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per cent. per month, or twelve per cent. per annum, shall not be legal. There has, however, been a counter decree made in regard to these very Salaminians, and made apparently at the instigation of Brutus, saying that any contract with them shall be held in force, notwithstanding the law. But Cicero again has made a decree that he will authorize no exaction above twelve per cent. in his province. The exact condition of the legal claim is less clear to me than to Mr. Forsyth, who has the advantage of being a lawyer. Be that as it may, Cicero decides that twelve per cent. shall be exacted, and orders the Salaminians to pay the amount. To his request they demur, but at last agree to obey, alleging that they are enabled to do so by Cicero's own forbearance to them, Cicero having declined to accept the presents which had been offered to him from the island.[106] They will therefore pay this money in some sort, as they say, out of the governor's own pocket. But when the sum is fixed, Scaptius, finding that he cannot get it over-reckoned after some fraudulent scheme of his own, declines to receive it. If with the assistance of a friendly governor he cannot do better than that for himself and his employer, things must be going badly with Roman noblemen. But the delegates are now very anxious to pay this money, and offer to deposit it. Scaptius begs that the affair shall go no farther at present, no doubt thinking that he may drive a better bargain with some less rigid future governor. The delegates request to be allowed to place their money as paid in some temple, by doing which they would acquit themselves of all responsibility; but Cicero begs them to abstain. "Impetravi ab Salaminiis ut silerent," he says. "I shall be grieved, indeed, that Brutus should be angry with me," he writes; "but much more grieved that Brutus should have proved himself to be such as I shall have found him." Then comes the passage in his letter on the strength of which Mr. Forsyth has condemned Cicero, not without abstract truth in his condemnation: "They, indeed, have consented"--that is the Salaminians--"but what will befall them if some such governor as Paulus should come here? And all this I have done for the sake of Brutus!" AEmilius Paulus was the Consul, and might probably have Cilicia as a province, and would no doubt give over the Salaminians to Brutus and his myrmidons without any compunction. In strictness--with that assurance in the p
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