14
Marcus Tullius had a farm, inherited from his father, in the territory of Thurium, O judges, which he was never sorry to have, till he got a neighbor who preferred extending the boundaries of his estate by arms, to defending them by law. For Publius Fabius lately purchased a farm of Caius Claudius, a senator,—a farm bordering on that of Marcus Tullius,—dear enough, for nearly half as much again (though in a wretched state of cultivation, and with all the buildings burnt down) as Claudius himself had given for it when it was in a good and highly ornamented condition, though he had paid an extravagant price for it.
15
I will add this also, which is very important to the matter. When the commander-in-chief died, though he wished to invest a sum of money, got I know not how, in a farm, he did not so invest it, but he squandered it. I do not very greatly wonder that, hampered as he was by his own folly, he wished to extricate himself how he could. But this I cannot marvel at sufficiently, this I am indignant at, that he strives to remedy his own folly at the expense of his neighbours, and that he endeavoured to pacify his own ill-temper by the injury of Tullius.
