[59]
for there is constantly fluttering before those
men's eyes Juba, the king's son, whose purse is
every bit as long as his hair.
Even now there scarcely appears to be any place capable of containing such vast heaps of
money. He increases the sums, he adds to them, he keeps on accumulating. “To
whomsoever gold or silver comes, from spoils, from money given for crowns, if it has neither
been paid into the public treasury, nor spent in any monument.” Of that treasure he
orders a return to be made to the decemvirs, and the treasure is to be paid over to them. By
this case you see that an investigation even into the conduct of the most illustrious men,
who have carried on the wars of the Roman people, and that judicial examinations into charges
of peculation or extortion, are transferred to the decemvirs. They will have a power of
deciding what is the value of the spoils which have been gained by each individual, what
return he has made, and what he has left. But this law is laid down for all your generals for
the future, that, whoever leaves his province, must make a return to these same decemvirs, of
how much booty, and spoils, and gold given for the purpose of crowns he has.
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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