ot make any claim upon
one for having given him what you fling away broad-cast among the crowd.
What then? shall I owe you nothing for it? Nothing, as an individual; I
will pay, when the rest of mankind do, what I owe no more than they.

XIX. "Do you say," inquires my opponent, "that he who carries me gratis
in a boat across the river Po, does not bestow any benefit upon me?" I
do. He does me some good, but he does not bestow a benefit upon me; for
he does it for his own sake, or at any rate not for mine; in short, he
himself does not imagine that he is bestowing a benefit upon me, but
does it for the credit of the State, or of the neighbourhood, or of
himself, and expects some return for doing so, different from what he
would receive from individual passengers. "Well," asks my opponent, "if
the emperor were to grant the franchise to all the Gauls, or exemption,
from taxes to all the Spaniards, would each individual of them owe him
nothing on that account?" Of course he would: but he would be indebted
to him, not as having personally received a benefit intended for himself
alone, but as a partaker in one conferred upon his nation. He would
argue, "The emperor had no thought of me at the time when he benefited
us all; he did not care to give me the franchise separately, he did not
fix his attention upon me; why then should I be grateful to one who did
not have me in his mind when he was thinking of doing what he did? In
answer to this, I say that when he thought of doing good to all the
Gauls, he thought of doing good to me also, for I was a Gaul, and he
included me under my national, if not under my personal appellation. In
like manner, I should feel grateful to him, not as for a personal, but
for a general benefit; being only one of the people, I should regard
the debt of gratitude as incurred, not by myself, but by my country, and
should not pay it myself, but only contribute my share towards doing so.
I do not call a man my creditor because he has lent money to my country,
nor should I include that money in a schedule of my debts were I either
a candidate for a public office, or a defendant in the courts; yet I
would pay my share towards extinguishing such a debt. Similarly, I deny
that I am laid under an obligation by a gift bestowed upon my entire
nation, because although the giver gave it to me, yet he did not do so
for my sake, but gave it without knowing whether he was giving it to me
or not: nevertheless I shoul