[28]
But the tenth witness, the one who had been reserved
for the last, a senator of the Roman people, the pride of his order, the flower and ornament
of the courts of justice the model of ancient piety, Fidiculanius Falcula; gave his evidence
also. But though he came forward so eagerly and violently that he not only attacked Caecina
with his perjuries, but seemed to be angry with me also, I made him so tranquil and gentle
that he did not dare, as you recollect, to say a second time even how many miles his farm was
distant from the city. For when he had said that it was fifty-three miles 1 off, the people cried out with a laugh, that that was exactly the
distance. For all men recollected how much he had received on the trial of Albius.
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1 Some think that the number of miles here ought to be forty. In the trial of Cluentius, Cicero imputes to all the judges that they had been bribed with forty thousand sesterces; and of these judges Falcula was one, so that the laughter of the people must have been excited by a similarity of number between the sesterces and the miles.
M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1856.
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