[76]
As he did not
relax in his demand, but urged it every day with daily increasing earnestness, the
matter was brought before their senate. His demand raises a violent outcry on all
sides. And so at that time, and at his first arrival at Segesta, it is refused. Afterwards, whatever
burdens could be imposed on any city in respect of exacting sailors and rowers, or
in levying corn, he imposed on the Segestans beyond all other cities, and a good
deal more than they could bear. Besides that, he used to summon their magistrates
before him; he used to send for all the most noble and most virtuous of the
citizens, to hurry them about with him to all the courts of justice in the province,
to threaten every one of them separately to be the ruin of him, and to announce to
them all in a body that he would utterly destroy their city. Therefore, at last, the
Segestans, subdued by much ill-treatment and by great fear, resolved to obey the
command of the praetor. With great grief and lamentation on the part of the whole
city, with many tears and wailings on the part of all the men and women, a contract
is advertised for taking down the statue of Diana.
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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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