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[11]
But that squandering of the public money can not possibly be endured by which
he got rid of seven hundred millions of sesterces by forged entries and deeds of
gifts, so that it seems an absolute miracle that so vast a sum of money
belonging to the Roman people can have disappeared in so short a time. What? are
those enormous profits to be endured which the household of Marcus Antonius has
swallowed up? He was continually selling forged decrees; ordering the names of
kingdoms and states, and grants of exemptions to be engraved on brass, having
received bribes for such orders. And his statement always was, that he was doing
these things in obedience to the memoranda of Caesar, of which he himself was
the author. In the interior of his house there was going on a brisk market of
the whole republic. His wife, more fortunate for herself than for her husband,
was holding an auction of kingdoms and provinces: exiles were restored without
any law, as if by law: and unless all these acts are rescinded by the authority
of the senate, now that we have again arrived at a hope of recovering the
republic, there will be no likeness of a free city left to us.
M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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