For L. Flaccus (85-89)

That alternative remains which he did not cease asserting loudly; “that Flaccus ought not, when he was praetor, to have attended to his own private concerns, or to have made any mention of the inheritance.” I hear, O Lucius Lucullus, that very great inheritances came to you, to you who are about to decide as judge on the case of Lucius Flaccus, on account of your exceeding liberality and of the great services which you had done your friends, during the time that you were governing the province of Asia with consular power. If any one had said that those inheritances belonged to him, would you have given them up? You, O Titus Vettius, if any inheritance in Africa comes to you, will you abandon it? or, will you retain it as your own, without being liable to the imputation of avarice, without any sacrifice of your dignity? “But the possession of the inheritance of which we are speaking was demanded in the name of Flaccus, when Globulus was praetor.” Well then, it was not any sudden violence, nor the idea of any favourable opportunity, nor force, nor any peculiarity of time, nor the possession of command and of the forces which induced Flaccus to commit this injury.

But still you saw that Lurco was angry with Flaccus, although out of regard to his own dignity he was guided by some moderation in giving his evidence. For he did not conceal, or think it at all necessary to be silent about the cause of his anger. He complained that his freedman had been condemned by Flaccus when he was praetor. O how miserable is the condition of those who have the government of provinces! in which diligence is sure to bring enmity; carelessness is sure to incur reproach; severity is dangerous; liberality meets only with ingratitude. The conversation addressed to one is insidious; the flattery with which one is courted is mischievous; the countenance which every one wears towards you is friendly; the disposition of numbers is hostile; dislikes are secret; caresses are open; they wait with eagerness for the coming praetors, they fawn on those who are present, they abandon and betray those who are departing. But let us give over complaining, lest we should seem to be extolling our own wisdom in declining all provinces.

Caius Caecilius was the arbitrator of the settlement come to in that case. How noble, how upright, how conscientious a man! Caius Sextilius was a witness to it, the son of Lurco's sister—a modest, and consistent, and sensible man. If there was any violence employed in the business, any fraud, any fear, any trickery, still who compelled any arrangement to be made at all? who compelled the parties to have recourse to an arbitrator? What will you say, if all that money was restored to this young man by Lucius Flaccus? if it was claimed by him? if it was collected for him? and if this was done through the agency of this Antiochus who is here in court the freedman of this youth's father, and a man most highly esteemed by the elder Flaccus? Do we not then seem not only to escape from the charge of covetousness, but even to deserve the credit of very extraordinary liberality? For he gave up to the young man his relation the whole of their joint inheritance, which by law ought to have belonged to both of them in equal shares; and he himself touched none of Valeria's property. What he had resolved to do, being influenced by the young man's amiable character, and not by the great amount of his patrimony, that he not only did, but did most liberally and courteously. From which it ought to be understood that he had not taken the money in violation of the laws, when he was so very liberal in abandoning the inheritance.