"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself."
"If some lose their whole fortunes, they will drag many more down with them . . . believe me that the whole system of credit and finance which is carried on here at Rome in the Forum, is inextricably bound up with the revenues of the Asiatic province. If Those revenues are destroyed, our whole system of credit will come down with a crash."
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Source: Marcus Tullius Cicero (1755). “M.T. Cicero, His Offices: Or, His Treatise Concerning the Moral Duties of Mankind; His Cato Major, Concerning the Means of Making Old Age Happy; His Laelius, Concerning Friendship; His Moral Paradoxes; The Vision of Scipio, Concerning a Future State; His Letter Concerning the Duties of a Magistrate. With Notes Historical and Explanatory”, p.53
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