The Gauls consider it a base employment to raise corn by agricultural labor, and go with arms in their hands, and mow down the harvests of neighboring peoples.

But we ourselves, the most equitable of all nations, who, in order to raise the value of our vines and olives, do not permit the races beyond the Alps to cultivate either vineyards or oliveyards, are said in this matter to act with prudence, but not with justice.

You see, then, that wisdom and policy are not always the same as equity.

And Lycurgus, that famous inventor of a most admirable jurisprudence and most wholesome laws, gave the lands of the rich to be cultivated by the common people, who were reduced to slavery.
X.If I were to describe the diverse kinds of laws, institutions, manners, and customs, not only as they vary in the numerous nations, but as they vary likewise in single cities--in this one of ours, for example--I could prove that they have had a thousand revolutions.

For instance, that eminent expositor of our laws who sits in the present company--I mean Manilius--if you were to consult him relative to the legacies and inheritances of women, he would tell you that the present law is quite different from that he was accustomed to plead in his youth, before the Voconian enactment came into force--an edict which was passed in favor of the interests of the men, but which is evidently full of injustice with regard to women.