[59]
But to return to the fleet, from which topic I have been digressing; you accepted a
ship from the Mamertines contrary to the laws; you granted them relaxation contrary
to the treaties; so that you behaved like a rogue twice in the case of one city, as
you both granted indulgences which you had no right to grant, and accepted what it
was not lawful for you to accept. You ought to have exacted a ship from them fit to
sail against robbers, not to carry off the produce of your robberies; one which
might have defended the province from being despoiled, not one that was to bear away
the fresh spoils of the province. The Mamertines gave you both a city to which you
might carry all the plunder you amassed from all quarters, and also a ship, in which
you might take it away. That town was a receptacle for your plunder, those men were
the witnesses to and guardians of your plunder; they supplied to you both a
repository for your thefts, and a conveyance for them. In consequence, even when you
had lost a fleet by your own avarice and worthlessness, you did not venture to
require a ship of the Mamertines, at a time when our want of ships was so excessive,
and the distress of the province so great, that, even if it had been necessary to
beg as supplicants for a ship, they would have granted it. But all your power either
of commanding a vessel to be furnished, or of begging for one, was crippled, not by
the bireme supplied to the Roman people, but by that splendid merchant vessel given
to the praetor. That was the price of your authority, of the reinforcement they were
bound to supply, of exemption from the requirements of law, and usage, and of the
treaty.
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