Page:Cicero And The Fall Of The Roman Republic.djvu/345

50 B.C.] He had been entrusted by Appius with a troop of horse which he had employed to blockade the Senate of Salamis in their council-chamber, until five of them had actually died of starvation. It had been one of Cicero's first acts peremptorily to order the horsemen out of the island. Scaptius was in reality the agent of Brutus, who held a Salaminian bond bearing interest at forty-eight per cent. This loan, having been contracted at Rome, was contrary to a Gabinian law of the year 67 B.C., and was only legalised by special decree of the Roman Senate. Cicero, when the case came before him, decided that this legalisation must be interpreted as subject to his own general edict, which limited interest to twelve per cent. The Salaminians tendered principal and interest at this rate; they said they were paying it out of Cicero's pocket, for the amount was less than what they were accustomed to pay in presents to the governor. Scaptius refused to accept the money; and it is the one great blot on Cicero's administration, that he put pressure on the Salaminians not to insist on their right to deposit the money in a temple, in which case interest would have ceased to run. Cicero gave judgment that the Salaminians had made a legal tender; but he knew that as the business was not fully wound up, it would be possible for his successor to set that judgment aside. It is painful to have to record that Brutus complained bitterly when the horsemen of his agent were ordered to leave Cyprus, and that Atticus urged his friend to