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50About these matters he ever thought and spoke thus. Now it was to Italy that he hurried and not to Africa, although the latter region had become hostile to him, because he learned of the disturbances in the capital and feared that they might be carried to dangerous lengths. 2Nevertheless, as I have said, he did no harm to any one, except that there, too, he collected large amounts, partly in the shape of crowns and statues and the like which he received as gifts, and partly by “borrowing,” as he styled it, not only from individual citizens but also from cities. 3This term “borrowing” he applied to those levies of money for which there was no other reasonable excuse; for he exacted these sums also in a high-handed way and no less by force than he collected money actually due him, and it was his intention never to repay them. He claimed, indeed, that he had spent his private possessions for the public good and that indeed it was for that reason he was borrowing. 4Accordingly, when the multitude demanded an annulment of debts, he would not grant this, saying: “I, too, owe large amounts.” It was easy to see that he was wresting away others’ property also by his position of supremacy, and for this his associates as well as others disliked him. For these men, who had bought a great deal of the confiscated property, in some cases for more than its real value, in the hope of retaining it without paying for it, now found themselves compelled to pay the full price.
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