incest of the vestals. Let us reflect upon the trials which daily happen for assassinations, poisonings, embezzlement of public money, frauds in wills, against which we have a new law; then that action against the advisers or assisters of any theft; the many laws concerning frauds in guardianship, breaches of trust in partnerships and commissions in trade, and other violations of faith in buying, selling, borrowing, or lending; the public decree on a private affair by the Lætorian Law;[1] and, lastly, that scourge of all dishonesty, the law against fraud, proposed by our friend Aquillius; that sort of fraud, he says, by which one thing is pretended and another done. Can we, then, think that this plentiful fountain of evil sprung from the immortal Gods? If they have given reason to man, they have likewise given him subtlety, for subtlety is only a deceitful manner of applying reason to do mischief. To them likewise we must owe deceit, and every other crime, which, without the help of reason, would neither have been thought of nor committed. As the old woman wished
That to the fir which on Mount Pelion grew
The axe had ne'er been laid,[2]
so we should wish that the Gods had never bestowed this ability on man, the abuse of which is so general that the small number of those who make a good use of it are often oppressed by those who make a bad use of it; so that it seems to be given rather to help vice than to pro mote virtue among us.
XXXI. This, you insist on it, is the fault of man, and not of the Gods. But should we not laugh at a physician or pilot, though they are weak mortals, if they were to lay the blame of their ill success on the violence of the disease or the fury of the tempest? Had there not been danger,
- ↑ The Lætorian Law was a security for those under age against extortioners, etc. By this law all debts contracted under twenty-five years of age were void.
- ↑ This is from Ennius—
Utinam ne in nempre Pelio securibus
Cæsa cecidisset abiegna ad terram trabes.Translated from the beginning of the Medea of Euripides—
Μήδ’ ἐν νάπαισι Πηλίον πεσεῖν ποτε
τμηθεῖσα πεύκη.
