Book 4
104
Not to dwell too long on this, he took care to have all these things taken down and carried off at one swoop by means of the slaves of the Venus whom he had sent thither for that purpose. O ye immortal gods! what sort of man is it that I am accusing? Who is it that I am prosecuting according to our laws, and by this regular process? Concerning whom is it that you are going to give your judicial decision? The deputies from Melitasent by the public authority of their state, say that the shrine of Juno was plundered; that that man left nothing in that most holy temple; that that place, to which the fleets of enemies often came, where pirates are accustomed to winter almost every year, and which no pirate ever violated, no enemy ever attacked before, was so plundered by that single man, that nothing whatever was left in it. What, then, now are we to say of him as a defendant, of me as an accuser, of this tribunal? Is he proved guilty of grave crimes, or is he brought into this court on mere suspicion? Gods are proved to have been carried off, temples to have been plundered, cities to have been stripped of everything. And of those actions he has left himself no power of denying one, no plea for defending one. In every particular he is convicted by me; he is detected by the witnesses; he is overwhelmed by his own admissions; he is caught in the evident commission of guilt; and even now he remains here, and in silence recognises his own crimes as I enumerate them.
