Book 2
14
The power of supreme authority has had so much influence with a very few men, not in the cities, that either some most insignificant people of the most miserable and deserted towns were found who would go to Rome without the command of their people or their senate, or on the other hand, those who had been voted as ambassadors against him, and who had received the public evidence to deliver, and the public commission, were detained by force or by fear. And I am not vexed at this having happened in a few instances, in order that the rest of the cities, so numerous, so powerful, and so wise,—that all Sicily, in short, should have all the more influence with you when you see that they could be restrained by no force, could be hindered by no danger, from making experiment whether the complaints of your oldest and most faithful allies had any weight with you.
