the people of Rhegium, whose city you envy, and to your inhabitants, Roman citizens
as they are, to make them think less of themselves, and be less inclined to despise
you, when they see the privileges of our citizenship extinguished by such a
punishment.
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