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[79]
And yet, when it comes to measures so ruinous to
public welfare, they do not gain even that popularity
which they anticipate. For he who has been robbed
of his property is their enemy; he to whom it has
been turned over actually pretends that he had no
wish to take it; and most of all, when his debts are
cancelled, the debtor conceals his joy, for fear that he
may be thought to have been insolvent; whereas the
victim of the wrong both remembers it and shows
his resentment openly. Thus even though they to
whom property has been wrongfully awarded be
more in number than they from whom it has been unjustly taken, they do not for that reason have more
influence; for in such matters influence is measured
not by numbers but by weight. And how is it fair
that a man who never had any property should take
possession of lands that had been occupied for many
years or even generations, and that he who had
them before should lose possession of them?
M. Tullius Cicero. De Officiis. With An English Translation. Walter Miller. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1913.
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