Читать книгу Against Verres - Marcus Tullius Cicero - Страница 35

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As quaestor you received our province by lot, according to the decree of the senate. A consular province fell to your lot, so that you were with Cnaeus Carbo, the consul, and had that province. There was at that time dissension among the citizens: and in that I am not going to say anything as to what part you ought to have taken. This only do I say, that at such a time as that you ought to have made up your mind which side you would take and which party you would espouse. Carbo was very indignant that there had fallen to his lot as his quaestor a man of such notorious luxury and indolence. But he loaded him with all sorts of kindnesses. Not to dwell too long on this; money was voted, was paid;^[2] he went as quaestor to the province; he came into Gaul, where he had been for some time expected, to the army of the consul with the money. At the very first opportunity that offered, (take notice of the principle on which the man discharged the duties of his offices, and administered the affairs of the republic,) the quaestor, having embezzled the public money, deserted the consul, the army, and his allotted province. ³⁵I see what I have done; he rouses himself up; he hopes that, in the instance of this charge, some breeze may be wafted this way of good will and approbation for those men to him the name of Cnaeus Carbo, though dead, is unwelcome, and to whom he hopes that that desertion and betrayal of his consul will prove acceptable. As if he had done it from any desire to take the part of the nobility, or from any party zeal, and had not rather openly pillaged the consul, the army and the province, and then, because of this most impudent theft, had run away. For such an action as that is obscure, and such that one may suspect that Caius Verres, because he could not bear new men, passed over to the nobility, that is, to his own party, and that he did nothing from consideration of money. ³⁶Let us see how he gave in his accounts; now he himself will show why he left Cnaeus Carbo; now he himself will show what he is.