[7]
But when you, O most unhappy and most infamous of men,
became the commander there, O Caesoninus Calventius then a free city, and
one which had been made so by the senate and people of Rome, on account of its recent services,
was so plundered and stripped of everything, that, if Caius Virgilius the
lieutenant, a very brave and incorruptible man, had not interfered, the
Byzantines would not have retained one single statue out of all their great
number.
What temple in all Achaia? what spot
or what grove in the whole of Greece, was there of such sanctity that a single statue or
a single ornament has been left in it? You purchased from a most infamous
tribune of the people, at the time of that general shipwreck of the city,
which you, the very man who were bound to govern it rightly, had been the
main agent in overturning; you purchased, I say, at that time, for an
immense sum of money, the power of pronouncing judgment on the people of the
free cities, with respect to the moneys which had been advanced, contrary to
the resolutions of the senate, and the law of your own son-in-law. What you
had bought, you sold in such a manner that you either never gave any
decision at all, or else you deprived Roman citizens of their property.
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