[14]
There was, therefore, good cause for adopting an unusual determination. See
now whether or not I was the person who had the principal share in it. Who
was it whom that friend of yours, Sergius, whom Lollius, whom the other
rascals named when they were throwing the stones? who was it that they said
ought to provide them with corn? was it not I? What was it that that
nocturnal mob of boys which had been trained by you kept demanding? They
were demanding corn of me; as if I superintended the corn-market; or as if I
were keeping back any corn in store; or as if, in fact, I had any management
of, or influence whatever in, any affairs of that class at all. But the
fellow who was thirsting for slaughter had published my name to the
artisans, and to the ignorant mob. When the senate, in a very full house
assembled in the temple of the all-good and all-powerful Jupiter, had passed
a decree touching my dignity with only one dissenting voice, on a sudden, on
that very day, a most unexpected cheapness followed a time when corn had
been excessively dear.
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