[35]
Although, O judges, (for thus much I know
of my own knowledge,) many things are attributed to Plancius which were
never said by him. In my own case, because I sometimes say something, not
from any deliberate intention, but either in the heat of speaking, or
because I have been provoked; and because as is natural, among the many
things which I say in this manner something comes out at times if not
excessively witty, still perhaps not altogether stupid, the consequence is
that, whatever anyone else says people say that I have said. But I, if it is
anything clever and worthy of a well-educated and learned man have no great
objection but I am very angry when the sayings of other men are attributed
to me, which are utterly unworthy of me. For, because he was the first
person to give his vote for the law concerning the farmers, at the time when
that most illustrious man the consul gave that privilege to that order of
men by a vote of the people, which if he had have done it, he would have
given them by a vote of the senate, if it be a crime in him to
have given his vote for it, I ask what farmer was there who did not vote for
it? If the charge be that he was the first to vote, is that the fault of
chance, or of the man who proposed the law? If it was the effect of chance,
then there can be no crime in what happened by chance. If it was by the
choice of the consul, then it adds to the renown of Plancius that he was
considered the chief man of his order by so illustrious a man.
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