[36]
He also said that the
panegyric which we mentioned as having been given by the men of Aemon to Flaccus, is false; a
panegyric, says he, which we ought to be glad to be without. For when that admirable
representative of his city beheld the public seal, he said that his own fellow-citizens and
all the rest of the Greeks were accustomed to seal at the moment whatever required it. Then
take that panegyric to yourself. For the life and character of Flaccus do not depend on the
evidence of the citizens of Aemon. For you grant to me, (an admission which this cause
especially requires,) that there is no authority, no consistency, no firm wisdom in the
Greeks, and, above all, no proper regard to truth in giving their evidence; unless, indeed,
henceforward there is to be this distinction made between the evidence and your speech, that
the cities are to be said to have allowed something to Flaccus when absent but are to appear
to have neither written nor sealed anything suited to the occasion, so as to save Laelius,
though he was present, though he himself undertook the management of the business himself, and
though he alarmed them and threatened them, availing himself of the power of the law, of the
privileges of a prosecutor, and of all his own private resources.
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