had been recovered before that bond was executed. For he
did not purchase them of you; but, before you undertook to sell him
his own property, he had taken possession of it. He was a man--we,
indeed, deserve to be despised, who hate the author of the actions,
but uphold the actions themselves.

XXXVIII. Why need I mention the countless mass of papers, the
innumerable autographs which have been brought forward? writings of
which there are imitators who sell their forgeries as openly as if
they were gladiators' playbills. Therefore, there are now such heaps
of money piled up in that man's house, that it is weighed out instead
of being counted.[21] But how blind is avarice! Lately, too, a
document has been posted up by which the most wealthy cities of the
Cretans are released from tribute; and by which it is ordained that
after the expiration of the consulship of Marcus Brutus, Crete shall
cease to be a province. Are you in your senses? Ought you not to be
put in confinement? Was it possible for there really to be a decree
of Caesar's exempting Crete after the departure of Marcus Brutus, when
Brutus had no connexion whatever with Crete while Caesar was alive? But
by the sale of this decree (that you may not, O conscript fathers,
think it wholly ineffectual) you have lost the province of Crete.
There was nothing in the whole world which any one wanted to buy that
this fellow was not ready to sell.

Caesar too, I suppose, made the law about the exiles which you have
posted up. I do not wish to press upon any one in misfortune; I only
complain, in the first place, that the return of those men has had
discredit thrown upon it, whose cause Caesar judged to be different
from that of the rest; and in the second place, I do not know why you
do not mete out the same measure to all. For there can not be more
than three or four left. Why do not they who are in similar misfortune
enjoy a similar degree of your mercy? Why do you treat them as you
treated your uncle? about whom you refused to pass a law when you
were passing one about all the rest; and whom at the same time you
encouraged to stand for the censorship, and instigated him to a
canvass, which excited the ridicule and the complaint of every one.

But why did you not hold that comitia? Was it because a tribune of the
people announced that there had been an ill-omened flash of lightning
seen? When you have any interest of your own to serve, then auspices
are all nothing; bu