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[97]
Why need I mention the countless mass of papers, the innumerable autographs which
have been brought forward? writings of which there are imitators who sell their
forgeries as openly as if they were gladiators playbills. Therefore, there are
now such heaps of money piled up in that man's house, that it is weighed out
instead of being counted.1 But bow blind is
avarice! Lately, too, a document has been posted up by which the most wealthy
cities of the Cretans are released from tribute; and by which it is ordained
that after the expiration of the consulship of Marcus Brutus, Crete shall cease to be a province. Are you in
your senses.? Ought you not to be put in confinement? Was it possible for there
really to be a decree of Caesar's exempting Crete after the departure of Marcus. Brutus, when Brutus had no
connection whatever with Crete while
Caesar was alive? But by the sale of this decree (that you may not, O conscript
fathers, think it wholly ineffectual) you have lost the province of Crete. There was nothing in the whole world
which any one wanted to buy that this fellow was not ready to sell.
1 This accidental resemblance to the incident in the “Forty Thieves” in the “Arabian Nights” is curious.
M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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