Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/353

Rh example of quite a different state of things is the anecdote which Cicero tells Atticus in regard to his own province of Cilicia in B.C. 51 [ad Att. v. 21; vi. 1]. When he arrived he found that a certain Scaptius, a praefectus under his predecessor Claudius, had been at Salamis in Cyprus with a squadron of cavalry, which he had employed to coerce the town councillors to pay a large sum of money which they had borrowed with interest at 48 per cent. He had shut them up in their council chamber so long that some had actually died of starvation. Cicero recalled Scaptius, refused to reappoint him as a praefectus, and when the case came before him refused to decree any payment beyond 12 per cent. But he found to his surprise that the real creditor was M. Brutus. Very strong pressure was put upon Cicero himself to secure the payment of the money, which he appears to have resisted as far as the heavy interest was concerned, but as he expected to be succeeded by a man connected with Brutus he expressed some doubt as to what would happen under a new régime.

The instances of extortion and cruelty might be multiplied from the speeches against Verres, the plunderer of Sicily, and against Piso of Macedonia. It is well perhaps to notice what may be said on the other side in favour of Roman administration. The first and most obvious is that the Romans did maintain peace, and that, except in cases of revenue and where the personal advantage of the proconsul came in, the administration of justice in the Roman courts was more equitable than that in the native or