Shame on the times, and on our present habits! That Cnaeus Domitius, whom we as boys saw consul, and censor and chief pontiff, when, as tribune of the people, he had impeached Marcus Scaurus, the chief man of the state, before the people, and when a slave of Scaurus had come secretly to him at his own house, and had offered to give information with respect to charges which might he brought against his master ordered the slave to be apprehended, and taken to Scaurus. See what a difference there is now,—although it is a shame of me to compare Castor to Domitius; still, he sent his slave back to his enemy, you have seduced one from your grandfather; he refused to listen to one though he had not been bribed, you have bribed one; he rejected a slave as his assistant against his master, you have employed one even as an accuser. But was it only once that that fellow was corrupted by you?
This text is part of:
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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