[56]
Then the Mamertines perceived that they could not longer retain the privilege which
they had bought from its unprincipled author. Come now, you, who were desirous to be
thought such a scrupulous interpreter of treaties, tell us why you compelled the
Tauromenians and the Netians to furnish corn; for both of those are confederate
cities. And the Netians were not wanting to themselves, for as soon as you
pronounced your decision that you willingly excused the Mamertines, they came before
you, and proved to you that their case under the treaty was exactly the same. You
could not make a different decree in a case which was identical with the other. You
pronounce that the Netians are not bound to furnish corn, and still you exact it
from them. Give me the papers of this same praetor referring to his decrees, and to
the corn that was ordered to be supplied, and to the wheat that was bought. [The
papers of the praetor referring to the decrees, to the corn ordered to be supplied,
and to the wheat purchased, are read.]
In a case of such enormous and shameful inconsistency, what can we suspect, O
judges, rather than that which is inevitable; either that money was not given to him
by the Netians when he demanded it, or else that the Mamertines were given to
understand that they had disposed of all their bribes and presents very
advantageously, when others, whose case was identical with theirs, could not obtain
the same privileges?
This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.