[149]
If any king, if any city among foreign nations, in any nation had done anything of
this sort to a Roman citizen, should we not avenge that act by a public resolution?
should we not prosecute our revenge by war? Could we leave such injury and insult
offered the Roman name unavenged and unpunished? How many wars, and what serious
ones do you think that our ancestors undertook, because Roman citizens were said to
have been ill-treated, or Roman vessels detained, or Roman merchants plundered? But
I am not complaining that men have been detained; I think one might endure their
having been plundered; I am impeaching Verres because after their ships, their
slaves, and their merchandise had been taken from them, the merchants themselves
were thrown into prison—because Roman citizens were imprisoned and
executed.
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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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