[87]
And
learn this also from the public testimony of the Tissans. [The public testimony of
the Tissans is read.] Is it only obscurely, O judges, that the praetor himself is
the farmer, when his officers exact corn from the cities, levy money on them, take
something more as a compliment for themselves than they are to pay over to the Roman
people under the name of tenths? This was your idea of equity in your
command—this was your idea of the dignity of the praetor, to make the
slaves of Venus the lords of the Sicilian people. This was the line drawn, these
were the distinctions of rank, while you were the praetor, that the cultivators of
the soil were to be considered in the class of slaves, the slaves in the light of
farmers of the revenue.
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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