Kitap 5
114
Not to dwell too long on this, Junius used most freely that liberty which you have given the allies, even at the moment of bitter punishment, such as was only fit for slaves. He condemns them all, with the approval of his assessors. And yet, in so important an affair, in a cause in which so many men and so many citizens were concerned, he neither sent for Publius Vettius, his quaestor, to take his advice; nor for Publius Cervius, an admirable man, his lieutenant, who, because he had been lieutenant in Sicily, while he was praetor was the first man rejected by him as a judge; but he condemns them all in conformity with the opinion expressed by a lot of robbers, that is, by his own retinue.
115
On this all the Sicilians, our most faithful and most ancient allies, who have had the greatest kindnesses conferred on them by our ancestors, were greatly agitated, and alarmed at their own danger, and at the peril of all their fortunes. That that noted clemency and mildness of our dominion should have been changed into such cruelty and inhumanity! That so many men should be condemned at one time for no crime! That that infamous praetor should seek for a defence for his own robberies by the most shameful murder of innocent men! Nothing, O judges, appears possible to be added to such wickedness, insanity, and barbarity—and it is true that nothing can; for if it be compared with the iniquity of other men it will greatly surpass it all.
