Note 836 — Chapter II · (684-691.)

Cicero, Second Prosecution of Verres, III. 89. Cicero adds in a letter, “We may judge, by the sufferings of our own fellow-citizens, of what the inhabitants of the provinces have to endure from the public farmers (publicani). When several tolls were suppressed in Italy, remonstrances were made not so much against the principle of taxation as against abuses in levying it, and the cries of the Romans on the soil of the country tell only too plainly what must be the fate of the allies at the extremity of the empire.” (Letters to Quintus, I. 1, § 33.)