Pro L. Flacco

What? did the people of Apollonides, when they had an opportunity, report these things to Flaccus? Were they not argued in court before Orbius? Were they not reported to Orbius? Did not the deputies of Apollonia report to our senate in my consulship all the demands which they had to make respecting the injuries which they had received from this one man, Decianus? “Oh, but you gave in an estimate of these farms also at the census.” I say nothing of their being other people's property; I say nothing of their having been got possession of by violence; I say nothing of the conviction by the Apollonidians that ensued; I say nothing of the business having been repudiated by the people of Pergamus; I say nothing of the fact that restitution of the whole was compelled by our magistrates; I say nothing of the fact that neither by law, nor in fact, nor even by the right of occupation, did they belong to you.

I only ask this; whether those farms can be bought and sold by the civil law; whether they come under the provisions of the civil law, whether or no they are freehold, whether they can be registered at the treasury and before the censor? Lastly, in what tribe did you register those farms? You managed it so, that if any serious emergency had arisen, tribute might have been levied on the same farms both at Apollonides and at Rome. However, be it so; you were in a boastful humour. You wanted a great amount of land to be registered as yours, and of that land too, which cannot be distributed among the Roman people. Besides that, you were registered as possessed of' money in hand, cash to the amount of a hundred and thirty thousand sesterces. I do not suppose that you counted that money; but I pass over all these things. You registered the slaves of Amyntas; and, in that respect you did not wrong; for Amyntas is the owner of those slaves. And at first indeed he was alarmed when he heard that you had registered his slaves. He consulted lawyers. It was decreed by all of them that if Decianus could make other people's property his by registering it as such, he would have very great ---

You now know the cause of the enmity by which Decianus was excited to communicate to Laelius this grand accusation against Flaccus. For Laelius framed his complaint in this way, when he was speaking of the perfidy of Decianus: “He, who was my original informant; who communicated the facts of the case; whom I have followed, he has been bribed by Flaccus, he has deserted and abandoned me.” Have you, then, been the prime mover in bringing that man into peril of all his; fortunes, whose counselor you had been, with whom you had preserved all the privileges of your rank, a most virtuous man, a man born of a most noble family, a man who had done great services to the republic? Forsooth, I will defend Decianus, who has become suspected by you through no fault of his own.

Believe me, he was not bribed; for what was there which could have been got by bribing him? Could he have contrived for the trial to last longer? Why, the law only allows six hours altogether. How much would Decianus rather have taken away from those six hours, if he had wished to serve you. In truth, that is what he himself suspects,—you envied the ingenuity of your junior counsel. Because he discharged the part which he had undertaken with wit, and examined the witnesses cleverly, [*](What follows here in the text is quite unintelligible, and is given up by Orellius as hopelessly corrupt; and probably there is some corruption for the next few lines which I have attempted to translate.)--- But if this be probable, at all events it is not very probable that Decianus was bribed by Flaccus.