is a great dispute as to this point; let us
examine those arguments, which are especially your own, why all offences
are equal. As, says he, in many lyres, if not one of them is so well in
tune as to be able to preserve the harmony, all are equally out of tune;
so because offences differ from what is right, they will differ equally;
therefore they are equal: now here we are being mocked with an ambiguous
expression. For it equally happens to all the lyres to be out of tune, but
not to them all to be equally out of tune. Therefore, that comparison does
not help you at all. For it would not follow if we were to say that every
avarice is equally avarice, that therefore every case of avarice was
equal. Here is another simile which is no simile; for as, says he, a pilot
blunders equally if he wrecks a ship loaded with straw, as if he wrecks
one loaded with gold; so, too, he sins equally who beats his parent, with
him who beats a slave unjustly. This is not seeing that it has no
connexion with the art of the pilot what cargo the ship carries: and
therefore that it makes no difference with respect to his steering well or
ill, whether his freight is straw or gold. But it can and ought to be
understood what the difference is between a parent and a slave; therefore
it makes no difference with respect to navigation, but a great deal with
respect to duty, what the description of thing may be which is affected by
the blunder. And if, in navigation, a ship has been wrecked through
carelessness, the offence then becomes more serious if gold is lost, than
if it is only straw. For in all arts we insist upon the exercise of what
is called common prudence; which all men who have the management of any
business entrusted to them are bound to possess. And so even in this
instance offences are not equal.

XXVIII. However, they press on, and relax nothing. Since, say they, every
offence is one of imbecility and inconsistency, and since these vices are
equally great in all fools, it follows necessarily that offences are
equal: as if it were admitted that vices are equally great in all fools,
and that Lucius Tubulus was a man of the same imbecility and inconsistency
as Publius Scaevola, on whose motion he was condemned; and as if there were
no difference at all between the things themselves which are the subject
of the offences; so that, in proportion as they are more or less
important, the offences committed in respect of them are so too.

Ther