of the Gods! Without this Phormio could not
have said,

Find me out the old man: I have something hatching for him in my head.

XXX. But let us pass from the stage to the bar. The praetor[274] takes
his seat. To judge whom? The man who set fire to our archives. How
secretly was that villany conducted! Q. Sosius, an illustrious Roman
knight, of the Picene field,[275] confessed the fact. Who else is to be
tried? He who forged the public registers--Alenus, an artful fellow,
who counterfeited the handwriting of the six officers.[276] Let us call
to mind other trials: that on the subject of the gold of Tolosa, or the
conspiracy of Jugurtha. Let us trace back the informations laid against
Tubulus for bribery in his judicial office; and, since that, the
proceedings of the tribune Peduceus concerning the incest of the
vestals. Let us reflect upon the trials which daily happen for
assassinations, poisonings, embezzlement of public money, frauds in
wills, against which we have a new law; then that action against the
advisers or assisters of any theft; the many laws concerning frauds in
guardianship, breaches of trust in partnerships and commissions in
trade, and other violations of faith in buying, selling, borrowing, or
lending; the public decree on a private affair by the Laetorian
Law;[277] and, lastly, that scourge of all dishonesty, the law against
fraud, proposed by our friend Aquillius; that sort of fraud, he says,
by which one thing is pretended and another done. Can we, then, think
that this plentiful fountain of evil sprung from the immortal Gods? If
they have given reason to man, they have likewise given him subtlety,
for subtlety is only a deceitful manner of applying reason to do
mischief. To them likewise we must owe deceit, and every other crime,
which, without the help of reason, would neither have been thought of
nor committed. As the old woman wished

That to the fir which on Mount Pelion grew
The axe had ne'er been laid,[278]

so we should wish that the Gods had never bestowed this ability on man,
the abuse of which is so general that the small number of those who
make a good use of it are often oppressed by those who make a bad use
of it; so that it seems to be given rather to help vice than to promote
virtue among us.

XXXI. This, you insist on it, is the fault of man, and not of the Gods.
But should we not laugh at a physician or pilot, though they are weak
mortals, if they were to lay the