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[11]

Postumus, then, is not an additional criminal implicated in the cause, which has been already decided. But still one Roman knight has been dragged before the court as a defendant, on a charge of extortion and peculation. On what account-books is this charge founded? On some which were not read on the trial of Aulus Gabinius. By what witness is it supported? By some one who never once mentioned his name at that time. On the sentence of what arbitrator do they rely? On one in which no mention whatever was made of Postumus. In accordance with the provisions of what law? Of one under which he is not liable.

Here now, O judges, the affair is one which has need of all your acuteness and of all your good sense. For you ought to consider what it is becoming to you to do, and not what is lawful for you. For if you ask what is lawful, you certainly have the power to remove any one whom you please out of the city. It is the voting tablet which gives you that power; and at the same time it conceals the capricious exercise of it. No one has any need to fear the consciousness of the tablet if he has no reverence for his own conscience.


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    • A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), COACTOR
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