[34]
But let us now examine the rest of the clauses of the answers of the
soothsayers.—“That ambassadors have been slain contrary
to all divine and human law.” What is this? I see here a mention
of the deputies from Alexandria; and I cannot refute it. For my feelings are,
that the privileges of ambassadors are not only fenced round by human
protection, but are also guarded by divine laws. But I ask of that man, who,
as tribune, filled the forum with judges whom he took out of the
prisons,—by whose will every dagger is now guided and every cup of
poison dispensed,—who has made a regular bargain with Hermarchus
of Chios,—whether he is
at all aware that one most active adversary of Hermarchus, of the name of
Theodosius, having been sent as ambassador to the senate from a free city,
was assassinated with a dagger? and I know to a certainty that that cannot
have appeared less scandalous to the immortal gods than the case of the
Alexandrians.
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. George Bell & Sons, York Street, Covent Garden. 1891.
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