Kitap 3
65
Apronius had his attendants of Venus about him; he took them with him about the different cities; he ordered banquets to be prepared and couches to be spread for him at the public expense, and to be spread for him in the forum. Thither he ordered most honourable men to be summoned, not only Sicilians, but even Roman knights, so that men of the most thoroughly proved honour were detained at his banquet, when none but the most impure and profligate men would join him in a banquet. Would you, O most profligate and abandoned of all mortals, when you knew these things, when you were hearing of them every day, when you were seeing them, would you ever have allowed or endured that such things should have taken place, to your own great danger, if they had taken place without enormous profit to yourself? Was it the profit made by Apronius, and his most beastly conversation, and his flagitious caresses, that had such influence with you, that no care for or thought of your own fortunes ever touched your mind?
