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"Of mutual trust, or concord, what hope is there? They wish to be lords, you desire to be free; they seek to inflict injury, you to repel it; they treat your allies as enemies, your enemies as allies. With feelings so opposite, can peace or friendship subsist between you ? I warn, therefore, and exhort you, not to allow such enormous dishonesty to go unpunished. It is not an embezzlement of the public moneyEmbezzlement of the public money] Peculatus œrarii. Peculator, qui furtum facit pecuniæ publicæ. Ascon. Pedian. in Cic. Verr. i. that has been committed; nor is it a forcible extortion of money from your allies; offenses which, though great, are now, from their frequency, considered as nothing; but the authority of the senate, and your own power, have been sacrificed to the bitterest of enemies, and the public interest has been betrayed for money, both at home and abroad; and unless these misdeeds be investigated, and punishment be inflicted on the guilty, what remains for us but to live the slaves of those who committed them For those who do what they will with impunity are undoubtedly kings.Kings] I have substituted the plural for the singular. "No name was more hated at Rome than that of a king; and no sentiment, accordingly, could have been better adapted to inflame the minds of Memmius's hearers, than that which he here utters."Dietsch.