Kitap 3
49
You sold the tenths at a high price. What will be said, if I prove that you appropriated and took to your own house no less a sum than you had sent to Rome under the name of tenths? What is there to obtain popularity for you in that plan of yours, when you took for yourself from a province of the Roman people a share equal to that which you sent to the Roman people? What will be said if I prove that you took twice as much corn yourself as you sent to the Roman people? Shall we still expect to see your advocate toss his head at this accusation, and throw himself on the people, and on the assembly here present? These things you have heard before, O judges; but perhaps you have heard it on no other authority than report, and the common conversation of men. Know now that an enormous sum was taken by him on pretences connected with corn; and consider at the same time the profligacy of that saying of his, when he said that by the profit made on the tenths alone, he could buy himself off from all his dangers.
