Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 16, 2025
Even Atticus was interfering for Brutus. What other Roman governor of whom we have heard would have made a question on the subject? Appius had lent a guard of horse-soldiers to this Scaptius with which he had outraged all humanity in Cyprus had caused the councillors of the city to be shut up till they would come to obedience, in doing which he had starved five of them to death!
As some scourge from hell must have been the presence of such governors as Appius and his predecessors among a people timid but industrious like these Asiatic Greeks. Like an unknown, unexpected blessing, direct from heaven, must have been the coming of a Cicero. Now I will tell the story of Brutus and Scaptius and their money premising that it has been told by Mr.
A certain Scaptius had been agent for Brutus in lending money to the town of Salamis in Cyprus. Under the government of Claudius, Scaptius had had every thing his own way.
But in his comments on this matter of Brutus and Scaptius he seems to me not to have considered the difference in that standard of honor and honesty which governs himself, and that which prevailed in the time of Cicero.
The consuls, when they perceived that Scaptius was listened to not only in silence, but even with approbation, appealing to gods and men, that an enormous and disgraceful act was being committed, send for the principal senators: with these they went around to the tribunes; entreated, "that, as judges, they would not be guilty of a most heinous crime, with a still worse precedent, by converting the dispute to their own interest, more especially when, even though it may be lawful for a judge to protect his own emolument, so much would by no means be acquired by keeping the land, as would be lost by alienating the affections of their allies by injustice; for that the losses of character and of reputation were greater than could be estimated.
Scaptius thanked him, and asked for an official position in Salamis which would have given him the power of compelling the payment by force. Cicero refused, explaining that he had determined to give no such offices in his province to persons engaged in trade. He had refused such requests already even to Pompey and to Torquatus.
This was quite usual, but it was only late in the transaction that Cicero became aware that the man really looking for his money was the noble Roman who gave the recommendation. Cicero's letter tells us that Scaptius came to him, and that he promised that for Brutus's sake he would take care that the people of Salamis should pay their debt.
Could they suppose, that the neighbouring states would impute this proceeding to Scaptius, an old babbler at assemblies? that Scaptius would be rendered distinguished by this statue: that the Roman people would assume the character of a usurper and intercepter of the claims of others. For what judge in a private cause ever acted in this way, so as to adjudge to himself the property in dispute?
Thus the consuls, thus the senators exclaimed; but covetousness, and Scaptius, the adviser of that covetousness, had more influence. The tribes, when convened, decided that the district was the public property of the Roman people.
There is another long letter, in which Cicero again, for the third time, tells the story of Brutus and Scaptius. I mention it, as he continues to describe his own mode of doing his work. He has been at Laodicea from February to May, deciding questions that had been there brought before him from all parts of his province except Cilicia proper.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking