[11]
I, when a boy, have heard my father say this. When Quintus Metellus, the son
of Lucius, was prosecuted for extortion and peculation, he, that man to whom
the safety of his country was dearer than the sight of it, who had rather
abandon his city than his opinion; when he, I say, was before the court, and
when his account-books were being carried round to the judges that they
might see the entry of one item, I have heard that there was not one judge
among them Roman knights, most excellent men as they were, who
did not avert his eyes, and turn himself altogether away, lest any one of
them should appear for a moment to have doubted whether what such a man had
entered in his public accounts was true or false. And shall we open the
question of the legality of a decree of Cnaeus Pompeius, pronounced in
accordance with the vote of the senate? Shall we compare it with the words
of the laws? with the treaties? Shall we scrutinise everything with the most
unfriendly minuteness?
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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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