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40So he secured the passage of both that law and another now to be explained.
The praetors themselves had always compiled and published the principles of law according to which they intended to try cases; for the decrees regarding contracts had not all yet been laid down. 2Now since they were not in the habit of doing this once for all and did not observe the rules as written, but often made changes in them, many of which were introduced out of favour or out of hatred of some one, he moved that they should at the very outset announce the principles they would follow, and not swerve from them at all. 3In fine, the Romans were so concerned at that time to prevent bribery, that in addition to punishing those convicted they even honoured the accusers. For instance, after Marcus Cotta had dismissed the quaestor Publius Oppius because of bribery and suspicion of conspiracy, though he himself had made great profit out of Bithynia, 4they elevated Gaius Carbo, his accuser, to consular honours, although he had served only as tribune. But when Carbo himself later became governor of Bithynia and erred no less than Cotta, he was in his turn accused by Cotta’s son and convicted. 5Some persons, of course, can more easily censure others than admonish themselves, and when it comes to their own case do very readily the things for which they think their neighbours deserving of punishment. Hence they cannot, from the mere fact that they accuse others, inspire confidence in their own hatred of the acts in question.
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